客体化现象在工作场景下广泛存在，劳动力商品化与现代人力资源管理体系会过分强调员工的工具性价值，而较少关注他们作为人类所具有的本质与独特属性。考虑到广大工作者与“打工人”和“社畜”等自嘲式短语的共鸣，本研究聚焦于工作领域内的自我客体化现象，旨在探讨其宏观层面的成因，以及它对社会与个人的影响。近些年来，全球范围内的经济不平等程度都在日益加深，它已成为众多社会病症的根源之一。本研究认为经济不平等同样会影响工作场景下的自我客体化，因为随着经济不平等程度的不断升高，人们会更倾向于透过财富来观察与理解世界，这时个体对自我的看法将取决于他拥有财富的多少，为获取更多的财富，在工作的过程中，个体也会更多地把自己视作“赚钱工具”。

通过四项子研究，本文探讨了经济不平等对工作自我客体化的影响及其内部机制，并考察了工作自我客体化在社会与个体层面的后效。研究1（问卷调查）与研究2（实验研究）发现，经济不平等的加剧会导致工作自我客体化程度的升高，而工作自我客体化程度的升高将进一步促进个体对剥削的认可与接受，以及让他们在遇到工作挫败时感受到更多的负面情绪。在研究1与研究2的基础上，研究3旨在检验财富依存性自我价值的中介作用。通过测量中介设计（研究3a）与操纵中介设计（研究3b），研究3证明了财富依存性自我价值的改变是经济不平等影响工作自我客体化的内部机制之一。综合上述结论，本研究发现，经济不平等程度越高，个体越倾向于把自我价值建立在财富之上，并进而在工作过程中表现出更高的自我客体化水平。与此同时，本研究还发现，在社会层面，工作自我客体化会促进对剥削的正当化；在个体层面，工作自我客体化会让人们在遇到工作上的挫折与失败时变得更加消极。

从理论上看，本研究拓展了工作自我客体化的前因与后效，尤其是本研究发现，由不平等所导致自我客体化会反过来维系与巩固不平等，这将带来一个恶性的循环。此外，本研究还为经济不平等影响人类心理与行为提供了一条新的解释路径，即财富依存性自我价值的改变。从实践上看，本研究的结论有助于更好地理解“打工人”与“社畜”等工作自我客体化现象及“996”与“007”等剥削现象。与此同时，本研究的结论还可以为现代人力资源管理体系提供一定的指导，例如在制定绩效考核标准与薪酬福利体系时要警惕工作自我客体化的消极影响。

Objectification prevails in today’s work scenarios. Labor commodification and contemporary human resource management overemphasize the instrumentality of employees and pay little attention to their human nature and huma uniqueness. Considering the resonance of workers with self-deprecating phrases such as “shachiku/corporate slave”, this study focuses on self-objectification at work, which is aimed at exploring the macro-level antecedent of this phenomenon and its impacts on society and individuals. Economic inequality has been rising across the globe during the recent decades. It is one of the roots of social ills. This study proposes that economic inequality will also affect working self-objectification, for it increases people’s tendencies to see the world through a lens of wealth. When economic inequality rises, individuals’ views of themselves will depend on how much wealth they have. Hence, in order to obtain more wealth, they will also regard themselves more as “money-making tools”.

Through 4 studies, this article explored the effect of economic inequality on working self-objectification and its internal mechanism. In the meanwhile, this article also explored the impacts of working self-objectification on social and individual levels. Study 1 (Survey) and Study 2 (Experiment) found that an increase in economic inequality led an increase in the degree of working self-objectification. The increase in working self-objectification further led participants to legitimate exploitation and experience more negative moods while meeting work problems. Based on Study 1 and Study 2, Study 3 is aimed at examining the mediating role of financially contingent self-worth. Through measurement-of-mediation design (Study 3a) and manipulation-of-mediation design (Study 3b), Study 3 demonstrated financially contingent self-worth was one of the mechanisms linking economic inequality and working self-objectification. Together, these findings suggest that the higher the degree of economic inequality, the more individuals build their self-worth on wealth and thus show a higher level of working self-objectification. In addition, these findings also demonstrate the effects of working self-objectification on social and individual levels. Specifically, a rise in working self-objectification leads to a rise in acceptance of exploitation as well as makes people much more negative while they encounter setbacks and failures at work.

Theoretically, this study expands the antecedents and downstream consequences of working self-objectification. In particular, this study demonstrates that self-objectification caused by ine-quality will in turn maintain and consolidate inequality, which is a vicious circle. Additionally, this study also gives a new way (i.e., the change of financially contingent self-worth) to explain how economic inequality affects people’s psychology and behavior. Form a practical point of view, this study is conducive to better understand working self-objectification such as “corporate slave” and the phenomena of exploitation such as “996” and “007”. At the same time, the conclusions of this study can also provide some guidance for modern human resource management, such as watching out the negative influences of working self-objectification while instituting performance appraisal standards and compensation & benefits systems.