Cultural dispositions and economic choice

This paper applies Bourdieu's field theory to economic cognition, arguing that economic and cultural fields cultivate opposing dispositions through fundamentally inverse logics of accumulation. Drawing on three original studies with U.S. adults, the authors demonstrate that capital composition and field socialization systematically pattern economic decision-making in ways behavioural economics cannot explain through psychological mechanisms alone. The findings provide quantitative, micro-cognitive evidence for Bourdieu's chiastic structure and challenge behavioural economics' universal bias framework — illuminating how social structure penetrates economic cognition, with practical implications for financial literacy interventions in an increasingly financialized economy.