UNDERSTANDING THE DEVALUATION OF VULNERABLE GROUPS: A NOVEL APPLICATION OF INSTITUTIONAL ANOMIE THEORY

Abstract

Prejudices legitimize the discrimination against groups by declaring them to be of unequal, especially of less, worth. This legitimizing power is highly relevant in social conflicts of modern societies that are governed by market-oriented value systems. However, prejudice research has yet to be linked to sociological discourses on the marketization of society. We argue that Institutional Anomie Theory (IAT), a theory originally developed to explain crime rates, offers a fruitful macro-sociological framework for a better understanding of micro-social prejudices that emerge along with processes of marketization. Extending IAT to explain prejudices in a German study based on survey data offers a first attempt to underpin our theoretical hypotheses with empirical data. Although the results need to be interpreted with due caution, they suggest that the extended IAT model can be usefully applied to explain how a marketized mentality is related to different forms of institutional integration, and how it is conducive to specific prejudices that emerge in market-dominated societies against purported economically burdening social groups.

1 Introduction: Objectives and Theoretical Frame

The marketization of modern society, i.e. the economizing of the non-economic, has long been a central issue in sociological debates (see e.g., Habermas, 1985; Bourdieu, 2003; Polanyi, 1957). Currently this debate has become increasingly important in sociology as economic crises have called attention to the limits of an unbounded economization. The debate has focused primarily on the definition and theoretical framing of economization and a concomitant individualization. However, one important potential consequence of marketization has been only hesitantly discussed: the unequal and unfair treatment of social groups and the stereotyped attribution that groups fail to measure up to, or that they even contravene, the demands of modern ‘high-performance societies.’ This issue of contemporary prejudices is of great societal importance since such sentiments have an effect on the quality of social cohesion more generally (see e.g., Hogg, 1992; Zick and Küpper, 2012). Yet to date no coherent theoretical perspective has been advanced to explain how prejudices caused by marketization processes on the macro-social level are established in the form of sentiments, opinions, intergroup relations etc. on the micro-social level. Which sentiments does marketization foster to reproduce and express its principles that undergird social hierarchies?

To gain a deeper understanding of this phenomenon it is worthwhile to transcend the boundaries that tend to separate disciplines. We argue that a theory is required that takes social perceptions and experiences of marketization seriously. Such a theory is Institutional Anomie Theory (IAT), originally put forth by Messner and Rosenfeld (1994, 2013) to account for comparatively high crime rates in the U.S. A core idea of the theory is that the institutional structure of many Western capitalist societies tends to promote an institutional imbalance of power in favor of the economy, which they call institutional anomie at the macro level. This macro-level property is in turn manifested in individual-level instantiations of anomie. Anomie is less understood as normlessness or absence of culture that eventually results in personal anomia in IAT,¹ but rather as the dominance of egoistic motives and a morality that transports monetary success and personal achievement as the very metric of good or bad.² IAT is distinctively sociological in character, drawing upon a wide range of classical social theory, including Polanyi’s influential discussion on the disembeddedness of the economy from social relations (1957). Furthermore, the theory has proven to be applicable beyond the borders of American society.³ Studies of cross-national variation in crime rates informed by IAT have generated a fair degree of support for the approach (Messner and Rosenfeld, 2006). We propose that the theory can be extended to apply to other anti-social phenomena such as prejudices against low status groups that are considered to be unprofitable from an economic point of view. Our underlying premise is that persons who strongly embrace the market-based values of cultural anomie as highlighted in IAT are prone to be prejudiced in order to legitimize the exclusion of groups that do not conform to the rules and priorities of market society.

To explain the links of IAT to contemporary emerging prejudices legitimizing an exclusion of less market-conforming groups, the theory needs to be extended in two fundamental aspects. First, the macro-level tenets of IAT have to be translated to the micro-level. Second, IAT has to be applied explicitly to prejudices as the explanandum. This theoretical exploration eventually leads to an explanatory framework that differs in significant ways from established approaches to prejudice. We address these tasks in the sections immediately below. In the last section, we link the theoretical exploration with tentative empirical research that needs further validation, yet offers an initial empirical insight on the main ideas. We present the results of a first study in Germany testing the capacity of the extended version of IAT to explain prejudices against groups that are susceptible to low valuation when judged by market-oriented criteria.

2 Institutional Anomie Theory and Prejudices

Messner and Rosenfeld’s Institutional Anomie Theory (1994, 1997) is grounded in but expands Merton’s anomie theory (1938, 1968). Both approaches define an unfettered striving for success in capitalist society as a core component of an anomic culture leading to deviant behavior (Bernburg, 2002). While Merton concentrates on features of the stratification system that translate an anomic culture into deviant behaviour (specifically, blocked access to the legitimate means for success), IAT specifies the institutional configuration that encourages the emergence of an anomic culture (Bernburg, 2002: p. 738). This, according to Bernburg, links IAT to Durkheim’s European concept of anomie (1893, 1992), and makes it more directly relevant to social change.

The central claim of IAT is that high rates of violent crime are likely to be found in capitalist market economies where the economy dominates those institutions that are not by their nature orientated to economic criteria (Messner and Rosenfeld, 1994, 1997, 2013).⁴ The dominance of the economy and the relative impotence of essentially non-economic institutions, such as the institutions of education, the family, or the political system, are manifested in three principal ways: first, non-economic functions and roles are devalued; second, non-economic roles are accommodated to economic requirements when role obligations are in conflict; and third, the economic, market-oriented standards of the economy tend to penetrate into many non-economic institutions. The consequence is an imbalance in the institutional order (the so-called ‘institutional balance of power’) at the structural level and anomie in terms of a new “ethic” that furthers the limitless striving for achievement at the cultural level.

