In 1835, the Frenchman Alexis De Tocqueville published a book entitled Democracy in America, in which he recounts his experiences travelling through America in the early 19th century, studying its political culture. De Tocqueville was intrigued by the American way of life, and in his book he applauds the democracy, liberty and equality he encountered in America, contrasting it with the oppressive hierarchical aristocratic French society he had left behind.
Interesting for our current purposes, though, is that De Tocqueville was not completely blinded by the unlimited opportunities the new world offered and that he noticed a darker side. Despite the fact that Americans were able to afford a lifestyle most Europeans could only dream of, De Tocqueville also detected – in particular among the more affluent – a remarkable level of anxiety and restlessness. The below extract, from a chapter entitled ‘Why the Americans are Often so Restless in the Midst of Their Prosperity’, illustrates his observations.
In certain remote corners of the Old World you may still sometimes stumble upon a small district that seems to have been forgotten amid the general tumult, and to have remained stationary while everything around it was in motion. The inhabitants, for the most part, are extremely ignorant and poor; they take no part in the business of the country and are frequently oppressed by the government, yet their countenances are generally placid and their spirits light. In America I saw the freest and most enlightened men placed in the happiest circumstances that the world affords; it seemed to me as if a cloud habitually hung upon their brow, and I thought them serious and almost sad, even in their pleasures. The chief reason for this contrast is that the former do not think of the ills they endure, while the latter are forever brooding over advantages they do not possess’.
Here, De Tocqueville touches on an important point that we have so far ignored: the fact that judgements of whether one is wealthy are relative. We can be relatively affluent compared to some, but still feel deprived when our wealth compares negatively to the wealth of others, or to expectations what our wealth ought to be at a particular moment in time. Likewise, we can be poor, but if everyone around us is also poor and expectations for wealth advancement are limited, we can still feel relatively gratified.
In previous chapters, we focused almost exclusively on the relationship between objective indicators of deprivation and gratification and how it affects tolerance of minorities, prejudice and generosity. As we will see in this chapter, it is not always actual wealth, status and power that matter most when judging satisfaction with the current situation, but the relative standing compared to other individuals or groups. Often it is the fear that one’s own group wealth compares negatively to other relevant groups, or concerns that other groups are climbing the wealth ladder faster than one’s own group, or anxiety that one’s earlier economic gains might be lost that provoke the kind of displeasure De Tocqueville describes. These (often unrecognised) sentiments matter, and have the potential to feed discontent and hostility towards minorities.
Hirschman and Rothschild (Reference Hirschman and Rothschild1973) argue that perceived relative deprivation involves not only comparisons with other groups here and now, but also perceptions of anticipated gains and losses, and expected changes in relative wealth and status. People may therefore be accepting of stagnation so long as others are perceived as equally unable to progress. Hirschman and Rothschild (Reference Hirschman and Rothschild1973) illustrate this point by using the analogy of a traffic jam on a two-lane motorway:
Suppose that I drive through a two-lane tunnel, both lanes going in the same direction, and run into a serious traffic jam. No car moves in either lane as far as I can see (which is not very far). I am in the left lane and feel dejected. After a while, the cars in the right lane begin to move. Naturally, my spirits lift considerably, for I know that the jam has been broken and that my lane’s turn to move will surely come any moment now. Even though I still sit still, I feel much better off than before because of the expectation that I shall soon be on the move. But suppose that the expectation is disappointed and only the right lane keeps moving: in that case I, along with my left lane co-sufferers, shall suspect foul play, and many of us will at some point become quite furious and ready to correct manifest injustice by taking direct action (such a as illegally crossing the double lane separating the two lanes)’.
Even though Hirschman and Rothschild do not provide examples of feeling relatively gratified, one can immediately imagine how drivers would feel if they were the ones in the lane that was moving, passing the motorists who are stuck in the left lane. Even though these drivers will feel elated that they are moving, they may also experience some form of anxiety. This is because, without doubt, those from the lane that is standing still will try to ‘jump in’ and this will lead to frustration and irritation among those in the right lane. Although some drivers may be kind enough to allow a car to merge, drivers on the fast lane – because they are already on it – are likely to feel a degree of entitlement to the ‘good’ stretch of the road. What is more, because the lane that is standing still indicates that the traffic jam is not yet resolved, the relatively gratified may realise that their advantage may be short-lived and seek to maximise their advantage while it lasts – for example, by reducing the gap between cars in the fast lane to reduce opportunities for cars from the slow lane to squeeze in. That is, they may know that they will soon not be any different from those that are not moving and that they are about to lose their advantaged and privileged status.
