The Role of Self-Interest in Social and Political Attitudes

Sears, David O.; Funk, Carolyn L.

doi:10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60327-5

Cited by 456 publications

(353 citation statements)

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“…Both public employees and older people are more likely to be in favour of a progressive taxation. Surprisingly, the results do not confirm a specific "GDR-effect" on people's preferences for progressive 15 Several other empirical studies on tax and redistributive preferences also provide a mixed evidence on the relevance of self-interest (Sears and Funk, 1991). 16 The variable's social status loss of significance is mainly a result of its positive correlation with the variable adequate wage.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Don't Tax Me? Determinants of Individual Attitudes Toward Progressive Taxation

Heinemann

Hennighausen

2010

SSRN Journal

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Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp10017.pdf Non-Technical SummaryHighly progressive tax systems entail disincentives for private economic activity and, thus, may hamper potential growth. Nevertheless, attempts to introduce alternative tax schedules regularly encounter significant political resistance. The aim of this paper is to widen the understanding of the determinants of individual attitudes toward progressive taxation and, therefore, the assessment of the political feasibility of tax reform proposals.Conventional political-economic theories usually explain redistributive preferences based on a narrow self-interest calculus. These theories however do not offer a rational for the fact that in many industrial countries the majority of voters seem to prefer progressive tax rates. In order to provide a comprehensive analysis of the determinants of individual attitudes toward progressive taxation, our analysis is not confined to pure self-interest but also introduces fairness aspects (e.g., fairness preferences, economic beliefs and fairness assessment of the status quo).Our empirical analysis is based on the representative data from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) for the year 2000. Next to information on the respondents' tax rate preferences, this survey offers valuable data on a wide range of individual fairness considerations as well as objective data on the respondents' socioeconomic characteristics.The empirical findings indicate that the individual attitudes toward progressive taxation are not only driven by the corresponding self-interest. Furthermore, fairness considerations play a major role in the formation of tax rate preferences: Persons without strong preferences for a distribution of (financial) means according to the need-principle, who do stress the relevance of individual effort for economic success and judge the present income distribution to be fair are less likely to demand higher tax rates for high income earners than for low income individuals. The finding that individuals do not necessarily choose the tax system that is most beneficial to them but also care about its fairness has important policy implications:A successful selling of (growth-enhancing) tax reforms should address this fairness related concerns as well. Abstract: This contribution empirically analyses the individual determinants of tax rate preferences. For that purpose we make use of the representative German G...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Don't Tax Me? Determinants of Individual Attitudes Toward Progressive Taxation

Heinemann

Hennighausen

2010

SSRN Journal

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“…Empirical studies conducted by Miller and Ratner (1998) demonstrate that group memberships have much weaker effects on social attitudes than observers assume. With regard to political attitudes, there is notoriously little correspondence between indicators of self-interest (such as income, social class, and demographic group membership) and ideology (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003a;Lane, 1959Lane, /2004Lipset, 1981;Sears & Funk, 1991;Sidanius & Ekehammar, 1979;Stacey & Green, 1971;Wilson, 1973). Even on issues that should be highly relevant to considerations of self-interest, such as policies of economic distribution, research repeatedly shows that low-income groups are scarcely more likely than high-income groups to support such policies, although they would obviously benefit from them (Fong, 2001;Gilens, 1999;Jost, Pelham, Sheldon, & Sullivan, 2003;Kluegel & Smith, 1986).…”

Section: The Accumulation Of Evidence Against the Received Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Decade of System Justification Theory: Accumulated Evidence of Conscious and Unconscious Bolstering of the Status Quo

Jost

Banaji²,

Nosek

2004

Political Psychology

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Most theories in social and political psychology stress self-interest, intergroup conflict, ethnocentrism, homophily, ingroup bias, outgroup antipathy, dominance, and resistance. System justification theory is influenced by these perspectives-including social identity and social dominance theories-but it departs from them in several respects. Advocates of system justification theory argue that (a) there is a general ideological motive to justify the existing social order, (b) this motive is at least partially responsible for the internalization of inferiority among members of disadvantaged groups, (c) it is observed most readily at an implicit, nonconscious level of awareness and (d) paradoxically, it is sometimes strongest among those who are most harmed by the status quo. This article reviews and integrates 10 years of research on 20 hypotheses derived from a system justification perspective, focusing on the phenomenon of implicit outgroup favoritism among members of disadvantaged groups (including African Americans, the elderly, and gays/lesbians) and its relation to political ideology (especially liberalism-conservatism).KEY WORDS: ideology, system justification, intergroup relations, implicit bias There is a cluster of related theories that are by now so prevalent in social science that they strike the contemporary reader as self-evidently true. Although these theories are by no means indistinguishable, they share a set of common features, including the tenets that groups serve their own interests, develop ideolo-

