TY - JOUR
T1 - Explaining inequality tolerance in the lab
T2 - effects of political efficacy and prospects of mobility on collective demand for redistribution
AU - Lois, Giannis
AU - Petkanopoulou, Katerina
N1 - Funding Information:
Financial support was provided by the EU Horizon 2020 Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (Proposal Number: 895685) to G.L. and by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.) “2nd Call for H.F.R.I. Research Projects to support Post-Doctoral Researchers” (Project Number: 666) to K.P. We thank Hannes Rutsch for his insightful comments and suggestions and Dimitrios Vasdekis for his valuable help in programming the task.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2023/9/23
Y1 - 2023/9/23
N2 - The low public demand for redistribution despite growing economic inequality has been characterized as a paradox especially for disadvantaged individuals. One prominent explanation for people’s tolerance to growing inequality posits that increased optimism about prospects of upward mobility undermines support for redistribution. A less explored explanation postulates that low political efficacy of disadvantaged individuals to enact meaningful change erodes collective demand for redistribution. In two preregistered experiments, we create a dynamic environment where low-income individuals collectively demand income redistribution by contributing to a public pool (collective action strategy), compete with each other for high-income group positions (individual mobility strategy), or avoid risks and disengage from both strategies (social inaction strategy). Lack of political efficacy, operationalized as high redistribution thresholds, gradually curtailed collective action, while exposure to high prospects of mobility did not influence collective action even when income group boundaries were highly permeable. Across participants, we identified three behavioral types (i.e., “mobility seekers”, “egalitarians”, and “disillusioned”) whose prevalence was affected by political efficacy but not by prospects of mobility or actual group permeability. These results cast doubt on the universality of the prospects of mobility hypothesis and highlight the prominent role of political inequality in the perpetuation of economic inequality.
AB - The low public demand for redistribution despite growing economic inequality has been characterized as a paradox especially for disadvantaged individuals. One prominent explanation for people’s tolerance to growing inequality posits that increased optimism about prospects of upward mobility undermines support for redistribution. A less explored explanation postulates that low political efficacy of disadvantaged individuals to enact meaningful change erodes collective demand for redistribution. In two preregistered experiments, we create a dynamic environment where low-income individuals collectively demand income redistribution by contributing to a public pool (collective action strategy), compete with each other for high-income group positions (individual mobility strategy), or avoid risks and disengage from both strategies (social inaction strategy). Lack of political efficacy, operationalized as high redistribution thresholds, gradually curtailed collective action, while exposure to high prospects of mobility did not influence collective action even when income group boundaries were highly permeable. Across participants, we identified three behavioral types (i.e., “mobility seekers”, “egalitarians”, and “disillusioned”) whose prevalence was affected by political efficacy but not by prospects of mobility or actual group permeability. These results cast doubt on the universality of the prospects of mobility hypothesis and highlight the prominent role of political inequality in the perpetuation of economic inequality.
U2 - 10.1038/s41598-023-42715-9
DO - 10.1038/s41598-023-42715-9
M3 - Article
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 13
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
IS - 1
M1 - 15872
ER -