Thank you to those who responded! If you happen to see this, do you know if the behavior you describe is more common in Europe, rather than the Americas? (Just out of curiosity.) Most of the people I know who speak Spanish are from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean (Puerto Rico or Cuba), and occasionally from South America. Rarely do I get to meet people from other areas, so I'm not sure if this is something I've failed to notice, or if it's maybe due to a regional difference.
Also, am I correct in my understanding that prayer is done nearly universally in "tu"? (I know some Argentinos who use "vos" for informal circumstances, but still use "tu" for prayer, but rarely anywhere else.) Could you help me to better understand the reasons behind this?
Thank you again for your response! It's a beautiful thing to have the opportunity to learn about other cultures from the people who live them.
Huh, having learned Spanish as a non-native speaker, I was taught that the two forms had more to do with the closeness of the relationship than they did with some sort of social rank or superiority.
For example, a family member who you would address as "sir" (at least in the Southern U.S.), maybe a parent or grandparent, might be taken aback if you addressed them with the formal "usted" in Spanish, because it didn't imply respect, but that you didn't consider the person close. Another example would be prayer, where God is definitely superior to us, but you would address Him with the less formal "tu", because the love He has for us makes that a close and personal relationship. (I'm not even sure that the word "formal" is the right one to use here, as like I say, it's not quite the same as in English.)
You could also have a business conversation where you'd use "usted" without necessarily implying respect, because "tu" sounds out of place for a distant relationship like that. (I.e. using "tu" wouldn't be disrespectful, so much as it would just be weird or akward.)
Am I misunderstanding the usage of the two forms, or could someone enlighten me a bit more on the subject? Is the dynamic similar in other T-V languages, or is it used more to denote social status/tiers?
Yeah, there are studies that have been done on this. It's called the 'relative age effect'. It can have an effect into adulthood as well, when a one-year age difference may be less significant. This is because in their earlier years, the children who are a half-year older and more developed will generally see more success, thus getting more opportunities to play, thus getting more practice and coaching, thus leading to more success, etc...
(For more info, see this article [0]. Interestingly from that article, and I didn't know this before today, younger athletes in their cohort who make it to the later stages of their sport are more likely to be "super elite" athletes, probably because they were able to overcome the challenges of playing with bigger athletes in their childhood years.)
To anyone interested in how poverty (and scarcity in general) affects our mental state, and thus our ability to function well and improve our lives, I'd highly recommend the book _Scarcity_ by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir. I've found it quite illuminating and interesting. It's written from an academic perspective, so it has plenty of research behind it, and the narrative flow is not bad.
If you want something more concise and to the point, the article "The Science of Scarcity" [0] in Harvard Magazine provides a pretty good summary of the book.
The themes from the book complement those in the article fairly well.
I don't believe that IQ tests are designed with a bias for or against the poor, so I'm not going to argue either side of that.
I would like to point out however that poverty (or even a hypothetical worry about financial matters) has been shown to reduce fluid intelligence (which IQ tests measure) significantly. This is because people facing poverty have less mental bandwidth. The effect is strong enough to bring a person with "superior" IQ down to "average", or an "average" IQ down to "borderline deficient".
If you're interested in the subject, I'd highly recommend the book _Scarcity_ by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir. If you'd like a shorter and more concise version, there's also an article titled "The Science of Scarcity" [0] in Harvard Magazine about the book that summarizes it quite well.
I'm not an expert on the subject though, so if anyone has reference to any evidence that poverty has no effect on IQ testing, I'd (sincerely) be interested to see it, to get a different perspective.
Also, am I correct in my understanding that prayer is done nearly universally in "tu"? (I know some Argentinos who use "vos" for informal circumstances, but still use "tu" for prayer, but rarely anywhere else.) Could you help me to better understand the reasons behind this?
Thank you again for your response! It's a beautiful thing to have the opportunity to learn about other cultures from the people who live them.