Monthly Archives: October 2022

What Is the Eros Love Style?

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In the 1970s, Canadian sociologist John Alan Lee (1933–2013) came up with the typology of love styles, which many researchers interested in love have investigated since that time (Lee, 1973, 1976). His ideas about love and how to study it were important and unique additions to the field (Karandashev, 2022).

John Lee developed and empirically validated the conceptualization of six love styles. The original author’s descriptions of the six love styles he proposed have been abridged and reduced to some shortcuts over the years of love research and publication. To some extent, Lee’s original meanings have been distorted by these truncated attributes. Here I present several excerpts from my publications in which I present a more comprehensive description of the Eros love style.

Lee’s Theoretical Description of the Eros Love Style

“Individuals with the Eros love style are very interested in and fascinated by the physical appearance of a potential partner. The lovers see in their beloved the physical characteristics that match their ideal image of the beautiful. Physical romantic attraction is a central tenet of their love.”

(Excerpt from Karandashev, 2022, p. 78).

Lee’s Empirically Identified Characteristics of the Eros Love Style

The “love story card sort” in-depth interviews with 120 participants yielded approximately 100,000 data points. The simple form of factor analysis identified 32 factors that distinguished the six clearly identifiable love styles with their most salient features. Based on this analysis, John Lee described the Eros love style as follows:

“Participants with eros style usually have had a happy childhood, a warm relationship with siblings and parents. They feel content with their life and work. They are ready for love, yet do not look anxiously for it. The erotic lovers typically clearly know which physical type is attractive to them. They can express it verbally, or by quickly selecting that type among a set of photographs (Lee,1973, p. 248). Participants with the eros love style are quite demanding and specific in their expectations that a beloved must conform to their ideal image. They openly and promptly communicate their recognition and appreciation to the beloved which fulfil their ideal expectation of a physical type.

The lovers of eros style are inclined to quickly disclose themselves and expects the disclosure of the beloved. They frequently discuss the topics of involvement with a partner to magnify these feelings. From the beginning of a relationship, they are willing to meet the beloved as frequently as possible. They are looking forward to building up an extensive and deep understanding. They are yearning for sexual intimacy. They enjoy experiencing intensive sensations and emotions. They are self-confident in love, and therefore, neither anxious and demanding, nor obsessively possessive.”

(Excerpt from Karandashev, 2022, p. 81).

The Eros Love Style is a Love Type

As one can see, the Eros love style represents a distinct cluster of personal beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and individual identity that men and women exhibit in love. They define lovers’ love attitudes, experiences, expressions, actions, and interactions. These individual characteristics are empirically distinguishable. They are related to each other in a typical combination that defines the Eros typological structure.

So, the Eros love style is a type of love rather than a variable, how it is measured with the Love Attitude Scale (Hendrick & Henrick, 1986, 1998).

How John Lee Originally Assessed Love Styles

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In the 1970s, a Canadian sociologist, John Alan Lee (1933–2013), developed the typology of love styles that attracted the attention of many love researchers (Lee, 1973, 1976). John Lee’s theory and method made important and original contributions to the study of love (Karandashev, 2022).

Love researchers immediately embraced this classification of love styles in their studies. Lee’s love styles have been widely used since then. However, his theory and method are often misrepresented in modern publications. Contemporary researchers interpret these styles in ways that differ from how John Lee thought of them.

They largely used the Love Attitudes Scale (LAS), which Clyde and Susan Hendricks created during the 1980s to measure love styles. So, the theory and method of love styles, originally developed by John Lee, have been mainly known and used in this interpretation and measured with the LAS (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986; Hendrick, Hendrick, and Dicke, 1998). The Love Attitude Scale (LAS) has been a valid and reliable psychometric scale. However, it was a truncated version of the deeper and more complex method that Lee used in his research.

Looking Back to Lee’s Original Theory and Method

I believe it is worthwhile for modern love researchers to revisit the original version of the method. I think it would be a great idea to try using that original version of Lee’s method. This kind of research might give a richer and more complex picture of the love styles that people follow in their romantic relationships. My previous article presented what Lee’s original theory was. This article describes what his original method was.

