Social-class background
affects how people behave

People's behavior is determined by multiple causes. This very important statement is at odds with the common thought that behaviors and causes line up in one-to-one relationships.

For example, people who don't volunteer for community development activities are seen as selfish. People who cut in and out of traffic are reckless. Over the past few weeks, I have discussed the importance of a more complex view of human behavior. I have emphasized personality-situation combinations that better explain behavior. In the case of volunteer activities, some people will become very active if asked to do so. They won't raise their hand when a work committee is called for, but they will be diligent with their time and effort if asked to participate. People who drive in an unsafe manner may be rushing a family member to the hospital because of a medical emergency.

Other reasons for people's behavior stem from their life experiences. If people have dealt with social situations in the same way for many years, they are likely to continue these behaviors when faced with similar situations today. Some of these behaviors stem from people's social-class background, also frequently called their socioeconomic status.

Social class is often measured by four criteria: the amount of education people have received, their income, the neighborhood in which they live, and subjective ratings of people's occupations.

The criteria are often interrelated. If people have many years of formal education, they often obtain good-paying and prestigious jobs. Given their incomes, they can afford to live in more expensive neighborhoods.

A knowledge of social-class background helps in thinking about behavior. When counseling people about job problems, many complaints focus on unreasonable customers. Workers complain that customers are rude, make unreasonable demands and use foul language. The workers often try to guess the ethnic background of these impolite customers based on physical features. Then, they want to conclude that such behavior is widespread in certain groups. I urge the workers not to make conclusions based on ethnicity. Instead, the behavior may be due to social-class background, and the different socioeconomic levels are present in all of Hawaii's ethnic groups.

I will make some generalizations about social class, but there are certainly exceptions.

If people were born into or have achieved middle- and higher-level socioeconomic levels, they have been exposed to interpersonal skills that are more effective than shouting and cursing. If workers are addressed in a soft and respectful way, they are more likely to invest their time and energy into satisfying customer requests. Such gentle social skills stem from the criteria of social class.

People with a college education have met many different kinds of individuals and have learned to get along with them. This is especially true if some of their college friends and acquaintances are from other countries. If they are to receive promotions and corresponding salary increases in their chosen professions, they must have show the ability to interact with others in a cooperative and respectful manner.

Given their income, they can then afford to live in neighborhoods where a pleasant communication style is the norm. In these neighborhoods, people are constantly exposed to communication styles that mark individuals who are known as "classy" and as socially skilled.