Abstract: For more than 100 years, social scientists such as Durkheim, Marx and Engels found that social class has profound impact on social life. However, not until recently, psychologists discovered that the effects of social class on social life can be explained by individual’s cognition, emotion and behavior. In this review, the definition of social class which developed by psychologists was first introduced, then the measure method of objective and subjective social class. Next, it emphasized the impact of social class on individual’s cognition, emotion and behavior from the social cognitive perspective. Social class, a new frontier of psychological inquiry, is a context rooted in both the material substance of social life (income, education, occupation status) and the individual’s construal of her or his class rank. Accordingly, social class can be measured through indices of an individual’s material resources and perceived social class rank relative to others. For the indices of objective social class, most research has focused on level of educational attainment, income, and occupation. In other words, these three measures represent the most widely used indices of an individual’s objective social class. And for the index of subjective social class, the most studies have used is the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Socioeconomic Status. In this measure, individuals subjectively rate themselves in society on a ladder with 10 rungs. The social cognitive theory of social class proposed that through shared experiences, individuals from a particular social class context develop a system of knowledge, action tendencies, and affects that determines how the individual thinks, feels, and relates to others. More specifically, the social contexts of lower-class individuals are characterized by relative resource scarcity, lower rank, uncertainty, and unpredictability, but upper-class contexts are characterized by relatively abundant material resources and elevated rank in society. The life circumstances of lower-class individuals give rise to contextualist social cognitive tendencies and the life circumstances of upper-class individuals create solipsistic social cognitive tendencies. These social cognitive tendencies yield different influences upon upper and lower class individuals’ self, relate to others and perceptions of the social environment. Numerous empirical evidences proved that social class can shape the individual’s basic psychological processes and behavior. Firstly, social class has impact upon self. Large numbers of studies found that contextualist tendencies lead lower class individuals to be more reactive to social threats, more communal, and making more common choice, whereas solipsistic tendencies lead upper-class individuals to be less threat sensitivity, feeling more personal control and making more unique choice. Secondly, Social class can shape individual’s relationship strategies. Lot of research proved that contextualist tendencies lead lower class individuals to be more prosocial, more compassionate, more communal, and paying more attention to group safety and purity, whereas solipsistic tendencies lead upper-class individuals to be more self-focused, more unethical, and paying more attention to individual rights and respect. Thirdly, social class has influence on individuals’ perceptions of the social world. A growing number of empirical evidence suggested that contextualist tendencies elevate empathic accuracy, the tendency of contextual causal explanation, and the level of social constructivist inter-group attitudes among lower-class individuals, whereas solipsistic tendencies elevate upper-class individuals’ trends of dispositional causal explanation, and the level of essentialist inter-group attitudes. However, there are still several limits in the domain of psychological inquiry of social class. First of all, there are likely to be case that subjective social class is a more powerful predictor than objective measures. Future research is needed to better understand why, and in what circumstances, subjective social class is more proximally related to class-based social cognitive patterns. What is more, whether the mobility of social class can influence class-based social cognitive tendencies have never been tested. It is important for future research to consider the impacts of the mobility of social class upon the individuals’ psychological process and behavior. Finally, the most part of the empirical research has been done in the western culture and cultures vary in their social values. It will be important for future research to consider the moderator effects of culture on social class effects. In sum, this article has provided the concept of social class and some of the important measurement methods. Next, the social cognitive theory of social class and empirical evidence in support of this theory has been introduced. Specifically, the material lives of upper- and lower-class individuals differ markedly and translate to class-based differences in social-cognitive tendencies. The life circumstances of lower-class individuals give rise to contextualism social cognitive tendencies, but the social context of upper-class individual creates a solipsistic social cognitive tendency. These class-related social cognitive tendencies yield systematic influences on how people from upper- and lower-class contexts think about the self, relate to others, and perceive the social world. Numerous studies supported this theory that social class can shape the individual’s basic psychological processes and behavior. Finally, the limits of the study of social class and the direction of future research have been discussed.

Key words: social classcom, solipsism, contextualism, social cognition

摘要： 社会阶层是心理学研究的一个新的前沿领域，是指由于经济、政治等多种原因而形成的，在社会层次结构中处于不同地位的群体，这些群体之间存在着客观的社会资源（收入、教育和职业）的差异，以及感知到由此造成的社会地位的差异。基于社会认知视角的社会阶层理论认为，处于同一阶层中的个体，由于共享的经历，形成了相对稳定的认知倾向，低阶层者是情境主义的，高阶层是唯我主义的。大量的实证研究进一步证实，环境所导致的认知倾向差异，使得高低阶层这在感知自我、他人和社会的方式存在显著的不同。而阶层的流动性对个体心理与行为的影响以及本土化的社会阶层心理学研究是需要未来深入探索的研究方向。

关键词: 社会阶层, 唯我主义, 情境主义, 社会认知