toys in the attic: 110 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action Toward a General Theory of Action - 3:40 PM
7/24/01 Part
2 Values, Motives, and Systems
of Action 2.2 Personality as a System of Action The
preceding chapter dealt with certain common features of systems of action. Besides their common properties as systems,
systems of action have certain common substantive
features. In both social systems and personalities, the
actions which make up the systems are oriented to
the same classes of objects and entail selections from and commitments to the same system of alternatives of
value-orientation. Having stated the
general properties of systems, we will show how
these substantive components are organized to form
personalities. We will accordingly
turn to a further discussion of motivation as it was treated in the General
Statement of Part I and develop some of the
categories and hypotheses presented there in order to lay the groundwork for
showing systematic relationships of (1) the patterns of value-orientation and
(2) the organization of objects to (3) the components of motivation (which are
the allocative foci of personality systems).
This will require a certain amount of recapitulation of our earlier
argument. At the end of the chapter we
shall analyze certain aspects of the interrelation of this system with the
social system in which the actor lives. MOTIVATIONAL
CONCEPTS Since
this chapter will be concerned largely with the relation between the motivation
of action and the orientation of action, we shall start out by defining
carefully the important terms, chiefly the term motivation
itself. We must define also the other
motivational terms drive, drives, and need-dispositions. The
term motivation has at least two
accepted meanings; the use of the word without istinguishing these two meanings
serves only to confuse the reader. When
we speak of an animal or a human being as having "a lot of motivation," we refer to the
amount of energy being released in the course of the animal's behavior. In this
sense, motivation is the organically generated energy manifested in
action. It is sometimes called drive.
When, on the other hand, we say "the motivation of an
organism," referring to the organism's 'motives" or
"drives,"1 we refer to a set
of tendencies on the part of the organism to
acquire certain goal objects (or really,
certain relationships to goal objects). Motivation (or motives) in this last sense
may be conceived as denoting certain more or less
innate systems of orientations involving
cognition of and catheetic attachment
to certain means and goal objects and certain more
or less implicit and unconscious "plans"
of action aimed at the acquisition of eathected relationships to goal
objects. Motivation in the former sense
(as energy) supplies the energy with which such plans of action are conceived
and carried out. When
motivation refers to the tendency to acquire these relationships
to goal objects, then it is (as the paragraph above implies) also a tendency to "orient" in a
certain fashion (that is, to see certain things, to want certain things, and to
do certain things). Thus its referent
may be either the group of orientations
which follow the pattern marked out by the "tendency," or a postulated entity which, by hypothesis,
controls or brings about orientations of this kind. From
now on, we will use the term drive 2
to refer to the physiological energy that
makes action possible. We will use the
term drives, or such terms as a drive
or sex drive, to refer to the innate tendencies to orient and act in suds a
fashion as to acquire cathected relationships to goal objects. The term need-dispositions will be used to refer to
these same tendencies when they are not innate but
acquired through the process of action itself. Need-dispositions may integrate one or several drives, together
with certain acquired elements, into very complex tendencies of this
nature. We will avoid ad hoc hypotheses about the amount of
biologically determined structuring of drives which would beg the empirical and
conceptual questions of the extent and ways in 'which structuring is a
need-disposition problem. That is, we will not try to decide in advance how
much the structuring of tendencies is innate and how much it is a function of
the structure and situation of action.3 The
term motivation itself will be
reserved as a general term to refer to all the phenomena discussed above. Thus
action may be said to be motivated by "drive," or by
"drives," or by "need-dispositions," depending on what is
meant by motivation, and depending on
the stage of development of the personality involved, and the type of action
being discussed. Some actions are
perhaps jointly motivated by drives and need-dispositions, in an organism where
some drives are organized into need-dispositions and others are not. 1
For example, the organism's hunger-drive or sex-drive. 2
This term is only singular (an animal's drive, an amount of drive, and so
forth) when it refers to energy; when we speak of "a drive," the
animal's "drives," the term refers to a tendency. 3 A
statement of the general problem of the relation of constitutional elements in
behavior to action elements was made in the General Statement of Part I and
need not be repeated here. 112 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action All actions are in one sense
motivated by the physiological "drive" of the organism insofar as the
ultimate energy of behavior comes from the organism as a physiological
system. Nevertheless, the important
question of how this energy expenditure will take place, what behavior will
result, what will be accomplished, requires analysis of drive and need-dispositions
in the categories of action, rather than an analysis of where the energy or
drive comes from. Therefore, our chief
concern with motivation in this chapter will be with the orientation and action
tendencies which are denoted by the terms drive
and need-disposition. Moreover, since we are most concerned with
the analysis of the action of human beings (and usually human beings with some degree of maturity), we will usually
be more concerned with need-dispositions
than with drives. For
our purposes, the drives may be regarded as action
tendencies in which the chief objects
are the actor's own organism and those physical objects which are
necessary to achieve some state of the organism. (We include under physical objects the
physiological organisms of other persons.)
We need not for the time being go in detail into the
degree of specificity of the physical objects or the content of the states of
the actor's own organism as an object which is required for activating the
drive or bringing it to quiescence. All
we need say is that there are varying degrees of specificity in the two classes
of objects and that there is always some plasticity in the organization of the
orientation toward the objects. All concrete drives and
need-dispositions (in relation to objects) on the personality level - that is,
above the most elementary organic level -
have a structure which can be analyzed in the categories of the theory of
action. They can be analyzed only in terms of orientation to an object world,
which varies of course through time, and in terms of the organization of
value-alternative selections and commitments into patterns of need-dispositions
and value-orientations which make up the personality. One
significant difference between drives on the most elementary organic level 4
and drives and need-dispositions as these are formulated in terms of the theory
of action is that the former are conceived as "automatic" regulatory
devices. The animal orients to the object; the object orientation
automatically engages a drive; the drive implants a cathexis on the oriented object; action and consummation
automatically ensue. No selection or choice
is involved. There is no orientation to
anything beyond the present and immediately given aspect of the situation of
action. We might say the system of orientation seems to have no time
dimension. No orientation to the future
may take place; thus the animal is driven
by the situation of the moment, he cannot choose
on the basis of the long-run integration of his action system. 4
The notion of drives on the most elementary organic level may, of course, he
simply a limiting case not existing in either animals or human beings; there
may be no such things. Personality as a System of
Action 113 Whatever may be the case on purely
organic levels, when drives and their modes of gratification become organized
into and with symbolic systems on the cultural level, the system of orientation
necessarily acquires a temporal
dimension. The orientation of action is
not directed merely to the situation at the moment but also to future states of
the system and to the potentialities for future occurrence or change of the
objects in the situation. The future
therefore is cognitively differentiated and its probabilities evaluated above all as differing alternatives
of action. Gratification then is not
merely associated with responses to a current situation; it is distributed in time in connection with expectations concerning the future
development of the situation. The conception of the orientation of action by
selection from a set of alternatives thus includes future
as well as present alternatives and attendant consequences.
A need-disposition therefore has as one of its essential properties an
orientation of expectancy relative to future possibilities.5 We
proceed on the postulate that drives tend toward
gratification through the cathexis of objects The interruption
of any established process of gratification is a disturbance
of equilibrium. The possible sources of
interruption are twofold: first, changes in the situation which make
maintenance of an unchanged relation to the cathected
object impossible; second, internal processes which motivate the actor
to change his relations to objects.
Thus our conception of the actor's drives is that they are organized in
an equilibrated system of relationships to an object world and that this
system, if disturbed, will set in motion forces tending either to restore a previous state of equilibrsum or to make stable a new state. This conception will underlie all our
analysis of learning processes and of the operation of the personality as an on-going system. In
action, therefore, drives do not ordinarily operate simply to gratify organic
needs in a pure form. They are
integrated into need-dispositions,6
which are for us the most significant units of motivation of
action. A need~disposition represents
the organization of one or more drive elements, elaborated into an orientation tendency to a more differentiated
object situation than is the case with elementary drives. The drive component of a need-disposition is
organized with cognitive and
evaluative elements. Cognitively, objects of the situation are more
finely discriminated and more extensively generalized in need-dispositions than
in the simpler cognitive organization of drives. At the same time the selection from value alternatives is not so "automatic"
but entails relatively complex and stable orientations to selective standards. ______________________________________________________________________________________ 5
Without the property of "future-orientedness" in need-dispositions it
would he difficult to understand the nature of such phenomena as anxiety. 6
See p.10, n. 12, of the General Statemput of Part 1. 114 Values, Motives, and Systems of
Action The equilibrium of drive gratification thus operates
within the context of an equilibrium of need-dispositions and their systems. It is not a direct gratification of
elementary drives. A
common formula describing the relations of drive to action is the "tension reduction" hypothesis. For our purposes this theory is inadequate
for three reasons. First, it
fails to take explicit account of the organization of the drive element into
the system of need-dispositions. Second,
"tension" tends to be merely a name for an unknown; hence an
explanation of action by tension reduction tends to be a tautology to the
effect that tension is reduced because it is the nature of tension to seek
reduction. Third, explanation of action by
tension reduction tends to translate action into an oversimplified, relatively
undifferentiated rhythm of tension activation and quiescence, so that specific
differentiation in relation to elements of the situation and of orientation of
action are obscured. However,
whether formulated in terms of tension reduction or otherwise, the careful
study of the process of gratification of particular drives has made important
contributions to our understanding. It
has produced a first approximation to an
analysis of the motivation of behavior.
Our concern here, however, is to consider the problems on more complex
levels of organization of motivation involved in human action. To
make this advance from the simplifying hypothesis of need reduction, we must
remember that a need-disposition does not operate in isolation in the sense that it may become activated, impel action, culminate and
come to rest independently of a whole constellation of other
need-dispositions, some of which work in opposition to (or even as defenses against)
the originally activated need-disposition. This
brings to a close our general discussion of motivational concepts. Our next major step will be to show how need-dispositions (as the elements of the personality
system) are related to one another, to the personality system as
a whole, and to the world of objects, by means of certain processes which mediate these relationships. Then we must show how these processes, when
classified in terms of the ways they serve to solve the various major problems
of personality systems, comprise the mechanisms of personality. Before we do this, however, it seems wise to
give some special discussion to the specific kind of
motivational variable with which we will be most concerned, that is, the
need-disposition. 7 The
expectations of consequences is nothing more than the cognition of a certain
object as leading to a certain set of consequences and the cathexis of an
object in the light of its antecedent relationship to a more cathected set of
consequences. In other words, the
expectation is nothing more than the cognition and cathexis of a means object
qua means to an end. Personality as a System of
Action 115 NEED-DISPOSITIONS Need-dispositions,
we have said, are tendencies to orient and act with respect to objects in
certain manners and to expect certain consequences 7 from these
actions. The conjoined word need-disposition
itself has a double connotation; on the one hand, it refers to a tendency to fulfill some requirement of the organism,
a tendency to accomplish some end state; on the other hand, it refers to a disposition to do something with an object designed to
accomplish this end state. We
have already said that its denotation is a group of orientations (or the
postulated variable which controls that set of orientations), all following a
pattern involving the discrimination of an object or a group of objects, the
cathecting of an object or group of objects, and the tendency to behave in the
fashion designed to get the cathected relationship with the object. In the last analysis, the identifying index
of a need-disposition is a tendency on the part of the organism to "strive" for certain relationships with
objects, or for certain relationships between objects. And the tendency to "strive" is nothing more
than the tendency to cognize and cathect
in certain ways and to act in a fashion guided by those cognitions and
cathexes. The differences between a
need-disposition and a drive, we have said, lies in the fact that it is not
innate, that it is formed or learned in action, and in the fact that it is a tendency to orient
and select with an eye to the future, as
well as with an eye to immediate gratification. Three
different types of need-dispositions are chiefly important in the theory of
action: (1)
Need-dispositions vis-A-vis the attitudes of and relationships with social
objects (these need-dispositions mediate
person-to-person relationships); (2)
need-dispositions vis-a'-vis the observance of cultural standards (these
need-dispositions are the internalized social values) ; and (3) role-expectations, which are on a somewhat
different level from the other two.8 Other
types of need-dispositions enter as variables into personality systems, but
none has nearly the importance of these as determinants of action, particularly
when (as is always the case) the various aspects of
the personality system are also integrated into social systems and
cultural systems. Note that
these three types of need-disposition variables in the personality system
correspond to the three types of system which we are considering: the first
subsume pure personality-personality relations, the second subsume
personah~ty~ultural system relationships, the third subsume
personality~social system relationships.
Let us discuss briefly the way in which all of these three types of
variables are in fact need-dispositions on the personality level and the way
they are all classifiable in terms of the pattern variables, and thus the
manifold ways the pattern variables may enter as characterizations of
personality systems or of their subsystems. 8
Here we are classifying need-dispositions in terms of their foci; that is, in
terms of objects and relationships at which they direct the actor's attention
and toward which they direct his strivings.
Chiefly important for our system are two fundamental foci of
need-dispositions social objects and value patterns. Thus, the first two classes of need-dispositions are listed.
Role-expectations, although they incorporate components of both of the first
two, are not a special subclass of either but a special way of organizing them together. A role always
invests both. It is defined by the complementarity
of expectations (such that ego and alter must, in some sense, both have
need-dispositions which require one set of actions and attitudes by ego and
another set by alter; and ego must require of himself what alter requires of
him; conversely, alter must require of himself what ego requires of him). The complementary expectations are both
cognitive and cathectic in their relevance to both
personalities. And the expectations (in
order to have this complementary "fit" with one another) must be
subject to (or governed by) common value patterns, as was pointed out in the
General Statement. There can be
need-dispositions to cathect objects or (object relationships) without this
complementarity. And there can be value
patterns which do not help mediate the complementarity of
role-expectations. Nevertheless, a role-expectation itself may legitimately be called a
need-disposition within the personality, but it tends to be a
slightly different sort of abstraction (from the concrete orientation of the
actor), since it gets some of its components
from those elements which make up values and some
from those elements which make up need-dispositions vis-a'-vis social
objects. ___________________________________________________________________________________ 116 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action In
the first place, need-dispositions vis-a-vis social objects are exemplified by
the need-dispositions for esteem, love, approval, and response, when these are directed toward specific human
beings or classes of human beings, or toward collectivities of them. In their broadest sense, these
need-dispositions include more than role-expectations. In a sense, they
constitute the foundations for the internalization of role-expectations
and values. They are dispositions to discriminate and group
social objects in certain fashions, to cathect some social objects or
groups of them (or, specifically, certain relationships with social objects),
and thus to behave in certain ways vis-a'-vis these
classes of social objects. Values
or internalized value standards are, as we have repeated several times,
need-dispositions. That is, they are,
on the one hand, needs to realize certain functional
prerequisities of the system. (Specifically, they aim at those end states which
are not in conflict with and which are demanded by such cultural value standards as have been internalized and
have come to define, in part, the system.)
