Frustration and Relative Deprivation

With its origin in the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville and Karl Marx, relative deprivation has been investigated by researchers in psychology, sociology, anthropology, criminology, and political science. Relative deprivation is a judgment of oneself or one’s ingroup as being disadvantaged compared to another person or group, which leads to feelings of anger, frustration, resentment, and/or entitlement. Individuals can feel relatively deprived when comparing themselves to other ingroup members or relevant outgroup members, or when comparing their ingroup as a whole to a relevant outgroup. Individuals can also make temporal comparisons—comparing their current status with their own past or future status or comparing their ingroup’s current status with the past or future status of the ingroup. If these comparisons lead to an appraisal of disadvantage and to affective reactions such as angry resentment, a variety of interpersonal or intergroup outcomes can ensue, including individual psychological states (e.g., lower self-esteem), individual behavior (e.g., increased engagement in risky behaviors such as gambling), intergroup attitudes (e.g., more prejudice toward the outgroup), and collective action (e.g., higher likelihood of protesting). Relative deprivation can be influenced by several factors. People from individualistic cultures have been shown to exhibit more relative deprivation from collectivistic cultures. Temporality also has affected feelings of relative deprivation; these feelings are dependent upon type of temporal comparison (past vs. future) and number of temporal comparisons. Moreover, temporal comparisons have been treated as both an influencer of relative deprivation as well as a source of relative deprivation; future research should address these competing notions. Additional influencing factors include system-justifying beliefs (potentially limiting comparisons and subsequent feelings of relative deprivation) and feelings of empowerment (leading to more deprivation). Future directions pertaining to relative deprivation should focus on comparing feelings of relative deprivation over a period of time (i.e., longitudinally) and experimentally manipulating the construct to flesh out how relative deprivation works. Another recommendation for future research involves creating and validating measures of relative deprivation at both the individual and group level. Finally, a newer line of research examines relative gratification (where cognitive comparisons of being better-off than others leads to prejudice against outgroups). Future research should determine when and how relative gratification occurs and what the differences between the feelings and outcomes of relative gratification and relative deprivation may be.

A new measure of perceived interdependence: Factor structure and validity

To measure perceived interdependence, we designed a scale that explicitly measures how individuals’ feelings and outcomes covary with the outcomes of specific partners (e.g., “When [target] succeeds, I feel good.”, “[target] and I rise and fall together”). This new scale relies on the concept of fitness interdependence, i.e., the degree to which two or more organisms influence each other’s success in replicating their genes. Based on two studies of MTurk participants (N1 = 198, N2 = 216), we confirm that the scale has good overall reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.81 to 0.91; McDonald’s omega = 0.89 to 0.96) as well as an underlying two-factor structure distinguishing the perceived outcome interdependence with the target and the emotional affect towards a target’s outcomes. Our scale also predicted participants’ willingness to help interdependent others. Studies 3 and 4 (N3 = 695, N4 = 629) document the validity and reliability of the scale with additional measures in new samples. The results from these studies demonstrate that the perceived interdependence scale has good discriminant, convergent, and concurrent validity as well as test-retest reliability across a 14 day period. Taken together, our results suggest that perceived interdependence offers a useful framework for future work on cooperation and social behavior. However, there are still many open questions about the cognitive architecture underlying perceptions of interdependence and how perceived interdependence interacts with genetic relatedness.

Compassion & Self-compassion: Exploration of Utility as Potential Components of the Rehabilitation Counseling Profession

Compassion and self-compassion are two constructs emerging within the research as useful agents in reducing negative thoughts, feelings, and outcomes while also promoting positive ones. To date, these constructs have not been studied or applied to the rehabilitation counseling profession or the needs ofindividuals with disabilities. In an effort to bridge this gap and to enhance rehabilitation counseling professionals' awareness of their potential value, an in-depth review of the literature and research on these two constructs was conducted. Throughout this article, compassion and self-compassion are more clearly conceptualized and barriers which may hinder their development are discussed. A review of empirical research is provided to help demonstrate their usefulness as potential healing agents in the lives of individuals with disabilities. Recommendations are proved to rehabilitation counseling professionals who work with persons with disabilities.