raised in an upper class environment?

 What is a clear sign that someone was raised in an upper class environment?

They are reserved; upper-class people don’t like bubbly people and tend to think that they are superficial;

Watch their table manners when they eat. If they hold their eating utensils well, keep their arms close to their body at all times, and sit straight and never shift, that is a sign;

They love to read books, but most of the time they are not bestsellers;

If their clothes are clean and pressed at all times, that is another sign;

They avoid confrontation, but know how to put someone down with a word or a look.

I would add that upper class people can be gracious and charming, but not overly enthusiastic or “bubbly” .  

Their humor is more ironic or wry than slapstick. They don’t overwhelm others with an outsize personality - they are low key. 

A word to describe their personality would be urbane.

My experience of genuinely upper class people is that they don’t care at all about appearances and going about their daily business will often wear old clothes, have messy hair and drive an old car. This is because their sense of worth is not dependent on how they look. 

You make an excellent point. The members of old established families take pride in their shabbiness. An old tweed coat , scruffy pair of shoes or tattered sweater is almost mandatory. Being fashionable is a sin. The interior of the house should never look “decorated”. The furniture should impart a look of clutter and never be of the same period. Color coordination should be avoided at all costs. The television must be as old, small and clunky as possible. Ideally, the television should be weirdly angled and awkwardly balanced on the most unsuitable piece of furniture in the room. Dog beds should be considered part of the decor, rugs should be faded and sofas should be slipcovered in a chintz fabric that clashes with the chintz fabric of the drapes. An eccentric relative is absolutely necessary. It is even better if someone in the family has an unusual hobby such as collecting snail shells, growing moss or raising badgers. Of course, no non-royal could ever aspire to Queen Mary’s favorite hobby: eradicating ivy from every building in her line of vision.

I don’t know if you intend it, but based on your answer, it seems you think someone from an upper class environment is invariably a snob.

For example, to your last point - the same person who can put someone down with a word or a look also would know how to raise someone’s spirits with similar subtlety and power. I always loved the story of Queen Victoria (or was it Elizabeth?) who, when a guest broke a priceless tea cup, followed suit by breaking one herself.

In response to your first observation, that they are reserved and that they don’t like bubbly people and tend to think they are superficial, I would counter that being reserved oneself doesn’t necessarily mean one holds a negative opinion of anyone who does not match them.

The concept of noblesse oblige, which translates as the obligations of nobility - is upper class by its very definition. Someone raised on the concept of noblesse oblige would generally hold a very compassionate view of all humanity.

◆I agree wholeheartedly with this response and I love the tea cup example.

Stereotype! Well brought up people have many personalities. Mostly they’re considerate of others.

■I agree with your answer, Tom. I was a supervisor at a private club for a while and was around a lot of upper class individuals for years. It was a melting pot of individuals there, and not all of them fit the description that was first posted. Everyone is different.

♤Yes, stereotypical. However, it does reflect a ‘general’ truth when you compare between groups.

♧Best way to interact with meeting someone new is, of course, to treat them on a case-by-case, individual basis. I think we can agree on this.

◆Very true, but that isn’t indicative of the “upper class”.

To me, most of that can be put under the heading “manners and consideration for others”. I grew up on a dairy farm in a dry-land county in south Texas - not poor exactly, but every penny counted. My parents lost the farm during a multi-year drought and moved to San Antonio to become members of the working class.

My late mother-in-law taught me manners such as you describe. There are reasons for each, I found. I ended up owning my own litigation firm and benefitted from never raising my voice, cursing, or appearing angry - in short, being a lady. I found that automatically put me on the high end of whatever was going on, and put my opposing lawyer in the awkward spot of appearing a bully if he didn’t behave. It was an important tactical advantage, but once in the habit, it is hard to change. Nor would I want to do so, actually.

People in higher social class are more overconfident and perceived as more competent than lower-class people, according to a study by the American Psychological Association. 

