Questions of equality of opportunity and outcomes have been examined from Alexis de Tocqueville's observations of democracy in early 19th-century America to the now classic study of liberalism in the 1950s by Louis Hartz to the subsequent work of Jennifer Hochschild and many other political scientists and economists. Why Americans accept, tolerate or acquiesce in the presence of growing economic inequality is my central research question. In a search for an answer to this query, I examine American attitudes toward inequality by empirically testing John Rawls' theory of distributive justice. Small groups choose how to distribute income among members in experiments conducted "behind the veil of ignorance" (e.g., not knowing what the outcome will be and how they individually will be affected). Early results suggest that when placed in an objective position, i.e., "behind the veil," people from different groups around the United States tend to be egalitarians. They generally prefer to distribute income equally within the group and are willing to pay substantially for this outcome even when confronted with an equity-efficiency tradeoff in which the total amount of income diminishes as the distribution of income tends toward equality. When the veil disappears, however, preferences shift: participants who are egalitarian behind the veil tend to maximize individual income when they are no longer in an objective position. Thus, using Rawls' thought experiment, it is possible to gauge the extent to which people's behavior behind the veil is a function of egalitarianism or risk aversion and how sensitive they are to an equity-efficiency tradeoff. A survey instrument further enables me to estimate the effects of individual and group differences in these experiments. The broader impacts of the study are based on its inclusiveness, its collaborative dimensions, and its potential to influence policymaking. Participants in the experiments will include students at several universities as well as individuals from outside of academe. The sample design includes participants from underrepresented groups, which will provide an opportunity for a wide range of people to witness and to contribute to scientific research. The research also crosses traditional boundaries between disciplines by bringing methods from experimental economics into a political science dissertation. The results of the study will be disseminated widely through presentations at universities. Finally, I hope to publish the results in a political science journal and make the findings useful to policy-makers dealing with the ongoing problems of economic and social inequality in the United States.
