1. Do people's explanations for inequality shape their appraisals of the political system?
- Author
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Stedtnitz, Christine, Greenwood-Hau, Joe, Dolinsky, Alona, and Reher, Stefanie
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FOS: Psychology ,inequality ,Political Science ,FOS: Political science ,Psychology ,Social and Behavioral Sciences ,external political efficacy - Abstract
This research project investigates a previously overlooked question relating to social and political attitudes: What is the relationship between people’s beliefs about the reasons for inequality in society and people’s beliefs about how responsive the political system is to their needs (external political efficacy)? Using a question order experiment, this project aims to shed light on whether the two sets of attitudes are related and, if so, whether one affects the other to a greater degree than vice versa. This study is motivated by Osborne et al.‘s (2015) work on the drivers of political mobilization amongst Māori people in New Zealand. Osborne and colleagues found a positive relationship between appraisals of the political system (external political efficacy) and particular explanations for inequality (system-justifying beliefs). The authors speculated that the relationship was causal. In their view, the act of participating and being listened to ought to affect people’s beliefs about the way political decisions are taken, with implications for appraisals of society more broadly. In other words, the authors’ hypothesis was that external political efficacy (the belief that the government will respond to one's demands) drove explanations for inequality (perceptions of whether it is hard work and ambition, or things outside one’s control such as family background that cause inequality (Lind et al., 1990; Platow et al., 2006)). We, too, expect that there is a causal relationship, but argue that it might go in the opposite direction. Our reasoning draws on the idea of core, lower-order beliefs that are relatively static and slow to change, and which underpin higher-order beliefs about specific objects (Bem, 1970; Feldman 1988; Peffley and Hurwitz 1985). We posit that beliefs about the reasons for inequality are lower-order beliefs. In other words, we speculate that people’s perceptions of how society works, and what it is that makes some people get ahead in life – and others not – belong in this category of core beliefs that are acquired in childhood or adolescence, and that tend to accompany individuals over their lifetimes. Beliefs about the performance of the political system are different. Given that those beliefs vary with the performance of the political system we see them as higher-order beliefs. Assuming that beliefs about the reasons for inequality are lower-order beliefs, and that appraisals of the political system are higher-order beliefs, and further assuming that lower-order beliefs shape higher-order beliefs (Bem 1970), we hypothesize that explanations for inequality might drive appraisals of the political system. The proposed causal mechanism is illustrated in figure 1.
- Published
- 2022
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