scholarly journals Collective Strategy Condensation: When Envy Splits Societies

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Claudius Gros
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Strategy ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Class Separation ◽  
Class Stratification ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Basic Reference ◽  
Pure Strategies ◽  
Classical Particles ◽  
Collective Strategy

Human societies are characterized by three constituent features, besides others. (A) Options, as for jobs and societal positions, differ with respect to their associated monetary and non-monetary payoffs. (B) Competition leads to reduced payoffs when individuals compete for the same option as others. (C) People care about how they are doing relatively to others. The latter trait—the propensity to compare one’s own success with that of others—expresses itself as envy. It is shown that the combination of (A)–(C) leads to spontaneous class stratification. Societies of agents split endogenously into two social classes, an upper and a lower class, when envy becomes relevant. A comprehensive analysis of the Nash equilibria characterizing a basic reference game is presented. Class separation is due to the condensation of the strategies of lower-class agents, which play an identical mixed strategy. Upper-class agents do not condense, following individualist pure strategies. The model and results are size-consistent, holding for arbitrary large numbers of agents and options. Analytic results are confirmed by extensive numerical simulations. An analogy to interacting confined classical particles is discussed.

scholarly journals Self-induced class stratification in competitive societies of agents: Nash stability in the presence of envy

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 200411
Author(s):  
Claudius Gros
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Simulations ◽  
Utility Function ◽  
Mixed Strategy ◽  
Reference Model ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Analytic Treatment ◽  
Class Stratification ◽  
Basic Reference ◽  
Pure Strategies

Envy, the inclination to compare rewards, can be expected to unfold when inequalities in terms of pay-off differences are generated in competitive societies. It is shown that increasing levels of envy lead inevitably to a self-induced separation into a lower and an upper class. Class stratification is Nash stable and strict, with members of the same class receiving identical rewards. Upper-class agents play exclusively pure strategies, all lower-class agents the same mixed strategy. The fraction of upper-class agents decreases progressively with larger levels of envy, until a single upper-class agent is left. Numerical simulations and a complete analytic treatment of a basic reference model, the shopping trouble model, are presented. The properties of the class-stratified society are universal and only indirectly controllable through the underlying utility function, which implies that class-stratified societies are intrinsically resistant to political control. Implications for human societies are discussed. It is pointed out that the repercussions of envy are amplified when societies become increasingly competitive.

Plural StratiWcation: Colour-Class and Culture

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Colour Class ◽  
Piped Water ◽  
Class Stratification ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
East Indians

Urbanization in Kingston since independence, as the previous chapter demonstrated, has placed a very heavy burden on the already disadvantaged lower class. This burden is expressed in their dependence on the informal sector of employment, high rates of unemployment, rental of high-density accommodation (or outright squatting), shared access to toilet facilities, and lack of piped-water connections in the tenements—all these problematic characteristics piling up in the downtown areas—quintessentially in West Kingston. There is clearly a stratification of living conditions ranging from affluence in the uptown suburbs via a modicum of comfort in the middle zone around Half Way Tree and Cross Roads to outright deprivation in the downtown neighbourhoods. It was argued in the previous chapter that this stratification of living conditions is underpinned by class-differentiated neighbourhoods; as this chapter will show, these circumstances mesh with—and reinforce—colour-class stratification and cultural pluralism, or what I have called plural stratification (to distinguish it from class stratification alone). After the Second World War, it became the conventional wisdom among Caribbean social scientists (of local birth) to depict Jamaica—and the Windward and Leeward Islands—as colour-class stratifications. This had the advantage of linking these Caribbean stratifications to occupational/class systems in the US and Europe, while pointing to a colonial history of colour differentiation, which shadowed class and reinforced it. So, the upper class was white or pass-as-white, the middle class brown and black, and the lower class black with some brown (Henriques 1953: 42). A number of racially or ethnically distinct groups originally fell outside this colour-class stratification, but had, over time, been accommodated within it: Jews were absorbed into the upper class, as were the Syrian professionals; Chinese, the remaining Syrians, and a few East Indians were middle class; the majority of East Indians were lower class. Two further aspects of colour-class need underlining. There was a tendency for its advocates to regard class as unproblematic and consensual, as in the American tradition of social analysis (Parsons 1952). In short, the whole colour-class system was dependent upon the almost complete acceptance by each group of the superiority of the white, and the inferiority of the black (Henriques 1953).

Class Incorporated: Stratified Patterns of Academic Engagement at a Highly Selective University

2021 ◽  
pp. 136078042110138
Author(s):  
Megan Thiele ◽  
Amy Leisenring
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Academic Engagement ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Elite University ◽  
Selective University ◽  
Academic Activities ◽  
Class Stratification ◽  
Achievement Beliefs

This research examines the influence of social class stratification on students’ self-reported academic engagement. Drawing from 44 interviews with students from the three major class groups at an elite university, we show how social class patterns academic engagement. We analyze academic engagement along the following four domains: strategies for academic achievement, beliefs in personal ability, connections to academics, and the alignments between academic activities and career plans (Wang and Castenada-Sound, 2008). Counterintuitively, compared to both upper class and students from the lower class, middle-class students reported the lowest levels of academic engagement. We discuss possible explanations for these non-linear findings. We conclude by recommending that our traditional conceptions of academic engagement need to take social class into account, and further, that policy makers consider scaffolding for all non-upper class students within elite spaces.

