Título: "High Hopes or Hard Truths? Expectations, Merit Beliefs, and Redistribution Preferences"

Abstract:  "Inequality can be highly damaging and effectively combating it requires a deeper understanding of people’s beliefs regarding its causes. The literature has shown that perceiving inequality as a result of a meritocratic process reduces support for redistribution. Those who benefit from the distribution often attribute their success to meritocracy, resulting in a winner’s bias. This paper seeks to isolate the role of self-belief maintenance in this bias. Additionally, it aims to measure self-image concerns by assessing participants’ initial performance expectations. The results indicate that under preferential noise conditions, participants not only favor higher redistribution when they achieve a lower income, but also when their expectations are not met. The study also identifies two different types of motivated reasoning. Some participants were naive motivated thinkers and their bias was caused mainly by the value of their income. Other par- ticipants were sophisticated motivated thinkers, and their bias was caused primarily by the extent to which their expectations were met. Lastly, the findings suggest that beliefs about personal merit tend to overshadow beliefs about group merit when it comes to preferences for redistribution."