It is likely that we are all perfectly familiar with the concept of the different social classes that exist in our society. Possibly we are all aware and we also know first hand to which class or social stratum we belong, and we have all read and talk naturally about those who are in higher social and economic classes, or those who belong to lower social classes.
In general, no human being ever seriously asks himself what has been his origin and why we are “distributed” in this way. It is understood that it is a consequence of the economic status of each person, who, because of his or her level of income and social and professional position, “fits” and fits into a certain level of society. Since it is correct that this phenomenon and stratification is produced mainly by economic issues, there is not much more to discuss or inquire about it.
However, this explanation is not entirely complete, and why not? Because in addition to economic and professional factors, another reason why we identify with and belong to one social level or another has to do with the psychological factors of our own personality. Since this is something that cannot be measured or quantified, it is a parameter that is outside any logical conclusion as to why some members of society belong to the upper and elite classes of society, and others belong to the poorer and lower classes.
What is it about the way you approach life that can move you to a higher rung in the social hierarchy and what is it about the way you approach life that can move you to a lower rung?
Possibly many people have heard of and mentioned the concept of Maslow’s Pyramid, a psychological theory proposed in the 1940s in which the basic needs that a human being has in order to survive, develop and grow as an individual are divided into five levels. These five “steps” or levels involve finding a way to cover our physical and physiological needs, our affective needs, companionship, family, economic, self-realization, achieving a “social status”, etc. And, at this point, is where we are going to stop, since here we find one of the reasons why we belong or identify ourselves with one class or another. Let us see what is the underlying psychological mechanism for this.
Need for recognition by society
According to Maslow’s pyramid, when a human being has covered the needs of survival, food, rest, economic resources and family security (the first levels of this scale), he begins a search for other elements that give meaning to his life, although he does not know that he is trying to give meaning to what he “is” as a person and what he does in the world, so that, intuitively, we are trying to make room for ourselves among people, groups, communities and social and professional environments that can help us to make a place for ourselves in society, communities and social and professional environments that can help us recognize what we are, who we are, and what we can contribute to others, as a way of showing what defines us, what makes us different, what allows us to individualize ourselves and what helps us to anchor ourselves to a certain type of environment, like a piece of a puzzle that looks for the part of it that fits perfectly, and to do so it tries and tries to enter different places until it finds its own.
Therefore, on many occasions, the stratum and social class to which we belong depends not only on how many economic resources we have, but also on what vision and level of personal growth we have achieved, because this type of “internal state” defines us in a very specific way, which can find a fit only with a particular group of people in a particular environment, so that will be there where we find, while we do not change again as we are, the perfect fit within the perfect environment for the perfect time in which we are. And that is none other than the “social status” that each one of us has.
This way of locating ourselves in society is determined by many factors, because not only the economic issue is key to be able to define ourselves as middle class, upper, working or poor. Although in the lower strata of society having money or not strongly marks our identification with a level of the system, as one analyzes the middle and upper classes of our civilization, the most important factor is not money, but the psychology of the person and his or her way of looking at life.
A very different way of looking at reality
When you begin to perceive reality in a certain way, join people who think in a similar way to you, and enter a certain group where you have a different vision of things, you can begin to change your social stratum simply by assimilating a way of seeing the world that moves you away from a certain group and style of people and brings you closer to another.
This phenomenon and personal transformation usually occurs naturally and gradually, and is often associated with professional changes, because when you change jobs you change colleagues, work environment, the type of environment that exists or ceases to exist, and, since this is also accompanied by salary changes, it is these that give us the impression that we are now meeting people from a different level, from a different part of society, and from a different stratum than the one we had before the professional change.
If this change is not due to work but to moving, i.e. moving to another place, we can also move from one group and social status to another, simply because we are moving into a new neighborhood that has certain characteristics and a certain “atmosphere”, frequented by a certain type of people with a specific way of doing things, which, as soon as we have a minimum of interaction with them, will permeate us and endow our own personality and way of being with the characteristics of that new group and social status to which we did not belong before.
The psychology that defines people’s social status
Therefore, although there are material and physical factors accompanying and often triggering the change, belonging to a certain status and social group is usually determined mainly by the psychology of that group and our fit with it, with the environment and our way of perceiving reality.
To belong to the upper classes of our city it is obvious that you have to have certain economic resources, but it is essential to have a mentality associated with how these “upper” classes perceive their world and their day to day life. If we possess a “working class” mentality, which is perfectly correct and completely adequate, but it is not the mentality of those who live their lives from another point of view where there are certain aspects of the “elite” reality that cannot be understood from the middle class reality, we will never be able to take the first steps to move to a higher stratum than the one we are in if it is our desire to do so.
