Jacen Mott

Dr. Griffin

UWRT 1102-016

29th, March 2017

How Does Social Classes Justify Authority?

Topsail Island Yacht Club is a marina located in Surf City, NC; while the club services as

a club house and marina for its members. Everything provided to the members comes at a low

cost compared to other marinas along the NC coast. This brings in your middle class person who

owns a boat and needs a safe place to store it. Having 192 slips, the marina has a large member

list, mostly made up of middle class and others are wealthy. This club is controlled by a board

committee, that is made up of members of the club and who come up with the rules and

regulations for the club. This creates the issue of a small group controlling the majority.

As a whole community, the Yacht Club seems to be split into two groups. A majority

group that likes the general manager, and the wealthy group that likes the main manager. A split

in the club could be shown by a hosted social event, an event hosted by the general manager for

example. The general manager hosted a shrimp boil party for 4th of July, any member, family or

friend of the club was welcomed. However, a few members of the board committee were against

some of this social gathering and looked down upon it. Though the majority wanted to the 4th of

July shrimp boil tradition to continue. The party happened, and the party was obviously split.

With the classy members staying on the top floor of the club house, drinking and enjoying the

night. The majority stayed on bottom patio, getting drunk and playing corn hole. Showing a

distinction in the members of the Yacht Club.

 The main purpose of the club is the use of the marina, which allows the members to skip

the pain of putting their boat in the water and cleaning it afterwards. This task is left for the

Topsail Island Yacht Club staff, where they take the boat out of the dry stack using a fork lift and

place it in the water. Where the dockhands take the boat and move it to an open slip for the

members to get on their boat. When the members return from a day out on the water, the

dockhands catch the boat help to unload their stuff. With the dockhands working under the

general manager, and as a team they coordinate to accomplish the task. The task being is to help

the yacht club member with their boat and move it to the forklift loading station. This can be

difficult because there are only eleven boat slips on the water, and there could be sixty boats out

on the water. However, the marina team always successfully completed this task, with the

guidance on the general manager. Though the general manager did a lot of the work in the

marina, he works under the manager who works for the board committee.

The other benefits of being in the club allows the members to have access to the pool and

the three story club house. This all seems simple and issue free, but there will always be

complications. The issue all comes down to the board committee being made up of eight

members, who are mostly owners of the dry stack; people who make profit out of the yacht club.

The people who own parts of the dry stack are considered high-class and wealthier then

the majority. Within the marina, these people own their own boats that are usually large boats.

Some of these boats are considered actual yachts compared to the boats owned by the majority

hobby fisherman. This could cause issues with the club on privileges, like who gets to use the

boat rack for boat maintenance. The rule in the club is one day on the rack, and if someone of the

majority has to have their boat moved for whatever reason has no issue with the rule. But when a

nicer boat that belongs to someone of higher class is moved, it becomes a big issue. Issues like
this all lead to the higher class believing they are more privileged and powerful then the middle

and lower class; leading to the question, how does social class justify authority?

Social class is usually defined as lower, middle or higher class. These are defined by

someones social status. Social status is valued by educational achievements, occupational status,

wealth and even style of speech. (Brauer & Bourhis) While authority is a part of power, because

authority is taking action using power. Silvia defines power as an individuals relative capacity

to modify others states by providing or withholding resources or administrating punishments.

(Silvia) Which is using ones authority to inforce their social power. Within social power, there

are two definitions: socialized power; using power for the good of others, personalized power;

using power to benefit ones self. (Silvia)

With social power being a big aspect in this issue, high social power comes in higher

leadership positions. When an individual holds a position, they are influenced on how they use

their power. A communitys culture is a big influence on their role as a leader, for example: goals

of the community set the requirements of being a leader. With this said, in the Yacht Club, the

board committee must regulate the rules for boating purposes to be good leaders.

Within the Yacht Club, the board committee being the leaders are elected once a year by

the members that attend the election. Any member in the Yacht Club could run and be elected as

a board committee member. However, mostly the marina owners only have interest in these

positions. This could have to do with their social status in the community, which leads to an idea

on why people with high social status want to be leaders. Categorizing as personalized power,

studies show people want to exercise power to justify their social status. (Brauer & Bourhis)

According to Dijke, he has a hypothesis that social power is increased by increasing an

individuals personalized power. (Dijke) The research shows that power itself is mostly
considered a personalized power, because people are interested in a personal gain. When

someone is given high power, they take advantage of this to control their environment to secure

their own position. To test this idea and Dijkes hypothesis, he conducts two experiments. The

first experiment set psychology students in a position where they can increase their personalized

power by decreasing anothers personalized power. The second experiment was testing the same

results with just a different task at hand. The results showed people want a power advantage, and

do so by increasing their own power; proving that Dijkes hypothesis was correct. These results

show that people will use their resources to increase their own social power to secure their own

social status. (Dijke)

Looking into the Yacht Club, it is possible that some of the board committee is taking a

leadership role to assure their social status. This would explain how the majority of the Yacht

Club has no interest in being part of the board committee. A social issue in the yacht club is that

the general manager controls the whole operation of the marina, although he does not make the

rules. This becomes an issue when the board committee is not satisfied with how the general

manager runs the place, which creates conflict among the two. This is because the higher class

depends on the middle class and can create conflict. Especially when the higher class wants to

manage their resources.

