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你可能喜欢A SOCIOLOGICAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: SELF TYPES AND
DIFFERENCES ACROSS GENERATIONS AND THE LIFE-CYCLE
DIFFERENCES
GENERATIONS&
AND THE LIFE-CYCLE
With modernization, the quest for knowledge of oneself
has become a major preoccupation for many Americans. "Who am I?" "Know
Thyself" and "Unto thine own self be true"--Such are the themes of wall
plaques, self-help manuals, and religious maxims. When surveying older
individuals' reflections on the whole of life, one 83-year-old nun told
one of my student researchers:
I would tell any young person to be your
own self. Have a real good idea of your own strengths--they usually take care
of the weaknesses. Find out where you fit in and what makes you happy.
If you drift from one thing to another you will never be satisfied. If
you don't find the part of yourself that will give you fulfillment you'll
never be satisfied or content. You have to learn about and live with your
true self.
Observed Helen Merrell Lynd, "the search for identity
has become as strategic in our time as the study of sexuality was in Freud's
time" (On Shame and the Search for Identity. New York: Science Editions,
1961:14). But what does this all mean? In part, it's our peculiar cultural
obsession to search for a self that we supposedly don't know. It also involves
the extreme individualism of American culture.
The sense of identity is important to both human
psychology
and to sociology. Not only does having a sense of self provide the sense
of having free will ("This is who I am and this is what I want to do, therefore
I am going to do it despite what others say") but it is also a basis
of social control ("We Smiths are an industrious people and I am not
about to let my people down by goofing off.").
CONCEPTUALIZATIONS
OF SELFHOOD
A man never discloses his own character so
clearly as when he describes another's.
--Jean Paul Richter
Ironically, although the concept of self is one of the
oldest and most enduring of psychological depictions of human nature, social
scientists have yet to reach a consensus on precisely what the self is.
Following those of the psychoanalytic perspective, do we understand personality
as a cause of behavior or, as behaviorists, do we see personality
as the effect of behavior (or, at least, the effect of others' reinforcements)?
Is the self something you are (or, in the case of the very old or terminally
ill, something you were), something you have, or is it something you aspire
to be? Is it no more than a set of unique, identifying characteristics
and, if so, from whose perspective: the actor or those who view him or
her? Can, indeed, others know one's self better than the individual knows
himself or herself? Or might it be that identity is determined not on the
basis of who one thinks one is, but rather on the basis of who one is not--in
other words, selfhood is a matter of exclusion rather than inclusion?
Studies of those with multiple personalities, or dissociative
identity disorder, indicate interesting connections between body, mind
and self. Here one individual may have numerous sub-personalities, each
with its own name, age, memories, knowledge of foreign languages, temperament,
handedness, talents, and medical conditions. Such persons may carry multiple
glasses because their vision changes with each personality. Some sub-selves
may be color blind or epileptic and while others are not. Rashes, blisters
and scars may appear and disappear as different selves emerge.
Consider the expression "I know the type," when referring
to a particular person. Implicit in the line is the assumption that there
are types of selves and that each can be expected to act in distinctive
ways in different types of situations. Such taxonomies of others make up
a sizable portion of . In schools, we create typologies of students (e.g.," nerd,"
"jock," "brown-noser," etc.) and faculty members, and routinely compare
the predictiveness of our classifications with others. If, indeed, such
connections between selves and behaviors really exist, why do they occur?
Do these types of selves unthinkingly act in typical fashion, or is it
the case that their behavior is determined by their self-concepts?
At least since when the Greek philosopher Empedocles
began classifying personalities into the categories of air, earth, fire
and water, people have .
