“We are the 99%”: Exploring the impact of politicized wealth-based identity on the established middle-class

ABSTRACT

The Occupy Wall Street movement popularized the slogan “we are the 99%” to highlight economic disparities. In this studies, we investigated the impact of the 99% identity on middle-class attitudes and collective action intentions. Conducting two correlational studies (Study 1, N = 374; Study 2, N = 344) and two experimental studies (Study 3, N = 336; Study 4, N = 127), we found that 99% identity correlated with greater intolerance of economic inequality and stronger intentions for collective action than middle-class identity. These findings were replicated and extended in Studies 3–4 by two experiments. Indirectly, social norms were associated with inequality intolerance and collective actions through identification with the 99%, but no direct effect was found, Overall, identifying with the 99% is associated with middle-class mobilisation against economic inequality.

KEYWORDS:

• 99%
• middle-class
• economic inequality
• collective actions
• politicized identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Availability of data and material

The databases and the material can be found in this link of OSF https://osf.io/cxa96/?view_only=e993a33ab90946fa817fd50ed5ecd6ed

Consent to participate

All participants signed anonymous consent to participate in both studies.

Consent for publication

All authors consent to the publication of this paper.

Ethics approval

The reported studies were approved by the ethical committee of the University of Granada (Ethics Clearance ID: 1410/CEIH/2020).

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2024.2344252

Notes

1. In Study 1, correlates with other identities (i.e., poor and rich) were also examined for exploratory purposes, as well as other attitudes toward inequality (i.e., calculation of salary gap). Since they are not part of the main objective and to facilitate the interpretation of the results, we include these measures and results in supplementary materials.

2. The results are similar without including the covariates of gender, age, political orientation, subjective and objective status. A linear regression analysis using meritocratic beliefs as the outcome variable was negatively associated by identification with the 99% (β = -.14, p < .01) and positively associated by identification with the middle-class (β = .14, p < .01). This goes in the expected direction, but it does not remain the same when the covariates are included. All these results can be found in the supplementary material section.

3. In our preregistered study, we divided this hypothesis into two hypotheses where we predicted activism and political participation. Due to its high correlation (r = .821; p < .001), we decided to group political participation and activism into “collective actions.” In addition, we included the rich and upper-class identities. Because they are not part of the confirmatory hypothesis, we have excluded these measures from the main manuscript. To see these measures and results, refer to the supplementary material.

4. The results are similar without including the covariates gender, age, political orientation, and subjective status. A linear regression analysis using intolerance toward economic inequality (as measured by the income differences item) as the outcome variable was positively associated with identification with the 99% (β = .15, p < .01). In addition, identification with the middle-class was negatively associated with willingness to take collective action (β = -.12, p < .05). All these results can be found in the supplementary material section.

5. The survey collected more participants than those preregistered because it was open for a longer time, and we did not want to lose this information.

6. We deviated from the preregistration because we did not collect the planned sample. This is due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

7. The results of the mediation analysis are the same if we do not include the covariates.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been supported by two research projects funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities: “Alliance processes in facing threats to identity and perceived control” (Reference: PID2019-111549GB-I00, MCIN/AEI /10.13039/501100011033) and “Beyond Conflict: Cooperation effectiveness for social change.” (Reference: PID2022-141182NB-I00, MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033).