Relationship between perceived economic inequality and redistributive preferences: The moderating role of attributions

Although the classical economic perspective contends that higher inequality increases support for redistribution, research has produced conflicting findings. Indeed, where some have observed a positive relationship between inequality and redistributive preferences, others have found no evidence of such a relationship. This inconsistency is referred to as the paradox of redistribution. We contend that this paradox may be partially due to people's attributions of inequality, that is, how they think about and understand inequality. From an ideological perspective, our study demonstrates that attributions of inequality moderate the relationship between economic inequality and redistributive preferences. First, in Study 1( N = 676), we conducted a survey showing that perceived inequality positively correlated with redistributive preferences among people with external attribution tendency but negatively correlated with redistributive preferences among people with internal attribution tendency. Second, in Studies 2 ( N = 150) and 3 ( N = 171), we conducted two experiments where perceptions and attributions of inequality were primed at group and national levels, respectively. Similar to the results of Study 1, we found that the effect of primed perceived inequality on redistributive preferences was positive among people primed with external attribution tendency but dampened among those primed with internal attribution tendency. These findings partially explain the paradox of redistribution and illuminate ways to reduce inequality.