The Legitimation of Inequality: Psychosocial Dispositions, Education, and Attitudes toward Income Inequality in China

Why people of lower socioeconomic status often support conservative economic policies has been one of the most intriguing puzzles for sociologists. This study tackles this paradox and presents a social psychological explanation that considers the effect of two kinds of psychosocial dispositions—authoritarianism and social dominance orientation—on attitudes toward economic inequality. Using two nationally representative Chinese social surveys and using structural equation modeling for empirical analysis, this article demonstrates that stark rural–urban income disparity in China resulted in large regional–educational inequality and that lower educational levels in disadvantaged areas led to residents’ conservative psychosocial dispositions. This article sheds light on a previously neglected social psychological mechanism of political attitude formation and shows how such a mechanism is embedded in macro-institutional contexts.