Bon Vendredi! As much as Dora the explorer always holds a map to discover and overcome the obstacles during her adventures trips, the Middle-Class also has had a cognitive map for its success. This cognitive map has been inserted in the Middle-Class brains, not just to overcome troubles and difficulties, but also to innovate and create a sophisticated pool of talented people who have the possibility to be hired and required in the productions systems of the world.

What is the theory behind cognitive maps? I have prepared the following set of slides to put your brain on the same page.

If you wish to download the last slides in PDF format, click here:

As I have explained in our last publications,  regardless the economic segmentation of the Middle-Class, or if it strong in numbers (for example in the US, around 50% of the population is categorized as middle class income); the reason why our Middle-Class is so fragile and fragmented, rest in the inappropriate organization of the premises and subjects of cognition of the Middle-Class all over the world. But we found one cognition map that is common to all middle-class citizens, regardless the degree of technology sophistication, regardless if it is a developed or emerging or developing market, regardless the degree of complexity industrialization, and regardless the political-economic-social-religious or environmental contexts of each country. We will show you the most basic cognitive map that has created or originated the Middle-class: The cognitive map of belief about causality, composed by givens, means and ends.

The strategic decisions of the Middle-Class have been built over the last centuries, based on beliefs about causality. From thousands of years of monarchies, autocratic kingdoms and empires, the middle-class was originated with the cognition that was “explicitly causal in nature”. The Middle-Class existence comes as the result of the proof of evidence of the belief of “economic mobility”. Economic mobility is basically “a child’s chance of moving up in the income distribution relative to her parents”.

The Givens of the Middle-Class:

The middle-class believe that the givens are coming from Mom and Dad.  Children who have the opportunity to be born at the Middle-Class families believe that their extent to continue being Middle-Class or improve its condition of Middle-Class to high-end social groups is the product of their parent’s income. The concept of “intergenerational earnings elasticity” (IGE) is all about economic mobility, based on this subject of cognition. An IGE of Zero means that there is no relationship between parental income and child income, meanwhile an IGE of 1, indicate that the parental income determines child income entirely. In the US, the indicator IGE is at around 0.5. An IGE of 0.5 is one of the highest than almost every other developed economy according to the economists. In simple terms, in the United States, the middle-class child future income depends 50% of the economic capital of the parents.

Another given for the middle-class is education. The aspirational cognition model of middle-class is to ignite education at the most, to provide intellectual capital to children at the best alternative possibility. Sometimes the more educated the parents, the more educated the children. But other times, middle-class children overpass the education of their parents. That is why middle-class families choose schooling and cultural literacy as the core of their children life: This includes the quality of the education entity, extracurricular skills, cultural knowledge and taste, ways of behaving, speaking and dressing.

A third given to the middle class is meritocracy. Middle-Class parents believe that their children will be able to replicate or reach the higher income earners by promoting education, and by working hard. Millions of Middle-Class families have been raised under the mentality of a system in which advancement is based on ability to overpass competitors through achievement. The way to success is by earning it through efforts and dedication, that “working hard life-style” that deserves a reward reaching a merit. In the Middle-Class, nothing comes by free-lunch, but through a merit system in which middle-class members are appointed or promoted for the superior quality of worth, by excellence.

The fourth given to the middle-class is connections. These can be inherited from the parents, or merely built by the middle-class kids and upbringing social circles. According to Pierre Bourdieu, the middle-class has the opportunity to socialize with people from the same class and above by schooling and by attending courses at other educational circles. The latter idea, provides the advantage that by interacting with higher levels of class status people, the middle-class will be able to acquire or pave the certainty of economic mobility.

The fifth given to the middle-class is your neighborhood. The experience to live in communities with similar incomes, provide the means to be near same status middle-class circumstances and people. Without “confinement”, middle-class children tend to play with the kids of their neighbors. This socialization provides a similar class of people, all connected by the location.

The means for the Middle-Class:

The first course of action in the cognitive mapping of the middle class is living experience. This usually is related to the concept of “rehearsing to be” a middle-class. At the conduct level if kids do not put efforts to practice the experience of “trying to become or continue being a Middle-Class” by exercising all the givens from their breeding, it is not going to work. Even if parents provide all the givens,  kids need to exercise them continuously by the mechanisms of psychological behavior, attitudes and values rewarding.

The second medium for the Middle-Class cognitive map development is the knowledge economy. A flourishing middle-class mental map only thrives when in the knowledge economy, in the endless innovation ideas and business models that come from integral knowledge. THe top 20% of the Middle-Class includes professions that are based on intellectual knowledge: lawyers, doctors, managers, all the way up to CEOs and beyond. Also many entrepreneurs who have been able to cross the boundaries of the first years of deprivation, may reach the high-end spectrum of the Middle-Class and more.

The third instrument for the Middle-Class prosperity is mating wisely. Balanced middle-class citizens tend to search for their complementary mirrors when mating. Regardless if coupling happens at the same level of economic conditions, when it comes to the middle-class there is no more important factor to mate than intelligence and common values. The Middle-Class doesn´t have the prejudice of the nobility inheritance of the“high-end upper elites” who only mingle and marry with people of the same pedigree traditional ancestries. Middle-Class smart members value vastly and on top of anything, the intelligence (mental frameworks, cognitive abilities of the mate, education, cultural literacy and mental capacities to think integrally rather than the “nobility breeding” of the potential pair. The sharpest and most evolved Middle-Class mindset members enjoy the delicacy and beauty of a family that has a sharing intellectual fostering environment.

The fourth medium for the Middle-Class good fortune is debt. This will be explained in my next publication.

The results or ends of the Middle-Class cognitive map:

The cognitive map of “belief for causality”from the middle class is aimed to produce economic prosperity, financial security, mental stability and healthy boundaries. It also helps to overcome the scarcity mindset and the stinginess that characterize the people who are not able to evolve from the idea of who you are by what you have. The most “developed” Middle-Class mindsets have acquired a particular cognitive map that is well-off balanced. These members understand that your economic capital is only the first step to acquire knowledge, social and cultural capital, which at the end of the day matters the most.

The quality of the final product of the belief about causality cognitive map in the middle class, is the result of the appropriate intertwining of all the givens and means. And a pinch of good luck.

Even though there are many researchers that believe that the middle-class existence can´t be explicitly causal in nature, this basic cognitive map has been established in the Middle-Class mindsets to improve their integral well-being and to keep their status in an uncertain world that more and more is trying to shift the human brains knowledge to machines. The artificial intelligence is the most tremendous competition to the Middle-Class smartest minds, that inevitably can return to poverty if the new “world order” searches to replace the middle-class brains and activities. At the moment, it is the crucial turn for the Middle-Class to act with discernment, critical thinking and a strategic mindset to keep themselves “irreplaceable”. If the Middle-Class doesn´t get this, the economic mobility is on risk to stop or to be reduced, by artificial intelligence and the combo of NAIQI technologies.

If the current artificial intelligence and NAIQIs technologies continue to develop without regulations, without control and without any type of discernment, we are on the verge of corporate decisions, in which the best middle-class brains will be replaced by machines, and the inequality that exists right now will double or triple in less than a decade.  No middle-class citizen which earns US$ 62,000 dollars per year wants to return to earn US$30,000 a year, working 22 hours a day from home, just to keep the basic bills paid afloat.

This is it for today. Blessings have a beautiful weekend. Thank you for reading to me.

Sources of reference utilized this week:
https://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/SOTU_2015_economic-mobility.pdf
https://www.brookings.edu/research/defining-the-middle-class-cash-credentials-or-culture/
https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0912/which-income-class-are-you.aspx
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-middle-class-is-losing-ground/
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/28/how-much-the-american-lower-class-earns.html#:~:text=Nearly%20one%2Dthird%20of%20American,two%2Dthirds%20the%20national%20median.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-6486.1992.tb00665.x

Disclaimer: Illustrations in Watercolor are painted by Eleonora Escalante. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY.  Nevertheless, the majority of the pictures, images, or videos shown on this blog are not mine.  I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.

Published by eleonoraescalantestrategy

Corporate Strategy Artist, San Salvador, El Salvador View all posts by eleonoraescalantestrategy