Social class is evident in the American society and it influences people’s lifestyle, income, occupation, the places they live and their general wealth (Manstead et al 2018). I first discovered social class when I was 14 years and in the 9 th grade. We were having a casual conversation with one of my friends, Ben. He was excited about his upcoming g birthday and he bragged about how his parents were buying him a Tesla car which was about $39000 at the time. I was curious about how his parents could afford such a luxury item at the time. He explained to me how his grandfather owned a major oil company and his father was the CEO of the company. True to his word, I started noticing the affluent watches Ben came with to school and the type of lifestyle he and his family led. His father was also the head of the Golf club in town; hence he was considered the richest and most influential businessman in the area. People talked about Ben’s family hence they were well renown. Once, Ben asked me to visit him for the weekend. I was shocked by the size of the house they lived. It was a huge mansion which had tens of employees who worked tirelessly to make sure everything was at its best. I realized Ben and his family belonged to the upper class who had a lot of generational income.
In this unit, I have learnt that wealth inequality causes social class. Social class divides people and their lifestyle (Belsky et al 2018). As stated in my personal experience, people are in different social classes and this dictates their lifestyle. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, people with salaried jobs are able to work at home, maintain social distancing and stay from other people. All this minimizes their chances of contracting the deadly disease (Kraus et al 2017). However, people living paycheck to paycheck do not have this privilege since they have to go from job to job and hence, they are more exposed to the disease. Therefore, it is evident that social class affects very many aspects of our lives including our general well-being as well as our chances of surviving a pandemic.
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References
Belsky, D. W., Domingue, B. W., Wedow, R., Arseneault, L., Boardman, J. D., Caspi, A., ... & Harris, K. M. (2018). Genetic analysis of social-class mobility in five longitudinal studies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 115 (31), E7275-E7284. www.pnas.org/content/115/31/E7275.short .
Kraus, M. W., Park, J. W., & Tan, J. J. (2017). Signs of social class: The experience of economic inequality in everyday life. Perspectives on Psychological Science , 12 (3), 422-435. www.journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691616673192 .
Manstead, A. S. (2018). The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour. British Journal of Social Psychology , 57 (2), 267-291. www.bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bjso.12251
