We explored: 1️⃣ A social class gap in feelings of contribution 2️⃣ What helping actions are perceived as contributions 3️⃣ How the devaluation of certain types of help relates to the social class gap (2/12)

Believing that you contribute to society is critical for your mental 🧠, physical 💪, and social health 🫂. But who gets to feel this way? (3/12)

First: 1️⃣ Americans from lower (vs. higher) social class contexts report lower self-perceived contributions, as also found in prior work. This gap also extends to metaperceived contribution (how you think others perceive your contributions). (4/12)

Why? Helping others is one way to contribute. We looked at two forms of helping: 1) Bridging help 🌉: Helping strangers, like volunteering 2) Bonding help 🤝: Helping close others, like caring for an adult family member (5/12)

Turns out, bridging help is more common in higher (vs. lower) social class contexts, while bonding help is more frequent in lower (vs. higher) social class contexts. There are lots of reasons for these differences (see the paper❗️). (6/12)

So, we asked: Do people think bridging help contributes more to society than bonding help? Our experiments say: 2️⃣Yes, Americans perceive bridging help (helping strangers) contributes more than bonding help (helping close others). (7/12)

Finally, using a large, 3-wave dataset (MIDUS), we found that: 3️⃣the social class gap in self-perceived contribution is linked to these different helping behaviors. (8/12)

🚨Takeaway: US society seems to prioritize help that’s more common among people who already have more privilege while undervaluing types of help practiced by most of the population. See the paper for implications for social class inequality and the study of prosociality. (9/12)

It means a lot to share this work with the world — it’s my first as lead author, and it has been a labor of love. 💖 Big thanks to my incredible co-authors, Hazel Markus and @RebeccaCarey_. (10/12)

Special thanks to everyone who supported this work: @KengthsagnL, @TheSamoanPsy, @catcthomas, @eriksantoro, @luiza_a_santos, @JulieCachia, @davidmmarkowitz, Jennifer Eberhardt, Greg Walton, Carol Dweck, and many others. 🙏 (11/12)