Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T09:15:35.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Income Inequality Influences Perceptions of Legitimate Income Differences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2017

Kris-Stella Trump
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues that public opinion regarding the legitimacy of income differences is influenced by actual income inequality. When income differences are perceived to be high, the public thinks of larger income inequality as legitimate. The phenomenon is explained by the system justification motivation and other psychological processes that favor existing social arrangements. Three experiments show that personal experiences of inequality as well as information regarding national-level income inequality can affect which income differences are thought of as legitimate. A fourth experiment shows that the system justification motivation is a cause of this effect. These results can provide an empirical basis for future studies to assume that the public reacts to inequality with adapted expectations, not increased demands for redistribution.

Keywords

income inequalitypublic opinionredistributiondemand for redistributionpolitical psychologysystem justification
Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , October 2018 , pp. 929 - 952
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Research Specialist at the Center for Healthcare Delivery Sciences, Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School (e-mail: [email protected]). The author gratefully acknowledges useful feedback provided by Stephen Ansolabehere, Christian Bjørnskov, John Bullock, Jennifer Hochschild, Cindy Kam, Steve Levitsky, Jim Sidanius, members of the Sidanius Lab in Intergroup Relations, seminar participants at the American Politics Research Workshop at Harvard University, the anonymous reviewers and the Editor, Robert Johns. Most importantly, thanks are offered to Ryan Enos for invaluable support throughout the research process. Thanks are also due to Nazar Akrami and Robin Bergh for their generous help in carrying out the experiment in Sweden, and to Ben Brondsky, Beverly Duperly-Boos, Elizabeth Horton, Ian Lundberg, and Ola Topczewska, who provided research assistance. Research funding was provided by the Tobin Project and the Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative at Harvard University. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting in Chicago in 2013, at the NYU-CESS Experiments Conference in New York in 2013, and at the American Economic Association Annual Meeting in Boston, Mass., in 2015. Data replication sets are available at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/BJPolS and online appendices are available at http://dx.doi.org/doi: 10.1017/S0007123416000326.

