Date of Award

Fall 9-8-2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Scott Tindale

Abstract

Economic inequality is a global concern with many adverse consequences for people across class divides. These consequences vary in scope—from negative effects on individual’s physical, mental, and social health to large-scale economic shifts which result from climate change (Galbraith & Hale, 2008; Hiesh & Pugh, 1993; Kaplan et al., 1996; La Ferrara & Alesina, 2000; Solt, 2008; Vilhjalmsdottir et al., 2016; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2007). Policy solutions meant to address the negative effects of economic inequality include government redistribution of wealth. Universal Basic Income (UBI), a specific and actionable policy of government redistribution, is a promising method of economic inequality alleviation (Gibson, 2018). However, not all people, politicians or otherwise, see economic inequality as a problem (Bobzien, 2019). As a result, many may see no need for government redistribution, let alone UBI (Choi, 2021). This proposal is interested in 1) the mechanisms underlying an individual’s perception of objective and subjective economic inequality, 2) attitudes toward the value of decreasing economic inequality, and 3) the support or opposition to policies seeking to reduce economic inequality—specifically Universal Basic Income. Prior work on the relationship between perceived economic inequality, personal tolerance for inequality, and support for redistribution provides evidence that experience with or exposure to inequality on a day-to-day basis predicts one’s tolerance for inequality (García-Castro et al., 2019). This in turn may motivate one to support policies to reduce economic inequality (Garcíaix Sánchez et al., 2018). In Study 1, I propose a replication of these studies with the goals of 1) providing evidence toward the replicability and reliability of the relationship between these variables, 2) expanding generalizability through conducting this experiment with a U.S. population, and 3) using support for the specific, actionable policy of Universal Basic Income as the dependent variable. In Study 2, I propose a method of intervention to increase support for UBI across political ideologies using personal experience with government redistribution as an intervention method.

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