The influence of social class salience on self-assessed inTelligence

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 859-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Kudrna ◽  
Adrian Furnham ◽  
Viren Swami

Previous research on self-assessed intelligence (SAI) has been focused on sex differences to the exclusion of other pertinent factors, including objective and subjective social class differences. In this study, 343 participants completed an online questionnaire in which the salience of social class identity was manipulated and measures of self-assessed overall intelligence, participant sex, and objective and subjective social class status were obtained. Results showed that participants of a high social class had a significantly higher SAI when their social class identity was salient, but there was no significant difference in the SAI of low social class groups with or without their social class identity salient. Results also revealed significant sex differences in SAI, but only among participants of a high social class. Overall, these results suggest that social class salience may be an important factor in shaping SAI.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isla Dougall ◽  
Mario Weick ◽  
Milica Vasiljevic

Within Higher Education (HE), lower social class staff and students often experience poorer wellbeing than their higher social class counterparts. Previous research conducted outside educational contexts has linked social class differences in wellbeing with differences in the extent to which low and high social class individuals feel respected (i.e., status), in control (i.e., autonomy), and connected with others (i.e., inclusion). However, to our knowledge, there has been no research that has investigated these factors within HE settings. Furthermore, inclusion, status and autonomy are correlated, yet little is known about how these factors contribute to wellbeing simultaneously, and independently, of one another. To fill these gaps, we report the results of two studies; firstly with HE students (Study 1; N = 305), and secondly with HE staff (Study 2; N = 261). Consistently across studies, reports of poor wellbeing were relatively common and more than twice as prevalent amongst lower social class staff and students compared to higher social class staff and students. Inclusion, status and autonomy each made a unique contribution and accounted for the relationship between social class and wellbeing (fully amongst students, and partially amongst staff members). These relationships held across various operationalisations of social class and when examining a range of facets of wellbeing. Social class along with inclusion, status and autonomy explained a substantial 40% of the variance in wellbeing. The present research contributes to the literature exploring how social class intersects with social factors to impact the wellbeing of staff and students within HE.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-189
Author(s):  
Anil Duman

Purpose The recent increase in economic inequalities in many countries heightened the debates about policy preferences on income distribution. Attitudes toward inequality vary greatly across countries and numerous explanations are offered to clarify the factors leading to support for redistribution. The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between subjective social class and redistributive demands by jointly considering the individual and national factors. The author argues that subjective measures of social positions can be highly explanatory for preferences about redistribution policies. Design/methodology/approach The author uses data from 48 countries gathered by World Values Survey and empirically tests the impact of self-positioning into classes by multilevel ordered logit model. Several model specifications and estimation strategies have been employed to obtain consistent estimates and to check for the robustness of the results. Findings The findings show that, in addition to objective factors, subjective class status is highly explanatory for redistributive preferences across countries. The author also exhibits that there is interaction between self-ranking of social status and national context. The author’s estimations from the multilevel models verify that subjective social class has greater explanatory power in more equal societies. This is in contrast to the previous studies that establish a positive link between inequality and redistribution. Originality/value The paper contributes to the literature by introducing subjective social class as a determinant. Self-ranked positions can be very relieving about policy preferences given the information these categorizations encompass about individuals’ perceptions about their and others’ place in the society.


1987 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Marjoribanks

This study examined relationships between family environments and the aspirations of 516 South Australian adolescents from six gender/social-class groups. Family environments were assessed initially when the adolescents were 11 years old when measures were obtained of parents' aspirations for their children and of their instrumental and affective orientations to learning. When the adolescents were 16 years old, their perceptions of their parents' support for learning and of their own aspirations were assessed. Regression surfaces were constructed from models that included terms to account for possible linear, interaction and curvilinear relationships. The findings suggested the propositions that parents' aspirations have a direct impact (a) on female adolescents' educational aspirations and (b) on the educational and occupational aspirations of male working-class adolescents, after considering the effect on aspirations of the adolescents' perceptions of parents' support. The results also indicated gender/social-class differences in the relationships between family environments and adolescents' aspirations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bek Wuay Tang ◽  
Jacinth Jia Xin Tan

Drawing on a recent perspective that inconsistent class identities can negatively impact psychological outcomes, the current research explored if the relative benefit of higher subjective social class for life satisfaction would differ depending on whether it is consistent with one’s objective social class. In Study 1, across two independent samples from Singapore (N = 1045) and the US (N = 492), higher subjective social class predicted higher life satisfaction more strongly among those high in objective social class, but less strongly among those low in objective social class. In Study 2, these patterns were replicated in another large US sample (N = 1030), and appeared to be driven by lower status-based identity uncertainty (SBIU) linked to higher subjective social class perceptions among high objective social class participants. The role of class-identity perceptions in explaining social class disparities in subjective well-being is discussed.


