Sociology Unit II

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Social and Personality Psychology Compass 8/12 (2014): 755–765, 10.1111/spc3.12151

The Subjective Interpretation of Inequality: A Model of the Relative Deprivation Experience

Heather J. Smith1* and Thomas F. Pettigrew2 1Sonoma State University 2UC Santa Cruz

Abstract Relative deprivation (RD) is the product of an upward comparison that indicates that one’s disadvantaged situation is undeserved coupled with anger and resentment. RD is associated with reduced psychological and physical health, individual deviance, and collective action, but empirical tests of RD are inconsistent. Closer attention to three central features of the RD experience – comparisons, discrete emotions, and the type of outcome – will improve the predictive value of RD. If social scientists measure RD correctly, they can answer the questions about people’s surprising tolerance of large inequities in some contexts and unexpected sensitivity to small inequities in other contexts that first motivated RD research.

In an April 2013 column for Slate.com, Edward McClelland wrote that when his beloved Tigers baseball team signed pitcher Justin Verlander to a 180 million dollar contract, he realized that his loathing of the economic inequality represented by the contract trumped his desire to see the Tigers win. His reaction is the essence of relative deprivation (RD) – it was not the objective salary, obscenely large as it was, that fueled the author’s anger but the income gap between baseball players and the fans in the stadium. The observation that subjective comparisons and not objective circumstances shape people’s

anger and resentment appears simple and obvious. Social science researchers have drawn upon RD to explain adolescents’ criminal behavior (Webber, 2010), men’s propensity to date rape (Boeringer, 1992), farmers’ participation in collective protest (Newton, Mann, & Geary, 1980), and employees’ interest in professional development opportunities (Zoogah, 2010). But subsequent social science research has yielded inconsistent and contradictory results (Smith, Pettigrew, Pippin, & Bialosiewicz, 2011). The purpose of this essay is to present a model of the RD experience that can resolve these problems. In Figure 1, we present a model of the RD experience that highlights three features. First, we

must know what type of comparison that a person has made. It is clear from his essay that Mr McClelland did not view himself and Mr Verlander as two unique personalities. Instead, he described Mr Verlander as a representative of extremely well-paid athletes in contrast to middle and working class fans. Second, the comparison and outcome must represent the same level of analysis. Interpersonal comparisons lead to self-focused attitudes and behavior (e.g., increased psychological stress and gambling), whereas intergroup comparisons lead to group-focused attitudes and behavior (e.g., increased outgroup prejudice and collective protest). Third, people do not always respond to an upward disadvantaged comparison with anger and resentment. If Mr McClelland had focused on Mr Verlander’s exceptional athletic ability, he might have felt inspired. If he focused on the relatively short career of most professional athletes, he might have felt anxious about his own job security. Instead, he presents the salary inequity as symbolic of increasing economic inequality within the United States. Framed this way, Mr McClelland’s resentment is not surprising.

Concept History

Stouffer, Suchman, DeVinney, Star, and Williams (1949) coined RD to describe unexpected relationships that emerged from surveys of American soldiers in World War II. For example, the members of the U.S. Army Air Corps unexpectedly reported more frustration over promotions in comparison to the military police even though they enjoyed a much faster rate of promotion. Stouffer and his colleagues (1949) observed that the Air Corps members com- pared themselves to other members, many of whom had been promoted, and not the military police. Similarly, African-American soldiers stationed in the Southern United States during World War II reported greater satisfaction in comparison to African-American soldiers stationed in the Northern United States. Stouffer and his colleagues reasoned that these soldiers compared themselves to local African-Americans who faced more direct discrimination in the Southern United States compared to local African-Americans in the Northern United States. Two important theoretical developments followed. First, Merton (1957; Merton & Kitt,

1950) included RD in his discussion of reference groups as the benchmarks that people use to evaluate themselves and their behavior. Second, Runciman (1966) distinguished between individual RD (IRD) produced by disadvantaged comparisons between oneself and an ingroup member and group RD (GRD) produced by disadvantaged comparisons between one’s ingroup and an outgroup. However, it is important to situate RD within a large family of social science concepts and theories that employ relative comparisons (Pettigrew, 1967). From sociology, this theoretical family includes Hyman’s (1942, 1960) and Merton’s (1957) reference group theory, Lenski’s (1954) concept of status crystallization, Blau’s (1964) concept of fair exchange, and Homans’s (1961) concept of distributive justice. From psychology, these social evaluation ideas include Hatfield, Walster, and Bersheid’s (1978) equity theory, Festinger’s (1954) social comparison theory, and Thibaut and Kelley’s (1959) concept of comparison level.

