FEST Writing Group

Differentiation of Self and Socioeconomic Status

Stephanie J. Ferrera

            The level of differentiation of self that one develops over the course of childhood and early adulthood is of central importance in the quality of one’s life, and so also is the level of socioeconomic status that one achieves or inherits.  The question to be explored in this article is:  how are these two variables related?  Bowen addressed this question briefly in his description of the scale of differentiation:

The scale has no direct correlation with intelligence or socioeconomic levels. …A majority of the lower socioeconomic group are far down the scale but there are those in the lower social groups who are well up the scale and those from high social groups who are far down the scale.  (FTCP, 472)

If not a direct correlation between socio-economic level and level of differentiation, Bowen’s statement that a majority of the lower socio-economic group are far down on the scale, leaves us with the question of how the two are related.  Is there reciprocal influence between them and if so, how does that work?

            In answer to David Berenson’s question: would you equate increasing level of differentiation of self with power? Bowen drew this distinction:

No.  They are not in the same ballpark. …The notion of ‘power’ is usually used in a relationship sense, having to do with other people, and specifically with exerting control and domination over others.  It is a relationship term which has to do with other people.  The concept of differentiation has to do with self and not with others.  Differentiation deals with working on one’s own self, with controlling self, with becoming a more responsible person, and permitting others to be themselves.  (409)

            These two statements provide clues for understanding the interface between differentiation of self (DOS) and socioeconomic status (SES).  DOS entails the capacity to define a self within social and economic systems, and SES is one’s position or rank in those systems.  

This definition of SES comes from the American Psychological Association:

Socioeconomic status is the position of an individual or group on the socioeconomic scale, which is determined by a combination of social and economic factors such as income, amount and kind of education, type and prestige of occupation, place of residence, and—in some societies or parts of society—ethnic origin or religious background. (https://www.apa.org/topics/socioeconomic-status)

The distinction becomes clearer when viewed in terms of the two counterbalancing forces omnipresent in the functioning of the emotional system:

The togetherness forces are derived from the universal need for “love,” approval, emotional closeness, and agreement.  The individuality force is derived from the drive to be a productive, autonomous individual, as defined by self rather than the dictates of the group.”  (Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 277)

The necessity to find and develop the material and social resources on which the survival and wellbeing of self and family depend is a basic, universal reality for humanity.  This reality has been key to making us the profoundly social species that we are.  Dependence on one another in the search for resources would spur the force for togetherness. Exquisite sensitivity to the sense of belonging and to the fluctuations in relationships with others would be necessary for survival.  Even in the earliest human societies, known for their egalitarian distribution of resources and ethic of sharing, sensitivity to one’s status in the group is important.  Scholars of hunter-gatherer societies observe their strong discouragement of arrogance, boasting, or any claim of superiority by a group member.  This appears to be their way of regulating their sensitivity to status.

The force for individuality would guide one in acquiring knowledge and skills, developing the ability to think for oneself and the ability to balance one’s response to the needs and demands of the group with a sense of self and pursuit of one’s own interests.

A Thought Experiment

Draw a horizontal line with low and high at the two ends.  This represents the scale of differentiation.  Intersect this line with a vertical line with high at the top and low at the bottom. This chart represents the intersection of Socioeconomic Status and Level of Differentiation.  Four quartiles are created: 

            Low socioeconomic status and low level of differentiation

            Low socioeconomic status and high level of differentiation

            High socioeconomic status and low level of differentiation

            High socioeconomic status and high level of differentiation

The point of this thought experiment is to envision the challenges that people in each quartile face and the level of adaptability they have for managing those challenges.  A profile of characteristics for people in each quartile could be drawn.  The profiles would take into account the advantages and disadvantages that people in that quartile are up against. A percentage of people in society would fit the description of each group. The percentages would vary from one society to another, and within one society at different periods of time.  

            How much can we learn about a society by studying the interface between DOS and SES?  The United States is in first place among the nations of the world in regard to economic inequality.  I wonder whether the stratification in current American society, with the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small percentage while a significant percentage live in or near poverty, is a key driver of the societal regression that Bowen observed fifty years ago.  In his chapters on societal regression, Bowen suggested that the concept of differentiation can be applied to society as a whole.  He proposed that our society would need a higher level than we had at the time he was writing in order to address the crises that were unfolding.  My reading of the current state of American society, informed mainly by reading the NY Times and postings by trusted sources like Timothy Snyder, Heather Cox Richardson, and by my own family conversations, is that we as a society are in an even deeper regression that we were at the time of Bowen’s writing.

