The role of perceived stress and attributional style in the relationship between personal relative deprivation and self-criticism

Objective: This study aimed to examine the relationship between personal relative deprivation and self-criticism, and to test the underlying psychological mechanisms of this relationship by investigating the mediating roles of perceived stress and depressive attributional style.
Method: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 317 participants recruited from China. Participants completed validated self-report measures assessing relative deprivation, perceived stress, depressive attribution, and self-criticism. A bootstrapping serial mediation analysis (PROCESS Model 6) was employed to test the hypothesized pathways.
Results: The findings revealed that personal relative deprivation was positively associated with self-criticism. Moreover, a significant serial mediation effect was observed, indicating that relative deprivation predicted higher perceived stress, which in turn increased depressive attributional tendencies, ultimately resulting in elevated self-criticism.
Conclusion: These results support a serial mediation model in which perceived stress and depressive attribution sequentially explain the relationship between relative deprivation and self-criticism. The findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of how relative deprivation shapes self-evaluative processes and offer practical implications for interventions aimed at reducing self-critical thinking patterns. All rights reserved.