This Is How John Lee Came to His Theory of Love Styles

An initial extensive analysis of literature allowed John Lee to develop the typology of love styles (Lee, 1973, 1976). Then, he administered a series of pilot empirical studies and explored their results with an extensive content analysis. A group of judges helped the author describe and check that the sets of valid, mutually exclusive, sufficiently complete, and important features of each of the six different love styles were correct.  The descriptors and indicators he included in this content analysis were

  • physical symptoms involved in the lover’s experience of love (e.g., loss of appetite, sleep),
  • sexual attraction,
  • emotional pain,
  • compulsive attention to the beloved,
  • the willingness to abase, or alter the self to please the beloved,
  • jealousy,
  • self-disclosure,
  • consciously manipulative behavior,
  • the need for reciprocity, and others.

(Lee, 1973, p. 232).

The Method of “Love Story Card Sort”

In the main part of the study, Lee used the “Love Story Card Sort,” which is an interview method for a sensitive and coded systematic investigation of the love experience. On 1500 cards (arranged in 170 sets), a researcher exposed brief descriptions of an idea, event, or emotion that might occur in a romantic relationship. The card descriptions referred to the various facets of love:

  • the experience and expression of feelings,
  • the expectations of the beloved’s feelings and reciprocity,
  • preoccupation with the beloved,
  • the feelings of anxiety,
  • anticipated troubles,
  • the frequency and ways of contact with the beloved,
  • the expectations about a love relationship,
  • the frequency and matters of conflicts with the beloved, and so on.

Thus, according to Lee’s description, “the whole sort comprises an omnibus love story, from which a respondent can select the relevant cards to tell his or her own story.” (Lee, 1977, p. 176).

While an individual’s experience of love may appear to be unique, it is comprised of a collection of ideas, norms, and behavioral patterns that a culture encourages a person to follow. The modules of experience can combine with each other in a variety of ways. However, the love stories can only use a limited number of these modules and connect them in a limited number of ways. In this card sorting interview method, a person answered each question by choosing one from a set of cards that had possible answers. For instance:

“On our first date, the closest we got to being intimate was

a) just being together, we never actually touched,

b) holding hands,

c) one good-night, or parting kiss,

d) kissing several times,

e) cuddling, holding each other close, embracing while clothed,

(f) close body contact unclothed, without sexual intercourse,

(g) we spent the night in the same bed but did not make love,

(h) making love all the way, (i) other (specify).”

(Lee, 1977, p. 176).

The Procedure of “Love Story Card Sort”

An interviewer shows the cards in succession. Participants choose the most suitable cards to illustrate the points in their narratives. Participants often feel their re-evoked emotions during the procedure. They may shed tears, laugh, experience nostalgia, or lament the events. The method allows a participant to reveal the emotional details of their experiences by dividing their complex experiences into discrete and recordable units. The interviewer records and categorizes the data. Based on the cards that participants choose, researchers construct or reconstruct a participant’s romantic relationship, which could be blissful, relaxed, hectic, or tragic.

The Pros and Cons of the “Love Story Card Sort”

The “love story card sort” method is more flexible and adaptive for the in-depth study of love than a survey with a Likert-type scale. It gives a more comprehensive and complex typological description of the six love styles.

The Likert-type scale method, on the other hand, provides a more systematic and standard way of measuring love styles than an in-depth “card sort” interview. It allows for the identification of distinct patterns of love styles. An independent study on a large sample of participants used a Guttman-Lingoes Smallest Space Analysis. Its results revealed that six love styles are mutually exclusive (Lasswell, T. & Lasswell, M., 1976).

The Typology of Love Styles Developed by John Alan Lee

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What are the different types of love? Since the middle of the 20th century, the typology of love has been an interesting topic of inquiry for many people and love researchers. Scholars of love have proposed many different types of love (Karandashev, 2022).

The love studies of the 1970s presented substantial advancements in our understanding of typological differences in the ways people love in romantic relationships (Lasswell & Lasswell, 1976; Lasswell & Lobsenz, 1980; Lee, 1973, 1976).

John Alan Lee (1933–2013), a Canadian social researcher, was among the key scholarly figures in love studies during the 1970s and 1980s.

John Alan Lee’s Contribution to the Studies of Love

The typology of love styles he proposed has substantially affected the love studies of the following decades (Karandashev, 2022). So, I could say he was a genius in the research of love who made major steps forward in our scholarly understanding of the various personality types associated with romantic love relationships.
Love researchers quickly adopted Lee’s (1973) categorization of love styles and widely used them in their studies in the following decades. Despite the popularity of Lee’s love styles in modern love research, contemporary publications often misrepresent his theory and method to some extent. They sometimes interpret the love styles in ways that deviate from Lee’s original conceptualization. So, this article rectifies these misinterpretations and presents Lee’s original theory and method.

