People judge their own position against the groups they compare themselves with rather than against absolute conditions, so satisfaction tracks the comparison and not the circumstance.
Merton and Kitt developed the concept in 1950 from The American Soldier, which found military police, who were promoted slowly, more satisfied with promotion than air corpsmen, who were promoted quickly. Each group compared itself with its own, so fast promotion produced more dissatisfaction than slow. The reference group, not the rate, did the work.
In practice
- A pay rise that puts someone ahead of the market and behind the colleague they lunch with reads as a cut.
- A pupil at the top of a weak school and the bottom of a strong one may hold the same ability and not the same future.
- Standing
- Supplies the mechanism behind relative deprivation.
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- How societies hold together, sort people, and change