People are best understood in context. What is meant by the word “context”? It means that we are influenced by when and where we live and our actions, beliefs, and values are a response to circumstances surrounding us. Sternberg describes a type of intelligence known as “contextual” intelligence as the ability to understand what is called for in a situation (Sternberg, 1996). The key here is to understand that behaviors, motivations, emotions, and choices are all part of a bigger picture. Our concerns are such because of who we are socially, where we live, and when we live; they are part of a social climate and set of realities that surround us. Our social locations include cohort, social class, gender, ethnicity, and age. Let’s explore two of these: cohort and social class.
The Cohort Effect
One important context that is sometimes mistaken for age is the cohort effect. A cohort is a group of people who are born at roughly the same period in a particular society. Cohorts share histories and contexts for living. Members of a cohort have experienced the same historic events and cultural climates which have an impact on the values, priorities, and goals that may guide their lives.
Figure 1.3.1: (Photo: Boys collecting old tires for rubber during WWII)
Consider a young boy’s concerns as he grows up in the United States during World War II. What his family buys is limited by their small budget and by a governmental program set up to ration food and other materials that are in short supply because of the war. He is eager rather than resentful about being thrifty and sees his actions as meaningful contributions to the good of others. As he grows up and has a family of his own, he is motivated by images of success tied to his past experience: a successful person is one who can provide for their family financially, who has a spouse who stays at home and cares for the children, and children who are respectful but enjoy the luxury of days filled with school and play without having to consider the burdens of society’s struggles.
He marries soon after completing high school, has three children, works hard to support his family and is able to do so during the prosperous postwar economics of the 1950s in America. But economic conditions change in the mid-1960s and through the 1970s. His spouse begins to work to help the family financially and to overcome boredom with being a stay-at-home caregiver. The children are teenagers in a very different social climate: one of social unrest, liberation, and challenging the status quo. They are not sheltered from the concerns of society; they see television broadcasts in their own living room of the war in Vietnam and they fear the draft. And they are part of a middle-class youth culture that is very visible and vocal. His employment as an engineer eventually becomes difficult as a result of downsizing in the defense industry. His marriage of 25 years ends in divorce. This is not a unique personal history, rather it is a story shared by many members of his cohort. Historic contexts shape our life choices and motivations as well as our eventual assessments of success or not during the course of our existence.
Figure 1.3.2: Women of different ages.
Consider your own cohort. Can you identify it? To what extent does your cohort shape your values, thoughts, and aspirations? Some cohort labels popularized in the media for generations in the United States include Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennial.
Socioeconomic Status (SES)
Another context that influences our lives is our social standing, socioeconomic status, or social class. Socioeconomic status is a way to identify families and households based on their shared levels of education, income, and occupation. While there is certainly individual variation, members of a social class tend to share similar lifestyles, patterns of consumption, parenting/caregiver styles, stressors, and other aspects of daily life. We are generally born into a class system or are socially located and may move up or down depending on socially and/or individually created limits and opportunities. Below is a model of the class system identified in the United States (Gilbert 2003; Gilbert and Kahl, 1998), a description of these social classes, and a partial listing of the impact that social class can have on individual and family life (Seccombe and Warner, 2004).
Model of Social Class Based on Socioeconomic Status
Upper Class
This group makes up about 1 percent of the population in the United States. They own substantial wealth and after-tax annual family income of between $200,000 to $750,000 (DeNavas-Walt and Cleveland, 2002). The upper class is subdivided into “upper-upper” and “lower-upper” categories based on how money and wealth were acquired. The “upper-upper class” (0.5%) has money from investments or inheritance and tends to be stewards of the family fortune. This “old money” brings a sense of polish and sophistication now shared by those with “new money”. The newly rich (0.5%) have made their fortunes as personalities in sports and media or as entrepreneurs. Members of the newly rich tend to flaunt their wealth; a practice looked upon with disdain by old money. One former student reported her experience as a flight attendant working in first class on a trip from New York to Los Angeles. One of her passengers had a name that would be familiar to many Americans as a family with old money. Seated several rows behind him was a couple from the newly rich and she wore a long fur coat, they became drunk on champagne and were quite loud during the flights. The plane had landed, and as the flight attendant was helping her upper-upper class guest on with his coat and he looked over his shoulder at the couple and sneered, “New money.” (So consider this: if you ever win the lottery, you may risk being shunned by “old money”!)
Upper Middle Class
Those in this class tend to hold professional degrees that involve education beyond a four-year bachelor’s degree. One of the distinctions made between the middle-class overall and members of the working class is that members of the middle class have occupations in which they are paid for their education and expertise. These white-collar workers (a term that originally referred to the distinction between what office workers wore to work as opposed to factory workers designated as “blue-collar” workers) tend to hold professional positions such as physicians or attorneys and as professionals.
Middle Class
Members of the middle class may hold college degrees, but often from less prestigious, state-supported schools. They own less property and have less discretionary income than members of the upper-middle and upper class and yet they may share the values and standards held by the upper-middle class. Yet, acquiring larger homes, newer vehicles, and pursing travel, paying for health care and dental expenses often means taking on substantial debt. This problem is not unique to the United States, however. Consider this excerpt from a British newspaper describing today’s “impoverished professionals” in which a couple goes to dinner before a movie and realizes that they have no cash. So out come the 9 credit cards. Here is one personal story from someone who identifies as "middle-class:"
"I’ve brought all the cards . . .trouble is, I can’t remember which ones are up to their limit . . .Go to a cash machine? Forget it. Both our current accounts have been frozen. Welcome to the world of middle-class debt . . . On paper, my husband and I are what is known in polite parlance as “comfortably off”. In reality, we have no money. Anything that comes in goes immediately on debt repayment. That and paying the nanny so we can both go out to work and earn more money for more debt repayment. An Impoverished Professional, I call myself. And there are plenty of us out there."