Here Are the Core Points of Lee’s Theory of Love Styles

The theory describes the typology of individual ways men and women approach their love relationships. The theory embraces several phenomenological planes, including love ideas, beliefs, attitudes, personal identity in love, and love behavior. It is worth noting that the author noted

“a puzzling contradiction between the opinions which subjects said they held about true love and the behaviour they reported enacting when actually in a love relationship.”

(Lee, 1977, p. 176).

The six love styles in the typology represent the distinctive clusters of personal beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and individual identity that men and women exhibit in love. These individual attributes are related to one another and are empirically distinguishable. They characterize the love attitudes, experiences, expressions, actions, and interactions of lovers. Lee denoted these love styles with conventional labels borrowed from the Greek and Latin lexicon of love.

A Comprehensive Description of the Six Love Styles by John Lee

Over the years of love research and publications, the original author’s descriptions of the six love styles he proposed have been abridged and reduced to some shortcuts. These truncated attributes have distorted, to some extent, Lee’s original meanings.

Lee’s descriptions of the six love styles can be summed up in the following ways:

  1. Individuals with Eros love style are very interested in and fascinated by the physical appearance of a potential partner. The lovers perceive in a beloved the physical type concordant with their ideal image of the beautiful. Physical romantic attraction is a central tenet of their love.
  2. Individuals with Ludus love style are playful and game-loving in their expressions and behaviors. They are pluralistic and permissive in their choices and actions. They often engage in multiple and relatively short-lived relationships. They tend to control their involvement in a relationship in an attempt to avoid the feeling of jealousy.
  3. Individuals with Storge love style tend to avoid self-conscious passion, slowly disclosing their selves and gradually building up affection and companionship, with the expectation of long-term commitment.
  4. Individuals with Mania love style are emotionally intense, very obsessive and preoccupied with the beloved, and therefore frequently jealous. They crave repeated reassurance of being loved.
  5. Individuals with Agape love style feel it is their duty to love another with no expectation of reciprocity. Reasons, rather than emotions, guide their feelings and actions. They are caring, altruistic, and gentle.
  6. Individuals with Pragma love style deliberately consider how suitable a potential beloved is for their prospective relationship. They look for a compatible match, taking into account the age, religion, education, vocation, and other demographic characteristics of a prospective partner.

(Reproduced from Karandashev, 2022).

Lee’s Thoughts on the Typological Structure of Love Styles 

The author proposed the hierarchical taxonomic structure of these love styles (Lee, 1973, 1976). So, he illustrated this love typology with a circle of love. A color system provided an illustrative analogy that would be meaningful to represent love styles as a vivid taxonomical system. The colors themselves have no special meanings. Their ability to mix with each other and overlap demonstrates their complex relationships.

How People Experience and Express Emotions in Individualistic Cultures

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Several cultural ideals, the norms of social life, personality traits, emotions, and behavior define the individualistic features of societies. The key attributes of an individualistic culture are

  • personal autonomy and relational independence,
  • the primacy of a person’s individuality and uniqueness,
  • the priority of individual aspirations and self-realization,
  • the primacy of a person’s self-interest and an individual’s rights,
  • the lower priority of the others’ interests and needs.

(Triandis, 1995; Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988).

The individual characteristics of a person define her or his self-identity. It includes individual motivations, goals, attitudes, traits, emotions, and actions. Individuals are relatively independent in their interpersonal relationships (Karandashev, 2021).

Interesting Findings on How People in Individualistic Cultures Experience Their Emotions

These personal characteristics of people in individualistic cultures affect the contexts and situations in which they experience certain emotions. These individualistic characteristics also influence the way they feel certain emotions. The emotionality traits of people also determine the frequency and intensity with which people experience certain emotions. They also determine relatively pleasant and unpleasant emotions people experience in their lives.

According to research, people in individualistic societies experience a lower level of negative emotions and a higher level of positive emotions (Basabe et al., 2002).