It appears, then, that both relative deprivation and relative gratification can be associated with emotions such as frustration, dissatisfaction and anxiety, this because appraisals of one’s own wealth and status involve not only comparisons with others who are better or worse off right now, but also assessments of prospective gains and losses and judgements about the way in which these gains and losses might alter the relative status position between groups. Given this, it seems prudent to take a closer look at research examining relative deprivation and relative gratification from a more dynamic perspective, taking account of the importance of relative gratification and relative deprivation now and in the future. In particular, and in recognition that relative deprivation or gratification perceptions can be shaped by current perceptions as well as future wealth expectations, we examine two types of relative deprivation/gratification: relative deprivation/gratification resulting from (a) perceptions that one is less or more wealthy compared to other individuals or groups at present, and (b) perceptions that the trajectory of wealth over time for oneself or ones group looks bleaker or brighter than that of relevant comparison groups.
Absolute versus Relative Deprivation or Gratification
Stouffer and colleagues are credited with introducing the term ‘relative deprivation’ (Stouffer, Suchman, DeVinney, Star, & Williams, Reference Stouffer, Suchman, De Vinney, Star and Williams1949). In large-scale research studies examining attitudes of American soldiers during World War II, Stouffer and colleagues noted that in order to explain soldiers’ attitudes, it was useful to examine the kinds of intergroup comparisons these soldiers engage in. They describe the concept of relative deprivation as follows:
To help explain … variations in attitude, by education, age, and marital condition, a general concept would be useful. Such concept may be that of relative deprivation, which we shall see, is to prove quite helpful in ordering a rather disparate collection of data … The idea is simple, almost obvious, but its utility comes in reconciling data … where its applicability is not at first too apparent. The idea would seem to have kinship to and, in part, include such well-known sociological concepts as ‘social frame of reference’, ‘patterns of expectation’, or ‘definitions of the situation’. Being a soldier meant to many men a very real deprivation. But, the felt sacrifice was greater for some than for others, depending on their standards of comparison.
Since then, there have been many attempts to refine our understanding of relative deprivation. For example, in his research, Runciman (Reference Runciman1966) distinguishes between egoistical (i.e. intragroup), fraternal (i.e. intergroup) and double deprivation (both intra- and intergroup deprivation). Deprivation, so he argued, is a feeling encountered in people who aspire to an object or opportunity that is out of their reach, who feel entitled to that object or opportunity, and who start comparing themselves with better-off others, including themselves in the past (Runciman, Reference Runciman1966, p. 11).
The conditions for relative deprivation are perhaps most clearly defined in a recent meta-analysis by Smith, Pettigrew, Pippin and Bialosiewicz (Reference Smith, Pettigrew, Pippin and Bialosiewicz2012). They define relative deprivation as ‘a judgment that one or one’s ingroup is disadvantaged compared to a relevant referent, and that this judgment invokes feelings of anger, resentment, and entitlement’. Importantly too, they argue:
In addition to the fundamental feature that the concept refers to individuals and their reference groups, note that there are four basic components of this definition. Individuals who experience relative deprivation: (1) first make cognitive comparisons, (2) then make cognitive appraisals that they or their ingroup are disadvantaged, (3) perceive these disadvantages as unfair, and finally (4) resent these unfair and undeserved disadvantages. If any one of these four requirements is not met, relative deprivation is not operating.
It was not until the early 1970s that researchers began to consider the possibility of relative gratification as a possible force ‘driving’ intergroup hostility. These researchers also emphasised that assessments of wealth aspiration and achievements involve comparisons with relevant others (e.g. Grofman & Muller, Reference Grofman and Muller1973). At an individual level, this means that expectations and goals are determined by comparisons with others that are relatively similar to the self. At a group or societal level, these expectations and aspirations are determined by comparisons with relevant other groups. For example, when asked how well they are doing financially, citizens of wealthy developed countries are likely to compare themselves with fellow citizens and less likely to compare themselves with, say, citizens of developing countries who earn a fraction of their income. They will also be less likely to compare themselves with people who are doing much better financially than they are, such as members of the royal family. Indeed, in such situations people are inclined to compare their position to that of others living and working in similar social, economic and cultural conditions. They focus on marginal differences, differences that would appear negligible when taking into account the huge income disparities between the developed and developing world, or between members of the royal family and average income earners.
