Perceptions and Preferences about Inequality, Meritocracy and Redistribution

High levels of economic inequality characterize several societies around the world. Traditional approaches from the social sciences have emphasized institutional and cultural factors at different levels in attempting to understand and explain the stability of inequality despite its negative consequences for the population at large. Along with these approaches, a growing line of research has focused on concepts such as perceptions, beliefs and preferences regarding economic inequality, as well as on how these subjective aspects of social inequality are associated with structural and contextual factors. The present panel is open to theoretical, empirical, and experimental contributions in areas such as redistributive preferences, meritocracy beliefs, inequality perceptions, poverty attributions, and other concepts in the realm of the social psychology of inequality. Comparative research that tackles the link between contextual and subjective factors is particularly welcomed.