On the other
hand, they are dispositions to handle objects in certain fashions in
order to bring about the cathected relationships. Role-expectations are "needs" to get
"proper" responses and attitudes from alter and
"dispositions" to give "proper" attitudes and
responses to alter. In another sense,
they are needs to cognize a set of cathected complementary relationships
between ego and alter and dispositions to manipulate the self and the objects in order to bring about
the set of cathected relationships.
Note how the role expectation organizes a need-disposition vis-a-vis a
social object with a value in terms of which the attitudes, and so forth, are judged "proper." In
the personality system, all of these variables, as we have said, are
need-dispositions. Now, we add that all
have value-standard components, and thus all three types of need
dispositions are classifiable in terms of the pattern variables. Need-dispositions
vis-a-vis social objects tend to have value-standard components, in the sense
that (as was said in the last chapter) any relationship between ego and a
social object tends in the long run to be controlled by value standards, and
these long-run relationships are the ones mediated by need-dispositions. Role-expectancies
are internalized values as integrated with object relationships, thus they
obviously involve value standards. And
finally the value need-dispositions are themselves the internalized
cultural standards which are above all classifiable in terms of the pattern
variables. Let us show how the pattern
variables enter the picture at this level of the organization of personality. (We point out, however, before we start,
that the pattern variables enter the personality picture at several other
levels: they may be used to characterize the personality as a whole, or the mechanisms which integrate the variables
which we are discussing here.) At this
level they constitute a method for classifying need-dispositions, which are the basic variable
of personality systems. Personality as a System of
Action 117 With
respect to any particular need-disposition, the most elementary alternative is
whether or not it is to be released in action in the particular situation. The alternative which we have called affectivity refers to the inability of the need-disposition to present any internal barrier to direct release or
gratification. The opposite alternative is for the
need-disposition to respect inhibition from
immediate gratification when this is demanded for the good of the system. Where the need-disposition can be held in
check - that is, where the mechanism of inhibition may operate - we shall speak
of aflective neutrality. The
second pair of alternatives refers to the
scope of significance of the object. In the one case the orientation is defined by the specificity of that significance, in the other, by
its diffuseness in the form of an
attachment. The
third pair of alternatives defines the basis on which the relation
between actor and object rests. In the one case the significance of the object
rests on its membership in a general category, so that any object conforming
with the relevant general criteria would be equally appropriate as an object
for cathexis and evaluation in relation to this particular need-disposition or
combination of them. This is the universalistic alternative. In the other case the significance of the object
may rest on its standing in a particular relationship to ego. Regardless of its
general attributes, no other object is appropriate unless the particular
relationship to ego exists or can be established. This is the particularistic alternative. Ego
is an object to himself. As such all the other categories of object-orientation
apply to him, but in particular he must
categorize himself as an object in value-orientation terms. The most fundamental basis of
categorization, since it defines the characteristics peculiar to social
objects, is the distinction between an object as a complex of given qualities and an object as an actor, striving toward goals. In his self-image or ego-ideal (i.e., the
set of need-dispositions which relate him to himself as a social object), the actor may emphasize either the given qualities of his personality, by
which he ascribes himself to
categories, or he may emphasize his achievement, past or potential. Similarly, the need-dispositions which
relate him to social objects may emphasize their
qualities or their achievements. Thus the fourth of these pairs of
alternatives is ascription-achievement. 118 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action Finally,
any specific gratification may be sought in isolation
from any potential significance of the object other than that of its
power to gratify the need-dispositions of ego.
This alternative, since it disregards any significance of the object
other than its capacity to gratify ego, we call self-orientation. On the other hand,
the gratification may take place in the framework of an
attachment to the particular object from which the gratification is being
sought or to some other object which will be
affected by the change in the relationship between ego and the former
object. In this case, the object as an
entity acquires significance to ego.
Its "welfare" is therefore a value for ego independently of
the specific gratifications he receives from it directly. Since by such an attachment, when the object
is a social object, ego and alter constitute a collectivity,
we call this collectivity-orientation.9 When we take the step from the consideration of
the particular need-disposition to the description of a system of
need-dispositions, we must examine the basis on which the different
need-dispositions in the system are differentiated
from each other. The starting
point for this analysis is provided by the pattern variables in their relevance
to the constituents of motivation.
These five variables when cross-classified provide thirty-two
possible types of orientations. These,
however, as we have seen, are not all equally relevant to personality. The problems of which
need-dispositions are to be gratified in a given situation and of whether the object has a specific or a diffuse significance
are the primary problems because of their direct impingement
on motivation. The variable of
affectivity-neutrality comprehends the alternative possibilities of direct
gratification and inhibition in relation to objects and occasions, while that of
specificity-diffuseness refers to the breadth of the cathexis of the object. How affectivity can characterize a
need-disposition is immediately obvious.
The case of neutrality is
more complex. Affective neutrality in
itself does not contain a gratification interest, the term referring simply to
the fact of inhibition relative to certain immediate objects or occasions. But it does mean that the gratification
interest is focused on a future goal, or on some other aspect of the object or
situation or relation, to which the inhibition, including the attitude of alter
applies. Neutrality therefore
characterizes the state of a need-disposition system in which potential
immediate gratifications may be renounced because of their incompatibility with
other gratification interests of the system. A need-disposition system is never
affectively neutral in its entirety but only vis-a'-vis
certain specific opportunities
for gratification. Accepting
the predominance of these two pattern variables for personality, we can
construct a classification of four major types of need-dispositions as
presented in the four main sections of Fig. 3
in Chapter I.
The concurrence of affectivity and specificity has been called the specific gratification need- disposition. Such a need is gratified in specific object
cathexis, or attachments, and not in diffuse attachments (e.g., foods,
appreciation of specific qualities or acts).
In relation to a social object it is the
need for receptiveness and/or response in a specific context
on the part of the object. 9
The element of collectivity-orientation is the core
of what Freud called the superego. Its source in the processes of
identification will be evident from the above.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Personality as a System of
Action 119 When
affectivity occurs together with diffuseness, however, the specific
gratification is no longer possible in isolation, since the other components of
the object of diffuse attachment cannot be disregarded. Such an attachment entails the
reorganization of specific gratificati9n interests into a system focused on the
object as a totality, and in the case of social objects, inherently connected
with expectations of reciprocation. In
such a case we may speak of a need for a diffuse attachment, or in current
terminology, a need for love objects. The need
to be loved is its reciprocal in relation to a social object; it is derived
conceptually from the complementarity of expectations. The
combination of specificity and
affective neutrality in orientation toward a social object represents one of the variants of the basic sensitivity toward
positive response which, as we have already indicated, is the basic
substantive need-disposition of the human being in relation to social
objects. It involves the
postponement of gratification pending the attainment of a
goal or the occurrence of an anticipated situation. There may also be direct gratification through alter's and ego's
own attitudes of approval. Such an
orientation toward a person toward whom there is an attachment, and toward
whose responsiveness one is sensitive, will be called approval. It is a response to a specific type of
action or quality, and it is restrained or disciplined. The need for this kind of response from
social objects to whom we are attached is to be
called the need for approval. It
is, however, also possible for affective neutrality
to be combined with a diffuse attachment as well. In this case the relation of the postponed
or otherwise renounced gratification interests to each other and to the object
is essentially the same as in the case of the need
for love, with the difference that there is a less immediate affectual
content. This we shall designate as the need for esteem. In the present conceptual form, this is
complementary and covers both the need to grant esteem and the need to be
esteemed. Here again we have the need
for positive responsiveness, but in this particular case, the response is given to the attachment
without reference to specific qualities or actions. Within
these four basic orientations there is the possibility of a further
differentiation through subclassifying each orientation according to the
values of the other three. There
is space here for only a brief consideration of a few of these
possibilities. For example,
achievement-ascription differentiates the basic orientations on the dimension
of whether a need-disposition is a tendency to orient to alter on the basis of
his active strivings or given qualities.10 _____________________________________________________________________________________ 10
If ego orients himself in terms of qualities, he is more apt to be passive. _____________________________________________________________________________________ 120 Valnes, Motives, and
Systems of Action Universalism-particularism presents still
another possible range of variation. In
this case, the object of the basic need-dispositions may be chosen by either of
two criteria. On
the one hand, the object may be chosen from a plurality of objects on
the basis of its universalistically defined capacities or qualities
independently of a particular relation to ego except that established by the
selection. On
the other hand, an alter who stands in a given particular relation to
ego may, by virtue of the fact, be selected as the object of one of the basic
need-dispositions. Thus, in the case of
an object of attachment, the basis of cathexis may be the fact that the object stands in a given particular relation
to ego (e.g., his mother or his friend). The basis of the attachment may be
instead the possession by the object of universalistically defined qualities or
performance capacities independently of any
particular relationship (e.g., the possession of certain traits of
beauty or character). Finally,
any one of the four major types may be subdivided according to whether
the orientation is or is not in terms of obligation toward a
collectivity-orientation. Thus in the
need-disposition for approval (neutrality-specificity) the goal may be shared with alter which means that
the actor seeks the approval not only for himself but also for the collectivity
of which he is a member. However, ego's orientation
may be independent of the bearing of his actions on alter's values or
gratifications. In the need-disposition
for love, normal
reciprocity is collectivity-oriented since sensitivity to alter's needs
and gratifications is an essential part of the relationship. This sensitivity, however, may be subordinated to an interest of ego which
motivates him to disregard the bearing of his action on alter's
need-disposition. The
need-disposition system of different personalities will contain different
proportions of these basic types of need-dispositions and their differences in
their distribution in a society. There
will, however, be certain clusters where the range
of variability is narrower than chance would produce because of
the particular significance of certain types of
need-dispositions in the relevant areas. FUNCTIONAL
PREREQUISITES OF THE PERSONALITY SYSTEM In
any system we may discuss the conditions of equilibrium which are in the last analysis the conditions of the
system's being a system Here,
we shall discuss these problems as they affect the personality system. When viewed from the outside, the conditions
which must be met in order that the system shall
persist are the functional prerequisites of the system. When viewed from the inside (from the
actor's point of view rather than the observer's), these
are the functional foci of action organization. The over-all problem of personality
systems thus may be viewed in two ways: (1) from
the outside, or from the scientific
observer's viewpoint, it is the problem of maintaining a bounded system; in
other words, it is the personality's problem of
continuing to be the kind of system it is. (2) From
the inside, or from the actor's
viewpoint, it is the problem of optimization of
gratification. We have already
discussed to some extent the external aspect of this problem, and we will take
up in a moment its specific meaning for
personality systems. Let us discuss
briefly here, however, the way this problem looks from the
actor's point of view. Personality as a System of
Action 121 To the actor, all problems may be
generalized in terms of the aim to obtain an
optimum of gratification.
The term optimum has been
deliberately chosen as an alternative to maximum. The latter is too
involved in the traditional hedonistic fallacy which rests on the
tautology that gratification is held to be both the result and the
motive of every action,
even that which appears to be deprivational in its immediate consequences. It ignores the consequences of the
interrelations of need-dispositions in systems, which in cases of conflict
often entail the inhibition and hence deprivation
of many particular need-dispositions . In this sense self-deprivation is a
common phenomenon. The term optimum avoids this difficulty by emphasizing
that the level of gratification toward which the personality system tends is
the optimum relative to the existing set of particular need-dispositions in the
particular situation. Out of their
conflicts within the system often come commitments to particular
self-deprivations. The optimum of
gratification is the best that can be obtained from the existing conditions,
given the existing set of need-dispositions and the available set of
objects. The personality may thus be
conceived as a system with a persistent tendency
toward the optimum level of
gratification. This proposition
involves no judgment about the absolute level of gratification or the specific
gratifications sought or the trend of development of the personality toward
higher or lower levels. It simply
asserts that at any given time, and with a given set of need-dispositions, mechanisms will be in operation which will adjudicate among conflicting need-dispositions and
will tend to reduce the state of dysphoria
(the subjective experience of deprivation) to tolerable limits. Our
classification of the problems of personality systems is the same whether we
are looking at the problems from the outside or from the inside. Nevertheless, the problems will be stated primarily in terms
of the ways they appear to the actor. Therefore, they may be construed as the
various modes in which the problem of optimization of gratification appears to
him. The following classification is in
terms of the kinds of problems to be solved.
After this classification has been discussed, we will take up the way
the problems break down again depending on the kinds of processes which solve
them. Problems
can be classified first on the basis of where the actor sees the problem
to lie, that is, in terms of the phenomenological place of the problem. On the one hand, problems may be seen to
lie in the external 11 world: these are cognitive and cathectic
problems involving perceived and cathected facts (or objects) which may be seen to
conflict with need-dispositions (in the sense that those need-dispositions
implant negative cathexes upon the perceived facts). On the other hand, problems may be seen to lie within the
personality system: these are evaluative problems involving the allocation of
functions or time and effort to different need-dispositions, or the
adjudication of conflicts between need-dispositions. ================================================================================== 11
It should be noted that the term external
when applied to the phenomenological place of a problem is quite different from
the term outside which is used to
distinguish the way the system looks to an observer. ================================================================================== 122 Personality as a
System of Action Problems
can also be classified in terms of the kind of problem presented: (1) problems of allocation
and (2) problems of integration. This classification crosscuts the
external-internal distinction. Problems
of allocation are primarily problems of
seeing that the system gets done all of the things that need to be done. Thus, in the personality system, it breaks
down into two kinds of problems: (a) allocating functions
to the various units of the system or subsystems, (b) allocating time or action
among the various units so that they may accomplish their functions. External allocation problems involve chiefly the
allocation of cathexes (and thus attention) among different possible goal and
means objects (so that all the demands of the situation will be met). Internal allocation problems involve chiefly the
allocation of functions and time to the various need-dispositions
so that all of the requirements of the system will be met. Problems
of integration are primarily problems of
adjudicating conflicts between various elements of the system. External integration problems involve chiefly the problems
posed when cognized facts conflict with one another or when these facts
"conflict" with need-dispositions.
