Adolescents’ conceptions of wealth and societal fairness amid extreme inequality: An Argentine sample.

Abstract

This study examined how Argentine adolescents’ judgments about the fairness of their society are related to their perceptions of actual and ideal societal wealth distribution, just world beliefs, and trust in political institutions. Six hundred ninety-nine Argentine adolescents from three age groups (12–14 years, 15–16 years, and 17–18 years) in high schools from diverse SES communities were presented with five images depicting more or less egalitarian patterns of national wealth distribution. Participants chose the images that best represented actual and ideal wealth distribution in Argentina, and also rated their level of political trust, general and personal beliefs in a just world (BJW), and views regarding the fairness of Argentine society. Findings revealed that there was a significant gap between adolescents’ conception of current wealth distribution and their more egalitarian choices for ideal wealth distribution. In addition, adolescents who judged that the distribution of actual economic resources was more egalitarian had more positive views of the fairness of Argentine society, as well as higher levels of political trust and BJW. Moreover, regression analyses revealed that adolescents’ views of the overall fairness of society were independently predicted by both their economic judgments and their noneconomic judgments (political trust and both general and personal BJW), and these effects were not moderated by adolescents’ age group or school SES. Notwithstanding the lack of moderated effects (i.e., relations among variables), older adolescents and those from higher SES schools had more negative views of overall fairness of society, the egalitarian nature of existing wealth distribution, political trust, and BJW.