Many human societies feature institutions for redistributing resources from some individuals to others, but preferred levels of redistribution vary greatly within and between populations. We postulate that support for redistribution is the output of a structured cognitive system that is sensitive to features of the social situation. We developed an experimental approach in which participants prescribe appropriate redistribution for hypothetical villages whose features vary. Over seven experiments involving 2400 adults from the UK, we show that participants shift their redistribution preferences systematically as situational features change. Higher levels of redistribution are favoured when luck is more important in the initial distribution of resources; when social groups are more homogeneous; when the group is at war; and when resources are abundant rather than scarce. Judgements about the right level of redistribution carry moderate or high levels of moral conviction. Participants have systematic intuitions about when the implementation of redistribution will prove problematic, distinct from their intuitions about when it is desirable. Individuals are only weakly consistent in the level of redistribution they prefer, and political orientation explains rather little variation in preferred redistribution for a given situation. We argue that people have divergent views on redistribution at least in part because they have different appraisals of the features of their societies. Understanding the operating principles of the psychology of redistribution may help explain variation and change in support for, and hence existence of, redistributive institutions across societies and over time.

中文翻译：

---

重新分配的偏好对感知到的运气、社会同质性、战争和稀缺性很敏感。

许多人类社会都设有将资源从某些人重新分配给其他人的机构，但在人口内部和人口之间，重新分配的首选水平差异很大。我们假设对再分配的支持是对社会情境特征敏感的结构化认知系统的输出。我们开发了一种实验方法，参与者可以为特征各不相同的假设村庄规定适当的重新分配。超过 7 个涉及来自英国的 2400 名成年人的实验表明，参与者会随着情境特征的变化而系统地改变他们的再分配偏好。当运气在资源的初始分配中更重要时，更高水平的再分配是有利的；当社会群体更加同质化时；当团体处于战争状态时；当资源丰富而不是稀缺时。对正确的再分配水平的判断带有中等或高水平的道德信念。参与者对重新分配的实施何时会证明有问题有系统的直觉，这与他们对何时可取的直觉不同。个人在他们偏好的再分配水平上只有微弱的一致性，政治取向解释了在特定情况下偏好再分配的差异很小。我们认为人们对再分配有不同的看法，至少部分是因为他们对社会特征有不同的评价。了解再分配心理学的操作原理可能有助于解释支持的变化和变化，因此存在，