Payne B Keith, Brown-Iannuzzi Jazmin L, Hannay Jason W
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599;
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 May 2;114(18):4643-4648. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1616453114. Epub 2017 Apr 17.
Rising income inequality is a global trend. Increased income inequality has been associated with higher rates of crime, greater consumer debt, and poorer health outcomes. The mechanisms linking inequality to poor outcomes among individuals are poorly understood. This research tested a behavioral account linking inequality to individual decision making. In three experiments ( = 811), we found that higher inequality in the outcomes of an economic game led participants to take greater risks to try to achieve higher outcomes. This effect of unequal distributions on risk taking was driven by upward social comparisons. Next, we estimated economic risk taking in daily life using large-scale data from internet searches. Risk taking was higher in states with greater income inequality, an effect driven by inequality at the upper end of the income distribution. Results suggest that inequality may promote poor outcomes, in part, by increasing risky behavior.
收入不平等加剧是一个全球趋势。收入不平等加剧与更高的犯罪率、更多的消费者债务以及更差的健康状况相关。不平等与个体不良后果之间的关联机制尚不清楚。本研究检验了一种将不平等与个体决策联系起来的行为解释。在三项实验（N = 811）中，我们发现经济游戏结果中的更高不平等会导致参与者承担更大风险以试图获得更高结果。不平等分配对冒险行为的这种影响是由向上的社会比较驱动的。接下来，我们使用来自互联网搜索的大规模数据估计日常生活中的经济冒险行为。在收入不平等程度更高的州，冒险行为更为普遍，这种影响是由收入分配高端的不平等驱动的。结果表明，不平等可能部分通过增加冒险行为而导致不良后果。
