TY - JOUR
T1 - Economic system justification predicts muted emotional responses to inequality
AU - Goudarzi, Shahrzad
AU - Pliskin, Ruthie
AU - Jost, John T.
AU - Knowles, Eric D.
N1 - Funding Information:
J.T.J. acknowledges support from National Science Foundation Award #BCS–1627691 and E.D.K. acknowledges support from National Science Foundation Award #BCS–1729295. We thank Ruchita De, Angela Wang, Kellianne Holland, Ehimamiegho Idahosa-Erese, Liesel Staubitz, and Casey McMahon for their devotion and diligence in assisting with this research. S.G. thank Koohyar Hosseini and Zeinab Shahidi for editing the video stimuli used in this research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - Although humans display inequality aversion, many people appear to be untroubled by widespread economic disparities. We suggest that such indifference is partly attributable to a belief in the fairness of the capitalist system. Here we report six studies showing that economic ideology predicts self-reported and physiological responses to inequality. In Studies 1 and 2, participants who regard the economic system as justified, compared with those who do not, report feeling less negative emotion after watching videos depicting homelessness. In Studies 3–5, economic system justifiers exhibit low levels of negative affect, as indexed by activation of the corrugator supercilii muscle, and autonomic arousal, as indexed by skin conductance, while viewing people experiencing homelessness. In Study 6, which employs experience-sampling methodology, everyday exposure to rich and poor people elicits less negative emotion among system justifiers. These results provide the strongest evidence to date that system-justifying beliefs diminish aversion to inequality in economic contexts.
AB - Although humans display inequality aversion, many people appear to be untroubled by widespread economic disparities. We suggest that such indifference is partly attributable to a belief in the fairness of the capitalist system. Here we report six studies showing that economic ideology predicts self-reported and physiological responses to inequality. In Studies 1 and 2, participants who regard the economic system as justified, compared with those who do not, report feeling less negative emotion after watching videos depicting homelessness. In Studies 3–5, economic system justifiers exhibit low levels of negative affect, as indexed by activation of the corrugator supercilii muscle, and autonomic arousal, as indexed by skin conductance, while viewing people experiencing homelessness. In Study 6, which employs experience-sampling methodology, everyday exposure to rich and poor people elicits less negative emotion among system justifiers. These results provide the strongest evidence to date that system-justifying beliefs diminish aversion to inequality in economic contexts.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-019-14193-z
DO - 10.1038/s41467-019-14193-z
M3 - Article
C2 - 31959749
AN - SCOPUS:85078276662
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 11
JO - Nature communications
JF - Nature communications
IS - 1
M1 - 383
ER -