Socioeconomic Stereotypes

• Author: Jordan Michael Ragusa
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X14539547
• Published date: 01 March 2015
• Date: 01 March 2015
• Subject Matter: Articles

American Politics Research

2015, Vol. 43(2) 327 –359

© The Author(s) 2014

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/1532673X14539547

apr.sagepub.com

Article

Socioeconomic

Stereotypes: Explaining

Variation in Preferences

for Taxing the Rich

Jordan Michael Ragusa1

Abstract

Motivated by research showing that policy preferences are driven by social-

interests rather than strict self-interest, this article examines if stereotypes

of “the rich” shape Americans’ tax policy preferences. For this project, an

original free-response survey was designed asking respondents to describe

“the rich.” Respondents offered 1,570 unique descriptions, ranging from

“hard working” and “job producer” to “selfish” and “inheritance.” In the

analysis, these stereotypes were modeled in three ways: (a) as affective

stereotypes, (b) as discrete categories, and (c) as deservingness stereotypes.

There are three main findings. First, political ideology and affective

stereotypes have large and statistically indistinguishable effects on tax policy

preferences. Second, deservingness stereotypes—in particular, whether the

rich exhibit dispositional and prosocial characteristics—have particularly

large effects on preferences for taxing the wealthy. And third, both affective

and deservingness stereotypes have an interactive effect with personal

ideology. For self-described liberals, preferences for taxing the wealthy are

largely a function of ideological considerations. For conservatives, however,

tax policy preferences are determined by a mix of ideology and stereotypes.

In sum, the findings suggest that stereotypes affect policy preferences even

when the target belongs to an advantaged group and the policy domain is

nonracial.

1College of Charleston, SC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jordan Michael Ragusa, College of Charleston, 114 Wentworth Street, Charleston, SC 29401,

USA.

Email: ragusajm@cofc.edu

539547APRXXX10.1177/1532673X14539547American Politics ResearchRagusa

research-article2014

328 American Politics Research 43(2)

Keywords

stereotypes, policy preferences, taxes, deservingness, political economy

Introduction

With an economic recession and mounting public debt, debate in the United

States has focused on the merits of increasing taxes on the wealthy to balance

the federal budget and alleviate growing income inequality. The underlying

dynamics of this debate—occurring among elites, in the news media, and in

the general public—are hardly academic, as tax policy and income inequality

are among the most salient political issues since the onset of the “Great

Recession.”

Whether the rich pay their “fair share” and “deserve” lower taxes taps into

deeply held values regarding fairness, social cooperation, work ethic, and

economic individualism, generating strong personal opinions even among

the least politically sophisticated. Indeed, the seriousness of the 2008 eco-

nomic recession brought to the surface an often latent but persistent divide

among the American public regarding taxes, deficits, and economic equality.

In 2011, the nascent Tea Party, a populist movement formed in 2009 to pro-

test the growing scope of the federal government, found itself confronted by

an even newer movement: Occupy Wall Street. But although protesters in

both movements share some of the same concerns (in particular, high unem-

ployment and the close relationship between the federal government and cor-

porate organizations), their proposed solutions, including those for taxing the

rich, are diametrically opposed.

The motivation for this article is ecumenical: What explains variation in

preferences for raising or lowering taxes on the wealthy? On one hand, this is

a timely question given the ongoing national debate about taxes and inequal-

ity. But also, although some researchers have examined the effects of both

personal ideology and self-interest, an equally important causal process has

been neglected: the potential effect(s) of individual stereotypes. The possibil-

ity that individual stereotypes affect one’s preferences for taxing the wealthy

is not fanciful. Indeed, much of the national debate about taxes and income

inequality hinges on how one perceives “the rich.” Do the rich derive their

wealth from dispositional characteristics such as “hard work” or situational

characteristics such as their family’s “inheritance?” Do the rich benefit soci-

ety because they are “highly educated job producers” or are they “selfish, out

of touch snobs?” Moreover, there is ample research showing that stereotypes

powerfully influence policy preferences in certain domains, in particular

those associated with race and social welfare, and that conservatives are par-

ticularly sensitive to judgments of personal merit and work ethic. Yet,

Ragusa 329

although researchers have examined in significant detail the effect of stereo-

types in a racial domain and in relation to socially disadvantaged groups, it is

unclear whether similar effects exist in a nonracial policy context when the

targeted group is socially advantaged.

In an effort to measure Americans’ stereotypes of the rich, this project

designed and implemented an original survey asking participants to describe

“the rich.” In sum, respondents offered 1,570 unique descriptions, ranging

from “hard working” and “job producer” to “inheritance” and “selfish.” In

the first analysis, these descriptions were coded as affect. Consistent with

expectations, the results show that positive and negative stereotypes have

powerful effects on tax policy preferences. In fact, the effect of affective ste-

reotypes is just as large in magnitude statistically as the effect of personal

ideology. In the second analysis, the individual categories were classified as

belonging to six discrete stereotype categories based on the results of a clus-

ter analysis. In this analysis, however, the clustered categories do not improve

predictions of tax policy preferences beyond the initial affective coding

scheme. And in the third analysis, aided by related work on race-coding and

the social construction of targeted groups, the stereotype descriptions were

categorized as judgments of deservingness. In particular, two scales were cre-

ated: whether the respondent described the rich as having dispositional and

prosocial characteristics. In the third analysis, two main findings are reported.

First, although affective stereotypes are again predictive of tax policy prefer-

ences, the two deservingness stereotypes are found to have the most powerful

effects on tax policy preferences. Second, consistent with expectations, the

results show that conservatives are particularity sensitive to judgments of

deservingness. For self-described liberals, however, preferences for taxing

the wealthy are largely a function of ideological considerations. In sum, these

findings suggest that the process of stereotyping matters even when the target

belongs to an advantaged group and the policy domain is nonracial.

What Determines Tax Policy Preferences?

Existing research on the determinants of Americans’ tax policy preferences

provides some intuitive explanations. The most intuitive is, of course, eco-

nomic self-interest. A review by Sears and Funk (1990), for example, indi-

cates that tax policy is one of only three cases where economic self-interest

appears to exert a significant effect on policy preferences. However, the evi-

dence for economic self-interest is mixed. Indeed, Sears and Funk maintain

that economic self-interest only matters in instances where the personal

stakes are unusually clear and high. Hawthorne and Jackson (1987) found

that preferences regarding the 1978 Tax Revenue Act were based on both