https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/

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January 9, 2020

Most Americans Say There Is Too Much Economic Inequality in the U.S., but Fewer Than Half Call It a Top Priority

1. Trends in income and wealth inequality

ByJuliana Menasce Horowitz,Ruth IgielnikandRakesh Kochhar

Table of Contents

Barely 10 years past the end of the Great Recession in 2009, the U.S. economy is doing well on several fronts. The labor market is on a job-creating streak that has rung up more than 110 months straight of employment growth, a record for the post-World War II era. The unemployment rate in November 2019 was 3.5%, a level not seen since the 1960s. Gains on the jobs front are also reflected in household incomes, which have rebounded in recent years.

But not all economic indicators appear promising. Household incomes have grown only modestly in this century, and household wealth has not returned to its pre-recession level. Economic inequality, whether measured through the gaps in income or wealth between richer and poorer households, continues to widen.

Household incomes are growing again after a lengthy period of stagnation

With periodic interruptions due to business cycle peaks and troughs, the incomes of American households overall have trended up since 1970. In 2018, the median income of U.S. households stood at $74,600.⁵ This was 49% higher than its level in 1970, when the median income was $50,200.⁶ (Incomes are expressed in 2018 dollars.)

But the overall trend masks two distinct episodes in the evolution of household incomes (the first lasting from 1970 to 2000 and the second from 2000 to 2018) and in how the gains were distributed.

Most of the increase in household income was achieved in the period from 1970 to 2000. In these three decades, the median income increased by 41%, to $70,800, at an annual average rate of 1.2%. From 2000 to 2018, the growth in household income slowed to an annual average rate of only 0.3%. If there had been no such slowdown and incomes had continued to increase in this century at the same rate as from 1970 to 2000, the current median U.S. household income would be about $87,000, considerably higher than its actual level of $74,600.

The shortfall in household income is attributable in part to two recessions since 2000. The first recession, lasting from March 2001 to November 2001, was relatively short-lived.⁷ Yet household incomes were slow to recover from the 2001 recession and it was not until 2007 that the median income was restored to about its level in 2000.

But 2007 also marked the onset of the Great Recession, and that delivered another blow to household incomes. This time it took until 2015 for incomes to approach their pre-recession level. Indeed, the median household income in 2015 – $70,200 – was no higher than its level in 2000, marking a 15-year period of stagnation, an episode of unprecedented duration in the past five decades.⁸

More recent trends in household income suggest that the effects of the Great Recession may finally be in the past. From 2015 to 2018, the median U.S. household income increased from $70,200 to $74,600, at an annual average rate of 2.1%. This is substantially greater than the average rate of growth from 1970 to 2000 and more in line with the economic expansion in the 1980s and the dot-com bubble era of the late 1990s.

Why economic inequality matters

The rise in economic inequality in the U.S. is tied to several factors. These include, in no particular order, technological change, globalization, the decline of unions and the eroding value of the minimum wage. Whatever the causes, the uninterrupted increase in inequality since 1980 has caused concern among members of the public, researchers, policymakers and politicians.

One reason for the concern is that people in the lower rungs of the economic ladder may experience diminished economic opportunity and mobility in the face of rising inequality, a phenomenon referred to as The Great Gatsby Curve. Others have highlighted inequality’s negative impact on the political influence of the disadvantaged, on geographic segregation by income, and on economic growth itself. The matter may not be entirely settled, however, as an opposing viewpoint suggests that income inequality does not harm economic opportunity.

Alternative estimates of economic inequality

This report presents estimates of income inequality based on household income as estimated in the Current Population Survey (CPS), a survey of households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in partnership with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These estimates refer to gross (pretax) income and encompass most sources of income. A key omission is the value of in-kind services received from government sources. Because income taxes are progressive and in-kind services also serve to boost the economic wellbeing of (poorer) recipients, not accounting for these two factors could overstate the true gap in the financial resources of poorer and richer households.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) offers an alternative estimate of income inequality that accounts for federal taxes and a more comprehensive array of cash transfers and in-kind services than is possible with Current Population Survey data. The CBO finds that the Gini coefficient in the U.S. in 2016 ranged from 0.595, before accounting for any forms of taxes and transfers, to 0.423, after a full accounting of taxes and transfers. These estimates bracket the Census Bureau’s estimate of 0.481 for the Gini coefficient in 2016. By either estimate, income inequality in the U.S. is found to have increased by about 20% from 1980 to 2016 (The Gini coefficient ranges from 0 to 1, or from perfect equality to complete inequality). Findings from other researchers show the same general rise in inequality over this period regardless of accounting for in-kind transfers.

Yet another alternative is to focus on inequality in consumption, which implicitly accounts for all forms and sources of incomes, taxes and transfers. Some estimates based on consumption show that inequality in the U.S. increased by less than implied by estimates based on income, but other estimates suggest the trends based on consumption and income are similar. Empirically, consumption can be harder to measure than income.

Upper-income households have seen more rapid growth in income in recent decades

The growth in income in recent decades has tilted to upper-income households. At the same time, the U.S. middle class, which once comprised the clear majority of Americans, is shrinking. Thus, a greater share of the nation’s aggregate income is now going to upper-income households and the share going to middle- and lower-income households is falling.⁹

The share of American adults who live in middle-income households has decreased from 61% in 1971 to 51% in 2019. This downsizing has proceeded slowly but surely since 1971, with each decade thereafter typically ending with a smaller share of adults living in middle-income households than at the beginning of the decade.

The decline in the middle-class share is not a total sign of regression. From 1971 to 2019, the share of adults in the upper-income tier increased from 14% to 20%. Meanwhile, the share in the lower-income tier increased from 25% to 29%. On balance, there was more movement up the income ladder than down the income ladder.

But middle-class incomes have not grown at the rate of upper-tier incomes. From 1970 to 2018, the median middle-class income increased from $58,100 to $86,600, a gain of 49%.¹⁰ This was considerably less than the 64% increase for upper-income households, whose median income increased from $126,100 in 1970 to $207,400 in 2018. Households in the lower-income tier experienced a gain of 43%, from $20,000 in 1970 to $28,700 in 2018. (Incomes are expressed in 2018 dollars.)

More tepid growth in the income of middle-class households and the reduction in the share of households in the middle-income tier led to a steep fall in the share of U.S. aggregate income held by the middle class. From 1970 to 2018, the share of aggregate income going to middle-class households fell from 62% to 43%. Over the same period, the share held by upper-income households increased from 29% to 48%. The share flowing to lower-income households inched down from 10% in 1970 to 9% in 2018.

These trends in income reflect the growth in economic inequality overall in the U.S. in the decades since 1980.

Income growth has been most rapid for the top 5% of families

Even among higher-income families, the growth in income has favored those at the top. Since 1980, incomes have increased faster for the most affluent families – those in the top 5% – than for families in the income strata below them. This disparity in outcomes is less pronounced in the wake of the Great Recession but shows no signs of reversing.

From 1981 to 1990, the change in mean family income ranged from a loss of 0.1% annually for families in the lowest quintile (the bottom 20% of earners) to a gain of 2.1% annually for families in the highest quintile (the top 20%). The top 5% of families, who are part of the highest quintile, fared even better – their income increased at the rate of 3.2% annually from 1981 to 1990. Thus, the 1980s marked the beginning of a long and steady rise in income inequality.

A similar pattern prevailed in the 1990s, with even sharper growth in income at the top. From 1991 to 2000, the mean income of the top 5% of families grew at an annual average rate of 4.1%, compared with 2.7% for families in the highest quintile overall, and about 1% or barely more for other families.

The period from 2001 to 2010 is unique in the post-WWII era. Families in all strata experienced a loss in income in this decade, with those in the poorer strata experiencing more pronounced losses. The pattern in income growth from 2011 to 2018 is more balanced than the previous three decades, with gains more broadly shared across poorer and better-off families. Nonetheless, income growth remains tilted to the top, with families in the top 5% experiencing greater gains than other families since 2011.

The wealth of American families is currently no higher than its level two decades ago

Other than income, the wealth of a family is a key indicator of its financial security. Wealth, or net worth, is the value of assets owned by a family, such as a home or a savings account, minus outstanding debt, such as a mortgage or student loan. Accumulated over time, wealth is a source of retirement income, protects against short-term economic shocks, and provides security and social status for future generations.

The period from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s was beneficial for the wealth portfolios of American families overall. Housing prices more than doubled in this period, and stock values tripled.¹¹ As a result, the median net worth of American families climbed from $94,700 in 1995 to $146,600 in 2007, a gain of 55%.¹² (Figures are expressed in 2018 dollars.)

But the run up in housing prices proved to be a bubble that burst in 2006. Home prices plunged starting in 2006, triggering the Great Recession in 2007 and dragging stock prices into a steep fall as well. Consequently, the median net worth of families fell to $87,800 by 2013, a loss of 40% from the peak in 2007. As of 2016, the latest year for which data are available, the typical American family had a net worth of $101,800, still less than what it held in 1998.

The wealth divide among upper-income families and middle- and lower-income families is sharp and rising

The wealth gap among upper-income families and middle- and lower-income families is sharper than the income gap and is growing more rapidly.

The period from 1983 to 2001 was relatively prosperous for families in all income tiers, but one of rising inequality. The median wealth of middle-income families increased from $102,000 in 1983 to $144,600 in 2001, a gain of 42%. The net worth of lower-income families increased from $12,3oo in 1983 to $20,600 in 2001, up 67%. Even so, the gains for both lower- and middle-income families were outdistanced by upper-income families, whose median wealth increased by 85% over the same period, from $344,100 in 1983 to $636,000 in 2001. (Figures are expressed in 2018 dollars.)

The wealth gap between upper-income and lower- and middle-income families has grown wider this century. Upper-income families were the only income tier able to build on their wealth from 2001 to 2016, adding 33% at the median. On the other hand, middle-income families saw their median net worth shrink by 20% and lower-income families experienced a loss of 45%. As of 2016, upper-income families had 7.4 times as much wealth as middle-income families and 75 times as much wealth as lower-income families. These ratios are up from 3.4 and 28 in 1983, respectively.

The reason for this is that middle-income families are more dependent on home equity as a source of wealth than upper-income families, and the bursting of the housing bubble in 2006 had more of an impact on their net worth. Upper-income families, who derive a larger share of their wealth from financial market assets and business equity, were in a better position to benefit from a relatively quick recovery in the stock market once the recession ended.

As with the distribution of aggregate income, the share of U.S. aggregate wealth held by upper-income families is on the rise. From 1983 to 2016, the share of aggregate wealth going to upper-income families increased from 60% to 79%. Meanwhile, the share held by middle-income families has been cut nearly in half, falling from 32% to 17%. Lower-income families had only 4% of aggregate wealth in 2016, down from 7% in 1983.

