Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 263–278
www.elsevier.com/locate/joep
Psychosocial variables involved in
the construction of lay thinking about
the economy: Results of a cross-national survey
Marina Bastounis a,*, David Leiser b, Christine Roland-L
evy c
a Institute of Psychology, GRASP, University of Paris 5, 71 Avenue Edouard Vaillant,
92774 Boulogne-Billancourt, France
b Department of Behavioral Sciences, Ben-Gurion University, POB 653, 84105 Beer Sheva, Israel
c Institute of Psychology, GRASP, University of Paris 5, 71 avenue Edouard Vaillant,
92774 Boulogne-Billancourt, France
Received 30 October 2001; accepted 14 November 2002
Abstract
This study explores the relations between psychosocial variables and lay economic thought.
A number of studies have described cultural variations of individual differences variables, such
as locus of control (LOC) and belief in a just world. The aim of this project is to test the
strength of the relationships between these variables and economic beliefs and attitudes across
a wide cross-national sample. Data were collected from eight countries (Austria, France,
Greece, Israel, New Zealand, Slovenia, Singapore and Turkey) and nearly 2000 respondents.
Lay economic thinking appears to be organised around economic phenomena (such as infla-
tion and unemployment) rather than economic integrative theories (such as whether consump-
tion or business activities drive the economy). Overall, the results verify the relationship
between internal LOC, belief in a just world, a free-enterprise view of the economy and higher
satisfaction with private and public economy.
Ó 2003Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PsycINFO classification: 3040; 2229; 3120
JEL classification: C42; C81; D63
Keywords: Na€ıve economic theories; Locus of control; Belief in a just world; Economic beliefs
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +33-1-55-20-58-07; fax: +33-1-55-20-57-10.
E-mail address: marina.bastounis@psycho.univ-paris5.fr (M. Bastounis).
0167-4870/$ - see front matter Ó 2003Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0167-4870(02)00198-8

---

264
M. Bastounis et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 263–278
1. Introduction
The present report describes the conception and overall findings of the Adult Eco-
nomic Model and Values Survey conducted between 1997 and 1999 in Austria,
France, Greece, Israel, New Zealand, Slovenia, Singapore and Turkey. The survey
was organised by David Leiser at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel
and aimed at investigating psychosocial variables (i.e. locus of control (LOC)) and
general attitudes (i.e. belief in a just world) that may be related to lay peoplesÕ atti-
tudes and beliefs about the economy.
Since KatonaÕs (1975) early work, research has focused on explanations of eco-
nomic behaviour as influenced by inner psychological factors as well as external eco-
nomic forces. In this perspective, the correlates of adult beliefs and values have
received particular attention, for instance in terms of defining consumer demand
(Pickering, Greatorex, & Laycock, 1983; Van Raaij & Gianotten, 1990; Winer,
1985) or financial behaviour such as saving and indebtedness (Adair, Roland-L
evy,
& Viaud, 1994; Dessart & Kylen, 1986; Furnham, 1986b). Studies have examined re-
lationships between economic beliefs and personality variables, such as optimism vs.
pessimism (Furnham, 1997), or value orientations, such as internally or externally
oriented values (Roland-L
evy, 1998; Wharton & Harmatz, 1995).
While lay people may not possess formal knowledge on the functions of the econ-
omy, they do reason about economic phenomena in daily decision-making regarding
their finances. Unquestionably, lay theories about the economy provide information
that is important for the definition and advancement of economic policies and prac-
tice. Lynn (1992) for instance, investigating the increase of an objectÕs desirability as a
function of its scarcity, concluded that na€ıve economic theorising is responsible for
phenomena that are not predicted by formal economic theory. In an earlier work,
Salter (1986) described what he called tacit theories of the macroeconomy, that is,
lay peopleÕs causal models explaining how the economy functions. The author inter-
viewed a convenience sample of adults from New York with a series of causal ques-
tions about the economy. Data analyses suggested two basic types of tacit theories,
representing two fundamentally different ways of looking at the economy: (i) con-
sumption drives the economy (demand-side point of view), or (ii) business activities
drive the economy (supply-side point of view). Salter reports that people who hold
the first assumption consider individual (aggregated) action as the major force in cre-
ating events, and maintain a stronger notion of personal responsibility. People who
hold the second view see causal factors as connected to abstract ‘‘exterior’’ forces.
On the basis of this description, the author formulates the following comparative in-
terpretations and predictions: from the demand side economic view, balancing advan-
tages and disadvantages is possible, which implies the use of negotiation, compromise
and taking risks in order for secondary benefits to be gained from otherwise unsuc-
cessful actions. In contrast, the supply side view considers that external forces operate
in order to cause only good (or only bad) events. Therefore, for demand-side adher-
ents the world is not such an orderly or well understood place, while in the supply side
view, specific causes must lead to specific desired effects; when they do not, it is be-
cause the necessary means have not been correctly implemented. Salter writes:

