Looking for social class in all the wrong places: differences in social support emerge reliably between—but not within—class contexts

Despite theorizing that cultural phenomena reflect collective processes, psychologists often analyze such phenomena at the individual level. This approach can skew conclusions by obscuring processes that unfold between—rather than within—collectives. To demonstrate the importance of studying cultural effects at the group level, we examine differences in social support as a function of class. Across two datasets (Ntotal = 3,347), full-sample correlations between proxies of class and indices of social support were weak and inconsistent. However, when latent profile analysis (LPA) is used to model associations at the level of class groups, we reliably observe a working-class profile displaying higher levels of social support than a middle/upper-class profile. Corroborating the idea that poverty is associated with social isolation, we also identify an “underclass” profile combining extreme deprivation with low levels of social support. Our work underscores that class-cultural differences constitute group-level phenomena that may prove undetectable at the individual level.