Anomie in IAT is thus not solely represented by a breakdown of social controls or the failure to replace them by new ones which would further personal feelings of anomia, i.e. a lack of orientation due to the weakening of norms and social controls (e.g. Seeman, 1959; Srole, 1956), but rather by a culturally prescribed striving for economic success that is largely resistant to moral and non-economic normative restraints, i.e. by a “by-any-means-necessary-mentality”. Pure technical expediency tends to guide the selection of the means to pursue personal goals. This anomic orientation towards the means of social action is grounded in a culturally dominant constellation of market-friendly values that appear in a very pure form in the culture of the U. S., and thus this constellation of values is commonly referred to as part of the ‘American Dream ethos’ in the scope of IAT. Anomie in IAT is thus not so much understood as an absence of culture, a deregulation or normlessness, but rather in the second essential meaning of anomie, as a product of the culture of modern capitalism that transports specific values (for this conceptualization of anomie see also Òrru, 1987). These values include a very strong achievement orientation, an excessive or egoistical individualism, a universalism by which standards of success apply uniformly to all members of society, and the fetishism of money, i.e., the consecration of money as the very metric of success (Messner, 2003). At the same time, non-economic values and beliefs, i.e. pro-social values that may further a supportive climate and may represent a cultural counter-balance to the American Dream, tend to be overwhelmed by it (Messner and Rosenfeld, 2013: p. 89). IAT stipulates that economic dominance in the institutional structure of a society, combined with the corresponding cultural ancillaries, constitute a social environment that fosters criminal and violent behaviour. Our basic premise is that these social conditions conducive to criminal behaviour also promote prejudices. Prejudices are of considerable social significance, since they legitimize discrimination of minorities and weak groups and give ground to hate crimes (see e.g., Levin & McDevitt, 2008). To extend the scope of IAT from crime to prejudices, we need to explicate the micro-level arguments that can be derived from the theory.

2.1 Translating IAT to the Micro-level

A useful point of departure for our theoretical elaboration is a paper by Messner, Thome, and Rosenfeld (2008), in which the authors set out to begin to tackle the challenge of explaining how the macro-level processes of IAT are ‘played out’ at the level of individual action. The authors depict a multilevel model of a highly crime-prone society that links the theoretically strategic features of the institutional and cultural environment with the role-performance proclivities and subjective value preferences of actors within that society. We reproduce this multilevel model in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

The multi-level model of institutional-anomie theory by Messner, Thome & Rosenfeld (2008: p. 175)

As indicated in the diagram, a crime-prone society is described as one in which the economy dominates the institutional balance of power; anomie is pervasive; and the overriding value orientation is a form of individualism that is extreme and intrinsically ‘disintegrative.’ At the micro-level, these social conditions are manifested in the following ways. (1) Actors tend to prioritize economic roles over non-economic roles perceptually and behaviourally. The fulfilment of economic roles (e.g., working overtime on the job, accepting a transfer that requires uprooting the household) is considered to be more important than, and is given precedence over, the fulfilment of non-economic roles (e.g., attending to family matters, retaining proximity to friends and relatives). (2) The moral status of the means of action becomes subservient in the decision-making process to considerations of expediency. Actors are inclined to accept the view that goals are best pursued ‘by any means necessary.’ (3) Economic transactions are characterized by a high degree of “marketness” (Messner et al. 2008: p. 174).

The concept of the ‘marketness of economic transactions’ requires further explanation. It ultimately derives from Polanyi’s (1957) classic discussion of the tendency in early years of capitalist development for the economy to become ‘disembedded’ from social relationships more generally, a situation which Polanyi considered to be untenable in the long run. Fred Block (1990) has expanded on Polanyi’s insights by suggesting that concrete economic interactions in modern capitalist societies, such as exchanges in the marketplace, usually do contain social elements in addition to purely economic elements, but they do so to varying degrees. Block (1990: p. 174) accordingly proposes that marketness can be conceptualized as a continuum that “essentially reflects the extent to which market transactions are ‘embedded’ in more general social relationships.” At the high end of the continuum, actors are primarily responsive to price signals whereby their motivation for the transaction is purely instrumental with little affect involved, as reflected in the idealized notion of homo economicus. At the low end of the marketness continuum, considerations other than price play a role in the market transaction. In other words, low marketness implies that instrumental motives intermix freely with expressive motives. The multilevel model of IAT stipulates that in societies with the macro-level conditions conducive to crime, even the performance of economic roles will exhibit a distinctive characteristic – they will tend to fall at the high end of the ‘marketness’ continuum.

One final feature of the multilevel model proposed by Messner et al. warrants mention. Neither the macro-level nor the micro-level is assigned priority in any causal sense. Rather, the respective processes are conceptualized within this framework as being mutually constitutive, as represented by the two-headed arrow in the figure that interpenetrates across levels (Messner et al., 2008: p. 175).⁵

The extended multilevel model based on Messner et al. offers important insights about how individual actors are expected to experience the macro-level conditions that are linked with high crime rates given the logic of IAT. However, the model is essentially a heuristic device that does not contain predictions about relationships among variables, predictions that are amenable to empirical testing on the micro level. To facilitate the derivation of testable propositions, we propose that the individual-level processes described in the multilevel model be re-conceptualized with reference to measurable constructs. One such concept is ‘market-dominated role-performance repertoires.’ This concept reflects the prioritizing of economic roles and the strong orienting of economic role-performance to pure market considerations (a high ‘marketness of economic transactions’) by individual actors. The concept of market-dominated role-performance repertoires constitutes an individual-level manifestation of economic dominance in the institutional balance of power at the macro-level. Another concept refers to subjectively embraced cultural orientations that are individual indicators for cultural anomie as conceptualized in IAT (for a detailed description of the meaning of anomie within the rationale of IAT in contrast to pure normlessness see the paragraph above). Specifically, it encompasses commitment to the principal market-oriented values – success, individualism, and monetary fetishism – and a moral insensitivity inter alia to the means of action. This second concept captures the macro-level properties of disintegrative individualism and anomie. Such a constellation of cultural orientations, coupled with market dominated role-performance repertoires is more generally referred to as marketized mentality⁶ in the following. By translating IAT to the micro-level via this re-conceptualization, we can derive a distinctive empirical prediction, namely, that it should be possible to model marketized mentality as a latent construct of generalized cultural orientations on the basis of theoretically relevant individual attitudes and performance repertoires.

