Department of Microeconomics and Public Economics, School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Crete, Rethymno, Greece.
Sci Rep. 2023 Sep 23;13(1):15872. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-42715-9.
The low public demand for redistribution despite growing economic inequality has been characterized as a paradox especially for disadvantaged individuals. One prominent explanation for people's tolerance to growing inequality posits that increased optimism about prospects of upward mobility undermines support for redistribution. A less explored explanation postulates that low political efficacy of disadvantaged individuals to enact meaningful change erodes collective demand for redistribution. In two preregistered experiments, we create a dynamic environment where low-income individuals collectively demand income redistribution by contributing to a public pool (collective action strategy), compete with each other for high-income group positions (individual mobility strategy), or avoid risks and disengage from both strategies (social inaction strategy). Lack of political efficacy, operationalized as high redistribution thresholds, gradually curtailed collective action, while exposure to high prospects of mobility did not influence collective action even when income group boundaries were highly permeable. Across participants, we identified three behavioral types (i.e., "mobility seekers", "egalitarians", and "disillusioned") whose prevalence was affected by political efficacy but not by prospects of mobility or actual group permeability. These results cast doubt on the universality of the prospects of mobility hypothesis and highlight the prominent role of political inequality in the perpetuation of economic inequality.
尽管经济不平等程度不断加剧，但公众对再分配的需求却很低，这种现象尤其令处于不利地位的个体感到困惑。人们对不平等现象的容忍度不断提高，这一现象有一个突出的解释，即向上流动的前景更加乐观，从而削弱了对再分配的支持。另一个不太被探讨的解释是，处于不利地位的个体对实施有意义变革的政治效能感较低，这削弱了对再分配的集体需求。在两项预先注册的实验中，我们创造了一个动态环境，在这个环境中，低收入个体通过向公共池（集体行动策略）捐款来共同要求收入再分配，相互竞争以获得高收入群体的职位（个人流动策略），或者避免风险并避免这两种策略（社会不作为策略）。政治效能感（用高再分配门槛来操作化）逐渐削弱了集体行动，而即使收入群体边界高度渗透，移动的前景很高也不会影响集体行动。在参与者中，我们确定了三种行为类型（即“流动追求者”、“平等主义者”和“失望者”），其流行程度受到政治效能感的影响，但不受移动前景或实际群体渗透性的影响。这些结果对流动前景假说的普遍性提出了质疑，并强调了政治不平等在经济不平等持续存在中的突出作用。