A fact is in conflict with a need-disposition whenever it is
negatively cathected (since all cathexes arise out of need-dispositions). These problems are all solved by actions
which change the perception or cognition of the situation: these may be overt
operations which change the situation, and thus change the perception of it, or
they may be operations of reorganization of the perceived facts so they no
longer conflict, or they may be merely operations which change the perceptions
without either changing the situation (as the observer sees it) or getting a
new organization of the facts. These are all primarily cognitive problems.12 Internal integration problems involve chiefly the
resolution of conflicts between need-dispositions. From
the foregoing it can be seen that the external-internal distinction when
crosscut by the allocative-integrative distinction provides in some sense a
parallel structure to the cognitive-cathectic evaluative analysis which runs
through our whole work. This is because
the cognitive and cathectic aspects of an orientation (or an orientation group,
that is, a need-disposition) are those aspects which
relate the actor to the external world. The actor cognizes and cathects objects. Here, also, the cognitive is the integrative
aspect; it relates objects to one another as all in
one class, associated in time, associated in space (being
context to one another), or associated as cause and effect. And the cathectic is the allocative aspect;
it serves to distribute attention and
interest among the objects. 12
Role conflicts may be either internal or external integrative problems,
depending on whether or not the roles in question have been internalized. If they are not internalized, the actor cognizes a fact (to wit,
that be must do two incompatible things or incur sanctions), which fact is
negatively cathected by the need-dispositions to avoid the sanction
involved. If they are internalized,
the actor wants to do two incompatible things at the same time and he has a
conflict between need-dispositions. ___________________________________________________________________________________ 123 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action The
evaluative aspects of an orientation or system of orientations, on the other
hand, are those aspects which relate one internal variable to other internal
variables. The evaluative aspects
handle both allocative and integrative problems at the internal level. That is, they relate variables in the system
to one another (which is the integrative
function) and they relate variables to the system as a whole (which is the allocative
function). We
turn now to the kinds of processes or changes in the personality system which
can function to solve the problems we have presented. LEARNING
PROCESSES AND PERFORMANCE PROCESSES There
are two kinds of systematic changes that occur within the personality
system; these changes are always governed by the systematic requirements set
forth above. First, there are changes determined by the
structure of the personality system itself; these we may call the changes of normal performance, or the
performance processes. These processes
transmit changes from variable to variable without changing the structure of
the system. They are like the processes
whereby the energy of the automobile motor is transmitted to the wheels without
changing the structure of the machine involved. Second, changes in the structure or pattern
of the system itself are occurring all of the time along side of (and partly determined by)
the performance processes of the system.
These we may call the changes of learning,
or the learning processes. It is as if
the structure of the automobile's transmission system were being constantly
changed while the engine is driving the car. When
the performance and learning processes of a system are interpreted (or
categorized) in terms of the ways they solve the functional problems outlined
in the previous section, they constitute the mechanisms
of the personality system. The next
sections will deal with these mechanisms as such and with their various
classifications. There is, however, an
important superordinate problem concerning mechanisms which depend entirely on the learning-performance distinction (when
this is taken as relevant to the over-all problem of the system - the
optimization of gratification). It is
the controversial problem of the law of effect. Since all changes in personality systems are
governed by the general prerequisite of maintaining the system (that is, of
optimization of gratification), it is possible to
interpret the effects of any of these processes in terms of the way it
serves to solve or help solve this problem.
This means that all processes are governed by what psychologists have
termed the "law of effect."
This says nothing more than has already been said; namely, that all
processes can be interpreted in terms of what
they do for the maintenance of the boundaries of the system (or,
again, in terms of their contribution to the optimization of gratification) - 124 The
problem of the law of effect, however, breaks down into two problems based on
the learning-versus-performance distinction.
The
"law of effect as a law of learning"
is prominent in the psychology of the Yale school. The
"law of effect as a law of performance"
is prominent in the psychology of Tolman.
The standard argument in psychology
is whether the former is simply a derivative consequence of the latter (as is
maintained by Tolman) ; or whether the latter is a derivative consequence of
the former (as "law of effect" psychology maintains) 13 This question (even if the truth is all on
one side, as may not be the case) need not concern us here; for in either case,
we do have a "law of effect" in
action and it crosscuts the distinction between learning changes and
performance changes in systems of action.
It is simply another way of saying that the system is a system in both its learning
and performance processes. There
are still many controversial questions concerning the nature of the processes
by which the outcome of action motivated by a given need-disposition serves to strengthen or weaken the disposition to repeat
the action in future situations.
There can, however, be no doubt that in a broad sense an orientation or
action which has repeatedly led to more gratification than deprivation of
drives and need-dispositions in a given type of situation is more likely to be
repeated or strengthened than if the experience has been one of repeated
deprivation. For our purposes this is
the essential point about the law of effect.
This point is particularly crucial to the theory of action because of
its bearing on the significance of sanctions
in interactive relations. It seems
probable that many of the complications of the reinforcement problem relate to the interrelations of many need-dispositions
in a system rather than to the conditions of strengthening or weakening a
particular orientation tendency by virtue of its gratificatory significance to one need-disposition taken in
abstraction from the operations of other need-dispositions. Our main reservations about some current learning theory are concerned
with the implications of this hypothesis. A
particularly important case in point is the significance to ego of alter's attitudes as distinguished from alter's particular overt acts. The attitude of an alter is rarely a specific
reward or punishment in the sense in which that term is used in learning
theory. It usually constitutes an
organized and generalized pattern under
which many particular sanctions are subsumed. The generality of such an attitude as love or esteem renders it
impossible for its relevance to be confined to a single need-disposition. Alter's attitude therefore affects a broad
sector of ego's system of need-dispositions. ============================================================================== 13
Hull's statement would be that, since those actions which foster the
maintenance of the system are learned at
the expense of those which don't, performances which foster maintenance of the
system tend to occur. Tolman would say
that since the animal tends to do those things which he knows will foster the
maintenance of the system, and since frequency of performance fosters learning,
the animal therefore learns the things that foster the system better than those
that don't. =============================================================================== 125 THE
MECHANISMS All
of the processes we have discussed above can be categorized in terms of the way
they serve to meet the problems of the system.
When the processes of learning and performance are classified on the
basis of the way they serve to meet the
requirements of the system, they are termed mechanisms. That is, a
process is a mechanism, insofar as it is viewed in terms of its
relevance to the problems of the system. Fig. 7 gives us a classification of the mechanisms of
personality systems. We have three
kinds of distinctions relevant to the classification of the mechanisms: (1) the
distinction between the types of process
that may be involved - thus mechanisms may be learning or performance mechanisms; (2) the
distinction based on the phenomenological place
of the problems involved - thus mechanisms may be relevant to external or
internal problems; (3) the
distinction based on the type of problem
involved - thus mechanisms may be mechanisms of allocation or mechanisms of
integration. It should
be noted that each of these bases for classification cuts across the other two;
thus there should be eight
different types of mechanisms. We will
take up below those portions of Fig. 7 (page 255) most relevant to the psychological problems
of action. The mechanisms of learning. Learning is perhaps best defined as the acquisition and extinction of
orientation and action tendencies.
Thus, for our purposes, the important learning mechanisms deal with acquisition
or extinction or any other changes in habits
of cognition, cathection, and evaluation (including changes in
internalized value standards). We have
already said that our term mechanisms of
learning implies that there is a "law of effect" in the field of
learning - that is, all mechanisms are in some sense functional with respect to the maintenance of the
systems. Thus the learning mechanism
must involve the acquisition of those tendencies which
better maintain the system at the expense of those which are detrimental
to the system. The
learning mechanisms may be analyzed into categories on the basis of whether
they are chiefly cognitive, cathectic, or evaluative; or they may be classified
as external, internal, allocative, integrative. The two methods of classification
will in general accomplish the same thing, as external-integrative is almost equivalent to
cathectic. Internal, integrative, and allocative is almost equivalent to evaluative. Actually, all learning occurs within the
whole cognitive-cathectic-evaluative matrix; thus all of it involves some
changes in all these aspects of motivational orientation. Similarly, all learning has ramifica- tions for internal and external,
allocative and integrative problems. The question of the primacy of one of the
modes or categories has to do simply with which aspect of the orientation must undergo greatest change in order to
solve the problem. The terms cognitive, cathectic,14 evaluative define the aspects of orientation
process which can be more or less independently varied. The terms external,
internal, integrative, allocative define types of problems. The parallelism derives from the fact that
the changes required to solve these different types of problems ordinarily take
place mainly in the parallel aspect of the orientation. Thus external-integrative problems are
always solved by a series of changes of orientation;
ordinarily this series of changes
(which will involve changes in all aspects of orientation) will involve most
change in the cognitive aspect. We will
discuss three different kinds of learning, (1) cognitive, (2) cathectic, and
(3) evaluative: these will be different learning processes each of which
involves changes in all aspects of orientation, but each
of which involves most changes in that aspect after which it is
named. And, owing to the considerations
above, these three kinds of learning can be seen as also comprising (1) the
external-integrative, (2) external-allocative, and (3) internal, integrative,
and allocative mechanisms of learning. 126 First,
let us take up the mechanisms of cognitive learning. We shall confine our consideration here to
two, discrimination and generalization.
The first concerns the cognition of
differences between different objects and different attributes of the
same objects in terms of the significance of these differences for the
actor. Generalization
is the process by which different objects and groups of them are classed together with respect to those
properties which they have in common and which are significant to the
orientation of action. These are both
aspects of the "cognitive mapping" of the situation. The
cognitive mechanisms enter into all systems of action oriented toward objects
because knowledge or cognitive orientation is inseparably associated with
cathexis and evaluation, and the latter cannot occur without it. As we go on to discuss the other mechanisms
of the personality system, we will see that generalization
is a necessary condition for substitution and for many of
the mechanisms of defense. It is a prerequisite
for the emancipation from particular object attachments, as well
as of any extensive capacity for instrumental manipulation of the situation. Because
of both the continual changes in the situation and the equally continual
process of reorganization of the actor's own
personality (need-disposition) system, nothing like a stable system of
orientations would be possible without some capacity for flexibility in the transfer of orientations from one object to another.
Thus, the learning process by which
different objects are rendered functionally equivalent is essential to
the establishment of systematic stability and equilibrium. Similarly,
because of the very different consequences
which may ensue upon very slightly different
situations, the personality system becomes
sensitized to the very slight differences between objects which are
indices of important and big differences in consequences. Thus the learning process by which similar
objects become discriminated on the basis of their radically different
consequences is very important to the adjustment of the personality system to
its environment. _________________________________________________________________________ 14 In learning, cognitive and cathectic
are more independently variable than in performance. This is because an actor may retain his principles of grouping
but learn to give the objects involved different cathexes (or their value as
means or goals changes). 127 Next,
we take up the mechanisms of cathectic learning. Here we are faced with the problem of the
choice of concrete objects (or classes of objects). A given need-disposition or combination of them has the alternative at any given time of remaining attached
to the same objects or transferring cathexis to new objects. The process of transfer is called substitution. Substitution is the process
of replacing one particular object of a given need-disposition by
another, which may be in the same class or another class but which in terms of
gratification of the need-disposition is to some degree the equivalent of the
relinquished object. Particularly, of
course, in the developmental process, object attachments which may he essential at one stage must be given
up if a higher stage of personality
organization is to be attained. Substitution
is the mechanism
by
which this giving up and transfer to another object takes place. As in the case of other mechanisms, the concept substitution
refers to the outcome in the working of the system of a class of
processes. Even though certain
regularities in such outcomes are known, much about the processes is obscure
and can only be understood after much further research. In very general terms, however, we may say
that there usually must be some combination of
barriers to access or retention of the old object (which may be
inhibitions or situational barriers) and, as well, positive
incentives to cathect the new object.
(All of which is to say that there is a law of effect operating here as
there is everywhere in the mechanisms.) Now
let us turn to the mechanisms of evaluative learning. The expression of a need-disposition is not
dependent on its own strength alone but also on its compatibility with other
need-dispositions in the same system.
Learning theory hitherto has rightly tended to treat the unimpeded
carrying out of a motivational pattern as
unproblematical. Where it has been
impeded as a result of conflict with other need-dispositions, the term inhibition has been employed. The basic problem here is, of course, that
of choice of need-dispositions to be satisfied. Inhibition refers to a
very generalized aspect of this highly complex set of choice phenomena. The chief features of the concept are two: first, the checking of the impulse to release a need-disposition into
action; second, the fact that the source of the inhibition is internal to the
personality. The
enormous significance of this mechanism comes directly from the nature of
personality as a system which maintains distinctive patterns and
boundaries. Incompatible motivational
tendencies are inherently operative; unless the
system had modes of protection against the potentially disruptive
consequences of the conflicts involved, it could not function as a system. 128 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action This
concludes our classification of the mechanisms of learning insofar as that
classification is based upon the phenomenological place of problems, the type
of problems, and the kind of learning processes chiefly responsible for
solution of the problems. It should
be noted, however, that the cognitive learning processes, generalization and
discrimination, which taken together constitute the learning how to perceive
and how to construct an integrated cognitive map of the situation, are the normal learning
processes used in the solution of external-integrative problems. (Thus, whether the
problem be one of conflict between two facts, between a fact and a
need-disposition, or between two different role-expectations, if the problem is
solved as an external problem,15 and if it is solved by learning,
its solution consists in learning new ways to perceive and thus new ways to
manipulate the situation.) It should
be noted too that the cathectic learning process, substitution, is the normal learning process used in the
solution of external-allocative
problems. (Thus, whenever there is a
problem of how to distribute attention between different objects or events in
the external world, if the problem is solved by learning, it constitutes the
learning of a new cathexis, that is, the substitution of a new object of
interest for an old.) Finally,
it should be noted that the evaluative learning process (the learning of inhibition) is the normal
learning process used in the solution of internal, allocative, and integrative
problems, insofar as the problems require that one or several need-dispositions
be held in check while others are being
allowed gratification. (Thus,
whenever there is a problem of conflict between two need-dispositions or a
conflict over which need-dispositions should get most time and effort for the
good of the organism, if the problem is solved by learning, its solution
constitutes the learning of an order of inhibition
whereby various need-dispositions may be inhibited by others.) At
this point we are going to take up a different method for classification of
learning processes, which again cuts across all the classifications made above.
