The Consolation-Prize Theory of Alienation

According to the consolation-prize theory of alienation, low-status people feel less distressed by their situation when they reject responsibility for outcomes in their own lives. Recent evidence suggests this is false. Studies do not find that blaming chance, fate, or powerful others reduces the distress associated with low status. Failure to confirm the central tenet fo the consolation-prize theory of alienation ahs stimulated two new alternatives to it. One, called "illusory control as false consciousness," says the distress produced by low status can be canceled by an illusion of personal control. The other, called the "threshold of dysfunction," says that there are diminishing subjective returns to a greater sense of control, so that people with low status get the greatest subjective gains from an increase in control. Results from a community survey are consistent with a unified model. They indicate that (1) there is no limit to the subjective benefits of a greater sense of control due to greater status, (2) there are diminishing subjective returns to a greater sense of control when status is held constant, and (3) the optimum sense of control increases with higher status.