Social justice orientations: Exploring their impact on poverty attributions and support for social protection

Abstract Distributive justice remains a central issue in contemporary welfare states, even more during times of economic hardship and social uncertainty. In this article, we analyze how attitudes toward the principles of normative distributive justice (equality, need, equity, and entitlement) are related to support for the redistribution of resources (Study 2) and attitudes toward social protection policies (Studies 1 and 3). In Study 1 ( N = 325), we found that equality and need positively predicted attitudes toward social protection policies while equity and entitlement negatively predicted these attitudes. In Study 2 ( N = 49,519), using data from Round 9 of the European Social Survey, we replicated this linking normative orientation toward different distributive justice principles with support for redistribution. We replicated these results in Study 3 ( N = 494). In addition, we explored the role of attributions for poverty in the relationship found in Studies 1 and 2. Attributions for poverty mediated the relationship between orientations toward justice principles and attitudes toward social protection policies.