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Need, Compassion, and Support for Social Welfare
Author(s) -
Delton Andrew W.,
Petersen Michael Bang,
DeScioli Peter,
Robertson Theresa E.
Publication year - 2018
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/pops.12450
Subject(s) - compassion , welfare , feeling , social psychology , misfortune , absolute (philosophy) , psychology , politics , social welfare , affect (linguistics) , sociology , political science , law , epistemology , philosophy , communication , artificial intelligence , perspective (graphical) , computer science
Funding for social welfare depends on citizen support. Drawing on evolutionary psychological approaches to politics, we study two types of need that might shape citizens' welfare support by regulating their feelings of compassion. One type of need is a recipient's absolute need. The other type is acute need created by sudden misfortune, such as sudden job loss. Across four studies, we find that absolute and acute needs independently affect compassion and welfare attitudes. This leads to potential inefficiencies in judgments: People who have fallen far are judged more deserving of compassion and access to welfare even when they are not in an absolute sense the most impoverished.