This week’s subject was social class as culture. In our readings, social class is taken as not only a simple economic status, also as a cultural structure. Readings mainly focus on the psychological differences of individuals of subcultures which derived from different socioeconomic status.
Our textbook mainly points out how lower-class has more interdependent or collectivistic psychological features, whereas the higher class is more individualistic. Textbook provides us these comparisons from different aspects such as socialization, education, parenting etc. Individuals from lower class societies tend to form their social identities with the community they are a part of. I think this is a spot on aspect of social class. When we look at Turkey, we can see how people who come from low class neighborhoods tend to identify themselves with their neighborhoods more. Also, because the interdependency in lower classes is more intense relatively more than higher classes, textbook mentions how empathy and prosocial behaviors are prioritized in between lower-class individuals, whereas in high class individuals are more focused on their individuality and their own success.
In the research articles, the link between SES and meta-perception is studied. Results of the study show that different SES levels predict differences in the meta-perceptions of people from different social classes. According to the results of the study, people with lower SES tend to think people perceive them as colder, whereas for the people with high SES this situation is the opposite. Results also indicate that for the people with lower SES, the thought of being perceived as cold is not true. Another result of the study shows that in the context of social failure, people with lower SES tend to attribute this situation to the internal factors, whereas for the people with higher SES, this is also opposite. In the bonus article, social class, region and religion are taken as a cultural construct.
Accessibility of resources may provide people with more confidence. A person with high SES may find the resources, for example to study at a top-quality university such as Harvard, whereas a person with lower SES wouldn’t even dream of it. People with lower SES are more focused to provide for themselves and their family throughout their lives, while people with higher SES do not have the materialistic needs that lower-class people have. I believe the characteristics that are strongly linked with the social class of people are imposed to them by the system we live in. Capitalist system does not only create strong borders between the rich and poor, it also tries to create permanent characteristics for each class to protect the status quo. Even the differences in perception or the mentality of success is an indicator for this. These readings show the psychological results of depriving a large part of society from various sources, while offering the same sources to a narrower part of it.
Also, while I was reading the articles, it occurred to me that, not all of them, but most of the findings in here is very applicable in Turkey. Me and my family live in a neighborhood that is considered to be a ghetto, so while reading the textbook certain images immediately flashed in front of my eyes, such as defining yourself with your neighborhood as I mentioned before. As a more general example, the saying of “davul bile dengi dengine” is a very simple but a good example for this in my opinion. In our country, the borders between rich and poor are getting stronger every day and the psychological effects of this reality are actually harder than the effects in the readings for lower class people.
Lastly, I would like to indicate that class consciousness of an individual may be the key to break barriers such as internal attributions to failure. While carrying the cultural effects of a social class, I don’t think we have to accept the necessities our SES. Nobody on earth should be condemned to poverty or deprivation. But this is a more political topic rather than psychological.
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