We further propose an additional translation of IAT to the micro-level by drawing upon selected arguments by Messner and Rosenfeld in Crime and the American Dream. The authors acknowledge that the culture of any society is not monolithic. As alluded to briefly above, other elements of culture can in principle “counterbalance” the anomic pressures that would be associated with a ‘marketized mentality’ (Messner and Rosenfeld, 2013: p. 89). The nature of these counterbalancing elements of culture is not fully explicated by Messner and Rosenfeld, but their discussion of the ‘task of cultural regeneration’ implies that a commitment to values that foster various forms of social solidarity could serve as such counterbalancing cultural elements (2013: pp. 126). We propose that commitment to ‘solidarity values’ will be a particularly relevant counterbalancing feature of culture for understanding the phenomenon of group prejudice. Solidarity values encompass the ascription of equal worth and the endorsement of equal treatment of all groups in society. Similar to concepts such as ‘bridging social capital’ (Putnam, 2000; Schuller, 2007; Woolcock, 1998), pro-diversity beliefs (e.g. van Knippenberg and Haslam, 2003; Wolf and van Dick, 2008; Kauff and Wagner, 2012) or egalitarianism (Plant et al., 2012), these values entail an outward looking orientation that welcomes members of culturally distinct social groups into the societal community. The notion of ‘solidarity values’ expands the scope of IAT-research to take a cultural counterbalance to anomic pressures into account, and it strengthens our conceptual and empirical model by advancing the following theoretically informed hypothesis:

• H₁: the degree of commitment to a marketized mentality will be inversely related to the degree of acceptance of solidarity values.

We also propose that the determinants of marketized mentality and solidarity values can be found in individual-level indicators of institutional integration. Assuming that economic dominance in the institutional balance of power can be adequately represented by the relative strength of individual integration into non-economic institutions on the level of individual actors, it is plausible to argue that a highly marketized mentality and low commitment to solidarity values are likely to emerge when actors are not firmly integrated in non-economic institutions (representing weak non-economic institutions within individuals). In contrast, a high degree of integration in non-economic institutions is expected to inhibit the emergence of high levels of marketized mentality while at the same time furthering solidarity values when understood as cultural counter-balance to an economically dominated culture of disintegrative individualism.⁷ Those contemporary forms of individualism are, following IAT, being dominantly transported and furthered by the contemporary dominant institution of economy in Western neoliberal societies and, following the functionalistic approach of IAT, should be curbed by counterbalancing non-economic institutions. Again, by additionally considering solidarity values as counterbalance to marketized mentality related to effects of integration in non-economic institutions, we can get a more nuanced picture of what the respective non-economic institution actually means for the individuals. We apply this reasoning to hypothesize that the degree of integration in the non-economic institutional realms of the family, friendship networks, religion, and politics should be inversely related to the degree to which the individual’s general orientation is highly marketized. At the same time, we expect this non-economic integration to be positively associated with solidarity values.⁸

• H_{2(a, b, c, d)}: The degree of integration in the family (a), friendship networks (b), religion (c), and politics (d) will be inversely related to the degree to which a general marketized mentality is expressed.

• H_{3(a, b, c, d)}: The degree of integration in the family (a), friendship networks (b), religion (c), and politics (d) will be positively related to the degree to which solidarity values are expressed.

2.2 Extending the Theory to Group Prejudices

Our underlying premise is that IAT not only offers a sociologically compelling account for why marketized societies are likely to exhibit high crime rates, but it also provides a theoretical foundation to help understand specific contemporary, economically motivated prejudices against vulnerable groups, eventually resulting in increased social inequality on the macro-level. We concentrate on prejudices because they are highly functional legitimizing devices for establishing and reinforcing inequality between groups (Zick, Küpper and Heitmeyer, 2010). They serve to legitimize the collective and structural discrimination of groups as e.g., Social Dominance Theory stresses (Sidanius and Pratto, 1999). However, prejudices assume highly variable forms, and multiple target groups within societies can be subjected to unequal treatment. We focus on a very specific, emergent and new form of prejudices in market-dominated societies: the economically motivated devaluation of allegedly unprofitable and financially burdening groups. To understand this specific contemporary emerging prejudice phenomenon, we need to open up to sociological analyses of present Western societies, which IAT provides.