---

M. Bastounis et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 263–278
265
In summary, we have one view (demand side) in which individuals are im-
portant causal agents, in which the same events or causes may have both
positive and negative consequences and in which some uncertainty in-
heres in the outcomes of actions. The supply side view, although explicitly
stressing the importance of individual initiative, sees causal forces in the
economy as para-individual and abstract, sees unalloyed good flowing
from purely implemented proper policies and sees those good effects as
following those proper policies inevitably (Salter, 1986, p. 188).
Salter underlines that the simplicity of what he calls ‘‘the supply side delusional
system’’, characterised by consistency (good things come from and result in good
things) and balance (what is good for the individual is generally good), is highly ap-
pealing to the individual, in particular in the voting situation where demand side or
supply side policies are proposed. He suggested that treating these theories as depen-
dent variables would be a difficult endeavour, as they may not be simply seen as the
product of social-economic status or political affiliation; rather, they would be re-
lated to deep set values concerning the relationship between individual and society.
Finally, he recommends that in treating tacit economic theories as independent vari-
ables one may expect the view held by individuals (demand vs. supply) to be a me-
diating variable in the explanation of voting behaviour and to be related to specific
types of economic behaviour.
Leiser and Briskman-Mazliach (1996) identified several key questions (statements
of causal inference) that may be used as first-order diagnostics of SalterÕs tacit the-
ories of economy, which we refer to as lay economic models (Economic Model Ques-
tionnaire, EMQ). The present study attempted to verify SalterÕs assumptions
regarding the psychological profiles pertaining to the two types of tacit economic
theorising (supply vs. demand views), by investigating the relationships between
lay economic models and two psychosocial variables, (i) external or internal orienta-
tion regarding the source of rewards and reinforcements (LOC), and (ii) belief in a
just world (BJW). In addition to the economic model, attitudes and beliefs regarding
specific aspects of the economy were assessed: trust in the business world as a reliable
institution; support for government intervention in price control and in social wel-
fare; general satisfaction with the distribution of resources and opportunities in
the economy, as well as fair treatment of workers under the current system; and feel-
ings of personal economic efficacy vs. feelings of economic alienation and helpless-
ness.
The LOC construct is one of the most popular in cognitive social psychology, it
refers to the extent to which one believes that life events depend on oneÕs own actions
or qualities (dimension of internality). The concept has also been widely used in eco-
nomic psychology research. Correlates of internality include strong Protestant work
ethic and endorsement of conservative or free enterprise economic beliefs (Furnham,
1987b). In reference to fighting unemployment for example, internals would be more
inclined to endorse hard line measures rather than increased government spending
(Heaven, 1990). In general, internal LOC is associated with higher perceived control
of finances, higher satisfaction with financial status and more positive perceptions of

