W10 – Social class and our preferences
This chapter provided me deeper understanding of how some ideas and values are shaped, so it has declined my prejudges towards some people and their thoughts I strongly disagreed with considering social class.
One’s position in society’s view and the prestige of the job may be associated with the feeling of insufficiency.
I was especially interested in people from different social classes who have different etiquette rules. I was curious about whether this difference comes from taking into account of social environment’s well-being, which may be considered more ethical in lower social class (according to the relationship between relatively lower social class and collectivism; and relatively upper social class and individualism). Instead, this difference can be built on everyday social interaction such as in traffic, the samplist term, throwing a cigarette on the ground, and people’s preferences, such as being vegan (can be high on individuals from higher social class).
Among his siblings with parents from working-class, my father is one of them who had I chance to go to the university, and compared to others, I can obviously see his different perception of life and sense of right and wrong. In light of this, though it expanded my understanding of my relatives, I was disappointed because of how their views were based on their social context, and economic conditions, namely external circumstances. How personal choice is located, specifically for working-class individuals?
The finding that people from the lower class perceive themselves as bonded to environmental conditions, whereas upper-class ones feel they have control over their lives can be studied considering psychological therapy. Western individual-based therapy settings and highlighting the importance of one’s own decision may not highly be worked on individuals from relatively lower class (that actually are affected by external conditions, especially economically).
After reading the findings of the relationship between social class and prosocial behavior, I wrote that the next research should examine the ’empathy’ in people from different social classes. Then, in the next paragraph, I saw some studies already done on this, even with neurological research. Linked to these studies, the feeling of ‘guilt’ can be worked in the condition of leaving someone or some group without help (both the participant in the position of who left others and participants’ assumption of the abandoner’s (not themselves) sense of guilt to the person and group left behind.
‘Nonoverlapping social environments’ made me question how class mobility is possible, or to what degree, concretely. Even so, we consider education as a way to move higher class, upper-class people probably have more chances to be informed on some education opportunities, such as some programs, and projects from some people who guide them.
People who have scarce resources tend to decide according to present material circumstances, whereas economically comfortable people can make their choices relying on long-term investments, reminded me of my friend who studies Linguistics at Boğaziçi University. This department does not promise many job opportunities after graduation, at least in the short term. Regardless of that, he could prefer studying Linguistics freely. Then, I learned his grandmother is a Professor at METU, while mine was a florist :’). Therefore, it is more reasonable how my parents do not allow me to enter the conservatory, considering our material position and the fact that I should be materially self-sufficient as soon as possible.
Reading life history strategies improved our discussions on the ecology chapter.
Considering interdependence in lower-class people and the link between social connection and well-being, it is not surprising politicians generally misuse these feelings by mentioning being ‘together’, ‘together and more powerful’ they are the ones who actually have the power and status.
In the Intelligence part, I remember from Assignment 1 that even the cultures’ perception of it differs. For example, intelligence is measured by communication skills in collectivist cultures, whereas it is linked to solving some mathematical problems in Western cultures. Despite intelligence can be affected by opportunities, abilities, and heritage, the need to compare intelligence across social classes or cultures must be adequately substantiated, otherwise, the researcher has the potential and bias to steer the study in the direction he or she expects.
According to economic inequality, in addition to people’s dissatisfaction with their external conditions and the prestige of jobs, their dissatisfaction with themselves and self-efficacy can be studied, especially considering the ones responsible for their families.
The distinction in the US (which has an individualistic culture, generally) people care about subjective social status, on the other hand, in Japan (which has a collectivist culture, generally) people are concerned with objective social status, (considering social status & economic relations) reminded me that in Turkey, has interdependent culture in some ways, people care so much about the model of the car they drive and how ‘cool’ it is that they go into debt and buy the ones that are way beyond their financial capacity, while their hypothetical European counterparts in the same social class are content with much more modest cars.
‹ W7 – from Prenatal Development to Beyond
Hello Zeynep! Thank you for such a detailed analysis of the articles. I think that overall you touched on many important topics. I like how you outlined that psychotherapy could vary according to the social class. I agree that strategies offered in Western individual-based therapy cannot always work for people from lower class. Thank you for sharing your personal stories, for example the story about your friend from Bogazici and about how he has opportunities to implement something, which does not necessarily brings monetary reward. Overall, your succeeded to connect the week’s topic with your own reflections and examples. I just would like to notice, that some parts of the text were hard to process, probably because of how long sentences were.
