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Economic inequality increases risk taking.

B Keith Payne1, Jazmin L Brown-Iannuzzi2, Jason W Hannay3

  • 1Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599; payne@unc.edu.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|April 19, 2017
PubMed
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Rising income inequality increases individual risk-taking behavior. This happens because people compare themselves to others, leading to greater financial risk-taking and potentially poorer outcomes.

Area of Science:

  • Behavioral Economics
  • Social Psychology
  • Sociology

Background:

  • Income inequality is a growing global concern.
  • Its links to negative societal outcomes like crime and poor health are known, but individual mechanisms remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the behavioral mechanisms linking income inequality to individual decision-making.
  • To determine if inequality influences risk-taking propensity.

Main Methods:

  • Conducted three experiments with 811 participants involving an economic game with varied outcome distributions.
  • Analyzed large-scale internet search data to assess real-world economic risk-taking across U.S. states.

Main Results:

  • Participants in the economic game took greater risks when outcomes were more unequal.
Keywords:
decision makingincome inequalityinequalityrisk takingsocioeconomic status

Related Experiment Videos

  • This effect was mediated by upward social comparisons.
  • Higher state-level income inequality correlated with increased online searches indicating economic risk-taking, particularly driven by upper-end inequality.

    • Conclusions:

    • Income inequality may foster negative individual outcomes by promoting increased risk-taking behavior.
    • Upward social comparison is a key psychological driver linking inequality to risk-taking.