---

266
M. Bastounis et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 263–278
the effects of changes in the financial environment (Danes & Rettig, 1993; Hira, Fitz-
simmons, Hafstrom, & Bauer, 1993; Sumarwan & Hira, 1993). Further, externals re-
port feeling more personally affected by economic crises than internals (Chebat &
Filiatrault, 1984). It follows that internality is linked to high levels of perceived psy-
chological well-being: internally oriented individuals respond more adequately to
stress, as beliefs in oneÕs own control over outcomes seem to play a buffering role
in stressful economic and job events (Krause & Stryker, 1984; Lange & Byrd, 1998).
The just world postulate has also stimulated much research over the past two de-
cades. Initially proposed by Lerner (1965) it refers to the peopleÕs need to feel that
they live in a world where one gets what one deserves. It is hypothesised to be a ‘‘fun-
damental delusion’’ which helps people to confront their environment and sustain
their actions with a measure of confidence in some kind of order and fairness. Early
on, Lerner and Miller (1978) argued that when unjust situations occur, this belief
motivates individuals to cognitively rectify the injustice and view the situations as
just: either by derogating the victim of the injustice, especially if they feel complicity
to the injustice, or by holding victims responsible for their fate. Extensive attribu-
tional research has underlined the correlations between holding a just world belief
and negative attitudes toward socially disadvantaged targets: poor people (Furnham
& Gunter, 1984; Smith, 1985; Wagstaff, 1983), or poor countries (Harper & Man-
asse, 1992; Harper, Wagstaff, Newton, & Harrison, 1990), immigrants and foreign
workers (Dalbert & Yamauchi, 1994), the unemployed (Montada & Mohiyeddini,
1998). In addition to the sphere of social judgment, BJW is active in the sphere of
psychosocial adjustment. It appears that BJW helps people to cope with witnessing
injustice (Montada & Lerner, 1995), to accept oneÕs own hardships (Dalbert, 1998)
or to deny onesÕ own unjust treatment (Bastounis & Minibas, 2000). It follows that
believing the world is just enhances perceived psychological well-being (Dalbert,
1998). Finally, strong correlations have been reported between BJW, authoritarian-
ism (Connors & Heaven, 1987; Lambert, Burroughs, & Chasteen, 1998), right-wing
ideologies (see also Lambert & Raichle, 2000) as well as general political and ideo-
logical conservatism (Dittmar & Dickinson, 1993; Wagstaff & Quirk, 1983; Zucker
& Weiner, 1993).
As the cultural variations of these psychosocial measures have received ample at-
tention and comparative studies have yielded sturdy results (see for example Furn-
ham, 1993; Smith, Trompenaars, & Dugan, 1995) the following analyses aimed to
test the endurance of the relations between such variables and lay economic thought
across a wide heterogeneous cross-cultural sample. A separate report (Allen, Leiser,
& Ng, in preparation) deals with the co-variation of the same psychosocial measures
and economic beliefs with national differences in economic development and mod-
ernization, taking into account variables such as countriesÕ level and pace of modern-
ization, human capital, social civil capital, government social capital and type of
welfare state (conservative or socialist).
The belief in a just world supports the belief that positive outcomes for oneself are
well deserved and therefore not the result of luck or othersÕ actions, it should there-
fore be negatively correlated with externality. This assumption was tested in the pre-
sent study. Based on the available literature, it was expected that internality and high