Another study (Chentsova-Dutton & Tsai, 2010) found that,

  • European Americans, as the representatives of an individualistic culture, feel the amplified emotions when they pay attention to individual aspects of their self.
  • Asian Americans, as the representatives of a collectivistic culture, feel the amplified emotions when they pay attention attention to relational aspects of their self

Several studies (Kitayama et al., 2000; Kitayama et al., 2006; Uchida & Kitayama, 2009) show that people in individualistic cultures tend to experience pride, self-esteem, and frustration as the socially disengaging emotions more frequently than sympathy, respect, and friendliness as the socially engaging emotions.

How Happy Are the People in Individualistic Cultures?

How does individualism, as a cultural factor, affect the emotional experiences of people’s well-being and happiness in individualistic societies? A recent large study of 21 thousand people from 48 countries investigated how individualism as a cultural variable can affect their subjective well-being. Researchers conducted the study over three time periods from 1980 to 2000. Based on their theory, they thought that cultural characteristics of societies rather than people’s wealth would lead to their satisfaction with life and relationships (Steel, Taras, Uggerslev, & Bosco, 2018).

The Happiness of Individualistic Cultures at the Individual Level

Surprisingly, researchers revealed that individualism at the individual level predicted the lower subjective well-being of people. Individualism as an individual variable predicted less happiness people experienced in their lives and in family relationships. It was true even when wealth was taken into account.

So, the findings show that the cultural values of autonomy and individualism are not beneficial for individual well-being (Steel et al., 2008).

The Happiness of Individualistic Cultures at the National Level

Surprisingly different from this finding, happy nations are typically high in individualism at the national level. Individualism as a cultural variable predicted subjective well-being at the national level. Researchers found that besides the impact of individualism-collectivism, a country’s political and economic circumstances also predicted people’s subjective well-being. Yet, the latter effect was partially independent of individualism (Steel et al., 2008).

How Do People in Individualistic Cultures Express Their Emotions?

The cultural norms of individualistic societies also favor certain ways in which people should express their emotions. Studies have revealed several interesting findings. They found that people in individualistic cultures tend to

  • exhibit higher levels of general emotional expressiveness (van Hemert et al., 2007);
  • believe they have a right to express their emotions as important personal experiences (Markus & Kitayama, 1991);
  • prefer external displays of emotions as expressions of individuality and
  • exaggerate the intensity of the emotional experience (Matsumoto, Takeuchi, Andayani, Kouznetsova, & Krupp, 1998).

All these findings are in accord with cultural values of autonomy, separateness, and uniqueness of individuals in individualistic societies (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), which I highlighted in another article.

Cultural Values in Individualistic Cultures

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Individualism and collectivism are the two opposite constructs and dimensions of culture. These dimensions have been among the most popular in cultural and cross-cultural studies of the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s (Hofstede, 1980/1984; Marsella et al., 1985; Triandis, 1995). Cross-cultural researchers have investigated how various social, economic, and psychological parameters vary depending on whether people live in individualistic or collectivistic societies. The variables of emotional experiences and expressions were among those (Karandashev, 2021).

The Examples of Individualistic Countries

Many of the most individualistic societies are in North America, Western and Northern Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Among those typical instances are the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark (Hofstede, 1984; 2011; Hui & Triandis, 1986; Gelfand, et al., 2000; Kashima, et al., 1995; Triandis, 1995).

Individualistic Cultures vs. Collectivistic Cultures

There are two key groups of cultural phenomena that distinguish individualistic cultures from collectivistic cultures (Hofstede & Bond, 1984, p. 419). Individualistic cultures

  • emphasize individual goals, whereas collectivistic cultures emphasize group goals over individual goals.
  • expect people to look after themselves and their immediate family, whereas collectivistic cultures expect people to belong to in-groups, such as families, that look after them in exchange for their loyalty

The Values of People in Individualistic Societies

Triandis and his colleagues considered personal independence, autonomy, initiative, self-reliance, and freedom as the values associated with individualism in a culture (Triandis, 1995; Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988). These cultural values of individualistic societies are the opposite of the collectivistic values of family unity, loyalty, and integrity. Individualistic cultures promote the formation of personal and specific friendships.

Here are several key features of cultural values, norms, and practices that people follow in individualistic societies. Individualistic cultures tend to appreciate

  • personal autonomy,
  • personal independence,
  • the primacy of personality uniqueness,
  • the individual’s goals and actions,
  • individual initiative and self-realization,
  • the individual’s rights rather than duties,
  • a person’s self-interest and his immediate family,
  • less concern for the needs and interests of others.

