Resources on the Psychology of Upward Mobility
January 11, 2020 7:49 AM Subscribe
I'm working on a short story about a couple who earn a lot of money in a short period of time and who have shot up several rungs in the class ladder. I'm looking to find some academic research or first-person accounts of what it's like emotionally and logistically to find yourself -- through labor, but perhaps wildly overcompensated labor -- in a whole other economic class than you were before and how that impacts your identity.
In this scenario, the couple earns the money in new media -- think online influencers.
Topics I'd like to explore:
* Questions of whether one deserves to be wealthy given the way the money was earned (i.e., gratitude and guilt)
* How to handle the new tempting world of material acquisition that is now available and how to set up ground rules on what is okay to spend a lot of money on and what isn't
* Fears over how this change in socioeconomic status could fundamentally change one's moral or empathetic compass
* Conversations about how to deal with family or friends asking for money
* How to engage with progressive politics and social justice issues while rich
* How to handle philanthropic giving
* How to be a responsible, ethical wealthy person
Basically, I'm interested in how a couple would navigate this very real change in their material status and the layers of psychological and practical changes this would entail. I'm not interested in reading anything about investment decisions, etc., just more about the kinds of money conversations this sort of change would inspire and what psychological and behavioral impacts (good and bad) such a change in identity could engender.
In this scenario, the couple earns the money in new media -- think online influencers.
Topics I'd like to explore:
* Questions of whether one deserves to be wealthy given the way the money was earned (i.e., gratitude and guilt)
* How to handle the new tempting world of material acquisition that is now available and how to set up ground rules on what is okay to spend a lot of money on and what isn't
* Fears over how this change in socioeconomic status could fundamentally change one's moral or empathetic compass
* Conversations about how to deal with family or friends asking for money
* How to engage with progressive politics and social justice issues while rich
* How to handle philanthropic giving
* How to be a responsible, ethical wealthy person
Basically, I'm interested in how a couple would navigate this very real change in their material status and the layers of psychological and practical changes this would entail. I'm not interested in reading anything about investment decisions, etc., just more about the kinds of money conversations this sort of change would inspire and what psychological and behavioral impacts (good and bad) such a change in identity could engender.
This is slightly orthogonal to your question, but Hidden Brain had a really good episode a couple years ago on the scarcity mindset. Basically, when you emerge from scarcity/precarity, you go through this spend-it-all phase because you can't yet wrap your mind around the shift.
You see a lot of doctors doing this in the transition out of residency, when your income triples or quadruples overnight. Many people decide to treat themselves (after spending 10-15 years in training, it's not undeserved) but then quickly swing into overleveraging with a nice car and a huge house, and end up even deeper in debt than before. It's such a common problem that the hospital where I trained had actual "Don't Let This Happen To You" classes for graduating residents.
posted by basalganglia at 9:34 AM on January 11, 2020
You see a lot of doctors doing this in the transition out of residency, when your income triples or quadruples overnight. Many people decide to treat themselves (after spending 10-15 years in training, it's not undeserved) but then quickly swing into overleveraging with a nice car and a huge house, and end up even deeper in debt than before. It's such a common problem that the hospital where I trained had actual "Don't Let This Happen To You" classes for graduating residents.
posted by basalganglia at 9:34 AM on January 11, 2020
I read this book a few years ago: Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams. It is about people who are first-generation middle class, and the conflicts and challenges they experience. When I read it, I felt like it captured and explained a lot about my parents, who both grew up poor but moved into the middle class when my dad got a college degree on the GI Bill. It was a good read on its own, and might be helpful to you.
posted by Orlop at 10:30 AM on January 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Orlop at 10:30 AM on January 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
What are they influencing for, and where does it fall on a social class ladder? If, for instance, they make a lot of money (somehow) influencing stuff that is working-class coded, or redneck-y, or "trashy", then they'll have a lot of money but still be expected to perform this social class "relatability" to the consumers. But a lot of influencing stuff is really aspirational -- at least middle class coded if not upper-middle class. So then if they were in a different social class, how did they learn how to influence for middle-class or upper-middle class people? Or were they poor but socially-middle class and now they're "regaining" their "rightful" place?
posted by Hypatia at 4:31 PM on January 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Hypatia at 4:31 PM on January 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Not directly what you asked about, but some keywords to search on: imposter syndrome, survivor guilt. bell hooks talks about this a bit in one of her books (I believe the one about class, "Where We Stand: Class Matters"?). She describes a more common experience of moving from working class to upper middle/professional class. There are several books on the experience of academics from the working class, along these lines, also. "This Fine Place So Far From Home", "Strangers in Paradise: Academics From the Working Class", "Experiences of Academics from a Working Class Heritage", "The Burden of Academic Success", "Reflections From the Wrong Side of the Tracks", etc.