---

M. Bastounis et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 263–278
267
belief in a just world should correlate with feelings of satisfaction with oneÕs own fi-
nancial situation, belief in the fairness of the economic system and trust in the busi-
ness world as a reliable institution. Externality and weak just world belief were
expected to relate to feelings of economic alienation and helplessness and support
for government intervention in welfare and pricing. Finally, it was hypothesized that
psychosocial variables and economic beliefs should be related to the way people un-
derstand the economy as indexed by the EMQ.
2. Method
2.1. Measuring instruments
2.1.1. Psychosocial variables
The study employed the Internal–External Control Scale (Rotter, 1966), a classic
tool that has been used in a variety of studies. This instrument is composed of 22
items and measures the extent to which one believes that reinforcements and rewards
are a function of oneÕs own behaviour (internal locus) or a function of chance, fate or
powerful others (external locus). Each item proposes a forced choice between two
propositions. A high score indicates external locus of reinforcement and a low score
indicates internality. This scale was used in preference to a more specific economic
LOC scale because the latter was not shown to have any special advantage over
the general scale (Furnham, 1986a) while RotterÕs instrument was already translated
and validated in participant countries.
Belief in a just world was measured with the instrument proposed by Dalbert (En-
glish version, see Dalbert & Yamauchi, 1994). This scale was developed following
criticism (see for example Ambrosio & Sheehan, 1986; Furnham & Procter, 1989;
Lipkus, 1991; see also Couch, 1998) of the internal validity of the scale proposed
by Rubin and Peplau (1973, 1975) measuring belief in a just world and in an unjust
world. DalbertÕs is a six-item Likert-type scale, with answers ranging from 1 (com-
pletely disagree) to 6 (completely agree). A high score indicates agreement with
the just world hypothesis.
2.1.2. Lay economic model, economic attitudes and beliefs
The EMQ is a multiple choice instrument designed by Leiser and Briskman-Maz-
liach (1996) tapping lay causal explanations of economic phenomena. Conceptually
derived from SalterÕs work (1986), it aims to differentiate individuals who believe the
economy is motivated by the forces of demand from those who conceive the econ-
omy as run by the forces of supply. Five items refer to unemployment (example
items, S5: In order to solve the problem of unemployment what should the government
do? S13: How would a dramatic increase in all taxes affect unemployment?) and four
questions refer to inflation (example items, S3: What is the main factor that influences
the rate of inflation? S11: What will happen to inflation if the interest rate increases?).
Finally, four filler questions measure satisfaction with the economy and government
action. Proposed answers reflect the action of either supply or demand forces (e.g.

---

268
M. Bastounis et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 263–278
the government, the business word, banks, vs. consumption, personal savings or
credit, etc. respectively). Answers are scored 1 (supply forces) to 0 (no supply forces),
a high score indicating support for the supply view and a low score support for the
demand view.
The economic values inventory (EVI) developed by OÕBrien and Ingels (1984)
aims to measure beliefs about the economy; it has been validated in previous re-
search and is shown to have both internal reliability and construct validity (see for
example, Furnham, 1987a). The original EVI includes 49 items tapping eight vali-
dated dimensions. The present study used a shorter 29-item version, testing the six
dimensions most pertinent to the aims of the study. The items are rated on an
agree–disagree bipolar scale. High scores code disagreement:
ii(i) Five items concern the role of business; a high score here indicates low trust in
the business world as a reliable institution providing useful services and goods.
Example item: ‘‘Businesses could provide more jobs, goods and services if they
didn’t have to pay so much in taxes’’.
i(ii) Seven items tap perception of personal economy efficacy, where high scores in-
dicate feelings of adequacy in personal finance matters. Example item: ‘‘It’s no
use worrying about the economy; I can’t do anything about it anyway’’.
(iii) Five items concern the role of the government in providing social welfare to the
disadvantaged where a high score indicates an anti-social welfare opinion. Ex-
ample item: ‘‘The poor and the ill have a right to help from the government’’.
(iv) Two items regarding the role of government for price control where a high score
indicates low support of government intervention. Example item: ‘‘Companies
should only be allowed to charge a government-controlled price for their products’’.
i(v) Four items measuring opinions regarding economic unfairness, where a high
score indicates the feeling that workers receive unfair treatment in the economic
system. Example item: ‘‘The average worker today is getting less than his or her
fair share’’.
(vi) Four items measuring general satisfaction with the economy, where a high score
indicates the opinion that resources and opportunities are equally distributed in
the economic system. Example item: ‘‘We need a way to make incomes more
equal in this country’’.
2.2. Procedure
Data were collected in Vienna, Austria (19.34% of the total data set, N ¼ 514);
Paris, France (12.12%, N ¼ 235); Athens, Greece (5.1%, N ¼ 98); Beer Sheva, Israel
(10.37%, N ¼ 201); Singapore (9.23%, N ¼ 179); Ljubljana, Slovenia (12%, N ¼
231); Wellington, New Zealand (27%, N ¼ 514); and Istanbul, Turkey (5.4%,
N ¼ 105). The selection of participant countries is detailed in Allen et al. (in prepa-
ration) who focus on cross-national comparisons in particular. In brief, we aimed at
including nations with varying levels of economic development and modernisation,
different types of welfare state, as well as nations representing most of the major
world cultural groups and value systems (i.e. historically English speaking/Protes-

