Department of Social, Environmental, and Economic Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Research Group Social Psychology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Norway.
Br J Soc Psychol. 2017 Dec;56(4):766-781. doi: 10.1111/bjso.12202. Epub 2017 May 25.
Economic inequality is increasing both globally and in various countries around the world, and such inequality has been linked to worsening health, well-being, and social cohesion. A key predictor for whether people take action against inequality is the extent to which they perceive it as illegitimate. We investigate how two variables jointly predict the legitimization of inequality, namely the perceived magnitude of differences in economic outcomes and the way these differences are described. Two experiments (total N = 190) tested whether framing the same difference in outcomes as an advantaged group having more or as a disadvantaged group having less moderates whether higher inequality is perceived as less legitimate. Participants perceived bigger differences as less legitimate when these differences were framed as the disadvantaged group having less. When they were framed as the advantaged group having more, the perceived magnitude of differences and legitimacy beliefs were unrelated. Together, this research highlights the importance of language for how people perceive and respond to inequality.
经济不平等在全球范围内以及在世界各国都在加剧，这种不平等与健康状况恶化、幸福感降低和社会凝聚力下降有关。人们是否会采取行动反对不平等的一个关键预测因素是他们认为不平等在多大程度上是不合法的。我们研究了两个变量如何共同预测不平等的合法化，即人们感知到的经济结果差异的大小以及描述这些差异的方式。两项实验（共 190 人）测试了将相同的结果差异描述为优势群体拥有更多或弱势群体拥有更少是否会影响人们对更高不平等的看法。当将差异描述为弱势群体拥有较少时，参与者认为更大的差异更不合法。当将差异描述为优势群体拥有更多时，感知到的差异大小和合法性信念则没有关系。总的来说，这项研究强调了语言在人们如何看待和应对不平等方面的重要性。