References

Alesina, Alberto F., and Angeletos, George-Marios. 2002. Fairness and Redistribution: US versus Europe. SSRN Electronic Journal. Available from http://www.ssrn.com/abstract=346545, accessed 1 July 2011.Google Scholar
Alesina, Alberto F., and Giuliano, Paola. 2009. Preferences for Redistribution, NBER Working Paper. Available from http://www.nber.org/papers/w14825, accessed 7 June 2010.Google Scholar
Alesina, Alberto F., and Glaeser, Edward. 2004. Fighting Poverty in the U.S. and Europe: A World of Difference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Almås, Ingvild, Cappelen, Alexander W., Sørensen, Erik Ø., and Tungodden, Bertil. 2010. Fairness and the Development of Inequality Acceptance. Science 328:1176–1178.Google Scholar
Amable, Bruno. 2009. The Differentiation of Social Demands in Europe: The Social Basis of the European Models of Capitalism. Social Indicators Research 91:391–426.Google Scholar
Atkinson, Anthony B. 2003. Income Inequality in OECD Countries: Data and Explanations. Economic Studies 49:479–514.Google Scholar
Atkinson, Anthony B., Piketty, Thomas, and Saez, Emmanuel. 2011. Top Incomes in the Long Run of History. Journal of Economic Literature 49:3–71.Google Scholar
Austen, Siobhan. 2002. An International Comparison of Attitudes to Inequality. International Journal of Social Economics 29:218–237.Google Scholar
Barber, Benjamin S. IV, and English, William. 2012. Divide Our Dollars, Not Divide The Dollar: Redistribution, Fairness, and the Ultimatum Game. Working Paper, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 2008. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Benabou, Roland, and Tirole, Jean. 2006. Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics. Quarterly Journal of Economics 121:699–746.Google Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J., Huber, Gregory A., and Lenz, Gabriel S.. 2012. Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk. Political Analysis 20:351–368.Google Scholar
Buhrmester, Michael, Kwang, Tracy, and Gosling, Samuel D.. 2011. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A New Source of Inexpensive, Yet High-Quality, Data? Perspectives on Psychological Science 6:3–5.Google Scholar
Castillo, Juan Carlos. 2012. Is Inequality Becoming Just? Changes in Public Opinion about Economic Distribution in Chile. Bulletin of Latin American Research 31:1–18.Google Scholar
Cavaillé, Charlotte, and Trump, Kris-Stella. 2015. The Two Facets of Social Policy Preferences. Journal of Politics 77:146–160.Google Scholar
Chandler, Jesse, Mueller, Pam, and Paolacci, Gabriele. 2014. Nonnaïveté among Amazon Mechanical Turk Workers: Consequences and Solutions for Behavioral Researchers. Behavior Research Methods 46:112–130.Google Scholar
Costa-Lopes, Rui, Dovidio, John F., Pereira, Cícero Roberto, and Jost, John T.. 2013. Social Psychological Perspectives on the Legitimation of Social Inequality: Past, Present and Future. European Journal of Social Psychology 237:229–237.Google Scholar
Cruces, Guillermo, Truglia, Ricardo Perez, and Tetaz, Martin. 2013. Biased Perceptions of Income Distribution and Preferences for Redistribution: Evidence from a Survey Experiment. Journal of Public Economics 98:100–112.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1971. Polyarchy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Donnelly, Michael. 2012. Identity and Interests in the United Kingdom. Paper Presented at the Fifth Annual NYU-CESS Conference, New York.Google Scholar
Durante, Ruben, and Putterman, Louis. 2009. Preferences for Redistribution and Perception of Fairness: An Experimental Study. SSRN Working Paper. Available from http://ssrn.com/abstract=1004573, accessed 10 December 2012.Google Scholar
Eidelman, Scott, and Crandall, Christian S.. 2009. A Psychological Advantage for the Status Quo. Pp. 85–106 in John T. Jost, Aaron C. Kay and Hulda Thorisdottir, eds. Social and Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification . Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, Gösta. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Frohlich, Norman, Oppenheimer, Joe, and Kurki, Anja. 2004. Modeling Other-Regarding Preferences and an Experimental Test. Public Choice 119:91–117.Google Scholar
Gijsberts, Mérove. 2002. The Legitimation of Income Inequality in State-Socialist and Market Societies. Acta Sociologica 45:269–285.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin. 1999. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hadler, Marcus. 2005. Why Do People Accept Different Income Ratios? A Multi-Level Comparison of Thirty Countries. Acta Sociologica 48:131–154.Google Scholar
Hafer, Carolyn L., and Choma, Becky L.. 2009. Belief in a Just World, Perceived Fairness, and Justification of the Status Quo. Pp. 107–125 in John T. Jost, Aaron C. Kay and Hulda Thorisdottir, eds. Social and Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hochschild, Jennifer. 1981. What’s Fair? American Beliefs about Distributive Justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Imai, Kosuke, King, Gary, and Lau, Olivia. 2015. Zelig: Everyone’s Statistical Software. Available from http://gking.harvard.edu/zelig.Google Scholar
Iversen, Torben, and Soskice, David. 2006. Electoral Institutions and the Politics of Coalitions: Why Some Democracies Redistribute More than Others. American Political Science Review 100:165–181.Google Scholar
Jasso, Guillermina. 1999. How Much Injustice Is There in the World? Two New Justice Indexes. American Sociological Review 64:133–168.Google Scholar
Jasso, Guillermina. 2000. Trends in the Experience of Injustice: Justice Indexes about Earnings in Six Societies, 1991–1996. Social Justice Research 13:101–122.Google Scholar
Jost, John, and Hunyady, Orsolya. 2003. The Psychology of System Justification and the Palliative Function of Ideology. European Review of Social Psychology 13:111–153.Google Scholar
Jost, John T., and Banaji, Mahzarin R.. 1994. The Role of Stereotyping in System-Justification and the Production of False Consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology 33:1–27.Google Scholar
Jost, John T., Banaji, Mahzarin R., and Nosek, Brian A.. 2004. A Decade of System Justification Theory: Accumulated Evidence of Conscious and Unconscious Bolstering of the Status Quo. Political Psychology 25:881–919.Google Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, and Tversky, Amos. 1979. Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk. Econometrica 47:263–291.Google Scholar
Kay, Aaron C., and Friesen, Justin. 2011. On Social Stability and Social Change: Understanding when System Justification Does and Does Not Occur. Current Directions in Psychological Science 20:360–364.Google Scholar
Kay, Aaron C., Gaucher, Danielle, Napier, Jamie L., Callan, Mitchell J., and Laurin, Kristin. 2008. God and the Government: Testing a Compensatory Control Mechanism for the Support of External Systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95:18–35.Google Scholar
