Social Class Identity and Quarter-Life Crisis: Class Identity Conflict, Dual Non-Belonging, and the Moderating Role of Cultural Capital Confidence
Keywords:
social class identity, dual non-belonging, cultural capital, quarter-life crisisAbstract
This cross-sectional study examined associations of class identity conflict and dual non-belonging with quarter-life crisis symptomatology, and whether cultural capital confidence moderates the class identity conflict association, controlling for general distress. Participants recruited anonymously through Reddit (N = 373; age M = 24.82, SD = 2.57, range 21–29 years) completed self-report measures, including the Developmental Crisis Questionnaire, and an embedded randomized vignette experiment. Class identity conflict (r = .627) and dual non-belonging (r = .621) were strongly associated with crisis scores (ps < .001). Adding cultural capital confidence and its interaction with class identity conflict to a model with class identity conflict, dual non-belonging, and general distress raised explained variance from 59.3% to 64.3% (ΔR² = .051). The negative interaction (β = -.203, p < .001) indicated a weaker association between class identity conflict and crisis symptomatology at higher cultural capital confidence. Random assignment to a class-mobility threat scenario produced higher state ratings of perceived status threat (d = 0.568) and anticipated identity distress (d = 0.601) than a neutral scenario. The associations may partly reflect construct overlap, and their direction remains undetermined.
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