‘Tales of Wonder and Horror’: Coverage of insanity in the Leeds press, 1808-1840

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Evgeniya Kryssova
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
The Body ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Periodical Literature ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
The North ◽  
The Press

<p>The press was at the centre of the reform of the meaning of insanity, during its evolution from an equivocal eighteenth-century concept of melancholia to a medicalised Victorian notion of ‘lunacy’. During the late Georgian era newspapers provided a public forum for the opinion of newly emerging psychiatric practitioners and fostered the fears and concerns about mental illness and its supposed increase. The press was also the main source of news on crime, providing readers with reports on criminal insanity and suicide. In the first half of the nineteenth century, newspaper contents included official legal reports, as well as editorial commentary and excerpts from other publications, and newspaper articles can rarely be traced to one single author. Historians of British insanity avoid consulting periodical literature, choosing to use asylum records and coroners’ reports, as these sources are more straightforward than newspapers. However, Rab Houston’s recent study of the coverage of suicide in the north of Britain shows that the provincial press has been unjustly overlooked and can offer the material for a unique social analysis. Asylum records and coroners’ records do not contain the same detail provided in the press. Newspaper commentary can arguably reveal contemporary attitudes towards insanity and, moreover, sources such as asylum records only deal with the lower-class patients, as the middle- and upper-class insane were usually privately detained.  This thesis examines the press coverage of insanity in Leeds newspapers, and expands on previous research by looking at the way insanity was portrayed in the two most popular publications in the industrial region of Yorkshire: the Leeds Intelligencer and the Leeds Mercury. Chapter one focuses on legal cases that featured a verdict of insanity and explores the language used by the press in the reports of, mainly, violent domestic crime. Chapter two looks at reports of suicide and considers how contemporary views on financial and moral despondency influenced the portrayal of self-murder. Chapter three considers editorial articles that cannot be described as either crime or suicide reports. This chapter uncovers the presence of surprisingly humorous and entertaining articles on insanity found in editorials and the ‘Miscellany’ sections of the newspapers. Ultimately, this thesis argues that the reportage of insanity in the Leeds press was sensational, moralistic and selectively sympathetic; furthermore, such portrayal of insanity was reinforced throughout the body of the paper. Leeds newspapers segregated the insane by adopting a moralising tone and by choosing to use class-specific language towards the insane of different social ranks.</p>

scholarly journals Language and Politics: Prose as a Medium of Societal Apartheid in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-74
Keyword(s):  
Lower Class ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Contextual Approach ◽  
Class Discrimination ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Language And Politics ◽  
Aristotelian Rhetoric ◽  
At Home

This paper studies the use of prose in Julius Caesar as a tool of political and social apartheid and class discrimination. Usually, Shakespeare assigns blank verse to upper-class characters and prose to lower class ones. The study analyzes three occasions in which prose is used by two patricians and an eloquent cobbler. The paper means to explain the diversion of patricians to prose and add another voice to the already heaping interpretations given in criticism. It argues that the diversion of the two patricians to prose has two functions. Firstly, it shows that prose is indigenous to the poor and the patricians use it when they address the poor or talk about them. Secondly, Shakespeare shows that the diversion of the patricians to prose is a wrong choice and leads to moral depravity or failure of mission. In contrast, the cobbler uses prose effectively because it is indigenous to him and he feels at home using it. The study uses the contextual approach to analyze the three speeches. Keywords: Prose, blank verse, patricians, plebeians, Aristotelian rhetoric, republican politics.

scholarly journals Symbolic Violence in Children’s Stories: Content Analysis in Bobo Magazine

Society ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 677-694
Author(s):  
Rahma Isnania ◽  
Nanang Martono ◽  
Tri Rini Widyastuti
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Content Analysis Method ◽  
Children's Stories ◽  
Class Habitus

The upper-class dominates various social spaces in society, including children’s stories. Children’s stories as a means of socializing values also participate in socializing upper-class habitus in the storyline. This study aims to describe the children’s habitus as narrated in short stories published in Bobo magazine. The method used in this study is the quantitative content analysis method and critical discourse analysis. This study’s object is about 174 short stories published in Bobo magazine from January 2019 to August 2020, of which 110 stories were taken randomly as samples. The results show that most of the children’s habitus narrated in the stories were upper-class children’s habitus, reaching out to 87 or 79.1% of all stories. Meanwhile, lower-class children’s habitus was found in 30.9% of all stories. The habitus of upper-class children featured in the story consisting of go on an excursion, luxury living, own electronic goods, own expensive good, wearing nightgowns, reading, and writing. On the other side, the habitus of lower-class children habitus featured in the story consisting of playing traditional games, living in poverty, and doing lower-class work. In conclusion, the upper-class children’s habitus appears more dominantly within short stories in Bobo magazine. This study’s results are expected as recommend to parties related to children’s stories publication to present more balanced stories.