Vanneman and Pettigrew (Reference Vanneman and Pettigrew1972) provided evidence for the importance of the relativity of these judgements by showing that relative deprivation and relative gratification perceptions may not map onto actual wealth. These researchers measured relative deprivation by asking workers in Chicago about their economic gains over the past five years and their satisfaction with these gains. They did not find a linear relationship between relative gratification and gains, but a curvilinear relationship whereby perceived deprivation was highest among those at intermediate economic wealth levels.
It thus appears that social comparisons with other individuals or with other groups shape subjective perceptions of wealth and wealth entitlement in important ways. At times these subjective predictors turn out to be better predictors of attitudes and behaviour than more objective indicators of wealth. For example, a classic study by Centers (1949, cited in Vanneman & Pettigrew, Reference Vanneman and Pettigrew1972) illustrates this point quite nicely. In this study, adult white men in the United States were asked to indicate their economic position. They could choose one out of the following categories: upper class, middle class, lower class and working class. In addition to this subjective class measure, class was also established more objectively by classifying the occupational status of participants.
Interestingly, while for many men, objective and subjective classifications were identical, they were not the same for everyone, with some manual workers referring to their class as ‘middle class’. Centers found that objective class predicted political orientation quite well, with higher classes being more conservative than their lower class counterparts. This finding may not be all that surprising. However, information about subjective class did add interesting and important information: manual workers who identified as middle class were more conservative than other manual workers, whereas white-collar workers who saw themselves as working class were less conservative than other white-collar workers. This suggests that to predict attitudinal and behavioural outcomes, one should not only take account of objective demographic information about wealth, but also of subjective perceptions of one’s own standing vis-à-vis others.
Relative Gratification, Selfishness and Opposition to Immigration
There is a growing body of social-psychological work examining the effect of feeling relatively poor or wealthy on a range of outcomes, such as self-centredness and anti-social behaviour. For example, Piff (Reference Piff2014) asked participants to indicate their level of income, their highest educational achievement and their occupational prestige relative to others, using a scale from 1 to 10 (where 10 stood for the highest level of prestige and achievement – i.e. relative gratification). His studies showed that higher relative gratification was associated with higher self-reported narcissism and, in part, this relationship could be explained by a higher sense of entitlement among the relatively gratified compared to the relatively deprived (see also Snibbe & Markus, Reference Snibbe and Markus2005).
Similar findings were observed in China: wealthier Chinese were more likely to score high on measures of narcissistic personality than their poorer counterparts (Cai, Kwan, & Sedikides, Reference Cai, Kwan and Sedikides2012). Yet other studies showed that individuals who described themselves as relatively gratified in terms of social class and income behaved in a more selfish fashion in an economic game (Piff, Kraus, Côté, Cheng, & Keltner, Reference Piff, Kraus, Côté, Cheng and Keltner2010) and revealed a stronger tendency to engage in unethical self-serving behaviour (Piff, Stancato, Côte, Mendoza-Denton, & Keltner, Reference Piff, Stancato, Côté, Mendoza-Denton and Keltner2012).
Whereas this work was mostly concerned with predicting individuals’ anti-social behaviour towards others in general, other research has shown that expectations that one’s country will experience future relative gratification or relative deprivation affects the extent to which individuals endorse or oppose immigration. For instance, in an experimental study, Australians were exposed to a newspaper article on the expected state of the Australian economy (Mols & Jetten, Reference Mols and Jetten2015, Study 1). Half of the participants read an article entitled ‘Stable economic growth for foreseeable future, says Queensland study’. Among other information, readers were told:
Australia’s economic situation seems likely to improve significantly in the coming years, according to a report published by economists and business experts at Brisbane’s University of Queensland. The report claims that, owing to Australia’s prosperity during the resources boom, economic growth is likely to continue strongly into the foreseeable future.
The other half of the participants read an article that was titled ‘Economic downturn for foreseeable future, says Queensland study’. Participants randomly allocated to this condition were informed that ‘Australia’s economic situation seems likely to decline significantly in the coming years’. Furthermore, it was stated that ‘The report claims that, despite Australia’s prosperity during the resources boom, economic growth is likely to experience decline in the foreseeable future’.
