It's More Your Fault If You Don't Climb the Ladder Than If You Are Not Socially Mobile

We examine the causal effects of ladder and mobility social class metaphors compared to control. A ladder elicits less positive character attributions (study 1, N=268). Social mobility elicits heightened situational (versus dispositional) inferences about social class (study 2, N=251). We show that a ladder metaphor may be more culturally fluent.