Research

Wodtke, Geoffrey T., Ugur Yildirim, David J. Harding, and Felix Elwert. 2023. “Are Neighborhood Effects Explained by Differences in School Quality?” American Journal of Sociology 128(5).

Abstract. It is widely hypothesized that neighborhood effects on academic achievement are explained by differences in the quality of schools attended by resident children. The authors evaluate this hypothesis using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study and a diverse set of measures to capture a school’s effectiveness, resources, and climate. They implement a novel decomposition that separates the overall effect of neighborhood poverty into components due to mediation versus interaction via these different factors. Results indicate that living in a disadvantaged neighborhood reduces academic achievement. But the authors find little evidence that neighborhood effects are mediated by or interact with any of their measures for school quality. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for theory, research, and policy, addressing the link between concentrated poverty and educational inequality.

Abstract. It is known that the new coronavirus (COVID-19) is disproportionately affecting the elderly, those with underlying medical conditions, and the poor. What is the effect of informing the public about these inequalities on people’s perceptions of threat and their sensitivity to the outbreak’s human toll? This study answers this question using a novel survey experiment and finds that emphasis on the unequal aspect of the pandemic, especially as it relates to the elderly and those with medical conditions, could be causing the public to become less concerned about the outbreak and its human toll. Discussion situates this finding in the literature on scientific communication and persuasion and explains why language that emphasizes the impact of the virus on all of us — rather than singling out certain groups — could be more effective in increasing caution among the general public and make them take the situation more seriously.

Connor, Paul R., Daniel Stancato, Ugur Yildirim, Seunghun Lee, and Serena Chen. 2020. “Inequality in the Minimal Group Paradigm: How Relative Wealth and its Justification Influence Ingroup Bias.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 88: Article 103967.

Abstract. This article details a registered report for a well-powered (N = 1500) experiment examining the influence of wealth inequality between groups on ingroup bias, as well as the potential moderating role of justification for the wealth distribution. Using the Minimal Group Paradigm, in which participants are assigned to groups with anonymous others and asked to allocate resources to ingroup or outgroup members, we randomly assigned participants to a relatively disadvantaged or a relatively advantaged group. Group assignments were ostensibly based on chance (weak justification), performance on a financial decision-making task (strong justification), or an ambiguous combination of the two (ambiguous justification). As expected, we found evidence for an inequity aversion hypothesis, with disadvantaged participants displaying heightened ingroup bias compared to their advantaged counterparts. Interestingly, however, our predictions regarding the moderating role of justification were not supported, with disadvantaged participants displaying the highest ingroup bias when the inequality was ambiguously justified. We discuss implications of these results for understanding the causal factors underlying ingroup bias.

Abstract. It is known that Americans’ preferences for redistribution are generally not very elastic in relation to their perceptions of inequality. Even localized crises such as Hurricane Katrina that lay bare existing inequalities in society seem to do little to nothing in moving public opinion on this matter. However, the coronavirus pandemic presents a new opportunity for social scientists and policy experts to test whether large-scale national crises can lead to changes in people’s opinions. What is the impact of a crisis of this proportion on Americans’ attitudes towards inequality? More specifically, is there an “added value” to being informed about class inequalities in the context of the coronavirus outbreak compared to being informed about such inequalities in general terms without reference to this extraordinary event? This study answers these questions using an online experiment that manipulates the information respondents receive prior to answering survey questions. I find that receiving information about class inequalities specifically in relation to the outbreak tends to be much more effective in moving people’s opinions compared to receiving that information in a way that does not directly relate it to coronavirus. This suggests that attitudes can be moved by something as widespread and salient as the pandemic.

Abstract. Why do humans cooperate? Lab experiments have found that cooperation may emerge in part because humans have intrinsically egalitarian motives, meaning that they resist inequality even at some personal cost. But outside the lab, economic inequality is high and on the rise, yet survey data suggest that people do not prioritize policies intended to address inequality. If people are intrinsically egalitarian, why are dramatic increases in inequality not a bigger concern? One possibility is that most people care more about unfairness than inequality per se. Here, we report the results of a networked, online experiment designed to unpack the relationship between fairness and inequality. In our experiment, we create fair and unfair wealth allocations by experimentally manipulating two factors: wealth distribution (i.e., whether starting wealth is equal vs unequal) and wealth source (i.e., the specific mechanism through which wealth (in)equality comes about, earned vs random). Our results show that the source of subjects’ wealth has important effects on their attitudes and behavior: when subjects “earned” their endowments, they perceived their wealth regimes to be more fair, and they were less likely to cooperate. These findings suggest that it can be misleading to study inequality without accounting for subjects’ understanding of how that inequality arose.

Abstract. Americans’ distributional preferences are known to influence their political and voting behavior, but we do not know enough about the determinants of those preferences. How do perceptions of economic inequality and economic opportunity influence redistributive preferences? I answer this question using an innovative survey experiment that jointly manipulates perceptions of economic inequality and economic opportunity. The treatments are administered in the form of videos using a new ask-then-tell design, and the sample is gathered from a novel, high-quality source of online data. I find that receiving pessimistic information about inequality makes respondents more pessimistic about the state of inequality and more supportive of government involvement; on the other hand, the addition of pessimistic information about opportunity does not lead to any more concern for inequality or support for redistribution when pessimistic information about inequality is already present. Implications for future research are discussed.