The richest are getting richer faster

The richest families in the U.S. have experienced greater gains in wealth than other families in recent decades, a trend that reinforces the growing concentration of financial resources at the top.

The tilt to the top was most acute in the period from 1998 to 2007. In that period, the median net worth of the richest 5% of U.S. families increased from $2.5 million to $4.6 million, a gain of 88%.

This was nearly double the 45% increase in the wealth of the top 20% of families overall, a group that includes the richest 5%. Meanwhile, the net worth of families in the second quintile, one tier above the poorest 20%, increased by only 16%, from $27,700 in 1998 to $32,100 in 2007. (Figures are expressed in 2018 dollars.)

The wealthiest families are also the only ones to have experienced gains in wealth in the years after the start of the Great Recession in 2007. From 2007 to 2016, the median net worth of the richest 20% increased 13%, to $1.2 million. For the top 5%, it increased by 4%, to $4.8 million. In contrast, the net worth of families in lower tiers of wealth decreased by at least 20% from 2007 to 2016. The greatest loss – 39% – was experienced by the families in the second quintile of wealth, whose wealth fell from $32,100 in 2007 to $19,500 in 2016.

As a result, the wealth gap between America’s richest and poorer families more than doubled from 1989 to 2016. In 1989, the richest 5% of families had 114 times as much wealth as families in the second quintile, $2.3 million compared with $20,300. By 2016, this ratio had increased to 248, a much sharper rise than the widening gap in income.¹³

Income inequality in the U.S has increased since 1980 and is greater than in peer countries

Income inequality may be measured in a number of ways, but no matter the measure, economic inequality in the U.S. is seen to be on the rise.

One widely used measure – the 90/10 ratio – takes the ratio of the income needed to rank among the top 10% of earners in the U.S. (the 90th percentile) to the income at the threshold of the bottom 10% of earners (the 10th percentile). In 1980, the 90/10 ratio in the U.S. stood at 9.1, meaning that households at the top had incomes about nine times the incomes of households at the bottom. The ratio increased in every decade since 1980, reaching 12.6 in 2018, an increase of 39%.¹⁴

Not only is income inequality rising in the U.S., it is higher than in other advanced economies. Comparisons of income inequality across countries are often based on the Gini coefficient, another commonly used measure of inequality.¹⁵ Ranging from 0 to 1, or from perfect equality to complete inequality, the Gini coefficient in the U.S. stood at 0.434 in 2017, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).¹⁶ This was higher than in any other of the G-7 countries, in which the Gini ranged from 0.326 in France to 0.392 in the UK, and inching closer to the level of inequality observed in India (0.495). More globally, the Gini coefficient of inequality ranges from lows of about 0.25 in Eastern European countries to highs in the range of 0.5 to 0.6 in countries in southern Africa, according to World Bank estimates.

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5. The median income splits the income distribution into two halves – half the households earn less than the median and half the households earn more. Incomes are adjusted for household size and scaled to represent a household size of three. See methodology for details.↩
6. Percentage changes are estimated, and other calculations are made, before numbers are rounded.↩
7. The recession dates are as designated by the National Bureau of Economic Research.↩
8. It is likely that household incomes did not return to their 2000 level till 2016 or later. A redesign of income questionsby the Census Bureau in 2014 is estimated to have given a boost of about 3% to median household income in the U.S. at the time of the redesign.↩
9. Middle-income” Americans are adults whose annual household income is two-thirds to double the national median, after incomes have been adjusted for household size. Lower-income households have incomes less than 67% of the median and upper-income households have incomes that are more than double the median. See methodology for details. Previous Pew Research Center reports have examined the state of the American middle class in greater detail, including trends within U.S. metropolitan areas.↩
10. The data source for these estimates is the Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement for 1971 to 2019. In the survey, respondents provide household income data for the previous calendar year. Thus, income data in this section refer to the 1970-2018 period and the counts of people from the same survey refer to the 1971-2019 period.↩
11. The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index increased from 80 in January 1995 to 185 in June 2006 (January 2000=100). It fell to 134 in February 2012 and climbed thereafter, reaching 212 in August 2019. At the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, the S&P 500 index stood at about 1,500, three times its level of about 500 in 1995. After the peak in 2007, the S&P 500 fell below 1,000 in 2009. As of November 2019, the index had reached a level of about 3,000. (S&P 500 historical values downloaded from Yahoo! on Nov. 21, 2019.)↩
12. Estimates of wealth are from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). The SCF is conducted triennially by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. It was first fielded in 1983 and the latest survey for which data are available was in 2016.↩
13. It is not possible to compute the ratio of the wealth of the top 5% of families to the wealth of the poorest 20% because the median wealth of the poorest families is either zero or negative in most years examined.↩
14. Per the U.S. Census Bureau, the source of these estimates, the 90th percentile household income in 2018 was $184,292 and the 10th percentile household income was $14,629 (incomes not adjusted for household size).↩
15. The Gini coefficient encapsulates the share of aggregate income held by each person or household. If everyone has the same income, or the same share of aggregate income, the Gini coefficient equals zero. If the income distribution is perfectly unequal, a single person or household holds all aggregate income, the Gini coefficient is equal to one.↩
16. The OECD is a group of 36 countries, including many of the world’s advanced economies. The OECD’s estimates of the Gini coefficient are for the following years: U.S. – 2017, UK – 2017, Italy – 2016, Japan – 2015, Canada – 2017, Germany – 2016, France – 2016, and India – 2011.↩

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Home Terms and Definitions  Apathy/Apathetic

Apathy/Apathetic

 C. S. Craig March 17, 2014Terms and Definitions

Apathy: Lack of interest or concern, especially regarding Scripture. In the believer, apathy occurs when we choose to think independently of God. When this occurs, sins goes on and on, and remains unconfessed. The result is carnality or carnal thinking and activities (worldliness).

When the believer is carnal (out of fellowship) the believer acts and thinks just like the unbeliever. Continuous sin and prolonged indifference (apathy) causes scar tissue to build up on the soul, which causes hardening of the heart. In extreme conditions this leads to the sin unto death (God takes you out of this life), when God can no longer use the believer because of maximum negative volition.

When the believer is in carnality, he/she is “grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit.” Quenching the Spirit is the absence of the Holy Spirit’s mentorship. Grieving the Holy Spirit is the absence of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. 

Apathy is living in the flesh – controlled by the flesh, as in addictions and lust-patterns – blown to and fro by the trends of the world instead of being grounded in the Word. Apathy is human-viewpoint thinking. Apathy is indifference to the call (conviction) of the Holy Spirit (quenching). Apathy is thinking independently of God, which was actually the first sin of satan, the fallen angels who sided with satan, and Eve and Adam. Apathy is literally a repeat of the original sin so that all mankind is guilty of rejecting God in favor of self-rule.

Please note: In the Church Age we have a new commandment that replaces the Mosaic Law: “Be (keep on being) filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18 cf., Matthew 22:6; Galatians 5:22-23).

Spirituality and carnality are absolutes (Ephesians 4:30; 1 Thessalonians 5:19; 1 John 1:7; 2:10; 3:49). The believer is either spiritual (filled with the Spirit – in fellowship, controlled by the Holy Spirit) or carnal (out of fellowship, controlled by your sin nature – the flesh – quenching and grieving the Holy Spirit).

When the believer is filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit produces Divine Good through you, and Jesus Christ is glorified. When the believer is carnal/out of fellowship, he/she produces human good. Spirituality and carnality are basic concepts of experiential Christianity.

Happy Studying!

The preceding explanations are reproduced here, from RBT Bible Ministries’ book “OLD SIN NATURE vs. THE HOLY SPIRIT” (used with permission).

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Book Contents NavigationContents

Introduction to Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World

Economic Inequality and Poverty in the United States

Learning Objectives

1. Understand trends in U.S. inequality.
2. Explain the social distribution of U.S. poverty.
3. Distinguish the structural and individual explanations of poverty.
4. List the major effects of poverty.

In his classic book The Other America, Michael Harrington (1962) brought the reality of poverty home to many Americans. In chapter after chapter, he discussed the troubled lives of the poor in rural Appalachia, in our urban centers, and in other areas of the country, and he indicted the country for not helping the poor. His book helped kindle interest in the White House and Congress in aiding the poor and deeply affected its thousands of readers. Almost five decades later, we know much more about poverty than we used to. Despite initial gains in fighting poverty in the 1960s (Schwartz, 1984), poverty is still with us and has worsened since the early 2000s, especially since the onset of the serious economic recession that began in 2008. What do we know about the extent of poverty, the reasons for it, and its consequences?

Economic Inequality

The United States has a very large degree of economic inequality. A common way to examine inequality is to rank the nation’s families by income from lowest to highest and then to divide this distribution into fifths. Thus, we have the poorest fifth of the nation’s families (or the 20% of families with the lowest family incomes), a second fifth with somewhat higher incomes, and so on until we reach the richest fifth of families, or the 20% with the highest incomes. We then can see what percentage each fifth has of the nation’s entire income. Figure 8.6 “Share of National Income Going to Income Fifths, 2016” shows such a calculation for the United States. The poorest fifth enjoys only 3.8% of the nation’s income, while the richest fifth enjoys 53.2%. Another way of saying this is that the richest 20% of the population have as much income as the remaining 80% of the population.

Figure 8.6 Share of National Income Going to Income Fifths, 2016

_{Source: Data from Congressional Budget Office.}

This degree of inequality is the largest in the industrialized world. Figure 8.7 “Income Inequality Around the World” compares the inequality among several industrialized nations by dividing the median income of households in the 90th percentile (meaning they have more income than 90% of all households) by the median income of households in the 10th percentile (meaning they have more income than only 10% of all households); the higher the resulting ratio, the greater a nation’s inequality. The ratio for the United States, 4.86, far exceeds that for any other nation.

Figure 8.7 Income Inequality Around the World

_{Ratio of median income of richest 10% in each nation to that of poorest 10%.}

_{Source: Data from Mishel, L., Bernstein, J., & Shierholz, H. (2009). The state of working America 2008/2009. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press [An imprint of Cornell University Press].}

Economic inequality in the United States has increased during the last two decades. The loss of manufacturing jobs and changes in taxation and income distribution policies since the early 1980s have favored the rich and hurt the economic standing of the middle class and the poor (Barlett & Steele, 2002; Wilson, 2009). After adjusting for inflation, the post-tax income of the nation’s wealthiest families grew by a much greater amount than that for the poorest families from 1979 to 2005. It grew by only 6% for the poorest fifth but by 80% for the wealthiest fifth, and it also grew by a whopping 228% for families in the top 1% of the nation’s families (Mishel, Bernstein, & Shierholz, 2009). As the saying goes, the rich get richer. To recall our earlier discussion, to be upwardly mobile, it helps to be well-off to begin with.

