Inequalities in income, wealth, and opportunities are rampant both between and within nations around the world. Making strides to rectify inequalities requires examining how people come to understand them as well as the psychological processes that translate those understandings into reparative actions. There is some evidence for a “comparative framing effect,” in which the group that is initially referenced impacts judgements by communicating salient information and the appropriate reference point. Research on this comparative framing effect suggests that focusing on disadvantage, relative to advantage, leads to a more negative assessment and intentions to engage in action to reduce the inequality. 

 

In two pilot studies (reported in the current proposal) focused on global inequalities (low-income vs high-income countries), Schnepf et al. (2023) did not find evidence for a main effect of framing on perceived legitimacy of the inequality or intentions to engage in action. They did, however, find some evidence for an interaction with the perceived size of the inequality. When the low-income country was the subject of the comparison, larger perceptions of the size of the inequality were associated with greater intentions to engage in action (both studies) and greater perceptions of the differences as illegitimate (Study 1 only). Moreover, they found some evidence in both studies that negative social emotions such as guilt and shame were the mechanism that explained why perceiving greater inequality in the low-income framing condition was associated with the outcomes. 

 

In the current study, Schnepf et al. (2023) build upon these two pilot studies to conduct a high-quality replication and a stronger test of their hypotheses. Most notably, the proposed Registered Report uses a much larger sample, providing adequate statistical power to detect relatively small interaction effects. Additionally, the proposed project manipulates the size of the inequality that is being evaluated, rather than relying on participants’ perceptions. Finally, the study includes “justice sensitivity,” or the degree to which individuals assess inequality as unfair as an additional hypothesized moderator, and “social dominance orientation” as an exploratory moderator. Along with the pilot studies, the proposed project will represent a strong test of several hypotheses relevant to many different areas of social and personality psychology. 

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth peer review, both of which consisted of substantial comments from two scholars with relevant expertise. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and was therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/pgyvw
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:

 

 

 

1. Schnepf, J., Reese, G., Bruckmüller, S., Braun, M., Rotzinger, J., & Martiny, S. E. (2023). Justice in the eye of the beholder: How comparison framing affects the perception of global inequality through social emotions and justice sensitivity. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/pgyvw