We assume that the link from an anomic culture as described in IAT, i.e. the predominance of market-friendly values as well as market-dominated role-performance repertoires and a concomitant insensitivity to the moral status of means, as pooled in a general marketized mentality, to prejudices against social groups is not arbitrary. Rather, such an anomic and marketized mentality provides fertile soil for devaluations of those groups that are stereotypically perceived as being incompatible with the animating spirit of a marketized society. These are groups that ‘fail to measure up’ because they are defined to be ‘unprofitable’. More specifically, our studies on Group-Focused Enmity in Germany, which are described explicitly later, show that the groups of immigrants, unemployed and homeless persons are easily stigmatized as being economically useless, or worse, economically burdening (see e.g., Asbrock, 2010). Unemployed persons, just like homeless, often appear to cost extra because they depend on state assistance and are financed by the taxpayer. In the light of the logic and norms of the market, they thus may easily be stigmatized as an extra financial burden. Immigrants, beside the possible notion of cultural threat, are often stereotypically seen in Germany as comparatively poor and mostly relying on the welfare state (e.g., Zick, Pettigrew & Wagner, 2008). In addition to this notion of immigrants as a financial burden, for some they represent serious competitors for scarce jobs on the labour market and thus lower the monetary worth of the work force for national workers. In terms of individualized cost and benefit-calculations by national workers, immigrants thus also represent costs rather than benefits and can be readily devalued when viewed through the market logic.

The question at stake here is the one about the ‘mechanism of unprofitability’. How and why does marketized mentality lead to prejudice against the unprofitable? Can we explain this connection within the scope of common approaches from prejudice research? What can IAT contribute over and above well-known approaches to understand this specific form of devaluation of the unprofitable?

Marketized mentality obviously differs from authoritarianism and conservatism, two personality traits or ideologies that have long since been identified as driving forces for prejudice and discrimination against weak groups by Adorno and colleagues (1950). Marketized mentality comprises value orientations in line with market norms (success, individualism and monetary fetishism), a moral insensitivity to means of action, as well as the prioritizing of economic roles and the strong orienting of economic role-performance to pure market considerations. By encompassing all those facets as deduced from IAT, this mentality thus also clearly goes beyond pure excessive individualistic attitudes that have been identified as eroding social cohesion and furthering disintegration before (e.g. Hadjar, 2004). Moreover, marketized mentality can neither be subsumed under high in-group-identification nor threat to social identity, both factors conducive to prejudice as brought forward by Tajfel and Turner (1979) in the scope of their social identity theory. Rather, it represents a distinctive set of orientations and values that, following IAT, are characteristic of contemporary Western neoliberal societies to varying degrees. This is a mentality that represents an omnipresent culture that is governed predominantly by market norms which eventually crowd out nonmarket values like solidarity, mutual obligation or altruism in neighbouring realms of social and political life (for the crowding out effect of nonmarket values by market norms see Hirsch, 1976; Sandel, 2012). The specific contemporary form of devaluation against those weak groups that are perceived as being unprofitable as a consequence of marketized mentality can be considered a manifestation of such crowding-out of nonmarket norms in a non-economic social realm: the realm of non-market interpersonal relationships, especially relationships between strong groups on the one side and weak groups and persons on the other side, that thus depend on non-economic values like self-transcending solidarity and empathy.

Moreover, the predominance of self-enhancing in contrast to self-transcending values⁹ encompassed by marketized mentality implies that such societies lack morality in a more general sense. “Moral” stands in contrast with the “instrumental” in the Durkheimian tradition (Poggi, 2000: 10). Morality then requires a “… capacity for self-transcendence, a capacity to relate to others without regard to instrumental considerations that are oriented toward self-interest” (Messner, 2012: 17). The dominance of self-enhancing values in market dominated societies thus undermines morality more generally. This generalized relaxation of moral restrains characteristic of the marketized mentality facilitates the translation of judgements of low valuation into prejudicial attitudes.

The distinctive contribution of an individual-level application of IAT to a deeper understanding of dominant contemporary prejudices is thus to sociologically deduce this specific marketized mentality from contemporary macro level developments, to pinpoint its precise content on the basis of a sociological reflection that differs from well-known prejudice-fostering attitudes, and to deduce empirically testable hypotheses that depict relations among relevant constructs and prejudice. Following IAT more concretely and transformed to the level of individuals, the mechanism is expected as follows: as specified in the paragraph above, we expect that integration into non-economic institutions reduces the degree of marketized mentality which in turn furthers devaluation of weak groups that are perceived as unprofitable.¹⁰

In order to further place our micro-application of IAT within the wider debates on prejudice, it is important to emphasize that the resulting prejudicial attitudes serve important legitimizations in maintaining hierarchical dominance to majorities of societies (see Sidanius and Pratto, 1999). Influential contemporary ideologies or myths promote and sustain suitable prejudices to legitimize societal status hierarchies (ibid). Marketized mentality, as distinct as it is from authoritarianism, conservatism or pure excessive individualism, can be well integrated into this reasoning. Within this rationale, marketized mentality represents such an influential contemporary ideology or myth, which again leads us to hypothesize that the degree of acceptance of marketized mentality will be positively related to the tendency to devalue immigrants (xenophobia) and to devalue the unemployed and homeless given that those groups can be readily cast as being non-profitable or economically burdening groups. In contrast to this, solidarity values are expected to inhibit the devaluation of vulnerable groups that may be perceived as unprofitable within the logic of the market place, due to the inherent solidarity with, and respect for minorities. Following a rather methodological reasoning as mentioned above, the additional consideration of solidarity values as a counterbalance to marketized mentality also strengthens the validity of our final conceptual and empirical model, especially regarding the key aspect of our model, the effect from marketized mentality to prejudices. If we can find a remaining effect of marketized mentality after controlling for this counterbalance that is a rather close companion to the dependent variable (solidarity values and prejudices against unprofitable minorities), our key effect of marketized mentality will be much more meaningful. Thus, our hypotheses with regard to the individual mechanisms linking institutional integration, cultural orientations, and the devaluation of vulnerable groups are the following:

• H_4a: The degree of acceptance of marketized mentality will be positively related to prejudice against groups that are stereotypically seen as unprofitable when controlling for solidarity values.

