Comparative Analysis Of A Typical Pauper’S And A Low Status Representative'S Images 

Abstract

The article analyses the economic status through the image of a typical poor person in order to identify common manifestations with the phenomenon of social status, as well as to determine its features and clarify the structure of its components. This study is part of a large project to study the structure of social status components. In the first series of research, which is described in this article, the image of the typical poor man was identified and analysed; in further series, it is planned to analyse the image of the typical rich man. The main method of data collection in this work was essays (n=130), in which respondents had to describe the image of a typical poor person. The material was processed using content analysis and thematic modelling. In the structure of the image, five main categories were identified, which combine all the subcategories identified in the essay: "objective indicators", "lifestyle features"," appearance and non-verbal behaviour"," people's experiences" and "personal traits". In addition, five typical images of a poor person were identified. Due to the large number of intersections with the image of a typical representative of low status, it can be assumed that economic and social status have a common nature and material well-being can be a determining element for assessing the position of a person in society.

Keywords: Economic statusinequalitypovertysocial perceptionsocial status

Introduction

The scientific literature of various disciplines provides similar characteristics of a person and his lifestyle, which affect his position in society. It is emphasized that this phenomenon contains both objective and subjective components. This diversity leads to the fact that even within one discipline, for example, sociology, there is no common understanding of the criteria that determine the assessment of social status.

Representatives of various branches of science have made repeated attempts to identify the basic criteria that could serve as the most complete, therefore, the only model of social status. Such theoretical and empirical constructs are the most frequent object of criticism in this field of research. On the one hand, this is due to the vagueness and lack of a common understanding of the phenomenon of social status itself. On the other hand, the construction of such a classification of objects should begin with defining the goals of classification, for example, building a model of society based on certain objective indicators, or building a hierarchy of a particular group based on subjective assessments and public opinion.

Problem Statement

A number of concepts note that money and its various aspects are a determining component of social status and, accordingly, the position in society primarily depends on the material well-being of a person (Diligensky, 1996; Giddens, 1999; Kravchenko, 2002).

Thus, in an effort to generalize all the components and build a single system of criteria that most accurately reflect the basis for building a model of society, Nayebi and Abdollahyan (2006) divided all indicators into two groups - material and symbolic. Material goods, first of all, include monetary income, jewellery, property, a car, and more. Symbolic benefits include respect, prestige, honour, medals that reflect merit and public attitudes, and more.

Here it is important to note that there is a tendency to separate the concepts of wealth and income. Wealth is defined as accumulated property that belongs to an individual and can be realized in monetary terms (Giddens, 1999). Income, in turn, is considered in terms of incoming funds at the disposal of the individual, including as a payment for labour, as well as profits from investment. Income, in the case of its accumulation, can pass into wealth, subject to the acquisition of movable and immovable property. The uneven distribution of income, and therefore of wealth, is at the root of inequality in society. From the point of view of Sorokin (1992), due to the uneven distribution of resources and income, there has not been a single society in the entire history of mankind where the equality of its members was observed. In this case, it does not matter the ideology in which either the idea of universal equality or the idea of a classless society can be translated. This is due to the fact that, in any society, resources are distributed unevenly, and, consequently, the higher the income, the more an individual has access to various benefits, for example, to higher education, and the more a person can influence society, having a certain power.

At the same time, there may be situations in which having a high income does not lead a person to gain respect in society (Giddens, 1999). This phenomenon was clearly manifested in France at the end of the XVIII century, in great Britain at the beginning of the XX century, when individuals with titles and being aristocrats did not recognize rich Industrialists as equals in society. As another example, we can consider the professional group "doctors", who are respected in society, but do not always receive a high income.

Further, it is important to note that the American psychologist Bogenhold (2001) points out that the problem of social stratification has undergone significant changes over the past two decades. Thus, the old criteria for building a model of society no longer play a significant role in the life of society, and the attitude and assessment of the importance of almost all criteria of social status: education, income, profession, and others (Rossiter, 2012). Education, as an example, is becoming accessible to all social strata. Income directly determines the social status of only the extreme groups-the highest high and lowest low statuses. On the other hand, another change affects two criteria at once: income and profession. So, there is a whole range of professions that do not bring constant earnings: for example, project work or freelancing. The social status of representatives of such professions is almost impossible to determine using the criteria listed above.

A number of our studies have found that economic factors play an important role in social perceptions of social status, as well as in the assessment of this indicator in strangers (Folomeeva & Fedotova, 2014, 2016).

