Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai, China.
Faculty of Education, University of Macau, China.
Br J Soc Psychol. 2022 Jan;61(1):19-36. doi: 10.1111/bjso.12468. Epub 2021 May 31.
Past studies have mostly focused on investigating actual economic inequality with less work devoted to understanding perceived economic inequality and its antecedents. However, numerous studies have shown that perceived inequality is a strong predictor of psychological, political, and social outcomes and hence is an important outcome in and of itself. This paper aims to identify the socioecological (i.e., actual inequality) and psychological (legitimation and fairness considerations) antecedents of perceived economic inequality. We hypothesized that individuals who legitimized income inequality would perceive less inequality, whereas individuals who experienced unfairness engendered by income inequality would perceive more inequality. We utilized a nationally representative sample in China (N = 33,600 respondents nested within 25 provinces) and conducted multilevel longitudinal analyses to test our hypotheses. In line with our predictions, we found that legitimation of inequality was associated with less perceived inequality six years later, whereas unfairness was associated with more perceived inequality six years later. In addition, we found that in more unequal areas, people perceived less income inequality. These longitudinal effects were robust when controlling for prior years of perceived inequality, economic development, and sociodemographic factors. Findings have implications for system justification and economic inequality theories.
过去的研究大多集中于调查实际经济不平等，而较少关注理解感知经济不平等及其前因。然而，许多研究表明，感知到的不平等是心理、政治和社会结果的强有力预测因素，因此本身就是一个重要的结果。本文旨在确定感知经济不平等的社会生态（即实际不平等）和心理（合法化和公平考虑）前因。我们假设，将收入不平等合法化的人会认为不平等程度较低，而经历由收入不平等引起的不公正的人则会认为不平等程度较高。我们利用中国一个具有全国代表性的样本（33600 名受访者嵌套在 25 个省份中）进行了多层次纵向分析，以检验我们的假设。与我们的预测一致，我们发现，不平等合法化与六年后感知到的不平等程度较低有关，而不公正则与六年后感知到的不平等程度较高有关。此外，我们发现，在不平等程度较高的地区，人们对收入不平等的感知程度较低。这些纵向效应在控制了前几年的感知不平等、经济发展和社会人口因素后仍然稳健。研究结果对制度合理化和经济不平等理论具有启示意义。
