Privileged parents who believe in economic mobility are more likely to accumulate resources: research.

The accumulation of opportunities has attracted attention in the last few years, especially after the 2019 university blues scandal, when rich, famous parents used their money, status and privileges to illegally send their children to university.

It was headed by Silverman with senior co-author Mesmin Destin, professor at the School of Education and Social Policy (SESP), Faculty of Psychology and Director of the Faculty of Access and Advanced Training of Northwestern University students. Other authors include Ariel Kalil, Daniel Levin's professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.

The study "Economic Mobility and Accumulation of Parents' Opportunities" was published on September 3 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to Silverman, the accumulation of opportunities can manifest itself in many ways in different socio-economic systems.

"We focus on the two most common and effective manifestations of accumulation of opportunities - parents who oppose redistribution policies that will primarily benefit families with lower socio-economic status, such as allocating more tax dollars to schools in low-income regions, and participating in specific actions that are unfairly preventing their children, such as allowing their child to distort their identity when applying for college."

The researchers conducted two studies that examined how American parents' beliefs about the economy affect their support for policies that would give their children an advantage, even if children from underrepresented communities had to be paid for this advantage.

In their first study, scientists interviewed more than 1,500 American parents about how, in their opinion, the American dream of socio-economic mobility is feasible. The parents were a mixture of parents with high, low and medium SES, with an annual family income of $190,000 or more considered high SES.

The second study helped to consolidate these conclusions by manipulating parents' beliefs in mobility. They recruited more than 1,000 parents and showed them one of two short videos about the state of the U.S. economy, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Half of the parents were randomly chosen to watch a video about millions of Americans who are expected to climb the economic ladder - ascending mobility. The other half of the parents watched an almost identical video, which instead told about millions of Americans who are expected to lose their position on the economic ladder - downward mobility.