Reddit reviews The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die

Sadly, the physical sensation of feeling like you're moving backwards while the train next to you starts moving forwards directly translates to our sociological understanding of the world; humans use comparison extensively to create and mold their view of a moral and just world. When a lot of socio-economic progress is made for everyone but a single individual (or group of individuals), it is very easily translated into a feeling of moving backwards. Again, this is because humans create their understanding of the world by making comparisons and if, from an individual's perspective, everyone else is moving forward, that can just as easily feel as if the individual is moving backward.

Check out The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die. The author examines a wide range of socio/psych experiments to understand exactly how inequality and shifts in status affect the human brain.

EDIT: some grammar