Relative deprivation
Encyclopedia
Relative deprivation is the experience of being deprived of something to which one believes oneself to be entitled to have. It refers to the discontent people feel when they compare their positions to others and realize that they have less than them.
Schaefer defines it as "the conscious experience of a negative discrepancy between legitimate expectations and present actualities. It is a term used in social sciences to describe feelings or measures of economic, political, or social
deprivation that are relative rather than absolute.
The concept of relative deprivation has important consequences for both behavior
and attitude
s, including feeling
s of stress
, political attitudes, and participation in collective action
. It is relevant to researchers studying multiple fields in social sciences
. Its origins are from the biological concept of relative fitness, where an organism that successfully outproduces its competitors leaves more copies in the gene pool.
Social scientists, particularly political scientists and sociologists, have cited 'relative deprivation' (especially temporal relative deprivation) as a potential cause of social movements and deviance
, leading to extreme situations to political violence such as rioting, terrorism
, civil wars and other instances of social deviance such as crime
. For example, some scholars of social movements explain their rise by citing grievances of people who feel deprived of what they perceive as being entitled to. Similarly, individuals engage in deviant behaviors when their means do not match their goals.
was among the first (if not the first) to use the concept of relative deprivation in order to understand social deviance, using French sociologist Emile Durkheim
's concept of anomie
as a starting point.
In one of the first formal definitions of the relative deprivation, Walter Runciman
noted that there are four preconditions of relative deprivation (of object X by person A):
Runciman distinguishes between egoistic
and fraternalistic relative deprivation. The former is caused by unfavorable social position
when compared to other, better off members of a specific group A is the member of) and the latter, by unfavorable comparison to other, better off groups. Egoistic relative deprivation can be seen in the example of a worker who believes he should have been promoted
faster and may lead to that person taking actions designed to improve his position within the group; those actions are however unlikely to affect many people. Fraternalistic can be seen in the example of racial discrimination, and are much more likely to result in the creation and growth of large social movement
, like the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Another example of fraternalistic relative deprivation is the envy teenagers feel towards the wealthy characters who are portrayed in movies and on television as being "middle class" or "normal" despite wearing expensive clothes, driving expensive cars, and living in mansions.
persists and some humans are better off than others.
Consider the following examples: in 1905 car
s were a luxury, hence an individual unable to afford one would not feel or be viewed as deprived. In 2010, when cars are common in most societies, an individual unable to afford one is much more likely to feel deprived. In another example, mobile phone
s are common today, and many people may feel that they deserve to have one. Fifty years ago, when there were no mobile phones, such a sentiment would obviously not exist.
Relative deprivation may be temporal; that is, it can be experienced by people that experience expansion of rights or wealth, followed by stagnation or reversal of those gains. Such phenomena are also known as unfulfilled rising expectations.
In an example from the political realm, the lack the right to vote is more likely to be felt as a deprivation by people who had it once then by the people who never had the opportunity to vote.
, have argued that relative differences in economic wealth are more important than absolute deprivation, and that it is more significant in determining human quality of life
. This debate has important consequences for social policy
, particularly on whether poverty
can be eliminated simply by raising total wealth or whether egalitarian measures are also needed.
A specific form of relative deprivation is relative poverty. A measure of relative poverty defines poverty
as being below some relative poverty line, such as household
s who earn less than 20% of the median income. Notice that if everyone's real income
in an economy increases, but the income distribution
stays the same, the number of people living in relative poverty will not change.
: "A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal of even in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls."http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch06.htm
Schaefer defines it as "the conscious experience of a negative discrepancy between legitimate expectations and present actualities. It is a term used in social sciences to describe feelings or measures of economic, political, or social
Social
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...
deprivation that are relative rather than absolute.
The concept of relative deprivation has important consequences for both behavior
Behavior
Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...
and attitude
Attitude
-Science and engineering:* Attitude as orientation of a geometric figure, such as a line, plane or rigid body* Attitude as strike or dip of a layer of rock in geology* Attitude of a wing or aircraft relative to airflow...
s, including feeling
Feeling
Feeling is the nominalization of the verb to feel. The word was first used in the English language to describe the physical sensation of touch through either experience or perception. The word is also used to describe experiences, other than the physical sensation of touch, such as "a feeling of...
s of stress
Stress (medicine)
Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...
, political attitudes, and participation in collective action
Collective action
Collective action is the pursuit of a goal or set of goals by more than one person. It is a term which has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences.-In sociology:...
. It is relevant to researchers studying multiple fields in social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
. Its origins are from the biological concept of relative fitness, where an organism that successfully outproduces its competitors leaves more copies in the gene pool.
Social scientists, particularly political scientists and sociologists, have cited 'relative deprivation' (especially temporal relative deprivation) as a potential cause of social movements and deviance
Deviance (sociology)
Deviance in a sociological context describes actions or behaviors that violate cultural norms including formally-enacted rules as well as informal violations of social norms...
, leading to extreme situations to political violence such as rioting, terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
, civil wars and other instances of social deviance such as crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
. For example, some scholars of social movements explain their rise by citing grievances of people who feel deprived of what they perceive as being entitled to. Similarly, individuals engage in deviant behaviors when their means do not match their goals.
Theory
American sociologist Robert K. MertonRobert K. Merton
Robert King Merton was a distinguished American sociologist. He spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University, where he attained the rank of University Professor...
was among the first (if not the first) to use the concept of relative deprivation in order to understand social deviance, using French sociologist Emile Durkheim
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...
