Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

1-2022

Abstract

Approximately 44% of U.S. workers are low-wage workers. Recent years have witnessed a raging debate about whether to raise their minimum wages. Why do some decision-makers support raising wages and others do not? Ten studies (four preregistered) examined people’s beliefs about the malleability of intelligence as a key antecedent. The more U.S. human resource managers (Study 1) and Indian business owners (Study 2) believed that people’s intelligence can grow (i.e., had a growth mindset), the more they supported increasing low-wage workers’ compensation. In key U.S. swing states (Study 3a), and a nationally representative sample (Study 3b), residents with a more growth mindset were more willing to support ballot propositions increasing the minimum wage and other compensation. Study 4 provided causal evidence. The next two studies confirmed the specificity of the predictor. People’s beliefs about the malleability of intelligence, but not personality (Study 5a) or effort (Study 5b), predicted their support for increasing low-wage workers’ compensation. Study 6 examined multiple potential mechanisms, including empathy, attributions for poverty, and environmental affordances. The relationship between growth mindset and support for raising low-wage workers’ wages was explained by more situational rather than dispositional attributions for poverty. Finally, Studies 7a and 7b replicated the effect of growth mindset on support for increasing low-wage workers’ compensation and provided confirmatory evidence for the mediator—situational, rather than dispositional, attributions of poverty. These findings suggest that growth mindsets about intelligence promote support for increasing low-wage workers’ wages; we discuss the theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords

low-wage workers, lay theories, minimum wage, fixed-growth mindsets, attributions

Discipline

Marketing | Organizational Behavior and Theory

Research Areas

Marketing

Publication

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Volume

152

Issue

4

First Page

935

Last Page

955

ISSN

0096-3445

Identifier

10.1037/xge0001303

Publisher

American Psychological Association

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001303

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