(Have you noticed how often Greek mythological figures are used as labels
for various personality types? Why? Is there a universality to personality
types--e.g., those with excessive hubris [Prometheus] or self-love [Narcissus]--that
reveals the limits of enculturation?) Humans, for instance, have been sorted
by psychoanalysts in terms of their dominant . Compulsives, for instance, might be those with excessive
Machiavellians are those with
authoritarians
are those high in their need for discipline and
are those with high needs for
esteem (see Sam Vaknin's
and his &&). Cognitive theorists
have classified individuals on the bases of their ability to control thought
impulses (e.g., compulsive gamblers), maintain their , and the levels of their intellectual
and moral reasoning (as in the works of Jean
Piaget and ). In studying the lives of older social scientists and educators,
Robert Havighurst and his associates employed an omnibus personality inventory
that included measures of such traits as social extroversion, complexity,
practical outlook, anxiety level, theoretical orientation, warmth and sociability,
self-sufficiency, emotional stability, aggressiveness, and personal
integration.
Instead of thinking of thinking solely in terms of
types of selves (who can be expected to act in predictable types of ways
in certain situations), one can also conceptualize the self as various
types of dynamic systems.
-- individuals into
four dimensions: extraversion-, sensing-intuition, thinking-feeling, and judging-perceiving
of Northwestern University
--9 personality types: Reformer, Helper, Achiever, Individualist, Investigator, Loyalist, Enthusiast, Challenger and Peacemaker
--thoughts & history of
personality testings
SELF AS A BOUNDARY-MAINTAINING
One way to conceptualize the self is to consider the extent to which
it is based on principles of exclusion:
Freud's believed that the infant conceives its self to be all-encompassing
and, with& time, comes to see this self as distinctive and unique
(while the radius of his or her significant others correspondingly expands).&
As developed below, however, this process varies cross-culturally and historically,
with, for instance,& this self-boundary contraction stopping at one's
tribe or one's family in collectivist cultures, or contracting to the logic
limit of a singular entity in individualistic cultures.
With the development of language comes the boundary between one's body
self and one's symbolic self (enter the mind/body duality and women's complaints
"he only wants me for my body."
With broadening contacts with primary and secondary groups and strangers
develops increasingly defined boundaries between self and others.&
One learns, for instance, to hug family and not strangers--how to maintain
various spatial boundaries with various types of others.
Adolescence brings increasing differentiation of self from parents,
featuring battles for one's privacy and rights to be distinctive as individuals
make their break from their parents.
Adulthood features maintaining boundaries between one's public and private
selves, such as those between one's work and familial roles.
Developing further this exclusionary aspect of selfhood,
Ernest Hartmann, in Boundaries in the Mind classifies individuals
in terms of their self- boundaries. There are those with thin or porous
boundaries, for whom the realities of dreams and wakefulness are blurry,
whose feelings and thoughts run together, who have high empathy with others,
and who sometimes are unsure who they are. Those with "thick boundaries,"
on the other hand, rarely confuse feeling and thought, have few close relationships,
can "tune out" sights and sounds, and awake instantly in the mornings.
It would be interesting to see how Hartmann's typology correlates with
and Carl Jung's
distinction between introverts and extroverts.
There are two facets of selfhood that cannot be doubted:
its uniqueness and its innate tendency to preserve its integrity. The body
self, for instance, each individual's DNA and fingerprints
are unique. To protect its integrity, it has a built-in defense system
that destroys viral invaders and rejects transplanted organs. Analogously,
there is the self that is experienced psychologically as one's own and
like no other. And there is a social self, the self that can be identified
by others owing to its distinctive attributes.
SYMBOLIC SYSTEM
What distinguishes sociological from psychological
approaches to the self is the former's focus on the ways in which identity
is negotiated with others. As Charles Cooley () observed, self-feelings
are profoundly shaped by the imagined appraisals of one's self of significant
others--the
looking-glass self. The foundations of this sociological approach are
largely built on the philosophical ideas of George
Herbert Mead, who argued that society (e.g., culture, institutions,
role systems, language, and acts) precedes symbolic thought which, in turn,
precedes the development of selves. Mead observed that by studying role-taking,
one can see how the rise of self is dependent upon the ability of an individual
to become an object to himself or herself. In other words, one comes to
act towards one's self (that entity one talks to when "talking to one's
self") as one acts towards others. In this view, the self is a dynamic
process within an individual. Mead stressed that participants in social
interactions attempt to "take the role of the other" and to see themselves
as others see them. This process allows individuals to know how they are
coming across to others and allows them to guide their social behavior
so that it has desired effect.
