Playing a rigged game: Inequality's effect on physiological stress responses

High income and wealth inequality corresponds with high rates of various health and social problems. One possible factor that could be contributing to this correlation is stress experienced by those being treated unfairly in an unequal society. The present experiment attempted to simulate aspects of income inequality in a lab setting while recording several measures of stress. Participants (n=96) were assigned to one of four groups and played a memory game against a confederate opponent to earn "money" to spend in a lab market. The four groups depended on the difficulty of the problems and the fairness of the game that they and their opponents experienced. Stress attitudes were assessed with the Short Stress State Questionnaire (SSSQ) and four physiological measures: salivary cortisol, medial frontalis and corrugator facial muscle EMG, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and skin conductance levels (SCL). Cortisol levels and HRV scores were the highest in groups that competed in an unfair game regardless of the difficulty of the problem compared to the groups playing a fair game. The group playing an unfair game with hard problems (disadvantaged) also had elevated facial muscle activity indicating negative affect and reported higher distress on the stress questionnaire. The results of this experiment showed that experiencing inequality even for a short time elicited several stress responses even if the participant benefited from the inequality.