Historically, see eg. stories by Anzia Yezierska (eg. Salome of the Tenements), other stories of children of immigrants finding success that their parents didn't have.
In my experience, brief answers include:
* Questions of whether one deserves to be wealthy given the way the money was earned (i.e., gratitude and guilt) Yep, guilt is a common feature of this experience, regardless of the source of income. In my experience, folks who started out working class are much more acutely aware of the role of luck or mentors or other helpers in their successes than folks who grew up upper middle class or wealthier. Often that comes across as gratitude, especially feeling a responsibility to pay it forward. Depending on individual circumstances, someone may feel varying degrees of resentful about this instead or in addition, however.
* How to handle the new tempting world of material acquisition that is now available and how to set up ground rules on what is okay to spend a lot of money on and what isn't I guess it's common for people to first maintain scarcity level spending, then switch and over-spend for a little bit, before settling down into sustainable spending patterns? There will always be details around what your character spends or doesn't spend on that are based in emotion. Spending money on something that just wasn't available at all when they were poor will likely be easier than spending money on something that they are used to obtaining through community support - like moving, or various types of family/community care work. Hiring a housekeeper would be a big hurdle, especially if your character is female or otherwise was expected to be responsible for housework growing up. Your character is likely to be much more strongly aware of the difficulties inherent in low-wage work, and consequently more likely to pay extra for service work, tip well, etc. On the other hand, depending on the jobs of family and friends growing up, they may not know about tipping conventions and thus fail to tip in some cases.
* Fears over how this change in socioeconomic status could fundamentally change one's moral or empathetic compass Intricately tied in with the guilt aspect. But also see the complicating issue in the last question.
* Conversations about how to deal with family or friends asking for money As a commenter above said, family and friends don't generally directly ask for money; it's quite a bit more complicated than that.
* How to engage with progressive politics and social justice issues while rich People can go in a couple different directions on this. There are the folks who don't really understand their new position of increased power, and consequently end up abusing it while claiming an ongoing oppressed status at the same level as where they started out on the economic ladder. There are folks who end up not standing up for themselves as much as they should, tied in to the above-mentioned guilt, because they think that they now have more power than they actually have, or that their new economic status negates past experiences. Ideally, like spending patterns, folks eventually reach a reasonable middle ground.
* How to handle philanthropic giving I don't think anyone who grew up poor or working class would call their spending in this area "philanthropic giving" or think about it in nearly the same ways as rich people. It would be much more about "giving back", "paying forward", or taking care of our people or our community. I think that if one grew up with community/family/other people being your safety net, rather than savings or other financial safety net, that generally stays with you. Modulo personal circumstances that alienate someone from their family or community of origin. That leads to a fundamentally different way of thinking about money, including about investing, philanthropic giving, etc. Someone who grew up poor but came into money may set up some sort of monthly tithing, along with giving generously on an as-needed basis within their family or community, but maybe less "planned giving"? Unless they have a smooth-talking accountant who talks them into it, I guess? Someone who grew up poor will almost certainly have had negative experiences being on the receiving end of "charity", and will be consequently wary of what types of causes they support with their giving, tending more toward direct financial support of other poor communities, or supporting more grassroots initiatives rather than nonprofit organizations or registered philanthropies. Or, if alienated from their community of origin, may take condescending or infantilizing experiences of receiving charity and just choose not to participate in charitable giving.
* How to be a responsible, ethical wealthy person Basically: either one identifies with one's working class or poor roots and doesn't really see this as a viable possibility; or one repudiates one's roots and fully embraces (or over-embraces) an identity centered around the new economic status. I think individual circumstance such as whether someone comes from a functional versus disfunctional family, or functional versus disfunctional community, tie in to this.
posted by eviemath at 9:35 AM on January 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
Historically, see eg. stories by Anzia Yezierska (eg. Salome of the Tenements), other stories of children of immigrants finding success that their parents didn't have.
In my experience, brief answers include:
* Questions of whether one deserves to be wealthy given the way the money was earned (i.e., gratitude and guilt) Yep, guilt is a common feature of this experience, regardless of the source of income. In my experience, folks who started out working class are much more acutely aware of the role of luck or mentors or other helpers in their successes than folks who grew up upper middle class or wealthier. Often that comes across as gratitude, especially feeling a responsibility to pay it forward. Depending on individual circumstances, someone may feel varying degrees of resentful about this instead or in addition, however.