All participants were then presented with a fictitious political speech advocating further restrictions on immigration to Australia. For example, the speaker articulated his position on the topic as follows: ‘While I have always believed in the benefits of legal immigration I have also always argued that it needs to be controlled. Immigration is far too high and net migration must be reduced’. After putting forward a number of arguments for this position, the speaker finished by saying ‘In sum, immigration must be halted if we want to preserve our economy and to ensure that we are able to thrive economically into the future’. After this, participants were asked to respond to a series of questions assessing their attitudes towards immigration.
The results of this study confirmed our hunch, and showed that participants in the expected future economic prosperity condition were more receptive to the anti-immigration speech than those in the economic downturn condition. Specifically, stronger anti-immigrant sentiments were expressed when the national economy was presented as prospering rather than contracting. These findings provide clear evidence that it is possible that economic prosperity, just like economic downturn, provides a ‘fertile ground’ for parties with an anti-immigrant agenda.
The V-curve Hypothesis: The Shadow-side of Wealth
Research on the so-called ‘v-curve’ has focused more specifically on the notion that both relative gratification and relative deprivation may underlie prejudice and negative attitudes towards minorities. Let us review evidence for the v-curve in greater detail. The term ‘v-curve hypothesis’ was coined by Grofman and Muller (Reference Grofman and Muller1973) in a paper entitled ‘The strange case of relative gratification and potential for political violence: The v-curve hypothesis’. Among residents of Waterloo in Iowa, the researchers measured the individual’s perceived change in relative position over time and their attitudes towards political unrest, political protest and violence more generally. The authors summarised their findings as follows:
Here we report a finding that was unexpected (but not just specific to this sample), namely, that potential for political violence does not vary monotonically with direction and rate of change in discrepancy between achievement optimum and achievement; rather, the greatest potential for political violence is manifested both by individuals who perceive negative change (increasing discrepancy) and by individuals who perceive positive change (decreasing discrepancy), while those who perceive no change manifest the least potential for political violence. In attempting to explicate this finding through the introduction of various control variables, we find that a nonmonotonic ‘V’ relationship is remarkably persistent.
There is now a large body of work on the v-curve and ample evidence confirming its existence (Dambrun et al., Reference Dambrun, Taylor, McDonald, Crush and Méot2006; Guimond & Dambrun, Reference Guimond and Dambrun2002; Moscatelli, Albarello, Prati, & Rubini, Reference Moscatelli, Albarello, Prati and Rubini2014; Postmes & Smith, Reference Postmes and Smith2009). For example, Dambrun and colleagues (Reference Dambrun, Taylor, McDonald, Crush and Méot2006) examined the relationship between relative deprivation and gratification among a representative sample in South Africa. In line with the v-curve hypothesis, they found that prejudice towards both African and Western immigrants to South Africa was higher to the extent that participants felt either gratified or deprived. Consistent with our analysis, in explaining the relative gratification effects, these researchers point to a process which takes place in a context where a group perceives to outperform relevant comparison groups into the future, whereby harshness and prejudice is motivated by an attempt to justify and maintain the group’s privileged status.
Interestingly too, Dambrun and colleagues noted that the socio-economic status of the participants themselves affected prejudice levels, and that participants appeared to feel most threatened by immigrants that were seen as potential competitors. More specifically, those higher in socio-economic status perceiving relative gratification reported most prejudice in relation to Western immigrants (those that they were most similar to) than towards African immigrants. Participants lower in socio-economic status who felt relatively gratified did not differ in the prejudice towards Western and African immigrants and derogated both types of immigrant to the same extent.
Even though work by Dambrun and colleagues shows evidence for a v-curve relationship in a real context using a representative sample of South Africans, one potential critique of this work is that such cross-sectional research does not allow us to identify cause and effect. In particular, what remains unclear is whether it is relative deprivation or relative gratification perceptions that cause prejudice, or whether it is those people who are prejudiced who are more likely to feel disadvantaged or gratified. In order to show that relative deprivation/gratification perceptions cause prejudice, one needs to conduct experiments manipulating such perceptions, and examine the effect of these manipulations on dependent variables that are of interest: hostility towards minorities and attitudes towards immigrants.
