I am a die hard Gossip Girl fan. Although I finished binge watching all six seasons about a year ago, I still couldn’t get enough so I am currently rewatching the series. While watching this weekend, our discussions of prejudice came to mind. Starting from the first episode of season 1, social class has a great influence on the characters, on one side of the spectrum are the Upper East Siders, and on the other are the Humphrey family from Brooklyn. Without fail, Dan and Jenny Humphrey’s lower social position seems to be brought out by the richer characters in every episode. For example, Blair torments Jenny Humphrey at school because she doesn’t dress as nice as her and can’t afford the rich lifestyle that her and her friends do. Blair also refuses to associate with Dan Humphrey because he’s from Brooklyn and is constantly berating her best friend Serena for dating from the other side of the bridge. Although the show is a little exaggerated, it got me thinking about prejudices and how it also relates to social class just as it does to race. What makes Blair so bent on social class? Why do her and other characters focus so much on people’s socioeconomic status rather than their personalities?
This concept can be related to a study done by Rebba Bigler and Lynn Liben, called “Developmental Intergroup Theory: Explaining and Reducing Children’s Social Stereotype Prejudice.” Stereotyping and prejudice begin to emerge in childhood, developmental research has brought about this hypothesis known as developmental intergroup theory (DIT), which focuses on the causal ingredients of stereotyping and prejudice. It suggests that these biases are controlled by environment and may be molded by educational, social, and legal policies. The first process of DIT is establishing psychological salience of personal attributes. This can happen in multiple ways. In Gossip Girl, there is explicit labeling of the “Upper East Siders” and then others, there is also perceptual discriminability. The second process of DIT is categorizing encountered individuals by salient dimension. Starting from a young age, we learn to classify and associate people with categories, whether negative or positive. In the example of GG, people are classified as rich or poor, which is salient in clothing and lifestyle. The third and final process of DIT is developing stereotypes and prejudices concerning salient social groups. So, for anyone who has watched the show, it is clear that many of the Upper East Siders have a stereotype of poor people being less important and worthy than them, and they are therefore have prejudices and act in some discriminatory ways.
The Developmental Intergroup Theory explains a hypothesis of how prejudice emerges in young children. It can be theorized that such prejudices emerge at a young age and stay with a person. Although GG begins when the characters are in highschool, it is plausible to assume that if it were real life, these stereotypes and prejudices would have existed long before high school and before Serena Van Der Woodsen began dating a Brooklyn boy who her best friend couldn’t stand because of his social class. The DIT also suggests how important environment is in making certain social categorizations more salient than others. In a place like NYC and specifically the Upper East Side, social class is a much more salient factor in the environment than in other places.
-Alex McGeachie
Bigler, Rebecca S., and Lynn S. Liben. "Developmental Intergroup Theory." Sage Journals. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2015.
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