#5 types of imagery in the pedestrian series#

First, both petitions pertained to relevant policy issues in the state. 1, was highly realistic in several respects. All six confederates were trained and monitored closely by the researcher.) Confederates were told to refrain from initiating conversation with pedestrians, petitioners, or anyone else while in sight of their assigned location. (Confederates were instructed not to panhandle or appear mentally ill or intoxicated, to avoid generating aversion, scorn, or disgust. Confederates, positioned within 20 feet of the petitioner, were instructed to remain standing so as to be visible to pedestrians, and not to, in any way, appear to be begging or panhandling. In the affluent condition, the same confederates were well-dressed and behaved as if waiting patiently to meet a companion for a nice meal ( SI Appendix, Fig.

In the poverty condition, confederates appeared unkempt, wearing extremely shabby clothes and communicating poverty via their posture and body language. The “poverty” and “affluence” conditions refer to the appearance of the confederates. (Neighborhoods included Brookline, Back Bay, and Beacon Hill, and were chosen to limit the heterogeneity of the subject pool to ensure sufficient statistical power.) A fully crossed factorial design was used, depicted in Table 1. Study sites were affluent, predominantly white, pedestrian-trafficked commercial areas around Boston, MA. The experiment took place between October 3 and December 11, 2015. Although signing a petition is less costly than some forms of political engagement, it is a meaningful, public form of advocacy ( 14, 15) and a potential gateway to future political participation ( 16, 17).

In contrast to previous studies of redistributive preferences that rely on costless expressions of opinion on a survey or relatively unnatural distributive games, this study examines the effect of exposure on a real political action in an authentic setting. I measure revealed preferences through a real-world behavior, in a context in which experimenter effects are highly implausible. Furthermore, prior research on inequality effects has typically occurred in a relatively artificial context in which, among other concerns, outcomes are subject to experimenter effects ( 12, 13). Rather than presenting subjects with information about inequality, this study experimentally induces inequality in a person’s natural, ordinary environment. Survey experiments ( 10) show that higher-income individuals are less generous, relative to lower-income individuals, if they reside in a highly unequal state or when randomly assigned to view simulated data indicating inequality is relatively high in their state.

#5 types of imagery in the pedestrian series#

A series of laboratory experiments ( 3) show that visible wealth encourages greater inequality, compared with when wealth is hidden. Although none of these studies has randomized encounters with real-world inequality, several recent studies examine the effect of perceptions of inequality on survey responses and laboratory behaviors ( 3, 10, 11). Using a randomized placebo-controlled field experiment, I show momentary passive “contact” with a poverty stricken person in an affluent public place can change people’s willingness to actively support redistributive policies.Ī handful of studies have examined the effect of context or subtle environmental cues on behavior ( 4, 8) and attitudes ( 9). To overcome this difficulty, I experimentally manipulate exposure to inequality that occurs on sidewalks and street corners. Isolating this causal effect is challenging because of selective sorting. However, very little is known about how direct exposure to inequality in everyday settings-such as poverty and homelessness in relatively wealthy neighborhoods-shapes human behavior. With this phenomenon comes visible manifestations of inequality, which affect social interactions from cooperation ( 3) to conflict ( 4). In the United States, the gap between the top 1% of earners and everyone else was wider in 2012 than any time since before the Great Depression ( 1) and is a pervasive social and political phenomenon ( 2). The distribution of wealth in many countries across the globe is highly skewed.