Conservatives and Liberals’ Differing Attitudes on the Rich

• In Event: Public Opinion Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

Economic inequality has quickly become a hot button issue over the recent decades. Alongside this discourse, scholars have consistently documented rising economic inequality. This documentation of economic inequality is accompanied by the public’s expressed concerns about it. Although people have reported concerns about inequality, their support for redistribution remains largely unaligned to these expressed concerns. This is also commonly referred to as the inequality paradox. In the present work, I argue that one reason we continue to observe the inequality paradox is because conservatives and liberals are split on their opinion to redistribute from the rich. This split in opinion to redistribute from the rich arises because conservatives and liberals are guided by different forces when they form opinions of the rich. Conservatives are more likely to be guided by stereotypes of competence and warmth – how capable/incapable the rich are and how warm/cold the rich are) whereas liberals are unaffected by these stereotypes. I utilize a series of observational datasets along with an experiment to demonstrate this theoretical argument. These findings contribute to the extant literature by showing that attitudes towards the rich is yet another important component to understanding the public’s redistributive preferences and policies that mitigate growing inequality.

Author

• Michelle Io-Low