Abstract
Drawing on recent research indicating that subjective economic experiences allow for determining the differences in individuals’ health outcomes, the present research tested in the Spanish population the hypothesis that a higher perceived impact of the current economic crisis is related to lower levels of subjective well-being and self-perceived health. In Study 1, participants who feel more affected by this economic downturn reported decreased subjective well-being and self-perceived health, even after controlling for gender, age, and objective and subjective socioeconomic status. Study 2 replicated this pattern of results and extended it to other (negative) health indicators (i.e., psychosomatic symptomatology, anxiety/insomnia, social dysfunction, and depression), controlling also for participants’ employment status. In addition, the results of this study demonstrated that the perceived impact-subjective well-being/health relationship was mediated by personal uncertainty. Finally, Study 3, using an experimental paradigm, showed that the salience of the crisis-related economic threat led to a higher negative affect compared with the control condition. Moreover, the results of this study indicated that such an effect was mediated by state-uncertainty. These findings contribute to expanding the psychological literature on the economic crises’ implications by suggesting that people’s perceptions of the crisis could affect their well-being and health above and beyond their own objective material circumstances.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adler, N. E., Epel, E. S., Castellazzo, G., & Ickovics, J. R. (2000). Relationship of subjective and objective social status with psychological and physiological functioning: Preliminary data in healthy, white women. Health Psychology, 19, 586–592. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.19.6.586.
Bartoll, X., Toffolutti, V., Malmusi, D., Palència, L., Borrell, C., & Suhrcke, M. (2015). Health and health behaviours before and during the great recession, overall and by socioeconomic status, using data from four repeated cross-sectional health surveys in Spain (2001-2012). BMC Public Health, 15, 865. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-2204-5.
Bloom, N. (2014). Fluctuations in uncertainty. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 28, 153–176. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.28.2.153.
Bolívar-Muñoz, J., Bernal-Solano, M., Mateo-Rodríguez, I., Daponte-Codina, A., Escudero-Espinosa, C., Sánchez-Cantalejo, C., et al. (2016). La salud de las personas adultas afectadas por un proceso de desahucio. Gaceta Sanitaria, 30, 4–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gaceta.2015.10.002.
Chou, E. Y., Parmar, B. L., & Galinsky, A. D. (2016). Economic insecurity increases physical pain. Psychological Science, 27, 443–454. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615625640.
Clench-Aas, J., & Holte, A. (2017). The financial crisis in Europe: Impact on satisfaction with life. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 45, 30–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/1403494817718692.
Diener, E. D., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75.
Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., & Oishi, S. (2002). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and life satisfaction. In C. R. Synder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 63–73). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Drydakis, N. (2015). The effect of unemployment on self-reported health and mental health in Greece from 2008 to 2013: A longitudinal study before and during the financial crisis. Social Science & Medicine, 128, 43–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.12.025.
EUROSTAT (2017). Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/8314163/3-16102017-BP-EN.pdf/d31fadc6-a284-47f3-ae1c-8212a581b0c1
EUROSTAT (2018). Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=teina225&plugin=1
Fritsche, I., Moya, M., Bukowski, M., Jugert, P., de Lemus, S., Decker, O., Valor-Segura, I., & Navarro-Carrillo, G. (2017). The great recession and group-based control: Converting personal helplessness into social class ingroup trust and collective action. Journal of Social Issues, 73, 117–137. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12207.
Garza, J. R., Glenn, B. A., Mistry, R. S., Ponce, N. A., & Zimmerman, F. J. (2017). Subjective social status and self-reported health among US-born and immigrant Latinos. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 19, 108–119. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-016-0346-x.
Gili, M., Roca, M., Basu, S., McKee, M., & Stuckler, D. (2013). The mental health risks of economic crisis in Spain: Evidence from primary care centers, 2006 and 2010. The European Journal of Public Health, 23, 103–108. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cks035.
Goldberg, D. P., & Hillier, V. F. (1979). A scaled version of the general health questionnaire. Psychological Medicine, 9, 139–145.
Greco, V., & Roger, D. (2001). Coping with uncertainty: The construction and validation of a new measure. Personality and Individual Differences, 31, 519–534.
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression based approach. New York: The Guilford Press.
Hewitt, B., Turrell, G., & Giskes, K. (2012). Marital loss, mental health and the role of perceived social support: Findings from six-waves of an Australian population based panel study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 66, 308–314.
Hiswåls, A. S., Marttila, A., Mälstam, E., & Macassa, G. (2017). Experiences of unemployment and well-being after job loss during economic recession: Results of a qualitative study in east Central Sweden. Journal of Public Health Research, 6, 995.
Horne, Z., & Powell, D. (2016). How large is the role of emotion in judgments of moral dilemmas? PLoS One, 11, e0154780. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0154780.
INE (2018). Retrieved from http://www.ine.es/
Jofre-Bonet, M., Serra-Sastre, V., & Vandoros, S. (2018). The impact of the great recession on health-related risk factors, behaviour and outcomes in England. Social Science & Medicine, 197, 213–225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.12.010.
Jonas, E., McGregor, I., Klackl, J., Agroskin, D., Fritsche, I., Holbrook, C., Nash, K., Proulx, T., & Quirin, M. (2014). Threat and defense: From anxiety to approach. In J. M. Olson & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 219–286). San Diego: Academic Press.
Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., & Keltner, D. (2009). Social class, the sense of control, and social explanation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 992–1004. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016357.
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. New York: Springer.
Li, B., Li, A., Wang, X., & Hou, Y. (2016). The money buffer effect in China: A higher income cannot make you much happier but might allow you to worry less. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 234. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00234.
Luhmann, M., Hawkley, L. C., Eid, M., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2012). Time frames and the distinction between affective and cognitive well-being. Journal of Research in Personality, 46, 431–441. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2012.04.004.
Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46, 137–155.
Marjanovic, Z., Greenglass, E. R., Fiksenbaum, L., & Bell, C. M. (2013). Psychometric evaluation of the financial threat scale (FTS) in the context of the great recession. Journal of Economic Psychology, 36, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2013.02.005.
McGregor, I., Zanna, M. P., Holmes, J. G., & Spencer, S. J. (2001). Compensatory conviction in the face of personal uncertainty: Going to extremes and being oneself. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 472–488. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.80.3.472.
McInerney, M., Mellor, J. M., & Nicholas, L. H. (2013). Recession depression: Mental health effects of the 2008 stock market crash. Journal of Health Economics, 32, 1090–1104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2013.09.002.
Merolla, J. L., Ramos, J. M., & Zechmeister, E. J. (2012). Authoritarianism, need for closure, and conditions of threat. In M. A. Hogg & D. Blaylock (Eds.), Extremism and the psychology of uncertainty (pp. 212–227). Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Monat, A., Averill, J. R., & Lazarus, R. S. (1972). Anticipatory stress and coping reactions under various conditions of uncertainty. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 237–253. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0033297.
Navarro-Carrillo, G., Valor-Segura, I., Lozano, L. M., & Moya, M. (2018a). Do economic crises always undermine trust in others? The case of generalized, interpersonal, and in-group trust. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1955. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01955.
Navarro-Carrillo, G., Valor-Segura, I., & Moya, M. (2018b). Do you trust strangers, close acquaintances, and members of your ingroup? Differences in trust based on social class in Spain. Social Indicators Research, 135, 585–597. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1527-7.
Ntountoulaki, E., Paika, V., Papaioannou, D., Guthrie, E., Kotsis, K., Fountoulakis, K. N., Carvalho, A. F., & Hyphantis, T. (2017). The relationship of the perceived impact of the current Greek recession with increased suicide risk is moderated by mental illness in patients with long-term conditions. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 96, 98–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2017.03.008.
OECD (2013). Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/oecd-report-measureshuman-cost-of-crisis-underlines-need-to-invest-in-well-being.htm
Park, H., Twenge, J. M., & Greenfield, P. M. (2014). The great recession: Implications for adolescent values and behavior. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5, 310–318. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550613495419.
Ruesga-Benito, S. M. (2013). Para entender la crisis económica en España. El círculo vicioso de la moneda única y la carencia de un modelo productivo eficiente. Economía Unam, 10, 70–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1665-952X(13)72188-1.
Sala, A. (2017). La desigualdad social aumenta en España a pesar del crecimiento. El Periódico. Retrieved from https://www.elperiodico.com/es/economia/20170116/desigualdad-social-aumenta-espana-crecimiento-davos-oxfam-5742308
Sánchez, M. P., Macías Saint-Gerons, D., de la Fuente-Honrubia, C., González-Bermejo, D., Montero-Corominas, D., & Catalá-López, F. (2013). Trends of use of anxiolytics and hypnotics in Spain from 2000 to 2011. Revista Española de Salud Publica, 87, 247-255.
Seeman, T., Thomas, D., Merkin, S. S., Moore, K., Watson, K., & Karlamangla, A. (2018). The great recession worsened blood pressure and blood glucose levels in American adults. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115, 3296–3301. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1710502115.
Smith, H. J., Pettigrew, T. F., Pippin, G. M., & Bialosiewicz, S. (2012). Relative deprivation: A theoretical and meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16, 203–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868311430825.
Tınaztepe, C. (2012). The effect of desire for change on the relationship between perceived uncertainty and job related affective well being. International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanity. Studies, 4, 127–136.
Urbanos-Garrido, R. M., & Lopez-Valcarcel, B. G. (2015). The influence of the economic crisis on the association between unemployment and health: An empirical analysis for Spain. The European Journal of Health Economics, 16, 175–184. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-014-0563-y.
Van Hal, G. (2015). The true cost of the economic crisis on psychological well-being: A review. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 8, 17–25. https://doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S44732.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070.
Whitehead, B. R., & Bergeman, C. S. (2017). The effect of the financial crisis on physical health: Perceived impact matters. Journal of Health Psychology, 22, 864–873. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105315617329.
Funding
This research was financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Ref. PSI2014-59659-R and Ref. PSI2017-83966-R [MINECO/AEI/FEDER/UE]) and by a Grant (FPU13/02478) from the FPU Program of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Conflict of Interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Navarro-Carrillo, G., Valor-Segura, I. & Moya, M. The consequences of the perceived impact of the Spanish economic crisis on subjective well-being: The explanatory role of personal uncertainty. Curr Psychol 40, 5286–5300 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00506-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00506-4