The Personal Identity of Men and Women in Individualistic Cultures

The individuality of a person and their personal characteristics constitute their self-identity. In terms of personal motivation, people prioritize individual goals over collective goals. Interpersonal connections and relationships are loose and relatively independent.

People in Individualistic Cultures Exhibit Uniform Behavior Towards Members of the In-Group and Out-Group

The cultural norms of individualistic societies encourage men and women to follow the same norms and rules of behavior in both in-group and out-group relationships and contexts. In individualistic cultures, where interpersonal independence and autonomy are highly valued, men and women commonly follow the same kinds of behavior in contact with others from their in-groups and out-groups. It is different from collectivistic cultures in which people highly value embeddedness and interdependence. They tend to differentiate their behavior toward others from their in-group versus out-group (Smith & Bond, 1999).

How People Experience Emotions in Collectivistic Cultures

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People in collectivistic societies commonly have a personal identity strongly integrated into their group. Accordingly, the cultural norms of collectivistic societies assume interdependent relations with each other and with a group, such as extended family and kin. Their relational values determine how they experience and express their emotions. Interpersonal relationship harmony is a more important determinant of emotional experience than individual assertion (Karandashev, 2021). Researchers revealed that some Asian countries, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Pakistan, as well as some South American countries, such as Peru, Chile, Venezuela, and Colombia, are among the most typical collectivistic cultures in the world. The societies of African, Arab, and Eastern European countries are also collectivistic, however, to a lesser degree (Basabe & Ros, 2005).

How People Feel About Themselves in Collectivistic Cultures

Men and women in collectivistic cultures are tightly embedded in so-called in-groups, such as kin and extended families. An individual’s loyalty to a group is its greatest value. People in collectivistic cultures regard their “in-group” values as more important than individual values. Individuals tend to subordinate personal motivation and emotions to group goals.

The sense of personal identity that a person has is determined by their place in a group. Personal privacy has little value and is vulnerable to the intrusion of other members of a group. Individual assertion is less important in collectivistic cultures, while interpersonal relationship harmony is more important (Noon & Lewis, 1992). The group encourages members to adhere to particular norms of emotional experience, expression, and behavior in order to facilitate mutual support and shared experiences. People rely on a group for emotional support.

Relational Emotions in Collectivistic Cultures

Cultural beliefs in collectivistic societies regard emotions as interactive rather than individual experiences. Their emotional experiences reflect people’s social context rather than their internal selves. Emotions are regarded as situational cues about interpersonal relationships.

The Collectivistic Cultural Value of Engaging Emotions

Several cultural studies show that people in collectivistic societies experience more typically socially engaging emotions such as friendliness, sympathy, and respect more frequently. On the other hand, they experience less socially disengaging emotions such as pride, frustration, and self-esteem. (Kitayama et al., 2000; Kitayama et al., 2006; Uchida & Kitayama, 2009).

The Dialectical Mixture of Emotional Experiences in Collectivistic Cultures

Cultural norms of collectivistic cultures acknowledge that positive and negative emotions naturally coexist and can occur simultaneously in our daily emotional experiences. People are used to feeling a dialectical mixture of both positive and negative emotions in their lives (Aaker, Drolet, & Griffin, 2008; Hong & Lee, 2010; Kim et al., 2014; Williams & Aaker, 2002).

Collectivistic Societies Are the Cultures of Emotional Moderation

Collectivist cultural ideals advise people to restrain or moderate their emotional experiences and expressions. The cultural norms suggest appreciating both positive and negative feelings while remaining calm, composed, and at peace. People should prefer emotions of low frequency, duration, and intensity (Bond, 1993; Tamir et al., 2016; Tsai, Knutson, & Fung, 2006; Tsai, Miao, Seppala, Fung, &Yeung, 2007). This is why, in real life, people in collectivistic cultures typically feel their emotions with relatively low intensity (Basabe et al., 2000; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Scherer et al., 1988; Matsumoto, 1991).

The Collectivistic Value of Emotional Control

For people living in collectivistic cultures, the external interactional aspects of emotions are essential for their emotional experience and expression. They commonly consider how one’s behavior and emotions affect others. Therefore, the cultural norms in collectivistic cultures place a high value on emotional control and cultural support for the suppression of emotions. People usually show their emotions in a limited range of situations and social contexts (Potter, 1988; van Hemert et al., 2007).