---

M. Bastounis et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 263–278
269
tant, Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, Asian – Buddhist and Jewish; see Huntington,
1996). The instrument was translated into each language and back-translated by bi-
lingual speakers to check for linguistic discrepancies. Minor changes were then made
in each version whenever necessary. The questionnaire was self-administered.
2.3. Sample
The total sample is composed of 1938 respondents, 62% males, age ranging from
19 to 65 years (M ¼ 42, SD ¼ 12:2). Sampling varied across countries but mainly
followed convenience procedures. Participants fall into four main occupational cat-
egories: managers (25% of the sample, e.g. employers, executives, etc.), independent
professionals (20%, e.g. doctors, lawyers, architects, artists, etc.), employees in the
private sector (16%), and state employees (17%, e.g. civil servants, teachers, etc.).
Other occupations include retired (6%), unemployed (9%), students (4%), and no re-
sponse (3%).
3. Results
3.1. Instrument validity and reliability
3.1.1. Psychosocial measures
LOC findings reported in this paper do not refer to New Zealand (27% of data set)
because LOC measurements were not taken in that country. The reliability of LOC
and belief in a just world (BJW) scales in the entire data set was satisfactory (Cron-
bach alphas LOC ¼ 0:87 and BJW ¼ 0:78). Furthermore, as expected, the two scale
scores were significantly negatively correlated. Data distribution was not normal for
both scales and so the correlation was estimated with the Spearman coefficient
(q ¼ À0:17, p ¼ 0:01).
3.1.2. Economic model questionnaire
Analyses were conducted on the entire data set to verify a tendency to endorse the
whole supply-motivated view of the economy as predicted by Salter. An index was
computed for each participant called ‘‘Supply’’ as the sum of the participantÕs an-
swers that support the supply-motivated view of the economy. The values of this
variable range between 0 (no ‘‘supply view’’ answers) to 10 (‘‘supply view’’ answers
only). A bimodal distribution of this variable would indicate that participants adhere
in a coherent manner to either supply or demand views. The distribution was in fact
normal (v2 ¼ 1320:30, p ¼ 0:01) indicating no supply vs. demand coherence in the
observed responses. The distribution of subsets of questions (referring only to infla-
tion or unemployment) yielded similarly normal distributions.
Subsequent analyses were conducted to examine the pattern of resemblance be-
tween supply-endorsing answers. Ascending hierarchical classification using WardÕs
method and City-block distances yielded three clusters. Alternative methods of clus-
tering (Euclidian distances) yielded the same solution. The first cluster grouped

