Consequences of Upward Mobility - Research Paper Example

Consequences of upward mobility Upward mobility refers to a transition of an individual from a lower to a higher social or economical class position. At birth, individuals are brought into an already existing society with people organized into social classes and within families. As people grow into adults, they identify themselves with these families and societies, adopting their cultures, values, ethics, and norms. Thus, others may recognize an individual as coming from certain geographical locations by their behavior or mannerisms. Societies shape the way a person behaves, how they view themselves and others, how they perceive their surrounding and how well they cope with misfortunes. (Surowiecki 443) agrees that whenever the community mourns, they come together to seek solutions. However, within families, societies and communities, there are differentiations, and so, a member of a family or a community may feel different from others for many reasons including financial status, gender, socialization, and upbringing. (Serano 395) portrays an example of these differences in the coming out story of a transsexual woman. Serano explains that contempt and fear has shaped the society’s attitudes towards sexuality, gender and women as whole. With these, there is a link between Surowiecki and Serano’s perception on culture and society. The whole society, through the media reacted towards Serano’s coming out, maybe as an attempt to understand or find a solution to the queer knowledge of her sexuality. Serano gives an account of her experiences through a culture that stereotypes transsexuals. (Nathan 234) also offers insight into diversity and community. She says that people always want to meet people from dissimilar backgrounds but when they do, they get uncomfortable and in turn, prefer people who are like them. This is also portrayed in Serano’s story. As much as people want to meet people who are physically like her, they ridicule and discriminate her with this information. These differences force people to go against the expectations of the society, thus attracting varied responses from the society. The cultures that an individual adopts have the ability of molding the person’s thoughts, hence, influencing their decision-making. Understanding an individual’s behavior or tendency of making decisions requires a background understanding of the person’s psychological and physiological processes, their social systems, and the role of nature and nurture in their behavioral pattern. Societies have a great influence on the decisions people make because of the expectations it places on its members. People are therefore inspired to make decisions that agree with the expectations of the society and more so, our decisions are socially shaped. Serano decided to keep her sexuality a secret before the coming out because she was trying to be like everyone else in the society. To maintain normality, she remained in the closet before deciding to come out. This is not always the case. Other factors are also very important in decision making, for instance, social experiences, cognitive maturity, and personality types play a role in one’s decision-making tendencies. Probably Serano’s experiences forced her to come out and change herself. To understand the importance of community and society, (Nathan 230) says that members of a community must have similarities, which permits them to relate with each other. The similarities are values, which are instilled in members and this helps them function together, just as Surowiecki explains in the functionality of the community, the community uses teams to solve problems. These teams are bound together with unified values and similarities. Together with the values, experiences of community members are also important in enabling them function and get along well. During difficulties, they rely on each other’s experience to cope and find solutions. Despite this, (Nathan 231) also says that common experiences within a community fades very quickly and cannot be relied upon to maintain solidarity. Even though many people admire tight and close communities, they are not motivated to follow the demands of such communities that will change their lifestyles such as having time demands. Therefore, the importance of a community to an individual will depend on the individual’s judgment and acceptance of its demands. Therefore, as much as people are born within a community, one may go against the requirements of a community if they consider it less important in their life. (Nathan 235) also discusses diversity in an individual’s eye. She says that even though people hope to meet others from different backgrounds and ethnicities, they usually feel better when they meet people with who they share certain things. To have a diverse community, the people in it must be able to live and function together. Within societies, there are classes, which categorize people according to their economic backgrounds. These classes determine the relationship and associations between people of different classes and contain boundaries that members of each class should not cross. In a majority of societies, people are divided into lower, middle, and upper classes. These boundaries are not absolute, to mean that they cannot be crossed. There are many instances when a member of one class crosses the boundary into another class. The prominent way is through relationships. Because there is a definite relationship and way of association between the classes, people of one class usually interact with members within that class. However, this is not always the case, as friendships, love and marriage always interrupts the agreed association between classes, and when this happens, there is always a conflict between members of the two classes. Being born in a particular class does not always sentence one to remain in the same class. People work hard to move upward and live better lives than their parents do. However, social comparisons hinder their ability as they end up feeling inadequate to fulfill their dreams. Once a person has been compared with another well doing individual, they may feel inspired to outdo that person, or feel inadequate to compete. This depends on the person’s personality type, emotional maturity, or upbringing. The feeling of incompetence and inadequacy may discourage one from pursuing certain dreams or choosing certain careers due to the fear of failure. Not having the required resources, psychological incapability, financial ability, or access to the resources may hinder one from choosing careers they admire. Psychological incapability is a result of feelings of incompetence and social stressors such as comparisons and negative influence. For example, a girl may feel inadequate to pursue an engineering course compared to a boy. From birth throughout life, individuals continue to realize themselves in different ways and may go through transformations into states that they feel most comfortable with. In many cases, societies do not easily accept people who are different from what they consider as normal. Cases that are predominant in the media are those that are biologically or sexually different. This group includes homosexuals, transsexuals, albinos, dwarfs, and other illnesses. Serano (391) explains people’s reactions on physical