Copyighe ab tne Retal Sci Sockets Self-Perception of Poverty Among ‘Colonial’ Farmers in Brazil: Is the Symbolic- Interactionist Perspective Useful?! Louis H. Bluhm Department of Sociology, Mississippi State Universi Mississippi State, Mississippi Asstract ‘The relationship between the possession of level-of-living items and the self-perception of poverty held by this sample of Brazilian farmers appears complex. No relationship could be found between the sheer quantity of goods possessed and the self-perception of poverty. However, a multiple regression equation using the individual items of the level-of-living scale to predict self-perception of poverty was highly sig- nificant, apparently indicating that qualitative factors associated with spe- cific items were involved. Some of the Beta weights were negative, which means that the possession of certain items tended to make the farmers feel poor. These items generally had substantial economic value and, at least intuitively, would be associated with economic development. These findings were largely supported by a factor analysis which also indicated that the self-perception of poverty was associated with a subdimension of the level-of-living index. Relative deprivation and shifting frames of ref- erence seem a plausible explanation. Problem The purpose of this paper is to explore a basic theoretical assumption pertaining to the relationship between material wealth and self-con- cept. The assumption under scrutiny is that there is a direct corre- spondence between a person's subjective perception of his own poverty and his objective economic situation. In other words, would it in fact be true that a poor person would necessarily perceive himself to be poor and vice versa? The notion derives its importance from its ubiq- uitous use as a point of departure for behavioral models in such diverse areas of study as political radicalism, migration, the culture of poverty, and adoption-diffusion. Theoretical Overview One of the basic theoretical premises of Marx (1848, 1887) is that discontent results from a person’s disadvantaged position in a capi- ‘This research was conducted under the auspices of a grant from MUCIA (Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities, Inc.) in cooperation with TEPE (Centro de Estudos e Pesquisas Econémicas), Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil Many persons were involved in the research, especially Professors Fli de Moraes Souza, Laudelino T. Medeiros, and Egon FrohlichSelf-Perception of Poverty—Bluhm 177 talist system which distributes economic reward unequally. However, before this model can be convincing it must be assumed that a person would in fact perceive his deprivation (Merton, 1957:447-88), Dah- rendorf (1959:61—4, 1968:167) argues that the origin of inequality is due to the fundamental structure of all human societies in the sense that all have norms of behavior to which sanctions are attached. This implies that an unequal distribution of economic reward would con- stitute, in part, a system of “socially manufactured scarcity” buttress- ing the moral order. However, it would seem that varying degrees of scarcity could only function as a sanction if deprived individuals sub- jectively perceived themselves to be deprived, a perception which Dahrendorf also apparently takes for granted. Along these lines, Portes (1971) argues that people may become discontented when the cause of their poverty is attributed, because of a cognitive sensitizing process, to the existing social structure. This perspective suggests that though objective poverty may be necessary, it may not be sufficient for the rise of radicalism. To paraphrase this argument, perception of a person's economic position may be positively related to objective economic circumstances with the condition that the relationship may only become salient enough to produce discontent when those with low economic position have become “sensitized.” The basic assump- tion concerning perception is qualified, not changed. The somewhat divergent views suggested by these eclectic examples converge on the use of one basic theoretical premise—that is, the assumption that there tends to be a direct correspondence between a person’s perception of self and objective reality which, in this case, is the objective economic situation. As the examples cited would in- dicate, the assumption seems to have become at least an implicit part of the tradition of social thought in our discipline. The basic premise can be summarized in the following hypothesis: Chere is a positive relationship between a person's economic self-perception and the quantity of material goods possessed. This hypothesized linkage between economic situation and