Our Behaviors Are Influenced By Our Social Class
Habits are schemes by which we act, think and feel in a certain way. Habits are associated with the position we have within society and, therefore, with the social class to which we belong.
These schemes make people living in a similar environment have similar lifestyles. Thus, tastes in terms of sports, movies, books …, and behaviors in certain situations are associated with the educational level and the work that these people occupy.
Beginnings of the “habitus”
The concept of Habitus dates back to Aristotle. For him, the habitus was what stood between the act and the power on the one hand and, on the other hand, between the exterior and the interior. Later, Pierre Bourdieu gives the term a more systemic definition from the field of sociology. For Bourdieu, the habitus serves to overcome the distinction between “objectivism” and “subjectivism.” He defines it as a set of schemes through which we perceive the world and act in it.
Habits can be changed. Each person modifies their habitus when they act differently than they usually do. When we behave differently, in a way that no one expects it, we are modifying our habitus. In these cases we are not guided by habitus schemes. However, the habitus is a shared social scheme and, unless we get others to follow our new behaviors, we will not be able to change the habitus.
But changing habitus is very complicated, especially since we usually don’t recognize them. The general tendency is to think that we are free and that our actions and thoughts arise from our freedom. Of course, this is not the case, at least not entirely, since habitus have a great influence on our thoughts, perceptions and actions.
Learning the habitus
The habitus is learned with the body, especially through movement. It is an unconscious learning, because it does not require consciousness. By behaving in a certain way we produce mental schemes that will tell us how to behave when we find ourselves in similar situations.
From small we learn that a funeral is something sad and we should feel sad when we go to one, even if we are happy and want to laugh. This behavior is a habitus learned by seeing the behavior of other people in our environment, which we imitate. We can even check how, if someone behaves differently, they are directly or indirectly punished.
In the same way, the differences between social classes are produced through habitus schemes. The behaviors of members of small communities are often similar, especially if the members of the community are alike. Think of your neighborhood community. Surely you have many things in common and the more things you share such as work, education level, economic level, etc., the more likes you will share. Your behaviors will also be similar, even if you don’t realize it.
The habitus in the social class
Different experiences, practices and perceptions correspond to each social position which, according to habitus schemes, will be considered as the characteristics and qualities of each social class. These characteristics shared by people who belong to the same social class seem to us something normal, inherent to that social class.
For example, the taste for refinement of the bourgeois class is considered a quality of the people who belong to this class. However, this characteristic depends more on learning and life history than on bourgeois social class. Possibly this characteristic comes from the fact that the people of the bourgeois class are in a position of superiority compared to the popular classes, so they can afford to buy clothes, perfumes and other refined articles.
In this case the habitus has naturalized the tastes of the bourgeois class and the popular class. The popular class, limited by its economic options, is condemned to simplicity and to reject refined products as opposed to practical ones. In this way, each social position has its own habitus, thus creating a framework for each social position.
Since the habitus is social, anyone can acquire habits of other social classes. But in these cases, those characteristics are not social since they are only practiced by one person.
The habitus becomes the fundamental dimension that explains social class. Social class is integrated based on its characteristic habits. The performance of actions is what places us in a certain social class. However, social relations also contribute to the formation of social classes, these constitute the targeted social classes.
Actions are said to have consequences. Actions seem to have more consequences than we might expect. Breaking these habitus schemes, such as going against popular opinion or ceasing to follow the daily routine, are small actions that can have a great effect if we get others to change their habitus for new ones.