Figure 1.3.3
The average amount of credit card debt in American households is $8,000 and out of 144 million Americans who carry an “all purpose” credit card, only 55 million pay their entire balance off each month. The industry refers to these people as “deadbeats” and prefers the almost 90 million customers who extend their payment over months. These “revolvers” create nearly $30 billion in profits for the industry. (Frontline, 2004). Carrying debt can be extremely stressful and have a negative effect on health and social well-being. The consequences of such debt are still being explored.
The Working Class
The working class is comprised of those working in occupations such as retail, clerical, or factory jobs. Their jobs are typically routine and more heavily supervised than those of the middle class and require less formal education than do white-collar jobs. Members of the working class are subject to plant closings, lower pay, and more frequent lay-offs, and may rely on fewer workers contributing to the family income. Fewer earners and less job stability impacts not only family income, it also impacts the likelihood of having adequate health care. Being employed does not insure adequate healthcare, necessarily. This can weigh as a tremendous stress for families and individuals. Americans who are self-employed or working in companies with fewer than 200 employees are also less likely to have health insurance benefits than those who work in companies with 200 or more employees (Weitz, 2007). And the cost of obtaining even minimal health insurance as an individual is often prohibitive (excessively high or nearly impossible to pay).
Social class differences go beyond financial concerns, however. In a classic study on parenting/caregiver styles and social class, Melvin Kohn (1977) found that working-class parents/caregivers emphasized obedience, honesty, and conformity in their children while middle-class parents/caregivers valued independence, initiative, and self-reliance. These differences are attributed to the expectations made of parents/caregivers as workers; blue-collar workers are rewarded for conformity while white-collar workers are rewarded for initiative.
The Working Poor
People in this category live near the poverty level and hold seasonal or temporary jobs as unskilled laborers. This includes migrant farm workers, temporary employees in service industries such as restaurants or in retail, typically for minimum wage. The poor and working poor experience many of the same problems that can have an impact on development.
The Underclass
Those of the underclass category are described as temporary workers, part-time workers, those who are chronically unemployed or underemployed (Gilbert, 2003). They may receive some governmental assistance and tend to be looked down upon by other members of society. Since 2008, we have seen national unemployment rates in the United States hovering around 10 percent due to changes in the economy and being unemployed is less stigmatized but still very stressful. Many of the underclass are children or are disabled.
Other Consequences of Poverty
Poverty level is an income amount established by the Social Security Administration that is based on a formula called the “thrifty food plan” that allows one-third of income for food. Those living at or near poverty level may find it extremely difficult to sustain a household with this amount of income. Buying the least expensive, most filling foods typically means buying foods high in fat, starch and sugar. Living in poorer housing with the fear of eviction or poor plumbing and disruptive neighbors can also be extremely stressful. Poverty is associated with poorer health and a lower life expectancy due to poorer diet, less healthcare, greater stress, working in more dangerous occupations, higher infant mortality rates, poorer prenatal care, greater iron deficiencies, greater difficulty in school, and many other problems. Members of the middle class may fear losing status, but the poor may have greater concerns over losing housing. And while those in the middle class are more likely to use shopping or travel as a way to cope with stressors, the poor are more likely to eat or smoke in response to stress (Seccombe and Warner, 2004).
Just for your own interest: See where you are in the distribution of United States Americans by income tier. Enter the location that best describes where you live, your household income and the number of people in your household. The calculator adjusts for the cost of living in your area.
Culture is often referred to as a blueprint or guideline shared by a group of people that specifies how to live. It includes ideas about what is "right and wrong", what to strive for, what to eat, how to speak, what is valued, as well as what kinds of emotions are called for in certain situations. Culture teaches us how to live in a society and allows us to advance because each new generation can benefit from the solutions found and passed down from previous generations.
Culture is learned from parents/caregivers, schools, spiritual institutions, media (especially in the United States!), friends and others throughout a lifetime. The kinds of traditions and values that evolve in a particular culture serve to help members function (or not) in their own society and to value (or not) their own society. We tend to believe that our own culture’s practices and expectations are the "right" ones. (This belief that one's own culture is superior to others is called ethnocentrism and is a typical by-product of growing up in a culture. It becomes a roadblock, however, when it inhibits understanding of cultural practices from other societies.) Cultural relativity is an appreciation for cultural differences and the understanding that cultural practices are best understood from the standpoint of that particular culture.
Figure 1.3.4
Culture is an extremely important context for lifespan psychology and understanding development requires being able to identify which features of development (and the psychology of development) are culturally based. This understanding is somewhat new and still being explored. So much of what developmental theorists have described in the past has been culturally bound and difficult to apply to various cultural contexts. Please keep in mind and realize that there is still much that is unknown when comparing development across cultures. (For example, consider Erikson’s assumption that teenagers struggle with identity assumes that all teenagers live in a society in which they have many options and must make an individual choice about their future. In many parts of the world, one’s identity is determined by family status or society’s dictates. In other words, there is no choice to make or luxury to explore.)
Next, we will explore a brief outline of the periods of development in the lifespan that we will cover this term.