• H_4b: The degree of acceptance of solidarity values will be negatively related to prejudice against groups that are stereotypically seen as unprofitable when controlling for marketized mentality.

Together with the H₂ set of Hypotheses, this implies that we also expect indirect buffering effects from the non-economic institutions on this specific form of prejudice via the protection against marketized mentality and solidarity values (H_{5a, b, c, d}). And finally, as explicated above, we expect marketized mentality to have effects especially on devaluations of those groups, which are stereotypically seen as unprofitable such as foreigners, unemployed or homeless persons (H₆). The hypotheses can be expressed in the form of a conceptual path model as depicted in figure 2. This model guides our empirical application of IAT to the explanation of group prejudice.

figure 2.

simplified conceptual model of the main variables.

3 An Empirical Test of the Model

To test our hypotheses, we conducted a cross-sectional study with a sample of German adults.¹¹ The study is intended as an initial appraisal of the utility of translating the macro-level dynamics of IAT to the micro-level to understand out-group prejudice.

3.1 Sample

The data were collected in 2009 by means of computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI). The interviews were pretested and conducted by the sociological research institute (SOFI) at the University of Göttingen. The sample consists of 227 participants. It is a cross-sectional, simple random sample encompassing only participants who are German nationals. The 227 participants are composed of 84 men (37%) and 143 women (63%), which results in an oversampling of women (51% of German population, source: Datenreport, 2008). The age range is from 17 to 88 years, with a mean age of 53 years (SD = 17.2). Missing values were treated with the FIML (full information maximum likelihood) procedure in the calculations.

3.2 Measures

We base our analyses on the following concepts that are all modeled as latent variables in the structural equation modeling (SEM).

Xenophobia, devaluation of the unemployed and devaluation of homeless people were measured using the group-focused enmity-Scale of the GFE-project¹² (Heitmeyer, 2002; Zick et al., 2008). All of the items reported here have been translated from the original German into English. The two items for xenophobia are: “There are too many immigrants in Germany” and “When jobs are scarce, immigrants living in Germany should be sent back to their home-countries.” Devaluation of the unemployed was also measured by two items, which are: “Most of the unemployed do not really look for a job” and “I am shocked, since the long-time unemployed have an easy-going life at the expense of the society.” Devaluation of the homeless was measured by the items: “Homeless beggars should be removed from pedestrian zones” and “The homeless in the cities are unpleasant”. Participants rated each item on a 4-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree). In the SEM we use one second order latent variable “devaluation of purported unprofitable” consisting of xenophobia, devaluation of the unemployed and devaluation of the homeless as first order latent variables. We separately tested the measurement model of the latent variable “devaluation of purported unprofitable” in a second order confirmatory factor analysis including the three first order constructs and received a very good model fit (Chi² = 4.2, df = 6 p = .64, CFI = 1.0, RMSEA = .00, PClose = .85, SRMR = .016) and a construct almost equally composed of the three devaluation-constructs.

The measure of the marketized mentality consists of four concepts: success, individualism (Hadjar, 2004)¹³, monetary-fetishism (Stowell, 2000) as well as the market-dominated role-performance. The items for success are: “It´s not important how you win, but that you win,”¹⁴ and “You have to judge the doings of people by their success.” Individualism is measured by: “All of us would perform better, if everyone only cared for him- or herself” and “First of all I think of myself, without much regard for others.” The items for money-fetishism are: “Besides health, money is the most important commodity”, and “No matter where it´s from, having money is important.” Participants rated each item on a 4-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree). Market-dominated role-performance (“mdrp”) is measured by two items. The first item reflects the marketness of economic transactions and respondents were asked to indicate how similar they are to a person described as: “He/She would not spend money on things, from which he/she would not personally profit” (4-point Likert scale). The second item captures the prioritizing of economic roles over non-economic roles perceptually: “If working overtime is necessary to get ahead, I would therefore spend less time with my family/friends” (4-point Likert scale). We separately tested the measurement model of the latent variable “marketized mentality” in a second order confirmatory factor analysis including the four first order constructs success, individualism, monetary-fetishism and mdrp and received a good model fit (Chi² = 29, df = 16, p = .002, CFI = .94, RMSEA = .06, PClose = .26, SRMR = .044). The second order construct “marketized mentality” is primarily composed of monetary-fetishism (.98) and success (.82), while mdrp (.73) as well as individualism (.64) showed lower loadings.

Our concept of solidarity values is intended to capture the ascription of equal worth to all groups in society and their acceptance into the societal community. The four items display a satisfying reliability (Cronbach´s alpha = .68). The items are: “In Germany, all people must be treated equally, no matter where they come from and how they live”, “The different lifestyles of minorities in Germany enrich us”, “Sometimes you can learn a lot from people, who live differently from your own” and “I think it is good when minorities have their own lifestyle, even if I do not understand some things”.

With the integration in the different non-economic institutions we capture the institutions family, friendship, religion as well as politics.

Family integration consists of two standardized items, which measure the importance of family for the respondent and the support he/she benefits from it, theoretically implying more or less social control exerted by the family over the individual. The items are “my family is always there for me, whenever I need it” and “my family contributes to me in all important situations”. Participants rated the items on 4-point scales (1 = strongly disagree/very unimportant, 4 = strongly agree/very important). The Cronbach´s alpha for family integration is .80.

Friendship integration was also measured by two standardized items and targets the social control that is exuded from friends. The items are “I have enough friends, I can count on, when I need them” and “With my friends I feel safe and secure”. Participants rated the items on 4-point scales (1 = strongly disagree/very unimportant, 4 = strongly agree/very important). Cronbach´s alpha for friendship integration is .74.

