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Social Welfare as Small‐Scale Help: Evolutionary Psychology and the Deservingness Heuristic

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  • Michael Bang Petersen

Abstract

Public opinion concerning social welfare is largely driven by perceptions of recipient deservingness. Extant research has argued that this heuristic is learned from a variety of cultural, institutional, and ideological sources. The present article provides evidence supporting a different view: that the deservingness heuristic is rooted in psychological categories that evolved over the course of human evolution to regulate small‐scale exchanges of help. To test predictions made on the basis of this view, a method designed to measure social categorization is embedded in nationally representative surveys conducted in different countries. Across the national‐ and individual‐level differences that extant research has used to explain the heuristic, people categorize welfare recipients on the basis of whether they are lazy or unlucky. This mode of categorization furthermore induces people to think about large‐scale welfare politics as its presumed ancestral equivalent: small‐scale help giving. The general implications for research on heuristics are discussed.

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  • Michael Bang Petersen, 2012. "Social Welfare as Small‐Scale Help: Evolutionary Psychology and the Deservingness Heuristic," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(1), pages 1-16, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:56:y:2012:i:1:p:1-16
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00545.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Hager, Anselm & Veit, Susanne, 2019. "Attitudes Toward Asylum Seekers: Evidence from Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 83(2), pages 412-422.
    2. Peter Grand & Guido Tiemann, 2020. "The Deserving and the Undeserving: "Heuristic" or "Automatism"?," EconPol Working Paper 53, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    3. Carlo Michael Knotz & Mia Katharina Gandenberger & Flavia Fossati & Giuliano Bonoli, 2022. "A Recast Framework for Welfare Deservingness Perceptions," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 927-943, February.
    4. Charlotte Cavaill, 2015. "Deservingness, Self-Interest and the Welfare State: Why Some Care More about Deservingness than Others and Why It Matters," LIS Working papers 652, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Knotz, Carlo Michael & Gandenberger, Mia Katharina & Fossati, Flavia & Bonoli, Giuliano, 2021. "Public attitudes toward pandemic triage: Evidence from conjoint survey experiments in Switzerland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    6. Begoña Cabeza;, 2023. "Social preferences, support for redistribution, and attitudes towards vulnerable groups," Working Papers 2308, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    7. Chwieroth, Jeffrey M. & Walter, Andrew, 2022. "Neoliberalism and banking crisis bailouts: distant enemies or warring neighbors?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111871, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Bridgman, Aengus & Merkley, Eric, 2020. "All in this together: deservingness of government aid during the COVID-19 pandemic," OSF Preprints eyvhj, Center for Open Science.
    9. Bettina Schuck & Jennifer Shore, 2019. "How Intergenerational Mobility Shapes Attitudes toward Work and Welfare," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 682(1), pages 139-154, March.

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