Psychology researchers recently set out to discover if the relationship between perceived scarcity and health may be affected by socioeconomic, racial, gender, and ethnic factors. Their findings, published in the European Journal of Health Psychology, indicate that socioeconomic, racial and ethnic factors affect different dimensions of perceived scarcity, which in turn affects health.
“Like many others studying health psychology, I was interested in better understanding predictors of health disparities while I was in my doctoral program,” said study author Maysa DeSousa, an assistant professor and chair of psychology at Springfield College.
“My advisor and dissertation chair, Amy Peterman, introduced me to Mullainathan and Shafir’s book on scarcity. I thought the concept showed so much promise in helping to better explain differences in health outcomes, but soon realized that more work was needed to be able to use the concept to study health outcomes.”
“That’s how I ended up working on the conceptualization of a perceived scarcity model and scale, as well as the current study that further examines how different sociodemographic groups experience scarcity and its relationships to self-reported health.”
The research team defined perceived scarcity as “an individual’s subjective interpretation of their circumstances, and two individuals with the same resources may experience varying degrees of perceived scarcity given their past experiences, current environment and expectations.” Perceived scarcity can be broken down into material scarcity, time scarcity and psychological resource scarcity, meaning “individuals may perceive themselves as lacking either interpersonal resources or intrapersonal resources.”
Research investigating the consequences of perceived scarcity and health has found there is a relationship between the two. The greater the perceived scarcity the more stress physical health issues people report. But little is known about how socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity may intersect with scarcity and health.
The study found 590 participants and were recruited from the platform Positly, half were male, 39% White, 25% Black, 15% Latino, and 21% one or more races. Fifty-eight percent had at least one 4-year degree, the remainder had less than a 4-year degree.
Participants took the Perceived Scarcity Scale, an assessment of sociodemographic data, and a measure of health outcomes. Statistical analysis revealed those in the lowest socioeconomic reported higher levels of perceived scarcity. Individuals who identified as White or in the Other category reported greater material scarcity. Those not working full time and those with less than a 4 year degree reported greater perceived material scarcity.
Perceived time scarcity was greater among those who were employed full time, but there were no differences in the other factors studied. Perceived psychological resources differed between income groups and employment status groups. Those in the low income category and unemployed participants reported higher perceived psychological resources scarcity.
When analyzing the relationship between the dimensions of perceived scarcity and health, the research team found material scarcity and psychological resources scarcity to be the connecting factors between poor health outcomes and sociodemographic factors.
In the final analysis, the research team concluded, “Overall, these findings support the use of perceived scarcity as a predictor of health outcomes beyond sociodemographic factors, perhaps even suggesting this subjective indicator may help to explain why some individuals within the same sociodemographic group experience different health outcomes; further research will be needed to further explore this possibility.”
“I hope people understand that while it may look different by sociodemographic group, everyone may experience a form of scarcity because of its subjective nature,” DeSousa explained to PsyPost. “While we may not think that these experiences should be common in those who are more advantaged or of higher status, because we are constantly engaging in social comparisons and changing our expectations, feelings of scarcity do occur in individuals who belong to all sociodemographic groups. That being said, some forms of scarcity — like material and psychological resources scarcity — are more likely to occur in those with lower incomes, and that has some important health implications that need to be addressed.”
Some limitations of the study included the fact that employment status but not the type of employment was examined, in addition other demographic factors like marital status, immigration status were absent from the study.
“We also need more information about how scarcity is experienced in other, non-American/Western cultures, and the scale itself probably needs to be adapted to account for cultural differences when trying to explore scarcity in other cultures,” DeSousa noted.
The study, “Perceived scarcity across sociodemographic backgrounds predicts self-reported health“, was authored by Maysa DeSousa and Kaitlyn Rego.