Religion-integration was measured by two items, with a high reliability (Cronbach´s alpha = .88). It is more of a measure of the participants´ religiousness and the importance of religious faith than of their religious activities or religious rituals, which theoretically also connects to more or less social control exerted by religion over the individual. The items are: “Through my faith in God, I can cope with unsecure situations” and “Through my faith in God I experience what community/collective means.” Participants rated the items on a 4-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree).

Politics integration is measured by a single-item: “how likely is it for you to participate in a political protest”. Of course one could think of much more dimensions of political integration like for example general political interest or voting behavior. However, this item is the only one available in the data and clearly also covering the individual integration in politics. Participants rated the item on a 4-point scale (1 = very unlikely, 4 = very likely).

3.3 Results

The hypotheses were tested by structural equation modeling (SEM). The results are presented in figure 3. In the SEM we controlled for the effects of socio-demographic variables age, gender, educational-level as well as an Eastern German heritage¹⁵ and own unemployment¹⁶. Furthermore the important prejudice predictor authoritarianism (Adorno, 1950; Altemeyer, 1988) is considered as a latent control variable in the model.¹⁷ As indicated in figure 3, the model fit is acceptable, taking the relatively small sample size into account.

figure 3.

model results (standardized beta-effects are shown in the figure. ***=p <.001, **=p<.01, *=p<.05, †=p<.10; circles=latent variables, square= manifest variable; n=228; Chi²=608, df (411), CFI=.88, RMSEA=.049, PClose=.548, SRMR=.065, controlled for age, gender, educational-level, Eastern German heritage, own unemployment, authoritarianism)

First of all, as predicted in H₁, marketized mentality and solidarity values are in opposition to each other (r = −.27). The more likely respondents are to express a marketized mentality, the less likely they are to exhibit solidarity values. This result is consistent with the notion of counterbalancing effects of solidarity values on marketized mentality.

Our H₂ set of hypotheses (H_2a, H_2b, H_2c, and H_2d) pertains to the effects of integration in non-economic institutions on marketized mentality. Although the results provide support for the hypotheses insofar that all effects are in the expected direction, the magnitudes of the coefficients are small, and none of these effects reaches statistical significance. In other words, the strength of integration in non-economic institutions is only very weakly connected with values and role priorities dominated by a marketized mentality.

The non-economic institutions, however, foster solidarity values as suggested in the H₃ set of hypotheses. Families (β = .14), friendships (β = .15) and religion (β = .20) are the institutions with the highest effects. All effects - with the exception of politics integration - reach statistical significance.

Turning to the devaluation of vulnerable groups, the results reveal that a moderately strong effect on prejudices comes from the marketized mentality (β = .29). The degree of commitment to a marketized mentality is positively and significantly connected to xenophobia, the devaluation of unemployed and homeless, consistent with H_4a. Also consistent with expectations (H_4b), solidarity values appear to inhibit devaluations (β = −.44). These effects appear in a model in which the important prejudice predictor authoritarianism (β =.43) is controlled for.

For three out of four indicators measuring an integration in a non-economic institution, we found significant buffering effects with regard to prejudices via both, marketized mentality and solidarity values, when looking at the whole mechanism. Table 1 displays the total and total indirect effects of each institutional integration on our specifically focused form of prejudice, mediated through marketized mentality and solidarity values. The religious, the friendship as well as the family integration all tend to buffer the prejudices mediated through the mentality and the values. The stronger the respondents are integrated in those non-economic institutions, the more their values are characterized by solidarity than by a marketized mentality and the less likely it is that they express prejudices toward weak groups in society. The total indirect effects of these institutional integrations reach statistical significance. Only for the politics integration the indirect effect is too small to reach statistical significance. Therefore we can confirm Hypotheses H_5a-c and reject H_5d.

table 1.

model results.

Model fit: Chi2=608, df=411, p<.000, RMSEA=.049, PClose =.55, CFI=.88, SRMR=.065
	devaluation of Unprofitable	marketized mentality	solidarity values
authoritarianism	.43***	.36***	−.30***
gender	.09	−.26**	.18*
education	−.02	−.42***	.41***
age	−.09	.08	−.11
west/east	.16**	−.02	.05
unemployment	−.11†	.06	.06
indirect effects	on devaluation of Unprofitable (total/total indirect via marketized mentality & solidarity values)
family integration	−.07/−.08†
friends integration	−.05/−.09†
religion integration	−.05/−.11†
politics integration	−.05/−.01
gender	−.06/−.15**
education	−.32***/−.30***
age	−.02/.07†
west/east	.13*/−.03
unemployment	−.12†/−.01

(Standardized beta-effects are shown in the table.

^***p <.001,

^**p<.01,

^*p<.05,

^†p<.10)

Finally, table 1 also shows effects of all considered control variables on marketized mentality, solidarity values, prejudices as well as for the indirect mediations. The most important control variable seems to be the educational-level showing strong indirect effects (total indirect effect β = −.30) on the prejudices. These fully run via the marketized mentality and solidarity values. The generally strong and stable education effect on prejudices can thus be fully explained via the measured value orientations and mentality in our model. The higher the respondents´ educational-level, the lower their marketized mentalities and the higher their solidarity values resulting in lower prejudices.

Gender also yields strong effects which require further explanation. Males exhibit stronger marketized mentality, while females share more often solidarity values. Mediated through those values, gender (males coded as 0, females as 1) has negative indirect effects on the three devaluations. Men tend to devalue the considered groups because they more often share a marketized mentality and perceive weak groups as a burden to society. The observed gender difference with regard to the extent of sharing solidarity values and marketized mentality is in line with the IAT-assumption that women are more strongly integrated in institutions in which non-egoistic values are prominent (Messner and Rosenfeld, 2001: p. 80) and might also be due to still influential differences in socialization processes for men and women.

