Relative deprivation and an avoidance coping in network communication

Abstract

Objective: the relationship between a relative deprivation and communication in social networks, in particular, with avoidance coping in the situations of communicative difficulties. Background: the study is focused on coping with difficult situations through the analysis of meta-determinants of construction of the representations about social world, in particular, in the conditions of social network interaction among youth persons. Study design and participants: the study was conducted as a survey involving 193 active users of the social network Vkontakte. Measurements: a double mediation model was tested with a relative deprivation as an independent variable, avoidance coping as a dependent variable, and a perceived threat and an attribution of aggressive intentions as the mediators of this relationship. Results: the results indicate that a relative deprivation is associated with an increase of perceived threat, which in turn increases a likelihood of attributing to people with dissimilar values and attitudes of “bad” intentions and leads to avoiding network interaction. At the same time, the results demonstrate that group threat does not a significant mediator of the relationship between a relative deprivation and network behavior. Conclusions: relative deprivation is associated with avoidance coping in social network communication both directly and indirectly through the actualization of additional social and cognitive variables.