Exploring the Link Between Trait Reactance and Antiegalitarian Beliefs
Growing income inequality has led to many important social and economic issues. Despite this, many people prefer social hierarchies and tend to resist egalitarian principles. Traditional perspectives attribute this preference to individuals’ conservative political orientation and subjective social status. In this article, we suggest an overlooked factor that may contribute to antiegalitarianism: trait reactance, defined as the chronic tendency to perceive freedom threat and resist against it. Two theoretical perspectives explain why trait reactance might cause antiegalitarianism: First, the broad cultural push for reducing inequality in all spheres of everyday life might lead those with high levels of reactance to perceive this as a threat to their freedom, leading to resistance. Second, because social hierarchy may offer inherent benefits, such as feelings of power and influence, those more chronically attuned to preserving their personal freedom may be drawn to ideologies that preserve hierarchy. We explain both theoretical perspectives in detail and offer preliminary evidence through an internal meta-analysis of 18 studies we have conducted that include both measures of trait reactance and social dominance orientation (the most widely used measure of antiegalitarianism). This analysis reveals a positive correlation between trait reactance and social dominance orientation, which remains robust to several known predictors of antiegalitarianism, participants’ subjective positions on the inequality spectrum, and across two distinct cultures (United States and China). We conclude with suggestions for empirical directions that can further elucidate the contours, mechanisms, and causal direction of the relation between reactance and antiegalitarianism.