Concerning age we can find a positive total indirect effect on prejudices indicating that older respondents share marketized mentalities and to a lesser extent solidarity values. For the East/West distinction we cannot observe statistical differences in the marketized mentalities and solidarity values. However prejudices are more widely shared by respondents with an eastern German heritage independent from the elaborated mediations (direct effect β = .16). Finally controlling for the employment status reveals direct in-group solidarity effects. Unemployed respondents devaluate to a lesser extent the considered groups which is very much due to a lesser devaluation of the subgroup unemployed people.

For testing hypothesis H₆ and answering the question whether the explicated mechanism is especially relevant for specific, namely purportedly unprofitable groups in society we have to draw on another dataset, in which we simultaneously surveyed prejudices towards several groups in society.¹⁸ With 1.008 respondents, who were contacted in 2013/2014, the sample is bigger than the first sample we are using for the first analyses above. Also we can include in this data not only authoritarianism but also Social-Dominance Orientation (Sidanius and Pratto, 1999) as important prejudice predictors.

The operationalizations of the relevant constructs differ only slightly from those used in the first data set. The three prejudice measures for xenophobia, devaluation of the unemployed and devaluation of the homeless are the same as in the first data. Marketized mentality here consists of individualism, success, monetary-fetishism on the one hand and on the other hand of items capturing a market-dominated role-performance.¹⁹ Only one item in the data is adequate for measuring a concept such as solidarity values²⁰. Here the operationalization clearly differs considerably to the one used in the first data, so that an exact comparison of their effects is not possible. Still, we decided to integrate a counterbalancing concept in the model with the restrictions given. Additionally the prejudices sexism and homophobia are considered here as prejudices toward weak groups in society that are not stereotypically seen as unprofitable.²¹ Homosexual persons are rather devalued with the argument of sexual immorality than unprofitability. Women in Germany are generally rather seen as competitors for males in the labor market than as a financial burden. The dominant argument for devaluation of women in Germany is thus rather that they should serve males in their professional career and should return to their roles as housewives and mothers, than claiming unprofitability.

The analyses in the model displayed in table 2 reveal that again marketized mentality has a significant effect on the devaluations of groups that are seen as purportedly unprofitable such as immigrants (β = .35), unemployed (β = .25) and homeless (β = .46). These effects occur with controls for the important prejudice predictors SDO and Authoritarianism as well as socio-demographic variables. However, consistent with theoretical expectations, the effects of marketized mentality on sexism (β = .06) and devaluations of homosexuals (β = .15) are non-significant. These results support H₆ and clearly suggest that the explicated mechanism of marketized mentalities affecting the judgment of whole societal groups mostly pertains to the purportedly unprofitable groups.

table 2.

model results testing H₆

n=1.008, Chi2=782, df=335, p<.000, RMSEA=.028, PClose = 1.0, CFI=.96, SRMR=.037
	xenophobia	devaluation of unempl.	devaluation of homeless	sexism	homophobia	marketized mentality	solidarity values
marketized mentality	.35**	.25*	.46***	.06	.15	-	−.22***
solidarity values	−.21***	.04	.01	.03	−.09*	−.22***	-
SDO	.11	.02	.15	.32***	.15*	.51***	−.23***
Authoritarianism	.35***	,51***	.20**	.14**	.19***	.60***	−.46***
gender (0=m, 1=w)	.10**	.05	.05	−.10**	−.13***	−.21***	.06**
education	−.02	.04	−.03	−.03	−.04	.04	−.00
income	−.05†	.05	.06†	−.11***	−.06*	−.09†	.04†
age	.00	.03	.03	.02	−.00	−.01	−.04†

(Standardized beta-effects are shown in the table.

^***p <.001,

^**p<.01,

^*p<.05,

^†p<.10)

4 Summary and Conclusion

Although processes of marketization in virtually all Western societies have been widely discussed by researchers, the implications of these processes for individual attitudes have rarely been examined in empirical studies. The present study has taken a first step in this direction by formulating an analytical model informed by a macro-level theory of crime – institutional anomie theory (IAT) – and applying this model to explain prejudices against low status and ostensibly unprofitable groups. The results of our analyses suggest that processes of marketization as captured by IAT may have problematic consequences for such groups, at least in Germany.

Several important observations emerge from our statistical analyses. First, we find that respondents embracing the marketized mentality are likely to devalue the unemployed, the homeless and immigrants. This association is consistent with our underlying premise about the crowding out of non-market values by market norms in marketized societies; respondents with highly economized value orientations and role priorities are inclined to use those values as guiding principles also in other social spheres besides the economy. They thus also appear to judge entire groups by their usefulness, i.e., their worthiness when determined with reference to the standards of the market. According to this interpretation, groups such as the unemployed, the homeless or immigrants are readily seen as unprofitable and therefore of little utility. Second, in line with our theoretical arguments, we can show that this mechanism is restricted to the theorized vulnerable groups. It only appears for the devaluation of those groups that are dominantly stigmatized as economically burdening or unprofitable.

Third, parts of the displayed mechanism seem to be especially prominent among certain societal groups: Men, low educated persons with a rather low income and higher authoritarianism display the highest level of marketized mentality. Since we find strong empirical relations between marketized mentality and devaluation, this part of our depicted mechanism explains large parts of the devaluation among persons belonging to those groups. Thus, marketized mentality seems to be a prominent driving force for devaluation of the unprofitable for this sub-sample.

