rap2016_ch27

Quiz for Document 27–2: Vance Packard, The Status Seekers, 1959

Choose the best answer to each question.

1. According to Packard, how did the new affluence of the American consumer society affect Americans’ relationship with class and status?

Americans were looking more assertively for ways to display their social status.

Americans concentrated more than ever before on race as a marker of class difference.

Americans lost the ability to distinguish between different social classes, much to their detriment.

Americans were veering dangerously close to Communist authoritarianism.

2. Why did Packard believe Americans denied the continuing relevance of social class?

The ideal of a classless society was part of the American dream

Americans had lost their ability to discern others’ social status.

The Cold War climate discouraged negative depictions of American society.

Poor families were rarely featured in American media.

3. In Packard’s account, what group of Americans posed the greatest threat to society?

Americans from working-class origins who gained elite status.

Americans who experienced downward social mobility.

Americans who found little purpose or enjoyment in their work.

Americans who were born wealthy and failed to understand the working class.