Social Class Background and Career Advancement: The Role of Behavioral Signatures

Research has established a strong link between parental social class and individuals’ social class later in life, but less is known about the perceptual processes that govern workplace behaviors and “gatekeeping” interactions (such as interviews) which might advance one’s social class. I propose that people from a lower social class background (e.g., lower household income growing up, less parental education, lower subjective social class) display fewer agentic nonverbal cues in work contexts, thus observers see them as less agentic, and are less willing to hire and promote them. I conducted a field survey (Study 1) which asked mid-career professionals, as well as a minimum of two colleagues, to report on their career advancement and workplace behaviors (n professionals = 215, n raters = 547). A pattern emerged such that professionals from a lower social class background earn less, and also see themselves as behaving less agentically in the workplace. Moreover, self-reported agentic work behaviors fully mediated the relationship between household income growing up and current household income. I then conducted a study of mock job interviews in which undergraduates were videotaped conducting a case interview (n interviewees = 150). Independent judges were invited to make attributions of those interviewees’ underlying traits (n ratings = 1,505, or 10 raters per video), and professional hiring managers were asked to rate their worthiness of career advancement (n ratings = 450, or 3 hiring managers rating each video). I found that students from a lower social class background were seen as less agentic, and thus as less worthy of hire and promotion, than their counterparts from a higher social class background. This can be explained by their reduced display of agentic nonverbal cues such as expanded posture and a confident and factual vocal tone. These findings contribute to the emergent literature on the psychology of social class, particularly highlighting the relationship between social class background, perceptual processes, and career advancement, and ultimately helping to explain the persistence of inequality in intergenerational social mobility