We do detect a noteworthy finding that is contrary to theoretical expectations. The measures of integration into non-economic institutions are not significantly related to marketized mentality. It seems unlikely that these results are simply a measurement artifact. The indicators of non-economic institutional integration are related to solidarity values as predicted: the stronger the degree of integration, the greater the support for solidarity values. Our orienting conceptual model thus requires some modification to be consistent with the results.

One possible interpretation that seems consistent with the general logic of IAT stipulates indirect effects of non-economic institutional integration on marketized mentality via solidarity values. Originally, we hypothesized that solidarity values and marketized mentality would be in opposition to one another without imposing any causal direction (see Figure 2). However, insofar as strong solidarity values actually inhibit the emergence of marketized mentality, pathways for indirect causal effects appear.

The adequacy of this revised conceptual model depends of course on the plausibility of the claim of a causal impact of solidarity values on marketized mentality. This issue has not been addressed directly in the IAT literature, but a potential account might be developed drawing upon the Model of Frame Selection (MFS), as advanced by Kroneberg and colleagues (Kroneberg, 2006; Kroneberg et al., 2010).²² The MFS focuses on the cognitive processes that actors employ when defining the social situations that they encounter. These processes involve two basic types of mental schemas for social action – “frames” and “scripts.” Frames provide the basic definition of the situation. These frames call forth corresponding scripts – guidelines for appropriate action.

MFS further theorizes that the activation of frames and scripts results in very different cognitive logics that govern social action. One such logic entails a utility-maximizing, calculative deliberation of costs and benefits – a logic that corresponds quite closely to a marketized mentality as conceptualized in IAT. Moreover, research indicates that this cognitive logic is characteristic of those who are not strongly bound to moral norms (Kroneberg et al., 2010). Perhaps in an analogous fashion, strong commitments to solidarity values inhibit the tendency to select the frames and scripts associated with marketized mentality, whereas the failure to develop such commitments provides the “space” within which a marketized mentality can flourish. This interpretation is admittedly speculative. Rigorous efforts to theorize and document the interconnections between solidarity values and marketized mentality remain key tasks for future research informed by the IAT tradition.

Although the pattern of empirical results is consistent with the proposed analytic framework in a number of respects as noted above, we acknowledge limitations associated with our study. Causal inferences are necessarily tentative in observational designs, especially when the data are cross-sectional. Future research with longitudinal data could assess the impacts of changes in the theoretically important variables, which would enhance confidence in the postulated relationships.

Additionally, the scope of inquiry might be extended beyond attitudes to encompass behavior. We assume that prejudices serve as legitimizing tools. Specifically, attitudes are likely to legitimize discrimination (Wagner et al., 2008), which was not included in our study. We anticipate that our elaborated IAT framework can be fruitfully applied to discriminatory behavior as well as to prejudicial attitudes.

Finally, one should acknowledge the high skewness of some items used in the model (see descriptives in the appendix). Some of the items used might seem blunt and extreme. But they are also intended as such since they ought to capture social undesirable attitudes such as prejudices.

With these limitations in mind, our analyses suggest that the extended IAT model can be usefully applied to explain how a marketized mentality is conducive to those very specific forms of prejudice against vulnerable groups that emerge in contemporary Western neoliberal societies, namely the economically motivated devaluation of groups that are considered to be of low economic worth and solidarity with them would be unprofitable for society as a whole. More generally, our analyses attest to the potential benefits of transferring the insights from macro-level theorizing about the institutional and cultural processes of marketization and crime to the micro-level to gain a better understanding of the social processes that underlie contemporary group prejudices in the advanced Western societies.

Highlights.

• Institutional Anomie Theory offers a fruitful framework for understanding prejudice.

• If a marketized mentality is shared, certain groups rather appear as unprofitable.

• Being integrated in non-economic institutions rather facilitates solidarity values.

• Sharing solidarity values protects from stating prejudices.

• The outlined marketized mechanism appears especially for men and low-educated.

APPENDIX

Descriptives of the Main Variables, dataset 1

	agreement	SD	means
Xenophobia:
There are too many immigrants in Germany.	34.4%	1.05	2.13
When jobs are scarce, immigrants living in Germany should be sent back to their home-countries.	15.0%	.84	1.71
Devaluation of unemployed:
Most of the unemployed do not really look for a job.	39.1%	.95	2.35
I am shocked, if long-time unemployed have an easy-going life at the expense of the society.	60.8%	1.06	2.76
Devaluation of homeless people:
Homeless beggars should be removed from pedestrian zones.	24.1%	.90	2.03
The homeless in the cities are unpleasant.	39.1%	.92	2.31
Marketized mentality:
Success:
It’s not important how you win, but that you win.	35.1%	1.08	2.16
You have to judge the doings of people by their success.	24.9%	.88	1.98
Individualism:
All of us would perform better, if anyone only cared for him- or herself.	5.8%	.70	1.40
First of all I think of myself, without much regard for others.	6.2%	.69	1.45
Monetary-fetishism:
Besides health, money is the most important commodity.	3.1%	.99	2.09
No matter where it’s from, having money is important.	45.9%	.96	2.43
Market-dominated role-performance:
He/She would not spend money on things, from which he/she would not personally profit.	29.9%	.90	2.16
If working overtime is necessary to get ahead, I would therefore spend less time with my family/friends.	51.5%	1.37	2.64
Solidarity values:
In Germany, all people must be treated equally, no matter where they come from and how they live.	84.9%	.78	3.48
The different lifestyles of minorities in Germany enrich us.	83.9%	.85	3.31
Sometimes you can learn a lot from people, who live differently from your own.	97.1%	.53	3.68
I think it is good when minorities have their own lifestyle, even if I do not understand some things.	94.7%	.63	3.48