Are the relatively deprived going to act in social movements?: Behavioral principles of the individual actors by means of extended preferences

Abstract

A rationalist view of Relative Deprivation is possible if it is represented with extended preference. In the social movements studies, the concept of relative deprivation has been treated as an intervening variable, which is determined by the interpersonal comparisons and causes the social movements. The most important problem is whether a relatively deprived individual has an incentive for social movements or not. On the one hand he has different reference persons to whom he experiences relative deprivation and a sense of his subjective welfare, which make him behave in respective ways. But on the other hand he can behave in only one way at one time. We formalize the concept of the relative deprivation and construct the model that the relative deprivation and his preference in the ordinary sense are both the factors determining his behavior. Then it is deduced that there's no effect of the feeling relative deprivation for each individual to decide his way under some adequate conditions. So it should be concluded that the concept of the relative deprivation is not effective to explain social movements or social change in collectivities.