The bright side of pessimism: Promoting wealth redistribution under (felt) economic hardship.

ABSTRACT: Economic inequality is a collective issue that affects all citizens. However, people often fail to support redistribution strategies aimed at redressing inequality. In this work we investigated personal optimism and collective pessimism as psychological processes that contribute to hampering vs. promoting the demand for redistribution. Our prediction was that support for redistribution would require both a pessimistic economic outlook at the collective level and the perception of being economically disadvantaged. In two studies, one of which pre-registered, Italian participants (Study 1: N = 306; Study 2: N = 384) were led to feel relatively poor or rich, rated their perceived control over either their personal or the nation's future and estimated either personal or national economic and g

SUBMITTER: Galdi S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7735630 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature