Does exposure to richer and poorer neighborhoods influence wellbeing?

Abstract

Geographical differences in wellbeing have attracted increased attention in the science of happiness literature and recent research has become particularly interested in highresolution spatial differentiation within cities. This study contributes to this literature by analyzing the relationships between subjective wellbeing and relative income at the neighborhood level using activity-travel survey data from 2010 in Hong Kong. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis concentrates not only on life satisfaction but also on pleasure derived from daily activities in the city, and considers relative income in people's residential neighborhood and the neighborhoods where they conduct different types of daily activity. The results suggest that social comparisons with regard to income matter to life satisfaction as well as emotional wellbeing, that the effects occur for both the residential neighborhood and the urban places where daily activities are undertaken, and that downward income comparisons tend to have stronger effects on wellbeing than upward comparisons. One theoretical implication that follows from the analysis is that the impact of social comparison in the science of happiness needs to be theorized as dynamic, mobile and contingent upon people's daily trajectories through time and urban space.

Lacking socio‐economic status reduces subjective well‐being through perceptions of meta‐dehumanization

“…Additionally, future researchers could extend the current findings by exploring how the perceived gap between low‐ and high‐SES groups within a society could influence meta‐dehumanization and perceived well‐being. Previous research indicated that well‐being could be influenced by the perceived (up or down) social comparisons within a given neighbourhood (Wang, Schwanen, & Mao, 2019). Thus, it might be expected that meta‐dehumanization and well‐being will worsen for low‐SES groups when, in their daily life, they are confronted in different contexts (e.g., jobs, schools, residential areas) with higher SES groups.…”

Examining Ethnic Exposure through the Perspective of the Neighborhood Effect Averaging Problem: A Case Study of Xining, China

“…As a well-researched topic that covers distinct disadvantaged social groups (e.g., ethnic minorities and low-income residents), socio-spatial segregation has long been understood as spatial separation or isolation of residential locations [25][26][27][28]. In recent decades, there has been a rise of scholarly interest in framing socio-spatial segregation in terms of locations where individuals conduct everyday activities, and thus have opportunities to encounter other social groups, based on the assumption that such encounters are conducive to higher levels of inter-group interactions [12][13][14][15]29]. Several recent studies not only provided strong evidence that the NEAP exists when examining mobility-dependent exposure but also showed that different social groups may be associated with different levels of the NEAP [6][7][8][9][10].…”

Towards decolonial human subjects in research on transport

“…Activity-travel diaries and GPS tracking can provide useful insight about the trips and non-movement of individuals whose relationships with the referent-we are ambiguous and potentially shifting, depending on where they are at particular times. These data can be complemented by interviews configured around them (as in Andrade et al's [2019] study of sex workers in Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico), by data on biomarkers such as skin conductance or brain activity using devices that are worn on diary/tracking days, or by pre-existing data on who is present or lives in the places and territories that the research participants move through (as in Wang et al, 2019).…”