self- concept has a certain measure of intuitive validity. And, methodolog- ally, it has the attraction of simplicity. However, there is no recog- nition in the hypothesis and the assumption which underlies it that objects may be imbued with qualitative differences associated with particular constructs of meaning. A symbolic-interactionist, for ex- ample, might argue that perception is not dependent upon the char- acteristics of an object and that there would be more involved in the self-perception of poverty than the consideration of the sheer quan- tity of goods possessed. Nuances in meanings associated with specific objects could result in perceptions very different from anything based on an assumption that subjective experience is an undistorted reflec- tion of objective circumstance measured quantitatively. In other178 Rural Sociology, Vol. 44, No. 1, Spring 1979 words, the issue may be in terms of “what” a person has and not “how much.” Though we may pay lip service to this idea, applied work in our discipline often ignores it. But, if taken seriously, the implications of the symbolic-interactionist perspective provoke some interesting questions which are pertinent for the development of our discipline’s theoretical paradigm. For example, does it make any difference if a symbolic-interactionist perspective is used? Does the symbolic-inter- actionist approach provide insight which we might not gain other- wise? To help answer this type of question it would be illuminating not only to test the theoretical assumption outlined here but to do so by using different perspectives; that is, (1) an analysis whose logic is structured by the assumption that subjective feelings of poverty are a consequence of objective deprivation in a quantitative sense, and (2) an analysis which assumes that subjective feelings of poverty may be linked to specific qualitative meaning attached to specific objects. Methods The site The field research was conducted in 1973 in the district of Trom- budo, in the municipio of Santa Cruz do Sul, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Trombudo is a district of 186k? having a pop- ulation of 6,850 with 380 of these classified as urban.? Most of the population in this region is of German ethnic extraction. This area is a small part of what is often referred to as the “colonial” region which, in some respects, does not fit the stereotype we often have of Latin culture. However, in actuality the German ethnic contribution, including “colonial” family farms, constitutes a major factor in the socioeconomic structure of the entire southern region of Brazil (Med- eiros, 1963:9-10), as well as several other countries in Latin America. In general, the research site is economically poor and the farms occasionally produce less than adequate sustenance because of their small size. However, the trend toward minifundio (small land hold- ings) has been largely halted by laws which, in effect, establish a min- imum size for any given farming enterprise by placing restrictions on ownership transfers. Levels of formal education tend to be uniformly low, as do standards of sanitation and health. In comparison to the United States, the level of farm technology is primitive and utilizes considerable animal power and hand labor. While contact with urban culture appears to be increasing, the area is still relatively isolated (e.g., there is one bus a day from the district seat to the municipio seat). The area encompasses both mountainous regions and lowlands laced together by a sparse system of gravel roads, dirt lanes, and Urban means essentially “nonfarm” in this context, the urban designation being attached to those living in the village of Trombudo.Self-Perception of Poverty—Bluhm 179 Table [. Rates of possession for level-of-living index items and item-to-total correlations Rate of Ttem-to-total possession correlations Car 140 207 Size of house 5 677 Walls of brick 324 Exteriar walls painted 562 Glass panes in windows 586 Water piped into house 466 Toilet in house 418 Bath or shower 811 Electric lights 672 Radio 379 Refrigerator 748 Television 216 New furniture and curtains 645 Clean house 319 Electric iron 787 Boots and shoes 269 footpaths. While some produce, such as small amounts of tobacco, is sold for cash, the socioeconomic system appears to have many char- acteristics of subsistence agriculture. Before selecting the specific research site, local authorities in both government and the extension service were consulted. They coop- erated by helping select a typical farming district in this colonial re- gion.