How group deliberation shapes distributional preferences: An experimental analysis

This paper investigates how group deliberation changes individual distributional preferences. We experimentally assess the relative contribution of persuasion, social identity, and social comparison to shifts in preferences following deliberation. In a controlled setting, participants engaged in ten minutes of non-binding written group deliberation about distributional choices. Post-deliberation preferences became significantly more egalitarian than pre-deliberation ones. This within-subject preference shift is supported by a between-subject comparison showing that group deliberation has a larger egalitarian effect than individual deliberation. What explains this egalitarian shift? Our findings suggest that social identity formation is the primary but not unique driver of the change in preferences. Social identity appears to largely explain the pronounced egalitarian shift among participants who lose from equality, while persuasion and social comparison seem to account for the preference changes among those whose material payoffs are unaffected by the distributive outcome. These findings have important implications for the elicitation of distributional preferences and for the design of communicative institutions that precede collective decision-making.