Measuring hearts and minds: A validated survey module on inequality aversion and altruism

Mesurer les cœurs et les esprits: un module d'enquête validé sur l'aversion pour les inégalités et l'altruisme

Thomas Epper () and Ivan Mitrouchev ()
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Thomas Epper: LEM - Lille économie management - UMR 9221 - UA - Université d'Artois - UCL - Université catholique de Lille - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, IÉSEG School Of Management [Puteaux]
Ivan Mitrouchev: GAEL - Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquée de Grenoble - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes - Grenoble INP - Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes

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Abstract: Social preferences are widely studied in behavioral economics, with some validated survey modules to measure trust, altruism and reciprocity. Despite growing interest in inequality aversion-defined as an individual's dislike of disparities in outcomes-there is, however, no dedicated and validated module to assess this specific social preference. Moreover, inequality aversion and altruism are often hard to disentangle, which points to the need for a unified module that incorporates both preferences. To bridge these gaps, we introduce a novel survey module that captures general attitudes toward inequality aversion and altruism. This module was developed and validated through an experimental study with a representative U.S. population sample. Our results demonstrate that the proposed module effectively captures variations in both inequality aversion and altruism, with consistent reliability across individual heterogeneity. This tool offers researchers a standardized and generalizable approach for measuring inequality aversion and altruism, paving the way for future studies and across diverse contexts.

Keywords: Inequality; Altruism; Redistribution; Social preferences; Survey instrument (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-mac
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-05247375v1
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Published in Journal of Economic Inequality, In press, ⟨10.1007/s10888-025-09697-2⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05247375

DOI: 10.1007/s10888-025-09697-2

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