TY  - JOUR
A1  - Rinn, Robin
A1  - Krishna, Anand
A1  - Deutsch, Roland
T1  - The psychology of income wealth threshold estimations: A registered report
JF  - British Journal of Social Psychology
N2  - How do people estimate the income that is needed to be rich? Two correlative survey studies (Study 1 and 2, N = 568) and one registered experimental study (Study 3, N = 500) examined the cognitive mechanisms that are used to derive an answer to this question. We tested whether individuals use their personal income (PI) as a self‐generated anchor to derive an estimate of the income needed to be rich (= income wealth threshold estimation, IWTE). On a bivariate level, we found the expected positive relationship between one's PI and IWTE and, in line with previous findings, we found that people do not consider themselves rich. Furthermore, we predicted that individuals additionally use information about their social status within their social circles to make an IWTE. The findings from study 2 support this notion and show that only self‐reported high‐income individuals show different IWTEs depending on relative social status: Individuals in this group who self‐reported a high status produced higher IWTEs than individuals who self‐reported low status. The registered experimental study could not replicate this pattern robustly, although the results trended non‐significantly in the same direction. Together, the findings revealed that the income of individuals as well as the social environment are used as sources of information to make IWTE judgements, although they are likely not the only important predictors.
KW  - affluence
KW  - anchoring
KW  - heuristics
KW  - income wealth threshold estimations
KW  - social comparisons
KW  - subjective perception of wealth
KW  - the rich
KW  - wealth estimation
Y1  - 2023
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-311847
VL  - 62
IS  - 1
SP  - 630
EP  - 650
ER  -