Sean Sepeda Sepeda

Mrs. Shumate

English II

15 May 2017

The Outsiders

Many people can struggle with social class placement and how they get treated because of it.

There are books on this and even in real life there are cases like this with people getting

mistreated between social classes. The story talks about how two gangs apart of two different

social classes battle out their differences. In New York Ponyboy and his family are trying to stay

out of trouble otherwise they could get separated, after all most of the boys live on their own or

have no family unlike the socs who are privileged and are everyone's favorites. People view

each other and classify their social class with what they find appealing to them. Whatever draws

attention is what people will look for in one another. In other cases people can find their own

families guilty for what social class they are categorized in, or how they treat people because of

how they are treated.

When humans compare themselves to one another they try and find things that are

different. In the article Social Class and the Motivational Relevance of Other Human Beings:

Evidence From Visual Attention. the author states that ..studies indicate that social classes

differ in the amount of attention their members direct toward other human beings. (Pia)

meaning that people try and find different things and thats what draws their attention towards

each other. Going back to the Outsiders, this compares to the book because there are two gangs

and each view the other in a different way due to dress, money, and style.

Furthermore, in another article Class impressions: Higher social class elicits lower

prosociality. the author talks about how social class and the difference between classes

behave prosocially, or less socially minded. Different social classes can treat others differently
as well as others treating them differently, or even themselves. In the Outsiders the Greasers

are treated like the scum of the earth while as compared to the socs who are also bad if not

worse than the Greasers, but are still treated like the good guys.

Parents can be a huge factor into the topic of how they treat others or what social class

they belong in and how that affects them.

Parents can be held responsible for their childs achievements in a lot of things like school. The

source states how The article examines how social background characteristics affect the

academic achievement.. Economics students. (Havard) the article says that parents are

responsible for weather a childs grades and behavior are good or bad based on their social

class. In the Outsiders most of the Greasers have bad lives at home or dont have any parents,

so they live on their own. They dont like going to school and cut class, or find something else to

do. As for ponyboy, he likes reading and anything educational and his brothers stress that they

want him to be better than they are.

Adding on to that, in the article Poor but Warm, Rich but Cold (and Competent): Social

Classes in the Stereotype Content Model. the author talks about how social classes are different

and the higher the SES the colder they are. The author provides the quote stating that In the

international data, across cultures, people with high SES (socioeconomic status) are perceived

ambivalently as competent but cold, their warmth even lower in more unequal societies.

(Durante) meaning that some people can live up to the stereotype of being cold and competent.

The Outsiders really helps emphasize on this a little bit because in the book the gangs are split

between the east and the west, or the rich and the poor. They use this against the greasers

because they know they are better and they got pretty much the whole town on their side

because no one wants to interact, or be socialized with a hoodlum.

In conclusion social class shouldnt affect who you are and how you treat others, even

though there are a lot of aspects towards being altered into another state due to your

surroundings. Everyone should be united as one and it shouldnt matter about what social class
you are in, what income you make, or what style you have. But our views on different social

classes shouldnt have to be dependent on what draws attention, or how we view each other on

where we should be. In the end families shouldnt be found guilty for what social class kids are

in because we have the power to change that. Every person should be treated as an equal

rather than being classified into subgroups.

Works Cited

Dietze, Pia and Eric D. Knowles. "Social Class and the Motivational Relevance of Other Human

Beings: Evidence from Visual Attention." Psychological Science (0956-7976), vol. 27, no. 11,

Nov. 2016, pp. 1517-1527. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/0956797616667721. (MLA)

Van Doesum, Niels J., et al. "Class Impressions: Higher Social Class Elicits Lower Prosociality."
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 68, Jan. 2017, pp. 11-20. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2016.06.001. (MLA)

Durante, Federica, et al. "Poor but Warm, Rich but Cold (And Competent): Social Classes in the

Stereotype Content Model." Journal of Social Issues, vol. 73, no. 1, Mar. 2017, pp. 138-157.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/josi.12208. (MLA)

Helland, Havard. "How Does Social Background Affect the Grades and Grade Careers of

Norwegian Economics Students?." British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol. 28, no.

4, 01 July 2007, pp. 489-504. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ768492&site=ehost-live.(MLA)