Figure 1 A model of the relative deprivation experience, reproduced from Smith et al. (2011).

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During the following decades, social psychological RD research diverged from political science and sociological research. Social psychological research incorporated IRD into more general models of social comparison, attribution, and counterfactual reasoning. In one impor- tant model, Crosby (1982) proposed that IRD requires (1) wanting what one does not have and (2) feeling that one deserves whatever it is one wants but does not have. In a second impor- tant model, Folger (1987) proposed that a person’s current situation forms a narrative or story to which different alternative stories can be compared. People will evaluate their current outcome negatively and feel resentful and angry if they can imagine (1) better alternative outcomes, (2) more legitimate procedures that could produce better outcomes, and (3) that the current situation is unlikely to improve in the near future. Social identity and intergroup emotions theorists proposed that similar appraisals of the intergroup situation shape GRD (Mummendey, Kessler, Klink, & Mielke, 1999; Smith, Cronin, & Kessler, 2008; Walker & Pettigrew, 1984). Social identity research shows that people will experience GRD if the intergroup situation is viewed as illegitimate and unlikely to improve without collective challenge and if group bound- aries are seen as impermeable (Mummendey et al., 1999). In contrast, political science and sociological researchers drew upon people’s comparisons

with their past, future, desired, and deserved selves to explain when and why riots and rebellions might occur (Davies, 1962; Gurr, 1970; Gurr & Duvall, 1973). For example, the 1960s urban riots in the United States occurred after a period of economic and political gains for minorities (Miller, Bolce, & Halligan, 1977). Sociologists reasoned that the steady rate of improvement increased people’s expectations for future improvement, but when their expectations for progress outstripped actual progress, their subsequent frustration and anger led to political alienation and collective action (Gurr, 1970; Miller et al., 1977). Such anger and resentment are particularly likely to occur when a sharp and unexpected downturn follows a long period of general improvement (the “J-Curve”, Davies, 1962). Unfortunately, much of the early work in this area suffers from the ecological fallacy in which researchers infer micro-level phenomena like RD from macro-level measures like national indicators of economic productivity or crime (Pettigrew, 2015). However, more recent (social psychological) research directly measures people’s comparisons of themselves or their ingroups to themselves or different ingroups at different points in time (de la Sablonnierre, Taylor, Perozzo, & Sadykova, 2009; Olson & Roese, 2002; Summerville & Roese, 2008).

Comparisons and Self-categorization

RD begins with a comparison. A person must contrast their current circumstances with another person, group, or the unique self/ingroup at a different point in time. If one does not compare, there can be no RD. If Mr McClelland viewed well-paid baseball players as people with incred- ibly unusual and unique gifts that had no relevance to him or his group’s economic circum- stances, it is unlikely that Justin Verlander’s remarkable fortune would elicit his resentment. Figure 1 lists three types of comparisons that can elicit RD. The first comparison type

represents IRD, the product of disadvantaged interpersonal and intrapersonal comparisons. IRD predicts individual-focused attitudes and behaviors including an interest in professional development (Zoogah, 2010), gambling (Callan, Ellard, Shead, & Hodgins, 2008), turnover, absenteeism, and other counterproductive work behaviors (Allen et al., 2009; Hafer & Olson, 1992; Osborne, Smith, & Huo, 2012). Most researchers define IRD as an interpersonal com- parison between the comparer and another person, but people also can compare themselves to a past or future self, and experience IRD. People who compare their present self to a past more privileged self report less self-esteem and more emotional distress (Dijkstra, Borland, & Buunk, 2007; Ragnarsdóttir, Bernburg, & Ólafsdóttir, 2013).

