Keywords: income inequality, cross-national survey

Nearly a decade and a half after the Occupy Wall Street protests in the U.S. and similar movements in other nations, economic inequality remains a major issue in countries around the world. Majorities in all 36 nations surveyed by Pew Research Center in 2024 described the gap between rich and poor as a moderately or very big problem in their country, although views differed notably across and within nations.

To examine the drivers of attitudes toward inequality, we asked a modified version of the Short Social Dominance Orientation scale (Pratto et al., 2012) in four of the countries surveyed in 2024: Australia, Hungary, Poland and the United States. In each country, we conducted the survey among a nationally representative sample of the adult population. Interviews were administered online in Australia and the U.S., and face-to-face in Hungary and Poland.

Social dominance orientation (SDO) is an individual preference for group-based hierarchy, where people higher on this measure are more accepting of some groups having dominance over others. Research has consistently found that most people are low on SDO, however those who are relatively more accepting of social hierarchies should be less likely to see the gap between rich and poor as a problem for their country.

Using multivariate methods, we analyze SDO as both an independent and dependent variable. While some groups are more likely than others to endorse SDO – such as men or people with higher incomes – ideology is the strongest demographic predictor, with people on the right especially likely to support social hierarchies. And, as expected, SDO is a significant predictor of concerns about income inequality, above and beyond ideology and other demographic factors.

SDO also predicted people’s views of the causes of inequality in these four countries. Those higher on SDO are more likely to say that some people working harder than others leads to income inequality, a belief that suggests inequality is a justified outcome based on individuals’ abilities or effort. In contrast, people higher on SDO are less likely than others to blame inequality on structural factors, such as discrimination against racial or ethnic minorities, some people being born with more opportunities than others, or rich people having too much political influence.

While directly related to inequality, SDO is a broader psychological orientation than can help shed light on other important societal beliefs. For instance, our initial analyses suggest higher SDO is associated with exclusionary conceptions of national identity and support for authoritarianism, and we will reference these analyses in the paper as well.

The paper will add to our understanding of what drives attitudes toward inequality and will also highlight the ways in which SDO may be a useful theoretical and empirical framework for understanding other important political and social topics.