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How and Why Are Inequities Maintained? 11 environment (such as a consulting firm for helping the disadvantaged) changed participants’ attitudes toward not only SDO and system justifica- tion but also multiculturalism (e.g., whether people should welcome dif- ferent cultures or force assimilation). Other studies in additional applied contexts have found that hierarchy beliefs are pervasive and can be found in a variety of settings, such as health care, wherein beliefs about the nor- mative roles, duties, and powers of higher- versus lower-status personnel can have important consequences for how people behave in group set- tings (Weiss, Kolbe, Grote, Spahn, & Grande, 2017). Consistent with this latter finding, other studies have suggested that hierarchy beliefs are both ubiquitous and variable. Although hierarchies themselves have been around across time and species, modern societies vary widely in terms of how much they believe in the validity, desirabil- ity, or legitimacy of them (Fischer, 2013). Interestingly, in Fischer’s (2013) analyses of data from 29 different countries, he found that both the pres- ence of certain genetic alleles and environmental factors such as disease and food availability interacted to predict how much people in general supported the idea of hierarchies. IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS The Psychological Consequences of Inequity Although the substantive and varied body of work reviewed in this chapter has explained the social, psychological, cognitive biological, and personality-based explanations for why inequity exists and is maintained, newer research suggests that the existence of inequity is not without its own consequences as a result, those interested in increasing well-being should also be motivated to decrease—rather than maintain—inequity. To illustrate, both objective and subjective inequalities in income are linked to less happiness, and this link is mediated by factors such as competi- tion over status, lack of trust, and pessimism (Buttrick, Heintzelman, & Oishi, 2017). Furthermore, the consequences do not appear to be limited to just affective outcomes, such as happiness, but rather extend to a whole host of additional effects, including morality, mortality, health, and gov- ernment (Buttrick & Oishi, 2017). In other words, in equitable societies, everyone benefits because they are less competitive, more trusting, and less pessimistic, and this makes them happier, healthier, better run, and more upright. Despite the well-established effects of habituation—which should work against the perception of, and consequences following, inequality—recent or sudden shifts in inequality can change its salience (Buttrick et al., 2017). The resulting consequences at both the individual and interpersonal level across countries (e.g., see Buttrick et al., 2017 Guzzo, 2019) suggest that we, as a society, should be concerned with efforts at undermining it regard- less of our own personal lot in life. Beyond the ethical considerations, this