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Experiments Behind the Veil: Structural Influences on Judgments of Social Justice
Author(s) -
Mitchell Gregory,
Tetlock Philip E.,
Newman Daniel G.,
Lerner Jennifer S.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
political psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.419
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1467-9221
pISSN - 0162-895X
DOI - 10.1111/0162-895x.00339
Subject(s) - meritocracy , workfare , redistribution (election) , socioeconomic status , social psychology , inequality , economics , salient , tying , psychology , welfare , economic justice , social identity theory , demographic economics , microeconomics , political science , sociology , social group , law , mathematics , mathematical analysis , population , demography , politics , market economy
In two experiments, participants judged the fairness of different distributions of wealth in hypothetical societies. In the first study, the level of meritocracy in the hypothetical societies and the frame of reference from which participants judged alternative distributions of wealth interacted to influence fairness judgments. As meritocracy increased, all participants became more tolerant of economic inequality, particularly when they judged fairness from a redistribution frame of reference that made salient transfers among socioeconomic classes. Liberal participants, however, placed a greater emphasis on equality than did conservative participants across all conditions. In the second study, reactions to income transfers depended on the efficiency of the transfers and the identity of the groups receiving the benefits, but conservatives placed a greater emphasis in their fairness judgments on tying benefits to workfare requirements, whereas liberals did not distinguish between unconditional welfare transfers and workfare transfers.