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Does latent deprivation lead to psychological distress? Investigating Jahoda's model in a four‐wave study
Author(s) -
Selenko Eva,
Batinic Bernad,
Paul Karsten
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of occupational and organizational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.257
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 2044-8325
pISSN - 0963-1798
DOI - 10.1348/096317910x519360
Subject(s) - psychology , structural equation modeling , psychological distress , unemployment , mediation , distress , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , mental health , psychiatry , statistics , mathematics , economic growth , political science , law , economics
Unemployment has serious negative effects on psychological health, and yet the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. According to the latent deprivation model, it is the lack of latent benefits of work associated with unemployment, which leads to psychological distress. In a four‐wave study among employed persons, unemployed persons, and persons out of the labour force (OLF) ( N T1 = 1,026), this assumption was tested cross‐sectionally as well as longitudinally. Multiple mediation analyses show the expected differences in distress between the employed, unemployed, and OLF persons and indicate that part of this difference can be explained by differential access to the latent benefits. Furthermore, cross‐lagged structural equation modelling confirms that a deprivation of latent benefits leads to a decrease in psychological health 6 months later. Findings regarding the different quality of the latent benefits in relation to each other and over time when predicting psychological health are discussed.