society. Easterners in turn count themselves fortunate in having a
highly developed civilization, and they usually attain real pity for
those who seem to live upon a psychic, if not a geographic, frontier.
The middle class have a philosophy with which they protect themselves
against the insidious suggestions that come from the life of the
conspicuous rich. These, on the other hand, half expecting that
simplicity and domesticity may have some virtue, speak superciliously of
middle-class smugness and the bourgeois "home." The less prosperous of
the professional classes are prone to lay a good deal of stress upon
their intellectual resources as compared with the presumptive spiritual
poverty of the affluent. Country folk encourage themselves by asserting
their fundamental value to society and by extolling their own simple
straightforward virtues, which present so marked a contrast to the
devious machinations of city-dwellers. Booker Washington's reiterated
assertion that if he were to be born again he would choose to be a
Negro because the Negro race is the only one which has a great problem
contains a suggestion of this protective philosophy. This tendency of a
group to fortify itself by a satisfying theory of its lot is obviously
related to group egotism and is immediately connected with group
rivalry.

The competing group derides many a dissenter into conformity. This
derision may be spontaneous, or reflective and concerted. The loud
guffaw which greets one who varies in dress or speech or idea may come
instantly or there may be a planned and co-operative ridicule
systematically applied to the recalcitrant. Derision is one of the most
effective devices by which the group sifts and tests the variants.

Upon the small number of rebels who turn a deaf ear to epithets,
ostracism is brought to bear. This may vary from the "cold shoulder" to
the complete "boycott." Losing the friendship and approval of comrades,
being cut off from social sympathy, is a familiar form of group
pressure. Ridicule and derision are a kind of evanescent ostracism, a
temporary exclusion from the comradeship. There are many degrees in the
lowering of the social temperature: coolness, formality of intercourse,
averted looks, "cutting dead," "sending to Coventry," form a progressive
series. Economic pressure is more and more a resort of modern groups.
Loss of employment, trade, or professional practice brings many a rebel
to time. All coercion obvio