People In Higher Social Class Have An Exaggerated Belief That They Are More Capable Than Others

Overconfidence can be misinterpreted by others as greater competence, perpetuating social hierarchies, study says.

People who see themselves as being in a higher social class may tend to have an exaggerated belief that they are more adept than their equally capable lower-class counterparts, and that overconfidence can often be misinterpreted by others as greater competence in important situations, such as job interviews, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

“Advantages beget advantages. Those who are born in upper-class echelons are likely to remain in the upper class, and high-earning entrepreneurs disproportionately originate from highly educated, well-to-do families,” said Peter Belmi, PhD, of the University of Virginia and lead author of the study. “Our research suggests that social class shapes the attitudes that people hold about their abilities and that, in turn, has important implications for how class hierarchies perpetuate from one generation to the next.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology®.

Belmi and his colleagues conducted a series of four investigations looking at the connection between social class and overconfidence and how that might affect others’ perceptions of a person’s competence. The largest involved more than 150,000 small business owners in Mexico who were applying for loans. To measure social class, the researchers obtained information about these applicants’ income, education level and perceived standing in society as part of the application process.

Applicants were also required to complete a psychological assessment that would be used to assess their credit worthiness. Part of that included a flashcard game, a cognitive test where participants are shown an image that goes away after they press a key and is replaced by a second image. They then have to determine whether the second image matches the first. After completing 20 trials, applicants were asked to indicate how they performed in comparison with others on a scale of 1 to 100.

When the researchers compared the scores with their predictions, they found that people with more education, more income and a higher perceived social class had an exaggerated believe that they would perform better than others, compared with their lower-class counterparts. 

Another two investigations involving more than 1,400 online participants found a similar association between social class and overconfidence. In one, the researchers gave participants a trivia test. Those from a higher social class thought that they did better than others; however, when the researchers examined actual performance, it was not the case.

For the final investigation, the researchers recruited 236 undergraduate students, had each answer a 15-item trivia quiz and asked them to predict how they fared compared with others. They also asked them to rate their social class and for their families’ income and their mothers’ and fathers’ education levels. A week later, the students were brought back to the lab for a videotaped mock hiring interview. More than 900 judges, recruited online, each watched one of the videos and rated their impression of the applicant’s competence.

Once again, the researchers found students from a higher social class tended to be more overconfident, but they also discovered that this overconfidence was misinterpreted by the judges who watched their videos as greater competence.

“Individuals with relatively high social class were more overconfident, which in turn was associated with being perceived as more competent and ultimately more hirable, even though, on average, they were no better at the trivia test than their lower-class counterparts,” said Belmi.

The overconfidence effect may be partially due to differences in values between the middle and working classes, according to Belmi.

“In the middle class, people are socialized to differentiate themselves from others, to express what they think and feel and to confidently express their ideas and opinions, even when they lack accurate knowledge. By contrast, working-class people are socialized to embrace the values of humility, authenticity and knowing your place in the hierarchy,” he said. “These findings challenge the widely held belief that everybody thinks they are better than the average. Our results suggest that this type of thinking might be more prevalent among the middle and upper classes.”

The findings join a growing body of research on why class-based hierarchies continue to persist generation after generation, according to Belmi.

“Our results suggest that finding solutions to mitigate class inequalities may require a focus on subtle and seemingly harmless human tendencies,” he said. “Although people may be well meaning, these inequalities will continue to perpetuate if people do not correct for their natural human tendency to conflate impressions of confidence with evidence of ability.”  

Article: “The Social Advantage of Miscalibrated Individuals: The Relationship Between Social Class and Overconfidence and Its Implications for Class-Based Inequity,” by Peter Belmi, PhD, University of Virginia; Margaret Neale, PhD, Stanford University; and David Reiff, BA, and Rosemary Ulfe, BA, LenddoEFL. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published online May 20, 2019.

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes nearly 118,400 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.