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Social scientists have begun to extensively study how living in contexts with high income inequality affects psychological outcomes. Herein we overview a conceptual framework that integrates, organizes, and extends these complex (and sometimes contradictory) findings. First, we describe studies showing that income inequality breeds an ethos of competitiveness. Second, we argue that the inequality-competitiveness relation explains why income inequality (a) promotes status-focused behaviors aimed at lifting oneself up and/or bringing others down, (b) harms social relations when they pose an obstacle to one’s economic advancement, (c) exerts opposing effects on well-being via avoidance motivation (focusing on the risk of economic failure) and approach motivation (focusing on the prospect of economic success), and (d) represents a threat to those who perceive they do not have sufficient individual/contextual resources to cope with the demands of competition but a challenge to those with sufficient resources. We also discuss limitations and future directions for research.

There exists a racial income gap in America: Blacks earn ∼38% less than Whites, but little is known about its relation to interracial psychological outcomes. Toward this end, the present research examined associations between the Black–White income gap and perceptions of interracial competition and, subsequently, negative intergroup outcomes. Study 1 extracted data from a large, preexisting data set ( N = 2,543) and provided initial support for the hypothesis that higher levels of racial income inequality are associated with increased perceptions of competition. Study 2 then recruited approximately equal numbers of White and Black participants ( N = 1,731) and demonstrated that increases in racial income inequality predict increased perceptions of competition, discrimination, behavioral avoidance, and intergroup anxiety. Implications for theory development and public policy are discussed.

We created a life-goal assessment drawing from self-determination theory and achievement goal literature, examining its predictive power regarding immoral behavior and subjective well-being. Our source items assessed direction and energization of motivation, via the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic aims and between intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for acting, respectively. Fused source items assessed four goal complexes representing a combination of direction and energization. Across three studies ( Ns = 109, 121, and 398), the extrinsic aim/extrinsic reason complex was consistently associated with immoral and/or unethical behavior beyond four source and three other goal complex variables. This was consistent with the triangle model of responsibility’s claim that immoral behaviors may result when individuals disengage the self from moral prescriptions. The extrinsic/extrinsic complex also predicted lower subjective well-being, albeit less consistently. Our goal complex approach sheds light on how self-determination theory’s goal contents and organismic integration mini-theories interact, particularly with respect to unethical behavior.