® Eventually, a random sample (N = 64) of farm operators was chosen, based on an INCRA (Instituto Nacional de Colonizacao e Reforma Agraria) census of all farm operators in the district. Several weeks prior to the research, publicity was channeled through the local newspaper and the local radio to establish the legitimacy of the study. When the actual field work began, many farmers knew of the study and were extremely cooperative Measurement instruments Because the area has minimal commercial agriculture, a level-of-liv- ing index rather than more sophisticated economic indicators was deemed an appropriate choice to approximate objective economic position. Initially, items for the level-of-living index were selected from items which had been used in previous research, including sev- eral studies done in the same region of Rio Grande do Sul (eg., * Local leaders and the local governmental officials of Santa Cruz do Sul contributed in many ways to the success of the field work. One of the key figures in this respect was extension agent Pedro Hogetop who offered advice and material aid.180 Rural Sociology, Vol. 44, No. 1, Spring 1979 Hansen, 1972). Sixteen variables were used to construct the index. These included possession of a radio, glass panes in the windows, boots and shoes, painted exterior walls, a clean-and-cared-for house, brick wall construction of house, size of house, electric lights, bath or shower, water piped into the house, an electric iron, a toilet, an elec- tric refrigerator, curtains and furniture in good condition, a car, and a television set. The items “clean house” and the condition of the furniture were based on a judgment made by the Brazilian in- The above items were coded | or 0 and a simple additive index was constructed.* Reliability was calculated using the Kuder-Richardson formula 20 (Magnusson, 1966:115-18) and a coefficient of .82 was found for this index. The item-to-total correlations, Table 1, indicate that none of the correlations fall below a probability level of .10 and most reach much higher levels of probability. The intercorrelations of the items indicate that some of the rela- tionships are negative (Table 2). Though none of the negative cor- relations reach high levels of significance, this does suggest the pos- sibility that the scale may be multidimensional. When index items were factor analyzed, the first factor accounted for 30 percent of the variance and a second relatively strong factor accounted for 11 per- cent of the variance (Table 3). The pattern of the loadings is some- what ambiguous in its interpretation. While most of the items had fairly substantial loadings on the first principal factor, several items had split loadings. And, some items with extreme rates of possession had low loadings. The possibility that the level-of-living index may be tapping a conceptual sphere which is not unidimensional is further reinforced by the strength and the bipolarity of the second factor. The dependent variable was the subjective perception of self. The respondent rated himself using a seven-point semantic differential item (Osgood, 1957) ranging from “rich” to “poor.” Pretesting indi- cated that this concept was understood in this cultural context and that this measurement instrument differentiated between respon- dents, (Table 4). * Incidentally, when subjected to scalogram analysis (Guttman, 1970), the coefficient of reproducibility was .88, the coefficient of scalability was .60, and the minimum marginal reproducibility was .71. Even though the items scaled, no assumption of unidimensionality was made and a simple additive index was used. 5-The question might be raised why items were not discarded and recombined until a “pure” level-of-living index was achieved. This would defeat the aim of this analysis, which is to detect nuances of meaning attached to specific items of the level-of-living scale, Since it can be argued that all the items have face validity, if certain items are discarded based on the factor analysis, nuances of meaning would very likely be ar- bitrarily climinated. 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(gy) ec] 920° 118 OO BOT” 680° oper (961°) (260) (800°) (ITO) (68h) (oog’) RB GFZ TES FIR 860" B80- yay separ ($00) (910) (100°) (h00) (90) (s¢0) 998: ee £98 semoys 20 qed (os) (OLS) (186) aan) geo BLU BLO 61 osnoy UL 19/10 4 (s00") (980) (226°) (690°) We ots Roa podid soy, 00 (ot) 18 bil smoputn ut saued sri, (100) (eset - sor LIT paired sem souareg, (980) EE) — 913 98t- 2PUG JO STEM (oo8") — 360 asnoy jo aztg - wy MONPPL109 yore uSts oy) pur xapur Sury-Jo-[asay ay? ur pasn stu Jo suoNEJaUODIOUT “Z 2ygML182 Rural Sociology, Vol. 44, No. 1, Spring 1979 Table 3. Factor analysis of level-of-living index items factor solution ‘imax rotation First Second factor factor (30% (10.8% First Second variance) variance) factor factor 19 048 704 008 290 ~.408 Exterior walls painted 547 Glass panes in windows 569 Water piped into house 409 Toilet in house 380 Bath or shower 822 Electric lights ‘719 Radio 370 Refrigerator Television 73 New furniture and curtains ~ 293 Clean house ~.090 Electric iron 247 100 Boots and shoes The actual Portuguese wording w O que pensa de vocé mesmo? Pensa que voce é: (rico ou pobre?) Rico. . .O...O...0...0...0...0.. .O.. .Pobre The question asks, “What do you think of yourself? Do you think that you are rich or poor?"