Guimond and Dambrun (Reference Guimond and Dambrun2002) were the first to assess the relationship between relative deprivation/gratification and attitudes towards immigrants. In a first experiment, they randomly allocated French undergraduate students to one of three conditions. In a relative deprivation condition, they presented participants with a fictitious research report showing that employment opportunities for students in the next four or five years looked rather dire, conveying the message that students should expect high levels of unemployment. In another condition they manipulated relative gratification by informing participants they would be better off in the future than they currently were. In a final control condition, participants were given no information about job opportunities. Rather surprisingly, there was no evidence that participants in the relative deprivation condition showed more prejudice towards a range of minority groups compared to those allocated to the control condition, failing to replicate the often observed relative deprivation effect. Interestingly however, compared to those in the control condition, participants in the relative gratification condition were more prejudiced towards other groups.
In a second experiment, Guimond and Dambrun (Reference Guimond and Dambrun2002) examined their predictions in a stronger intergroup context whereby they manipulated relative gratification by providing feedback to psychology students that job opportunities for students in psychology (ingroup) were going to increase sharply in the years ahead, whereas jobs for students in economics/law (outgroup) were going to drop considerably. Results showed that, compared to the control condition, prejudice was higher in both the relative deprivation and relative gratification conditions, confirming the v-curve relationship.
Our own research has also provided experimental evidence for the v-curve hypothesis (Jetten, Mols, & Postmes, Reference Jetten, Mols and Postmes2015). We developed a paradigm with the aim to make participants temporarily feel wealthy or poor. To do this, in the first part of the study, we asked our participants to imagine they had joined a society called Bimboola. Participants read that, just like any other society, Bimboola is a stratified society in which there are clear differences in income between different groups: some are relatively poor and others are relatively wealthy. Participants were informed that Bimboola consists of five income groups, with the poorest group (income group 1) earning less than 5000 Bimboolian Dollars (BD) per year (below the poverty threshold) and the wealthiest group (income group 5) earning more than 1 million BD per year (see Figure 6.1). Participants were then allocated to one of these income groups. We emphasised that allocation was random and that it was not based on merit.
Figure 6.1. Income groups in the hypothetical society of Bimboola.
Once participants were allocated to an income group, they were told that, in order to start their new life, they needed to purchase essential items such as a house and car. We then presented participants with a number of pictures of houses they could choose from, ranging from old and run-down dwellings to luxurious mansions (see Figure 6.2).
Figure 6.2. Houses by income group. Numbers on the left refer to income groups 1 to 5.
Importantly, the houses on offer were listed according to income group, with three houses to choose from per income group. Participants were advised that they could only buy a house within or below their income bracket. If participants selected a house that did not meet this condition (e.g. it was more expensive than their income group could afford), they received a message alerting them to their mistake and they were invited to choose again. The same procedure was used when buying a car (Figure 6.3).
Figure 6.3. Cars by income group. Numbers on the left refer to income groups 1 to 5.
Finally, participants were invited to select a holiday. The first income group was simply told that they could not afford a holiday and they were to skip this question. Whereas the holiday options for income group 2 were quite basic (e.g. camping or a day trip to the beach), participants in income group 3 could choose from options such as a four-wheel-drive adventure, a week-long campervan trip, or a one-week stay in a lakeside cottage. Participants in income group 4 could choose from any of three more luxurious options, such as a shopping trip to Paris. The options for income group 5 were the most extravagant and included a trip to an exclusive upmarket resort, a ski-holiday in Switzerland or a day trip in the Space Shuttle. Our manipulation checks indicated that our paradigm achieved what we set out to do: in an experimental context, we managed to temporarily evoke the feeling that participants were relatively poor or relatively affluent.
Participants were then informed that a new group (called ‘Newcomers’) was about to join Bimboola. They were told that these newcomers needed to rebuild their lives in Bimboola, but that in order to do so they would need some assistance from citizens of Bimboola. After this information was provided, participants were asked to indicate their agreement with statements measuring the extent to which immigrants were perceived as a symbolic threat (e.g. ‘The cultural practices of the new group will threaten the Bimboolean way of life’) and realistic threat (e.g. ‘The presence of people from this new group will increase unemployment in Bimboola’) as well as general items assessing resistance to the arrival of these newcomers (e.g. ‘I think our group should not allow newcomers to Bimboola’).