2008 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 238-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert K. Ream ◽  
Gregory J. Palardy

Emergent ethnographic research disentangles “social capital” from other components of social class (e.g., material and human capital) to show how class-stratified parental social networks exacerbate educational inequality among schoolchildren. The authors build upon this research by using survey data to reexamine whether certain forms of parental social capital create educational advantages for socioeconomically privileged students vis-à-vis their less economically fortunate peers. By drawing a distinction between the availability of social capital and its convertibility, the authors find that whereas larger stocks of parental social capital accompany higher rungs on the social class ladder, its educational utility is less clearly associated with class status. A possible exception to this pattern pertains to the educational utility of middle-class parents’ ideas about the collective efficacy of influencing school policies and practices. At issue is whether a more inclusive understanding of the material and sociological reasons for educational inequality can spur educationally useful social exchange among parents across social class boundaries.


Sociology ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 003803852097780
Author(s):  
Dieter Vandebroeck

This article presents an exercise in ‘cognitive class analysis’ by tackling the question of when young children first develop the ability to perceive and judge stereotypical representation of class identity. With the aid of a specifically designed visual methodology, 82 children aged 5 to 12, were asked to combine a series of figures into a set of ‘class families’, to assign different amounts of money to these families, to attribute an occupational status to the parents of each family and to indicate their most and least likeable family. Results show that children prove capable of perceiving and judging class stereotypes at a younger age than previous studies have suggested. A considerable number of 5- and 6-year-olds already demonstrate the ability to classify people on the basis of differences in dress and appearance and effectively recognize these classifications as based on differences in class position. In addition, visible markers of class-status also appear to play a role in shaping children’s preferences for different types of families and playmates.


Humaniora ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 523
Author(s):  
Linda Unsriana

Ijime or bullying is a common problem in Japanese schools, and even, ijime actions sometimes result in the victims or the victims commit to suicide. Ijime is also depicted in the Grotesqe novel on a character, Kazue Sato. Kazue Sato is a girl who desperately wants to enroll an elite girl school, Q school. The school is for students from high social class. Nevertheless, by passing the strict exams, intelligent students from different social classes can go to this school. Article  elaborates the relationship between social class differences in the actions of ijime, using a corpus of works Natsuo Kirino’s novel, Grotesque. After analyzing the data with descriptive method of analysis, it is found that there is a relationship between social class differences and ijime actions. Students from different social classes, although they are cleverer, cannot mingle with students from higher social classes. In fact, students from lower social classes experience ijime actions from other students.  


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 141-148
Author(s):  
Irina Ijboldina ◽  

The article analyzes the essays “Bessarabian Roads” by Mikhail Sadoveanu, written in the genre of ethnographic fiction, and the moral-descriptive novel by Georgy Bezvikonny “The Last Superfluous Man”. Our selection of works was based on the representativeness of these sources for the announced topic. M. Sadoveanu recreates a phantomatic picture of the micro-space of the Russian noble family of Madame Panina (1920s); the system of the images of these essays clearly reveals the atmosphere of social disorientation of the Russian population, as well as the manifestation of clear trends of integration into the Romanian social space. However, the family values, customs, traditions and the morals of the Russian family in Bessarabia during the interwar period retain some elements of continuity. G. Bezvikonny in details recreates the spirit of the era, its historical flavor, retrospectively reflects the life of a typical Bessarabian family with a high social class status (the so-called “Russian boyars”); in his novel, the biopsychological portrait of the family, constituted over generations, emerges in the detailed aspects of family values, customs and traditions. The above mentioned works also substantively consider the issues of “Bessarabian identity”, which were especially relevant in the aspect of studying the Russian family in the interwar period.


1972 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 987-997 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Fitzgibbons

A comparison of the factor structure of patients' self-perceived treatment needs between psychiatric patients of low and high social class showed strong similarity on several factors. Reports of need for help with marital and economic-vocational difficulties and psychotic symptoms were identical. The phenomenological experience of anxiety and depression was indistinguishable, but patients of high social class expected relief in improved interpersonal relations while patients of lower class sought relief in escape. Guilt appeared to be without specific referent in the lower-class group but associated with behavioral acts among higher class Ss. Groups differed in their reported feelings of inadequacy. Patients of higher class failed to attribute psychological difficulties to physical causes. The influence of patients' self-definition of disturbance upon choice of treatment is discussed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 073112142110405
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Andersson

Subjective social status, or one’s perceived rank within society, predicts individual health, often matching objective socioeconomic status (SES) indicators such as education or income in this capacity. While rank- or ladder-based measurement of subjective status is typical, subjective social class identification (e.g., seeing oneself as “working class” or “middle class”) remains a relatively neglected approach. Drawing on two recent national datasets and several measures of subjective status, I find that subjective class identification partly explains links between objective SES and subjective ladder scores. Adjusted distributions of ladder scores differ strikingly by subjective social class, with peaks and troughs highly dependent on class identity and ladder question wording. Crucially, subjective class and ladder systems both contribute to predicting self-rated health, net of each other and at similar, substantial levels. In sum, Americans significantly associate ladders with class. Thus, a sole emphasis on ladder-based approaches misses the categorical and cultural construction of subjective status, limiting our insight into health inequality.


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