Responses to Actual, Perceived and Imagined Scarcities. (March 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sinha, Jai B. P.
• Other Names: Tripathi R. C. guest-editor.; Pande Namita guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Psychology and developing societies. Volume 34:Number 1(2022)
• Page Start: 7
• Page End: 24
• Publication Date: 2022-03
• Subjects: Adaptive preference -- classes of Indians -- duplicity in mindset -- human resources -- income inequality -- need for achievement -- social resources; Psychology -- Periodicals; Developing countries -- Social conditions -- Psychological aspects -- Periodicals; 150.9172405
• DOI: 10.1177/09713336221080626
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0971-3336

Abstract

Making more money is the most dominant response to cope with actual, perceived or imagined scarcities. For the poor, it is a means to survive in extremely adverse conditions and to struggle to cross over the poverty line into the lower middle class; for the affluent middle class, it is a way to catch up with and overtake friends, relatives and neighbours by being able to have more expensive possessions and exciting experiences; and for the super-rich, it is a show of arrogance and a response to the imagined sense of still not having enough for an endless chase of unbridled ambitions. Money is a leading physical resource for building human resources by widening access to good education, adequate health care and sustainable livelihood as well as showing off one's superiority. It has a curvilinear relationship with social resources where having too much or too little money erodes social sensitivity and bonding. The article makes a number of conjectures to stimulate research in future.