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In contrast, GRD, the second comparison type, predicts group-focused attitudes and behav- ior including support for political protest (Walker & Mann, 1987) and increased outgroup prej- udice (Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995). A key requirement for GRD is that people view themselves as representative group members as opposed to unique personalities (Ellemers, 2002; Kawakami & Dion, 1993). If people do not view themselves as “interchangeable” members of the same category (in which what happens to you implicates my fate), it is unlikely that people will adopt the psychological perspective that leads to group-serving attitudes and behavior (Turner, 1999). Just as comparisons to a past or future self can elicit IRD, comparisons to a reference group’s past or future situation can elicit GRD. For example, Kyrgyzstan citizens who compared their country’s present situation to a more positive past or more dismal future reported lower collective esteem (de la Sablonnierre et al., 2009). Although they can be powerful motivators, disadvantaged intergroup comparisons, as we

define them, appear to be rare, at least in a United States university context (Leach & Vlieck, 2008; Smith & Leach, 2004). When university students reported their most recent social comparison after they received a random signal, over 60% of the reported comparisons were to another person, but less than 10% were comparisons in which students thought of themselves as a group representative in comparison to an outgroup. This preference for within-group comparisons, especially same gender comparisons, offers a partial explanation for why women continue to earn less money in comparison to men (Major & Testa, 1989; Major & Forcey, 1985). In a series of experiments, male and female undergraduates could see what other participants paid themselves before they indicated what they thought that they deserved to be paid for their performance. Most participants preferred same-gender and same-job comparisons (Major & Testa, 1989; Major & Forcey, 1985). In a context in which the male undergraduates were paid more, these comparison choices led women to pay themselves less. However, in a different experiment (Smith, Spears, & Oyen, 1994), participants were primed to

think of themselves as either members of a disadvantaged group or as a unique individual. They then saw a distribution of subject payments that clearly indicated that very few of their ingroup members (in comparison to another group) were to be paid. Regardless of whether they personally would be paid or not, participants primed to think of themselves as group members remembered the inequitable distribution more accurately. Importantly, a subsequent experiment showed that participants reminded of their membership in a deprived ingroup were much less likely to justify their personal reward or lack of reward in terms of their own effort and ability in comparison to participants who thought of themselves as unique individuals (Smith & Spears, 1996). In other words, if people are primed to view a disadvantage in group-based terms, they will notice intergroup differences and be less likely to attribute their personal losses or gains to their unique personal qualities. Figure 1 also lists a third comparison in which people compare themselves to an outgroup

member. These comparisons are ambiguous because, on the one hand, if perceivers are close to the outgroup comparison target and perhaps see her or him as a friend, they should experience IRD. On the other hand, if perceivers think of the comparison target as an outgroup representative and themselves as ingroup representatives, they should experience GRD. The am- biguous nature of outgroup member comparisons could encourage people to shift from IRD to GRD. Most of us belong to multiple social categories – and even if gender and ethnicity provide primary reference groups – shared occupations or neighborhoods also create relevant reference groups (Gartrell, 2002). We think that these overlapping social categories or reference groups foster the types of comparisons that can lead to group-based interpretations of deprivation (Wenzel, 2004). Imagine that a female scientist compares herself with a better paid male colleague because they share a common occupational category. When she discovers the inequity, she should be motivated to look for explanations – including the possibility that the pay differ- ence was the product of gender, and not a personal quality. This possibility should prompt her

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to interpret the comparison in group-based terms and make it more likely that she will experience GRD. In fact, politically active feminists often mention the “shock” of experiencing gender- based discrimination as the trigger for their political involvement (Kelly & Breinlinger, 1996).

