Feeling Hard Done By? New Study Looks At The Effects

Are you feeling hard done by – frustrated at earning less than other people?

In a recently published study, people feeling that way tended to develop a diminished sense of belonging and then to report poorer physical health.

Drawing from data collected over nine years as part of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS), researchers examined responses from more than 50,000 New Zealanders to explore how perceptions of economic inequality affected emotional wellbeing and health.

“Our study suggests that if you are worse off financially compared to others, across time this is linked to reduced feelings of belonging, which may in turn negatively contribute to your physical health,” says Dr Brian Don, lead author of the study published in Affective Science. “As a society, this shines a light on the toll that inequality can take.”

Income inequality has been rising across the world and in New Zealand, says Don, a lecturer in the School of Psychology at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland.

In the study, people rated their levels of agreement with statements such as “I’m frustrated by what I earn relative to other people in New Zealand” and “(I) Know that people in my life accept and value me” and graded their health on a scale from poor to excellent.

Participants who felt economically deprived one year were more likely to report lower levels of belonging the subsequent year, which predicted poorer physical health in the year following that.

While financial hardship can limit participation in society, Don believes the decline in belonging may stem more from psychological mechanisms than direct economic constraints.

How can these effects be avoided? At the societal level, Don says policies that reduce the rising pattern of economic inequality will help to reduce individual feelings of unfairness.

There are things individuals can do, too. “Comparison truly is the thief of joy,” says Don. “At the individual level, avoiding social media could be a good start to avoid getting stuck in a rut of negative comparisons.”

A caveat: the study shows associations, not causality.

Besides a reduced sense of belonging, feeling worse off financially was linked with declines in gratitude and sense of meaning in life.

Looking ahead, Don aims to explore whether objective measures of inequality, such as the Gini coefficient, influence emotional experiences and physiological responses in everyday life.

The co-authors of the paper were Dr Kieren Lilly, Professor Chris Sibley, Professor Nickola Overall and Associate Professor Danny Osborne.

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