Neighborhood characteristics and individual perception of social inequity - A Stage 1 Registered Report

The neighborhoods that people live in contain a variety of features that color their everyday psychological experience. Whether they feel welcomed by their neighbors, the type of schools they can send their children to, and whether they can find a local job that pays them enough to afford a safe, comfortable home are all examples of ever-present factors that can influence people’s perception of the world and their place in it. Previous work has explored the degree to which individual characteristics, such as personal beliefs and social networks, are associated with judgments about whether society is fair and just. Here, we build upon this work by investigating if these judgments are also associated with the features of the neighborhoods that people live in. Specifically, we hypothesize that neighborhood diversity and socioeconomic indicators will relate to individual beliefs about fairness and social order. We test this hypothesis using two large, open datasets – the Attitudes, Identities, and Individual Differences study data, and the Opportunity Insights Neighborhood Characteristics by County data – and through multi-method modeling techniques. Our work can inform theories of individual perception of, and response to, societal inequity, as well as models of public opinion of social welfare policy.