Outcomes and Level of Fit

Because RD offered such a simple and intuitive explanation for unexpected patterns, social scientists used RD to explain an incredible variety of attitudes and behaviors ranging from inaction to individual acts of deviance to collective protest (Wright, 1997). But if, as we argue above, GRD leads to group-based reactions and IRD leads to individual-based reactions, it is important to match the outcome level of analysis to the comparison level of analysis. In Figure 1, we distinguish among four categories of outcomes studied by RD researchers

(Smith et al., 2011) labeled (1) internal states, (2) individual behavior, (3) intergroup attitudes, and (4) collective behavior. These categories capture two important distinctions. First, RD reactions can represent intentions and behaviors to improve one’s personal situation (individual behavior), or they can represent intentions and behaviors to improve the situation for one’s reference group (collective behavior; Ellemers, 2002; Wright, 1997). Second, these frameworks distinguish among internal states (such as anxiety, depression, and attitudes toward the self ), attitudes (toward the system and other groups), and actual behavior (Crosby, 1976; Mark & Folger, 1984). GRD should be related to intergroup attitudes that clearly implicate the intergroup relationship (e.g., prejudice, attitudes toward affirmative action) and collective action. IRD should be related to individual behavior that addresses the individual person’s disadvantage (e.g., stealing, gambling, and moonlighting). IRD also should be related to internal states because most of the measures included within the internal states category focus on the individual self (e.g., personal self-esteem and physical health). The internal states category illustrates two further issues. First, it allows us to recognize the

physiological and psychological consequences associated with RD. Adler, Epel, Castellazzo, and Ickovics (2000) have shown across a series of studies that people’s perceptions of their subjective social status (a measure that is a close proxy for IRD) predicts their physical health even after controlling for their objective social status, their access to health care, and pre-existing conditions. Even more striking is evidence that lower subjective social status predicts increased physiological arousal (Adler et al., 2000) and susceptibility to the common cold (Cohen et al., 2008). Evidence that societal disadvantage is related to poor physical health is not novel, but it is novel to show that these differences in physical health can be attributed to people’s experi- ences with injustice and discrimination (Major, Mendes, & Dovidio, 2013). A few years ago, all California state university faculty members had to take furloughs in order to meet state mandated budget cuts. Even though everyone faced the same disadvantage (and had access to the same level of health care), it was the faculty members who reported more IRD who reported poorer physical health (Osborne et al., 2012). Second, the internal states category reminds us that what looks like inaction to observers can

encompass a range of psychological reactions from passive acceptance to creative reframing of one’s situation to hopeful patience to angry rumination (Wright & Tropp, 2002). Each possibil- ity suggests different future trajectories. Those who ruminate should be more likely to gather information to support their analysis that the situation is unjust, whereas the attention of those who reframe their situation should be drawn to other comparisons and alternative explanations (Major et al., 2013). If we unpack inaction into these different possibilities, it reminds us that injustices are cumulative. For many disadvantaged group members, there is not just one event that is unfair, but many – from being followed by store employees when one is shopping to being stopped without evidence of a traffic violation to the sound of car locks being activated

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(e.g., micro-aggressions, Sue et al., 2007). In fact, health researchers describe a “weathering effect” in which the effects of social inequality on physical health increase as people get older (Geronimus, Hicken, & Keene, 2006).

Discrete Emotions and Specific Action Tendencies

Given the range of ways that people can respond to RD, it is crucial to determine when people will accept their situation, undermine the organization, actively challenge the injustice, or try to escape. One way to discriminate among these possibilities is to identify the discrete emotions that mediate between upward disadvantaged comparisons and people’s reactions (Feather, 2015). For example, anger, fear, and sadness all represent negative emotions, but they each serve a different adaptive function (Smith & Kirby, 2001). Anger motivates people to attack, sadness motivates people to withdraw, and fear motivates people to escape (Frijda, Kuipers, & ter Schure, 1989; Scherer, Schorr, & Johnstone, 2001). If people respond to an undeserved situa- tion with anger, they should be more likely to attack the source of their deprivation – they might join a strike against their employer or steal office supplies. But if they respond to an un- deserved situation with sadness, they should be more likely to withdraw – they might miss work meetings, social events, or entire days. For example, even though university faculty members all agreed that they did not deserve a 10% pay cut, it was their emotional reactions to the pay cut that predicted what they planned to do in response (Osborne et al., 2012). Angry resentment mediated the relationship between IRD and faculty’s willingness to voice their concerns to the administration. Fear mediated the relationship between IRD and faculty’s interest in leaving their job. Sadness mediated the relationship between IRD and faculty’s withdrawal from their job responsibilities. Surprisingly, some faculty responded to the pay cut with positive emotions; relief that the budget crisis was resolved or gratitude that employee lay-offs were avoided. Gratitude mediated the relationship between IRD and faculty’s acceptance of the pay cut. Finding that gratitude mediated the relationship between IRD and loyalty reminds us that