* Findings The hypothesis predicts a positive relationship between the sheer quantity of material goods possessed and self-concept on the wealth- poverty dimension. However, the Pearson’s correlation between the level-of-living index scores and the self-perception of poverty scores was ~.03. Tests for curvilinearity (Y = b,X + beX?and Y = b;X + beX* + baX®) resulted in only a negligible increase in the correlation. These “If the respondent showed ambivalence and made no clear-cut choice, the inter- viewer probed to determine if the respondent did not wish to answer or if he thought himself to be average. No respondent refused to answer outright. The respondents who appeared ambivalent were comfortable placing themselves on middle ground, and some respondents placed themselves there spontaneously. But, if the respondent made a clear choice, he was then asked if he thought he was, for example, only a lite rich, medium rich, or very rich, An analogous technique was used if the person tipped in the other direction and considered himself “poor.”Self-Perception of Poverty—Bluhm 183 Table 4. Distribution of self-perception of poverty scores for Brazilian “Colonial” farmers Percent Cumulative percent (Rich) I 2 4 63 3 4 12.5 4 10 28.1 5 W 54.7 6 16 79.7 (Poor) 7 13, 100.0 Total 64 100.0 data give no evidence in support of the assumption that the self- perception of being wealthy or poor among subsistence farmers is related to the quantity of possessions. However, if the researcher considers the symbolic-interactionist perspective—that individual items might have special meaning—a slightly different logic of analysis would be appropriate. One possi- bility would be a multiple regression which uses the self-perception scores on the wealth-poverty variable as the dependent variable and uses all the individual items making up the level-of-living index as independent predictors. This would allow an assessment of the rel- ative contribution of each specific item to the self-perception of pov- erty. This method produced a multiple R of .81 (probability level .001 or beyond), explaining approximately 66 percent of the vari- ance. The application of the formula for shrinkage (McNemar, 1962: 184) indicates that the drop in the predicted multiple R and the explained variance is not appreciable (multiple R = .74 and R? = .55). Discussion The most interesting aspect of these data is that the Beta weights indicate that some items not only contributed more to the dependent ble than others, but that predictors actually had both positive and negative relationships to the dependent variable (Table 5). This means that possession of certain specific items was associated with the self-perception of wealth and that the possession of other specific items was associated with the self-perception of being poor. (The reverse would also logically be true.) This relationship would statis- tically explain the low correlation between the level-of-living index scores and self-perception of poverty, since in the additive index the positive and negative relationships would tend to cancel each other. To check these results, a factor analysis of the 16 level-of-living items plus the self-perception of poverty was undertaken (Table 6). It is important to note that the self-perception of poverty does not184 Rural Sociology, Vol. 44, No. 1, Spring 1979 Table 5. Multiple regression: self-perception of poverty predicted by the 16 items comprising the level-of-living index Mult RSQ change as 07 Voilet in house New furniture and curtains Electric lights 04 1.09 Glass panes in windows 05 2 =.32 Clean house DR 22 = 84 Refrigerator 04 00 1.89 Radio 2 tS Water piped into house 02-15 Exterior walls painted 02-08 Size of house OS 18 9.208 Bath or shower 03 10 5.90* Car 02 00 3.08 Walls of brick OL AT 16 Electric iron O1 ui Boots and shoes 00 00 72 Television 00 of 36 (constant) \gnificance equals .05 or beyond (1wo tail test) load on the first factor, but rather on the second factor. The second factor, you might recall, is bipolar which lends credibility to the mix- ture of positive and negative Beta weights found in the multiple regression analysis. The two patterns of negative and positive rela- tionships are similar. For example, items