(An Investigation of The Relationship Between Relative Deprivation and Perceived Stress: A Review on Academicians)

Abstract

Purpose – Factors such as workload, insufficient wages, insufficient physical working conditions, heavy course loads, the lack of sufficient financial resources and regulations to encourage participation in domestic and international scientific studies, continuously changing appointment and promotion criteria, and staff occupancy that are thought to be experienced by academic staff strengthen the idea that stress and deprivation are problems that should be taken into consideration for academicians. Therefore, this study was planned and conducted to examine the relationship between relative deprivation and perceived stress among academicians. Design/methodology/approach – The population of the study consists of academicians working at two public universities in Ankara. The "Perceived Stress Scale" (PSS) developed by Cohen et al. (1983) and the "Relative Deprivation Scale" developed by Callan et al. (2011) were used in the study. While evaluating the study data, frequency distribution for categorical variables and descriptive statistics for numerical variables were given. The independent samples t-test was used to examine the difference between categorical variables with two groups, and the "one-way analysis of variance" (ANOVA) was used to examine the difference between categorical variables with more than two groups. Pearson's correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between two numerical variables. Findings – According to the results of the study, it was determined that the mean relative deprivation score of academicians was close to high levels, and the mean perceived stress score was high. It was found that there was a high positive correlation between relative deprivation and perceived stress. Discussion – It was found that there was a high positive correlation between relative deprivation and perceived stress. Accordingly, perceived stress levels of individuals increase as relative deprivation increases. Considering that relative deprivation is a social and perceptual phenomenon, this finding is in line with expectations. In a ccordance w ith t his r esult, i t c an b e thought that the feeling of deprivation resulting from the perception of unequal and unfair results causes stress in academicians.