Psychology of social class
Social class as a cultural identity
### Social class as a cultural identity

In the first wave of research on the psychology of social class, social classes were conceived as a form of cultural identity. In this sense, individuals come to embody class\-specific thoughts, feelings, and behaviors through learned norms, values, and expectations shared by others of similar social class backgrounds. These norms, values, and expectations are then expressed through cultural practices such as food consumption, taste in art and music, language, clothing, and ways for expressing oneself and adjusting to others. The first theoretical account positing social class as a cultural identity contends that social class reflects more than just the material resources that individuals possess, and that objective resources shape individual’s cultural practices and behaviors that signal social class. Individuals display their objective resources (e.g., educational attainment, family wealth/income, and occupational prestige) through class\-related signals (e.g., symbols of wealth, education, or occupation, aesthetic preferences, and social behavior). Through these class\-related signals, individuals provide the information needed to compare their own social class to that of others. These comparisons then separate people into different social class categories which become the basis for individual’s subjective understanding of their social class rank vis\-à\-vis others and lead to different psychological and behavioral outcomes for low versus high social class individuals.


What are some examples of psychological and behavioral outcomes for low versus high social class individuals?