Resources play a big role within social classes. Recourses can help identify a social

status, because resources are influenced by wealth and other social aspects. Social Resources can

be difficult to define, this is because these resources are in every part of human interaction and

behaviors. (Donenfeld) Though resources pertaining to this matter are mainly physical resources,

such as money, laws, and personal connections. At the Yacht Club, the manager did not get along

with the general manager. The manager had more power over the general manager, even the
power to lay him off. With the manager being good friends with certain members of the board

committee, he used the resources to have a good reason to lay off the general manger. This was

an issue, because the higher class did not get along with the general manger, but the majority

loved the help and expertise of the general manger. Now leaving the operation of the marina to

be less efficient.

The general manager being laid off could have been the results of several conflicts. Little

conflicts like the managers rule on wearing closed toe shoes, which the general manager

disobeyed often. Characteristics of the Social Dominance Theory, that dominant groups control

material goods, wealth and health. (Brauer & Bourhis) This reflects back on how groups or

individuals manage their resources to help secure their social status. Groups and individuals are

powerful groups when they have that ability to do so, and can be defined as a higher social

power if they stereotype others to maintain control. (Brauer & Bourhis)

In a large social system or community power can be distributed in different ways. This is

called the diffusion of social power. (Evers) Evers defines it in two meaning for the United

States: power is diffused when influence over significant political decisions in any context is

dispersed among several relatively autonomous actors or group of actors, and when at the same

time the total grouping of influential is open and fluid enough to allow other individuals and

groups to enter it with only a moderate expenditure of resources. (Evers) In this context, it is

applied that the United States breaks down the power into small parties to equally distribute the

power among the nation. Not only is this power broken down, it is partially available to everyone

with the power to vote and have opportunity to take a power position. This is called voicing an

opinion and voting, a way for the American people to give opposition. (Evers)
 United States being a large geographic country, the social classes can be separated by

rural towns and urban cities. Focusing within a city, it is divided by the inner city and suburbs.

Which is constructed of different communities ranging in different social classes. Though they

live in different communities, they share one large community, the city. The issue here is that

these different classes have different views and needs, which causes conflict among the

community. The ideal problem solver is for the communities to express their issues by voicing

them, and then voting on what is right. That works for distributing the communities power

among the community. But when distributing a higher level power among the community, it is

voted among the community as a whole. Now the community has to agree on common terms, but

this doesnt happen so the larger group always has voting power over the others. Leaving the

community in a conflict and a dominant social class.

Leaving the dominant social class in power, does not mean they have complete control.

Although the higher social class controls the main resources, the lower social class allows the

higher class to function. In this loop the lower class provides to the higher class by cleaning and

doing the hard work the higher class will not do. In return, the higher class pays for these

services in different ways. A common way to pay is by direct income, another conflicting way is

through taxes, and these taxes provide services for the lower class to function.

The question in this loop, is which class has authority over the other class. Is it the higher

educated and wealthier class, or the less fortunate lower class? Generally speaking, a person with

authority is looked up upon because of their traits. Traits, such as being clean, well-dressed, and

speaking fluently. Most high class individuals share this trait, and are more approachable then

someone that is messy. This comes to be by conditioning, that someone who seeks power must

become a good leader, and adapt to the traits of someone with authority.
 This comes to the question, when did these traits make good leaders? Most of it comes

from the human mind making opinions. Someone who is wealthy, is considered successful and

that they must make a great leader. (Cialdini) Or that the individual is healthy, tall and strong is

someone who can protect you. (Cialdini) Which is easy to do for someone who has wealth to

afford a healthy lifestyle. Another trait of a good leader is to be happy and confident, and usually

the poor are generally depressed and in a negative mood. Higher power individuals usually and

assume that they will experience positive effects. (Brauer & Bourhis) While less powerful people

believe they experience the opposite. (Brauer & Bourhis) Generally speaking, a wealthy

individual has more opportunities on leadership traits then a low class individual.

For the Yacht Club, there is no doubt that the board committee has the nicest boats and

are wealthy. It is possible the majority of the Yacht Club voted on these individuals because they

showed interest in taking initiative for the board position, and appear as successful people. As for

the United States government, people are elected for a position that they qualify for. Giving

people the freedom to work hard and qualify their self for a position they desire. With the

positions in power being demanding, it takes people with high education and good skills to

qualify; which usually leads to wealth.

In America, it seems having a good education in America is a norm. That everyone

should go to college after high school to make good money. Having many jobs that require a

degree to do, it is enforced to go to college to become successful.

With the Topsail Island Yacht Club having 192 members, and a small board committee of

only eight. It seems like a large portion of the club has no interest in the rules and regulations of

the club. Even if it creates conflict with their being in the club. For the members that have been

voted as a leader in the club, they all fit the social idea of a good leader. They all are wealthy, and
mostly old. The one that isnt old, is very healthy. They all have some kind of experience in

leadership and high interest in boating. For this distribution of power a few can care less, but the

majority takes advantage of this position. Possibly for their own benefit to make them feel secure

of their social class. Which these individuals also have some of the nicest boats, reinforcing the

theory that they want to show off their nice lifestyle. As the Yacht Club is place for a hobby, it is

understandable for the majority to be more interested in relaxing instead of dealing with the

uptight individuals that assume power.