Powerball jackpot: If you won, would you become more conservative?
As the Powerball jackpot nears $300 million, many are no doubt daydreaming about what they would do with such a huge windfall. But few are probably fantasizing that a winning lottery ticket would somehow make them more conservative.
But apparently that's exactly what happens. In聽a 13-year study of lottery winners in Britain, economists Nattavudh Powdthavee of the聽University of Melbourne, and Andrew聽J. Oswald of the University Warwick found that winning the lottery makes a person more likely to .听
The study, which appears as part of The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series, or TWERPS, looked at more than 4,000 British citizens who won between 拢1 ($1.64) and聽拢200,000 in the country's popular national lottery between 1996 and 2009. Most of the winnings were relatively small, with just 541 instances of people winning more than聽拢500.
But of those who won 拢500 or more and had not previously supported the Tories, 18 percent switched to the party. And the larger the winnings, the more likely a person is to shift to the right.
In addition, the researchers found that lottery winners are more likely to agree with the statement 鈥淥rdinary people get a fair share of the nation鈥檚 wealth."
The effects of winning the lottery on ones' political beliefs is stronger among males than females, the authors report.
Social scientists have long observed a positive correlation between high income and聽an antipathy to redistributionist policies, but it had remained unclear whether this antipathy is motivated by ethical principles that had been in place before the high incomes were attained, or if it is prompted by self-interest that, in the words of the authors, comes to be "embroidered in the mind with a form of moral聽rhetoric."
This study supports the second, more cynical, interpretation of human nature.听
鈥淲e are not sure exactly what goes on inside people鈥檚 brains鈥�, said Dr. Powdthavee in a University of Warwick press release, 鈥渂ut it seems that having money causes people to favour conservative right-wing ideas. .鈥�
In any case, it could be that the best way for a conservative political party to gain new supporters would be to embrace the one policy that they find the most loathsome: giving voters unearned money.
