Abstract
Where Does the Money Come From? Humanizing High Socioeconomic Status Groups Undermines Attitudes Toward Redistribution
Highlights
The concentration of wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of general impoverishment is a major problem in some modern societies (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010)
Participants assigned to the mechanized condition reported that the group described had lower human nature (HN) levels (M = 1.90, SD = 0.98) than did participants assigned to the humanized condition (M = 5.39, SD = 1.34, t(272) = −24.3, p ≤ 0.001, 95% CI [−3.77, −3.21], Hedges’ gs = 2.95), confirming the effectiveness of the manipulation
Results indicated that the wealth of a group described as human vs. mechanized was considered as more legitimate, as it was supposed to originate from internal sources instead of external ones; this led to a lower support for redistributing income policies
Summary
The concentration of wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of general impoverishment is a major problem in some modern societies (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010). Political corruption and wealthy individuals lobbying institutions for their self-interest are some of the major issues that concern citizens around the world (Transparency International, 2016) Despite these social issues’ importance, previous research has mainly focused on analyzing how groups at the bottom of society are perceived, while the perception of groups at the top of the socioeconomic hierarchy or people’s attitudes about wealth concentration of such groups has received much less attention (Bullock et al, 2008). We believe that humanizing those who have more resources may help justify the status quo or reduce support for redistribution policies and that mechanizing high-SES groups might promote a negative perception of the sources of the group’s wealth, which could highlight class divisions in our societies. Due to these consequences’ social relevance, in the present research, we intended to experimentally analyze the influence of humanizing (vs. mechanizing) high-SES groups on the legitimation of the group’s wealth and people’s attitudes toward income redistribution
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