            In grappling with the complexity of these questions, I have been following Laurie Lassiter’s study of SES and DOS over the past few years.  Laurie has gone a long way to research the work of scientists on the connections between stress, rank, and health. She integrates these findings with her knowledge of Bowen theory.  I am adding to this post two short essays I wrote for the Systems Thinker blog on the Center for Family Consultation website. These essays are my summary of Laurie’s work, a modest effort to capture the scope and depth of thinking that can be found in her original published work. 

The social hierarchy and Laurie Lassiter’s chapter in the Handbook of Bowen Family Systems Theory and Research Methods

I have been interested in the subject of the social hierarchy for a while.  My reading of Sapolsky, deWaal, E. O. Wilson, and other scientists has helped me understand the adaptive value of groups organizing rank orders as well as the stresses incurred and the way those stresses are distributed.  My study and observations have led me to think that humans are like many other species in that we instinctively respond to social threats by taking reciprocal dominant and subordinate positions. 

In my recent study of hunter-gatherers, I learn that there is a general consensus among anthropologists that these were communities of kin and others who stayed together for life, were highly interdependent and had a strong ethic of sharing.  They were egalitarian for the most part, and strongly discouraged anyone claiming more than his or her share or taking a superior position.  This makes me wonder if they were lacking the basic dominant and subordinate instincts.  I am thinking that no, they were not.  These were as much a part of their nature as they are of modern humans, but their culture and way of making a living exerted strong constraints on the expression of dominance.  That started to change with the advent of agriculture and forming of hierarchical states.  In contrast with the h/g, our current socioeconomic world is highly stratified and social class is a key factor in one’s opportunities in life.  Much research has shown the relationship between socioeconomic status, health and illness.  Subjective SES can be as much a predictor of health effects as objective SES.  It is not only about being poor; it is more about feeling poor.  Status sensitivity is a component of most of our interactions from the interpersonal to the international. 

All this is to preface my comment about Laurie Lassiter’s chapter in the Handbook.  Titled “Human stress genomics and Bowen theory,” the chapter reviews a wide range of research, from the older work on rank and health, to the more recent areas of stress physiology and social genomics.  Laurie’s clear explanation of many studies left me with a heightened appreciation for the deep roots of SES, all the way down to the molecular level.  Especially interesting is the study of happiness, or, in scientific terms, “the genetic expression effects of different kinds of happiness.”  Distinguishing between hedonic happiness (“well-being generated by the pursuit of positive emotional experiences and self-gratification”) and eudaimonic happiness (“well-being that stems from devoting one’s efforts to a noble cause or purpose beyond the self”), the research shows that people scoring high on hedonic and low on eudemonic happiness are vulnerable to a persistent stress response that is out of awareness.  This particular finding strikes me as a clue to a puzzling aspect of human behavior: what drives people to pursue wealth beyond, and in many cases far beyond, their needs for material security or happiness?  Is it all about competition for social status and power?  Or is it better explained by the discovery of the connection between hedonic happiness and the persistent stress response?

This is just one example of many points in Laurie’s chapter that pushed me further in my thinking about the social hierarchy.  Most important are the connections she makes along the way between the genomic stress research and Bowen theory.  At the end of the chapter, she identifies specific areas of the research that correspond with concepts in Bowen theory.  She states:  “The finding that social groups are a regulating influence on individuals at the molecular level of genetic expression supports Bowen’s observations that individual development is determined in part by the larger systems in which we live and our position in family and other social groups.” 

How exciting it is to see this field of research bringing forth solid evidence that undergirds the scientific foundation of Bowen theory and contributes to the quest for a science of human behavior.  Thank you, Laurie, for this important chapter. 

