Home > Work > Facing Social Class: How Societal Rank Influences Interaction
1 " Social class positioning influences all aspects of everyday interaction – how to talk, if to talk and when, whom to trust, whether or not to plan or risk, what can or cannot be done, how to belong, and who to be. Of course, how people respond to these social interactions depends on how social class intersects with the meanings and practices associated with other significant sociocultural categories (gender, race, ethnicity, age, cohort, religion, geography, sexual orientation) that also influence psychological tendencies. "
― , Facing Social Class: How Societal Rank Influences Interaction
2 " To attain, and to keep, a professional-managerial job requires class-specific human capital. Developing and displaying that capital is a central preoccupation of upper-middle class life. "
3 " The middle-class standard of the independent self has increasingly become the default American standard for how to think, feel and act in the world…this middle class self is not just a matter of individual attitudes or beliefs; it is an understanding of what it means to be a person that is built into and promoted by the social machinery – law, politics, education, employment, media, and health care of mainstream American society. Although the independent self is widely accepted as the cultural standard, it is not the natural, normal, neutral or even the most effective way of being a person. Instead, it is a privileged and culture-specific understanding of what it means to be a person that flows seamlessly from the resources, opportunities, and experiences linked with middle-class American standing in society. "
4 " It is typical for implicit status hierarchies of influence and esteem to emerge in interpersonal encounters, especially those that are goal oriented. "
