We offer experimental evidence for the effect of social sampling on redistributive preferences through a survey experiment using a probabilistic national sample in Germany. We primed respondents to think about different types of social contacts, in particular low- and high-income contacts. We find evidence for an indirect effect in which the priming task shapes preferences for redistribution through its effect on the respondents' estimates of their contacts' incomes. Respondents in the low-income (high-income) priming recalled social contacts with lower (higher) incomes, which in turn predict more (less) support for redistributive policies. The indirect effect of the low-income (high-income) priming is stronger among high-income (low-income) respondents, suggesting that our priming task elicited the social contacts whom the respondents, given their own incomes, are less likely to recall. We discuss the implications of these findings to our understanding of how social sampling shapes redistributive preferences as well as relates to social networks and ideology.

我们通过使用德国概率性国家样本的调查实验，为社会抽样对再分配偏好的影响提供实验证据。我们引导受访者思考不同类型的社交联系，特别是低收入和高收入联系。我们发现了间接影响的证据，其中启动任务通过影响受访者对其联系人收入的估计来塑造重新分配的偏好。低收入（高收入）启动的受访者回忆起与低（高）收入的社会接触，这反过来又预测了对再分配政策的更多（更少）支持。低收入（高收入）启动的间接效应在高收入（低收入）受访者中更强，这表明我们的启动任务引发了受访者的社会联系，考虑到自己的收入，不太可能回忆。我们讨论了这些发现对我们理解社会抽样如何塑造再分配偏好以及与社会网络和意识形态相关的影响。