scholarly journals Experiential or Material Purchases? Social Class Determines Purchase Happiness

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (7) ◽  
pp. 1031-1039 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob C. Lee ◽  
Deborah L. Hall ◽  
Wendy Wood
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Wise Use ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Material Purchases ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
Lower Social Class

Which should people buy to make themselves happy: experiences or material goods? The answer depends in part on the level of resources already available in their lives. Across multiple studies using a range of methodologies, we found that individuals of higher social class, whose abundant resources make it possible to focus on self-development and self-expression, were made happier by experiential over material purchases. No such experiential advantage emerged for individuals of lower social class, whose lesser resources engender concern with resource management and wise use of limited finances. Instead, lower-class individuals were made happier from material purchases or were equally happy from experiential and material purchases.

Career Development of Lower Social Class Adolescents in South Korea

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 516-530
Author(s):  
Mae Hyang Hwang ◽  
Jihye Lee ◽  
Ae-Kyung Jung
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Career Development ◽  
Career Counseling ◽  
High School Seniors ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Phone Call ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
Lower Social Class

Despite increased efforts and a broadened understanding of social class and its impact on career development, the career development of lower social class adolescents and its interaction with sociocontextual factors remain understudied. The current study explored the educational and career experiences of South Korean high school seniors using a qualitative approach and the gender and social class career development model. Our sample included 14 lower class high school seniors who were preparing for different career paths after graduation. The data were collected at three time points, through two semistructured interviews, documents, and brief phone-call surveys. An inductive thematic analysis of 28 semistructured interviews and documentations revealed three domains with seven themes. The results demonstrated an influence of lower social class on adolescents’ socialization, access to resources, affectional and academic barriers, and academic and career attainment. The implications of the results for career counseling, interventions, policies, and future research are discussed.

scholarly journals International Migration, Livelihood Strategy, and Poverty Cycle

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Martua Sihaloho ◽  
Ekawati Sri Wahyuni ◽  
Rilus A. Kinseng ◽  
Sediono M.P. Tjondronegoro
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Livelihood Strategy ◽  
Poor Households ◽  
Lower Social Class ◽  
Social Climbing

Poverty drove Indonesian poor households (e.g. their family members) to find other livelihoods. One popular choice is becoming an international migrant. This paper describes and analyzes the change in agrarian structure which causes dynamics in agrarian poverty. The study uses qualitative approach and constructivism paradigm. Research results showed that even if migration was dominated by farmer households from lower social class; it also served as livelihood strategy for middle and upper social classes. Improved economics brought dynamics on social reality. The dynamic accesses to agrarian resources consist of (1) horizontal social mobility (means that they stay in their previous social class); (2) vertical social mobility in the form of social climbing; low to middle class, low to upper class, and middle class to upper class; and, (3) vertical social mobility in the form of social sinking: upper class to middle class, upper class to lower class, and middle class to lower class. The dynamic in social classes indicates the presence of agrarian poverty cycle, they are social climbing and sinking.

Influence of Social-Class Information and Spelling Mistakes on Judgment of Essays

1983 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Pieter Van Oudenhoven ◽  
Jan Withag
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
Class Information ◽  
Lower Social Class

In this study 244 student teachers had to assess an essay, in which number of spelling mistakes was varied. Class information was also manipulated. Both the presence of many spelling mistakes and the information that the student was of a lower social class evoked lower judgments. The results indicate that lower class children experience a double disadvantage when their essays are being assessed: the fact that they are less familiar with the standard language (spelling) as well as their social background subject them to lower judgments.

scholarly journals A brighter future: The effect of social class on responses to future debt

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-107
Author(s):  
Harrison J. Schmitt ◽  
Lucas A. Keefer ◽  
Daniel Sullivan ◽  
Sheridan Stewart ◽  
Isaac F. Young
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Personal Control ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
The United States ◽  
Exploratory Investigation ◽  
Lower Social Class ◽  
Subjective Social Class ◽  
Brighter Future

The present study serves as an exploratory investigation of the role of social class in responses to the threat of future debt. Previous work has shown that individuals of high and low subjective social class differ in the ways that they respond to a broad range of threats and uncertainties about the future. Across three studies, we found that lower social class individuals expect more future debt and suffer greater attendant stress than higher class individuals (Study 1). We found that experimental manipulations of debt salience increased stress for lower class and not for higher class individuals (Studies 2-3). Likewise, we found that higher class individuals experienced higher affect balance and perceptions of personal control when the possibility of future debt was made salient, specifically as a function of decreased fatalism about future debt (Study 3). These three studies reveal yet another situation in which individuals of lower and higher social class respond differently to threat, and serve as an important step toward understanding the psychological ramifications of rising debt in the United States.

The Class–Compassion Gap

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Piff ◽  
Jake P. Moskowitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
Subjective Perceptions ◽  
Mitigating Factors ◽  
Lower Social Class ◽  
And Behavior

Who is more likely to experience compassion: someone who is rich or someone who is poor? In this chapter, we review how psychological science can shed light on this question. We argue that social class differences in objective material resources (e.g., income) and corresponding subjective perceptions of rank produce self- versus other-oriented patterns of social cognition and behavior among upper- and lower-class individuals, respectively. Extending this framework to the domain of compassion, empirical studies find that individuals from lower social class backgrounds are more prone to feelings of compassion and more likely to behave in ways that are compassionate, including sharing with, caring for, and helping others, relative to individuals from higher social class backgrounds. We describe boundary conditions and mitigating factors to the class–compassion gap, and conclude by outlining important questions and lines of inquiry to guide future research.