We shall classify the learning processes on the basis of the kind of
relationship which obtains between the learning
actor and the environmental objects while the learning is going on. When classified on this basis, learning
turns out to be "invention," "imitation," or
"identification." The learning
of cognitive, cathectic, and evaluative patterns can, any of them, be either
invention, imitation, or identification.
A need-disposition, as we have seen, is organized in terms of patterns
of orientation. A personality confronts
the problem of acquiring these patterns for itself by creating new ones, or by
acquiring them from some existing pattern which serves as a model. In the former case we have invention.
In the latter case, we have either imitation
or identification (which are both ways that patterns may be
acquired from social objects). 15
Such problems can become internal problems, as we have said elsewhere, when the
fact which conflicts with a need-disposition (which is negatively cathected in
terms of that need disposition) arouses that need-disposition into active
conflict with other need-dispositions active at the same time. When this happens, the problem is internal,
and if it is solved by a learning process, the process is an evaluative
learning process Personality as a System of
Action 129 In the case of invention, the actor has no
specific "learning-relevant" relationship with another social object
during learning. That is, he has no
model for either imitation or identification.
He has run into a problem which requires a new pattern (because the old
pattern has got the system into some sort of problem), so he simply tries
different patterns until one of them solves the problem. Invention may be either trial-and-error
learning, in which the actor tries new patterns at random until one of them
works; or it may be "insight" learning in which the actor constructs
a new pattern systematically on the basis of several old ones. The
two major mechanisms for the learning of patterns from social objects are imitation, which assumes only that alter
provides a model for the specific pattern learned without being an object of a
generalized cathectic attachment; and identification,
which implies that alter is the object of such an attachment and therefore
serves as a model not only with respect to a specific pattern in a specific context
of learning but also as model in a generalized sense. Alter becomes, that is, a model for general orientations, not
merely for specific patterns. With
imitation and identification we come to the
distinctive part played by social objects in learning. Knowledge
and other patterns may be
acquired through independent discovery by the actor himself. But more frequently knowledge is taken over from
other actors.16 (This
is the type of learning that forms the basis of the cultural accumulation of knowledge
- and of other cultural orientations as well.) The acquisition of patterns in such a
fashion (like all learning), is instrumental
to fulfilling certain requirements of the personality system (or of the
need-dispositions which are subsystems).
Thus, we may say that all such learning must be motivated in the
sense that it must result from some need-disposition tendency of the
personality (or from some tendency generated by a problem of the system as a
whole). It
is possible and common for ego to be motivated to acquire a specific pattern
from alter without any attachment to alter
extending beyond this particular process of acquisition. Alter thus is significant only as an object
from which the pattern is acquired. It
is the pattern not the attitudes of
alter as a person which is the object of cathexis. Alter is only its bearer. This is the meaning of the term imitation.
Imitation is very prominent in the acquisition of various specific elements of culture, such as specific
knowledge, technical skills, and so forth. It is much less important in the acquisition
of more general patterns of orientation,
such as standards of taste, fundamental philosophical or ethical outlooks, and
above all, patterns of value-orientation. 16
The relation of ego to the alter from whom he learns a cultural pattern need not involve direct personal contact. He may for example read a book which alter
has written. This mediation by
independent physical embodiments of culture adds only
a further elaboration of the same fundamental elements which enter into
learning through direct personal contact and need not be analyzed here. 130 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action By
identification, on the other
hand, we mean the acquisition of generalized patterns
of orientation motivated by an
attachment to a social object. An
attachment, as we noted in the last chapter,
develops at the point where not only alter's
specific acts are significant to ego as
sanctions but where by generalization ego has become
sensitive to alter's attitudes toward him as a
person, to his responsiveness when it takes the form of granting or
withholdmg his approval, love, or esteem.
In this case the object is not the cultural possessions of alter - what he has - but alter himself as a person – what he
is. The cultural patterns acquired by ego are in fact, as we have
seen, part of alter's personality. They are patterns that alter has
internalized. It is, however, the
characteristic feature of cultural patterns as objects that, being systems of symbols, they are transmissible. Ego cannot himself become alter, nor can any
part of alter's personality so become part of ego's personality that it is lost
to alter - in the way, for example, in which a particular article of clothing
once worn by alter cannot, if worn by ego, simultaneously be worn by
alter. An orientation pattern, however, can be adopted without
necessitating a change in alter's personality.
When
alter is cathected as a person,
as distinguished from specific attributes, possessions, or actions, we speak of
an attachment. (Alter as a person is a complex
constellation of attributes, possessions, and actions, significant in a
multiplicity of aspects which focus on the significance of his attitudes.) An attachment thus exists when alter possesses a general significance as an object for ego, when not merely his specific
acts, qualities, and possessions are significant to ego. This generalized
significance for ego focuses on ego’s concern with alter's attitudes toward him,
and it underlies the development of a need-disposition to attain and maintain certain types of such
attitudes. For example, instead of the specific
gratification of a hunger need being the focus of the significance of the
mother, her provision of food becomes generalized into an appropriate
expression of her love or approval.
Once the retention of such a favorable attitude has become important for
ego, it is possible for other actors to impose frustrations of particular needs and to have
them accepted as long as they can gratify the need to retain the favorable
attitude. Because
of the element of generality in attachments, the patterns of value-orientation taken over through identification are necessarily generalized patterns of orientation. They are not specific
skills or perceptions or appreciative judgments. The patterns of cultural value-orientation,
because of their generality, are
acquired for the most part through identification. Specific skills, appreciative judgments, and
cognitive propositions, however, are often acquired by imitation within the framework of an
identification. The imitative process
may be greatly facilitated by its coincidence with identification.17 17
It should be borne in mind that because our knowledge of the mechanisms
consists of empirical generalizations, no definitive list can be drawn up. The number of such mechanisms into which it
is convenient to divide the empirical problems involved is a consequence of the
structure of the system and the functional "problems" of the system. But it is also a function of the state of
theoretical knowledge at the time. An
advance in the latter may well make it necessary to make a distinction which
had not previously been cu+rrent, or make it possible to
consolidate two mechanisms which it had previou4y been necessary to treat
separately. As an illustration of the
former change, the mechanism of identification seems to have entered the
picture as a result of Freud's discoveries of the ways in which the significant
object-relations of childhood lay at the foundation of an individual's
unconscious "self-image."
Before Freud the empirically crucial problem covered by the concept of
identification was not in the field of psychological attention. Personality as a System of
Action 131 The
patterns acquired through identification are general patterns of orientation
which vary as a function of variations in the character of the underlying
attachments. These variations we shall
analyze in terms of the two basic pattern variables for motivational orientation:
specificity-diffuseness and affectivity-neutrality. The four
combinations of the values of these two variables define the major types of
attitude on alter's part, the security of which
can become the primary focus of ego's attachment to alter. This
concludes our discussion of the mechanisms of learning. The mechanisms of allocation and integration
will he discussed below. This
discussion may have relevance to some of the mechanisms of learning, when these
are taken in their broader context as mechanisms of allocation and integration (including learning and performance
processes) rather than merely as learning mechanisms. Nevertheless, since learning has been covered here, the ensuing
discussion will tend to emphasize the performance mechanisms of allocation and
integration. The mechanisms of allocation. The structure of personality is the result
of a cumulative process of commitments between the alternatives of orientation
and their consequences for defense or resolution within the system, and adjustment to the situation. Each possible alternative selection point
confronts the actor with a situation in which he cannot perform two
conflicting actions simultaneously.
There are inherent limitations on what is possible, arising from the nature
of alternatives and the consequences attending commitment to them. The choice of one of a pair of alternatives
not only excludes the other alternative but it also affects the direction of choice in
other categories as well. The
result of these limitations is the necessity for an allocative distribution among the
possibilities which are logically open.
By allocation we mean the processes by which the action of a system is
distributed among its different parts in such a way that the conditions necessary
for the maintenance of the system, or an orderly pattern of
change, are met. Allocative
distribution in the personality system may be analyzed into two constituent
distributions, the importance of each of which is inherent in the structure of
the action system. The first is external
allocation - the distribution of object-selections or event-selections
relative to any particular need-disposition. (The distribution of time and effort to
different need-dispositions is primarily an internal problem; thus the choice
of one event or occasion over another may be an internal rather than an external allocative problem, unless both
events are cathected by the same need-disposition and are mutually exclusive
for some nontemporal reason. The
distribution of cathexis in terms of place and context is simply a subhead of
distribution among objects; since objects, in the last analysis, are constituted by their place or
context.) The second is internal
allocation – the distribution of gratification opportunities among different need-dispositions. 132 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action We
will take up internal allocation first, because it constitutes the more
important of the two allocative mechanisms for personality systems. Need-dispositions relative to the object
world become organized into a differentiated structure. A variety of specific need-dispositions (for
gratifications, for love from particular types of objects, for
approval for particular qualities or performances, etc.) develop from the
original drives and energy of the organism in interaction with the
situation. It is inherent to
motivational phenomena that there is a drive for
more gratification than is realistically possible, on any level
or in any type of personality organization.
Likewise it is inherent to the world of objects that not all potentially
desirable opportunities can be realized within a
human life span. Therefore, any
personality must involve an organization that allocates opportunities for
gratification, that systematizes precedence
relative to the limited possibilities.
The possibilities of gratification, simultaneously or sequentially, of
all need-dispositions are severely limited by the structure of the object
system and by the intra-systemic incompatibility of the consequences of
gratifying them all. The gratification
of one need-disposition beyond a certain point is only possible at the cost of
other need-dispositions which are important in the same personality.18 Next,
we turn to external allocation.
Each particular need-disposition generally involves a more or less
definite set of cathexes to particular objects or classes of objects. Hence the allocation
of objects is very closely associated with the allocation
of gratifications. Nevertheless,
it is desirable to distinguish the allocation of object choices relative to a
need-disposition as another of the functional problems of a personality
system. Certain types of commitments to one object preclude assignment of the same
significance to another object. For
example, if there is to he a plurality of objects of sexual attachment, certain features of an exclusive
attachment to one object become impossible.
Even though a need-disposition for a certain type of object relationship
has been granted precedence, the allocation of the relevant cathexes between
appropriate particular objects is still a problem which requires solution if
the system is to operate.19 _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 18
Therefore, the allocation of opportunities for gratification between different
need-dispositions is as fundamental to personalities as the allocation of
wealth-getting or power-getting opportunities between persons, or classes of
persons, is to social systems. 19
The fact that ego is in competition with other actors for objects, especially
the response of social objects, is of course fundamental to this aspect of the
allocative problem. 20 It is
this allocative aspect which Freud called the "economic." Personality as a System of
Action 133 The
allocative aspect 20 of the organization of the total
need-disposition system (i.e., of the personality system) is in a sense the "negative" aspect of its
selectivity. It designates the structure
arising in consequence of the necessity of being
committed to only one of each of a number of pairs of intrinsically
desirable alternatives and thus rejecting, or relegating to a lesser place, the
other alternative of the pair. The second major aspect of the
systemic structure is the integration (into a
system) of the various elements which have been allocated. The allocative and integrative aspects of
the personality system are complementary.
The allocative commitments distribute time and attention among various
need-dispositions, objects, and so forth.
This distribution is regulated by the over-all requirements of the
personality system; once the distribution of
functions has been made, each of the need-dispositions constitutes a subsystem
with its own systemic requirements.
This introduces the possibility of conflict; integrative mechanisms
prevent or alleviate conflict. We next
turn our attention to them. The mechanisms of integration. As we have said, integration is a function
peculiar to the class of systems which maintain distinctive
internal properties within boundaries. In such a system certain processes become differentiated as
mechanisms which solve actual conflicts and prevent threatened conflicts by
integrating the internal variables with one another and by integrating the
whole system with the situation outside of it.
In relation to personality, therefore, integrative mechanisms have two
main classes of functions. The first
is the integration of the subsystems created by the allocation
of functions into one over-all system. This involves the forestalling of potential
conflicts and minimizing their disruptive consequences for the system when they
arise. This class of functions is
handled by what we have called the internal integrative
mechanisms. They are
also sometimes called the mechanisms of defense. The second
class of functions is the adjustment of the system as
a whole to threatened (or actual) conflicts between it and the external
environment. This class of functions is
handled by what we have called the external
integrative mechanisms.
They are also sometimes called the mechanisms of adjustment.
We
will discuss first the mechanisms of defense. These, as we have said, handle conflicts
between different need-dispositions.
Though many features of conflict between need-dispositions are specific
to the particular need-dispositions concerned and the particular situation,
there are certainly general properties of
conflict and the response to it which we can analyze here. 134 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action Before
we can give a complete discussion of these general properties of conflict and
the responses to it, however, we must introduce the problem of fear.
Although fear is in fact out of place here,
as it is one of the chief problems of external
integration, we must nevertheless discuss it briefly because it is the genetic
antecedent of several important problems of internal integration. (It will be
discussed further when we take up the external-integrative mechanisms.) Fear is the
cognition and cathexis of a negatively cathected fact in the external world. Since all cognition-cathexes have a temporal
dimension (that is, they are expectancies)
we can say that fear is the cognition of an expected
deprivation. The negatively
cathected object (that is, the expected deprivation) is placed phenomenologically in the external world. Thus fear is an important antecedent to the
mechanisms of external integration; it may be seen as a
superordinate situational antecedent for a whole set of mechanisms of
adjustment. For our present purposes,
we must show the relationships of fear to pain and
anxiety, both of which are relevant to mechanisms of internal integration. Anxiety is internalized fear. That is, when a fear of deprivation has been
experienced often, the organism develops a need-disposition to avoid the
objects involved and to avoid the situations in which the fear arises. The arousal of these internalized fears constitutes
anxiety. Pain is the actual deprivation of need-dispositions
(fear is only an expectancy of that deprivation; anxiety is a specific
need-disposition aimed at avoiding even the fear of deprivation). Both anxiety and
pain are problems of internal integration.21 An aroused
anxiety need-disposition conflicts with other need-dispositions; it constitutes
an internal threat to the system.
