The Effect of Priming Structural Fairness on Inequality Beliefs and Preferences

• Published date: 01 July 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231158758
• Author: Paul Lendway,Gregory A. Huber
• Date: 01 July 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

American Politics Research

2023, Vol. 51(4) 443–456

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X231158758

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The Effect of Priming Structural Fairness on

Inequality Beliefs and Preferences

Paul Lendway

1

and Gregory A. Huber

1



Abstract

Experimental research on pay inequality attitudes often provides information about pay inequality with the expectation that

greater awareness of pay differences will increase the belief that pay inequality is unfair, thereby strengthening support for

policies addressing pay inequality. Less explored is whether providing information about why pay inequality might be justif‌ied

may lower support for addressing pay inequality or counteract the effect of providing information about such inequality. This

paper f‌inds that providing static information about pay differences across the income distribution generally does not affect

support for policies addressing pay inequality. However, providing information about pay inequality followed by a labor

economics argument in support of pay differences (priming structural fairness) generally decreases support for such policies.

One mechanism through which this effect may operate is by increasing the belief that differences in pay are justif‌ied.

Keywords

public opinion, inequality, fairness, redistribution, survey research

Introduction

“Mr. President, in the year 2007, the top 1% of all

income earners in the United States made 23.5% of all

income. The top 1% earned 23.5% of all income—more

than the entire bottom 50%.”

—Bernie Sanders (2010)

“If you work hard and meet your responsibilities; you

can get ahead, no matter where you come from, what

you look like, or who you love.”

—Barack Obama (2013)

Widening income inequality in America has not been met

with a proportional increase in support for redistribution

(Ashok et al., 2015). Many theories have been given to

explain American voters’resistance to redistributive policies.

Alesina et al. (2001) put forward a race-based explanation for

America’s lack of support for redistribution, asserting that

“America’s troubled race relations are clearly a major reason

for the absence of an American welfare state.”Walsh (2012)

offers a place-based model, arguing that rural Americans

prefer limited government due to a collective belief that the

government is not working for them. Other proposed theories

include the “American Dream ideology”and system justi-

f‌ication theory (McCall et al., 2017;Trump, 2020).

Another possibility is that Americans may be unaware of

rising inequality. Campbell et al. (1980) f‌ind that Americans

are often ignorant about basic political information.

Furthermore, a recent analysis of ANES data f‌inds that less

than half of Americans know about rising inequality (Bartels,

2016). Considering these f‌indings, to what extent does

providing information about pay inequality affect beliefs

about inequality and support for policies to address it?

As exemplif‌ied by the opening quotes, American political

discourse regularly presents information about inequality and

social mobility. An emerging literature explores how pro-

viding real world exposure to inequality (Sands, 2017)or

information about inequality (Becker, 2020;Cruces et al.,

2013;Kuziemko et al., 2015;Lendway, 2021;McCall et al.,

2017;Trump, 2018) affects Americans’beliefs about pay

inequality and their support for policies that seek to address it.

Such work often hypothesizes that if Americans had more

information about pay differences, then their concern about

pay inequality would grow, thereby increasing support for

policies to address pay inequality (Ciani et al., 2021).

The stability—or lack thereof—of Americans’beliefs

about pay inequality and preferences toward addressing it has

important implications for democratic outcomes and repre-

sentation. But what kind of information is most salient for

shaping inequality attitudes and preferences for policies, if

1

Political Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

Corresponding Author:

Paul Lendway, Political Science, Yale University, Rosenkranz Hall, 125

Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.

Email: paul.lendway@yale.edu