---

270
M. Bastounis et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 263–278
responses to four items (S3, S6, S9, S11) referring to inflation; the second and third
clusters grouped two (S2, S7) and four items (S5, S10, S12, S13) referring to unemploy-
ment. These classifications were verified with multi-dimensional scaling performed
on the total data set (goodness of fit indexes: stress ¼ 0:069; alienation ¼ 0:116, see
Fig. 1).
These findings warranted the use of two content-oriented variables in subsequent
analyses: unemployment (composed of the combined scores of items S5, S10, S12
and S13) and inflation (composed of the combined scores of items S3, S6, S9 and
S11). According to the answer scoring criterion, the inflation variable expresses
the degree to which people believe that inflation is regulated by supply, in terms
of quantity of goods in circulation, government spending, business growth, high in-
terest rates and money availability. Similarly, the unemployment variable defines the
degree to which people believe that unemployment is regulated by supply forces and
that it can be fought through business and industry expansion, increased saving and
investment in stocks and business activities. As the variables express the action of
supply forces on the two economic phenomena, they were weakly but significantly
correlated (r ¼ 0:16, p ¼ 0:01).
3.1.3. Economic values inventory
The reliability check performed for the six subscales yielded relatively low Cron-
bach alpha coefficients: trust in the business world a ¼ 0:43; personal economic effi-
cacy a ¼ 0:61; social welfare a ¼ 51; general satisfaction with the economy, a ¼ 0:64;
economic unfairness a ¼ 0:77. The two items of the government price control sub-
S7
S11
S2
S6
S12
S5
S10
Inflation
S13
S9
Unemployment
S3

Fig. 1. Two-dimensional scatterplot: multidimensional scaling of 10 EMQ item responses.

---

M. Bastounis et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 263–278
271
scale were positively correlated (r ¼ 0:37, p < 0:01). National scale alphas, means
and variances are provided in Allen et al. (in preparation).
3.2. Hypothesis testing
3.2.1. Psychosocial variables, lay economic beliefs and attitudes
Spearman correlation coefficients were computed because scale data were overall
not normally distributed. Correlations computed between scale scores (see Table 1)
define the following pattern of two contrasting belief constellations: on the one hand,
general satisfaction with the economy is strongly correlated to feelings of personal
economic efficacy (q ¼ 0:29, p < 0:01) and to low support for government interven-
tion both in social welfare (q ¼ 0:40, p < 0:01) and price control (q ¼ 0:20,
p < 0:01). On the other hand, low trust in the business world is correlated with
the belief that workers are unfairly treated in the economic system (q ¼ 0:05,
p < 0:05). The attitudes and beliefs belonging to each of the two belief constellations
were all significantly negatively correlated with those of the other constellation. As is
logically expected, belief in economic unfairness regarding the treatment of workers
is negatively correlated with general satisfaction with the economy (q ¼ À0:30,
p < 0:01), feelings of personal economic efficacy (q ¼ À0:05, p < 0:05) and low sup-
port for government intervention both in welfare (q ¼ À0:17, p < 0:01) and price
control (q ¼ À0:08, p < 0:01) thus indicating high support for government interven-
tion. Similarly, low trust in the business world was negatively correlated with general
satisfaction with the economy (q ¼ À0:10, p < 0:01), personal economic efficacy
(q ¼ À0:10, p < 0:05) and low support for government intervention (no welfare,
Table 1
Spearman correlations between all psychosocial and economic belief variables for the entire data set
Variable
LOC
1
2
34
5
6
7
8
1. Belief in a just
À0.20ÃÃ
world
2. (Anti-) business
0.08ÃÃ À0.30ÃÃ
world
3. Personal
À0.22Ã
0.09ÃÃ À0.10ÃÃ
economic
efficacy
4. (Anti-) social
À0.17Ã
0.16ÃÃ À19ÃÃ
0.12ÃÃ
welfare
5. (Anti-) price
À0.02
0.01
À0.15ÃÃ
0.20ÃÃ
0.10ÃÃ
control
6. Economic
0.03
À0.15ÃÃ
0.05Ã
À0.05
À0.17ÃÃ À0.08ÃÃ
unfairness
7. Satisfaction
À0.21ÃÃ
0.18ÃÃ À0.10ÃÃ
0.29ÃÃ
0.40ÃÃ
0.20ÃÃ
À0.30ÃÃ
with the
economy
8. Unemployment
0.02
À0.00
0.09ÃÃ À0.10ÃÃ À0.01
À0.030.07ÃÃ
À0.04
9. Inflation
À0.10ÃÃ À0.02
0.06
0.08ÃÃ
0.08ÃÃ
0.06Ã
0.01
0.15ÃÃ
0.17ÃÃ
Note: Ãp < 0:05; ÃÃp < 0:01 (2-tailed).

