Why are socioeconomic health inequalities unacceptable? Studying the influence of explanatory framings on cognitive appraisals

Bridger, Emma K. and Hewett, Angela D. and Comerford, David and Nettle, Daniel (2024) Why are socioeconomic health inequalities unacceptable? Studying the influence of explanatory framings on cognitive appraisals. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy. ISSN 1530-2415

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Abstract

Studies of aversion to health inequality have found that this is often greater when health outcomes are presented as varying with socioeconomic conditions. We sought to understand better why this is by studying the cognitive appraisals made about health inequality when presented with distinct explanatory framings. Across two pre-registered studies (N = 1321), UK and US participants judged the acceptability of life expectancy differences attributed to distinct framings: income, education, social class, neighborhood, lifestyle choices, and genetics. Health inequality was least acceptable when attributed to the four socioeconomic framings, and most acceptable for lifestyle choices and genetics. Six appraisal dimensions —complexity, malleability, inevitability, and extent driven by biological, psychological, and sociocultural causes—varied with framing and predicted views on health inequality. These dimensions could explain most of the drop in acceptability for health inequality attributed to socioeconomic factors relative to a condition with no framing. This work illustrates for the first time the cognitive appraisals and causal intuitions that link different explanatory framings to views on health inequality. These framings are viewed as least acceptable because they reduce the perceived involvement of biological causes while increasing the perception that sociocultural and psychological factors contribute to health inequality.

Item Type: Article
Identification Number: 10.1111/asap.12415
Dates:
Date
Event
5 July 2024
Accepted
29 July 2024
Published Online
Uncontrolled Keywords: explanatory framings, lay perceptions, socioeconomic health inequalities
Subjects: CAH04 - psychology > CAH04-01 - psychology > CAH04-01-04 - psychology and health
Divisions: Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences > College of Psychology
Depositing User: Angela Hewett
Date Deposited: 06 Sep 2024 14:02
Last Modified: 06 Sep 2024 14:02
URI: https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/15772

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