Poverty

When U.S. officials became concerned about poverty during the 1960s, they quickly realized they needed to find out how much poverty we had. To do so, a measure of official poverty, or a poverty line, was needed. This line was first calculated in 1963 by Mollie Orshansky who proposed determining the poverty line by multiplying the cost of a very minimal diet by three, as a 1955 government study had determined that the typical American family spent one-third of its income on food. Thus a family whose income is lower than three times the cost of a very minimal diet is considered officially poor.

_{The measure of official poverty began in 1963 and stipulates that a family whose income is lower than three times the cost of a minimal diet is considered officially poor. This measure has not changed since 1963 even though family expenses have risen greatly in many areas.}

_{Bill Herndon – Katrina Leftovers 1 – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.}

This way of calculating the poverty line has not changed since 1963, even though many other things, such as energy, child care, and health care, now occupy a greater percentage of the typical family’s budget than was true in 1963. As a national measure, the poverty line also fails to take into account regional differences in the cost of living. For all of these reasons, many experts think the official measurement of poverty is highly suspect. As a recent report observed, “Most poverty analysts strongly believe that the official poverty statistics are inadequate to the task of determining who is poor in America” (Mishel, Bernstein, & Shierholz, 2009, p. 298).

The poverty line is adjusted annually for inflation and takes into account the number of people in a family: the larger the family size, the higher the poverty line. In 2018, the poverty line for a nonfarming family of four (two adults, two children) was $25,100. A four-person family earning even one more dollar than $25,100 in 2018 was not officially poor, even though its “extra” income hardly lifted it out of dire economic straits. Policy experts have calculated a no-frills budget that enables a family to meet its basic needs in food, clothing, shelter, and so forth; this budget is about twice the poverty line. Families with incomes between the poverty line and twice the poverty line are barely making ends meet, but they are not considered officially poor. When we talk here about the poverty level, keep in mind that we are talking only about official poverty and that there are many families and individuals living in near-poverty who have trouble meeting their basic needs, especially when they face unusually high medical or motor vehicle expenses or the like. For this reason, some analyses use “twice-poverty” data (i.e., family incomes below twice the poverty line) to provide a more accurate understanding of how many Americans face serious financial difficulties.

The Extent and Social Distribution of Poverty

With this caveat in mind, how many Americans are poor, and who are they? The U.S. Census Bureau gives us some answers. In 2009, 14.3% of the U.S. population, or almost 44 million Americans, lived in (official) poverty (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, & Smith, 2010). This percentage represented a decline from the early 1990s but was higher than the rate in the late 1960s (see Figure 8.8 “U.S. Poverty, 1959–2017”). If we were winning the war on poverty in the 1960s, since then poverty has fought us to a standstill.

Figure 8.8 U.S. Poverty, 1959–2017

Source: Data from U.S. Census Bureau. (2017). Historical poverty tables: People. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/historical/people.html.

Another way of understanding the extent of poverty is to consider episodic poverty, defined by the Census Bureau as being poor for at least 2 consecutive months in some time period. From 2004 to 2007, the last years for which data are available, almost one-third of the U.S. public, equal to about 95 million people, were poor for at least 2 consecutive months, although only 2.2% were poor for all 3 years (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, & Smith, 2010). As these figures indicate, people go into and out of poverty, but even those who go out of it do not usually move very far from it.

Learning From Other Societies

Poverty and Poverty Policy in Other Western Democracies

To compare international poverty rates, scholars commonly use a measure of the percentage of households in a nation that receive less than half of the nation’s median household income after taxes and cash transfers from the government. In 2000, the latest date for which data are available, 17% of U.S. households lived in poverty as defined by this measure (Mishel, Bernstein, & Shierholz, 2009). By comparison, selected other Western democracies had the following rates (Mishel, Bernstein, & Shierholz, 2009, p. 384):Canada11.4%Denmark9.2%France8.0%Germany8.3%Norway6.4%Spain14.3%Sweden6.5%United Kingdom12.4%

The average poverty rate of Western democracies excluding the United States is 9.8%. The U.S. rate is thus 1.73 times greater than this average.

Why is there so much more poverty in the United States than in its Western counterparts? Several differences between the United States and the other nations stand out. First, other Western nations have higher minimum wages and stronger unions than the United States has, and these lead to incomes that help push people above poverty. Second, the other nations spend a much greater proportion of their gross domestic product on social expenditures (income support and social services such as child care subsidies and housing allowances) than does the United States. As a recent analysis concluded,

Other peer countries are much more likely than the United States to step in where markets have failed to live their most disadvantaged citizens out of poverty. This suggests that the relatively low expenditures on social welfare are at least partially implicated in the high poverty rates in the United States. (Mishel, Bernstein, & Shierholz, 2009, p. 387)

In short, the United States has so much more poverty than other democracies in part because it spends so much less than they do on helping the poor. The United States certainly has the wealth to follow their example, but it has chosen not to do so, and a high poverty rate is the unfortunate result.

Who are the poor? Contrary to popular images, the most typical poor person in the United States is white: approximately 44% of poor people are white (non-Latino), 29% are Latino, 23% are black, and 4% are Asian (see Figure 8.9 “Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Poor, 2009 (Percentage of Poor Persons in Each Group)”). At the same time, race and ethnicity affect the chances of being poor: while only 9.4% of non-Latino whites are poor, 25.8% of African Americans, 12.5% of Asians, and 25.3% of Latinos (who may be of any race) are poor (see Figure 8.10 “Race, Ethnicity, and Poverty, 2009 (Percentage of Each Group That Is Poor)”). Thus African Americans and Latinos are almost three times as likely as non-Latino whites to be poor. (Because there are so many non-Latino whites in the United States, the plurality of poor people are non-Latino white, even if the percentage of whites who are poor is relatively low.) Chapter 10 “Race and Ethnicity” further discusses the link between poverty and race and ethnicity.

Figure 8.9 Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Poor, 2009 (Percentage of Poor Persons in Each Group)

Source: Data from DeNavas-Walt, C., Proctor, B. D., & Smith, J. C. (2010). Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2009 (Current Population Report P60-238). Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

Figure 8.10 Race, Ethnicity, and Poverty, 2009 (Percentage of Each Group That Is Poor)

Source: Data from U.S Census Bureau Current Population Survey. (2008). POV01: Age and sex of all people, family members and unrelated individuals iterated by income-to-poverty ratio and race. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/macro/032008/pov/new01_100.htm.

Turning to age, almost 21% of children under age 18 are poor (amounting to more than 15 million children), including 35.7% of African American children and 33.1% of Latino children (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, & Smith, 2010). The poverty rate for U.S. children is the highest in the Western world and 1.5 to 9 times greater than the corresponding rates in Canada and Western Europe (Mishel, Bernstein, & Shierholz, 2009). At the other end of the age distribution, 8.9% of people aged 65 or older are poor (amounting to about 3.4 million seniors). Turning around these U.S. figures, about 36% of all poor people in the United States are children, and about 8% of the poor are 65 or older. Thus some 44% of Americans living in poverty are children or the elderly.

The poverty rate for U.S. children is the highest in the Western world.

Wikimedia Commons – CC BY-SA 3.0.

The type of family structure also makes a difference: whereas only 8.5% of children living with married parents live in poverty, 43% of those living with only their mother live in poverty (2007 data). This latter figure is about 32% for Asian children and for non-Latino white children and rises to slightly more than 50% for African American children and Latino children (Moore, Redd, Burkhauser, Mbawa, & Collins, 2009). As these latter numbers indicate, families headed by a single woman are much more likely to be poor. Poverty thus has a female face.

Explaining Poverty

Explanations of poverty focus on problems either within the poor themselves or in the society in which they live (Iceland, 2006). The first type of explanation follows logically from the functional theory of stratification and may be considered an “individual” explanation. The second type of explanation follows from conflict theory and is a structural explanation that focuses on problems in American society that produce poverty. As the “Sociology Making a Difference” box discusses, the explanation of poverty people favor affects how sympathetic they are to the poor.

According to the individual explanation, the poor have personal problems and deficiencies that are responsible for their poverty. In the past, the poor were thought to be biologically inferior, a view that has not entirely faded, but today the much more common belief is that they lack the ambition and motivation to work hard and to achieve. According to the World Values Survey, 60% of Americans believe that people are poor “because they are lazy and lack will power.” This percentage reflects the tendency of Americans to favor individual explanations of poverty (Davidson, 2009).

A more sophisticated version of this type of explanation is called the culture of poverty theory (Banfield, 1974; O. Lewis, 1966). According to this theory, the poor generally have beliefs and values that differ from those of the nonpoor and that doom them to continued poverty. For example, they are said to be impulsive and to live for the present rather than the future. Critics say this view exaggerates the degree to which the poor and nonpoor do in fact hold different values and ignores discrimination and other problems in American society (Iceland, 2006).

According to the second, structural explanation, U.S. poverty stems from problems in American society that lead to lack of equal opportunity. These problems include (a) racial, ethnic, gender, and age discrimination; (b) lack of good schooling and adequate health care; and (c) structural changes in the American economic system, such as the departure of manufacturing companies from American cities in the 1980s and 1990s (Iceland, 2003). These problems help create a vicious cycle of poverty in which children of the poor are often fated to end up in poverty or near-poverty themselves as adults.

Sociology Making a Difference

Attributions for Poverty and Public Education Campaigns

The text discusses two general explanations for poverty. The first attributes poverty to lack of willpower and other problems among the poor themselves, while the second attributes poverty to structural obstacles and lack of opportunity in the larger society. As the text notes, Americans tend to favor the first explanation more than the second explanation. They also tend to disagree that the government should do more to help the poor. Could these two sets of views be linked? If so, what would such a link imply for poverty policy?

Sociological research finds that the explanation we favor for poverty—the attribution for poverty we hold—affects whether we want the government to take an active role in helping the poor (Bradley & Cole, 2002). People who attribute poverty to problems in the larger society are much more likely than those who attribute it to deficiencies among the poor to believe that the government should take such a role. The attribution for poverty we hold presumably affects the amount of sympathy we have for the poor, and our sympathy, or lack of sympathy, in turn affects our views about the government’s role in helping the poor. As sociologist Theresa C. Davidson (2009) observes, “Beliefs about the causes of poverty shape attitudes toward the poor.”

This body of research strongly suggests that public support for government aid for the poor is weak because so much of the public attributes poverty to failings among the poor themselves. If so, the public might very well begin to endorse greater government aid if its attribution for poverty became more structural instead of individual. Public education campaigns that call attention to the lack of opportunity and other structural problems that account for poverty thus might further poverty policy by beginning to change public perceptions of the poor.