Cultural Values in Collectivistic Cultures

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Collectivism and individualism were among the cultural constructs and dimensions that early cross-cultural psychologists identified and elaborated on in the 1980s and 1990s (Hofstede, 1980/1984; Marsella et al., 1985; Triandis, 1995). Since then, researchers have widely used the cultural parameters of collectivism and individualism in their cross-cultural studies. The characteristics of societies as collectivistic or individualistic have been the most popular among researchers in many social, economic, cultural, and psychological disciplines.

What Is Collectivism?

The key attributes of collectivism and individualism are

  • The normative relations between an individual and a group and
  • The degree to which people in a society are integrated into groups.

Societies are characterized as collectivistic or individualistic when these value orientations characterize the majority of their members (Hui & Triandis, 1986). People within a given society certainly vary in their personal cultural orientations, either collectivism or individualism.  The degree of collectivism and individualism can also vary across different types of interpersonal relationships. People can be more or less collectivistic and individualistic in their relationships with their kin, parents, neighbors, friends, and coworkers (Karandashev, 2021a).

What Are Collectivistic Cultures?

People in collectivist cultures are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, such as extended families. A paramount value of a collectivistic society is an individual’s loyalty to a group. The group in turn protects an individual’s interests and well-being while opposing other groups.

Collectivistic cultures prioritize in-group beliefs over individual beliefs. In terms of personal motivation, individuals subordinate their goals to group goals. Group goals take precedence over individual goals. In-group norms are higher in value than individual pleasures and personal motivation. In order to facilitate mutual support and shared experiences, the group encourages individuals to follow certain norms of emotional experience, expression, and behavior. The value of personal privacy is low and can be violated. One’s place in a group determines an individual’s sense of personal identity. People are emotionally dependent on a group.

The Values of People in Collectivistic Societies

The key collectivistic values emphasize:

  • interpersonal bonds,
  • unity, loyalty, and integrity,
  • group harmony and solidarity,
  • family relationships and obligation,
  • awareness of and responsiveness to the needs of others,
  • emotional interdependence,
  • and a sense of interconnectedness.

(Hofstede, 1980/1984; 2011; Hui & Triandis, 1986; Gelfand, et al., 2000; Kashima, et al., 1995; Triandis, 1995 ; Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988).

The central tenets of collectivist beliefs are group cooperation, a sense of obligation, duty toward the group, and in-group harmony (Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002).

In-group versus Out-group Bias in Collectivistic Cultures

People in collectivistic cultures feel highly embedded in their relationships. Relationships with kin, family, and friends develop early in their lives.

People in collectivistic cultures tend to strongly differentiate their behavior toward in-group versus out-group members. They have different standards for members of their in-groups and out-groups. (Hofstede, 1980/1984; Smith&Bond, 1999).

Men and women are collectivistic in their interactions with in-group members (family, friends, etc.), but individualistic in their interactions with out-group members (strangers, people from other cultural groups).

Can People Build a True Egalitarian Society?

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The idea of an egalitarian society, in which social equality between people is a cultural norm, sounds good for a society to be fair to all. Many could declare their desire to be fair-minded to others. However, this cultural value of an egalitarian society is hard to achieve in social reality. Why so?

Generally, the idea of an egalitarian society where people are socially equal may sound good. It is nice and fair when it is abstract. People in general, and particularly those who belong to the high and middle classes, so-called privileged people, tend to view inequality as something impersonal and fairly distant.

However, they follow this tendency only up to the point when they encounter real intergroup comparative contexts.  Then, they tend to perceive inequality with personal and social bias. As Professor of Psychological Science at the University of California, Paul Piff commented in this regard,

The new progressive social policies aim to reduce inequality and help the poor. These proposed policies may not necessarily motivate wealthy people to support such initiatives. These policies rarely make an appeal to the self-interests of people from the upper social class. Therefore, these advantaged people prefer to preserve the status quo as it benefits them.

In-group Versus Out-group Biases

In-group versus out-group bias and self-interest of people who are currently in a privileged social status play a role in resisting progress in social equality. As N. Derek Brown and his colleagues showed in their experiments (Brown et al., 2022), people of a privileged group consider social equality as good only if it increases equality within their social ingroup but not when it increases in another social group. These studies revealed that equality can appear in a negative shadow for people who have a privileged status because of in-group and out-group biases. Therefore, they misunderstand the social consequences of inequality and social disparities.

