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Tuesday, November 24th, 2020

Study suggests the COVID-19 pandemic has altered Americans attitudes toward inequality and the poor

Author:    
Source:     PsyPost
Publication Date:     2020/11/21 09:30 (PST)
 Link: Study suggests the COVID-19 pandemic has altered Americans attitudes toward inequality and the poor
Stephan:   Good news that can change a trend sometimes comes in unexpected ways and forms. This popular account of a new research study is such an example. The American cultural obsession with every person for himself, that has emerged instead of creating social wellbeing, something the Founders specifically organized the country to achieve, has produced a belief that the poor are lesser people. It distorts our entire society. But the study discussed in this report suggests that may be changing. I hope this is the case. Until we as a society collectively understand that wellbeing at every level must be our first priority we are doomed to pain, violence, and death. The study, “Recognizing the Impact of COVID-19 on the Poor Alters Attitudes Towards Poverty and Inequality“, was authored by Dylan Wiwad, Brett Mercier, Paul K. Piff, Azim Shariff, and Lara B. Aknin.TrendMD v2.4.8

The coronavirus pandemic may have altered how many people in the United States view the poor, according to new research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. The study indicates that people became more likely to blame external factors for poverty and less likely to blame personal failings after the outbreak of the virus.

Based on their previous research, the authors of the new study had reason to believe that the pandemic might alter attitudes about the poor and inequality.

“My co-authors and I recently published a paper in Nature Human Behavior in which we found that one reason driving American’s relatively low concern about economic inequality is that people don’t readily recognize the situational causes of poverty (e.g., discrimination, luck), and instead assume that poverty is caused by dispositional factors (e.g., laziness),” explained study author Dylan Wiwad, a postdoctoral fellow at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

“We also showed that a simple intervention (a 10-minute poverty simulation, www.playspent.org) successfully increased recognition of these uncontrollable causes of poverty […]

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