Most sociologists favor the structural explanation. As our earlier Monopoly example illustrates, poverty greatly blocks opportunities for success. Later chapters document racial and ethnic discrimination, lack of adequate schooling and health care, and other problems that make it difficult to rise out of poverty. On the other hand, some ethnographic research supports the individual explanation by showing that the poor do have certain values and follow certain practices that augment their plight (Small, Harding, & Lamont, 2010). For example, the poor have higher rates of cigarette smoking (34% of people with annual incomes between $6,000 and $11,999 smoke, compared to only 13% of those with incomes $90,000 or greater (Goszkowski, 2008), which helps lead them to have more serious health problems. Adopting an integrated perspective, some researchers say these values and practices are in many ways the result of poverty itself (Small, Harding, & Lamont, 2010). These scholars concede a culture of poverty does exist, but they also say it exists because it helps the poor cope daily with the structural effects of being poor. If these effects lead to a culture of poverty, they add, then poverty becomes self-perpetuating. If poverty is both cultural and structural in origin, these scholars say, a comprehensive national effort must be launched to improve the lives of the people in the “other America.”

The Effects of Poverty

However poverty is explained, it has important and enduring effects, which later chapters will continue to discuss. For now, we can list some of the major consequences of poverty (and near-poverty) in the United States. As we do so, recall the sociological perspective’s emphasis on how our social backgrounds influence our attitudes, behaviors, and life chances. This influence on life chances is quite evident when we look at some of the effects of poverty (Moore, Redd, Burkhauser, Mbawa, & Collins, 2009; Iceland, 2006; D. Lindsey, 2009):

Poor children are more likely to have inadequate nutrition and to experience health, behavioral, and cognitive problems.

Kelly Short – Poverty: “Damaged Child,” Oklahoma City, OK, USA, 1936. (Colorized). – CC BY-SA 2.0.

• The poor are at greater risk for family problems, including divorce and domestic violence. The stress of being poor is thought to be a major reason for these problems.
• The poor are also at greater risk for health problems, including infant mortality, earlier mortality during adulthood, mental illness, and inadequate medical care. Many poor people lack health insurance. Poor children are more likely to have inadequate nutrition and to suffer health, behavioral, and cognitive problems. These problems in turn impair their ability to do well in school and land stable employment as adults, helping to ensure that poverty will persist across generations.
• Poor children typically go to rundown schools with inadequate facilities where they receive inadequate schooling. They are much less likely than nonpoor children to graduate from high school or to go to college. Their lack of education in turn restricts them and their own children to poverty, once again helping to ensure a vicious cycle of continuing poverty across generations.
• The poor are, not surprisingly, more likely to be homeless than the nonpoor but also more likely to live in dilapidated housing and unable to buy their own homes. Many poor families spend more than half their income on rent. The lack of adequate housing for the poor remains a major national problem.

Key Takeaways

• Inequality refers to the gap between the rich and the poor. The United States has a high degree of inequality.
• Although the official poverty line measure has been criticized for several reasons, in 2017 about 12.3% of the U.S. population, or more than 40 million people, were living in official poverty.
• About 18% of U.S. children live in official poverty; this rate is the highest in the Western world.
• Explanations of poverty focus on problems either within the poor themselves or in the society in which they live. These two types of explanations reflect the functionalist and conflict views, respectively.
• Poverty has several important and enduring consequences, including many kinds of health problems.

Self Check

about:blank

Reducing U.S. Poverty: What Sociology Suggests

It is easy to understand why the families in Wichita, Kansas, discussed in the news story that began this chapter might be poor in the middle of a deep economic recession. Yet a sociological understanding of poverty emphasizes its structural basis in bad times and good times alike. Poverty is rooted in social and economic problems of the larger society rather than in the lack of willpower, laziness, or other moral failings of poor individuals themselves. Individuals born into poverty suffer from a lack of opportunity from their first months up through adulthood, and poverty becomes a self-perpetuating, vicious cycle. To the extent a culture of poverty might exist, it is best seen as a logical and perhaps even inevitable outcome of, and adaptation to, the problem of being poor and not the primary force driving poverty itself.

This sort of understanding suggests that efforts to reduce poverty must address first and foremost the structural basis for poverty while not ignoring certain beliefs and practices of the poor that also make a difference. An extensive literature on poverty policy outlines many types of policies and strategies that follow this dual approach (Moore, Redd, Burkhauser, Mbawa, & Collins, 2009; Iceland, 2006; D. Lindsey, 2009; Cancian & Danziger, 2009; Turner & Rawlings, 2005). If these were fully adopted, funded, and implemented, they would offer great promise for reducing poverty. As two poverty experts recently wrote, “We are optimistic that poverty can be reduced significantly in the long term if the public and policymakers can muster the political will to pursue a range of promising antipoverty policies” (Cancian & Danziger, 2009, p. 32). Although a full discussion of these policies is beyond the scope of this chapter, the following measures are commonly cited as holding strong potential for reducing poverty:

1. Adopt a national “full employment” policy for the poor, involving federally funded job training and public works programs.
2. Increase federal aid for the working poor, including earned income credits and child care subsidies for those with children.
3. Establish well-funded early childhood intervention programs, including home visitations by trained professionals, for poor families.
4. Improve the schools that poor children attend and the schooling they receive and expand early childhood education programs for poor children.
5. Provide better nutrition and health services for poor families with young children.
6. Strengthen efforts to reduce teenage pregnancies.

References

Banfield, E. C. (1974). The unheavenly city revisited. Boston, MA: Little, Brown; Lewis, O. (1966). The culture of poverty. Scientific American, 113, 19–25.

Barlett, D. L., & Steele, J. B. (2002). The great American tax dodge: How spiraling fraud and avoidance are killing fairness, destroying the income tax, and costing you. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Bradley, C., & Cole, D. J. (2002). Causal attributions and the significance of self-efficacy in predicting solutions to poverty. Sociological Focus, 35, 381–396.

Cancian, M., & Danziger, S. (2009). Changing poverty and changing antipoverty policies. Ann Arbor: National Poverty Center, University of Michigan.

Davidson, T. C. (2009). Attributions for poverty among college students: The impact of service-learning and religiosity. College Student Journal, 43, 136–144.

DeNavas-Walt, C., Proctor, B. D., & Smith, J. C. (2010). Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2009 (Current Population Report P60-238). Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

Goszkowski, R. (2008). Among Americans, smoking decreases as income increases. Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/105550/among-americans-smoking-decreases-income-increases.aspx.

Harrington, M. (1962). The other America: Poverty in the United States. New York, NY: Macmillan.

Iceland, J. (2003). Dynamics of economic well-being, 1996–1999 (Current Population Report P70–91). Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

Iceland, J. (2006). Poverty in America: A handbook. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lindsey, D. (2009). Child poverty and inequality: Securing a better future for America’s children. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Mishel, L., Bernstein, J., & Shierholz, H. (2009). The state of working America 2008/2009. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press [An imprint of Cornell University Press].

Moore, K. A., Redd, Z., Burkhauser, M., Mbawa, K., & Collins, A. (2009). Children in poverty: Trends, consequences, and policy options. Washington, DC: Child Trends. Retrieved from http://www.childtrends.org/Files//Child_Trends-2009_04_07_RB_ChildreninPoverty.pdf.

Schwartz, J. E. (1984, June 18). The war we won: How the great society defeated poverty. The New Republic, 18–19.

Small, M. L., Harding, D. J., & Lamont, M. (2010, May). Reconsidering culture and poverty. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 629, 6–27.

Turner, M. A., & Rawlings, L. A. (2005). Overcoming concentrated poverty and isolation: Ten lessons for policy and practice. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.

Wilson, W. J. (2009). The economic plight of inner-city black males. In E. Anderson (Ed.), Against the wall: Poor, young, black, and male (pp. 55–70). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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Introduction to Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World

Social Class in the United States

Learning Objectives

1. Distinguish objective and subjective measures of social class.
2. Discuss whether the United States has much vertical social mobility.

Most sociologists define social class as a grouping based on similar social factors like wealth, income, education, and occupation. These factors affect how much power and prestige a person has. Social stratification reflects an unequal distribution of resources. In most cases, having more money means having more power or more opportunities. There is a surprising amount of disagreement among sociologists on the number of social classes in the United States and even on how to measure social class membership. We first look at the measurement issue and then discuss the number and types of classes sociologists have delineated.

Measuring Social Class

We can measure social class either objectively or subjectively. If we choose the objective method, we classify people according to one or more criteria, such as their occupation, education, and/or income. The researcher is the one who decides which social class people are in based on where they stand in regard to these variables. If we choose the subjective method, we ask people what class they think they are in. For example, the General Social Survey asks, “If you were asked to use one of four names for your social class, which would you say you belong in: the lower class, the working class, the middle class, or the upper class?” Figure 8.3 “Subjective Social Class Membership” depicts responses to this question. The trouble with such a subjective measure is that some people say they are in a social class that differs from what objective criteria might indicate they are in. This problem leads most sociologists to favor objective measures of social class when they study stratification in American society.

Figure 8.3 Subjective Social Class Membership

Source: Data from General Social Survey, 2008.

Yet even here there is disagreement between functionalist theorists and conflict theorists on which objective measures to use. Functionalist sociologists rely on measures of socioeconomic status (SES), such as education, income, and occupation, to determine someone’s social class. Sometimes one of these three variables is used by itself to measure social class, and sometimes two or all three of the variables are combined (in ways that need not concern us) to measure social class. When occupation is used, sociologists often rely on standard measures of occupational prestige. Since the late 1940s, national surveys have asked Americans to rate the prestige of dozens of occupations, and their ratings are averaged together to yield prestige scores for the occupations (Hodge, Siegel, & Rossi, 1964). Over the years these scores have been relatively stable. Here are some average prestige scores for various occupations: physician, 86; college professor, 74; elementary school teacher, 64; letter carrier, 47; garbage collector, 28; and janitor, 22.

Despite SES’s usefulness, conflict sociologists prefer different, though still objective, measures of social class that take into account ownership of the means of production and other dynamics of the workplace. These measures are closer to what Marx meant by the concept of class throughout his work, and they take into account the many types of occupations and workplace structures that he could not have envisioned when he was writing during the 19th century.

For example, corporations have many upper-level managers who do not own the means of production but still determine the activities of workers under them. They thus do not fit neatly into either of Marx’s two major classes, the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. Recognizing these problems, conflict sociologists delineate social class on the basis of several factors, including the ownership of the means of production, the degree of autonomy workers enjoy in their jobs, and whether they supervise other workers or are supervised themselves (Wright, 2000).