Similarly, any deprived need-disposition conflicts with the requirements
for the functioning of the system and constitutes an internal threat to the
system. Finally, any
internal conflict, whether generated by a specific anxiety, a specific
deprivation, or simply a recurrent conflict between need-dispositions,
generates its own anxiety" need-disposition which
constitutes, now, a need to avoid the conflict. In this last sense anxiety may be
interpreted as a warning signal within the
system for the personality to mobilize its resources in order to meet any
threatened conflict and minimize disruptive consequences. It is a universal correlate and condition of
activation of the mechanisms of defense.
Complete
resolution of a threatened conflict would necessitate modification of either
one or both of the relevant need-dispositions so
that in relation to the exigencies of the situation no deprivation would
be imposed. Resolution in this sense is continually going
on in normal personalities and should authentically be called the first
mechanism of defense. It may well be
that cognitive generalization plays a particularly important part in the
process. A variety of other processes
may be involved in resolution. The
strength of one or both of the need-dispositions may be altered so one gives
way. Their structure may be changed to
eliminate the particular strains.
Objects or occasions may be reallocated. The
resolution is always accomplished by giving primacy
to one or the other (or to some superordinate value) of the conflicting
need-dispositions. Thus normal
resolution may be seen as always involving choice, which, as we have shown, is
based on values and the pattern variables. Therefore, evaluation itself might be seen as the normal mechanism of
defense. _____________________________________________________________________________________ 21 Pain
may also be a problem of external integration, as will be seen. Personality as a System of
Action 135 Frequently, however, the strength and rigidity of
either or both sides are too great for much or full resolution to take
place. Then special
mechanisms of defense are
resorted to. Before we continue, we
must introduce a digression to explain the nature of our list of these special
mechanisms. The reader will remember that we held
the distinction between external and internal integrative problems to be roughly parallel to the distinction between
the cognitive and evaluative aspects of orientation. This parallelism, we said, was due to
the fact that external integrative problems were usually
solved by changes in the cognitive aspect of
orientation and internal integrative problems by changes in
the evaluative aspects of orientation. This parallelism held up fairly well
in discussion of the learning mechanisms. Also, in our discussion of the
allocative mechanisms, the external allocative mechanisms involved chiefly
changes in evaluative procedures. Finally, the normal performance aspect of the
internal integrative mechanisms (that is, the resolution of conflicts between
need-dispositions by application of standards of primacy relations based on
pattern-variable choices) were evaluative,
as they should be according to our parallelism. As we will see later, the
normal external integrative mechanisms will involve chiefly cognitive changes,
as they should according to the parallelism. The abnormal or rigid internal
mechanisms, however, apparently are not open to interpretation in these
parallelistic terms. This seems to be
owing to the fact that the problems of conflict, which are actually internal
conflicts between need-dispositions and are thus internal problems, are often not recognized by the actor as internal
problems at all. On the contrary, they are often localized by him in the external world,
and thus solved as though they were external problems of integration. We are forced to make a choice: we see that
phenomenologically they seem to be problems of adjustment for the subject
involved; yet we know that there is behavior which
indicates a real (although perhaps subconscious) subjective awareness that
these are internal problems. Thus
we list all of the mechanisms aimed at the
resolution of internal problems as mechanisms of
defense, even though we know that the actor-subject is not always aware
that these are mechanisms for the resolution of internal
problems. It will be remembered that external
integrative problems are resolved primarily by cognitive
changes; this will be seen to hold true when we take up the mechanisms of
adjustment. It was said that internal
integrative problems are solved largely by evaluative
changes; it will be seen in the following paragraphs that many if not most
internal integrative problems are so distorted as
to constitute seemingly external integrative problems for the actor. Therefore, most of the mechanisms which
solve them will involve primarily changes in the cognitive sphere. Here
we will simply list and define briefly each of the special mechanisms of
defense. 136 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action First
is rationalization. This involves a distorted perception by the
actor of the relation which obtains between his need-dispositions and the goal
of an action. The goal is "seen" to be relevant to (and cathected by)
one set of need-dispositions (need-dispositions of
which the person is proud - often his values). Actually the goal is cathected by another set of
need-dispositions, which are not even seen to be
operative in this situation.
Usually the need-dispositions which are kept
out of the picture would come into conflict with some value
need-dispositions of the actor if they were allowed
in the picture. Thus a conflict
is averted by the technique of rationalization. Although this mechanism is primarily a method for handling
problems generated by internal conflicts, the problem often appears to the
actor as one of adjustment. Ego is threatened by the negatively cathected
perception of himself (if he sees himself as possessing a characteristic which
he does not like, he will be constantly uncomfortable in the presence of the
perceived trait, which, by definition, constitutes a deprivation). Therefore, ego chooses to distort the facts
so that he may perceive himself as a cathected object. The problem can be perceived as an external
problem by ego, because of the fact that ego as
actor can perceive himself as an object. Rationalization occasionally arises as a purely adjustive
mechanism (i.e., dealing with really external
problems) when it is used as a method of distorting a negatively cathected fact
that really arises out of the external world
(as when one justifies something which he wants to believe with sophistic
arguments). Second
is isolation. This is the refusal to cognize and cathect
an object in terms of one need-disposition, A, while it is being cognized and
cathected in terms of another conflicting need-disposition, B. Thus an overt
conflict between A and B is avoided.
This involves a distorted perception of the object which will obscure its relevance to
A. Third
is displacement. This is the removal of the positive cathexis
implanted by need-disposition A from an object which is negatively cathected by
need-disposition B; and the attachment of that positive cathexis to a new
object which is not negatively cathected.
This is nothing more than substitution, which has already been
discussed, under conditions of conflict and for the purpose of resolving
conflict. Fourth
is fixation. This is the obverse of displacement. It is
the compulsive retention of a cathexis on the least threatening object in order
to avoid some conflict that would be engendered by the substitution that would
normally occur in the development of the personality. Fifth
is repression. Repression involves the destroying of
internal systematic interconnections between some threatening need-disposition
and the rest of the system; this is accompanied by radical repression of the
offending need-disposition. The threatening need-disposition is cut off from
normal internal interdependence with the rest of the personality
system and at the same time it is denied direct gratification. Sixth
is reaction formation. This is a special case of repression. When the threat is originally engendered by
a conflict between two need-dispositions, the more threatening of the two is
repressed, and the one with which it conflicted is reinforced. 137 Personality as a
System of Action Seventh
is projection. This is a combination of repression,
reaction formation, and rationalization, in a special fashion. Ego represses a threatening motive and
reinforces the motive which did not allow tolerance for the repressed motive,
just as in the case of reaction formation.
Then ego refuses to see himself as possessing the repressed motive, and he
explains the anxiety generated by the repression by seeing alter as possessing
the motive which he cannot tolerate.
Thus, the "reaction" need-disposition (the one that does not
allow tolerance) can negatively cathect alter instead of implanting a negative
cathexis on ego himself, which would irivolve continual deprivation and
pain. These
are the principal classical mechanisms of defense.22 In each case normal learning mechanisms are operative with the
addition of special features imposed by the situation of conflict, in
consequence of which modifications of both intensity and direction occur. If full resolution of conflicts fails, the
other mechanisms of defense reduce conscious anxiety and otherwise minimize the
disruptive potentialities of conflict.
But at the same time, this is possible only at the cost of impairment of
potential activities, which will be severe according to the degree of failure
of full resolution. The overt manifestations
of these impairments of function are the symptoms
of psychopathological disorders.
The
consequences of the mechanisms of defense, which are operative to some degree
in every personality, are the introduction of a set of modifications of the
need-dispositions. The
mechanisms of adjustment solve
external integrative problems. Here we
are confronted with problems of two types: there may be conflicts between facts, or there may be conflicts between facts and need-dispositions. In the first case (which is less
important for the whole personality system) we have a conflict between two possible ways of perceiving (i.e.
cognizing) the external world; and since the actions of the actor are
determined by his orientations, these conflicting facts bring about impulses to
conflicting actions. The
latter case, which is of prime importance for personality systems,
involves what we called the conflict between a fact and a
need-disposition. How, one may ask, can
a fact conflict with a need-disposition?
For our purposes, a fact is
nothing more than the cognition of an object or an
event. It has simply the status of any phenomenological object. An object can be said to conflict
with a need-disposition whenever it is negatively cathected. Any need-disposition which implants
negative cathexes on anything (and it seems that all need-dispositions
negatively cathect some deprivational objects) constitutes a tendency to withdraw from or to abolish the deprivational
phenomenological object. In the case of
a negatively cathected fact, the
tendency of the need-disposition is to change those facts which conflict with
it. Facts can be changed by means of
actions that change the actual relations
between objects and thus change the perception of those relations (the
perceptions being the facts); or facts can be changed by merely distorting the perceptions of the relations
between objects without really altering the relations at all. In either case the problem is solved by constructing a new set of perceptions in which the
"facts" cognized are no longer in conflict with the
need-dispositions; that is, by bringing about a situation where the negatively
cathected facts are not cognized. Insofar as there
is a personality problem here, it is chiefly a problem of altering the cognitive aspect of the
orientation. 21 Sublimation is not a special mechanism of
defense in this sense hut a special ease of the normal learning mechanism of
substitution It may, of course, play a highly important part in resolution of
conflicts. 138 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action Every
personality problem, of course, involves need-dispositions, and thus it
involves cognitions and cathexes and (usually) evaluations too. The question in classifying the problems,
however, is this: which aspects of the orientation (and
the system too, since every change in the orientation is at least a superficial change in the system) is chiefly important in the changes which must
be made to solve the problem. Usually
conflicts between need-dispositions and facts are of a rather
superficial nature, in that the fact is not
an actual deprivation of the need-disposition but rather simply a threat of deprivation - something instrumental to
deprivation which, if allowed to continue, might result in actual
deprivation. Such problems can be
solved by changing the facts before the negatively-cathected threat of deprivation brings
about the deprivation itself.
If the threatened deprivation is not counteracted, actual deprivation may ensue, bringing about actual pain.
In this case the deprived need-disposition comes into conflict with
other need-dispositions and with the system as a whole by blocking normal
process. At this point, the problem is
no longer external but internal, and the mechanisms of defense come into
operation to defend the system against the perseveration of the injured
need-disposition (better amputate the
diseased element than give up the whole system). It
can be seen that the entire discussion above
may be interpreted as a discussion of fear. Whenever a perceived fact constitutes the
threat of deprivation of one of the need-dispositions, then we have what we
called fear. Thus, we can say that the
mechanisms of adjustment are ways of doing away with fears, or with actual deprivations,
by changing the relationships which are seen to obtain between the personality and the
world of objects (chiefly, for our purposes, social objects). Also, referring back to the beginning of
this section, we may say they are ways of solving conflicts between facts
themselves. Let
us discuss briefly the method for adjudicating conflicts between two factual propositions,
before we go on to discuss the methods for solving conflicts between facts and
need-dispositions. The normal method
for adjudicating conflicts between dissonant cognitive elements within one orientation is "reality
testing." This has to
do with allowing the law of effect to operate, insofar as it applies to the
acceptance or rejection of cognitions in both learnmg and performance. It is the external equivalent of the
internal tendency toward optimum gratification in the sense that it represents
an adjudication of the various possibilities of cognition. It is the descriptive term for the process
of selecting objects of attention, focusing on some
and avoiding others as possibilities for gratification and dangers of
deprivation. Like other functions this
cognitive system is oriented to the future as well
as the present. What it does is
to adjudicate conflicts between different possible cognitions by looking into the future to see which actually
serves to guide action in a fashion which is most gratifying and least
deprivational in the long run. Personality as a System of
Action 139 Reality-testing
is functionally crucial to the personality system as
a link between the system and the situation. It imposes limits on the variability of
action. It allows the actor to group objects in terms of their expected
outcomes, and thus to stabilize, in some sense, the outcomes he gets from interaction
with objects. When
we come to problems of conflict between facts and need-dispositions, a learning
process similar to reality-testing provides the normal method for their
resolution. The actor must learn to perceive new
relationships which will guide action in such a fashion as to avoid the
deprivation. This is the problem of
inventing and learning new patterns of perception. For example, when ego is in some
immediate danger, he must find some relationship - usually causal -
between some event he knows
how to produce by his own action and the event that he wants,
that is, the averting of the calamity.
He does this by reality-testing his invented patterns until one of them
succeeds in avoiding the deprivation. The
normal techniques of adjustment are parallel to the normal mechanisms of
defense (which involve simple evaluative choices based upon the pattern
variables). As was true in that case,
so it is true here that there are certain cases where
rigidity prevents normal resolution of conflicts and thus gives
rise to special mechanisms of adjustment.
The cases where rigidity prevents normal
external integration arise chiefly when the actor suffers real or
threatened deprivation of cathected relationships with social objects. Four major types of problems are
possible here. At this point the
pattern variables enter the picture in a new way. They define certain typical problems of adustment to which the
personality is exposed in its relations to the social objects of the situation.
These problems derive from the conditions required for the fulfillment of the
four main types of need-dispositions arrived at in the table which
cross-classified affectivity-neutrality with specificity.diffuseness. Each of these kinds of need-disposition
presents the personality with a special kind of problem of adjustment. We will discuss these main types of
need-dispositions only in terms of their relevance
in mediating attachments to social objects. 140 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action First
is the need-disposition that results from the combination of specificity and affectivity. This constitutes the case where the actor is striving for immediate specific gratification vis-a-vis an
object. If there is no internal barrier to gratification, the primary
factor on which gratification depends is the availability
of the appropriate specific objects. A problem is occasioned by absence, or threatened deprivation, of the
specific objects. Anxiety focuses on this possibility.23 The need-disposition may, of course, cope
with such a threat actively or passively.