What the Old Allegory Teaches Us about Modern False Perceptions of Equality

In a deep-rooted folk parable, God appeared before Vladimir, a poor peasant, and offered to grant him one wish. God told him that he could wish anything.

“Vladimir, I will grant you one wish. Anything you wish for shall be yours.”

Vladimir was excited and started to turn over the numerous possibilities in his head.

But then God adds a stipulation: Anything that he grants Vladimir, he also grants twice to Ivan, Vladimir’s neighbor.

“Anything, I grant to you, I will give to your neighbor, Ivan, twice over.”

After giving it some thought, Vladimir replied,

“Okay, God, I want you to gouge one of my eyes out.”

This punchline tells us something quite intriguing about how paradoxically people can behave in situations of choice.

What Is the “Minimal Group Paradigm” and How Does It Work in Our Group Relations

This fable reminds me of the “Minimal Group Paradigm,” the theory that social psychologist Henri Tajfel developed in his research in the 1970s. He discovered that people willingly categorize people into in-groups and out-groups.
Once we identify ourselves with a group, we come up with explanations of why we are better and why we should all be in the same group. As it turns out, group identity hates a dry spell.
When groups are divided, we naturally favor our own. But what’s more, we prioritize immediate relative gain over absolute overall gain. In his studies, Tajfel demonstrated that the one thing we never do is try to maximize the final result for everyone. Therefore, even though we could all benefit, we’d prefer not to if it meant that the other group would benefit more.

According to Brown and his colleagues’ findings (Brown et al., 2022), even when the people of a privileged group stand to gain some benefits, they frequently refuse to assist a disadvantaged group. Even though they say they want more equality in society, they tend to keep and protect their relative advantage.

How American History Illustrates This Grim Truth About Inequality

The grim history of American racism exemplifies the paradox of social inequality. This is how the policy advocate and New York Times author describes it in her recent book, “The sum of us: What racism costs everyone and how we can prosper together.”

McGhee, H. (2022). The sum of us: What racism costs everyone and how we can prosper together. One World. In the 1940s and 1950s, some white American communities were forced to integrate public pools and parks, which grew in popularity. Then, many of them frequently chose to destroy the spaces rather than share them with their black neighbors.

The Last Equality Study Showed a Grimmer Perspective on Equality

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Many modern societies have made great strides in promoting social equality. Some nations promote equality more than others. In Western and northern European countries, social equality has advanced quickly. The U.S. equality movement is slower. Voters and policymakers often oppose equality legislation.

Why do conservatives and liberals oppose fair proposals that benefit all? A series of studies have shown that they just misunderstand contexts and, therefore, resist social equality.

Here Is What the Previous Studies on “Zero-sum” Mindsets Revealed

In my previous articles, I presented several experiments conducted by N. Derek Brown and his colleagues (Brown et al., 2022). Their results showed the hidden role that people’s “zero-sum” thinking plays in making them have opposing thoughts, attitudes, and actions.

They agree with equality and see it as a positive change in their privileged social group. However, they oppose equality once it increases between their own and other social groups.

The following experiments produced even more striking results. Researchers formed a fictitious “privileged” group of Rattlers and offered them the chance to take actions endorsing or opposing certain equality policies.

Unexpectedly for researchers, the Rattlers perceived the win-win scenario to be marginally more detrimental to their interests than the lose-lose proposal. Therefore, they preferred “the lose-lose” option over “the win-win” option as a desired policy. These findings are extremely compelling and “grim.” As Derek Brown and his co-authors noted (Brown et al., 2022),

“The misperception that equality is harmful is stubbornly persistent, resisting both reason and incentivization.”

Researchers attempted to address scarcity concerns and assure people that a more equitable policy would not affect their opportunities. Nevertheless, people tend to oppose such equality policies.

What the Final Eagles-Rattlers Experiment Showed

In a second Eagles-Rattlers experiment, the Rattlers were given two options to reduce inequality. In the “unharmful” option, the Eagles get more resources without any change for the Rattlers. The “harmful” option involved the Rattlers getting less, with no change for the Eagles.

Researchers presented those options side-by-side. They wanted to help people recognize that the unharmful one is the more rational choice. Therefore, people would have a chance to choose the less harmful one. Even though the Rattlers chose that option as policy, they still saw it as more harmful to their interests than the harmful option. The study demonstrates why equality is bad or appears to be bad for many people of privileged social classes. Inequality and disparities persist because people fundamentally misunderstand the social consequences of their actions.

