{"id":408494,"date":"2026-01-15T09:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/408494\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T09:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:48:09","slug":"research-shows-the-2008-recession-had-one-major-lasting-psychological-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/408494\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Shows The 2008 Recession Had One Major Lasting Psychological Impact"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Great Recession of 2008<\/a> marked a particularly difficult time for Americans, with effects that reverberated around the world. Few remained unscathed as lay-offs and foreclosures mounted. While the biggest impact of this era may have been on people\u2019s finances, it certainly hit them hard psychologically as well.<\/p>\n

One group of researchers wanted to determine just how intense the mental strain was on Americans who lived through the Great Recession. Their findings, published in the journal Psychological Science<\/a>, indicate that out of all the ways the recession affected people, there was one major impact that has continued to last for the almost two decades since.<\/p>\n

The Great Recession changed people\u2019s perception of their class identity.<\/p>\n

Researchers said, \u201cClass identity refers to the social and economic position in society of which people consider themselves a member (e.g., working or middle class).\u201d Typically, we think of class identity as something that is pretty fixed. Obviously, if you won a huge lottery jackpot, your class would change, but that doesn\u2019t happen often or easily.<\/p>\n

\"woman Karola G | Pexels<\/p>\n

Eric W. Dolan reported on the study for PsyPost<\/a>. He said that the researchers used four different datasets with 164,296 total participants to determine how people\u2019s perceptions of their class shifted, as each of the datasets asked participants to regularly list which class they identified with. The datasets showed that after 2008, most people began to identify with a lower class than they did previously.<\/p>\n

Study author and assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside, Stephen Antonoplis, noted, \u201cThe main takeaway is that people\u2019s sense of \u2018where they stand\u2019 in society is not set in stone. It is dynamic and responsive to the world around them, including both changes in their finances or employment and changes in the broader culture \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED: The Annoying Reason Men Can Only Seem To Do One Thing At A Time, According To Science<\/a><\/p>\n

This proves that social class is not set by predetermined variables as you might expect.<\/p>\n

This is pretty interesting, because it has always seemed like one\u2019s social class was fixed and determined by outside factors. Your own opinion certainly never seemed to play a role in it. And yet, the factors for what puts someone in a certain social class are pretty murky.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the middle class, Jeffrey M. Jones<\/a>, senior editor at Gallup, said it\u2019s really based on how you feel. \u201cIt\u2019s more of a feeling,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about economic security, being able to afford what you need, but then also maybe a bit beyond the basics.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Gallup\u2019s 2024 Economy and Personal Finance poll<\/a>, 54% of Americans identify as middle class. 31% think of themselves as working class. 12% said they are lower class, and only 2% claimed to be upper class. Gallup did note that these results follow a pattern they have observed since the Great Recession, before which Americans were \u201cless likely to say they belonged to the working or lower class.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED: The Wild Thing That Might Actually Be Happening When Your Mind Goes Blank, According To Research<\/a><\/p>\n

The way people felt they had regressed an entire social class during the Great Recession shows how damaging it was.<\/p>\n

The fact that there are no real parameters for belonging to a certain social class and the assertion that it\u2019s just a \u201cfeeling\u201d make it pretty clear that it\u2019s all just a social construct. Still, it is notable that so many people felt like their social class decreased after the Great Recession. It shows what a big impact that event had on Americans.<\/p>\n

\"woman Karola G | Pexels<\/p>\n

According to a study published in Behavioral Sciences<\/a>, \u201cA significant relationship was found between periods of economic recession and increased depressive symptoms, self-harming behavior, and suicide during and following periods of recession.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going through a financial downturn isn\u2019t just hard from an economic standpoint. Things like your job and your house become part of your identity, and losing those things means your mental health takes a major hit. It\u2019s no wonder that so many people felt like they took a step back in society after such a rough period.<\/p>\n

RELATED: The More Modest You Are, You’re Better At Regulating One Part Of Your Personality, According To Research<\/a><\/p>\n

Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor\u2019s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Great Recession of 2008 marked a particularly difficult time for Americans, with effects that reverberated around the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,12554,101,3085,1630,152,9077,12177,259,30606,14443,2812,1247],"class_list":["post-408494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-class","tag-economy","tag-entertainment-and-news","tag-entertainment-news","tag-finances","tag-financial","tag-identity","tag-mental-health","tag-middle-class","tag-recession","tag-self","tag-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}