The Remains of the Socialist Legacy: The Influence of Socialist Socialization on Attitudes toward Income Inequality

Ignácz, Zsófia S.

doi:10.3390/soc8030062

Cited by 12 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Perceived Economic Inequality in Everyday Life (PEIEL) are the daily experiences in which individuals perceive differences in the way resources are distributed between the members of a society (García-Castro, . From this perspective, experience is the basis on which individuals evaluate inequality (Ignácz, 2018).…”

Section: Perceived Economic Inequality In Everyday Life Tolerance Tomentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceiving economic inequality in everyday life decreases tolerance to inequality

García-Castro

Rodríguez‐Bailón

Willis

2020

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

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Economic inequality is one of the main issues of modern societies, and one of the ways to reduce it is through decreasing inequality tolerance and increasing support for economic redistribution. However, there are no consistent results in previous research about the relationship between perceived economic inequality, tolerance to inequality, and support for redistributive policies. In this paper, we argue that rather than measuring the effects of abstract perceived inequality (e.g., measured at the country level), it is important to consider Perceived Economic Inequality in Everyday Life (PEIEL) and close relationships. In one correlational study (N = 207) we found that a PEIEL scale predicts intolerance toward inequality controlling for the common measures of perceived inequality. Moreover, we developed a novel manipulation which was validated in a pilot study (N = 293), and in four experimental studies (N = 261; N = 373; N = 289, N = 289), we found that PEIEL decreases tolerance to inequality. Furthermore, we found a preliminary indirect effect of PEIEL on attitudes toward redistribution through intolerance to inequality. A mini meta-analysis using political ideology, social class, sex, and age as covariates, corroborated these results. All studies were preregistered. In short, these results highlight the importance of perceived inequality in everyday life as an additional tool when considering the psychosocial effects of economic inequality.

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Section: Perceived Economic Inequality In Everyday Life Tolerance Tomentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceiving economic inequality in everyday life decreases tolerance to inequality

García-Castro

Rodríguez‐Bailón

Willis

2020

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

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“…With additional evidence about the power of socialization, Ignácz [98] finds notable cross-country differences between Western and post-socialist societies in individuals' attitudes toward income inequality, even three decades after the end of the Cold War. Applying an adapted age-period-cohort analysis on the dataset of the 1992, 1999, and 2009 waves of the ISSP's Social Inequality module, Ignácz demonstrates that socialization has a substantial effect on attitudes and that socialist socialization clearly differentiates individuals from post-socialist countries from those from the West.…”

Section: Socialization Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes toward Redistributive Policy: An Introduction

Steele

Breznau

2019

Societies

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We provide an overview of the field of preferences for redistribution research, including divergent terminological and theoretical approaches. We review the different uses of public attitudes, policy preferences and public opinion. We outline the theoretical roles of material interests, values and opinion-policy endogeneity. We also introduce and summarize the original research presented in this Special Issue. Among the key contributions of the Special Issue to the subfield are novel explorations of how socialization affects preferences for redistribution; an examination of how perceptions about inequality translate into policy preferences; a call for more research into the links between taxation and social policy preferences; explanations for the paradox of low levels of support for redistribution in the famously-generous Nordic countries; and new insights into class-specific policy preferences as well as the roles of immigration and diversity in determining such preferences.

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“…Indeed, Ignácz (2018) found that the more of a person’s formative years were spent under communism, the more that person was likely to endorse the social values championed by communism, such as social equality as a public good that is to be provided by government. 1 By contrast, if a person had not spent much time under communist rule, they tended to be less likely to endorse the same kind of principles even if they were from a post-communist nation (see also Pop-Eleches & Tucker, 2019).…”

Section: Equality Concernsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Frequently, these differences between post-communist and non-communist European countries center on attitudes toward equality, especially for older people in former post-communist countries. That is, people who spent a significant, if not all of their formative years under communist rule, tend to be much more sensitive to societal inequality compared to their younger counterparts and people of all ages elsewhere in Europe (e.g., Ignácz, 2018). With there being stark differences in societal inequality across countries, this begs the question to what extent inequality shapes people’s outlook on their society and their well-being.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Remnants of Communism and Present-Day Inequality

Jami

Kemmelmeier

2020

Cross-Cultural Research

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Communism substantially shaped the values and beliefs of those who grew up under its regime. We argue that, after the Soviet Union’s collapse and the rapid transition to democracy and capitalism, many older people in post-communist countries continued to abide by an “ethos of equality” that was part of their socialization. These individuals continue to believe that it is the government’s responsibility to establish social equality; hence, they should evaluate social and political institutions based on the level of inequality that exists in their country. Using the 2016 European Quality of Life Survey, we examined to what extent levels of social inequality moderated the effects of age on social views and personal outcomes in post-communist and non-communist societies. We found that, especially in highly unequal post-communist societies, older individuals were less satisfied with democracy and trusted societal institutions less than their younger counterparts, whereas this was much less likely to be the case in post-communist countries with low inequality. There was no link between age and social views in non-communist societies, regardless of levels of inequality. Other than suggested by some scholars, inequality did not have any implications for evaluations of one’s personal life. The discussion focuses on the implications of our findings and their contributions to current research on social inequality and on the legacy of communism.

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The Remains of the Socialist Legacy: The Influence of Socialist Socialization on Attitudes toward Income Inequality

Cited by 12 publications

References 57 publications

Perceiving economic inequality in everyday life decreases tolerance to inequality

Perceiving economic inequality in everyday life decreases tolerance to inequality

Attitudes toward Redistributive Policy: An Introduction

Remnants of Communism and Present-Day Inequality

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