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Social Class, Psychological Wellbeing and Minority Status in Northern Ireland

Psychology, Psychology Department and Centre for the Study of Conflict, University of Ulster

The present study sought to evaluate the completing claims of the social stress hypothesis and the social selection hypothesis which both claim to explain the relationship between social class and psychopathology. Scores on a self-report measure of psychological wellbeing, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) were obtained from a random sample of 581 respondents in Northern Ireland. An analysis of variance comparing majority (Protestant) and minority (Catholic) group males and females at three socioeconomic levels produced a Religion X Social Status interaction. This was due to a trend of increasing symptoms with decreasing social status among Protestants and the reverse phenomenon among Catholics. It was concluded that the results while similar to those reported earlier by Cochrane and Stopes-Roe, provided no clear support for either the social selection hypothesis or the social stress hypothesis but were possibly related to local factors connected with emigration or the ongoing political violence in Northern Ireland.

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. 35, No. 3, 231-236 (1989)
DOI: 10.1177/002076408903500303


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