The American Class Structure

As should be evident, it is not easy to determine how many social classes exist in the United States. Over the decades, sociologists have outlined as many as six or seven social classes based on such things as, once again, education, occupation, and income, but also on lifestyle, the schools people’s children attend, a family’s reputation in the community, how “old” or “new” people’s wealth is, and so forth (Coleman & Rainwater, 1978; Warner & Lunt, 1941). For the sake of clarity, we will limit ourselves to the four social classes included in Figure 8.3 “Subjective Social Class Membership”: the upper class, the middle class, the working class, and the lower class. Although subcategories exist within some of these broad categories, they still capture the most important differences in the American class structure (Gilbert, 2011). The annual income categories listed for each class are admittedly somewhat arbitrary but are based on the percentage of households above or below a specific income level.

The Upper Class

The upper class is considered the top, and only the powerful elite get to see the view from there. In the United States, people with extreme wealth make up 1 percent of the population, and they own one-third of the country’s wealth (Beeghley 2008).

_{The upper class in the United States consists of about 1% of all households and possesses much wealth, power, and influence.}

_{Steven Martin – Highland Park Mansion – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.}

Money provides not just access to material goods, but also access to a lot of power. As corporate leaders, members of the upper class make decisions that affect the job status of millions of people. As media owners, they influence the collective identity of the nation. They run the major network television stations, radio broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, and sports franchises. As board members of the most influential colleges and universities, they influence cultural attitudes and values. As philanthropists, they establish foundations to support social causes they believe in. As campaign contributors, they sway politicians and fund campaigns, sometimes to protect their own economic interests.

U.S. society has historically distinguished between “old money” (inherited wealth passed from one generation to the next) and “new money” (wealth you have earned and built yourself). While both types may have equal net worth, they have traditionally held different social standings. People of old money, firmly situated in the upper class for generations, have held high prestige. Their families have socialized them to know the customs, norms, and expectations that come with wealth. Often, the very wealthy don’t work for wages. Some study business or become lawyers in order to manage the family fortune. Others, such as Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, capitalize on being a rich socialite and transform that into celebrity status, flaunting a wealthy lifestyle.

However, new-money members of the upper class are not oriented to the customs and mores of the elite. They haven’t gone to the most exclusive schools. They have not established old-money social ties. People with new money might flaunt their wealth, buying sports cars and mansions, but they might still exhibit behaviors attributed to the middle and lower classes.

The Middle Class

Many people consider themselves middle class, but there are differing ideas about what that means. People with annual incomes of $150,000 call themselves middle class, as do people who annually earn $30,000. That helps explain why, in the United States, the middle class is broken into upper and lower subcategories. Upper-middle-class people tend to hold bachelor’s and postgraduate degrees. They’ve studied subjects such as business, management, law, or medicine. Lower-middle-class members hold bachelor’s degrees from four-year colleges or associate’s degrees from two-year community or technical colleges.

_{The upper-middle class in the United States consists of about 4.4% of all households, with incomes ranging from $150,000 to $199,000.}

_{Alyson Hurt – Back Porch – CC BY-NC 2.0.}

Comfort is a key concept to the middle class. Middle-class people work hard and live fairly comfortable lives. Upper-middle-class people tend to pursue careers that earn comfortable incomes. They provide their families with large homes and nice cars. They may go skiing or boating on vacation. Their children receive high-quality education and healthcare (Gilbert 2010).

In the lower middle class, people hold jobs supervised by members of the upper middle class. They fill technical, lower-level management or administrative support positions. Compared to lower-class work, lower-middle-class jobs carry more prestige and come with slightly higher paychecks. With these incomes, people can afford a decent, mainstream lifestyle, but they struggle to maintain it. They generally don’t have enough income to build significant savings. In addition, their grip on class status is more precarious than in the upper tiers of the class system. When budgets are tight, lower-middle-class people are often the ones to lose their jobs.

The Working Class

_{The working class in the United States consists of about 25% of all households, whose members work in blue-collar jobs and less skilled clerical positions.}

_{Lisa Risager – Ebeltoft – CC BY-SA 2.0.}

Working-class households generally work in blue-collar jobs such as factory work, construction, restaurant serving, and less skilled clerical positions. People in the working class typically do not have 4-year college degrees, and some do not have high school degrees. Although most are not living in official poverty, their financial situation is very uncomfortable. A single large medical bill or expensive car repair would be almost impossible to pay without going into considerable debt. Working-class families are far less likely than their wealthier counterparts to own their own homes or to send their children to college. Many of them live at risk for unemployment as their companies downsize by laying off workers even in good times, and hundreds of thousands began to be laid off when the U.S. recession began in 2008.

The Lower Class

_{The lower class or poor in the United States constitute about 25% of all households. Many poor individuals lack high school degrees and are unemployed or employed only part time.}

_{Chris Hunkeler – Trailer Homes – CC BY-SA 2.0.}

Although lower class is a common term, many observers prefer a less-negative sounding term like the poor, which is used here. Just like the middle and upper classes, the lower class can be divided into subsets: the working class, the working poor, and the underclass. Compared to the lower middle class, lower-class people have less of an educational background and earn smaller incomes. They work jobs that require little prior skill or experience and often do routine tasks under close supervision.

The working poor have unskilled, low-paying employment. However, their jobs rarely offer benefits such as healthcare or retirement planning, and their positions are often seasonal or temporary. They work as sharecroppers, migrant farm workers, house cleaners, and day laborers. Some are high school dropouts. Some are illiterate, unable to read job ads.

How can people work full-time and still be poor? Even working full-time, millions of the working poor earn incomes too meager to support a family. Minimum wage varies from state to state, but in many states it is approaching $8.00 per hour (Department of Labor 2014). At that rate, working 40 hours a week earns $320. That comes to $16,640 a year, before tax and deductions. Even for a single person, the pay is low. A married couple with children will have a hard time covering expenses.

The underclass is the United States’ lowest tier. Members of the underclass live mainly in inner cities. Many are unemployed or underemployed. Those who do hold jobs typically perform menial tasks for little pay. Some of the underclass are homeless. For many, welfare systems provide a much-needed support through food assistance, medical care, housing, and the like.

We will discuss the poor further when we focus later in this chapter on inequality and poverty in the United States.

Social Mobility

Social mobility refers to the ability to change positions within a social stratification system. When people improve or diminish their economic status in a way that affects social class, they experience social mobility.

Individuals can experience upward or downward social mobility for a variety of reasons. Upward mobility refers to an increase—or upward shift—in social class. In the United States, people applaud the rags-to-riches achievements of celebrities like Oprah Winfrey or LeBron James. But the truth is that relative to the overall population, the number of people who rise from poverty to wealth is very small. Still, upward mobility is not only about becoming rich and famous. In the United States, people who earn a college degree, get a job promotion, or marry someone with a good income may move up socially. In contrast, downward mobility indicates a lowering of one’s social class. Some people move downward because of business setbacks, unemployment, or illness. Dropping out of school, losing a job, or getting a divorce may result in a loss of income or status and, therefore, downward social mobility.

_{A college education is a key step toward achieving upward social mobility. However, the payoff of education is often higher for men than for women and for whites than for people of color.}

_{Nazareth College – Commencement 2013 – CC BY 2.0.}

A key vehicle for upward mobility is formal education. Regardless of the socioeconomic status of our parents, we are much more likely to end up in a high-paying job if we attain a college degree or, increasingly, a graduate or professional degree. Figure 8.4 “Education and Median Earnings of Year-Round, Full-Time Workers, 2007” vividly shows the difference that education makes for Americans’ median annual incomes. Notice, however, that for a given level of education, men’s incomes are greater than women’s. Figure 8.4 “Education and Median Earnings of Year-Round, Full-Time Workers, 2007” thus suggests that the payoff of education is higher for men than for women, and many studies support this conclusion (Green & Ferber, 2008). The reasons for this gender difference are complex and will be discussed further in Chapter 11 “Gender and Gender Inequality”. To the extent vertical social mobility exists in the United States, then, it is higher for men than for women and higher for whites than for people of color.

Figure 8.4 Education and Median Earnings of Year-Round, Full-Time Workers, 2007

Source: Data from U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). Statistical abstract of the United States: 2010. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab.

It is not uncommon for different generations of a family to belong to varying social classes. This is known as intergenerational mobility. For example, an upper-class executive may have parents who belonged to the middle class. In turn, those parents may have been raised in the lower class. Patterns of intergenerational mobility can reflect long-term societal changes.

Similarly, intragenerational mobility refers to changes in a person’s social mobility over the course of his or her lifetime. For example, the wealth and prestige experienced by one person may be quite different from that of his or her siblings.

Structural mobility happens when societal changes enable a whole group of people to move up or down the social class ladder. Structural mobility is attributable to changes in society as a whole, not individual changes. In the first half of the twentieth century, industrialization expanded the U.S. economy, raising the standard of living and leading to upward structural mobility. In today’s work economy, the recent recession and the outsourcing of jobs overseas have contributed to high unemployment rates. Many people have experienced economic setbacks, creating a wave of downward structural mobility.

When analyzing the trends and movements in social mobility, sociologists consider all modes of mobility. Scholars recognize that mobility is not as common or easy to achieve as many people think. In fact, some consider social mobility a myth. The American Dream does exist, but it is much more likely to remain only a dream unless we come from advantaged backgrounds. In fact, there is less vertical mobility in the United States than in other Western democracies. As a recent analysis summarized the evidence, “There is considerably more mobility in most of the other developed economies of Europe and Scandinavia than in the United States” (Mishel, Bernstein, & Shierholz, 2009, p. 108).

Key Takeaways

• Several ways of measuring social class exist. Functionalist and conflict sociologists disagree on which objective criteria to use in measuring social class. Subjective measures of social class, which rely on people rating their own social class, may lack some validity.
• Sociologists disagree on the number of social classes in the United States, but a common view is that the United States has four classes: upper, middle, working, and lower. Further variations exist within the upper and middle classes.
• The United States has some vertical social mobility, but not as much as several nations in Western Europe.

Self Check

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References

Beeghley, Leonard. 2008. The Structure of Social Stratification in the United States. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Coleman, R. P., & Rainwater, L. (1978). Social standing in America. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Gilbert, D. (2011). The American class structure in an age of growing inequality (8th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.

Green, C. A., & Ferber, M. A. (2008). The long-term impact of labor market interruptions: How crucial is timing? Review of Social Economy, 66, 351–379.

Hodge, R. W., Siegel, P., & Rossi, P. (1964). Occupational prestige in the United States, 1925–63. American Journal of Sociology, 70, 286–302.

Mishel, L., Bernstein, J., & Shierholz, H. (2009). The state of working America 2008/2009. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press [An imprint of Cornell University Press].