which were associated with the self-perception of poverty as indicated by the multiple regression were a toilet, electric lights, exterior walls painted, bath or shower, an electric iron, and—with a very low Beta weight—boots and shoes. (Electric iron also was not statistically significant.) In the factor anal- ysis, those items having appreciable loadings on the second factor with self-perception of poverty were a car, a toilet, bath or shower, electric lights, and an electric iron. (Four of these five items coincide with the multiple regression analysis.) Items loading on the opposite pole were size of house, brick wall construction, glass in the windows, water piped into the house, new furniture and curtains, and a clean house. The remaining items loaded near zero. Apparently the relationships involved in the self-perception of pov- erty are quite complex. The self-perception of poverty in this sample seems to be related to a subdimension of the level-of-living index and the relationship appears to have qualitative implications. The multi- ple regression analysis apparently detected this nuance of subjective meaning in the level-of-living index. Hence, with respect to the self perception of poverty among Brazilian farmers, the sheer quantitySelf-Perception of Poverty—Bluhm 185 Table 6. Factor analysis of level-of-living index. items including self-perception of poverty First principle factor solution rt Second Fn i imax rotation principle principle, |§ ——————_______ factor Second factor Self perception of poverty 000 898 Car -.072 170 Size of house 628 =.156 Walls of brick 402 ~.275 Exterior walls painted Su 026 Glass panes in windows 366 304 Water piped into house 327 208 ‘Toilet in house wil? 701 Bath or shower 774 163 Electric lights 687 197 Radio 061 047 Refrigerator 879 057 Television 219 052 New furniture and curtains 673 159, Clean house +155 -.175 Electric iron 892 152 Boots and shoes 043 000 of possessions does not seem to be the key. Rather, the self-concept of poverty appears to be related to specific items, both negatively and positively. Ironically, most of the level-of-living items which de- pressed the self-perception of being wealthy would intuitively be as- sociated with higher levels of economic activity. In fact, the items on the second factor appear to fall into two groups: (1) “modern” items which are associated with the products of industrialization (these items made the farmers feel poor) and (2) more “traditional” items which appear to represent the peasant farmer's investment in his homestead (these items made the farmers feel wealthy). These data prompt some interesting speculation. These findings may reflect a perceptual watershed where some subsistence farmers are discarding one frame of reference for another. Smelser (1968:153) contends that, “Social mobility . . . is often a matter not of simply moving up or down in a single hierarchy, but of moving from one hierarchy to another.” The movement from one hierarchy to another would imply change in perceptual frames of reference and standards for making judgments. It is conceivable that a person could be at the top of one set of standards and, at the same time, be at the bottom of another set of standards. For certain purposes, these stan- dards need to be understood from the point of view of the respon-186 Rural Sociology, Vol. 44, No. 1, Spring 1979 dent, not just from the point of view of the conceptual frame con- structed and imposed by the sociologist. It appears that the accumulation of economic worth does not nec- essarily mean that a person would subjectively view himself as wealthy. Objects apparently can have a duality of meaning. In fact, these data indicate that, in a practical sense, an individual could re- main in or slip back into “psychological poverty” even as his absolute level of living improved. It should not stretch credibility to imagine that an individual might even feel “poorer” as his economic situation improved. Yet, these findings seem contrary to common sense.’ But, this is precisely why these findings should at least be thoughtfully considered. The “common sense” assumptions made about the rela- tionship between objective wealth and the self-perception of poverty have perhaps become ingrained in our thought and methods to the point where they have become dogma. I argue that it should not be surprising to find that some consumer items in a respondent’s milieu are imbued with personal, perhaps idiosyncratic meaning. When a peasant acquires the products of in- dustrialization, he is not just acquiring objects which have value from an economic point of view; but, rather, he is also expanding his per- ception of the world. It would be blatant naiveté to assume that once the