The Emotional Side of Socioeconomic Status

A review of the CFC Summer Conference with Dr. Laurie Lassiter

Stephanie Ferrera

“The Emotional Side of Socioeconomic Status” was the title of Dr. Laurie Lassiter’s presentation at the Center for Family Consultation’s annual summer conference on July 14.  It is also the title of an article by Lassiter published in a recent issue of the journal, Family Systems.  Dr. Lassiter has reviewed a wide range of research to help us understand how social status impacts our health, relationships, and quality of life.  As a scholar of Bowen theory, she brings knowledge of emotional systems and differentiation of self to her study of social status.  Drawing from both her conference presentation and her article, I have chosen the following highlights. 

To begin, a premier study on the connection between stress, health, and social rank was headed by Michael Marmot over a period of ten years, beginning in 1967.  Named the Whitehall Studies after a neighborhood in London and based on a large number of employees in the rigidly stratified British Civil Service system, the original study found that the mortality rate of men in the lowest grade (messengers, groundskeepers, etc.) was three times higher than that of men in the highest grade (administrators); later studies that included women also found a broad range of illnesses associated with rank. Marmot called the correlation between health and the social gradient, “the status syndrome.”

This raises the question:  how does social position affect biological pathways to cause disease?  One would expect that the conditions of poverty, lack of adequate nutrition, clean water and basic necessities would be the main answer.  Surprisingly, the Whitehall studies showed that the social gradient in health existed in lower rank employees even though they were not materially impoverished and had access to medical care.  The search for answers brings us to look at our primate roots.

Frans deWaal notes that humans are a hierarchical species, and that this is not something we invented, but is derived from tendencies from other primates.  His work with chimpanzees and Robert Sapolsky’s work with baboons brought to light the daunting social stresses of life in primate societies.   Sapolsky spent many summers in his youth camping near a baboon colony in East Africa.  By darting males with tranquilizers and then measuring the stress hormones in their blood following an aggressive encounter, he was able to see that when an animal attached another animal, his level of stress was reduced, and the animal attacked had an increase in measurable stress.  The conclusion from the data is that the stress of maintaining a social position significantly exceeds the stress of finding food, water, and safety from predators.  The social environment is a greater challenge than the physical environment.  Sapolsky later observed that humans have created socioeconomic systems and levels of poverty that far exceed “the scarring impact on minds and bodies” than anything seen in the history of animals.

Dr. Lassiter introduces a host of studies of recent years that have expanded our understanding of the interplay of stress/health/social rank.  Jenny Tung and associates studied rhesus macques and found that the genetic expression of genes changed when the animal’s social status changed.  The genes that changed the most were involved with inflammation which is a key factor in many illnesses.  Steve Cole and associates have found that the immune system is activated when the nervous system senses social stress such as a personal insult or a real or imagined threat of rejection.  Based on this, Lassiter suggests that the innate immune system knows there is a threat but doesn’t know what kind of threat it is.

Another important concept comes from Bruce McKwen: subjective social status. A person’s relative standing in the social hierarchy and sense of value as a social being is a key determinant of individual stress levels.  Or in the words of Sapolsky: “Subjective SES predicts health at least as accurately as objective SES, meaning that it’s not about being poor.  It’s about feeling poor.” (2017, 441) 

              For students of Bowen theory, all of this science stirs thinking about the relationship of the stress/rank/health research to Bowen’s concepts of the family emotional system and differentiation of self.  Lassiter writes: “One’s level of differentiation of self and one’s socioeconomic status are separate attributes that may contribute to health and well-being.”  She describes a higher level of emotional functioning: “Those with higher levels of differentiation may not have as many opportunities as some others, but they are more likely to take advantage of the opportunities they do have.  Less regulated by social pressures, less threatened by the possibility of rejection, and less vulnerable to stress from an anxious group, they steer a course more productively. (2022, 24).  A clearer or more succinct summary of the key steps on the path to observing and managing our social stresses would be hard to find. 

Adding to the insights of Dr. Lassiter, I suggest that there is a humorous side along with the emotional side of socioeconomic status.  Chimpanzee-like postures of pompous superiority or obsequious inferiority have provided a rich supply of comedic material for humorists, from Shakespeare to Monty Python and beyond.  Especially popular are the scenarios of the mighty being outwitted and brought down by clever underdogs.  One of the better ways of dealing with the impact of social status on our lives might be to take it a little less seriously. 

Lassiter, L.  2022. “The Emotional Side of Socioeconomic Status.”  Family Systems (17)1: 9-19

Sapolsky, R. 2017.  Behave:  The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. New York: Penguin Press