TY - JOUR
T1 - Recognizing the Impact of COVID-19 on the Poor Alters Attitudes Towards Poverty and Inequality
AU - Wiwad, Dylan
AU - Mercier, Brett
AU - Piff, Paul K.
AU - Shariff, Azim
AU - Aknin, Lara B.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding for this study was provided by the Kellogg School of Management's Dispute Resolution Research Center to Dylan d Dylan Wiwad as well as a Simon Fraser University Psychology Department Research Grant to Lara B. Aknin. Neither of these funders had a role in the conceptualization, design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of any part of this manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2021/3
Y1 - 2021/3
N2 - The novel Coronavirus that spread around the world in early 2020 triggered a global pandemic and economic downturn that affected nearly everyone. Yet the crisis had a disproportionate impact on the poor and revealed how easily working-class individuals' financial security can be destabilised by factors beyond personal control. In a pre-registered longitudinal study of Americans (N = 233) spanning April 2019 to May 2020, we tested whether the pandemic altered beliefs about the extent to which poverty is caused by external forces and internal dispositions and support for economic inequality. Over this timespan, participants revealed a shift in their attributions for poverty, reporting that poverty is more strongly impacted by external-situational causes and less by internal-dispositional causes. However, we did not detect an overall mean-level change in opposition to inequality or support for government intervention. Instead, only for those who most strongly recognized the negative impact of COVID-19 did changes in poverty attributions translate to decreased support for inequality, and increased support for government intervention to help the poor.
AB - The novel Coronavirus that spread around the world in early 2020 triggered a global pandemic and economic downturn that affected nearly everyone. Yet the crisis had a disproportionate impact on the poor and revealed how easily working-class individuals' financial security can be destabilised by factors beyond personal control. In a pre-registered longitudinal study of Americans (N = 233) spanning April 2019 to May 2020, we tested whether the pandemic altered beliefs about the extent to which poverty is caused by external forces and internal dispositions and support for economic inequality. Over this timespan, participants revealed a shift in their attributions for poverty, reporting that poverty is more strongly impacted by external-situational causes and less by internal-dispositional causes. However, we did not detect an overall mean-level change in opposition to inequality or support for government intervention. Instead, only for those who most strongly recognized the negative impact of COVID-19 did changes in poverty attributions translate to decreased support for inequality, and increased support for government intervention to help the poor.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104083
DO - 10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104083
M3 - Article
C2 - 33223565
AN - SCOPUS:85098592115
SN - 0022-1031
VL - 93
JO - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
JF - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
M1 - 104083
ER -
