Does stress mediate the association between personal relative deprivation and gambling?

Evidence has linked subjective feelings of personal relative deprivation with general gambling involvement and problem gambling tendencies. In turn, problem gambling tendencies have been linked with a wide array of damaging physical and mental health consequences. It has been theorized that the deleterious effects of perceived inequality on mental and physical health operate at the individual level through the experience of personal relative deprivation leading to psychosocial stress. We empirically examined whether the experience of perceived stress contributes to explaining the deprivation-gambling link using cross-sectional, self-reported survey data collected from a crowdsourced population of adults (n = 565). Results indicate that personal relative deprivation is associated with problem gambling tendencies (but not general gambling involvement) and that this association is mediated by perceived stress. These associations were particularly strong among participants who reported non-zero levels of problem gambling tendencies. Together, our results further emphasize the importance of individual-level social comparison reactions in the context of health.