What Your Tastes Say About Who You Are

Department seminar with PhD student Rikke Haudrum Rasmussen, University of Copenhagen.

Classic theories in sociology argue that tastes – in, say, music, food, or art – are inherently linked to social inequality. This is, in part, because our tastes matter for how others perceive us. If having “the right” tastes convinces others that you possess favorable qualities, such tastes may act as a currency yielding privilege in different social settings.

My dissertation contributes to an emerging literature using experiments to test classic theories in cultural sociology by isolating effects of cultural tastes on others’ perceptions; something previous research based on observational data struggles to disentangle. I highlight three contributions related to this question. First, I show that a taste for highbrow (e.g., opera and haute cuisine) rather than lowbrow culture (e.g., Schlager and McDonald’s) generates favorable perceptions of status. Second, I show that the status-signaling power of highbrow tastes depends on who displays them: ethnic minority individuals gain less from highbrow tastes than majority individuals in terms of shaping perceptions. Third, I show that omnivorous (i.e., broad and boundary-crossing) rather than univorous (i.e., narrow and boundary-maintaining) tastes create favorable perceptions of sociability and cosmopolitanism.

These results inform the longstanding debate on whether cultural omnivorousness has supplanted the traditional highbrow status order. My research suggests that the two status orders co-exist and generate different perceptions which may yield privilege in different social arenas.

All members of the Department of Sociology and research staff from across the faculty are invited to attend.