Second
is the need-disposition that derives from the combination of diffuseness and affectivity. This constitutes the case where the actor
strives for love or affection. Here the problem is that of maintaining the
security of the attachment, including the dependability of alter's attitude of
diffuse love or affection. Third
is the need-disposition that derives from the combination of neutrality with specificity. This constitutes the case where the
actor strives for approval by
alter. Here again the problem is that
of the availability of the appropriate object, which this time is the attitude
of approval of alter. These attitudes
may be actively sought, or they may be passively "hoped for." Fourth
is the need-disposition that derives from the combination of neutrality with diffuseness. This constitutes the case where the
actor strives for esteem by
alter. Here the problem is that of
possible loss of esteem by alteration of ego's relationship to the object. It is not ego's immediate gratification
opportunities which are threatened; rather, the danger is that ego will not fulfill his obligations to alter,
these obligations being the conditions of future gratifications. Alter's attitudes, again, are of paramount
significance. This time it is not a
question of alter's approval of specific acts or qualities but of his esteem
for ego as a person. In
all of these problems, the threat on which anxiety is focused is the possible
disturbance of ego's cathected relationship to alter as an object. To resolve these problems, to cope with
these threats, there are two fundamentally opposite directions in which
ego's need.dispositions can be modified.
Ego may intensify his motivation to retain and consolidate
the relationship or he may accept the possibility of its relinquishment. The intensification of the need to
retain the attachment to alter as an object results in
dependency. If, on the other
hand, the path of relinquishment is taken, we may speak of compulsive independence, which may concretely
involve a reaction formation to dependency needs. When selections have been made from these alternatives, the
question whether the search for security by retention or relinquishment is to
be sought by active or passive devices still
remains. With
this introductory discussion complete, we may now proceed to classify the
special mechanisms of adjustment, which are all applicable to the four major
types of problems of adjustment to social objects. 23 It is lack of receptiveness andlor
responsiveness on which anxiety focuses. Personality as a System of
Action 141 When
ego chooses to cope with the threat by striving to retain the relationship with
alter, we may speak of dominance as
the active alternative and submission
as the passive alternative. Dominance
thus means mitigation of the danger of loss
or deprivation engendered by ego's attempting actively to control the object on
which he is dependent or with whose expectation he must conform. Submission,
on the other hand, seeks to forestall unfavorable
reactions of alter by ego's ingratiating himself with alter and
fulfilling his wishes. This presumably must be correlated with the renunciation
of one set of ego's conflicting needs, a renunciation which may be possible
only through the operation of the mechanisms of defense. Indeed, from one point of view the mechanisms of adjustment as ways of coping with
threats or relations to objects must always have their counterparts in mechanisms of defense as ways of coping with threats arising within ego's own
personality. This complementary
relationship is inherent in the kind of significance and importance which
object attachments have for the whole personality. It follows from this that the most strategic need-dispositions
are those which mediate the reciprocal attachments. Turning
to the case of willingness to relinquish the attachment to alter, we again find
the corresponding possibilities. Aggressiveness is the active alternative and withdrawal the passive. Aggressiveness is basically the
need-disposition to get rid of a noxious object
- to take active steps to render the objject's noxious activities
impossible. This may or may not entail
what is ordinarily considered injury to or destruction of the object; it may be limited to the prevention of certain
activities. The case where injury to
the object is positively cathected is a further complication of aggressiveness;
it may be called sadism. Withdrawal scarcely needs comment. It is renunciation
of the object, accompanied either by inhibition of the need-disposition
(which may require repression) or substitution of a new object (which may
involve displacement). The logical relations of these four primary
mechanisms of adjustment are shown in Fig. 8 (page 256). As
in the case of sadism, dynamic relations between the mechanisms of defense and
of adjustment may be established from which many of the clinically familiar patterns of motivation may be derived. For example, masochism
may be treated as involving the combination of submission as a primary pattern
of adjustment with strong elements of guilt-feeling and hence a
need-disposition to accept suffering. This combination may in turn favor a positive cathexis
(e.g., in erotic terms) of certain states of suffering at the hands of an
object of attachment. Or, to take
another example, compulsive independence taking the passive form of withdrawal
from love attachments may be combined with expression of a dependency need in
the affectively neutral form of a compulsive need for approval. The
outcome of such motivational combinations may be a selective orientation as
between the different types of attachment as formulated in terms of the basic
pattern-variable combinations of Fig. 3. Thus a
need to secure specific approval through dominance will pose quite different
problems of execution from those entailed in a need to
ensure an attitude of diffuse love on alter's part. To carry out all these possibilities would involve us in far too much classificatory detail for
present purposes. 142 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action Before
leaving these questions it is important to emphasize again that there are
processes of resolution in this
area as there were in the sphere of internal integration. The actor's relation to his world of objects
is, in fact, continually changing, and adjustments to these changes must
continually be made. So far as this
adjustment is carried out without manifestation of
strain or conflict, it is to be regarded as a process of learning and the normal mechanisms
of learning will operate. There will be
not only in the developmental period but throughout life a continual succession
of new reinforcements and extinctions, inhibitions, substitutions, imitations, and
identifications. The special mechanisms
of adjustment come into operation only when the normal learning mechanisms fail to operate without strain, when the
resolution is incomplete or absent. The
process of internal integration and situational adjustment are, as noted,
interdependent with each other. A new
adjustment problem which cannot be resolved
by normal learning processes creates a strain that reacts not merely on one or
two need-dispositions but has repercussions
in the system of need-dispositions. If
in turn these repercussions, which will always create some conflicts, cannot be
adequately resolved, mechanisms of defense
will come into operation. Conversely,
the operation of a defense mechanism arising out of an internal conflict will
create in the need-dispositions concerned needs either to intensify some of
their cathexes or to withdraw them.
Unless these needs can be fully inhibited, the result will be the intensification or creation of a
problem of adjustment, which in turn may activate or intensify a mechanism of
defense. Thus the processes of
resolution, of defense, and of adjustment are all mutually interdependent. Anxiety,
as we have seen, is the danger signal given
by anticipations of danger to the equilibrium of the personality from
within. There are other dimensions of a diffuse feeling of dysphoria. One type of special significance to our
study is that manifested in relation to ego's own
violation (actual or anticipated as possible) of value standards which
he has internalized. Here the relation
to the internal integration of personality, on the one hand, and to situational
objects, on the other, is significant.
Such a dysphoric feeling directed toward
ego's own internalized standards, in such a way that he himself
is the judge, may be called guilt. If, on the other hand, the orientation is toward alter's reaction,
according to what are interpreted to be his standards of approval or esteem, it
may be called shame. If finally it is concerned only with overt
consequences which will be injurious
to ego, it is fear. Personality as a System of
Action 143 SUBINTEGRATIONS
IN THE PERSONALITY SYSTEM In
the preceding section we have been discussing certain complex need-dispositions
engendered by the problem of maintaining the level
of gratification in the face of threats from within the
personality and outside it. We have
said nothing about the possibility of these need-dispositions becoming dominant features in the integration
of the personality system. It is to this that we wish to give our attention at
this point. The
personality system is an organized set of primary and complex need-dispositions
which are related to one another in a hierarchical
way. Certain of the need-dispositions are generalized and fused with more specific
need.dispositions. Thus, such
need-dispositions as aggressiveness, dominance, submissiveness, and so on, might find
release simultaneously with more specific
need-dispositions; for example need-dispositions for love, achievement, erotic
gratification. This simultaneous
gratification of several need-dispositions gives unity
to the personality system. It provides
what Murray has called the “unity thema";
but it does more than provide a unified pattern of orientation. It is also an allocative and integrative
factor. Integration,
however, is not a homogeneous phenomenon. We may speak of total integration and
subintegration. Subintegrations are groupings of
need-dispositions around certain objects or classes of objects or around object
or occasion modalities.24
Particular sets of need-dispositions will be activated and gratified by certain objects;
that is, they will press for release and will be
released without disruptive conflict with their "co-operative"
need-dispositions in connection with certain objects. Insofar as several need-dispositions (whatever their level of
complexity) are simultaneously gratified in a stable
recurrent manner about particular objects, object classes, or
modalities, we shall speak of subintegrations (regardless of whether the
simultaneous gratification is accompanied by resolution or by some mechanism of
defense or adjustment). These
partial integrations within the personality structure are built up in the
course of particular sequences of experience
(experiences of action and interaction in a situation). They acquire a kind of relative independence
in their functioning, a "functional autonomy." The situation which provokes one of the constituent need-dispositions
of the integration system also provokes the others. Each subsystem, so far as it has become an
integrated system, becomes a unitary need-disposition, itself, with its
appropriate gratifications, more complex in structure and with wider systemic
connections and ramifications than more elementary need-dispositions (e.g., for
love, esteem, etc.). Through their repercussions in the personality system these
subsystems may either indirectly or directly produce real conflicts with other
subintegrations. 24
A compulsive fixation on time-allocation
is a familiar phenomenon. Special
significance of particular places, such as a home,
is also an example. 144 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action A subintegration such as a
need-disposition for passively received love
might come into conflict with some other need-disposition, primary or complex,
or with another subintegration such as the compulsive
need for independence from authority.
Thus conflict might be dealt with by allocative resolution, as by the selection of love objects and sources which
neither exercise nor symbolize authority; or it might be dealt with by
some defense mechanism such as repression or reaction formation. With the mastery of conflicts between subintegrations of need-dispositions,
we return to the phenomenon of the total
integration of the personality system. Again
the hierarchical organization of need-dispositions plays a central part. One generalized complex need-disposition is
especially significant here: namely, that built around the self-collectivity orientation alternative. There
are two primary aspects of this integration about collectively
shared values. In the first
place the values of the collectivity themselves define areas of control and
areas of permissiveness. That is, there
are areas in which ego is expected to he guided
by considerations constitutive of his membership in the collectivity, and other areas of permissiveness, within which he is
free to act and choose independently of obligations of membership. This distinction will exist with respect to
every institutionalized role definition and normally will become incorporated
into personality structure in the form of a generalized need-disposition,
usually called a "sense of obligation." It will be a need-disposition to conform with institutional expectations.
Insofar as ego's personality structure is
integrated with and by such collective value-expectations which impose
obligations upon him, we will speak of "superego-integration." When, in addition to the integration with collective values the
area of permission to pursue his own interests and/or values irrespective of (not in conflict with)
role-obligations in collectivities is included, we will speak of "ego-integration." This
distinction between modes of personality integration relative to collectivity
membership obligations should be clearly
distinguished from another set which is also important in the analysis
of such obligations: conformative" and "alienative"
need-dispositions. The latter,
exceedingly crucial distinction concerns in the
first instance the articulation
of the personality system with the role structure of the social system; it
stresses the involvement of role structure (in one crucial respect) in the
structure of personality. The value patterns institutionalized
in the role-expectations of ego's roles may become an integrated part of his
own personality structure, in which case he will have a need-disposition to
conform with the expectations of the role in question. On the other
hand, this integration may be absent,
and he may have one of a number of possible types of need-disposition to avoid, or to rebel against, conformity with
such expectations. A need-disposition to conformity or alienation acquires a
special compulsive force when in addition to or in place of the general need-disposition
there develops a specific anxiety about the attitudes of the object. Personality as a System of
Action 145 It
should be clear from the whole foregoing analysis that a personality does not
have in a simple sense one homogeneous "superego," but
precisely because he is involved in a multiplicity
of roles in as many collectivities, he has several superego-integrations in his personality. Very frequently the most important internal as well as
external conflicts are not between obligations imposed
by a general collective value system and "self-interest" but between the obligations of different roles, that
is, between the constituent, more or less specific, need-dispositions in the
superego. The actor is put in the
position of having to sacrifice one or the
other or some part of each. This is an authentically internal personality conflict,
and not merely a conflict over the possible "external" consequences
of sanctions; as such it is extremely important. A
certain trend of thought tends to treat personality simply
as a cluster of what in the present terms would be called superego-integrations. The importance of this aspect of personality is indeed great, but
it alone is not adequate and would introduce serious biases unless related to
other aspects. Not only does there seem
to be much evidence for the importance of areas of sheer gratificatory autonomy
without reference to any role obligation, but also
it is within the area of autonomy vis-a'-vis defined role obligations
that individual "creativity" 25 and personal
morality occur. This autonomous area of
individual action may occur within a zone of
permissiveness provided by the institutional structure of the society;
it might also exist in zones which are institutionally regulated, but in accordance
with standards which are contrary to the
predominant institutional expectations. Another
basic element in the comprehensive integration of the personality system is a
"personal value system." This
problem will be taken up in the following chapter. At this point it should be emphasized that the integration of a personality as a concrete empirical
action system can never be a simple "reflection" or
"realization" of a value system. It must involve the adjustment of such a value system to the exigencies
of the object situation and to the exigencies of organic needs. There is, therefore, a presumption that the integration of the value system into action will be
less than perfect. There will be
necessary elements of compromise, evasion, and more or less open conflict. This is particularly true because of the
"historical" character of both personal and social value
systems. The personal value system is
built up in the course of a career, the different
components of which, especially in a complex society, may not articulate very
well with each other. In general it can
be said that the nonintegration of the personal value system is
"veiled" by the mechanisms of defense. This means that the actor is
usually only partially aware of the structure and importance of many of his
conflicting elements - unless, of course, he has been very thoroughly
psychoanalyzed, and even then much will remain obscure. 26
If individual "creativity" is required by
a set of role-expectations, then, of course, it does not occur in the area of autonomy. Thus the scientist is expected to create
theory. 146 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action But
although the integration of personality in terms of the value system is always
less than perfect - and is, in fact, usually considerably so - it does not
follow that the degrees or modes of integration are unimportant. They are of primary significance. For
example, the characterization of total personalities,
in terms of what Murray calls their "unity thema," clearly presupposes
an analysis of the degree and nature of the integration of the personal value
system. But because of its
applicability to both personality and social system levels, it has seemed best to treat the general problem of the structure of
value systems separately in the following chapter. It is clear that the results of this treatment should be
incorporated into the analysis of personality as a system and are not to be
thought of separately as relevant only to problems of "culture." Similarly, in the formulation of an over-all
characterization of a personality, the manner and degree of its integration in
the social structure presents a critical problem. The following discussion
presents a first approximation to the solution of this problem. THE
ARTICULATION OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL SYSTEMS In
the analysis of the empirical interdependence of personality and social
systems, the best point of departure would be an examination of the points of
contact between the two types of system.
