RELATIVE DEPRIVATION AND ETHNIC-IDENTITY

Distinctions are made in the theory of relative deprivation (RD) between cognitive and affective components of RD and between egoistic and fraternalistic types of RD. These two distinctions are crossed to produce four kinds of RD. The present study investigated the links between these four kinds of RD and strength of ethnic identity in a sample of Italian immigrants resident in Perth, Western Australia. Although all four kinds of RD were related to ethnic identity, only cognitive fraternalistic RD emerged with a significant beta weight from a regression analysis predicting ethnic identity. Similar results were found when ethnic identity was broken down into attitudinal and behavioural components. Implications are drawn for the construct validity of RD, and for the links between RD theory and social identity theory.