Entertaining Beliefs in Economic Mobility

Abstract

Americans have long believed in upward mobility and the narrative of the American Dream. Even in the face of rising income inequality and substantial empirical evidence that economic mobility has declined in recent decades, many Americans remain convinced of the prospects for upward mobility. What explains this disconnect? I argue that their media diets play an important role in explaining this puzzle. Specifically, contemporary Americans are watching a record number of entertainment TV programs that emphasize "rags-to-riches" narratives. I demonstrate that such shows have become a ubiquitous part of the media landscape over the last two decades. Online and lab-in-the-field experiments as well as national surveys show that exposure to these programs increases viewers' beliefs in the American Dream and promotes internal attributions of wealth. Media exemplars present in what Americans leisurely consume every day can powerfully distort economic perceptions and have important implications for public preferences for economic redistribution.

The paradox of local inequality: Meritocratic beliefs in unequal localities

“…Third, it is not clear how the local environment interacts with other sources of information about inequality and opportunity. People acquire (often contradictory) information from multiple sources and life domains, including friends and family, news media, and even public entertainment (Kim, 2021). Our understanding of the relative role of the local environment vis‐à‐vis these other sources of information is currently very limited.…”

Selection Neglect and Political Beliefs

“…Some of the most heavily watched shows in the US highlight the "rags-to-riches" narratives and the importance of hard work, such as Shark Tank, MasterChef, and America's Got Talent. Kim (2021) finds that people who watch these shows on their own have more optimistic beliefs about economic mobility and the "American Dream," and provides further causal evidence with experimental treatment that involves watching clips of these shows.…”

“…The idea that news can prime individuals of certain issues, and subsequently affect attitudes and behavior, has a long tradition in the political psychology literature (Iyengar and Kinder, 1987;Tesler, 2014). Studies have shown that the types of information that people consume affect their attitudes-their views on different aspects of the economy (Garz and Martin, 2021;Kim, 2021;Jacobs et al, 2021) , government performance (Chen and Yang, 2019;Cho et al, 2017), and political candidates-as well as behaviors as extreme as engagement in militia violence (Yanagizawa-Drott,…”

Inequality in researchers’ minds: Four guiding questions for studying subjective perceptions of economic inequality

“…Because inequality of outcomes describes who holds what resources, subjective perceptions may rely on observable cues such as discretionary spending (e.g., Hauser & Norton, 2017;Ordabayeva & Chandon, 2011). In contrast, because inequality of opportunity describes access to (rather than ownership of) resources, it is harder to observe directly (e.g., Brunori, 2017) and may rely on popular narratives of what leads some people to succeed and others to fail (e.g., in the media; Kim, 2019), or ideological differences regarding the role of structural forces in success (Davidai, 2022;Piff et al, 2020).…”

“…As such, employees' subjective perceptions of inequality within their organization may be driven by factors that are specific to this level of analysis (e.g., whether they are thinking about vertical inequality between managers and employees or horizontal inequality between people of similar ranks; Downes & Choi, 2014). Similarly, because people rarely have direct experience of inequality at the national level, their perceptions of national inequality may be more strongly swayed by the media than their perceptions of inequality at the local level (Coppini et al, 2018;Diermeier et al, 2017;Kim, 2019;McCall, 2013). At an even higher level of analysis, Westerners may underestimate global inequality-believing that developing and middle-income countries are better off than they really are-by drawing on the widespread narratives of globalized progress (Ziano & Onyeador, 2021).…”