TOK
Blog Post:
A research study has suggested that
perhaps Upper-Class people have trouble recognizing other’s emotions. The term Upper-Class was described in the
study as people who have had more educational opportunities, greater financial
security, and better job options than the people lower down the social
class. The study, published in Psychological Science, is conveying that
although they have a higher form of education, their reading of emotion is not
as strong as those from the lower class.
The research study was brought on, because scientists observed that
lower class people have the tendency to rely on other individuals for
success. One experiment used a couple of
volunteers working at a University. They
chose some volunteers who were college graduates, and some who were not. A test of emotional perception was conducted,
in which the volunteers were told to look at images of faces and identify each
displayed emotion. A similar study
involved university students indicating the emotions of complete strangers
while conducting a group job interview.
The conclusion listed for the study suggests that upper-class people are
not good at recognizing the emotions of others.
This study seems to revolve around the
basic idea of sense perception and language, contesting the perception of
emotion and the definition of emotion. A
main statement in the document was that “people of upper-class status aren’t
very good at recognizing the emotions other people are feeling.” How can this idea be determined? The idea of perception is completely
different for everyone; therefore, can perception be tested? How can a person be defined as an
upper-class or lower-class? More so,
what is the definition of emotion?
The AoKs in this issue are perception,
emotion, and education, because it deals with how the ability of perceiving
emotion in certain “classes” of people is analyzed. First off, there is no possible way of
accurately measuring the ability to perceive, simply because there are so many
different ways to perceive in the eyes of each person. Similarly to the map is not the territory,
the idea of any topic/subject is mapped out differently in each of our
minds. Also, the way that we perceive the
actions of other individuals is different, because we react to different traits
and characteristics. On the other hand,
our perception is usually based partially on what kind of environment we are
placed in (Upper Class, Lower Class), because that’s where our reactions reside
from. However, just because some people
are exposed to the same environment doesn’t necessarily mean that the way they
see things are similar. Another question
is whether or not Upper and Lower “Classes” can be even defined as basic
environments that may sway our perception.
Perhaps one can argue that a person who has had much education may not
have had more time to socialize with others, therefore causing them to have
little exposure to human emotions.
However, lower classes may have had to do more work, simply because they
did not have enough financial support, which could lead to less exposure to
human emotion as well. Another
questionable factor, is how the true distinction between the lower and upper
classes. Is the true factor of
distinction the amount of wealth obtained in each family? If so, how does this have any relation to the
perception of emotion?
The WoKs that this issue deals with are
mostly sense perception and language. As
dealt with before in the previous paragraph, perception is not something that
is testable, because there are so many variants. The language put forth in this study suggests
that the scientists are attempting to enforce the idea that upper-class people
are not more skilled at everything than the lower-class people. They conclude that lower-class people are
better at perceiving the emotions of others than the upper class. However, how reliable is the test for
this? Is analyzing a couple pictures
enough to determine one’s ability to detect emotion?
The way I stand on this is that the simple
tests they conducted are not enough to determine someone’s ability in
anything. Whether it be detecting
emotion or not, the sample sizes are much too small and the way that the
conclusion is phrased makes it sound much too stereotypical. Perhaps the upper class people whom they
conducted this research on had a sense of emotion that was poorer than those
lower class people that they also included.
This is not to say that all people from the “upper class” have poorer emotion
perception than others. Also, the reason
that they have shown lower ability of emotion perception could be what they are
used to in their own environment, or “map”.
Lastly, some people may even perceive emotion differently, similarly to
color perception.
A real life idea that could be related to
this may be the idea of beauty. The description
of beauty is largely diverse within every culture, which shows the large range
in perception of all kinds. Beauty
perception also relates to emotional perception, because they are both issues
that are impossible to measure.
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