Attitudes Toward the Unemployed Receiving Social Security Benefits

Abstract

Though there appear to have been a number of psychological studies done in the 1930s and 1970s on the consequence of unemployment, there seem to be very few studies on attitudes toward the unemployed receiving social security benefits or attitudes toward welfare in general. This study examined the effect of sex, education, and voting pattern of over 170 subjects on their attitudes toward people receiving social security benefits. Both education and vote appeared to be important factors in predicting people's attitudes, though there were few sex or interaction effects. A factor analysis of the attitude items revealed three factors indicating that the attitudes centered around the difficulty of coping with the amount of benefit provided; beliefs about people being dishonest about their needs and abusing benefit payments; and the loss of self-esteem and stigma associated with being on social security. Results are discussed in terms of the psychology of explanations, and the implications for social change were noted.