peasant installs a toilet, for example, he would necessarily heave a contented sigh and say to himself, "Now, | am wealthy.” He might just as well heave a sigh and say, “Now that I have acquired a toilet it occurs to me how poor I really am.” It is an accepted theoretical tenent in our discipline that the self as an object within the perceptual field of the individual may change meaning. But, this shift need not be a slow, continuous, evolutionary process. Nor, would this change always imply movement in a “favor- able” direction. To repeat, it probably depends largely on the point of reference. It may be that relative to the expanded limits of poten- tial wealth which form part of the farmer's new gestalt, he may view himself in his own perceptual field as impoverished even though he actually possesses more material goods than many of his neighbors.* The implication is that it may be very difficult for a researcher to make an a priori assessment of the meaning of any given level-of- living item and the frame of reference it might represent. The im- putation of motivational or psychological states such as discontent or class conflict based on such empirical indicators as level-of-living in- 7 In order to account for these findings, one reviewer of this article even suggested that variables may have been accidentally reversed in the computer. After rechecking, it appears this did not occur, However, these findings do suggest the idea of relative deprivation and have some parallel to the findings of Davies (1969). * These findings tend to be consistent with reference group theory (e.g., Stouffer «t al. 1949; Merton, 1957:225-80)Self-Perception of Poverty—Bluhm 187 dexes seems somewhat problematic. In this sense, the symbolic-inter- actionist perspective may contribute insights which might otherwise be missed. This analysis is certainly not definitive and may be atypical of later stages of economic development. However, the evidence presented seems strong enough to suggest that the relationships between objec- tive deprivation and subjective states are more complicated than what we may think. It seems to me that one important question remains unanswered. If indeed in the early stages of economic development there is a complex relationship between self-perception of poverty and objective possession, at what point, if ever, does the relationship become quantitative? When we construct level-of-living indexes or when we monitor levels of well-being, we had best take a critical look at this type of issue. References Dahrendorf, Ralf 1959 Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. 1968 Essays in the Theory of Society. Stanford, California: Stanford University 1969 He curve of rising and declining satisfactions as a cause of some great revoltitions and a contained rebellion.” Pp. 690-730 in Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr (eds.), Violence in America: Historical and Compara- tive Perspectives. New York: Bantam, Guttman, Louis 1970 “A basis for scaling qualitative data.” Pp. 174-86 in Gene F. Summers (ed.), Attitude Measurement. Chicago: Rand McNally. Hansen, David O. 1972 “The relationship between land tenure and social status in the rural colonia region of southern Brazil.” Madison: University of Wisconsin, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation McNemar, Quinn 1962 Psychological Statistics, New York: John Wiley and Sons, Ine. Magnusson, David 1966 Test Theory. Translated by Hunter Mabon. Reading, Massachusetts: Addi- son-Wesley. Marx, Karl 1848 The Communist Manifesto, Chicago: Regnery. 1960; originally published in 1848. : A Critique of Political Economy. Chicago: Kerr, Medeiros, Laudelino 1963 “Apresentacao.” Pp. 10 in Laudelino Teixeira de Medeiros (ed.), Goldquio de Estudos Teuto-Brasileiros. Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil: Cen- tro de Estudos Sociais. Merton, Robert K. 1957 Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press. Osgood, Charles E. 1957 | The Measurement of Meaning. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.188 Rural Sociology, Vol. 44, No. 1, Spring 1979 Portes, Alejandro 1971 “On the logic of post-factum explanations: The hypothesis of lower-class frustration as a cause of leftist radicalism.” Social Forces 50 (September): 26-44 ‘Smelser, Neil J. 1968 | Essays i Hall. Stouffer, Samuel A., Edward A. Suchman, Leland G. DeVinney, Shirley A. Star, and Robin M. Williams Jr. 1949 The American Soldier: Adjustment During Army Life. Princeton, New Jer- sey: Princeton University Press. Sociological Explanation. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Copyright of Rural Sociology is the property of Rural Sociological Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.