2026-10-11T15:09:41Z https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai

oai:figshare.com:article/30185830 2026-10-01T07:22:26Z category_30409 item_type_3 month_year_10_2026

<b>Who should adress inequlity? External attributions increase support for algorithmic solutions</b> Xuyao Wu (17257993) Social psychology attribution economic inequality system-justifying belief algorithmic decision-making <p dir="ltr">Public health emergencies have intensified social inequalities, increasing the urgency of identifying effective governance approaches to promote social fairness and well-being. As governments increasingly incorporate algorithmic decision-making into healthcare, education, employment, and other public services, whether these technologies can effectively mitigate inequality may depend not only on algorithmic capability but also on how the public understands the causes of inequality. Drawing on attribution theory and system justification theory, five studies comprising seven experiments (<i>N</i> = 961) showed that externally attributing inequality consistently increased individuals’ willingness to rely on algorithmic rather than human decision-makers in addressing inequality across healthcare, recruitment, and education. This effect was driven by reduced system-justifying beliefs. Moreover, algorithmic interventions could even undermine perceived fairness when inequality was internally attributed. These findings suggest that the success of AI-assisted governance depends not only on developing capable algorithms but also on aligning algorithmic interventions with how citizens cognitively construe the social problems they are intended to address. More broadly, this research advances our understanding of algorithmic governance by demonstrating that technological interventions are embedded within social psychological processes.</p> 2025-09-23T05:58:48Z Dataset Dataset 10.6084/m9.figshare.30185830.v2 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/_b_External_attribution_to_economic_inequality_increases_algorithm_preference_b_/30185830 CC BY 4.0