Effects of objective and subjective indicators of economic inequality on subjective well‐being: Underlying mechanisms

Abstract

Conflict of Interest. The authors do not have any conflicts of interest to report. Acknowledgments. This work was supported by an Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research(http://www.miur.gov.it/) grant to the authors (PRIN, 2017, 2017924L2B). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Status-Based Asymmetries in Relative Deprivation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Critically, objective deprivation only partially explains people’s feelings of dissatisfaction and injustice arising from inequality (see Schmalor & Heine, 2022 ; Smith et al, 2012 ). For example, subjective inequality measures better predict well-being than do objective measures ( Vezzoli et al., 2022 ). Moreover, objectively disadvantaged groups that overlook their deprivation (relative to other groups) are less supportive of collective action to redress inequities ( Osborne, García-Sánchez, & Sibley, 2019 ).…”

The impacts of COVID-19 on the relationship between perceived economic inequality and political action among socioeconomic classes

“…Future research should further dissect the effects that different facets of perceived inequality may produce. Indeed, we might suspect this is not confined to political behaviors but also to other behaviors and psychological constructs (e.g., wellbeing; Vezzoli et al, 2022). By pointing to differential impacts of PEIS and perceived wage gap, our findings also contribute to the ongoing debate about the pros and cons of available tools for measuring perceptions of economic inequality (e.g., García-Castro et al, 2019;Valtorta et al, 2023).…”

“…To assess perceived inequality at the national level, we adopted the 7-item questionnaire developed by Valtorta et al (2023; see also Vezzoli et al, 2022). Some items focused mainly on the broad perception of inequality (e.g., "In Italy there are few very rich people and many very poor people"), while some others are centered on the unfairness of inequality (e.g., "It is unfair that the chances of success depend on where a person grew up").…”

“…A large body of political and sociological research has shown that rising levels of economic inequality are responsible for many negative outcomes for society as a whole and for people who live in it (Killewald et al, 2017;Dwyer, 2018). In relatively unequal societies, population health is lower (Kawachi et al, 2010;Pickett and Wilkinson, 2015), crime rates are higher (van Wilsem, 2004), housing conditions are more disparate (Dwyer, 2009), interpersonal trust erodes (Rothstein and Uslaner, 2005), and life satisfaction declines (Delhey and Kohler, 2011;Vezzoli et al, 2022). Considering that economic inequality has a negative impact on living standards (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2018), citizens' political actions might be impacted by high levels of economic inequality.…”

Measuring subjective inequality: Development and validation of the Perceived Economic Inequality Scale (PEIS)

“…Understanding the psychological impact of inequality requires consideration of its subjective component, which is the individual-level factor that concerns how individuals perceive economic disparities. Indeed, as previous literature demonstrated, indicators of perceived inequality are often stronger predictors of various psychological outcomes than objective indicators (e.g., Gáspár et al, 2023;Singh-Manoux et al, 2003;Vezzoli et al, 2023a).…”