We react less negatively to extreme manifestations of economic disparity, such as homelessness, if we think the economic system is fair and legitimate, and these differences in reactivity are even detectable at the physiological level, finds a team of psychology researchers. The research, which appears in the journal Nature Communications, offers new insights into why we have varying reactions to inequality.
“Research has shown that people generally have an aversion to unequal distributions of resources, an example of which may be a person we see sleeping on a grate or lacking access to basic necessities, healthcare, and education,” explains Shahrzad Goudarzi, the paper’s lead author and a doctoral candidate in New York University’s Department of Psychology. “Yet many people either pay little attention to or are otherwise unbothered by rising economic disparities–responses that some may have difficulty understanding. This research begins to explain such differences: beliefs that legitimize and justify the economic system diminish our deep-seated aversion to inequality, buffering us against negative emotions in response to it.”