Our results showed a clear v-curve relationship whereby those in the poor (income group 2) and in the above-average wealth income group (income group 4) were most opposed to immigration compared to those in a moderately wealth group (income group 3, see Figure 6.4). These findings are consistent with Guimond and Dambrun’s (Reference Guimond and Dambrun2002) work, and with other correlational work showing a v-curve relationship, and it complements this work in important ways. More specifically, by manipulating wealth perceptions we were able to show that the own group’s wealth perceptions cause opposition to immigration.
Figure 6.4. Opposition to immigration as a function of income level, means and standard errors.
Relative Wealth: Comparisons with the Past and Future
Of course, perceptions of relative deprivation and relative gratification are not formed in a time vacuum, but often include timelines affecting the extent to which people perceive they are ‘on track’ to secure what they hope to earn or possess in the future. Runciman (Reference Runciman1966) was among the first to draw attention to the importance of perceptions about past and future capabilities. Runciman argued that perceived relative deprivation involves not only social comparisons, but also evaluations of changes in relative opportunity between different groups over time. In other words, it may not be absolute gaps in wealth and status at a particular moment in time that causes attitudes to harden, but the belief that the gap is closing or widening.
This suggests that snapshot assessments of relative deprivation and gratification are somewhat limited in explaining the full range of consequences of these perceptions, and the importance of taking into account expected/prospective gains and losses, and expected gains and losses of comparison groups. Indeed, people may feel happy with what they or their group has right now, but that does not mean that the same achievement will be thought of equally favourable when thinking what one hopes to achieve in future. Consistent with this, Gurr (Reference Gurr1970) argued that anticipated future relative deprivation may be a more important source of discontent than perceived current deprivation.
Grofman and Muller (Reference Grofman and Muller1973) were the first to examine effects of past, present and future relative deprivation versus relative gratification systematically. In contrast to the work presented so far, they were most interested in how these perceptions affected willingness to engage in political violence. These authors examined 14 different ways in which congruence between past, present and future gratification affected willingness to engage in political violence. They summarise their rather complex key findings as follows:
The data provide no support for the Rate-of-Change hypothesis that as degree of relative gratification increases over time, potential for political violence will tend to decrease. However, if we convert the rate-of-change scores into absolute magnitudes, the data consistently support an Absolute Change hypothesis that as absolute magnitude of relative gratification increases over time, potential for political violence will show a tendency to increase. Of the rate-of-change variables, the best predictor of potential for political violence is the absolute magnitude of present to future shift.
Interestingly, even though Grofman and Muller (Reference Grofman and Muller1973) admit that this was not the finding they expected, it is one that is consistent with De Tocqueville’s observations about the antecedents of the French Revolution. As Grofman and Muller put it:
‘De Tocqueville noted that the French Revolution occurred after two decades of steady improvement in standard of living and that those parts of France which had experienced the greatest degree of positive change also showed the greatest popular discontent’.
This observation is also consistent with Davies (Reference Davies1962), who argued that a period of economic prosperity followed by an economic hardship and deteriorating living conditions forms the most fertile ground for revolutions (the so-called J-curve). In other words, what Davies showed is that it is not deprivation as such that fuels discontent in times of downturns, but fears associated with the prospect of losing recent gains.
Experimental Evidence
Despite the richness of this work to explain the importance of temporal comparisons to determine the way objective wealth is perceived, much of this work is observational or cross-sectional. There is only a small body of experimental work that has provided evidence for these relationships, thus showing that it is comparisons with the past and present that determine the way that current wealth will be perceived.
In one of our own experimental studies, we investigated the behaviour of participants who started off relatively wealthy and gratified but were made to feel relatively deprived over the course of the study, when another group that started off as relatively poor gained wealth faster than they did (Jetten, Chu, & Mols, 2016). This allowed us to examine situations where people may be relatively gratified objectively, but relatively deprived when others appear to be climbing the ladder faster than they are.
