Value-based preferences predict views on redistribution

Economic inequality is an increasing threat to the stability of many societies. Despite this, public support for redistributive policies that would mitigate inequality are often lacking. It is important, therefore, to understand what leads to the willingness, or not, to reallocate resources, and what contextual factors influence these preferences. To address this, we developed a novel experimental task to explore redistributive decision-making. In a large sample of participants (N = 231), we found several distinct strategies that characterized redistributive choices – namely equity, equality, and payout-maximization. We observed substantial heterogeneity in decision-making, demonstrating the need for assessing redistributive preferences both at the individual level and also across different inequality contexts. Crucially, task behavior was directly related to participants’ political views on redistribution. Strategy selection in our experimental task predicted specific relationships between participants’ policy views on redistribution and how they would benefit from it, independent of their perceptions as to the cause of inequality.