High economic inequality leads higher-income individuals to be less generous
Abstract
Recent research finds that higher-income individuals are less generous than lower-income individuals. This work has received widespread academic and media attention, but the formulation is likely oversimplistic because it neglects the role of economic inequality. We test a new, multilevel perspective on the relationship between income and generosity that incorporates economic inequality. In a nationally representative survey study and an experiment, we find that higher-income individuals are only less generous if they reside in a highly unequal area or when inequality is experimentally portrayed as relatively high. Our findings offer a more complete understanding of the association between income and generosity and have implications for contemporary debates about the social impact of unequal resource distributions.
- Publication:
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- December 2015
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.1511536112
- Bibcode:
- 2015PNAS..11215838C