Deck 4: Social Class and Stratification: Occupational Prestige and Class Identification

Question 1

Due to negative portrayals in the media, physicians and lawyers are no longer among the most prestigious people in the United States.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

The study of occupational prestige assesses the social standing of people's occupations.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The meaning of occupational prestige is significant because, along with ownership or control of capital, jobs are the major roles through which people obtain access to valued resources in modern societies.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The salary of an occupation determines the prestige of an occupation.

Question 5

People derogate their inferiors by making them acknowledge in some way their own inferiority and by avoiding intimate social relationships with them.

Question 6

Prestige rankings affect interaction between members of different racial and ethnic groups.

Question 7

The recognition of differences in prestige and power rarely occurs between men and women, since this is mediated by sexual attraction.

Question 8

Average prestige scores by gender are rather similar

Question 9

Significant differences in occupational prestige exist among women in various racial and ethnic groups.

Question 10

Hierarchies of occupational prestige typically change over time within the same society.

Question 11

There is relatively good comparability of job titles across societies.

Question 12

Class identification is an assessment respondents make of their own social class and the implications this fact has for their lifestyles.

Question 13

Studies of class identification simply analyze people's ability to place themselves into a set of ranked classes.

Question 14

Employed married women take their own, and not their husbands', characteristics into account in deciding with which class to identify.

Question 15

The answer to the question, "what do you do for a living?"

A) is inherently discriminatory.
B) is a greeting not a question.
C) is actually an invasion of a person's privacy.
D) is usually meaningless.
E) provides a short hand summary of a person's claim to be someone with standing in the community.

Question 16

The study of occupational prestige:

A) assesses the social standing of the jobs people have.
B) assesses how respondents see their own social class.
C) shows how much discrimination occurs in this country
D) shows why it is better to be a physician than a college professor
E) answers the question, "what do you do for a living?"

Question 17

The study of occupational prestige is significant because

A) people spend a lot of time analyzing their prestige scores
B) it is inversely related to income
C) jobs are the major roles through which people obtain access to valued resources
D) Max Weber showed its importance in his analysis of the origins of capitalism
E) it stimulated Karl Marx's ideas

Question 18

Occupational prestige scores

A) vary a great deal over time
B) are stable over time
C) are stable over time in less economically developed nations, but unstable over time in western industrial societies
D) are not correlated with class identification
E) are meaningless figments of Dr. Beeghley's imagination

Question 19

One problem with the statement that "hierarchies of occupational prestige are similar across societies" is that

A) not enough data are available
B) the data come from tourists who are more likely to speak English
C) illegal aliens are not counted by the researchers, especially in less developed nations
D) people don't work in other societies, so studying occupational prestige is pointless
E) the data from less developed nations come mainly from urban areas and college students

Question 20

The class identification question suggests that people see their jobs as an indicator of:

A) their level of oppression.
B) traumatic experiences during their childhood.
C) their potential for ascension into Heaven.
D) natural law.
E) their location in the class structure.

Question 21

Research on class and prestige often finds that people are hesitant to identify themselves as upper class. This occurs because samples typically do not include wealthy persons and because:

A) many of those who are well-off do not see themselves as such.
B) sociologists tend to be wealthy and they shelter themselves from the scrutiny of the public.
C) wealthy people only exist on television.
D) wealthy people are more likely to have servants respond to surveys for them.
E) there are so few people in this group, that they are thought to be irrelevant.

Question 22

White male workers in blue collar occupations with the lowest prestige scores nearly all see themselves as:

A) middle class.
B) superior to other people.
C) upper class.
D) oppressed.
E) working class

Question 23

Class identification is highly correlated with occupation and

A) is related to place of birth.
B) gender orientation.
C) says a great deal about people's lifestyle.
D) intellect.
E) people's tendencies to participate in government.

Question 24

People who see themselves as _____________ generally want their children to marry someone from the same class.

A) middle and upper class
B) working class
C) poor
D) upwardly mobile
E) independent

Question 25

______________ demonstrates that informal interaction, friendship ties, and other forms of relatively intimate social relationships are usually class based.

A) Occupational prestige
B) Social capital
C) Educational attainment
D) Residential segregation
E) Cloning

Question 26

The Status Borrowing Hypothesis asserts that when employed married women consider their own prestige, they:

A) favor their own jobs and education, ignoring of their husbands' status.
B) are more likely to approach banks and other lending institutions for a loan.
C) ignore their own jobs and education, in favor of their husbands' status.
D) are able to lend status to their spouses.
E) are indifferent toward their husbands' prestige