Questions: Relative Deprivation and Social Discontent

Question 1

Workers at Factory A have received no wage increase for five years. Workers at Factory B received a 20% raise two years ago but received no raise this year. According to relative deprivation theory, which group is more likely to express greater discontent?

• A. Factory A workers, because their objective economic conditions are worse over time
• B. Factory B workers, because the earlier raise raised their expectations, making the current freeze feel like a loss relative to what they now anticipate
• C. Both groups equally, because wage stagnation is objectively the same in the current year
• D. Neither group, since workers compare themselves to management, not their own past wages

Answer: (B)

Relative deprivation theory predicts that discontent arises from the gap between expectations and reality, not from absolute conditions. Factory B workers experienced rising expectations when they received a raise; the current freeze violates those expectations. Factory A workers never developed high expectations and have adapted to stagnation. This parallels Stouffer's finding: soldiers in a high-promotion unit felt more aggrieved about missed promotions than those in a low-promotion unit, even though the latter's objective situation was worse.

Question 2

Stouffer found that soldiers in the Air Corps (high promotion rates) expressed MORE resentment about promotions than soldiers in the Military Police (low promotion rates). Which explanation best fits this finding?

• A. Air Corps soldiers were better educated and more capable of articulating grievances effectively
• B. The Military Police had stronger unit cohesion, suppressing complaints through peer pressure
• C. Air Corps soldiers had developed higher expectations based on observed promotions around them, making any missed promotion feel acutely unjust relative to their reference group
• D. Military Police soldiers were objectively more satisfied because their work was less dangerous

Answer: (C)

Stouffer's paradox is the founding demonstration of relative deprivation: the high-promotion Air Corps created a reference group of promoted peers, so soldiers who weren't promoted felt the gap acutely. Military Police soldiers expected slow advancement and compared themselves to fellow MPs; there was no violated expectation. Options A, B, and D propose explanations unrelated to the comparative reference mechanism that Stouffer's theory specifically identifies.

Question 3

According to relative deprivation theory, the most impoverished and objectively worst-off groups in a society are the most likely to engage in social movements and revolution.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

This is the most important misconception that relative deprivation theory corrects. Chronic, stable poverty tends to produce fatalism, not rebellion — people adapt their expectations to their conditions. Relative deprivation theory predicts that discontent is highest among groups whose expectations have outpaced their actual conditions. The French Revolution emerged not from the most destitute but from a rising bourgeoisie whose expectations had grown faster than their gains. The J-curve hypothesis extends this: revolution is most likely when improving conditions suddenly reverse, creating a painful gap between what people have come to expect and what they actually receive.

Question 4

The expansion of mass media and rising education levels can increase felt deprivation and social discontent even when average material conditions in a society are improving.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

Media and education expand the reference groups people compare themselves to. A peasant farmer who only compared herself to other village farmers might feel her situation is normal. Access to television that shows affluent lifestyles, or education that teaches democratic ideals of equality, creates new reference points against which one's actual conditions appear inferior. This explains why modernization — which raises living standards — can simultaneously produce more social unrest, and why demands for equality intensify even as formal discrimination decreases.

Question 5

Explain the J-curve hypothesis. What does it predict about when social unrest is most likely to emerge, and why?

Model answer: The J-curve (Davies) predicts that social unrest is most likely not during periods of persistent deprivation but during periods of rising conditions that are suddenly reversed. When material conditions improve over time, people's expectations rise to match the improvements. If conditions then sharply deteriorate, an intolerable gap opens between the now-elevated expectations and the new reality — a gap that feels more unjust than the original deprivation did, because people now feel entitled to the level they had reached. The 'J' shape describes the trajectory: conditions rise, creating rising expectations, then fall suddenly, while expectations remain high.

This explains historical patterns that puzzle absolute-deprivation theories: the American, French, Russian, and Egyptian revolutions all followed periods of rising prosperity that ended in sudden reversal. Stable chronic poverty tends to produce resignation; the crushing of rising expectations produces rage. For social movement theory, this means the timing of grievance — not just its existence — is crucial to predicting collective action.