Elevate Hope When Income Inequality

Bright copper kettles? Warm woolen mittens? Are those among your prized possessions? If not, “My Favorite Things” from “The Sound of Music” offers you a bunch of alternatives. And study results from City, University of London and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology could be summarized with the lyric from that song, “When I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad.”
     In cultures with high income inequality, having consumers think about their favorite possessions improves their sense of well-being. Income inequality is defined as the extent to which income is unevenly distributed within a population. An example is that U.S. chief executive officers receive about 350 times the annual average salary of production workers in the same company.
     In their studies, the researchers showed the effectiveness of consumers thinking about favorite possessions on improving subjective well-being with both actual income inequality in the culture and with consumers’ perceptions of income inequality. The explanation is that prized belongings have such incommensurable value to a consumer that they forgo comparing their acquisitions to others', and it is such comparisons which reduce the sense of well-being.
     An implication from these findings is for influencers in cultures with power disparities to encourage people to appreciate their prized belongings. This tactic might seem to be an unethical sop because by increasing the sense of well-being, we’re diluting the sense of outrage necessary to combat income inequality. However, for change to occur, citizens need not just outrage, but also hope. Darren Walker, interviewed by Time magazine as he was leaving his post as Ford Foundation president, said, “Hope is the oxygen of democracy, but inequality is the enemy of hope. How do we imagine a flourishing democracy when we have increasing numbers of people who feel left out and left behind, disaffected and disillusioned and therefore hopeless?”
     The favorite-things tactic could buttress hope sufficiently to effect positive change. In the language of ditties from musicals, the spirit of “My Favorite Things” from “The Sound of Music” produces the spirit of “You Can Fly” from “Peter Pan.”
     Encouraging consumers to spend on experiences rather than surplus material possessions also helps maintain subjective well-being in the face of societal inequities. People usually get greater happiness from experiences they purchase. Happiness derives from distinctiveness, and experiences differ among themselves more than do material items. Again, the result is less comparison by the consumer with others’ acquisitions.

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Image at top of post based on photo by Ksenia Yakovleva from Unsplash