How social status shapes U.S. children’s beliefs about social mobility

Children grow up within social hierarchies that shape their everyday lives. Social mobility is a core mechanism through which societies either challenge or maintain existing inequalities. The present study examined how U.S. children’s social status—both experimentally manipulated and measured at the national level—shapes their beliefs about social mobility for themselves and their high- and low-status peers. Children (N=130; 3-8 years; 70 girls, 59 boys, 1 non-binary; 12.3% Asian, 6.9% Black, 11.6% Latine, 20.7% Multiracial, and 48.5% White) were randomly assigned to either experimentally advantaged or disadvantaged groups. They were then assessed on their 1) general expectations about social mobility, 2) effort-contingent expectations for mobility, and 3) post-hoc explanations upward and downward mobility. We found that compared to experimentally-disadvantaged children, experimentally-advantaged children were more likely to have higher expectations for themselves and high-status peers, but lower expectations for low-status peers. With age, both experimentally- and nationally-disadvantaged children exhibited higher expectations for themselves and lower expectations for high-status peers, whereas experimentally- and nationally-advantaged children’s expectations remained stable. Older children were also more likely to believe working hard leads to upward mobility and attribute upward/downward mobility to individual effort. This tendency was especially pronounced for their own upward (vs. downward) mobility, but less so when evaluating the upward mobility of high-status peers (vs. themselves). These results suggest that children’s beliefs about social mobility develop throughout childhood, differ by target, and are shaped by their own social status.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Mei, Junyi

Contributors dc:contributor

• Rizzo, Michael T.
• Stern, Chadly D.

• social mobility beliefs, social status, social development, childhood

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Junyi Mei

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132684

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/132684