Disadvantaged people rationalize their own state of inequality to cope.

Evidence

In Reading 12, Robert Lane takes a motivational approach, concluding on the basis of structured interviews with relatively low-income blue-collar workers that disadvantageous economic inequality is personally threatening, especially in a society in which self-worth is linked to the amount of money that one earns. In order to live with the situation of inequality, Lane argued that people rationalize their own state of disadvantage, an assumption also made by system justification theorists (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Kay, Jimenez, & Jost, 2002). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 128 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Crews does not use the word “poverty” to describe the conditions of his upbringing, perhaps because it is a word generally understood in relation to the prosperity of others—that is, as deprivation. … Little as his family had, their community was hardly better off. They did not see themselves as particularly disadvantaged. — Crews, Harry, A childhood the biography of a place, 21 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Economic inequality is the universal form that local oppressions take. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 337; Low-income workers rationalize their own economic disadvantage to cope with inequality. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 128; Victims of inequality can unknowingly adopt beliefs that perpetuate their own disadvantage (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Low-income workers rationalize their own economic disadvantage to cope with inequality. #exemplifies (0.98) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 128
• People from impoverished conditions do not always recognize their poverty. #complicates (0.75) — Crews, Harry, A childhood the biography of a place, 21