The Conditional Role of Ideology in Workplace Injury Causal Attribution.

This article examines how political ideology and economic class influence American public perceptions of workplace injury causation, specifically whether injuries are attributed to unsafe working conditions (systemic causes) or individual worker behavior. While prior research suggests liberals/Democrats typically endorse systemic explanations and conservatives/Republicans favor individual responsibility, this study finds that income moderates these ideological effects. Using survey data from the 2020 Cooperative Election Study, the findings reveal that low-income conservatives are as likely as high-income liberals to reject individual-based explanations for workplace injuries, indicating shared pro-worker views across party lines among lower-income groups. These results highlight the importance of class and workplace experience in shaping attitudes about workplace health and safety, suggesting limits to ideology-driven theories of causal attribution in this domain.