Warner, W. L., & Lunt, P. S. (1941). The social life of a modern community. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Wright, E. O. (2000). Class counts: Comparative studies in class analysis. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

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Empathy

Empathy is the ability to recognize and relate to other people’s emotions and thoughts. Empathic thinking is often characterized as the willingness and ability to place oneself in another person’s situation, to feel another person’s feelings, or to recognize that another person might experience feelings in the same way as oneself. Empathy on the part of the therapist for those in therapy is also an important characteristic of therapeutic relationships.

Understanding Empathy

Empathy is distinct from sympathy, which is the ability to care about and acknowledge another person’s feelings. It is also distinct from compassion, a trait that combines elements of both empathy and sympathy. Empathy enables compassion as well as acts of charity but is not a necessary prerequisite for either; people may behave kindly for a number of reasons, many of which are not related to empathy.

Altruism, or unselfish behavior that benefits others, is closely related to empathy. Altruistic acts generally indicate that a person experiences a high level of compassion for others. Studies show that many animals other than humans, such as primates and bears, are capable of altruistic behavior.

Empathy and Psychology

People who score high on measures of empathy generally report larger social circles and more satisfying relationships, as empathy plays a pivotal role in personal relationships: Couples in counseling are frequently advised to work on developing empathy for one another. Empathy is not only essential  in relating to loved ones but also in anticipating motives, persuading others, and working successfully with colleagues and employers.

Lack of empathy plays an important role in several mental health conditions, particularly antisocial personality, which causes a long-term pattern of exploitation, sociopathic behavior, and violation of the rights of others. A diagnosis of certain mental health conditions, such as narcissistic personality, may also indicate a lack of empathy or difficulty feeling or expressing it.

Role of Empathy in Therapy

Empathy is considered essential to therapy because for any therapeutic tactic to work, the therapist has to make the person in treatment feel understood. To do this, the therapist must not only understand what a person says in a therapy session but also understand what the person is not saying and communicate this understanding. Therapists who are highly empathic can help people in treatment face past experiences and obtain a greater understanding of both the experience and feelings surrounding it.

Empathy is different from sympathy, which can imply pity, and conveying empathy is also not a passive process. A good therapist will generally be able to sense another person’s emotion through concentration and active listening, but the process requires continued engagement. Because empathy can be expressed in many ways, especially in therapy, there is no “right” way for a therapist to demonstrate understanding and acceptance to those in treatment.

Five-Point Scale to Measure Empathy

Several scales have been developed to measure empathy. The Empathy Quotient test, for example, can measure how easily one picks up on the feelings of others and how much one is affected by those feelings. This test shows that women typically have greater empathy than men, and that those with Asperger’s or high-functioning autism typically demonstrate a lower capacity for empathy.

Another test, Carkhuff’s five-point scale, can be applied to all human relations, but it is effective at measuring the use of empathy by therapists in session. It is based on observable behavior and attempts to eliminate the ambiguity of previous scales.

• Level 1 (nonempathic behavior): The therapist responds in a way that ignores the message of the person in treatment.
• Level 2 (nonempathic behavior): The therapist attempts to understand and respond to the message but does so in a way that lessens the impact.
• Level 3: The therapist responds to a stated message and surface expressions but ignores or is unable to hear the implicit message and feelings of the person in treatment. This may be an appropriate response at times, but if a therapist always responds at this level, he or she is generally not expressing deep empathy.
• Level 4: The therapist’s response adds to what the person has said, demonstrating that the therapist has understood both what was said and what may have been only implied.
• Level 5: The therapist understands what the person in treatment meant, and the therapist’s response adds to what the person has said in such a way that he or she is able to accurately expand upon the person’s thoughts without beginning to interpret or suggest new explanations.

Origins of Empathy

Empathy is probably, to some extent, an evolved trait. It allows humans to be able to be able to reach out to others emotionally from a young age but also to understand the situations of others. Empathy likely evolved, according to researchers, out of the necessity to be aware of the needs of the young, but also out of the knowledge that when the group does well, the individual does well.

Researchers believe that empathy develops early in childhood, as even young infants react to the distress of others. Studies show that when parents discipline children by pointing out how their behavior has affected another, the children may then become more empathic. Empathy can also be affected by being around strangers, studies have found. Being around strangers leads to increased levels of stress, which appears to affect a person’s ability to feel the pain of another. However, doing an activity with strangers, such as playing a game, can lead to a reduction in stress and an increase in empathy.

Empathy in Animals

Several studies have indicated that animals are capable of empathetic reactions. The ability to feel empathy can be a survival strategy, as it enables an animal to anticipate reactions and to form social bonds, which may have a protective effect in an unstable environment.

Many kinds of apes show empathy. Chimpanzees are very attuned to the emotions of others, so much that humans studying them can use displays of emotion, such as feigned sadness, to cause a disobedient chimp to behave. Orangutans and gorillas care for each other, especially for family members, and react to the emotions of others. Some apes will avoid taking a treat if doing so causes another ape to receive a painful shock. This altruistic behavior demonstrates the empathy primates have for other members of their species.

Other animals that show empathy include rodents: Rats refused to pull a lever to shock littermates, even if they were only fed after doing so, and mice grimace when mice they have shared a cage with are in pain. Elephants and some birds, such as crows, ravens, and jays, have all been known to show empathy to other members of their species, as well. Dogs and cats also demonstrate empathy, both toward humans and other animals.

The “Cost of Caring”

Recent research shows that some people may be affected more than others by negative life events experienced by other people. This “cost of caring” suggests that too much empathy can occasionally lead to emotional distress. According to a 2013 study, highly empathetic women who saw on social media that a close friend or family member was injured, hospitalized, demoted, or mourning a loss experienced a stress level that was 5-14% higher than that of other women. Men with high levels of empathy who saw that a friend or family member was demoted or accused of a crime experienced a stress level 9-15% higher than that of other men.

Because highly empathetic people may be more affected by the distress of family, friends, and others in their care and become overwhelmed as a result, maintaining a self-care routine and establishing emotional boundaries can be helpful in preventing any negative effects that taking on the stress of others may have on mental health.

References:

1. Baron-Cohen, S., & Wheelwright, S. (2004, April 1). The empathy quotient: An investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism, and normal sex differences. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15162935.
2. Dallas, K. (2015, February 21). ‘Too much of a good thing’: When empathy is overwhelming. Retrieved from http://national.deseretnews.com/article/3609/too-much-of-a-good-thing-when-empathy-is-overwhelming.html.
3. Ghose, T. (2015, January 15). ‘Stranger Danger’ Makes People Less Empathetic. Retrieved from http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/stranger-danger-makes-people-less-empathetic-150115.htm.
4. Goleman, D. (1989, March 27). Researchers Trace Empathy’s Roots to Infancy. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/28/science/researchers-trace-empathy-s-roots-to-infancy.html.
5. Martin, D. (2010). Counseling & Therapy Skills (3rd ed., p. 4, 8, 12-13, 127). Long Grove, Illinois: Manitoba Press.
6. Prinz, J. J. (2007). The emotional construction of morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
7. The Empathy Quotient. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/life/table/0,,937442,00.html.
8. Viegas, J. (2014, February 18). Elephants Added to List of Animals that Show Empathy. Retrieved from http://news.discovery.com/animals/elephants-added-to-list-of-animals-that-show-empathy-140218.htm.

Last Updated: 08-6-2015

Read More

• Empathy Improves Relationships
• Being Mindful of ‘Kindfull’ Play: Empathy-Building Play Therapy
• How to Teach Children Emotional Intelligence

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• anthonySeptember 28th, 2016 at 2:40 AMhi i would just like to know the author of the blog “Empathy” for my reference list. thank youReply
• The GoodTherapy.org TeamSeptember 28th, 2016 at 8:13 AMHi Anthony,
  This article does not have a single author, but you can attribute it to GoodTherapy.org staff members.Kind regards,
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• PaulOctober 17th, 2016 at 12:10 AMThats what I wanted to learn. Thanks alot.Reply

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My name is Anthony Joseph Hopkins and I am from Dayton Ohio. I am a 59 year old man who has written three books within a 23 year period . My Book Publisher is Authorhouse Publishing Company in Bloomington Indiana. My supervisor is Mrs. Heather Carter. My three books are called Essays, My Grace is Sufficient for Me, and The Best of Anthony Hopkins. My books are about my personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I am a person who is academically lifted. I am extremely intelligent and smart. I have made a lot of mistakes and bad choices in my personal life. I graduated from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Dayton Ohio three years late. My grade point average in high school was a 1.1. I graduated from the University of Toledo in Toledo Ohio on Saturday June 12th 1993 and on Saturday June 17, 1995 with my Associates Degree in Applied Sciences in Social Services Technology and my Bachelors Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. I minored in American Sign Language . I love to be around other people as well as being all by myself. I have been writing for over 30 years now. I have a birthday coming up within the next 18 days. I will be 60 years old this year. I have been in the hospital for two weeks recently. I still suffer from Schizoid Affective Disorder, Diabetes, Gastric Ulcers, and Schizophrenia. I have a learning disability in math and reading. I failed math in college twice at the University of Toledo and I also failed economics in college
I failed a general business class my freshman year in high school at Nettie Lee Roth High School in Dayton Ohio from 1979 to 1980. I used to be a juvenile delinquency for 8 years. I was truancy from high school for three years straight. I even failed the Permit Tedt to get a Driver’s License in Dayton Ohio and Charlotte North Carolina. I also failed the test in the State of Michigan as well. I am responsible for holding myself back because I have been complainant and a procrastinator. I almost failed my family therapy class in college as well as my drug awareness class. I do not take multiple choice test very well throughout my entire life. I suffer from athletic foot fungus right now. For the past 36 years I have lived in the Toledo Ohio Area for almost 6 years. I used to live inside of a Crack house for three years from 1991 through 1994. I worked for 49 years of my life . I am a Born Again Christian Man and a Grateful Recovering Alcoholic. I am a Child of The Most High God.

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7 Core Personality Factors: Definitions and Examples

Home » Blog » 7 Core Personality Factors: Definitions and Examples

Personality has long captivated the field of psychology, serving as one of its most fascinating and widely applied areas. The roots of experimental psychology and the study of human personality trace back to the late 19th century, when German physiologist and philosopher Wilhelm Wundt laid the groundwork for this burgeoning field¹. Over the next century, research advanced significantly, culminating in a study by Costa and McCrae that found most personality traits can be viewed as facets of five core personality factors: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (low Emotional Stability).² These traits collectively form the Five-Factor Model (FFM), often summarized by the acronym “OCEAN.”