scholarly journals Analisis Kekerasan Simbolik dalam Buku Pelajaran Pendidikan Agama Islam di Sekolah Dasar

2020 ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Nur Ika Fatmawati ◽  
Aninditya Sri Nugraheni ◽  
Ahmad Sholikin
Keyword(s):  
Elementary Schools ◽  
Religious Education ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
School Level ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Educational Strategy ◽  
Literature Study ◽  
The Media ◽  
Class Habitus

This research explains about symbolic violence in Islamic religious education books is rarely done. It also checks whether or not the books used so far contain symbolic violence, because there should be no difference in religious education between upper-class and lower-class. The formulation of the problems in this study are; how the mechanism of symbolic violence in Islamic religious education textbooks in elementary schools, and how the proportion of upper-class habitus and lower-class habitus in Islamic religious education textbooks in elementary schools. This research is a qualitative study with the type of literature study. The results showed that symbolic violence still occurred in elementary schools. The mechanism that runs is through an educational strategy by hiding the process of symbolic violence in the curriculum or what we know as the hidden curriculum. One of the media used to perpetrate violence is a textbook. In Islamic Religious Education textbooks for elementary school level), there is an element of upper-class domination over the lower class. The dominance of the upper-class over the lower-classes can be seen from the proportion of habitus presented in the textbook, the number of upper-class habitus presented through sentences and pictures illustrated is far greater than the lower-class habitus.

scholarly journals Partner Commitment in Close Relationships Mitigates Social Class Differences in Subjective Well-Being

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacinth Jia Xin Tan ◽  
Michael W. Kraus ◽  
Emily Impett ◽  
Dacher Keltner
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Close Relationships ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
The Relationship

Close relationships can be a source of positive subjective well-being for lower-class individuals, but stresses of lower-class environments tend to negatively impact those relationships. The present research demonstrates that a partner’s commitment in close relationships buffers against the negative impact of lower-class environments on relationships, mitigating social class differences in subjective well-being. In two samples of close relationship dyads, we found that when partners reported low commitment to the relationship, relatively lower-class individuals experienced poorer well-being than their upper-class counterparts, assessed as life satisfaction among romantic couples (Study 1) and negative affect linked to depression among ethnically diverse close friendships (Study 2). Conversely, when partners reported high commitment to the relationship, deficits in the well-being of lower-class relative to upper-class individuals were attenuated. Implications of these findings for upending the class divide in subjective well-being are discussed.

The Lady Lisle

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Ifill
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Class Child

The Lady Lisle features two near-identical boys from different ends of the social spectrum. The possibility of altering the development of their inborn natures through upbringing and education is explored and contested when the two are swapped by the villain, Major Varney. The upper-class child is sent to a middle-class school where he is raised in such a way as to negate detrimental qualities which initially seemed innate. Contrastingly, the lower-class child, James, impersonates the true heir and proves to be selfish, violent and eventually murderous, like his father. Yet it is never entirely clear to what extent James’s behaviour is due to heredity or to his emotionally abusive upbringing. A shift in narrative tone is identified which moves from making allowances for James due to ‘nurture’ towards castigating him as bad by ‘nature’. In this way Braddon raises questions about the malleability or fixity of the personality, about how we define, recognise and value naturalness, but ultimately combines the forces of education and hereditary degeneracy in order to segregate the lower classes, and to bring the morally upright middle classes together with the affluent upper classes.

A Study on the Transportation Mode Choice Behaviour of Individuals With Different Socio-Economic Status

2018 ◽  
pp. 476-493
Author(s):  
Arun Bajracharya
Keyword(s):  
Public Transportation ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Mode Choice ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Choice Behaviour ◽  
Transportation Mode ◽  
Socio Economic Status ◽  
Private Car ◽  
Transportation Mode Choice

This chapter presents a study on the transportation mode choice behaviour of individuals with different socio-economic status. A previously developed system dynamics model has been adopted by differentiating the population mass into upper, middle, and lower classes. The simulation experiments with the model revealed that generally the upper class individuals would be more inclined to use a private car (PC) instead of public transportation (PT) when their tendency is compared to middle and lower class individuals. It was also observed that lower class individuals would be more willing to use PT instead of PC when their tendency is compared to middle and upper class individuals. As such, it would be difficult to encourage the upper class individuals to use PT instead of PC, and it would be successively easier to do so in the case of middle and lower class individuals. However, the results also indicated that under certain different circumstances, the upper class individuals would also prefer to go for PT, and the lower class ones could prefer to own and use PC instead of PT.

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