Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Mar 16;15(3):e0229096.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0229096. eCollection 2020.

How does symbolic success affect redistribution in left-wing voters? A focus on the 2017 French presidential election

Vincent Berthet  1   2 , Camille Dorin  2 , Jean-Christophe Vergnaud  2 , Vincent de Gardelle  3
Affiliations

How does symbolic success affect redistribution in left-wing voters? A focus on the 2017 French presidential election

Vincent Berthet et al. PLoS One. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Redistribution preferences depend on factors such as self-interest and political views. Recently, Deffains et al. (2016) reported that redistributive behavior is also sensitive to the actual experience of success or failure in a real effort task. While successful participants ('overachievers') are more likely to attribute their success to their effort rather than luck and opt for less redistribution, unsuccessful participants ('underachievers') tend to attribute their failure to external factors and opt for more redistribution. The aim of the present study was to test how the experience of success (symbolic success) and political views interact in producing redistributive behavior in an experimental setting. The study was conducted during the 2017 French presidential election. Our sample was biased towards left-wing, and most participants reported voting for Mélenchon, Hamon or Macron. Our findings reveal that 1) Macron voters redistribute less than Hamon voters who themselves redistribute less than Mélenchon voters, 2) overachievers redistribute less than underachievers only among Mélenchon voters. This suggests that redistributive behavior is governed primarily by political opinions, and that influence by exogenous manipulation of symbolic success is not homogenous across left-wing political groups.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Distribution of the First-round vote and comparison with actual results at the national level.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Relation between First-round vote and political position (1: extreme left, 7: extreme right).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Alesina A., & Angeletos G.-M. (2005). Fairness and redistribution. The American Economic Review, 95, 960–980.
    1. Corneo G., & Grüner H. P. (2002). Individual preferences for political redistribution. Journal of Public Economics, 83, 83–107.
    1. Capraro V., & Rand D. G. (2018). Do the right thing: Experimental evidence that preferences for moral behavior, rather than equity or efficiency per se, drive human prosociality. Judgment and Decision Making, 13, 99–111.
    1. Fong C. (2001). Social preferences, self-interest, and the demand for redistribution. Journal of Public Economics, 82, 225–246.
    1. Boarini R., & Le Clainche C. (2009). Social preferences for public intervention: An empirical investigation based on French data. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 38, 115–128.

Publication types