Subjective perception of lower social-class enhances response inhibition

• We tested relations between subjective social class and response inhibition.
• Subjective social class was negatively associated with response inhibition.
• Subjective social class was not associated with working memory capacity.
• The effect of subjective class on inhibition occurred through inhibitory tendency.

An emerging literature suggests that lower-class individuals value ‘adjusting’ and ‘fitting-in’ whereas higher-class individuals emphasize ‘personal control’ and ‘influencing.’ Thus, we hypothesized that individuals with low subjective social class (i.e., those who think that their rank in the social hierarchy is low) would show enhanced performances in a response-inhibition task, compared to individuals with high subjective social class (i.e., those who think that their social rank is high). Supporting this prediction, Study 1 found that one's perception of their social class was negatively associated with inhibition (i.e., lower class → better inhibition). However, subjective social class was not associated with working memory capacity. This suggests that the predicted effect of lower class is inhibition specific. Furthermore, Study 2 established the critical role of subjective social class in this process by manipulating participants' subjective social class. Study 2 also showed that individual differences in inhibitory tendency mediated the corresponding differences in response inhibition. Taken together, the present results demonstrate that perceived lower-class is associated with enhanced performance in response inhibition.