Fear of poverty – verification of its relationship to socio-economic status and selected personality variables
Fear of poverty – verification of its relationship to socio-economic status and selected personality variables

Summary/Abstract: In psychology literature, the interest in poverty is traditionally represented by two constructs – poverty attributes (Feagin, 1972; Heider, 1958) and the attitudes to poverty (Cozzarelli, Wilkinson, & Tagler, 2001). The present study proposes the concept of "the fear of poverty", which appears to be accessible to psychological research. In addition, based on the information from various transnational surveys (such as Eurobarometer), the concept presents the present reality for a considerable part of the Slovak population. When analyzing the fear of poverty, there are two ways of conceptually understanding this. One represents the view that the fear of poverty can be a manifestation of a more general personality trait, which predisposes the person to uncertainty and fear of future material shortage. In this way, the fear of poverty could be relatively independent of the person's situation. The other possibility is to consider the fear as the emotional consequence of the person's unfavorable economic or social situation. Due to the absence of relevant literature sources addressing the fear of poverty, the present research is of an exploratory nature. Research objective: The aim of the research was to examine the relationship between the indicators of socio-economic status (financial stress, education, employment status) and selected personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness) to the fear of poverty. Within the examined socio-economic variables, the hypothesis of a positive relationship between financial stress and the fear of poverty was formulated. We made the assumption that the unemployed and less-educated people would exhibit a higher level of the fear of poverty. Furthermore, we hypothesized a negative relationship between extraversion and the fear of poverty and a positive relationship of neuroticism and conscientiousness to the fear of poverty. Research method: A total of 115 respondents aged 18-62 (M = 32.35; SD = 11.16) participated in the survey, consisting of 58 men and 57 women. The respondents were from the Košice region.

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