2025/07/14 by Jacinth J. X. Tan, Tessa V. West, Wendy Berry Mendes · 1 citation
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Attunement #Communication #Conversation #Cultural Differences and Values #Demography #Developmental psychology #Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior #Preference #Psychology #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Social psychology #Social relation #Socioeconomic status
paper · open access · doi:10.1177/09567976251350970
published in Psychological Science 36(8), 591-606 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2025/07/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
With more opportunities for diverse interactions, little is known about how social interactions involving people of different socioeconomic status (SES) may unfold. We investigated social-attunement patterns in dyadic interactions involving SES. Unacquainted adults recruited from a community in the United States interacted with similar-or-different-SES partners in the lab ( N = 130 dyads). Attunement was assessed throughout the interaction by examining physiological linkage —how much a person’s physiological change is predicted by another’s physiological change over time. Overall, low-SES participants showed stronger physiological linkage—indicating greater attunement—to partners across SES. Participants also appeared more comfortable when interacting with low-SES partners. There were no SES differences in dominance during the conversation. After the interaction, participants reported liking similar-SES partners more than different-SES partners. These patterns suggest that during interactions, lower-SES individuals are more other-focused than high-SES individuals, and in-group preference prevails. We note limitations in the racial representation of our sample.