ROLE SYSTEM
When considering the ways in which individuals generally conform
to the demands of various social settings (like playing the student role
in a classroom: trying to look attentive and interested, and never telling
the instructor "Hey, take a break!& Let me handle today's lessons."),
behavior may be better predicted by understanding the roles people think
they occupy.& Personality factors may do no more than simply give
style to one's basic role performances.& In the extreme, the self
can be conceptualized to be no more than the roles it plays.& Take
away one's roles and nothing is left.
OF CULTURAL SYSTEMS
Of interest to sociologically-inclined social psychologists
is the social distribution of different self-types: how particular socio-historical
climates can give rise to a preponderance of a given self-type in a society
and how, in turn, this can affect a society's collective attitude and its
religious, political, and economic orders. On the other hand, such collective
transformation of attitudes and selves is also a function of structural
change. Behavior often precedes its ideological justification and thus
it is also the case that new social arrangements lead to new actions (and
new roles) which lead to new attitudes and types of people.
In anthropology, cultural determinists, such
as Margaret Mead, stress the plasticity of the human organism and how it
is shaped by different cultures to create distinctive personality types.
Mead studied, for instance, the cultural construction of childhood and
gender roles.
In attempting to categorize the types of selves
cross-culturally,
researchers often focus on the extent to which selves are collectivist
or individualistic. For instance, in In Search of Self in India and
Japan (1988), Alan Roland writes:
Compared to Americans, there's much less
a sense of an individual self among Asians. They experience themselves
as far more embedded in a net of extremely close emotional relationships.
They have what might be called a familial self, one that includes their
close relationships in their own sense of who they are. This kind of self
simply does not exist in the West to nearly the same
Bower's "My Culture, My Self: Western notions of the mind may not translate
to other cultures"
Larimer's "Young Japan: From We to Me" in Time
Several years ago& the New York Times asked several foreign
photographers to comment on which one of their captured images& is
most telling of Americans (&Foreigners Frame America," July 5,
1993) Observed
one about his photograph of an Ernest Hemingway look-alike festival in
Key West, Florida: "There is no other country where people so cherish the
ability to look like famous people.& I could spend the rest of my
life photographing look-alike contests as well as ugly baby contests, conventions
of twins.& Although these are fascinating events, there is a sense
of desperation and emptiness in a society that places such a high regard
on looking like someone else." Is such a symptom of our supposed
other-directedness?&
This historical personality type was posited by
Lonely Crowd: A Study in the Changing American Character (1950).& He argued that,
with changing demographics, the American character
had changed from an "inner-directed" self, internally motivated, responsive to a sort of inner
gyroscope and controlled by the emotion of guilt, to an "other-directed" conformist personality,
externally motivated, sensitive to , attuned the mass values of one's neighbors with a sort of social
radar, and controlled by anxiety.
Resources:
Personality
and Consciousness: sketches of personality theories and
Personality
Personality
Online--exploring the personalities of internet users
Wide World of Kooks
PERSONALITY
PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACHES
Whereas when predicting behavior sociologists are more
likely to look at individuals' social settings and the roles therein that
they occupy, psychologists are inclined to consider personality type. Their
assumption is that certain types of selves--i.e., Machiavellians, authoritarians,
high self-monitors, introverted feelers, narcissists, or thrill-seekers--can
be expected to act in distinctive ways regardless of the context. Numerous
are their methodological strategies for gauging self-types, including
graphology (believing that one's handwriting is some personality X-ray,
such traits as enthusiasm, imagination, and ambition are gauged from the
size and slant of one's script, how the "t's" are crossed, and whether
the m's and n's are pointed or wedge-shaped), Rorschach
inkblot tests, and questionnaires. In Reading Faces, Dr. Leopold
Bellak perceives the face as "map of the mind." Dividing the face in half
lengthwise and across, Bellak argues that the right-side supposedly reflects
qualities people want to show while the left reflects what they would rather
The mass media is likewise filled with self gauges.