Dozens if not hundreds of books have been written about people who found the way out of a poor social environment with few opportunities for growth only by imitating the behaviors and the way of thinking of those who have succeeded in life, and who have managed to overcome all the obstacles that life has put in their way to reach the top of their own personal growth pyramids. And it is correct, because in order to move “up”, symbolically, within a completely stratified society and where a few have a lot of everything but the majority has little of anything, we must begin by changing the mentality of the whole society, and realize that the component of “attitude” is equally or more important than the component “money”, being both linked to some extent because, in order to have many economic resources you must also have a certain predisposition and proper attitude towards them and the way to get them.
Defending your position, plugging those at the bottom
Does this mean that we can end the hardships of the lower castes and classes of our civilization in so many and so many countries that still keep them “active” as part of the management of society? Does it mean that by changing the attitude of these people we can make them leave en masse and become citizens of, at least, middle class?
It won’t be that easy, for the simple reason that those in the upper and upper-middle classes won’t allow it. Why, how does it affect them? It affects them because it eliminates the exclusivity that you have when you belong to a group to which only a few individuals, a few million across the planet, have access, because when everyone has the same of everything, that “everything” ceases to have value, and if it ceases to have value because everyone has it, it ceases to differentiate you from others. And if you stop differentiating yourself, then you lose the psychological status of being “better” or being “different”, which is what gives us security in the third level of Maslow’s pyramid, which makes each person try to find what differentiates him or her from others in order to find the place in the world where he or she fits perfectly, because if all the pieces of the puzzle are the same, in theory any piece can fit anywhere, since the holes for them are identical, which eliminates the “I am special” factor, diminishes self-esteem and causes us to feel “just one more” and not “someone important”.
All this psychological reasoning that occurs in chain is completely subconscious to the mechanisms of reason and the human psyche, so none of us are thinking about it or being aware of it when we make the decisions we make to move from one social environment to another or when we are inwardly dissatisfied with the life we lead, but we do not know why, or simply when we want to leave one of those social strata to improve towards one perceived as superior, but we do not understand what it is that detonates us inwardly that need for change.
A person’s status depends on his or her worth as a human being
Like everything else, society in general must realize that the value of each human being does not depend on the social status he or she has or the class he or she belongs to, but on the human value he or she possesses and offers to others to assist them as we assist ourselves in our path and development. But currently our system does not work like that, and, therefore, it is very difficult that we will manage to implement a way in which the elites and upper classes allow massive access to their “world” and their reality to the members of the middle classes, and, in the same way, neither these same middle classes, in a collective and unconscious way, allow access to their “reality”, allow access to their “reality” to those belonging to the “lower” classes, since there is a perceived fear and danger that the resources and services and the standard of living enjoyed by these middle classes, which are not excessive either, will then be reduced by the incorporation of millions of lower class people, whatever the country or the region where this happens.
As each stratum protects its standard of living, and tries to curb opportunities to access it, social circles become more and more exclusive and the rules for belonging to them become increasingly rigid, preventing people from massively joining these environments, groups or classes people who have not exceeded a certain economic level, mainly as a way to quantify whether or not they can belong to it, but, secondly, whether or not they have a certain profile of behavior, vision and personality, to see if even if they have the economic resources, they can fit or not in that part of the puzzle.
Economic resources alone do not change your social status
And let’s think about it for a moment, if we win the lottery and many millions, do we automatically become high society people?
No, as long as we continue to have the same worldview, the same personality and the same psychological configuration, we still belong to the class or social stratum in which we were before that prize. Therefore, if we do not make internal changes such as those we have mentioned, or external changes such as moving to another environment or changing jobs or acquiring other elements to our life that help us to change how we see the world to a higher level, what will happen, and in fact we can prove it, is that many people end up losing the prize they got by wasting it, because, by not changing “internally”, they did not know how to adapt and use the catalyst that those economic resources provided to make them move up the social ladder.
If there is no will to change and to initiate a movement towards another type of circles and environments in accordance with the new economic situation we have, no change is possible no matter how much we hope or want it.
Observing behaviors and the vision of those who have the level we desire
It is a question, then, of realizing that if we want to get out of the economic, social and relational level we are in but do not have the resources to do so, we have to start by studying, analyzing and observing the behaviors, visions and ways of understanding the world of those who are at the level we want to reach: what are their concerns, how they approach problems and how they solve them, how they approach challenges and how they face changes, how they look for ways to provoke them or how they avoid what they do not want to face, how they manage failure or success, etc.
This first step initiates the change in the way in which each person faces his or her reality, and from there, processes are initiated so that the opportunities for economic, material and physical change can appear that can settle us “formally” and with the “approval” of that new “social circle” in the part of the puzzle where we have arrived to settle and take root, until we decide to take a leap again and look for another point that still allows us to grow more, and continue advancing through our own pyramid of personal growth.