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“…Broadly defined, threat appraisals refer to the anticipation of negative consequences related to the Migration and multiculturalism 21 arrival and presence of immigrants in a receiving society. Threat research generally differentiates two main routes through which threat relates to anti-immigration attitudes: material or realistic threats on the one hand, and value or symbolic threats on the other (e.g., Riek et al, 2006;Sears & Funk, 1991;Stephan & Renfro, 2003). Material threats anticipate negative consequences with respect to the distribution of valued and usually scarce tangible resources in the receiving society, including economic assets, political power and physical well-being of national ingroup members.…”

Section: Majority Attitudes Towards Immigration: Threat Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alternative explanations of status differences in the expression of anti-immigration prejudice highlight high status groups' greater awareness of anti-discrimination norms and more subtle expressions of prejudice (e.g., Jackman & Muha, 1984;Hainmueller & Hiscox, 2007). The symbolic politics approach (e.g., Sears & Funk, 1991) provides yet another explanation by suggesting that the effects of social Migration and multiculturalism 25 status are due to differential political socialization of groups, that is, differential socialization experiences rather than status per se is suggested to underlie negative immigration attitudes.…”

Section: Migration and Multiculturalism 24mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Migration and Multiculturalism

Green¹,

Staerklé²

2013

Oxford Handbooks Online

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"Multiculturalism has utterly failed", German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared inOctober 2010, "immigrants need to do more to integrate in German society". A few months later, in February 2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron also condemned his country's long-standing policy of multiculturalism as a failure, claiming that many young British Muslims were drawn to violent ideology because they found no strong collective identity in Britain. These two quotes from leading European politicians exemplify how migration and multiculturalism have become key issues in contemporary societies. Virtually all countries in the world need to deal with the steady flow of people crossing international borders that have made societies in our globalized world more and more diverse. Despite its contested nature as a normative model for organizing diversity in receiving societies, multiculturalism has become an inescapable reality to which countries need to adapt.This chapter is concerned with two major questions concerning migration and multiculturalism. First, it looks at the social and psychological processes at work in the migrant experience. Second, it deals with how members of receiving societies react to the increased and diversified immigrant presence in their societies. 1 Our review draws mainly upon research and theory in political and social psychology. Reflecting the diversity of classic and recent empirical work on migration and multiculturalism, we present research covering a Migration and multiculturalism 2 wide range of methodological approaches, including survey, experimental and qualitative studies. The chapter emphasizes how historical and political contexts affect the nature of intergroup relations between migrant groups and receiving societies. It furthermore highlights the role of widely shared social representations in processes of migration and multiculturalism, expressed in ideological belief systems, political discourse and everyday cultural repertoires. We argue that a political psychology perspective to migration and multiculturalism will gain from taking a interdisciplinary approach in which different levels of analysis-including individual, group and societal factors-are combined and articulated (Castles & Miller, 2009;Chryssochoou, 2004;Deaux, 2006;Verkuyten, 2005a).The chapter is organized in four parts. The first part outlines some historical benchmarks of modern migration and briefly presents two key notions of a psychological approach to migration-assimilation and multiculturalism-in their historical context. In a second part, we summarize empirical research that focuses on the psychological dynamics involved in the migrant experience, in particular the interactionist and complex nature of migrant identities, acculturation and adaptation in receiving societies, and intergroup approaches to acculturation and multiculturalism. The third part analyses the role of threat regarding immigrants and immigration in the reactions, attitudes and beliefs of majority populations in receiving societies. The...

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The Role of Self-Interest in Social and Political Attitudes

Cited by 456 publications

References 159 publications

Don't Tax Me? Determinants of Individual Attitudes Toward Progressive Taxation

Don't Tax Me? Determinants of Individual Attitudes Toward Progressive Taxation

A Decade of System Justification Theory: Accumulated Evidence of Conscious and Unconscious Bolstering of the Status Quo

Migration and Multiculturalism

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