Effect of status on social dominance orientation in university students from Lima

This study analyzed the effect of social threat, produced through a manipulation of socioeconomic status, on Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). A sample of middle/middle-high class students attending a private university in Lima, Peru (n = 58) was randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: increased versus reduced socioeconomic status. The experimental manipulation consisted in exposing the participants to a pyramid which describes the structure of society in terms of socioeconomic status and privilege, and then asking them to complete a short semantic task about what their life would be like if their life circumstances placed them at the top or the bottom of the social pyramid (according to the randomly assigned experimental condition). Subsequently, they were asked to complete the SDO scale. The ANOVA results show an increase in SDO levels in the reduced/lower status condition, with this measure remaining unaffected in the increased/higher status condition. These results are consistent with the idea that SDO is susceptible to modification by manipulating people's socioeconomic status. Likewise, the increase in SDO in the low-status condition supports the idea that, in hierarchical and unequal societies such as Peru, the mere representation of a threat (a decrease in status in this case) can trigger a defensive response, anchored in the adherence to ideologies that reinforce differences in status between individuals and groups.