This procedure has been rendered much more feasible from a theoretical
standpoint by virtue of our derivation of all major concepts from a few
basic categories of the theory of action.
The use of the same set of basic categories
for the description of discrete actions and for the description of systems
allows us to study not the identities of the two types of system but the
points of their integration and mal-integration which is the central empirical
problem of this field of social science.
In
Fig. 9 we have schematically summarized the
component elements of the two systems with a view to showing the areas in each
system which correspond to the other.
In what follows we shall present some brief considerations on these
points of empirical articulation or correspondence between the concrete structures in the two systems. In
the left-hand column Fig. 9 presents a minimum
list of structural elements of a social system, all of which must be present in
any empirical case. These are first the
two primary classes of unit elements of the social system: (1) the ways in which actors are categorized as objects of orientation, that
is, by qualities (age, sex, territorial location, collectivity memberships) and
performance capacities, and (2) the ways in which the
roles in which they act are defined, the types of pattern and
their distribution. The two
together define the role structure of the system; the first defines the
actors' characteristics on the basis of which
they are assigned to roles, and the second defines those roles (in terms
of who shall occupy them and of the requirements the occupants must meet) and
the relations of roles to one another within the system. Next,
every social system must have an organized allocation of orientations
vis-il-vis the two fundamental types of interests in objects, the instrumental and the expressive. This includes the distribution of
transferrable objects of interest, facilities and rewards, and therefore it
includes the structure of the systems of power and of prestige. Finally,
every social system has structures of primarily
integrative (or in the social sense, moral)
significance - on both the cultural and the institutional levels. In the latter case the most important
phenomenon is the presence of roles which carry special
institutionalized responsibility and with it both authority and prestige
greater than those of most actors in the system. Personality as a System of
Action 147 We
may now begin to examine the implications of the existence of these
fundamentals of the social system for the personality organization of its
component actors. In the first
place, it is quite clear that there must be a
fundamental correspondence between the actor's own self-categorization
or "self-image" and the place he occupies in the category system of
the society of which he is a part. Many
aspects of this categorization, such as sex, age, ethnic adherence, seem too
obvious to consider explicitly. But
even where there is such an obvious biological
point of reference as in the case of sex, it is clear that self-categorization must be learned in the course
of the socialization process, and the
process is often very complex, and to some degree the individual must learn to
"see himself as others see him"
(that is, to accept the socially given definition of his status). Even in the case
of sex, certainly among children, fantasies of belonging to the
opposite sex are very common, and there is reason to believe that on deeper
levels these fantasies may reflect a serious difficulty in accepting the
membership in the sex group to which the individual has been biologically
ascribed. Such pathological phenomena
indicate that categorization even by sex is not simply given with the
anatomical structure of the organism but has to be built into the personality. Failure for it to work out fully is very
probably an important component in at least some types of homosexuality. What is true of sex is much more obviously
so in such a case as ethnic membership. For a person of light skin color to
categorize himself as a Negro is obviously something which must he
learned. It should be remembered that
the criterion of social ascription to the Negro group is not physical
characteristics as such, but
parentage. Any child of a Negro is in social terms a
Negro, even if his physical characteristics are such that he would have no difficulty in
"passing." 148 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action Another
important type of such categorization concerns performance capacities and
character traits. What the individual
believes about himself - with respect to his intelligence, his abilities to do
various things, whether he is honest or attractive and so forth - becomes
constitutive of his personality itself.
This is, of course, not merely a matter of cognitive belief alone but of
internalization as part of the need-disposition system. Of
course, in this as in so many other respects, the correspondence between the
personality structure and the social system is not exact. But the elements of looseness and the frequency
of discrepancies between self-image and actual social role should not obscure
the fundamental importance of a broad correspondence. In
the second place, as we have so often pointed out, the social system
places every individual in a series of roles where
he is expected to conform with certain expectations of behavior. The need-disposition structure which controls one's responses to the expectations
defining one’s various roles is therefore one of the most fundamental aspects
of any personality, for the simple reason that social objects constitute the
most important part of the situation in which he acts. Therefore, in the
performance as well as the quality modality of his involvement in the social
system, the individual personality inevitably must
be shaped around the definition of role-expectations. There are, of course, the two primary
aspects of this. Within the range
permitted by biological plasticity, there is the possibility that, through the
socialization process, the constitution of the need-disposition system itself
will be organized in terms of the motivation to fulfill role-expectations. Perhaps the most important single instance
of this is the internalization of value.orientation patterns through the
processes of identification. The
second aspect is that, however the need-disposition system may come to
have been constituted, at every point in the life processes the individual is
confronted with the actions and attitudes of others as part of his situation of
action. Because he is a social being
participating in processes of social interaction, he can never escape
being oriented to the reactions of others, to their attitudes and the
contingencies of their overt behavior.
In this connection, then, the meaning of
these role-expectations as expressed in the attitudes and actions of his
interaction partners is always a fundamental point of reference for his own
motivations. Role-expectations are so fundamental to the
social system that all human social motivation closely involves the problem of
conformity with them. Hence one of the
most important dimensions of any need-disposition system of a personality must
be what we have called the conformity-alienation dimension. There may, of course, be widely varying degrees to which a need-disposition
for either conformity or alienation is generalized in the personality, but
whether it applies only to a narrow sector of the role-system or is highly
generalized, it is always present. The
next two major aspects of the social system constitute in a sense a
further specification of the implications of these first two fundamental
ones. Each, however, has certain
special features of its own which may be commented upon briefly. As an essential part of every social system
there is, as has been noted, an allocation of (mutually oriented) instrumental
activities to the various roles and a corresponding allocation of sanctions and
rewards. As we shall see in
discussing the social system later, there is a variety of possible ways in
which these activities can be organized relative to other components of the
social system. But whatever this
organization may be, it has to have its counterpart in the motivational
organization of the individual personalities involved. Personality as a System of
Action 149 This
becomes particularly evident in two more or less antithetical contexts. First, it is clear that the more
complex and sophisticated types of instrumental activity require high levels of
self-discipline on the part of the individual.
The person who is unduly responsive to every passing opportunity for
immediate gratification is incapable of the sustained effort and implementation
of planning which is necessary - the capacity for
sustained work is essential. A
wide development of the instrumental aspects of a social system therefore
presupposes the development of personalities capable of the requisite levels of disciplined application - as
well as other capacities, of course, such as that for handling abstract
generalizations. Not least among these capacities is
that for a certain flexibility of
orientation. The
personality which is too highly dependent on highly detailed "ritualistic"
routines of life is not ordinarily capable of the higher levels of instrumental
achievement. At
the same time, a stable system of action requires other elements than
instrumental disciplines, and this leads us to the second aspect. A stable systern requires above all the
internalization of value-orientations to a degree which will sufficiently
integrate the goals of the person with the goals of the collectivity. In the economy of
instrumental orientations one of the principal points at which this problem
arises is with respect to the control of "self-interest." In popular terms we are likely to say that
in addition to instrumental capacities people must have certain levels of
"moral integrity" and of "responsibility" to be
satisfactory members of a society. The
prerequisites for such qualities in the structure of personality are somewhat different from the prerequisites of
instrumental efficiency or adaptiveness. Each
social system at the same time has an "economy" of rewards and of the
expressive orientations and interests connected with them. In motivationally significant terms this
comes down to the question of what are the most important immediate and
ultimate gratifications, and how they are or- ganized and distributed within the
social system. It is here that perhaps
the most important single inference from the paradigm of interaction needs to
be drawn. Human
society, we may say, is only possible at all because, within the limits of
plasticity and sensitivity, sufficient basic human gratifications come to be
bound up with conformity with role-expectations and with eliciting the
favorable attitudes of others.
Both the immediate presocial gratification needs and the individualistic
type of instrumental reciprocity provide too brittle and unstable a basis for social order. The phenomena of attachment and of
identification are altogether fundamental here. 150 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action There
seem to be two primary dimensions to this significance. First, through the diffuseness of what has been called the love
type of attachment, the mutuality of dependency is extended to the
social object as a whole, which precludes his being
"used" as a facility for specific immediate
gratifications without regard to the totality of the attachment
relationship. Second, the
mechanism of identification in the context of role-orientation provides a motivation for the acceptance of still further
disciplines by leading to the development of the needs for
approval and esteem; that is, for favorable attitudes relatively independent of
the provision of other immediate gratifications. This need to be approved and esteemed is sometimes a source of
social strains, but it is a fundamental motivational basis for the acceptance of socially necessary
disciplines. There is a sense in which,
paradoxical as it may seem, the core of the reward
systems of societies is to be found in the relevance of this element of
the motivation of individuals. What people want most is to be responded to,
loved, approved, and esteemed. If,
subject, of course, to an adequate level of physiological need-gratification,
these needs can be adequately gratified, the most important single condition of
stability of a social system will have been met. Hence the study in personality of the conditions both of building
up and of gratifying the need-dispositions in this area is crucial for the
study of social systems. Conversely,
the understanding of the social situation, both in the course of socialization
and in adult interaction, is crucial to this phase of personality study. It
will be made clear in Chapter IV that
institutionalization itself must be regarded as the fundamental integrative
mechanism of social systems. It is
through the internalization of common patterns of value-orientation that a
system of social interaction can be stabilized. Put in personality terms this means that there
is an element of superego organization correlative with every
role-orientation pattern of the individual in question. In every case
the internalization of a superego element means motivation to accept the
priority of collective over personal interests, within the appropriate limits
and on the appropriate occasions. Certain
aspects of this larger class of superego elements, however, are particularly
significant in the articulation of personality with the social system. Of these two may be singled out. First is the organization
of attitudes toward authority, which is of crucial significance,
since, however great its variability, authority is always a
functionally essential element of social systems. The significance of this dimension in personality development,
with its close connections with the structure of the parent-child relationship,
is well known, of course. Perhaps
because we live in a society with an anti-authoritarian orientation, a converse
problem has, however, received less attention: the problem of motivation to the
acceptance of responsibility. This,
like the problem of authority, of course, is closely involved with the general
conformity-alienation problem. But there
seems to be much evidence in our society of the great importance of deviance in the
direction of withdrawal from responsibilities; the use of illness
in this connection is a familiar example.
This problem, in its significance to the social system, poses extremely
important questions of the articulation of social systems with personality. Personality as a System of
Action 151 Up
to this point we have been treating the points of articulation between
personality and social systems in a manner which assumed, on the whole, a
far-reaching integration of the personality into the social system. It was for the sake of convenience and
emphasis in exposition that this integration
was portrayed first.
The articulation which we have presented does
not depend, however, for its validity on any particular degree of
empirical "closeness of fit"
between personality and social system. The
validity of the conceptual scheme which we used in analyzing the articulation
of highly integrated personality and social systems is thus not affected by cases in which the integration is far from perfect. In fact, the imperfections
of integration can be described only by careful observance of the same conceptual
scheme which analyzes
the positive integration. To illustrate the equal relevance of the
conceptual scheme to situations of mal-integration, we may enumerate some of
the possibilities. First, with respect to categorization: alienation of the
actor from his collectivity will exist where the various categories of
qualities and performance-relevant qualities are differently assessed; that is,
where the expectations of the actor concerning himself do not correspond to the
expectations which others have formed concerning him. The actor,
identifying himself, for instance, with respect to certain categories of
qualities or performance capacities on which he
places a high evaluation, will have expectations regarding the obligations of others to him which will
not be acknowledged by those whose image of him diverges from his own -
unlike the situation where the general value-orientation of the actor and his
fellows are similar. In such
situations, the non-integration of the actor's personality with the social
system with respect to categorization may become associated with ambivalences
in the actor's own categorization of himself.
When this happens, the unifying regulation of need-dispositions by a
harmonious allocative scheme gives way to contradictory allocative standards
and consequent instabilities of behavior and internal conflict, as well as
conflict between the actor and the members of his collectivities.
Second,
with respect to role systems and role orientations: an
individual whose capacity for diffuse object-attachment is impaired so that he
is, for example, unable to make object-attachments of certain types (e.g., with
persons of the opposite sex) will very
likely become isolated. He will be
unable to conform with expectations in a way which will enable him to fulfill
certain roles in certain types of solidary relationships (e.g., marriage).
He will perhaps find his way into some subsystem
populated by the types of persons with whom he can establish attachments but
his performance in roles in relation to other members of the society will be
impaired. Similarly, fear of diffuse attachments to members of his own sex may
hamper his collaboration in some specific roles where there is a
"danger" of the emergence of diffuse "homosexual"
attachments. 152 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action Third,
with respect to the allocation of instrumental
functions of the roles in which a person performs: in most cases, individuals perform role functions in the division of
labor which do not, as such, completely and directly gratify any specific need-disposition or any set of
the need-dispositions of their personality system. It is the nature of instrumental action that
it should be this way.
Conformity with the role-expectations is possible, however, either
through a generalized need-disposition to conformity or through instrumental
orientations. The latter, while making
possible conformity with role-expectations, do involve (as we have just said) the renunciation of certain gratifications and
therewith the generation of strains in the personality system. In the extreme case, which is relatively
infrequent because of prior allocative processes, the primary or derivative
need-dispositions are so pressing that no adaptation is possible and the
expectations (of alters) concerning the actor's behavior in a particular role
in the division of labor are completely frustrated. The
disjunction
between role-expectations (of alters) and need-dispositions (of ego)
may in some instances be a product of an alienative adjustive mechanism,
a derivative need-disposition to avoid conformity. The disjunction might in its turn, by virtue
of the negative sanctions which it incurs, produce anxieties which have to be
coped with by defensive mechanisms and which modify the functioning of both the
personality and the social system.
