A woman who has not attended school in 13 years enrolls for classes at the local community college. She is afraid that her younger classmates might not accept her. On the first day of class, she observes the clothing styles of her classmates, and after school she goes shopping and purchases similar clothes. Her classmates could be considered .

a reference group.  

Explanation:

Reference group: In psychology, the term "reference group" is determined as a particular group through which any other group or an individual is being compared. According to the sociologists, a reference group is considered as any of the group that different individuals utilizes as a standard in terms of evaluating or analyzing their own behavior as well as themselves.

There are three distinct types of reference group including value-expressive, informational, and utilitarian.

In the question above, the given statement represents a reference group.

as university of miami psychologists debra lieberman and adam smith pointed out in a recent article in the journal current directions in psychological science, humans have social and psychological mechanisms to deter incest. with very few exceptions, marriages between brothers and sisters and between parents and their children are verboten in every human culture. the primary psychological anti-incest mechanism is the yuck response. even the idea of sex with their mom or dad, bro or sis is upsetting to most people. the psychologist jonathan haidt has found that nearly everyone is repelled by the prospect of brother-sister sex, even in hypothetical situations in which there is no chance of pregnancy).

the biological cost of incest

this raises an interesting question: just what’s so bad about incest? sure, having sex with your dad or your sister seems gross — but why? some anthropologists have argued that incest taboos are learned social conventions. this explanation, however, doesn’t make sense to me as it does not explain the widespread existence of anti-incest mechanisms in creatures ranging from cockroaches to chimpanzees. second, the incest taboo is about as close to a universal law as human moral rules get.

why should mechanisms to avoid incest be so widespread both in nature and across human societies? the answer is simple. the problem with having sex close with relatives is that there is an astonishingly high chance that your offspring will be born with a serious birth defect.