In this study, participants based in the USA took part in an online study in which they were allocated randomly to one of two groups in a virtual society: the blue group (which would turn out to be the poor group) or the red group (which would turn out to be the wealthy group). Participants were told to imagine they lived in the year 2003, that their new life as a citizen had begun, and that they needed to purchase goods that allowed them to start their life in this society. Initially, the wealthy red group members would start with 2.5 million dollars each, whereas the poor blue group members were provided with either (a) 2.5 million dollars, (b) 1.5 million dollars, or (c) only 300,000 dollars. Participants were then provided with opportunities to purchase houses and cars that varied in price. If there was money left after this, they were asked whether they would like to contribute money to charity or buy a luxury boat, paintings or valuable jewellery. The money that they did not spend would automatically go into a savings account.
Next, participants were asked to imagine that ten years had passed and that the year was now 2013. They were provided with an update on their group’s wealth: while participants in the wealthy red groups were informed that their income had not changed over these ten years (i.e. remained at 2.5 million dollars), the poor blue group was told that they now had 1.5 million dollars. Note that in all three conditions, the income gap between the poor and the wealthy group was similar in 2013. What differed was whether, over time, the poor group had gained or lost wealth relative to the wealthy group.
This produced three conditions: a decreasing wealth gap condition (Figure 6.5a), a condition in which the wealth gap between the two groups stayed the same across the course of the study (Figure 6.5b) and a condition in which the gap between the two groups increased over time (Figure 6.5c). Again, participants were provided with an opportunity to shop and to indicate how they wished to spend their money.
Figure 6.5. Wealth of the wealthy group and poor group over time: a = decreasing wealth gap, b = constant wealth gap, c = increasing wealth gap.
After the second spending round, participants learned that a newcomer group (again called the ‘Newcomers’) would join the game and that the members of this group would also be given an opportunity to purchase goods. Participants were also told that if the Newcomers were unable to purchase essential items, they would be asked to provide them with financial assistance.
Focusing first on the behaviour of the wealthy group whose wealth stayed constant over the course of the study, we found that compared to when the poor group’s wealth also stayed stable over time, a decreasing wealth gap (i.e. the poor group gaining wealth over time while the wealthy group stayed stable) led to increased levels of anxiety about the future among those who were relatively gratified. Examining the extent to which members of the wealthy group were opposed to newcomers joining their society, we found that it was also in the decreasing wealth gap condition that opposition to newcomers joining was higher than in the condition where both the poor group’s and the wealthy group’s relative affluence stayed the same over time. Opposition to newcomers was also higher in the decreasing wealth gap condition than in the condition in which there would be an increasing wealth gap because the poor group would become poorer over time (see Figure 6.6).
Figure 6.6. Opposition to immigration by newcomers as a function of the extent to which the income gap between the groups decreases, remains constant or increases over time.
Closer inspection of the results for the poor group also showed an interesting pattern. Consistent with a relative deprivation hypothesis, the more money the poor group was losing over time, the more opposed they were to newcomers joining their society.
This study provides compelling evidence for the importance of examining relative deprivation and relative gratification perceptions. The results show that even though the actual wealth of the wealthy group did not change, the mere knowledge that another group was gaining wealth while the own group was standing still led to anxiety and increased opposition towards newcomers to the society. To go back to the analogy used by Hirschman and Rothschild (Reference Hirschman and Rothschild1973), it appears that those who felt they were in the fast lane and found out that the other group was gaining speed faster than they did ended up quite dissatisfied and anxious. This finding also appears to be associated with rather selfish behaviour and, perhaps because of a fear that the privileged status may be lost in the future, the relatively gratified, who experience relative deprivation compared to expectations, become quite harsh towards minorities.
In Conclusion
There are a number of conclusions to be drawn from the literature. Consistent with our conclusion in previous chapters, it is once again clear that the empirical evidence for a straightforward relationship between relative deprivation and harsh attitudes towards minorities is rather mixed and inconclusive. Negative attitudes towards minorities have been observed both in times of relative economic hardship and in times of relative economic prosperity. These attitudes have dominated responses among those who are relatively poor and those who are relatively wealthy. Other studies show no relationship between perceived relative economic performance and negative attitudes.
Where does this leave us? For one, to get a better understanding of the mixed results so far, it is not only essential to develop theorising that helps us to predict when economic deprivation and when economic prosperity enhances anti-immigrant sentiments, but also to identify the underlying psychological mechanisms at work in situations where people feel relatively deprived or gratified. Together, these insights will enable us to develop a comprehensive in-depth account of how economic performance affects outgroup attitudes. We will take on this theoretical challenge in the next chapters.