Kay, Aaron C., Gaucher, Danielle, Peach, Jennifer M., Laurin, Kristin, Friesen, Justin, Zanna, Mark P., and Spencer, Steven J.. 2009. Inequality, Discrimination, and the Power of the Status Quo: Direct Evidence for a Motivation to See the Way Things Are as the Way They Should Be. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 97:421–434.Google Scholar
Kelley, Jonathan, and Zagorski, Krzysztof. 2004. Economic Change and the Legitimation of Inequality: The Transition from Socialism to the Free Market in Central-East Europe. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 22:319–364.Google Scholar
Kelley, Jonathan, and Evans, M. D. R.. 1993. The Legitimation of Inequality: Occupational Earnings in Nine Nations. American Journal of Sociology 99:75–125.Google Scholar
Kelly, Nathan J., and Enns, Peter K.. 2010. Inequality and the Dynamics of Public Opinion: The Self-Reinforcing Link between Economic Inequality and Mass Preferences. American Journal of Political Science 54:855–870.Google Scholar
Kenworthy, Lane, and McCall, Leslie. 2008. Inequality, Public Opinion and Redistribution. Socio-Economic Review 6:35–68.Google Scholar
Kluegel, James R., and Smith, E. R.. 1986. Beliefs about Inequality: Americans’ Views of What Is and What Ought to Be. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Knezevic, Andrea. 2008. StatNews No. 73: Overlapping Confidence Intervals and Statistical Significance. Cornell University Statistical Consulting Unit.Google Scholar
Kuziemko, Ilyana Iliyana, Norton, Michael I., Saez, Emmanuel, and Stantcheva, Stefanie. 2015. How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments. American Economic Review 105:1478–1508.Google Scholar
Lane, Robert E. 1959. The Fear of Equality. American Political Science Review 53:35–51.Google Scholar
Laurin, Kristin, Gaucher, Danielle, and Kay, Aaron. 2013. Stability and the Justification of Social Inequality. European Journal of Social Psychology 43:246–254.Google Scholar
Laurin, Kristin, Shepherd, Steven, and Kay, Aaron C.. 2010. Restricted Emigration, System Inescapability, and Defense of the Status Quo: System-Justifying Consequences of Restricted Exit Opportunities. Psychological Science 21:1075–1082.Google Scholar
LeBoeuf, Robyn A., and Shafir, Eldar. 2009. Anchoring on the ‘Here’ and ‘Now’ in Time and Distance Judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition 35:81–93.Google Scholar
Lipkus, Isaac. 1991. The Construction and Preliminary Validation of a Global Belief in a Just World Scale and the Exploratory Analysis of the Multidimensional Belief in a Just World Scale. Journal of Personality 12:1171–1178.Google Scholar
Listhaug, Ola, and Aalberg, Toril. 1999. Comparative Public Opinion on Distributive Justice. International Journal of Comparative Sociology 40:117–140.Google Scholar
Luttig, Matthew. 2013. The Structure of Inequality and Americans’ Attitudes toward Redistribution. Public Opinion Quarterly 77:811–821.Google Scholar
McCall, Leslie. 2013. The Undeserving Rich: Beliefs about Inequality, Opportunity, and Redistribution in American Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Meltzer, Allan H., and Richard, Scott F.. 1981. A Rational Theory of the Size of Government. Journal of Political Economy 89:914–927.Google Scholar
Mishel, Lawrence, and Finio, Nicholas. 2013. Earnings of the Top 1.0 Percent Rebound Strongly in the Recovery. Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief No. 347, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Mullinix, Kevin J., Leeper, Thomas J., Druckman, James N., and Freese, Jeremy. 2015. The Generalizability of Survey Experiments. Journal of Experimental Political Science 2:109–138.Google Scholar
Norton, Michael I., and Ariely, Dan. 2010. Building a Better America – One Wealth Quintile at a Time. Perspectives on Psychological Science 6:9–12.Google Scholar
Osberg, Lars, and Smeeding, Timothy. 2006. ‘Fair’ Inequality? Attitudes toward Pay Differentials: The United States in Comparative Perspective. American Sociological Review 71:450–473.Google Scholar
Osberg, Lars. 2003. Long Run Trends in Income Inequality in the United States, UK, Sweden, Germany and Canada: A Birth Cohort View. Eastern Economic Journal 29:121–142.Google Scholar
Page, Benjamin I., and Jacobs, Lawrence R.. 2009. Class War: What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Phelan, Julie E., and Rudman, Laurie A.. 2011. System Justification Beliefs, Affirmative Action, and Resistance to Equal Opportunity Organizations. Social Cognition 29:376–390.Google Scholar
Roemer, John E., Lee, Woojin, and van der Straeten, Karine. 2007. Racism, Xenophobia, and Distribution: Multi-Issue Politics in Advanced Democracies. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Saez, Emmanuel. 2014. Striking It Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States (Updated with 2012 Preliminary Estimates), Working Paper, UC Berkeley, Calif.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Danielle N., Chandler, Jesse, and Mueller, Pam A.. 2013. Using Mechanical Turk to Study Clinical Populations. Clinical Psychological Science 1:213–220.Google Scholar
Svallfors, Stefan. 1997. Worlds of Welfare and Attitudes to Redistribution: A Comparison of Eight Western Nations. European Sociological Review 13:283–304.Google Scholar
Svallfors, Stefan. 2004. Class, Attitudes and the Welfare State: Sweden in Comparative Perspective. Social Policy and Administration 38:119–138.Google Scholar
van der Toorn, Jojanneke, Feinberg, Matthew, Jost, John T., Kay, Aaron C., Tyler, Tom R., Willer, Robb, and Wilmuth, Caroline. 2015. A Sense of Powerlessness Fosters System Justification: Implications for the Legitimation of Authority, Hierarchy, and Government. Political Psychology 26:93–110.Google Scholar
van der Toorn, Jojanneke, Tyler, Tom R., and Jost, John T.. 2011. More than Fair: Outcome Dependence, System Justification, and the Perceived Legitimacy of Authority Figures. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47:127–138.Google Scholar
Trump, Kris-Stella. 2013. The Status Quo and Perceptions of Fairness: How Income Inequality Influences Public Opinion, doctoral dissertation. Harvard University: Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Verwiebe, Roland, and Wegener, Bernd. 2000. Social Inequality and the Perceived Income Justice Gap. Social Justice Research 13:123–149.Google Scholar
Zajonc, Robert B. 1968. Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Monograph 9:1–27.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Trump Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/MRBUP1
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Trump supplementary material

Trump supplementary material 1

Download Trump supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 1.4 MB