Looking Beyond the Person: Person-Context Integration in Perceived Socioeconomic Status

A growing body of evidence shows that people can detect others' socioeconomic status (SES) from artificially created stimuli and during social interactions. How contextual information shapes SES perception, however, remains largely untested. In two studies with a diverse participant sample of 472 US residents, we investigate how people and their contexts influence interpersonal SES perception. Results showed that individuals and their contexts each contained sufficient cues for others to accurately detect SES. Although individuals contributed more than contexts, manipulating contexts altered perceivers’ impressions of targets’ SES and illustrated the role of virtual backgrounds for managing SES impressions in online interactions. These findings provide initial evidence into how people integrate person-related and contextual information when judging others’ SES, prompting directions for future research on contextual effects in person perception.