Unbeknownst to many, we're told that even one's favorite rock star reveals
who you are. According to less a reputable scientific source as the Star,
for instance, if your favorite Beatle is George Harrison, you are the strong,
silent type, very
you have a deep feeling for religious
matters and may be psychic. You may tend to be a loner but are connected
to others through the spiritual world. Advice columnist Abigail Van Buren
informs us "The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats
people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't
fight back."
links to online personality tests
search engine and directory for the best online-tests on the internet&
Another battery of tests from
Profiles of the 16 Psychological Types
Graphic Insight--is one's handwriting really a window on the soul?
THE GENESIS OF SELF:
Finis Origine Pendet (The end depends on the beginning)
--Manlius, Roman Poet
Where, after all, do universal human rights
begin? In small places, close to home. Such are the places where every
man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal
--Eleanor Roosevelt
So how can a person be produced whose wants and
motivations
correspond with what's socially needed: one, for instance, who feels personal
gratification when acting toward the welfare of others? How is the new
female of the twenty first century to be created? How does one produce
a child oblivious to the historical biases of racism, sexism and ageism?
What skills are to be inculcated for one who may work in low earth orbit
or ten thousand feet under the seas performing jobs as of yet uncreated?
Such are the socialization issues facing parents in the late twentieth
It is in socialization that we begin to see the fusing
of social needs into personal needs, the synchronization of subjective
reality with objective reality. Again, given the extreme plasticity of
the human organism and the extremely long periods required to achieve maturity,
social systems can create a vast spectrum of types of selves. Here let
us survey what David Riesman (The Lonely Crowd, 1961:37) called
the social "ecology of character formation." There are the broad influences
of demographic and economic changes as well as those of parents, peers,
teachers, the mass media--in other words, the storytellers, the transmitters
of the social heritage (37). For instance, tough economic times dampen
birthrates, yielding smaller families and thus (for those subscribing to
birth order effects) fewer "middle" and more "only" children. Riesman believed
that the historical types of selves (e.g., tradition-directed, inner-directed,
and our current predominance of other-directeds) are the products of family
composition and structure, which has shifted from being open to closed,
integrated with the broader community to being isolated and nuclear in
Political leaders worry about the instillation of loyalty
religious leaders about the instillation of morality and
religious identities. The problem is highlighted by affluent baby boomers
who seek to produce fewer and more exceptional children than was the case
in the past. Some mothers play classical music for the benefit of fetuses
within the womb. They worry about such things as how long a child should
be nursed, when it should be toilet trained (in 1957, 92% of 18-month-olds were toilet trained
as compared to only 2% of two-year-olds and 60% of three-year-olds in the late 1990s), the
nature of discipline, the age at which their offspring are
enrolled in preschools, the implication of both parents being engaged in
the labor force, the ability of their three-year-olds to read and socialize
comfortably with others, and the impact of video games.
UNICEF's State of the
World's Children 2003
Digest of Educational
Statistics
from the National Center for Educational Statistics
THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PARENT AND
BIRTH ORDER
A number of poorly substantiated generalizations have
been made about each child in the family structure. Francis Galton (1869)
first generated interest in the topic, noting how eminent scientists were
more likely to be first borns. Youngest children are supposedly charming,
light-hearted, and fun to be around. Middleborns are characterized as ready
to cooperate, inclined to new ideas, popular, noncompetitive, mediators,
and socially well adapted. Firstborns are described as leaders, power hungry,
introspective, having low self esteem, possessing a strong need to achieve,
driven, and having a tendency towards jealousy.
