Income Inequality and Prejudice in the US

How does income inequality impact intergroup relations in the US? I used a multilevel modeling approach to test the effects of income inequality on attitudes toward US minority groups from the American Election Studies, from 1970-2008. Rising income inequality as measured by Gini predicted prejudice towards African Americans by White Americans across states and time. Rising income inequality did not predict prejudice towards other racial groups, and neither did it predict prejudice among mixed-race Americans towards non-racial low-status groups (homosexuals and illegal immigrants). The results are discussed in the context of group position theory (Blumer, 1958) and the Black exceptionalism hypothesis (Sears & Savalei, 2006). Whites' attitudes towards Blacks are deeply embedded into American political and socio-economic structure; they shift with changes that income inequality brings into the structure

Happy Taxpayers: How Paying Taxes Can Make People Happy

Past research has shown a link between taxation and higher well-being, but no research so far has revealed a mechanism or established a causal direction. While taxation can benefit individuals through providing better quality public goods, this line of research suggests that taxation may also benefit individuals by strengthening collective identification with other taxpayers. In three studies, I show that when taxation is perceived as a form of prosocial spending rather than personal spending, taxpayers increase their group identification with the other t ax beneficiaries, which in turn results in greater happiness and life satisfaction. In Study 1, I established a link between willingness to pay taxes to help others and well-being across time and nations. I examined this by analyzing data from the World Values Survey (WVS). Across 74 nations over 17 years, increase in tax to prevent pollution was positively linked to higher happiness and life satisfaction (γ = .055, p < 0.001 & γ = .195, p < 0.001, respectively). Likewise, across 19 rich nations, willingness to pay higher taxes to increase their country’s foreign aid to poor countries was associated with higher happiness and life satisfaction (γ = .055, p < 0.001 & γ = .186, p < 0.001, respectively). In Study 2, I replicated the link between willingness to pay taxes for prosocial purposes and subjective well-being with an American student sample and explored whether perceived social impact—the extent to which people feel their taxes benefit their society—mediates this relationship. The results of the bootstrapping analysis revealed a significant indirect effect of prosocial tax on happiness and life satisfaction via social impact, b =.097, 95% CI = [.0419; .1693] and b =.114, 95% CI = [.0544; .1894], respectively. Finally, in Study 3, I manipulated whether taxes were perceived as either a personal or a prosocial benefit or neither and tested whether benefiting other members of one’s own group (students from the University of Kansas) in the prosocial tax condition encourages stronger identification with other KU students, which in turn, improves happiness and life satisfaction. The results of the bootstrapping analysis confirmed a significant indirect effect of prosocial tax on current state of happiness and life satisfaction via increased KU identification, b =.329, 95% CI = [.0653; .7959] and b =.370, 95% CI = [.0862; .8330], respectively. The implications for tax policies are discussed