Framing advantageous inequity with a focus on others: A catalyst for equity restoration

Abstract

Prior research has found that framing inequity as an ingroup advantage, but not as an outgroup disadvantage, can lead the advantaged to be more supportive of redistributive policies towards disadvantaged groups. However, it is unclear whether these framing effects would occur in the same manner when inequity occurs between individuals. In two experiments, we test whether different inequity frames (self-focused vs. other-focused) can elicit different responses to advantageous inequity based on the level of inequity (individual-level vs. group-level) that is activated. In Study 1, we found that inequity frame and inequity level interactively predicted redistribution decisions, such that advantaged individuals engaged in more redistributive behaviors when the inequity was framed as another individual's disadvantage than when the inequity was framed as another group's disadvantage. These divergent effects occurred because individual-level inequity elicited less negative evaluation of others than group-level inequity in an other-focused frame (Study 2). These findings establish a boundary condition of previous research on inequity frame and highlight inequity level as an important moderator that affects advantaged individuals' willingness to engage in restorative behavior.