Another possibility is that the role expectations may be so general that
they allow persons with diverse sets of need-dispositions to perform the role
in accordance with their spontaneous tendencies. The gap between prestige allocation and need-dispositions for
approval and esteem can likewise be viewed with respect to its effects on the social
system and on the personality system.
Under certain conditions, the gap might activate certain learning
mechanisms, for example, inhibition of the approval and esteem
need-dispositions or the substitution of other social objects; in either case
the gap might reduce motivation for conformity with role-expectations and
weaken the aspiration to approximate certain role models. Within the personality system, the irritated state of certain
ungratified, rigid need-dispositions might cause a reorganization of the
personality as an adaptation or defense against this deprivation. Personality as a System of
Action 153 Finally,
with respect to the mechanisms of social control and the internalization of
shared values, we have already indicated that the superego need not consist only of the more generally
shared values. Insofar as this is true, the integration of the personality into
the social system will be less than complete. Where
this divergence among the superego contents of the members of the society becomes
relatively widespread, it might result also in the modification
of the position of the superego in the personality system. In some instances
the integrative-controlling function of the superego is
weakened through the withdrawal of the reinforcement which is provided
by the perception of numerous other individuals whose action seems to show
conformity with the same internalized
value-orientations. As a reaction to
this threat, in some personalities, the superego
functions more repressively and this strengthens its position
within the personality system. It
is clear that the development of the need-disposition system is a function of
the interaction of the actor with the situation throughout
life. The types of
mal-integration discussed above are therefore markedly influenced and irritated
by the actor's exposure to conflicting expectations from different significant
objects or inconsistencies in the expectations which are directly toward him by
significant social objects concerning the same type
of situation at various times.
But the way in which these strains are coped with and their consequences
for the personality cannot be deduced from the behavior of the objects
alone. They
must be referred to his personality as a functioning system. Thus
the problems of the pathology of personality must be understood in terms of a
complex balance between the internal conflicts and strains of the personality
as a system and the difficulties of adjustment to the situation, the latter in
turn having repercussions on the personality.
It is both a "psycho- logical" and a
"sociological" problem. From
the foregoing it has become clear that the contact
surface of the personality and social systems lies between
need-dispositions of ego and role-expectations of various alters. We shall therefore undertake a somewhat more
elaborate examination of this crucial zone
of action theory. NEED-DISPOSITIONS
AND ROLE-EXPECTATIONS The
starting point is the interaction
of persons or, to put it in other words, of ego with a system of social objects. From the beginning of the actor's life, the
significant social objects in his situation act in roles, of which presumably the major elements are institutionalized. In consequence of his dependence on these
social objects, the actor as an infant builds up a set of roles of his own
response to his treatment by adults. Only by doing so is he able to
survive. This
process takes the form of his establishment of expectations regarding the
social objects in his situation - in the first instance, his mother - and of
the formation of attachments to them.
The social object is not, however, an inert
source of gratification, but reacts toward
him, so that there enters a conditional
element into the fulfillment of expectations. Alter has expectations of ego and vice versa; this is what we
have already called a "complementarity of expectations." At the very beginning the infant is perhaps almost an
environmental object to the adult.
But this aspect changes quickly, a reciprocity of responsiveness builds
up, the infant's smile calls forth responses, and organization along the axis
of gratification and renunciation becomes more differentiated. As all this happens, he begins to play a role in the social system;
that is, he acts in accordance with expectations, just as the adult does. 154 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action The
essential element in the role is the complementarity of expectations. The outcome of ego's action, in terms of its
significance to him, is contingent
on alter's reaction to what he
does. This reaction in turn is not
random but is organized relative to alter's expectation concerning what is
"proper" behavior on ego's part. The
reaction, then, is organized about the problem of whether, and to what degree,
ego "conforms" with alter's expectations of what he should do. At the very beginning the expectations may
be purely predictive, but very soon they acquire a normative content. (This
normative aspect has indeed been included in the concept of expectation from
the start.) Ego,
then, is oriented, not only to alter as an object in the immediate environment,
but to alter's contingent behavior. His
orientation follows the paradigm "If I do this, he will probably do (or
feel) such and such; if, on the other hand, I do that, he will feel (and act)
differently." These reaction
patterns of alter, which are contingent on what ego does, we have called sanctions.
Role-expectations, on the other hand, are the definitions by both ego and alter of what behavior is proper
for each in the relationship and in the situation in question. Both
role-expectations and sanctions are essential to the total concept of a
"role" in the concrete sense of a segment
of the action of the individual.
Sanctions are the "appropriate" behavioral consequences of
alter's role-expectations in response to the actual behavior of ego. Both
role-expectations and sanctions may be institutionalized
to a greater or lesser degree. They are institutionalized when they
are integrated with or "express" value-orientations common to the members of the collectivity to
which both ego and alter belong, which in the limiting case may consist only of
ego and alter. (Of course, for the newly born infant, role-expectations cannot
be institutionalized.) But so far as he
"internalizes" the evaluations of the social objects around him, his
own expectations may become institutionalized, at least within his family
circle. Only as this happens, as he
develops a "superego," can
he be said to be "integrated" in the collectivity in the sense of
sharing its values. Sanctions,
being responses interpreted as gratifications or deprivations, are orgamzed about a positive-negative axis. Ego's fulfillment of alter's expectations
generally brings forth in some form positive sanctions; for example, the
"granting" of gratifications such as love and approval and the
performance of actions which gratify ego.
Failure to fulfill expectations, on the other hand, generally brings
forth negative sanctions; for example, the withholding of gratification, love,
or approval, and "doing things" which are disadvantageous or unwelcome to
ego, such as imposing further deprivations or "punishments." Personality as a System of
Action 155 It
is in the polarity of sanctions
and their contingency that their
special relevance to the learning process is to be found. By virtue of their efficacy in relation to
the learning mechanisms, ego is forced into the path of conformity with alter's
expectations. Thus is established
the relationship with social objects that becomes so
directly constitutive of personality structure. Early
childhood is selected for illustration only because of the dramatic character
of the influence of this interaction system on a highly fluid and unorganized
personality. In
principle, however, the same basic processes go on throughout life.
It is through the mechanisms of the system of sanctions
operating on the learning, adjustive, and defensive mechanisms of the
individual that a social system is able to operate and especially to control
the action of its component individuals. Because
of the paramount significance to any personality of its system of relations to
other persons, the institutionalized organization
of roles (in relation to significant social objects and through
them to cultural and physical objects) is central to the organization of personality
itself. The pattern of expectations
governing one's system of relations to other persons comes
to be internalized into the structure of one's personality. But this system of internalized roles is not
the only constituent of personality, for a variety of reasons, which may be
briefly reviewed. In the first
place, those concrete role-expectations which become internalized are
themselves only partly the ones which are institutionalized. That is, not only
the institutionalized role-expectation patterns become
incorporated into the personality but
also other elements, which are important in particular
interactive relationships. In relation
to the social structure in question, these may he
deviant elements or merely variations within the limits of
permissiveness. In either case, the
institutionalized definitions of role-expectation will account for only part of
the interaction. Second,
even to the extent that the component role-expectations in a given institution might be classed together as uniform,
the sets of such expectations will probably vary
for the different actors who participate in the institution. The degree to which this is true will vary
for different types and parts of the social structure, but generally, and especially in our
type of society, there will be considerable variations. Although there is some
measure of uniformity, for example, in the mother-child relationship regardless
of the sex of the child, there is also a difference of expectation on the
mother's part regarding her male and her female children. The matter is further complicated by
differences of sex in relation to birth order - a boy who follows two girls
will necessarily be treated differently from a first-born son. In school and in
play groups too the treatment will vary according to the individual
characteristics of the actor so that variations in expectations will offset uniformities. Hence there is, in the combinations of the role-expectation
elements which affect different personalities, a basis for diflerentiation between personalities which
have been exposed to the "same" experiences as other persons in the
"same" category. 156 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action Third,
it must be recalled that the organization of a personality occurs in a particular organism.
This has two aspects. On the one hand, ego's own organism as an object has features which differentiate it,
and therefore him, from others who may be in similar status-positions in the
social structure. Ego, in this sense, may be tall or short, fat
or thin, black-haired or blonde, strong or weak. All this creates an influential source of differentiation. There
might, furthermore, he variations of energy and of the strength of organic
needs and capacities, such as hunger-needs, erotic needs, and motor-activity
capacities. The
upshot of these considerations is that, though in a fundamental sense
personality is a function of the institutionally organized
role-expectations of the social system in which ego is involved, in an
equally fundamental sense, it cannot be even
approximately fully determined by this aspect of its structure. In confrontation with a given pattern
of role-expectations in any given situation, there is therefore every reason to
believe that there will be a dispersed distribution of personality types which
are faced with approximately the same specific role-expectations. These
observations imply that there can be no neatly schematic relation between the role-expectations (of ego and alter) and the specific organization of behavior and
sanctions. The same reactive sanction
behavior cannot be guaranteed to have a completely standardized impact on the
personality of any ego. In the learning
process relative to role behavior there are many possibilities of divergent
development from essentially similar starting points, the divergences being a
cumulative function of the aspects of the personality in question other than the specific role-expectation
confronting the actor in the particular situation. Personality as a System of
Action 157 DEVIANCE Just
as sanctions are contingent upon the fulfillment or nonfulfillment of alter's expectations, so the significance of
the sanctions to ego will also vary in accordance with whether he is
motivated by a predominantly conformative or alienative set of
need-dispositions. Internalization of
patterns of value is crucial in the integration of an actor in a role system. Insofar as internalization occurs without exceptionally great unmastered conflict,
ego will develop need-dispositions to conform with expectations; 26
while faulty internalization
(internalization attended by ineffective defense mechanisms or incomplete
resolution of conflicts) may produce alienative need-dispositions, which are
derivative need-dispositions to refuse to fulfill expectations. According to the structure of his
personality in other respects, ego, if alienatively disposed, will tend (1)
toward withdrawal, or (2) to evade the fulfillment of expectations, or (3) to
rebel by openly refusing to conform.
The alternative which he selects will be dependent on the
activity-passivity need-dispositions of his personality. 26
It does not follow that this necessarily makes him a "conformist" in
the popular sense of the term. Many of the values which are institutionalized
in role systems enjoin independence and initiative,
as is true of many in our own society.
The person who refuses to stand on his own feet or take initiative,
because he is anxious about others' reactions, is not "conforming" to
the role-expectation, though in another sense he may he conforming to what he thinks others want him to do. ______________________________________________________________________________________ An
alienative need-disposition in this sense does not by itself necessarily
produce deviant behavior. Normally the operation of the sanction system will
lead ego to have an interest in the avoidance of the negative sanctions which
would be attached to overtly deviant behavior.
He may thus control his deviant tendencies
and conform overtly, but the alienative need-dispositions may still be
highly important in his personality structure, and the failure to gratify them
might engender strains. There is an
almost endless range of possibilities of compromise. Alienative
need-dispositions may become unconscious through
repression. This often takes
place through defense mechanisms (such as reaction formation, displacement or
projection of the associated aggressiveness) which serve to reduce the anxiety engendered by (1) the
infringements on the superego and (2) the prospective thwarting of
authority. Furthermore,
ego is an object to himself. And, although the ultimate
sources of the role-expectations which become internalized in the
personality must be sought in relations to external objects, once expectations are internalized their aspect as internal
objects of orientation may become of crucial importance. Guilt and shame are indeed negative sanctions applied to ego by himself, as punishment for his failure
to live up to his own and others' expectations respectively. The
balance within ego's personality between
conformative and alienative need-dispositions is perhaps the primary source
in personality of the dynamic
problems and processes of the social system There are, of course, sources of
deviation from alter's role-expectations other than ego's alienative pre- disposition; for example, ego's exposure to conflicting role-expectations
from one or more alters, or an instrumental orientation which leads ego
to deviate from the immediate expectation because the expected result is more
highly valued than alter's positive response.
But alienative tendencies are ordinarily operative in deviant
orientations when they occur on any considerable scale. 158 Values, Motives, and
Systems of Action The absence of a simple correspondence
between the structure of any given personality and the role-expectation
structure of the roles he occupies means that
conformity and deviance in overt action (any overt action, for that matter) can
be understood neither as an "acting
out" of ego's own need-dispositions alone nor
as determined solely by the expectations of immediate and remote alters with
their various powers to impose sanctions.
The sanction system 27 interposes a set of intermediate
determining factors into the operation of the various need-disposition
constellations. Thus, there are mechanisms of
social control other than the
internalization of value-orientations as parts of the personality
system. Nonetheless,
a stable social system does depend upon the stable recurrence of the mechanisms
which render more probable those patterns of
action essential to the make-up of the social system. The "same" patterns may
have widely different functions in different personalities; the social problem is to get the patterns whatever
their functional significance to the person. One
example will suffice. A disposition in
the direction of "economically rational behavior," (that is,
methodical organization of resources and work habits, prudence, careful
consideration of the future, an orientation toward specific rewards) may have
quite different functional significances for different personality structures. In a large-scale industrialized social
system, economically rational behavior has a very important, relatively
definite, and uniform function. The
effectiveness with which such a system operates will depend to a high degree on
the presence of such complex need-dispositions on
the part of a sufficiently large proportion of the population. It does not matter whether there are
important differences among types of personality possessing this
need-disposition as long as it exists. Moreover, it does not even matter greatly
whether the dominant subintegrations of need-dispositions are not directly
gratified by economically rational behavior as long as the personality systems
allow them to carry out the action without more
than a certain amount of strain, and as long as there are noneconomic institutions capable of absorbing and
tolerating the repercussions of the strain. Furthermore, the sanction system provides a secondary "line
of defense" for the social system, in that it is possible to secure
conformity even though the need-disposition is relatively weak or even within
limits, definitely alienative. What
does matter is that there should be sufficient personalities capable of
producing "economically' rational behavior" either directly in
response to the pressure of their own subintegrates of need-dispositions or the
anticipated rewards or punishments. 27
This includes both the impact of actual sanctions on ego and the influence of
their anticipation on his behavior.
ideological furnishings for the homeless
mind
daurril
library: talcott parsons
INDIVIDUALITY