Wealthy people may be likely to oppose redistribution of wealth, and poor people to support redistribution, because they have biased information about how wealthy most people actually are, according to new research from University of Kent psychologists.
The findings, published in Psychological Science, a flagship journal of the Association for Psychological Science, indicate that people use their own neighbors as a gauge of how much wealth other people possess.
As a result, the rich and poor do not simply have different attitudes about how wealth should be distributed across society. Rather, they subjectively experience living in different societies.
This bias has a knock-on effect, since people who see their society as affluent are also more likely to see it as fair and satisfactory. In turn, these positive views of the economic status quo lead people to oppose the redistribution of wealth.
The findings suggest that attitudes toward wealth distribution stem from more than just an economic motivation to protect one's self-interest or a fiscally conservative political ideology - the information provided by our surrounding environment also plays an important role.
Researchers at the University's School of Psychology saw over 600 USA adults recruited to complete an online survey in two studies. Participants were asked to estimate the distribution of annual household income for their social contacts and also for the entire US population.
Participants were then asked how fair they thought income distribution in the USA was and how satisfied they were with it. They also answered questions gauging their attitudes toward redistribution.
The resulting statistical model revealed a link between participants' personal household income and their attitudes toward redistribution that was driven by average social-circle income.
Starting with household income, the researchers found evidence for a chain of associations: Household income was linked to estimated social-circle income, which was linked to estimated population income, which was linked to perceived fairness, which was finally linked to attitudes toward redistribution.
This chain of associations was statistically significant even when the researchers controlled for participants' political orientation and perceptions of the impact of wealth distribution on their own finances (i.e., self-interest).
To ensure that the findings were actually related to individual's social circles and not some other psychological bias, the researchers then analysed data from over 4000 voters in New Zealand.
The data showed that the relationship between voters' household income and their perceptions of economic fairness in New Zealand was driven by the level of economic deprivation in their neighborhood.
References:
1. Why Wealthier People Think People Are Wealthier, and Why It Matters: From Social Sampling to Attitudes to Redistribution, Rael J. Dawtry, Robbie M. Sutton, Chris G. Sibley, Psychological Science, doi: 10.1177/0956797615586560, published online 17 July 2015.
2. Source: University of Kent
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