RENEWED VERSION:
This chapter provided me deeper understanding of how some ideas and values are shaped, so it has declined my prejudges towards some people and their thoughts I strongly disagreed with considering social class.
I interpret that one’s position in society’s view and the prestige of the job may be associated with the feeling of insufficiency. If individuals perceived themselves as competent, they might place less importance on society’s judgment. Nonetheless, I conclude that these concepts are intrinsically interconnected.
I was especially interested in people from different social classes with different etiquette rules. I was curious about whether this difference comes from taking into account of social environment’s well-being, which may be considered more ethical in lower social class (according to the relationship between relatively lower social class and collectivism; and relatively upper social class and individualism). Instead, this difference can be built on everyday social interaction such as in traffic, the samplist term, throwing a cigarette on the ground, and people’s preferences, such as being vegan (can be high on individuals from higher social class).
Among his siblings with parents from the working class, my father is one of them who had I chance to go to the university, and compared to others, I can obviously see his different perception of life and sense of right and wrong. In light of this, though it expanded my understanding of my relatives, I was disappointed because of how their views were based on their social context, and economic conditions, namely external circumstances. How personal choice is located, specifically for working-class individuals?
The finding that people from the lower class perceive themselves as bonded to environmental conditions, whereas upper-class ones feel they have control over their lives can be studied considering psychological therapy. Western individual-based therapy settings and highlighting the importance of one’s own decision may not highly be worked on individuals from relatively lower class (that actually are affected by external conditions, especially economically). Since it may be impractical to change the current circumstances, the focus should be on improving people’s well-being and mental health under these conditions where they are economically and socially dependent on their environment.
After reading the findings of the relationship between social class and prosocial behavior, I wrote that the next research should examine the ’empathy’ in people from different social classes. Then, in the next paragraph, I saw some studies already done on this, even with neurological research. Linked to these studies, the feeling of ‘guilt’ can be worked in the condition of leaving someone or some group without help (both the participant in the position of who left others and participants’ assumption of the abandoner’s (not themselves) sense of guilt to the person and group left behind.
‘Nonoverlapping social environments’ made me question how class mobility is possible, or to what degree, concretely. Even so, we consider education as a way to move higher class, upper-class people probably have more chances to be informed on some education opportunities, such as some programs and projects from some people who guide them.
People with scarce resources tend to decide according to present material circumstances whereas economically comfortable people can make their choices relying on long-term investments, reminded me of my friend who studies Linguistics at Boğaziçi University. This department does not promise many job opportunities after graduation, at least in the short term. Regardless of that, he could prefer studying Linguistics freely. Then, I learned his grandmother is a Professor at METU, while mine was a florist :’). Therefore, it is more reasonable how my parents do not allow me to enter the conservatory, considering our material position and the fact that I should be materially self-sufficient as soon as possible.
Reading life history strategies improved our discussions on the ecology chapter.
Considering interdependence in lower-class people and the link between social connection and well-being, it is not surprising politicians generally misuse these feelings by mentioning being ‘together’, ‘together and more powerful’ they are the ones who actually have the power and status.
In the Intelligence part, I remember from Assignment 1 that even the cultures’ perception of it differs. For example, intelligence is measured by communication skills in collectivist cultures, whereas it is linked to solving some mathematical problems in Western cultures. Although intelligence can be affected by opportunities, abilities, and heritage, I believe the need to compare intelligence across social classes or cultures must be adequately substantiated. Otherwise, the researcher has the potential and bias to steer the study in the direction he or she expects.
According to economic inequality, in addition to people’s dissatisfaction with their external conditions and the prestige of jobs, I assume their dissatisfaction with themselves and self-efficacy can be studied, especially considering the ones responsible for their families.
The distinction in the US (which has an individualistic culture, generally) people care about subjective social status; on the other hand, in Japan (which has a collectivist culture, in general) people are concerned with objective social status, (considering the social status and economic relations) reminded me that in Turkey, has interdependent culture in some ways. For instance, people care so much about the model of the car they drive and how ‘cool’ it is that they go into debt and buy the ones that are way beyond their financial capacity, while their hypothetical European counterparts in the same social class are content with much more modest cars.