* How to handle the new tempting world of material acquisition that is now available and how to set up ground rules on what is okay to spend a lot of money on and what isn't I guess it's common for people to first maintain scarcity level spending, then switch and over-spend for a little bit, before settling down into sustainable spending patterns? There will always be details around what your character spends or doesn't spend on that are based in emotion. Spending money on something that just wasn't available at all when they were poor will likely be easier than spending money on something that they are used to obtaining through community support - like moving, or various types of family/community care work. Hiring a housekeeper would be a big hurdle, especially if your character is female or otherwise was expected to be responsible for housework growing up. Your character is likely to be much more strongly aware of the difficulties inherent in low-wage work, and consequently more likely to pay extra for service work, tip well, etc. On the other hand, depending on the jobs of family and friends growing up, they may not know about tipping conventions and thus fail to tip in some cases.
* Fears over how this change in socioeconomic status could fundamentally change one's moral or empathetic compass Intricately tied in with the guilt aspect. But also see the complicating issue in the last question.
* Conversations about how to deal with family or friends asking for money As a commenter above said, family and friends don't generally directly ask for money; it's quite a bit more complicated than that.
* How to engage with progressive politics and social justice issues while rich People can go in a couple different directions on this. There are the folks who don't really understand their new position of increased power, and consequently end up abusing it while claiming an ongoing oppressed status at the same level as where they started out on the economic ladder. There are folks who end up not standing up for themselves as much as they should, tied in to the above-mentioned guilt, because they think that they now have more power than they actually have, or that their new economic status negates past experiences. Ideally, like spending patterns, folks eventually reach a reasonable middle ground.
* How to handle philanthropic giving I don't think anyone who grew up poor or working class would call their spending in this area "philanthropic giving" or think about it in nearly the same ways as rich people. It would be much more about "giving back", "paying forward", or taking care of our people or our community. I think that if one grew up with community/family/other people being your safety net, rather than savings or other financial safety net, that generally stays with you. Modulo personal circumstances that alienate someone from their family or community of origin. That leads to a fundamentally different way of thinking about money, including about investing, philanthropic giving, etc. Someone who grew up poor but came into money may set up some sort of monthly tithing, along with giving generously on an as-needed basis within their family or community, but maybe less "planned giving"? Unless they have a smooth-talking accountant who talks them into it, I guess? Someone who grew up poor will almost certainly have had negative experiences being on the receiving end of "charity", and will be consequently wary of what types of causes they support with their giving, tending more toward direct financial support of other poor communities, or supporting more grassroots initiatives rather than nonprofit organizations or registered philanthropies. Or, if alienated from their community of origin, may take condescending or infantilizing experiences of receiving charity and just choose not to participate in charitable giving.
* How to be a responsible, ethical wealthy person Basically: either one identifies with one's working class or poor roots and doesn't really see this as a viable possibility; or one repudiates one's roots and fully embraces (or over-embraces) an identity centered around the new economic status. I think individual circumstance such as whether someone comes from a functional versus disfunctional family, or functional versus disfunctional community, tie in to this.
posted by eviemath at 9:35 AM on January 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
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More likely, they would not ask for money. But you, as the wealthier one, would notice and feel the disparity and be unsure how to handle it.
- If you want to eat at an expensive-to-them restaurant, or to eat out more than they would, or you just don't have time to cook for them but want to spend time with them -- do you offer to pay? Do you have stuff catered? Do you let things be one-sided? Do you try to make up for the fact that your Mom or brother is always cooking for gatherings by giving them mail-order food?
- What about gift giving? If you give an inexpensive gift, do you look cheap? If you give an expensive gift, do you look pretentious? Or, if they're really an understanding group that knows you love them and are doing your best (remember, don't underestimate them - people are generally loving and understanding in real life), does that imbalance weigh on you all anyway?
- I still remember noticing my father checking out our rental car one afternoon. He and my mom used to talk about how nice our neighbors' SUV was, although my parents didn't think they could ever afford one. The rental car was an SUV, and of course it looked new. My dude and I would probably never own an SUV, in fact our actual cars are both over ten years old and small, but that's what the car rental place had... there was no time to explain, and I think in that moment my father decided I was financially well-off and, well, I don't want to talk about it with him. There's a weird resentment over him judging me on such a small amount of information.
** We're not especially wealthy, just childless.
posted by amtho at 8:00 AM on January 11, 2020 [1 favorite]