Abstract
Perceived greater economic inequality is supposedly associated with higher demand for redistribution. However, the findings in the literature are mixed in this regard, with some researchers providing evidence in favour of this association and some findings evidence against it. Given that perceived economic inequality and endorsement of system-justifying beliefs are related to increased inequality acceptance, we explore the interplay between them in relation to support for redistribution. This study is intended to shed light on the role of utopian standards (ideal estimates about what ought to be) as one mechanism that affects the relationship between perceived greater economic inequality and support for redistribution. Based on correlational data (N = 794), we conducted a conditional process analysis and found that perceived greater inequality displayed a negative indirect effect on support for redistribution, through acceptance of ideal level of economic inequality: Perception of higher inequality was related to increased ideal levels of inequality and thus with lower support for redistribution. In addition, we found that economic system-justifying beliefs conditioned the effect of perceived economic inequality in two ways: First, perceived economic inequality was positively associated with higher acceptance of inequality, and this association was stronger for those that justified the economic system more, and perceived greater inequality was associated with higher support for redistribution—but only for those who endorsed lower levels of economic system justification beliefs. These findings provide evidence that perceived greater economic inequality does not in itself lead to a push for more redistribution; rather, utopian standards such as ideal estimates of economic inequality, which are conditioned by system-justifying ideologies.
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Notes
The over-representation of women in this study was due to the characteristics of our sample. Since most of the participants were enrolled in psychology and health university degrees, it is common to find a majority of women over men participants.
RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; SRMR = standardized root mean square residual, CFI = Comparative fit index.
We used 7 ranges of household income in Colombian Pesos (COP) (The proportion of participants in each range is shown in parentheses): 1 = “$690,000 or less” (8.3%), 2 = “Between $690,001 and $1,500,000” (25.5%), 3 = “Between $1,500,001 and $3,500,000” (30.6%), 4 = “Between $3,000,001 and $5,000,000” (18.7%), 5 = “Between $5,000,001 and $8,000,000” (9.1%), 6 = “Between $8,000,000 and $10,000,000” (4.6%), and 7 “More than $10,000,001” (3.1%).
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Acknowledgements
This project was funded thanks to the Administrative Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (Colciencias, Colombia) through a scholarship given to the first author (Grant-679), and the PSI2016-78839-P MINECO (Spain) grant given to second and third authors. We also thank Martha Garcés, Lorena Agudelo, Johanna Sánchez, Jairo Jimenez and Mara Orozco, for assistantship in data collection.
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EG-S, GW, and RR-B contributed to conception and design of the study. JP-S, JP, and ER-P contributed to data collection. EG-S coordinated data collection, performed analysis, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors made contributions to manuscript revision, read and approved the submitted version.
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All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Vicerectory of Research and Scientific Policy of the University of Granada approved by the Ethics Committee for Research of the University of Granada (No 170/CEIH/2016) and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments of comparable ethical standards. All participants were informed in writing about the objectives of the study and signed their consent to voluntarily participate in the study. Once the study was concluded, we provided feedback to all respondents regarding the research findings.
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Raw data, code, and outputs for all findings reported in this study are publicly available at the Open Science Framework: https://goo.gl/SWHqDV.
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García-Sánchez, E., Willis, G.B., Rodríguez-Bailón, R. et al. Perceptions of Economic Inequality and Support for Redistribution: The role of Existential and Utopian Standards. Soc Just Res 31, 335–354 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-018-0317-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-018-0317-6