The impact of subjective social class on subjective well-being: examining the mediating roles of perceived scarcity and sense of control

Though previous studies have showed that social class is positively associated with subjective well-being (SWB), in fact, subjective social class has a stronger impact on SWB compare to objective social class. Thus, it is more important to explore the relationship between subjective social class and SWB. In the current study, we suggested that perceived scarcity and sense of control would play the mediating role between subjective social class and SWB. Study 1 used two big samples from China (CGSS2017) and over the world (WVS7) to test the hypothesis, the results confirmed that the effect of individual subjective social class on SWB was mediated by perceived scarcity and sense of control. More importance, we also find a sequential mediation effect of perceived scarcity and sense of control between individual subjective social class and SWB. Similar results were also both found in Study 2 using an empirical approach and Study 3 using a measure approach in China. These findings extend previous work by examining the psychological mechanisms between subjective social class and SWB from the resource scarcity theory.