California has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the nation, and nearly six out of 10 California adults polled said they believe the government should do more to reduce the gaps between rich and poor.?But when presented with proposed policies to boost resources for disadvantaged groups, even liberals show reluctance to reduce inequality after all, according to a new study co-authored by researchers from UC Berkeley. The researchers found that people who have social or economic advantages tend to believe they'll be harmed by policies that reduce inequality ? even when those policies don't reduce their own access to resources.?Derek Brown, a Berkeley doctoral student and co-author of the study,?said contributing taxes can be seen as an individual act. But when it comes to the overall distribution of resources, privileged or advantaged groups view how they're doing in comparison to other groups, he said. "People are really cued into relative advantages," he said, "so much so that they might even misconstrue changes to their relative position to another person or another group as a loss in an absolute sense."