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PAUL SOLMAN: But as Dan Ariely found in part two of his study, and as our own informal survey confirmed, when people didn't know which countries the pie charts represented, they overwhelmingly chose the one representing a much more equal and yet still prosperous country, Sweden, as the place they'd prefer to live. A function of their politics, we wondered?

DAN ARIELY: We had 7,000 people distributed around the U.S., different levels of income, education, wealth, political opinions -- 92 percent of the Americans picked Sweden over the U.S. When we broke it by Democrats and Republicans, Democrat, it was 93 percent, Republican, it was 90.5 percent.

So there's a difference, but the difference is tiny. And one of the possibilities is that, when we dig deep down and we ask people to examine their core beliefs about a just society, Americans are really quite consistent in terms of thinking this is way too much inequality, and we want something that is much more equal to Sweden.
</snip>

Video & Full Transcript: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/ju...

Pie charts here: Wealth Quiz: How Does the US Slice the Pie?
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/0...