This paper considers different ways of making comparisons between individuals in terms of deprivation and/or satisfaction. This allows the Gini index, the Bonferroni index and the De Vergottini index to be interpreted as social deprivation measures as well as social satisfaction measures. The inequality measures that belong to the [beta] family, or linear combinations of them, are obtained when using different weighting schemes to average the deprivation and satisfaction associated with each income level. Particularly, the generalised Gini indices (Yitzhaki, Int Econ Rev 24:617-628 in 1983), the indices proposed by Aaberge (J Econ Inequal 5(3):305-322, 2007) or those proposed by Imedio-Olmedo et al. (J Public Econ Theory 13(1):97-124, 2011) can be used to evaluate social deprivation or social satisfaction in an income distribution. (Contains 8 figures and 24 footnotes.)