These Studies Still Provide a Possibility of a Positive Perspective for Equality

On the bright side, the researchers found that people from advantaged social groups are much more open to policies that reduce inequality within their social group. This could help explain why some countries with less racial diversity than the U.S., like Scandinavia, have been better at making equitable social policies.

What Can Policy Makers Do to Increase American Social Equality?

Brown and his co-authors say that American progressive policymakers could use the findings of these studies to promote national unity. On the other hand, conservative Republican lawmakers increasingly do the opposite. They put social groups against each other based on gender, race, religion, citizenship, and party affiliation.

What Do Authors Suggest to Better Promote Equality?

In conclusion, the researchers suggest,

 “A critical next step concerns how the negative effects of zero-sum equality perceptions can be averted or how we can make progress toward equality despite these misperceptions.”

The question remains,

“How can advantaged groups be convinced to relinquish their relative advantages even as doing so inherently feels like a material concession?”

These studies do not present an optimistic picture for the future of American equality. However, Derek Brown advises policymakers that even though backlash is probably unavoidable, they can promote the change with the justification and motivation to create equality policies. Particularly when establishing a more equal and equitable society is on the table, the risk is still worth the reward (Brown et al., 2022).

These Experiments Show Why Equality Is Bad or Looks Bad

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Many modern societies have made great strides toward implementing social policies and practices that promote social equality. However, cultural values of equality spread more rapidly in some nations than in others.

Significant progress toward social equality, for example, has occurred relatively quickly in Western and Northern European countries. However, the social movement toward equality in the United States of America remains slow. The legislative initiatives face resistance from many voters and policymakers. They are often reluctant to support such equality policies. The intriguing question remains why so many people, both conservatives and often liberals, oppose such apparently fair proposals that can benefit all. Nevertheless, they mistakenly perceive the contexts of possible outcomes and resist social equality.

What the Preceding Studies Showed

In my previous post, I described some of the experiments conducted by N. Derek Brown and his colleagues (Brown et al., 2022), which discovered the hidden role that people’s “zero-sum” mindsets play in affecting their oppositional opinions, attitudes, and actions. Because of this, they believe that equality can lead them to lose their advantageous status. They agree with the idea of equality and perceive this as a positive change when equality increases within their own privileged social group. However, they oppose this idea of equality and perceive this as an undesirable shift when equality may increase between their own and other social groups.

Here Are the Other Experiments with Equality, Even More Convincing

The results of the following experiments were especially striking. Researchers made up a special “privileged” social group. They administered a personality test (a bogus test). Then, the researchers told participants that, based on their “test results”, they placed them in either the Eagles or the Rattlers group. In fact, the researchers assigned all of them to the Rattlers’ group. This group held a position of advantage over the Eagles, a fictitious social group. Then, the researchers proposed the Rattlers to reduce the disparity between them and the Eagles. They could take one of two actions:

  1. Either making both groups better off while helping the Eagles more (the win-win, equality-enhancing option)
  2. Or making everyone worse off while harming the Eagles more (the lose-lose, inequality-enhancing option).

Surprisingly and counterintuitively, the Rattlers perceived the win-win scenario to be marginally more detrimental to their interests than the lose-lose proposal. Therefore, they favored “the win-win” option less than “the lose-lose” option as a desired policy.

What Is Especially Striking About These Findings?

One can see that these findings are very convincing. Derek Brown and his colleagues (Brown et al., 2022) characterize these as “grim.” They commented that

“The misperception that equality is harmful is stubbornly persistent, resisting both reason and incentivization”

As Paul Piff, Professor of Psychological Science at the University of California, remarked,

People in general, and particularly elites, “tend to perceive inequality as something abstract and fairly distant. Inequality-mitigating policies are often framed in terms of policies to help the poor, which isn’t necessarily all that motivating for (some) folks. In a sense, then, combatting inequality rarely appeals to self-interest, which is a massive motivation for those advantaged in society to preserve the status quo insofar as it benefits them.”

The Important Conclusion of These Experiments

People tend to resist such equality policies, even when researchers address scarcity concerns and assure people that a more equitable policy will not affect their opportunities. Thus, this study demonstrates why equality is bad or looks bad to many privileged people. Inequality and disparities continue to occur because people fundamentally misunderstand their social consequences.