In addition, the main themes in the essays were found, which described typical images of a person with high and low status (Folomeeva & Fedotova, 2018). The topics were identified using the Dirichlet latent placement algorithm on the material of 70 essays; 5 main topics were identified for each of the images. In each image, one of the themes had a direct relationship to income: the theme "Education, stable prosperity, confidence, time — money" in the image of the high-status and the theme "Alcohol, lack of money, work" in the image of the low-status. During the content analysis of the essay, it was found that material well-being was noted in 53% of the essays, as a characteristic of a typical representative of a high status, and in 20% - for a low status.

Research Questions

This research does not have hypothesis and its main goal is to identify and compare common features in the images of a representative of low status and a typical poor person. However, we assume that both images contain striking similarities, which will allow us to argue that the nature of economic and social status has common grounds.

Purpose of the Study

Our main purpose is to identify typical images of a person with high financial status (rich) and low income (poor) for:

Research Methods

Findings

Conclusion

• The study identified and analysed the image of a typical poor person, determined its structure and elements that have common features with the image of a typical representative of low status.

In the structure of the image, there are five main categories, which combine all the subcategories identified in the essay: "objective indicators", "lifestyle features", "appearance and non-verbal behaviour", "people's experiences" and "personal traits". As objective indicators, the lack of money, the availability of loans, poor work (cleaner, seller) is noted. The lifestyle is characterized by the presence of harmful habits, improper nutrition (fast food), and others. In appearance, bad clothing and stooping are noted. Among the experiences, first of all, is the expectation of a miracle and help, a bad attitude to the rich" and the perception of money as an end in itself. Finally, the poor person's personality is not characterized by ambition, laziness, envy, and narrow thinking.

Five typical images of a poor person were identified. The most frequently mentioned are "economical, complaining about life, blaming external circumstances, not ready to take responsibility and take risks" and "aggressive, lazy, with bad habits, who does not want to change anything". Two images occur with the same frequency – "a person who has become poor due to circumstances-crisis, age, disability" and "a person who is not in demand for a profession, while he is neat and respectable". The least common image of a marginal representative of the poor is "a person without a certain place of residence, without a job or income".

• Due to the large number of intersections with the image of a typical representative of low status, it can be assumed that economic and social status have a common nature and material well-being can be a determining element for assessing the position of a person in society.

References

1. Bogenhold, D. (2001). Social Inequality and the Sociology of Life Style. Material and Cultural Aspects of Social Stratification. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 60(4), 829–847. https://doi.org/10.1111/1536-7150.00125
2. Diligensky, G. G. (1996). Social'no-politicheskaya psihologiya [Socio-political psychology]. Novaya shkola.
3. Folomeeva, T. V., & Fedotova, S. V. (2016). Youth' features of social status perception. International Journal of Psychology, 51, 1078–1078. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ijop.12351
4. Folomeeva, T. V., & Fedotova, S. V. (2018). Features of the persons’ images of different social statuses among young people. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Psychology and Education, 8(3), 312–322. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu16.2018.307
5. Folomeeva, T. V., & Fedotova, S. V. (2014). Nonverbal behavior as the basis for social status attribution. Psikhologicheskie Issledovaniya, 7(37), 10. http://psystudy.ru/index.php/eng/2014v7n37e/1057-folomeyeva37e.html
6. Folomeeva, T. V., & Fedotova, S. V. (2019). Social Status And Belonging To The Subculture In A Stranger’s Image Structure. The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences, 64, 161-168. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2019.07.21
7. Giddens, A. (1999). Sociologiya [Sociology]. URSS.
8. Korshunov, A., & Gomzin A. (2012). Topic modeling in natural language texts. Proceedings of the Institute for System Programming of the RAS, 23, 215-242. https://doi.org/10.15514/ISPRAS-2012-23-13
9. Kravchenko, A. I. (2002). Sociologiya: Obshchij kurs: Uchebnoe posobie dlya vuzov [Sociology: General course: textbook for higher education Institutions]. PERSE Logos.
10. Nayebi, H., & Abdollahyan, H. (2006). Social Stratification and its Indices: A Critique. Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 15(3), 249-263. https://doi.org/10.1080/10669920600997050
11. Rossiter, J. R. (2012). A new measure of social classes. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 11, 89–93. https://doi.org/10.1002/cb.372
12. Sorokin, P. A. (1992). Chelovek. civilizaciya. Obshchestvo [Person. Civilization. Society]. Politizdat.