The Relationship Between Social Class And Mental Health

With the rapid society transformation in China,the social class continues to divide and the material conditions are abundant increasingly.People experience tremendous changes from lifestyle to values.Social contexts of different classes have a profound impact on people's health,and materialism is also shaped.Social class and materialism infiltrate each other and have different degrees of influence on mental health.A questionnaire survey was conducted in 3563 adults to investigate the relationship between the social class and mental health(anxiety,depression,job happiness,life satisfaction).And the study explored the role of materialism in the relationship between the social class and mental health.It was found that:(1)After controlling the gender and age,the subjective social class could predict the illness construct of mental health negatively.The wellness construct were predicted positively.But there was significant positive correlation between the objective social class,illness and wellness construct of mental health.(2)The impact of subjective social class on mental health was moderated by materialism.The lower social class experienced lower anxiety,depression and higher happiness when they were highly materialistic.The higher social class experienced lower anxiety,depression and higher happiness when they were less materialistic.The study confirmed the forecasting effect of social class on mental health,viewed the impact of materialistic from a new perspective.The conclusions are as follows:(1)The study showed that the higher the subjective social class was,the higher mental health would be.However,for the objective class,the well-being of high-class is higher,the anxiety is also higher.(2)High-materialism compensated for the negative emotions among the lower social class,and could promote the happiness,while for the high social class,the individuals with low materialism experienced lower anxiety and depression,higher life satisfaction and job happiness.