---

272
M. Bastounis et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (2004) 263–278
q ¼ À0:19, p < 0:05 and no price controls, q ¼ À0:15, p < 0:05). Conceptually, these
attitude constellations may be considered to define one rather liberal, pro-free enter-
prise and satisfied profile, opposed to a dissatisfied profile that supports a welfare-
state type of regime.
Spearman correlations with the inflation and unemployment variables were also
computed. These were low overall but verified the expected tendencies. Thus, the be-
lief that business activities (supply) influence unemployment is correlated with the
pro-welfare state constellation of attitudes expressing low trust in the business world
(q ¼ 0:09, p < 0:01) and belief in economic unfairness concerning the treatment of
workers (q ¼ 0:07, p < 0:01). Views on unemployment were also negatively corre-
lated with the second constellation of variables although these relationships were
not significant, with the exception of personal economic efficacy ratings (q ¼
À0:10, p < 0:01). The inflation variable on the other hand, expressing the view that
business expansion and government spending regulate inflation, was positively corre-
lated with low trust in the business world (q ¼ 0:06, p < 0:01), low support for gov-
ernment welfare (q ¼ 0:08, p < 0:01) and price control (q ¼ 0:06, p < 0:05), and,
rather surprisingly, with general satisfaction with the economy (q ¼ 0:15, p < 0:01).
The pattern of correlations observed further verifies the role of psychosocial vari-
ables in the definition of economic beliefs. Again, New Zealand did not provide LOC
measures and was excluded from the analyses regarding internality and externality
correlates. In the remaining seven countries, externality (high LOC score) was pos-
itively correlated with anti-business world beliefs (q ¼ 0:08, p < 0:01). Internality
(low LOC score) was positively correlated with the elements composing the ‘‘liberal’’
belief constellation, that is, general satisfaction with the economy (q ¼ À0:21,
p < 0:01), high personal economic efficacy ratings (q ¼ À0:22, p < 0:01), and disap-
proval of government social welfare (q ¼ À0:17, p < 0:05). The belief that the world
is a just place was negatively correlated with items of the same ‘‘liberal’’ constellation
in the eight-country data set (anti-business world, q ¼ À0:30, p < 0:01; economic un-
fairness, q ¼ À0:15, p < 0:01). Believing that the world is just was similarly corre-
lated with economic satisfaction both on the personal efficacy (q ¼ 0:09, p < 0:01),
and general economy level (q ¼ 0:18, p < 0:01), as well as with disapproval of gov-
ernment social welfare (q ¼ 0:16, p < 0:05).
Once bivariate significant relations were defined, multiple regressions were com-
puted to check if the relationships between variables were independent. The first
model regressed inflation on LOC, personal economic efficacy, economic satisfac-
tion, anti-social welfare and anti-business world attitudes. LOC, general economic
satisfaction and anti-business world attitudes remained significant predictors (see
Table 2). Similar results were found with the regression of unemployment on anti-
business world attitudes, personal economic efficacy and economic unfairness (see
Table 2), which all remained significant predictors. As would be expected from the
heterogeneity of the sample, explained variance was minute (unemployment, ad-
justed R2 ¼ 0:023; inflation, adjusted R2 ¼ 0:027) and did not increase after calibra-
tion of unemployment and inflation scores among national samples. These findings
did not therefore warrant additional analyses to verify the direction of the effects ob-
served.

---

Document Outline

• Psychosocial variables involved in the construction of lay thinking about the economy: Results of a cross-national survey
  • Introduction
  • Method
    • Measuring instruments
      • Psychosocial variables
      • Lay economic model, economic attitudes and beliefs
    • Procedure
    • Sample
  • Results
    • Instrument validity and reliability
      • Psychosocial measures
      • Economic model questionnaire
      • Economic values inventory
    • Hypothesis testing
      • Psychosocial variables, lay economic beliefs and attitudes
  • Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References

---