Some, like the folks at the
of Algona, Iowa,
argue that birth order produces . But the qualifiers are numerous: the effects of age-spacing (I know
of gaps from eleven months to eighteen years between the births of first- and
second-borns), gender differences (i.e., oldest is female and is followed by
series of boys vs. oldest being male followed by string of sisters), where the
parents are in their careers (i.e., father laid off when lastborn arrived),
sibling involvements in upbringing, etc.& Claims, for instance, of the
greater educational accomplishments of first-borns and their high density
among Ivy League undergraduates may be due more to the fact that parents
become financially drained after footing their bill.& In our in-class
search for birth-order correlates we have seen some relations tantalizingly
close to being statistically significant but nothing close to the touted
Among the more interesting findings are those of Frank
Sulloway's study of 2,784 researchers and their role in twenty-eight scientific
controversies (1990 Presentation at the Annual Meetings of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, expanded in Born
to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Revolutionary Genius).
As summarized below, he found later-borns were more likely to challenge
the accepted scientific paradigms.
SCIENTIFIC
CONTROVERSY
SUPPORT AMONG
FIRSTBORNS
SUPPORT AMONG
LATER-BORNS
Relativity theory
Quantum hypothesis
Darwinian revolution
Harvey and the&
circulation of blood
Continental drift
THE IMPACTS
OF PARENTAL
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 1970 some 85 percent
of children under 18 lived with two parents. Two decades later only 72
percent did, with divorce causing 37 percent of the one-parent situations.
In one-third of the one-parent homes the parent has never been married.
The situation of "losing" a parent is not new. Over
the years, the NORC General Social Survey included such questions as "Were
you living with both your own mother and father around the time you were
16?" and, if not, "What happened?" (with such categories as one or both
parents died, parents were divorced or separated, etc.).
Observe that there has been only a 7 percentage point decline between those
born before the turn of the century and those born in the first half of
the 1970s in the percentage of Americans having been with both parents
when 16 years of age. What has changed is the reason why not: the oldest
cohort is three times more likely than the youngest to have lost a parent
due to death.
So what are the long-term effects of having experienced
a parental divorce? In studying how children of divorce fare as adults,
Glenn and Kramer ("The Psychological Well-Being of Adult Children of Divorce,"
of Marriage and the Family, ):905-912.1985) analyzed eight
years of the NORC General Social Science Surveys and found that on eight
indicators of psychological well-being (e.g., happiness, health, and satisfactions
with life activities) that female children of divorce scored as adults
significantly lower on six measures and males lower on three. Click
here to see a broader number of NORC survey years and the long-term effects
of parental divorce and how it dampens happiness throughout much of the
lifespan. Does parental divorce increase the likelihood of divorce
among the offspring.
So why does divorce have the detrimental effects that
take into account individuals' sex, age, parental divorce status, family
income when one was 16, education, and current happiness. In this chart
you will notice above and below each variable name the (+) and (-) categories
of comparison. The numbers on the lines between these variables are the
percentage
differences produced by each independent variable on those dependent
variables "causally downstream." For instance, the 6.68 between variable
SEX and EDUC means that males (+) are 6.68 percentage points more likely
than females (-) to have 4 or more years of education (the + category of
EDUC). Note how, in addition to the direct causal connection between PAR-DIVORCED
and HAPPY (where those whose parents were together are 8.84 percentage
points more likely to be "very happy" than those whose parents were separated
or divorced), PAR-DIVORCE also affects happiness indirectly through family
income (those whose parents were together are 15.27 percentage points more
likely to come from families of origin with "above average" incomes than
those from families of divorce) and through education (those from below
income families of origin are 22.33 percentage points less likely to have
a college degree than those from above average, and those with a college
degree are 7.67 percentage points more likely be very happy than those
who are high school dropouts). Get the picture? Could it be that our
PAR-DIVORCED-HAPPY
is really a spurious relationship?
Using James A. Davis's CHIPendale software for analyzing
such causal models for categorical data we find:
The original or total PAR-DIVORCED--HAPPY
percentage
difference is 8.84. Those from intact families are 8.84 percentage points
more likely to be very happy than those from divorced families.
When controlling for all other variables in the model,
this difference declines to 6.10. In other words, 31% of the relationship
([8.84-6.10]/8.84) can be explained by by these other variables. This is
the direct effect of parental marital status on the happiness of
their offspring. Although smaller, we can say that parental divorce has
a significant direct effect on the happiness of the adult children.