Building on this foundation, Canadian psychology professors Kibeom Lee and Michael C. Ashton introduced the HEXACO model by adding Honesty/Humility as a sixth factor.³ Today, the Jackson Personality Inventory™-3 (JPI™-3) has further refined our understanding by dividing Conscientiousness into two distinct higher-order factors: Industriousness and Methodicalness, resulting in a seven-factor model. This expanded framework offers a deeper understanding of individuals’ conscientiousness, which has been described as “the most potent, non-cognitive predictor of workplace performance.”⁴ In this blog, SIGMA’s experts delve into the definitions, benefits, and key considerations for each of these seven core personality factors.

7 Core Personality Factors

1. Agreeableness
2. Emotional Stability
3. Extraversion
4. Honesty/Humility
5. Industriousness
6. Methodicalness
7. Openness to Experience

What is Personality?

Though personality is an abstract concept, it can be defined in a few fundamental ways. At its core, personality is composed of the unique characteristics that distinguish individuals from one another. These traits — distinctive patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors — help us recognize similarities and differences among people. Although personality traits are non-physical, although they often manifest in physical expressions, such as choices in clothing or hairstyle, though these expressions are not personality traits themselves.

Personality is shaped by a combination of biological factors and environmental influences, and generally remains consistent throughout adult life. However, certain traits can be developed to modest degrees through life events, or behavioral interventions and coaching. This potential for growth is crucial when assessing talent and identifying opportunities for personal and professional development.

1. Agreeableness

What is Agreeableness?

Agreeableness refers to the tendency to get along easily with others and be willing to help those in need. People who score high on Agreeableness are forgiving, non-judgmental, and trusting in nature.

6 Traits of Agreeable People:

Cooperative, empathetic, forgiving, non-judgmental, nurturing, trusting.

Benefits of Strong Agreeableness:

• High scores on Agreeableness are positively related to group performance.⁵
• High scores on Agreeableness are negatively related to abusive supervision^.6
• Agreeableness is positively related to supportive leadership⁷ and the charismatic dimension of transformational leadership.⁸
• Agreeableness has been shown to predict the growth of interpersonal relationships⁹.

Cautions for High Scores on Agreeableness:

• May prefer to avoid conflict rather than manage or proactively mitigate it.
• May try to please others and avoid offering alternative opinions or ideas, even if they are viable or better options.
• May be overly trusting of other people, allowing them to be taken advantage of.

Cautions for Low Scores on Agreeableness:

• May be prone towards instigating or exacerbating conflict.
• May adopt a contentious perspective for unproductive purposes.
• May disrupt group cohesion, teambuilding, and unity.

2. Emotional Stability

What is Emotional Stability?

Emotional Stability refers to the tendency to remain calm and composed when faced with uncertain or stressful situations. People who score high on Emotional Stability are confident and capable of regulating their moods.

6 Traits of Emotionally Stable People:

Accepting of criticism, carefree, even-tempered, capable of handling stress, optimistic, strong self-esteem.

Benefits of Strong Emotional Stability:

• High scores on Emotional Stability have been linked to greater career resilience.¹⁰
• The ability to regulate emotions is associated with better mental health outcomes.¹¹
• Emotional Stability is related to better job satisfaction and performance.¹²

Cautions for High Scores on Emotional Stability:

• May not be able to share in strong emotions to the same extent as others on their team.
• May struggle to understand or be patient with those who are more sensitive to negative emotions
• May not take emotional factors into account when communicating or making decisions.

Cautions for Low Scores on Emotional Stability:

• May not effectively handle pressure, uncertainty, or stressful situations.
• May struggle with receiving constructive criticism and managing conflict.
• May let emotions impede job productivity and satisfaction.

3. Extraversion

What is Extraversion?

Extraversion refers to the tendency to enjoy, feel comfortable, and demonstrate confidence in group settings, including persuading others and assuming leadership roles. Extraverted people are able to modify their actions and words to suit different situations.

6 Traits of Extraverted People:

Desiring affiliation (belonging), desiring to lead, enjoying attention, persuasive, socially adaptable, socially confident.

Benefits of Strong Extraversion:

• Out of all personality traits, Extraversion is the best and most consistent predictor of important leadership outcomes;¹³ Extraversion has also been found to be positively related to transformational leadership^{14,15,16,17,18} and charismatic leadership.¹⁹
• Extraversion is associated with greater life satisfaction and positive relationships.²⁰
• On average, extraverted individuals score higher on motivation and performance.²¹

Cautions for High Scores on Extraversion:

• May struggle to stay motivated and focused when working independently.
• May have a tendency of dominating conversations and struggle with active listening.
• May have a hard time working remotely if living on their own.

Cautions for Low Scores on Extraversion:

• May avoid meetings and teamwork even when they would be beneficial.
• May take longer to adapt to new teams.
• May be less inclined towards management, liaison, or other roles that require more assertiveness or leadership skills.

4. Honesty/Humility

What is Honesty/Humility?

Honesty/Humility refers to the tendency to be truthful, humble, and straightforward with others. People who score high on Honesty/Humility avoid taking risks and carefully follow established rules.

6 Traits of Honest/Humble People:

Modest, risk averse, rule compliant, sincere, truthful, unentitled.

Benefits of Strong Honesty/Humility:

• Studies have shown that leaders’ Honesty/Humility is negatively related to abusive supervision²² and positively related to ethical²³ and authentic leadership.²⁴
• Honesty/Humility is positively correlated with supervisor ratings of overall job performance;²⁵ in fact, in measures of individual and contextual performance, humility has been shown to compensate for lower cognitive ability.²⁶
• Leaders’ expressed humility is positively related with follower engagement.²⁷

Cautions for High Scores on Honesty/Humility:

• May be less adept at communicating strategically and knowing when it is wise to omit information.
• May overlook opportunities due to a strong aversion to risk.
• May struggle to be innovative and creative if they strictly adhere to established procedures.

Cautions for Low Scores on Honesty/Humility:

• May be more prone towards risk-taking and bending the rules.
• May be inclined toward twisting or obscuring difficult news or undesired outcomes.
• May disrupt group cohesion by acting entitled and arrogant.

5. Industriousness

What is Industriousness?

Industriousness refers to the tendency to strive tirelessly for excellence. People who score high on Industriousness work hard, set challenging goals, and derive meaning from work.

6 Traits of Industrious People:

Achievement-oriented, competitive, high/sustained energy, engaged, hard-working, persistent.

Benefits of Strong Industriousness:

• Employees who are engaged in their work tend to do better on overall scores of productivity, well-being, and organizational citizenship.²⁸
• Organizations are more profitable and productive when their employees are engaged.²⁹
• Employee competitiveness is positively related to innovation and career satisfaction.³⁰

Cautions for High Scores on Industriousness:

• May wear out, stress, or frustrate individuals who cannot match their high and sustained energy.
• May disrupt teamwork with their strong competitive spirit.
• May prioritize achievement over maintaining relationships or work/life balance.

Cautions for Low Scores on Industriousness:

• May struggle to stay motivated or to motivate others.
• May be more prone to giving up when a project or relationship becomes difficult.
• May be less inclined to strive for excellence in their work.

6. Methodicalness

What is Methodicalness?

Methodicalness refers to the tendency to act in a deliberate and planful manner. People who score high on Methodicalness can be counted on to meet commitments and deadlines.

6 Traits of Methodical People:

Strong impulse control, organized, planner, punctual, reliable, self-disciplined.

Benefits of Strong Methodicalness:

• Employees with good time management skills are more engaged, proactive, and productive in their roles.³¹
• There is a positive association between time management skills and reduced stress levels among employees.³²
• Self-control is related to higher salary and occupational prestige.³³

Cautions for High Scores on Methodicalness:

• May focus excessively on planning and neglect to implement plans.
• May struggle to make quick decisions or take part in activities spontaneously.
• May have difficulty being flexible and adapting project goals and timelines.

Cautions for Low Scores on Methodicalness:

• May have difficulty adhering to standardized processes.
• May deprioritize punctuality and reliability.
• May struggle to spot subtle mistakes or deliver a high-quality product when the work requires attention to detail.

7. Openness to Experience

What is Openness to Experience?

Openness to Experience refers to the tendency to enjoy creative pursuits and original thinking. People who score high on Openness to Experience thrive when there is an opportunity to learn, discuss differences of opinion, or try something new.

6 Traits of People Who Are Open to Experience:

Abstract thinking, appreciation of aesthetics, breadth of interest, embraces change, embraces differences, innovative.

Benefits of Strong Openness to Experience:

• Openness to Experience is positively related to subjective well-being.³⁴
• Being open minded has a positive, significant effect on group learning capacity.³⁵
• Trying something new has been found to increase the brain’s ability to adapt and solve problems.³⁶

Cautions for High Scores on Openness to Experience:

• May be inclined towards change and innovation when maintaining the status quo is the better option.
• May require a variety of tasks to satisfy their intellectual curiosity.
• May prolong the completion of routine, practical tasks because of a preference for those involving thinking or creativity.

Cautions for Low Scores on Openness to Experience:

• May prefer to follow established procedures rather than trying novel methods that might be more effective.
• May struggle to appreciate different personalities, experiences, and approaches to work.
• May have difficulty grasping “the big picture,” including abstract concepts such as long-term strategy or mission/vision statements.

7 Core Personality Factors: How to Measure

Are you ready to measure the seven core personality factors outlined above? The JPI-3 provides a convenient and scientifically validated solution. Administered online through SIGMA’s state-of-the-art platform, this assessment takes only 20 minutes to complete, making it an ideal tool for your research and talent development initiatives. Complete the form below to share your objectives, and let us help you unlock the full potential of your team. We look forward to hearing from you.

For Researchers

Discounts are available for researchers interested in using SIGMA’s assessments in their studies. If you are interested in using the JPI-3 for research, apply for a research discount below.

Get Started with SIGMA

Are you interested in using our assessments? Apply for a research discount or follow the steps below to submit an order.

Step 1: Complete the Test User Qualifications Form

Step 2: Download the Assessment Order Form

Step 3: Submit Your Assessment Order Form

If you have any questions about our assessments or the application process, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Our team would be happy to speak with you.

Speak With an Expert

Would you like to learn more about SIGMA’s personality assessments? Submit the form below and our team will be in touch with you shortly.

