In the current study, Objective and Subjective Socioeconomic Status and Susceptibility to the Common Cold by Cohen et al. suggest that perceiving and/or being of higher social status decreases the likelihood of getting sick when inoculated with the cold virus. These findings do not surprise me, I have heard about this study in other psychology classes.
The findings were solidified after taking a labor and politics class where I learned over and over about workers in third world countries and the poor health that they have due to their job. It seems to be a cyclical cycle which goes round and round with the help of capitalism and globalization. It makes perfect sense; a person who works in a field, factory, or blue collar job may not have the same health benefits as someone working a white collar job. They probably do not get paid the same amount of money, work the same amount of hours, or experience the same atmosphere, and are standing or working in poor lighting. These things alone can deteriorate a person's health but add this into probably a lack of sleep, poor nutrition because fresh fruit and veggies cost a lot more than processed food, and no insurance or poor coverage and a person is bound to get sick easier.
Someone working a white collar job, or of higher social status will have the means to buy food that is good for them, have extra time to relax, maybe pay someone to clean their house or watch their children which decreases their stress levels, and have insurance coverage. It's a bad cycle to be in and I wish I knew more about universal healthcare so that I would know whether I should be for or against it and whether it would help out those who are of a lower SES.
Recently in 8. Social Status Category
For a couple years now I have been introduced to the idea that people of higher status have less of a chance to get sick. Well, this article really pinpointed that theory and dug in to find out if this was actually true. Turns out there results showed evidence that this theory seems to be accurate. People of higher status are less apt to feel the full brunt of a cold and I am sure that is the same for other minor illnesses.
With everything that we have been discussing throughout our classes this seems to be very logical because people of higher status would have less everyday stressors due to bills and financial strain, which is one of the main stressors of lower status people. Stressors in life effect how readily our bodies can regulate themselves and return back to a balanced physiological state. This in turn makes it more difficult for lower status people's bodies to fight off infection or viruses and also their cold symptoms' seem to hang around longer than the symptoms of higher status individuals.
I know that my children and I do not get sick very often at all. In fact, besides going to early healthy check-ups, my children have only been to the doctor a few times throughout the last 10 yrs total. Granted I am not rich by any means and do have stressors in my life but my children are guarded from all that and just know that I love them and they are safe and secure. My children have everything that they need and a lot of what they want and to them they know that they are well off in that way. Not every child in my son's school has his own dirt bike and 4 wheeler.
Social status is something I have thought very little about until the past few years. Growing up, I would say we were middle class; we had everything we needed, but not anything we wanted. It was important that my parents send my brother and me to private schools, as the public schools is Louisiana were not up to par. Especially in high school, I realized that we were not as well off as many of the other people in my classes. This was not something I felt too bad about, it was just what I understood. The next time I started noticing class differences was when I started college, and I was working at a rape crisis center in Minneapolis. I was a peer counselor, and spoke with many men and women about the next steps to take in their healing process. Many of these people could not afford any other help than what they were getting me and the other staff at the center. This was upsetting to me that people suffering this much could not receive the help I thought they deserved. I noticed with these people that they were often sick with a cold, or the flu. They continuously called themselves lower class. Needless to say, this article made me think of them, and I wondered if they thought differently of themselves, would they not be sick physically and be able to heal more quickly mentally and emotionally. Were they stigmatized for having to receive free help, causing them to feel lower class? At this organization, we only met with victims over 15 years old. I did notice that the teenagers rarely spoke about money, what they had or were not able to have. It was mostly their parents, or people a little older. When to people start noticing their status? The point the article makes about subjective views of status, and it being the deciding factor, is powerful. One's view of oneself has the power to allow them to heal more quickly is a strong fact this article points out.
In the article, Objective and Subjective Socioeconomic Status and Susceptibility to the Common Cold by Cohen et al., it was stated that an association between objective markers of SES and cold susceptibility was not found. This may be due to the fact that the participants were getting paid to participate in the study so they are less likely to be worried about money and so the study is affected by that factor. They concluded that subjective social status was linked with disease susceptibility but not with objective social status.
This makes me wonder if being paid to be a participant would skew the data to the high end or low end because in studies like this one, income is a variable used in the data collection. I know that without the money as compensation, not many participants would want to volunteer to participate in such a complex research study, but it might have an effect on the data indirectly.
A point regarding the article is that it could be the mentality of the people as to where they placed themselves on the ladder of where they stand with others in social statuses. Maybe there was a link between subjective social status and getting sick because when the participants ranked themselves by the social status of others, they can see the whole picture, in which they are lower in social status, so they feel depressed and more prone to getting sick. On the other hand, objective social status did not correlate to getting sick because participants only answered questions as to how much they make or how high their education was. This does not give the participants the ability to see or compare their income or level of education to others in society so they have no rank in how much they earn or how high their academic level was.
Simply putting it, if the participants cannot compare their social status to others in society, they have less stress and are less prone to sickness. If they can see where they place in society with their status then they are more prone to be distressed and get sick.
I think the argument of the paper, that the higher a person feels about his social status, the healthier he will be. I really like how the paper examined subjective and objective aspects. I think it is because people who are more satisfied with their lives are likely to see themselves in a positive light and that positive light can lead to a higher perceived social status. When people are happy with themselves, they are less likely to experience many physical abnormalities that are associated with unhappiness. There is also such a strong connection between immunological function and happiness. I think those that are happier are healthier and that is why there is the link between perceived social status and wellness. This research can be used to help combat illness. If a physician has a patient coming in multiple times a year for viral infections, maybe a suitable question would be, "how do you feel about your life?" By getting to the bottom of the social issue, the physician may be able to help the patient maintain a better level of health. One thing that could be done is suggesting that the patient gets involved in the community to make him feel better overall and feel like his perceived social status is better than before.
This article again was informative, but I felt as though I had to read it over and over again to figure out what it was getting at. Pretty much, perceived higher social status aids in lessening the chances of contracting a cold. The study basically pointed out that it doesn't necessarily imply that everyone with higher education, or more income has the same results which would be objective SES, but what matters is where the individual believes themselves to be on the social status spectrum, subjective SES. I guess this article makes sense, it seemed to complicate my understanding more than help it. how can it be that objective and subjective differ to that extent that it would actually affect health.....
"Status and Common Cold" study used an interesting approach in looking at the relationship between the two factors: self-perception of social status, not the objective status, and health. I would assume that this self-perception and objective status often match, but the participants' subjective perception of their social status mattered more.
I think there are multiple factors why people on the (self-perceived) higher social status are healthier. Of course they would have more beneficial health resources and better lifestyle, and their social support would matter too.
But I have a counter example on the top of my head. There is the widespread notion of the "Rosebud syndrome": it is happier to be poor, because wealthy people have stressful, hectic lives. So, it might be that this notion is not true, or it could be something else. I don't know.