When controlling for those variables causally
antecedent
to the PAR- DIVORED--HAPPY relationship, specifically SEX and AGE, we find
that the original percentage difference of 8.84 declines to 7.84. This
is the causal effect of parental divorce on happiness.
Since total difference-causal difference (8.84-7.84) is
1.00, we can say that 11% (1.00/8.84) of our PAR-DIVORCED--HAPPY relationship
is spurious.
If we subtract the direct effect from the causal effect
(7.84-6.10) and divide that by the causal effect (1.74/7.84), we have the
percent of the relationship that is indirect. We can then say that 22%
of the PAR-DIVORCED--HAPPY causal relationship is indirect (e.g., going
through family income and education) and that 78% of it is direct.
Education is a private matter between the person and the
world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with school or college.
--Lillian Smith (), American writer and social critic
America's educational system is under fire.& A 1994
report by the National Education Commission on Time and Learning, &,& showed 41% of& American high school students' school
days were spent on educational subjects.& According to the , in& 41% of college students reported
spending 10 hours or less a week of academic w only 13%
reported studying more than 25 hours.& Nevertheless, Professor Stuart Rojstaczer's
reports average grades in the nation?s public colleges increasing from 2.82 to 2.97 between the 1991-92
and 2001-2 school years and from 3.11 to 3.26 in its private institutions.
THE PROLONGATION OF ADOLESCENCE
It is human to have a long
it is civilized to have an even longer childhood. Long childhood
makes a technical and mental virtuoso out of man, but it also leaves a
life-long residue of emotional immaturity in him.
--Erik Erikson ()
Theorists in the tradition of , who study the social construction of life-cycle stages,&are
having a field day following media claims of
Americans'
delayed entry into adulthood:
So is it really the case that adolescence is prolonged as
lifespans lengthen?& In the midst of the debate in 2004, newswires carried
the findings of paleontologist Fernando V. Ramirez Rozzi, who surmised from
their teeth that Neanderthal children reached adulthood at age 15.& If such
biological benchmarks are employed by anthropologists in the future, they may
well conclude that twenty-first century homo sapiens also were blazing
through their adolescence.& The average age of menarche has fallen from 17
to 13 since the mid-19th century.& Boys,
too, are entering puberty earlier, according to a 1988-94 federally funded
health survey (Marcia Herman-Giddens, et al.), with, for instance, 21% of
black youth developing public hair between their ninth and tenth birthdays.
It's interesting that two decades earlier, the media was
decrying accelerated and disappearing childhoods.& What's going on?&
Is it the case of tight labor markets, an inflation of educational credentials
required for the first job, and stratospheric housing costs? Or might it involve
Dan Kiley's Peter Pan Syndrome (1983) thesis, with a society filled with
quasi-adults infantilized by instant gratification? Or the prophesy of H.G.
Wells, that early critic of capitalism, in The Time Machine? Perhaps it
is in the interest of a growing service economy to have
From the University of Pennsylvania,
(funded by the
(32 years old in 1996, with nearly as many sold as there are Americans),
and, of course, Barbie (recall the outrage in 1992 when a talking model
said such things as "Math class is tough!"?).
What lessons are imparted by these traditional vehicles
of socialization? What better way to learn about how capitalist produces
winners and losers than by playing a game of "Monopoly"? Trends in cultural
values do have way of being reflected in toy product lines. When military
chic was in following Desert Storm, "Military Barbie" appeared on the scene
with sailor an environmentalism produced the "Eco
W" and growing religious fundamentalism yielded the Patty Prayer
doll. And consider the 1992 "Mommy-To-Be Doll," advertised thusly:
Judy looks like a real Mommy-To-Be. take
her tummy, and there's her baby. Lift out the newborn with moveable arms
and legs, and now she has a flat tummy. Judy's sturdy head, arms and legs
move too. Her wavy, rooted hair and soft skin make her a loveable friend.
Her quality construction will make her a friend for life. In her denim
dress, she looks stylish before and after her baby
A lesson from the medical establishment regarding the
ease of Caesarian birth? Observers have noted how play has become more
computerized, less physical, and more isolated.