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¹ Rieber, R. W. (Robert W. ). (1980). Wilhelm Wundt and the making of a scientific psychology. Plenum Press.
² Costa, P. & McCrae, R. R. (1999). A five-factor theory of personality. The Five-Factor Model of Personality: Theoretical Perspectives, 2, 51-87.
³ Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2007). Empirical, theoretical, and practical advantages of the HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(2), 150-166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868306294907.
⁴ Campbell, D. (2019, November 4). Being conscientious is one of the strongest predictors of success in the workplace, U of T study finds. University of Toronto. https://www.utoronto.ca/news/being-conscientious-one-strongest-predictors-success-workplace-u-t-study-finds.
⁵ Yukl, G., & Van Fleet, D. D. (1992). Theory and research on leadership in organizations. In M. D. Dunnette & L. M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (2nd ed., pp. 147-197). Consulting Psychologists Press.
⁶ Breevaart, K., & de Vries, R. E. (2017). Supervisor’s HEXACO personality traits and subordinate perceptions of abusive supervision. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(5), 691-700. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.02.001.
⁷ de Vries, R. E. (2012). Personality predictors of leadership styles and the self-other agreement problem. Leadership Quarterly, 23(5), 809-821. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2012.03.002.
⁸ Judge, T. A., & Bono, J. E. (2000). Five-factor model of personality and transformational leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(5),751-765. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.85.5.751.
⁹ Yang, D., & Tu, C. (2020). Influence of college students’ agreeableness on interpersonal relationships: Moderating role of empathy. Education and Urban Society, 53(4), 383-401. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124520928609.
¹⁰ Arora, R., & Rangnekar, S. (2015). Relationships between emotional stability, psychosocial mentoring support and career resilience. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 11(1), 16-33. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835.
¹¹ Kraiss, J. T., ten Klooster, P. M., Moskowitz, J. T., & Bohlmeijer, E. T. (2020). The relationship between emotion regulation and well-being in patients with mental disorders: A meta-analysis. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 102, Article 152189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comppsych.2020.152189.
¹² Judge, T.A., & Bono, J. E. (2001). Relationship of core self-evaluations traits—self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability—with job satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(1), 80-92. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.1.80.
¹³ Zhang, J., Yin, K., & Li, S. (2022). Leader extraversion and team performance: A moderated mediation model. PLoS One, 17 (12), Article e027876. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278769
¹⁴ Felfe, J., & Schyns, B. (2006). Personality and the perception of transformational leadership: The impact of extraversion, neuroticism, personal need for structure, and occupational self efficacy. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36(3), 708-739. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0021-9029.2006.00026.x.
¹⁵ Judge, T. A., & Bono, J. E. (2000). Five-Factor Model of personality and transformational leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(5), 751-765. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.85.5.751.
¹⁶ Lim, B. C., & Ployhart, R. E. (2004). Transformational leadership: Relations to the Five-Factor Model and team performance in typical and maximum contexts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(4), 610-621. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.4.610.
¹⁷ Phipps, S. T., & Prieto, L. C. (2011). The influence of personality factors on transformational leadership: Exploring the moderating role of political skill. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 6(3), 430-447.
¹⁸ Rubin, R. S., Munz, D. C., & Bommer, W. H. (2005). Leading from within: The effects of emotion recognition and personality on transformational leadership behaviour. The Academy of Management Journal, 48(5), 845-858. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMJ.2005.18803926.
¹⁹ de Vries, R. E. (2012). Personality predictors of leadership styles and the self-other agreement problem. Leadership Quarterly, 23(5), 809-821. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2012.03.002.
²⁰ Wilmot, M. P., Wanberg, C. R., Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D., & Ones, D. S. (2019). Extraversion advantages at work: A quantitative review and synthesis of the meta-analytic evidence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(12), 1447–1470. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000415.
²¹ Ibid.
²² Breevaart, K., & de Vries, R. E. (2017). Supervisor’s HEXACO personality traits and subordinate perceptions of abusive supervision. The Leadership Quarterly, 28, 691–700. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.02.001.
²³ de Vries, R. E. (2012). Personality predictors of leadership styles and the self-other agreement problem. Leadership Quarterly, 23(5), 809-821. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2012.03.002.
²⁴ Malik, M. F., Burhan, Q., & Khan, M. A. (2023). The role of HEXACO in the development of authentic leadership and its consequences on task performance. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 44(1), 52-71. https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-08-2022-0356.
²⁵ Shen, M., Rowatt, W. & Petrini, L. (2011). A new trait on the market: Honesty-Humility as a unique predictor of job performance ratings. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(6), 857-862. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.01.011.
²⁶ Owens, B. P., Johnson, M. D., & Mitchell, T. R. (2013). Expressed humility in organizations: Implications for
performance, teams, and leadership. Organization Science, 24(5), 1517-1538. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1120.0795
²⁷ Ibid.
²⁸ Gallup. (2024). The relationship between engagement at work and organizational outcomes: Q12® Meta-Analysis [11th Ed.]. Gallup. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/321725/gallup-q12-meta-analysis-report.aspx
²⁹ Ibid.
³⁰ Songke, X., Meng, X., Chaoping, L., & Dege, L. (2023). Can trait competitiveness foster positive outcomes? The role of perceived insider status and leader competitiveness. Personality and Individual Differences, 202, Article 111968. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2022.111968.
³¹ Claessens, B. J. C., van Eerde, W., Rutte, C. G., & Roe, R. A. (2007). A review of the time management literature. Personnel Review, 36(2), 255–276. https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480710726136.
³² Bond M. J., & Feather, N.T. (1988). Some correlates of structure and purpose in the use of time. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 61(4), 319-329. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.55.2.321.
³³ Converse, P., Pathak, J., DePaul-Haddock, A., Gotlib, T., & Merbedone, M. (2012). Controlling your environment and yourself: Implications for career success. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80(1), 148-159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2011.07.003.
³⁴ Tucaković, L., & Nedeljković, B. (2023). Personality and affective correlates of openness to experience from Big Five and HEXACO personality models: The dual nature of Big Five openness. Journal of Personality Assessment, 105(4), 544-554. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2022.2117047.
³⁵ Lord, M. (2015). Group learning capacity: The roles of open-mindedness and shared vision. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, Article 150. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00150.
³⁶ Park, A. J., Harris, A. Z., Martyniuk, K. M., Chang, C.-Y., Abbas, A. I., Lowes, D. C., Kellendonk, C., Gogos, J. A., & Gordon, J. A. (2021). Reset of hippocampal-prefrontal circuitry facilitates learning. Nature, 591(7851), 615–619. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03272-1.

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7 MIN READ

The Big Five OCEAN Personality Types: Introduction and Discussions

Chris Martin

The big five personality traits, often referred to as OCEAN, and sometimes CANOE, are: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. These five traits represent broad domains of human behaviour and account for differences in both personality and decision making. Today, the model is used by HR practitioners to evaluate potential employees and marketers to understand the audiences of their products.The history and development of the traits is long and not without significant challenge. In fact, the earliest known attempt to build a taxonomy of human behaviour dates back to the late 1800s. Between that first investigation and the 1940s, the taxonomy was refined from over 4,000 traits to 171 and eventually 5.However, psychological and sociological discourse over the next two decades would call into question the validity of any attempt to correlate personality with behaviour. The influential book Personality and Assessment, authored by Walter Mischel , went so far as to suggest that there was only a correlation of 0.3 between personality and behaviour. Mischel argued the case that situational variables had a much greater impact on action than pre-disposition.Tweet ThisThe Big 5 OCEAN personality traits – openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism – took over 100 years to be narrowed from 4,500 to just five.By the 1990s, it had been widely accepted that both situational and personality factors affect in-the-moment behaviours. As recently as 2016, research and refinement of the OCEAN model has been ongoing, demonstrating just how influential it is – even to this day.The Big Five Personality TraitsOpenness to experience. Sometimes called intellect or imagination, this represents the willingness to try new things and think outside the box. Traits include insightfulness, originality and curiosity.Conscientiousness. The desire to be careful, diligent and to regulate immediate gratification with self-discipline. Traits include ambition, discipline, consistency and reliability.Extroversion. A state where an individual draws energy from others and seeks social connections or interaction, as opposed to being alone (introversion). Traits include being outgoing, energetic and confident.Agreeableness The measure of how an individual interacts with others, characterised by degree of compassion and co-operation. Traits include tactfulness, kindness and loyalty.Neuroticism. A tendency towards negative personality traits, emotional instability and self-destructive thinking. Traits include pessimism, anxiety, insecurity and fearfulness.

How the Model is Used TodayThe OCEAN model is best thought of as a series of interconnected scales. Everyone will sit somewhere on each scale, but tests that use the OCEAN framework aim to determine the degree to which an individual shows the traits covered by each of the domains.Many organisations use employee scores to determine cultural fit, in addition to building teams that have similar or complimentary personality traits. Some even take this a step further by providing staff with a summary of their results and advice on how best to communicate with employees with different personality types.Outside of HR departments, marketers are the most frequent users of the OCEAN framework. Often combined with demographic or other targeting factors, the model is used to help understand audiences and what will likely appeal to them based on the commonalities within their personality profiles. Much has been written about subsets of personality types that marketers can target, in addition to strategies for doing so.Debates and ChallengesWhile the Big Five represent the prevailing theory of personality, the model is not without its challenges. The most significant is simply the fast changing nature of the discourse around topics of the self, identity and personality. Additionally, there is no single consensus on how to assess an individual based on the OCEAN framework. The most well accepted is the NEO PI assessment, which has been three times since its initial inception in the late 1970s. However, there are also NEO FFR and NEO PI-R assessments which offer variations on assessment tactic.A more direct challenge that researchers and marketers face is that assessing personality types is a lengthy process. Even the shortest accepted assessment – the NEO FFI – asks individuals to rate 60 items on a 5-point scale. This drawn out process makes it difficult to put the OCEAN framework to use on a regular basis. But that is not to say the model does not add value when it can be implemented.Tweet ThisThe most significant challenges researchers must overcome to make full use of the OCEAN framework is finding a succinct way to assess consumers without lengthy, un-engaging surveys.Writing in Greenbook, Brooke Patton highlights recent examples from GutCheck that apply the Big Five personality traits to consumer research. By including personality assessments, the agency found that the favourable audience of a brand’s new product concept also scored high on the agreeableness scale. The result highlighted the messages and communications that the brand should use in order to reach their target audience in a positive way.On the other hand, a literature review of studies into The Big Five and their applications in marketing from The University of Vienna points out some of the reasons for marketers and researchers alike to be cautious. Notably:Personality traits do not take into consideration cross-cultural or demographic differences in behaviourThe OCEAN framework is a simplification of a complex topic and should never be used without a hint of cautionThe theory of personality traits and assessment methods are frequently changing, making choice of methodology is importantIn summary, while there are – as with most measures – both advantages and limitations to The Big Five personality traits, they still represent the most coherent and researched model of personality that has been devised to date. With careful planning and a clear understanding of how they will inform research, the OCEAN model can add a huge amount of value to brands’ understanding of their audiences.

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Chris is an experienced executive and marketing strategist in the insight and technology sectors. He also hosts our MRX Lab podcast.

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