Socioeconomic Stereotypes

Abstract

Motivated by research showing that policy preferences are driven by socialinterests 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.

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“…Supporting this theory, research has found that egalitarians are more vigilant for and accurate at PLOS ONE detecting inequality than those high on SDO, but only when inequalities affect disadvantaged groups, not when they equivalently affect advantaged groups [57]. It is also possible that because egalitarians tend to view status inequalities as illegitimate and undeserved, they may hold negative stereotypes of high-status individuals as selfish and greedy [58]. If true, these stereotypes could contribute to the harsher penalties bestowed upon high-status perpetrators by egalitarians found in the current studies.…”