(16 century on)
From Cornell University, Games We Play: Pastimes and Paradigms
--old toys, TV shows, lunchboxes, and fashions here
from the Toy Manufacturers of America
At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's
Then the whining school-boy, wit is
And shining morning face, creeping like
Unwillingly to school: and then the
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful
Made to his mistress' eyebrow: then a
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth: and then the
In fair round belly with good capon
With eyes severe and beard of formal
Full of wise saws and modern
instances,
And so he plays his part. ... The sixth age
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly
Turning again toward childish treble,
And whistles in his sound. ...Last scene of
That ends this strange eventful
Is second childishness, and mere
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans
everything.
--William Shakespeare, As
You Like It
In a number of ways identity is essentially a temporal
concept. Our encounters with time are separately and interactively affected
by biological, psychological, social, and historical timetables, which
mold our biographies in distinctive fashion. For instance, in addition
to physical and psychological maturational factors, identity is shaped
by one's roles within the social system as well as by the historical context
within which one lives one's life. Each of these timetables comes with
its temporal quirks. Some individuals, for example, suffer from ,
an accelerated rate of biological aging. There are eighty-year-olds who
are psychologically forty, and thirty year-olds who are psychologically
old. And because of the accelerating rates of change associated with modernization,
such roles as the traditional mother role of females are becoming obsolete
within less than the span of a single lifetime.
In Roman mythology there
was the sphinx guarding entry to the city, quizzing travelers with the
riddle of what first crawls on four legs, then walks on two, and finally
on three? The Talmud contains a section called "The Sayings of the Fathers,"
outlining the "ages of man." Confucius identified 2500 years ago six steps
in the life cycle. Solon, a Greek poet and lawmaker in the 7th century
B.C., divided the life cycle into ten seven-year phases. Click here to
The tendency in psychological approaches to the life
cycle is to look for and identify invariant, innate developmental agendas.
Indeed, all societies, recognizing the existence of some regularity, have
employed age as a criterion for allocating social roles. But as evident
in the models above, the regularities and stages perceived have varied
considerably across cultures and history. The fact that distinctive stages (and
associated &crises&) are even recognized, such as the , is intriguing given that the maturational processes
of aging are continuous. It is with this insight that we next enter into
the sociological realm of inquiry, considering the ways individuals are
linked with roles and hence come to be affected by socio-historical changes.
An overarching assumption of sociological identity theorists holds that,
with age, social dynamics play an increasing role in shaping self-structure
and identity.
Erikson's 8 Stages of Psychosocial Development
Adolescence: Change and Continuity
from Penn State
York Times special report "Teens: Who Are These People, Anyway?" (April
Abstract of
RITES OF PASSAGE
In East Germany prior to reunification, no tradition was
more widely observed that the , marking 14-year-olds' passage from childhood into
maturity--and their ritual commitment to Communism.
In Japan, the Coming of Age Day is
a national holiday, a day when thousands of 20-year-old women put on traditional kimonos.&&
These -- along with graduations, weddings, retirement
ceremonies, and funerals--are rites of passage,& rituals which symbolically recast individuals' social identities,
rituals where old selves are destroyed and new selves come into being.&
They occur during times
of significant--but predictable--periods of& biographical change, during times of considerable
discontinuities between one's old and new role expectations.&&
Pamela B. Nelson's
"Reviving Rites of Passage in America"
The Amish's
rumspringa
The East German's Jugendweihe
African Ceremonies: Photographs of Sacred Rituals in Tribal Cultures
Vanja Karth's
"Rites of Passage: Using Ritual to Reclaim Young People in Trouble with the Law"
International Federation of Celebrants
INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN BIOGRAPHY AND
SOCIAL HISTORY: GENERATIONS
To see the various interactions between biography and social history that
give rise to distinctive generations,
examine the database file at the Arts
and Entertainment Network's "Biography" series home
Check out the generational
studies conducted by Trinity students (Fall 2001) .</A).
Return to Social Psychology