upward comparisons, even if one views the situation as undeserved, do not guarantee RD. As we noted earlier, upward comparisons can be a source of inspiration, anxiety, or even pride (Leach, Snider, & Iyer, 2002). Therefore, as shown in Figure 1, we argue that true RD experiences require justice-related affect; in particular, angry resentment. Angry resentment is distinct from envy, jealousy, or more generic forms of anger (Leach et al., 2002). Unlike envy, resentment often is a publicly shared emotion that evokes notions of justice and elicits a focus on the system that produces the inequity (Runciman, 1966; Smith & Kim, 2007). Importantly, resentment is unlikely to be as ephemeral as other anger-related emotions, which can explain why RD successfully predicts such a large range of attitudes and behavior.

The Role of Situational Appraisals

If, as we propose, the key discrete emotion associated with RD is angry resentment, the next question is what factors or situational appraisals elicit this emotion. We draw upon an integration of RD theory with cognitive appraisal models of emotion to identify the four appraisals listed in the bottom part of Figure 1. The first and most obvious requirement is that people care about the domain in which they feel that they have an undeserved disadvantage (Crosby, 1976). It is not an accident that the majority of RD research has focused on relative pay or status. If people do not care about the domain, it is unlikely that a disadvantaged comparison will elicit an emotional reaction. The second situational appraisal is whether people believe that the process producing the

undeserved disadvantage is illegitimate. Even if people think the outcome was undeserved, they are unlikely to be angry if they think a legitimate process produced their disadvantage (imagine

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agreeing to a lottery that you do not win; Ellemers, 2002; Folger, 1987). But if people believe that the disadvantage is the product of an illegitimate process, they should feel angry and frus- trated (van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer, & Leach, 2004). For example, if system justifying beliefs are primed, the impact of group inequity on people’s anger and willingness to protest is lessened (Osborne & Sibley, 2013). The “fair process” effect describes a similar phenomenon; if people believe that authorities treated them fairly, they are less dissatisfied and distressed with unfavor- able outcomes (Brockner & Wiesenfeld, 1996). The third situational appraisal is whether people believe that they (in the case of IRD) or their

ingroup (in the case of GRD) is not to blame for the disadvantaged situation. If people view themselves or the situation (e.g., bad luck, and fate) as responsible for a negative outcome, they report sadness and depression (Frijda et al., 1989; Roseman, Wiest, & Swartz, 1994; Weiner, 1995). However, if they attribute a negative event to discrimination by another person or group, they are angry (Major, Quinton, & McCoy, 2002). The role of blame and responsibility is neatly captured in current discussions of whether increased unemployment among younger people in the United States reflects their lack of skills or employers’ increasing reluctance to in- vest in employee training and development (Goldfarb, 2012). The first explanation suggests that young people are responsible for their employment situation, whereas the second explanation suggests that larger economic and political forces are the cause. Being young and unemployed should lead to RD only if people do not blame themselves for their situation. The fourth appraisal is whether the situation will improve without intervention. RD theorists

(Cook, Crosby, & Hennigan, 1977; Crosby, 1976) propose that the relationship between RD and situational stability is curvilinear. If there is no possibility that the situation will change, people should feel sad or depressed (Folger, 1987; Wright & Tropp, 2002). If it is extremely likely that the situation will improve regardless of what one does, people should experience hope (Wright & Tropp, 2002). People should feel angry if improvement can be imagined, but it is not guaranteed (Crosby, 1976; Folger, 1987). For example, imagine you are a federal government employee faced with the undifferentiated budget cuts required by the Congress designed “sequestration.” If you think the budget cuts are inevitable and permanent, your initial frustration should morph into sad resignation. If you think the budget cuts are temporary and the public will reward your patience with more resources, your initial frustration should morph into hopeful optimism. However, the angry resentment associated with RD should be most likely if you easily can imagine a situation in which Congress could have avoided the painful cuts required by sequestration or provide financial support in the way that they opted to support air traffic controllers (Markman & McMullen, 2003; Olson & Roese, 2002).

