Financial scarcity is a fundamental condition for recipients of social welfare. We draw on scarcity theory to suggest that the condition of scarce resources may have a range of important psychological consequences for how welfare recipients’ cope with their problems, navigate citizen-state interactions, for their perceived ability to deal with their problems, and for their psychological well-being. In a field experiment using Danish unemployed social assistance recipients (N = 2,637), we test the psychological consequences of scarcity by randomly assigning recipients to be surveyed either shortly before payment of their social assistance benefits, shortly after, or mid-month. We find no impact of the scarcity manipulation and thus our main findings run counter to the idea that short-term changes in scarce financial conditions influence the mindsets of social welfare recipients. However, a series of exploratory cross-sectional regressions show that subjective scarcity, i.e. ‘the feeling of having too little’, is associated with an increased focus on solving problems, but negatively associated with psychological well-being, sense of mastery, and job search self-efficacy. We conclude that these correlates may reflect more long-term consequences of scarcity but that more and stronger causal evidence is needed given the cross-sectional nature of these data.

中文翻译：

---

稀缺性和社会福利接受者的心态：来自现场实验的证据

资金匮乏是社会福利接受者的基本条件。我们利用稀缺理论表明，资源稀缺的状况可能对福利接受者如何应对他们的问题、驾驭公民与国家的互动、他们感知到的处理问题的能力以及他们的心理健康。在一项使用丹麦失业社会援助接受者 (N = 2,637) 的实地实验中，我们通过随机分配接受者在支付社会援助福利之前不久、之后不久或月中接受调查，来测试稀缺性的心理后果。我们发现稀缺性操纵没有影响，因此我们的主要发现与稀缺金融状况的短期变化会影响社会福利接受者的心态的观点背道而驰。然而，一系列探索性横截面回归表明，主观稀缺性，即“拥有太少的感觉”，与解决问题的关注度增加相关，但与心理健康、掌控感和工作负相关。寻找自我效能感。我们得出结论，这些相关性可能反映了稀缺性的更长期后果，但鉴于这些数据的横截面性质，需要更多和更有力的因果证据。与解决问题的关注度增加相关，但与心理健康、掌控感和求职自我效能感呈负相关。我们得出结论，这些相关性可能反映了稀缺性的更长期后果，但鉴于这些数据的横截面性质，需要更多和更有力的因果证据。与解决问题的关注度增加相关，但与心理健康、掌控感和求职自我效能感呈负相关。我们得出结论，这些相关性可能反映了稀缺性的更长期后果，但鉴于这些数据的横截面性质，需要更多和更有力的因果证据。