Culture and social class

•Social class manifests in psychological processes and health outcomes.•Both material conditions and cultural systems shape manifestations of social class.•Material conditions lead to similar manifestations of social class across cultures.•Cultural systems lead to culturally divergent manifestations of social class.•Higher social class is not always associated with less conformity or less burden.

A large body of research in Western cultures has demonstrated the psychological and health effects of social class. This review outlines a cultural psychological approach to social stratification by comparing psychological and health manifestations of social class across Western and East Asian cultures. These comparisons suggest that cultural meaning systems shape how people make meaning and respond to material/structural conditions associated with social class, thereby leading to culturally divergent manifestations of social class. Specifically, unlike their counterparts in Western cultures, individuals of high social class in East Asian cultures tend to show high conformity and other-orientated psychological attributes. In addition, cultures differ in how social class impacts health (i.e. on which bases, through which pathways, and to what extent).