's concept of anomie
Anomie
Anomie is a term meaning "without Law" to describe a lack of social norms; "normlessness". It describes the breakdown of social bonds between an individual and their community ties, with fragmentation of social identity and rejection of self-regulatory values. It was popularized by French...
as a starting point.
In one of the first formal definitions of the relative deprivation, Walter Runciman
Garry Runciman, 3rd Viscount Runciman of Doxford
Walter Garrison Runciman, 3rd Viscount Runciman of Doxford, CBE, FBA , is a leading British historical sociologist, usually known informally as Garry Runciman...
noted that there are four preconditions of relative deprivation (of object X by person A):
- Person A does not have X
- Person A knows of other persons that have X
- Person A wants to have X
- Person A believes obtaining X is realistic
Runciman distinguishes between egoistic
Egotism
Egotism is "characterized by an exaggerated estimate of one's intellect, ability, importance, appearance, wit, or other valued personal characteristics" – the drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself....
and fraternalistic relative deprivation. The former is caused by unfavorable social position
Social position
Social position is the position of an individual in a given society and culture. A given position may belong to many individuals. Social position influences social status...
when compared to other, better off members of a specific group A is the member of) and the latter, by unfavorable comparison to other, better off groups. Egoistic relative deprivation can be seen in the example of a worker who believes he should have been promoted
Promotion (rank)
A promotion is the advancement of an employee's rank or position in an organizational hierarchy system. Promotion may be an employee's reward for good performance i.e. positive appraisal...
faster and may lead to that person taking actions designed to improve his position within the group; those actions are however unlikely to affect many people. Fraternalistic can be seen in the example of racial discrimination, and are much more likely to result in the creation and growth of large social movement
Social movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....
, like the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Another example of fraternalistic relative deprivation is the envy teenagers feel towards the wealthy characters who are portrayed in movies and on television as being "middle class" or "normal" despite wearing expensive clothes, driving expensive cars, and living in mansions.
Relativeness
Feelings of deprivation are relative, as they come from a comparison to social norms that are not absolute and usually differ from time and place. This differentiates relative deprivation from objective deprivation (also known as absolute deprivation or absolute poverty) - a condition that applies to all underprivileged people. This leads to an important conclusion: while the objective deprivation (poverty) in the world may change over time, relative deprivation will not, as long as social inequalitySocial inequality
Social inequality refers to a situation in which individual groups in a society do not have equal social status. Areas of potential social inequality include voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, the extent of property rights and access to education, health care, quality housing and other...
persists and some humans are better off than others.
Consider the following examples: in 1905 car
Čar
Čar is a village in the municipality of Bujanovac, Serbia. According to the 2002 census, the town has a population of 296 people.-References:...
s were a luxury, hence an individual unable to afford one would not feel or be viewed as deprived. In 2010, when cars are common in most societies, an individual unable to afford one is much more likely to feel deprived. In another example, mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s are common today, and many people may feel that they deserve to have one. Fifty years ago, when there were no mobile phones, such a sentiment would obviously not exist.
Relative deprivation may be temporal; that is, it can be experienced by people that experience expansion of rights or wealth, followed by stagnation or reversal of those gains. Such phenomena are also known as unfulfilled rising expectations.
In an example from the political realm, the lack the right to vote is more likely to be felt as a deprivation by people who had it once then by the people who never had the opportunity to vote.
Relative and absolute deprivation
Some sociologists, for instance Karl PolanyiKarl Polanyi
Karl Paul Polanyi was a Hungarian philosopher, political economist and economic anthropologist known for his opposition to traditional economic thought and his book The Great Transformation...
, have argued that relative differences in economic wealth are more important than absolute deprivation, and that it is more significant in determining human quality of life
Quality of life
The term quality of life is used to evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. The term is used in a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, and politics. Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of...
. This debate has important consequences for social policy
Social policy
Social policy primarily refers to guidelines, principles, legislation and activities that affect the living conditions conducive to human welfare. Thus, social policy is that part of public policy that has to do with social issues...
, particularly on whether poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
can be eliminated simply by raising total wealth or whether egalitarian measures are also needed.
A specific form of relative deprivation is relative poverty. A measure of relative poverty defines poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
as being below some relative poverty line, such as household
Household
The household is "the basic residential unit in which economic production, consumption, inheritance, child rearing, and shelter are organized and carried out"; [the household] "may or may not be synonymous with family"....
s who earn less than 20% of the median income. Notice that if everyone's real income
Real income
Real income is the income of individuals or nations after adjusting for inflation. It is calculated by subtracting inflation from the nominal income...
in an economy increases, but the income distribution
Income distribution
In economics, income distribution is how a nation’s total economy is distributed amongst its population.Income distribution has always been a central concern of economic theory and economic policy...
stays the same, the number of people living in relative poverty will not change.
Critique
Critique of this theory has pointed out that this theory fails to explain why some people who feel discontent fail to take action and join social movements. Counter-arguments include that some people are prone to conflict-avoidance, short-term-oriented, and that imminent life difficulties may arise since there is no guarantee that life-improvement will result from social action.Quotations
Consider also this quotation from Karl MarxKarl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
: "A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal of even in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls."http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch06.htm
See also
Further reading
- James M. Olson, C. Peter Herman, Mark P. Zanna (ed.), Relative Deprivation and Social Comparison, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1986, ISBN 0-89859-704-8, Google Print