‘Urfi marriage, an Egyptian Version of Cohabitation?

1970 ◽  
pp. 64-69
Author(s):  
Ikran Eum
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Young People ◽  
The State ◽  
Sexual Desires ◽  
Lower Social Class ◽  
State Pension

In Egypt, the term ‘urfi2 in relation to marriage means literally “customary” marriage, something that has always existed in Egypt but nowadays tends mostly to be secretly practiced among young people. Traditionally, according to Abaza,3 ‘urfi marriage took place not only for practical purposes (such as enabling widows to remarry while keeping the state pension of their deceased husbands), but also as a way of matchmaking across classes (since men from the upper classes use ‘urfi marriage as a way of marrying a second wife from a lower social class). In this way a man could satisfy his sexual desires while retaining his honor by preserving his marriage to the first wife and his position in the community to which he belonged, and keeping his second marriage secret.

Social class and envy among Chinese undergraduates: Victim justice sensitivity as a mediator

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
You-Juan Hong ◽  
Rong-Mao Lin ◽  
Rong Lian
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
Justice Sensitivity ◽  
Lower Social Class ◽  
Subjective Social Class ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Chinese Undergraduates

We examined the relationship between social class and envy, and the role of victim justice sensitivity in this relationship among a group of 1,405 Chinese undergraduates. The students completed measures of subjective social class, victim justice sensitivity, and dispositional envy. The results show that a lower social class was significantly and negatively related to envy and victim justice sensitivity, whereas victim justice sensitivity was significantly and positively related to envy. As predicted, a lower social class was very closely correlated with envy. In addition, individuals with a lower (vs. higher) social class had a greater tendency toward victim justice sensitivity, which, in turn, increased their envy. Overall, our results advance scholarly research on the psychology of social hierarchy by clarifying the relationship between social class and the negative emotion of envy.

Family Livelihood, Social Class and Mothers’ Self-cognition: The Transformation of “Mothering” in Japanese Colonial Taiwan (1895–1945)

2020 ◽  
pp. 036319902094573
Author(s):  
Yujen Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Household Tasks ◽  
New Women ◽  
Biological Mothers ◽  
Professional Careers ◽  
Taiwanese Women ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Japanese Colonial ◽  
Physical Care

Based on oral histories and diaries of women who lived in the Japanese colonial period, this article analyzes the role and transformation of “mothering” in Taiwan, examining how the Han Chinese patriarchal society in Taiwan responded to colonialization and modernization in the early twentieth century. It reveals that most Taiwanese women at that time married in their teens and began to take on the tasks of mothers before the age of twenty. Difference in social class served as a key element affecting mothering practices. Rural and lower-class mothers had no choice but to prioritize productive labor over physical childcare; women of the traditional upper class could afford nannies; the emerging group of “new women” hired lower-class women to help with household tasks and childcare while they developed their professional careers. In addition to the physical care of children, Taiwanese mothers put great emphasis on the education and future development of children, especially sons. However, as the custom of “daughters-in-law-to-be” was quite common, from an early age many girls faced only their “mothers-in-law-to-be” instead of their biological mothers. “Mothering” was thus absent in these women’s lives, complicating the meaning of “motherhood.”

Open But Segregated? Class Divisions And the Network Structure of Social Capital in Chile

Social Forces ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Otero ◽  
Beate Volker ◽  
Jesper Rozer
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Social Resources ◽  
Economic Capital ◽  
Economic Disadvantage ◽  
Occupational Class ◽  
Class Divisions ◽  
Heterogeneous Class

Abstract This paper studies how social capital is divided across classes in Chile, one of the most unequal countries in the world. We analyse the extent to which upper-, middle-, and lower class individuals congregate in social networks with similar others, while following Bourdieu and expecting that in particular the networks of the higher social strata are segregated in terms of social capital. We test our argument with large-scale, representative survey data for the Chilean urban population aged 18–75 years (n = 2,517) and build an integrated indicator of people’s social class that combines measures of education, occupational class, and household income. Our regression analyses show that upper-class individuals have larger networks and access to more varied and prestigious social resources than their middle- and lower class counterparts. Interestingly, however, we found a U-shaped relationship between social class and class homogeneity, indicating that network segregation is high at the top as well as at the bottom of the class-based social strata. In contrast, the classes in the middle have more heterogeneous class networks, possibly forming an important bridge between the “edges” of the class structure. These findings demonstrate that whereas social and economic capital cumulates in higher classes, the lower classes are socially deprived next to their economic disadvantage.

Social Class and Ethnicity Effects on Clinical Judgments

1978 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph D. Norman ◽  
Ricardo Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Treatment Recommendations ◽  
Clinical Judgments ◽  
Involuntary Hospitalization ◽  
Professional Help ◽  
Class Bias ◽  
Psychotic Behavior

To resolve conflict between earlier studies finding contradictory recommendations on need for professional help of middle- vs lower-class persons given normal, neurotic, and psychotic behavior descriptions, and to explore ethnicity effects, 92 students (70 Anglo, 22 Chicano) rated fictitious biographical vignettes. A pro-middle-class bias was found consistent with Routh and King's study but inconsistent with that by Schofield and Oakes. Also contrary to the latter, treatment recommendations agreed with ratings. Ethnicity bias appeared, since Anglos recommended Chicanos more often for involuntary hospitalization. Inconsistency between the two earlier studies results from a methodological variation, discussed in this study.

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