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We investigate social consensus and dissensus within and between nations in three important justifications for pay differences: family needs, performance on the job, and education/authority. Data are from 31 nations and 66,777 individual respondents analyzed using structural equation and multilevel regression methods with multiple imputation of missing data. In poor countries, but not in rich, most believe that family needs legitimate higher pay. Within countries-particularly English-speaking ones-low SES groups endorse family needs, but high SES groups reject them. Valuing performance and effort is widespread throughout the world and throughout all segments of society, high and low. Education and authority are widely valued, more in poor nations than in rich, with some demographic differences but few socioeconomic cleavages. There is conflict both within nations and between them as to whether need and education/authority justify unequal pay, but consensus that performance on the job does justify it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. We aspired to reexamine the well-established assumption according to which low socioeconomic status, as a comprehensive concept, leads to prejudice and hostile attitudes toward minorities. Hence, we focused on examining the differential effect of each component of SES on one of the most important behavioral aspects of hostile attitudes—social distance. Just as importantly, we examined the assumption according to which threat perception mediates the influence of SES factors on those attitudes. Methods. In field research that took place in Israel in May 2003, attitudes of 383 participants toward three distinct minority groups were tested according to their ascription to four different “socioeconomic status” groups. Results. Contrary to most previous findings, we found that employment status and relative income have very little influence on social distance toward minorities. On the other hand, we found that level of education has a significant effect on social distance and that this effect is mostly mediated by the perception of cultural and economic threat. Conclusions. The subjective perception of threat was found to be a critical mediating “junction” in the evolutionary process of the influence of socioeconomic factors on hostile attitudes. Therefore, only specific SES components that influence the perception of threat have an effect on hostile attitudes toward minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]