Conclusions

RD is a powerful motivator. To challenge injustice is risky and requires resources, but RD can lead people to reassess the costs and benefits of challenging their situation and make it more likely that they will act. RD also can explain why people with incredible disadvantages do not challenge the injustice. They may not make the relevant comparisons and situational appraisals that lead to angry resentment. Similarly, RD can explain why people with resources and privileges can report sincere resentment based on the comparisons and situational appraisals that they make. But several important research questions remain. First, it might be more theoretically useful

to view RD as triggered by an abnormal and negative experience that people easily contrast with a more positive experience that “ought” to have occurred (Markman & McMullen, 2003; Olson & Roese, 2002).1 In other words, social and temporal comparisons inform the de- gree to which people are able to imagine an alternative reality in which they earned what they

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deserved. This conceptualization shifts the focus from identifying comparison targets in the local environment to factors that might make counterfactual reasoning in particular contexts more or less likely (Markman & McMullen, 2003; Olson & Roese, 2002). For example, the more easily people can imagine that a negative reality can be changed, or the more exceptional or unusual that people view an antecedent for a negative event to be, the more likely people will respond with anger and resentment (Kahneman & Miller, 1986; Markman & McMullen, 2003; Olson & Roese, 2002). Counterfactual reasoning research suggests that people might be especially sen- sitive to alternative positive realities informed by their (or their group’s) past experience (e.g., the experience is more likely to be framed as a loss) or a comparison target who shares the same causal antecedents but earned a much better outcome (e.g., another student studies just as hard but earns a better grade; Kahneman & Miller, 1986; Markman & McMullen, 2003; Olson & Roese, 2002). A second and related issue is to test the causal relationships that RD researchers propose.

Unfortunately, experimental RD research studies are relatively rare. However, in one recent and creative set of experiments, Callan et al. (2008) manipulated IRD by asking undergraduate students to calculate their monthly discretionary income in the context of comparison informa- tion from other undergraduates that made their own income seem undeservedly small or large. Undergraduates who experienced IRD were more likely to gamble. Distributions of participant payments for research tasks also can be manipulated to create group-level distributive inequities (Major & Testa, 1989; Smith et al., 1994). Finally, RD researchers’ traditional focus on out- comes might miss the more powerful emotions that accompany relative differences in proce- dures or interpersonal treatment (Tyler & Lind, 2002). Mr McClelland titled his essay with the question “Why do we all just accept that baseball

salaries are appallingly high?” As his question indicates, extremely well-paid baseball players (and other professional athletes) are not a new phenomenon. In 1981, when professional baseball players in the United States struck for increased wages and greater ability to transfer among teams, fans complained about the greed and arrogance of millionaire athletes (Pappas, 2001). However, as our essay should make clear, acceptance does not mean the absence of RD. And most impor- tantly, just because people appear to accept economic inequality today does not mean they will continue to accept it tomorrow. If people interpret an undeserved disadvantage in group terms, as illegitimate, unstable, and the product of others’ behavior, action will not be far behind.

Short Biographies

Heather J. Smith is a Professor of Psychology at Sonoma State University. Her research interests include social justice, group processes, intergroup relations, and research methods. Her current projects focus on how people’s definitions of fairness and reactions to disadvantages or conflict change when they identify themselves as members of particular groups. Thomas F. Pettigrew is Research Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Califor-

nia, Santa Cruz. He has specialized in intergroup relations throughout his career. Among his honors, Pettigrew received the Ralph White Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence in 2010.

Notes

* Correspondence: Department of Psychology, Sonoma State University, 1801 E. Cotati Ave. Rohnert Park, CA 94904, USA. Email: [email protected]

1 We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer and the editor for drawing our attention to this reconceptualization.

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