{"title":"(Not) one of us: The overrepresentation of elites in politics erodes political trust","authors":"Rebekka Kesberg, Matthew J. Easterbrook","doi":"10.1111/bjso.12885","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Citizens in democracies are increasingly dissatisfied with democratic governance, distrustful of elected officials and view politicians as aloof and detached. We argue that this is, in part, due to the overrepresentation of elites in political office. We conducted four studies (<i>N</i> = 2009) in the U.K. focusing on the education sector. That is, we explore the impact of the overrepresentation of privately educated individuals—who represent >7% of the population but 30%–70% of the political cabinet—on political trust. Studies 1a and 1b measured perceptions and stereotypes of politicians, and Studies 2–4 manipulated the proportion of privately educated politicians in political institutions. Results show that trust in political institutions is eroded when there is overrepresentation of those educated in the private sector. We explore boundary conditions showing that effects are stronger for those who question meritocratic principles in the educational sector and that the effect is mediated through perceptions of deservingness.</p>","PeriodicalId":48304,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Social Psychology","volume":"64 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjso.12885","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"British Journal of Social Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12885","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
Citizens in democracies are increasingly dissatisfied with democratic governance, distrustful of elected officials and view politicians as aloof and detached. We argue that this is, in part, due to the overrepresentation of elites in political office. We conducted four studies (N = 2009) in the U.K. focusing on the education sector. That is, we explore the impact of the overrepresentation of privately educated individuals—who represent >7% of the population but 30%–70% of the political cabinet—on political trust. Studies 1a and 1b measured perceptions and stereotypes of politicians, and Studies 2–4 manipulated the proportion of privately educated politicians in political institutions. Results show that trust in political institutions is eroded when there is overrepresentation of those educated in the private sector. We explore boundary conditions showing that effects are stronger for those who question meritocratic principles in the educational sector and that the effect is mediated through perceptions of deservingness.
期刊介绍：
The British Journal of Social Psychology publishes work from scholars based in all parts of the world, and manuscripts that present data on a wide range of populations inside and outside the UK. It publishes original papers in all areas of social psychology including: • social cognition • attitudes • group processes • social influence • intergroup relations • self and identity • nonverbal communication • social psychological aspects of personality, affect and emotion • language and discourse Submissions addressing these topics from a variety of approaches and methods, both quantitative and qualitative are welcomed. We publish papers of the following kinds: • empirical papers that address theoretical issues; • theoretical papers, including analyses of existing social psychological theories and presentations of theoretical innovations, extensions, or integrations; • review papers that provide an evaluation of work within a given area of social psychology and that present proposals for further research in that area; • methodological papers concerning issues that are particularly relevant to a wide range of social psychologists; • an invited agenda article as the first article in the first part of every volume. The editorial team aims to handle papers as efficiently as possible. In 2016, papers were triaged within less than a week, and the average turnaround time from receipt of the manuscript to first decision sent back to the authors was 47 days.
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