transformations and the role f the media in influencing these reactions. She says that the public is excited whenever they recognize physical changes in an individual because this permits them to cross class boundaries. Physical transformation refers to changes in a person’s physical outlook while psychological transformation refers to changes in a person’s psychological setup and ways of perception. It takes a while for a society to realize that an individual is going through a psychological transformation. If the transformation is destructive, people scorn and discourage it. However, if it is constructive, the society accepts and encourages the individual. The psychological transformations affect the way we relate to others and perceive the society as a whole. It will also have a bearing on how we perceive ourselves and how we choose to live our lives. Because people are born into societies, there are roles assigned to each member of the society. These roles depend on ones’ age, gender, ability, and specialty. One is expected to act in a specific ay during different stages in their lives. As a child, a person’s role may be to be a helper in the family, however, this may change depending on one’s’ gender. As the person grows older, the person may be a wife and a mother or a father and a husband. One may have multiple roles at the same time during different stages in their lives. In most cases, people always play their roles diligently up to a certain time when they may rebel. The rebellion comes when there is a change in social class or status, especially through education or exposure. For example, an educated woman may choose not to carry out “wifely” duties once she is employed, while she could have performed them dutifully before education or employment. These assigned roles within communities usually influence a person’s career path. This limits one’s ability and prevents people from maximizing their capabilities. Assigned career roles narrow one’s choices to a specific career path, hence offering few opportunities for having a better social class. Because everyone wants to feel useful and important to a society, subservience is very important. Though the society divides people into classes, members of each class can interact with people from other backgrounds and ethnicities without class limits. The ability to diversify depends on one’s personality and socialization. Being a member of one class does not inhibit diversity, though it influences our emotional lives. Social classes determine how we live our lives, the people we interact with, and the environments in which we live. These factors greatly influence our emotional lives. For example, a person in a low class may be unable to afford basic requirements for happiness, hence ends being frustrated and moody. This may not be the case for everyone in that class. Even though many people blame the society for hindering their efforts of improving their social lives, other studies indicate that an individual’s ability to have a better life depends on the individual, with very little contribution to the society. Psychologists refer to this ability as self-efficacy, which generally states that, an individuals’ personal competence. This argument stems from the belief that individuals are capable of acting in certain manners in order to obtain their goals. However, this depends on the individual’s perception of themselves, as well their ideas on their abilities, which affects their social interactions. In order to obtain this efficacy, an individual’ must foster a positive psychological development. These arguments have bases on psychological studies, especially cognitive, social learning, self concept and attribution theories. The social cognitive theory, which is attributed to Albert Bandura, argues that an individual. Self-efficacy depends on one’s ability to observe his/her surrounding, in order to obtain personality development. During development, an individual learn from his or her environment, and this will have an impact on their mental perception of concepts (Bandura 77). Therefore, people view opportunities and difficulties differently. For one to obtain social upward mobility, they should belief in their ability to succeed by viewing social constraints as opportunities of growth. People with weak or poor mental development have poor personalities, hence viewing difficulties as constraints to their development. In this sense, psychologists agree that different personality types have different perceptions of success. However, self knowledge has a major impact on success as it helps one achieve success. Therefore, the difference is that some people depend on other people’s or the society’s definition of success. This is normal because we all have role models or influencers to our motivation. However, people should be aware of the discrepancy between their personal beliefs and what other people belief is achievable, as well as ways of achieving success. Therefore, it is possible to defy the society, as well as its definition of success, in order to obtain personal success. In another theory; the attribution theory, the argument is that people have different ways of attributing the cause of events to their internal personal perceptions (Baumeister 84). People usually perceive events and attribute these events to their situations differently. This theory brings to this argument three elements; stability, locus and control. Locus refers to the internal or external location of the cause. Stability refers to whether this cause is static or dynamic, which is lcosely related to the individual’s future expectations of goals. For example, if an individual attributes his/her success to personal or societal constraints, these constraints will have a bearing on the individual’s future ability to succeed, as well as how they receive these causes of failures/success. Control refers to the individual’s ability to control the causes of success/failures. This is exemplified by Serano’s case. Because the society views her sexuality as abnormal, it would have been sensible if she had decided to be silent about it. However, she was able to rise above the society’s expectations, and believe in her abilities to survive in the same society, hence coming out of the closet. Through this, she is able to achieve upward mobility. Carl Jung referred to this personal growth and belief as individuation, which refers to one’s realization above their egos. The environment, and especially the society, has a major influence on one’s ability to obtain upward mobility. However, the society’s expectations should not be reasons for not achieving one’s goals. Research shows a fundamental connection between productivity, performance and personalized self efficacy. Students with high self-efficacy have better chances of performing well despite societal constraints, unlike those without. Self-efficacy also influences one’s personality, making it possible for someone to have control of themselves as well as their situations. Works Cited Bandura A. Self-efficacy: the exercise of control. New York: W.H Freeman, 1998. Print Baumeister F.R. The self in social psychology, New York: Psychology Press. Print James Surowiecki. Committes, Juries, and Teams. Print. Julia Serano. Before and After: Class and Body Transformations. Print. Rebekah Nathan. Community and Diversity. Print. Read More