When Prosperity Breeds Intergroup Hostility: The Effects of Relative Deprivation and Relative Gratification on Prejudice

2002/07/01 by Serge Guimond, Michaël Dambrun · 1 voice · 2 citations
Neuroscience · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cultural Differences and Values #Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment #Social and Intergroup Psychology

paper · doi:10.1177/014616720202800704

openalex publication_date 2002/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22

Abstract

In previous theory and research dealing with relative deprivation (RD), the role of relative gratification (RG), the opposite of RD, was relatively overlooked. Two experiments (N = 245) tested the impact of both RD and RG on prejudice toward socially significant outgroups. Experiment 1 manipulated temporal RD and RG by confronting participants to declining (RD) or improving (RG) job opportunities and found no effect of RD on prejudice but reliable effects of RG. Experiment 2 manipulated group RD and RG and found increased levels of generalized prejudice in both conditions while participants in the group RG condition showed, in addition, increased ingroup bias, greater willingness to support and act in favor of restrictive immigration policies, and higher social dominance orientation than the control group. These findings confirm the role of group RD and establish RG as an equally important, if not more central, variable in the psychology of intergroup relations.

Citations

• Self-categorisation, commitment to the group and group self-esteem as related but distinct aspects of social identity
• The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations.

Cited by

• The wealth paradox: Prosperity and opposition to immigration
• Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? Thinking that one is attractive increases the tendency to support inequality

Discussions

• The psychological basis of these results may be the effects of relative deprivation (for non-wealthy) and relative gratification (for wealthy) both found to increase ethnic prejudice (for ex. Guimond [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]