UC Berkeley

Scholars across the social sciences have detailed how class-related norms, tastes, and social expectations—termed cultural capital—represent potent markers of class identity and create symbolic borders between classes. A crucial hypothesis stemming from this foundational work is that, in addition to reflecting social position, cultural markers help to produce it. In this dissertation, I present the results of five studies that provide insight into how those from upper-class backgrounds use culture to both help constitute their own identities and acquire a disproportionate share of prestigious accolades and opportunities. Over the course of the first three studies, I revealed that the preference for “highbrow” tastes for cultural products such as music and films is a conscious and strategically observable behavior among upper-class individuals, manifesting only in symbolic (public) aspects of one’s identity (Study 1), in situations where others are present (Study 2), and potentially in contexts where there is motivation to maintain a position of identity divergence from lower-class individuals (Study 3). The final two studies shed light on why upper-class individuals engage in such overt presentations. Specifically Study 4 demonstrates that individuals signaling highbrow cultural capital are perceived as wealthier, more competent, and more deserving of a prestigious occupational role compared to a target signaling popular cultural capital. Then, in Study 5, I leveraged an audit experiment in which emails were sent to admissions counselors at colleges and universities across the U.S., ostensibly from a high school student seeking application guidance, to reveal that counselors were more likely to respond to students signaling highbrow extracurricular activities, particularly counselors from more expensive institutions. Furthermore, counselors who did respond expended greater observer-rated effort in their responses when the student was signaling highbrow cultural capital. Overall, these findings reveal that signals of cultural capital can be potent sources of inequality maintenance, legitimization, and expansion.