Hierarchy of Salience and its Importance in Our Lives

Everyone has a status set, that is all of the various "people" a person is. I am a student, employee, musician, sister, daughter, etc. All of these statuses have various roles involved with them like showing up to work, practicing, and doing homework. Everyone has a status set and various roles and most of the time they are invisible under the blanket that is self, but they might come out with role conflict and other things.

I never put much thought to my various statuses, but the other day in my Social Psychology class, I learned a new concept and it kind of hit home:

Hierarchy of Salience: the importance of roles in self and the likely hood that certain roles will come out in a mixed role situation. 

Why is this important? Well say you are a parent, employee, coach, etc., if employee is listed as higher in your hierarchy, then you might be in a meeting rather than at home eating dinner with the family.

I noticed a problem with my hierarchy when a few weeks ago, my cousin, Aaron, was killed in a car accident on the freeway. This came as a sudden shock for the family, and for me, I couldn't believe I would never see him again. I hadn't really talked to him in years. The only time we had seen each other was a few family gatherings ago and I hadn't really taken the time to talk to him. I never took did take time to get to know him as an adult, and show him what kind of person I'm turning out to be. All of us cousins are still pretty young, the oldest in the early 30's, so loosing touch is a difficult reality. There was no real reason. I just had my extended family at a much lower notch on my hierarchy, and that turned out to be a detrimental mistake. At the funeral, as everyone was talking about what a great person he was (and he was), I realized how much we had in common and how close we could've been, but I was too busy putting other statuses first.

So what we should all get out of this is take a look at your status set sometime, and analyze your hierarchy to see where your priorities lie. If a stranger comes up to you on the street and asks you on the spot who you are? Are you a father? A worker? A daughter? A student?
Whatever the answer is, is it the right one?

Marriage in America

When I first formed an opinion on the issue of "Gay Marriage", I didn't fully understand everything that is involved in getting married. I thought it was just a declaration of love between two people and didn't understand why it was such a big deal. After some ill prepared debate about it I decided to do some research about what is involved in a marriage, legally and yes religiously.

Marriage is historically a religious construct and "sacrament" (for those Catholics out there), but thousands of non-religiously affiliated people get married all of the time so the argument that a same-sex couple can't get married because it is a religious thing doesn't make any sense. The federal government recognizes it as a legally binding relationship.

Legally, marriage binds two people together and allows them to share many benefits.There are actually roughly 1,150 benefits legally associated with marriage. These include things like visiting rights in jail and hospitals, life insurance trusts, employee benefits like bereavement, pension benefits, family health insurance, and the list goes on and on. These things are all good reasons for people to choose marriage over simple cohabitation, but under the law, they only apply to a man and a woman. One might say (as I did): Cohabitation is an alternative option why can't people just agree to be together but not get married? Well what happens when they have a family and can't get health insurance from the employer because they are not listed as husband and wife. One also won't be eligible for time off work if the other suddenly passes away. Clearly, the two options, marriage and cohabitation, are not equal. Also, if marriage is a religious construct, how can there be strict legal entitlements for a married couple when we live in a country that boasts its separation between Church and State?

In sum: marriage is a religious construct, yet the government rewards people for following its doctrine. I understand that legal marriage has evolved from religious marriage (like you can get married in a courtroom now rather than a church), but why then, does the government have to follow the strict doctrine of the Church on what constitutes as a marriage and who can get married? There is (or rather should be) a distinction between a religious marriage and a legal one, and if not, there shouldn't be certain rewards from the government for following a religious doctrine.

If we want to get ahead of this big "Same-sex Marriage" problem, we need to ask ourselves, not what God thinks of it or try to allow two men to marry in a religious ceremony, but why the  heck does the state allow the church to run its personal business? We need to separate Church and State and see that under the government all are created equal in the "Land of Opportunities" and that one persons "pursuit of happiness" to spend the rest of their life with the love of their life should be rewarded regardless of the sexuality of their partner.

Using a Sociological Perspective

Any one in sociology knows what a sociological perspective is. For those of you that don't I'll give you a hint.

The sociological perspective is looking at people's specific behavior and fitting it into general social patterns and vice a versa. 

Using the sociological perspective, one can eliminate prejudices and misunderstandings by taking a deeper look into why someone does something or is a certain way. That's like if I were to see a student with an Asian background that is really good at math. I wouldn't think 'oh, typical' referring to the general stereotype that Asians are good at math. I would think about the cultural implications that impact children in school. In many Asian cultures, parents push their kids hard to get their homework done and do well in school and succeed in life in general. This can be contrasted to the cultural expectations that U.S. parents have on their children. Some may push their kids really far, but the general consensus is to 'do your best' and 'do what you love'. With this in mind, and using the sociological perspective, we can see where the stereotype the 'All Asians are good at math' comes from. Many stereotypes, like rumors, stem from some truth, but with the sociological perspective, we can look at the why and how behind these stereotypes.
Well there was a general run-down on the sociological perspective, an elementary, but very important aspect of sociology. This is the foundation of all sociological thought, because without a sociological perspective, one cannot view society through the right lens.

Through the rest of my posts, as I cover different, potentially controversial topics, I will attempt to use this foundational tool, along with many others, and ask that you do the same. If you should have a strong opinion about certain things, comment it, but try first to take that step back and consider all sides and angles of the topic. If you think I might not have considered something, please, please! comment and let me know. It would be cool to start some discussion here.
Thanks,
Emm