toys in the attic: Values and Value-Orientations 479 The Theory of Action
and Its Application 4.5 An Empirical Study of Technical
Problems in Analysis of Role Obligations SAMUEL A. STOUFFER The
approach in this volume toward a system of categories which may unify theories
of culture, society, and personality is necessarily at a rather high level of
abstraction. In its present tentative
form and in the numerous further revisions which may be expected, the system
will be appraised from at least two standpoints. One involves the correctness of the reasoning wherever logical inferences are made. The other involves the usefulness of the system, assuming
that it passes muster logically. It is
with the usefulness of such a theoretical
scheme that the ensuing comments are concerned. A
theoretical system for example, an
elaborate mathematical model in economic theory can be logically correct without necessarily being fertile in
generating middle-range hypotheses capable of empirical verification. If such a theory
organizes hitherto disconnected clusters of ideas into a single integrated
system, it can be useful merely in providing a new
context for evaluating the separate parts more critically at a theoretical
level. But all of us would be
quite disappointed if the type of thinking which has gone into this volume were
to have only this as its end result. As a
minimum, it is hoped that the effort to tie together the significant ideas
about culture, society, and personality will provide broad orientations which
map, as it were, areas for suggested research, even if it does not directly
generate specifically deducible,
testable propositions at a middle-range level. This hope is based on the fact that the thinking of
Professor Parsons and colleagues is decidedly not arm-chair thinking
alone. The streams of influence which
lie behind it represent decades of theory and also empirical research in the three disciplines of anthropology,
sociology, and psychology. I have been
impressed with the concern for empirical referents which the authors have
constantly manifested during their work, even if this concern is not always
visible in the resulting document. 480 The Theory and Its Application One
cannot yet say that the present approach to a system has matured enough to give
assurance of its power to go further than signaling areas for further
research. That is, it may be asking too
much to expect now a large number of deductions of specific propositions as
necessary logical consequences of the basic postulates. This would be ideal, of course. But we should not underestimate the possible
value of the more modest objective, which is furthered by the anchoring of the
basic postulates in experience and at the same time by the fact that these postulates are not ad
hoc, but have logical interconnections.
The
fact that big ideas of Darwin, Marx, or Freud do not generate by mathematical
or logical deduction propositions in social science, like the ideas of Newton
and Einstein in physics, is not an argument against the signaling value of
abstract ideas in social science.
Rather, these orientations encourage us to dig in one part of a field
rather than another and are indispensable because we cannot dig everywhere at once. The theories will have been useful if the
digging uncovers something, even if they did not tell us too explicitly what we
might find. At
the same time, the history of social science, like the history of medicine,
ought to warn us against an excess of optimism about the necessary usefulness
of any new system of highly general orienting ideas. Many proposed systems have had little or no impact. Some - for example, ideas like those of
Benjamin Rush in medicine - may have been positively harmful. Just as medicine has profited most from
middle-range propositions, tested in empirical research though not deducible,
as yet, from any single Newtonian formula, so it seems likely that social
science now desperately needs middle-range testable propositions. If the
concepts central to the system of unified theory proposed in this volume are to
be useful, even for suggesting if not deducing middle-range propositions, it
would seem preferable that they be clear and unambiguous. The word preferable
is used instead of the word essential
- some of Freud's murkier concepts, for example, may prove to have been very
useful. It would be as silly to demand
immaculate precision in concepts at the present stage as it would be to demand
correlations of 1.00 in all empirical research. Nevertheless, one suspects that there is a higher probability of
a general theory having some impact on the vital task of setting up testable
middle-range propositions if the concepts are capable of some kind of clear
and, where possible, operational definition.
One of the significant ideas in the system
outlined in this volume is the concept of role. (See, for example, the discussion of roles
in the General Statement in Part I.) This is not a new concept, but its possible
utility in unifying personality and societal theory has perhaps not before been
seen so clearly. Attractive as the
concept is, in the abstract, there has been as yet relatively little study of
the technical problems involved in using it empirically. An Empirical Study 481 The
work of Professor Parsons and his colleagues has inspired the following modest
pilot study, written in collaboration with Jackson Toby, which offers hope as
to the possibility of operational definitions of certain types of role
obligations and, at the same time, provides specific warnings as to the
immensity and complexity of the task.
The study was published in the American Journal o/ Sociology,
March 1951. It is reproduced here with
the Journal's permission, and with the hope that it will stimulate
others to do such jobs better. SAMUEL A. STOUFFER
AND JACKSON TOBY Role Conflict and Personality 1 A
convenient way to examine the informal social controls operating in a given
institution is through the study of role
conflict. In an earlier
statistical analysis of an example of role conflict, stress was laid on the
concept of variability and implications for the theory of role of different
classes of variability.2 The
present paper also is concerned with role conflict. But it seeks to provide a link between the study of social norms, with which the
former paper was primarily concerned, and the study
of personality.
Specifically, when there is a lack of consensus in a group regarding the
"proper
thing to do" in a morally conflicting situation, is there a
tendency for some individuals to have a predisposition or a personality bias
toward one type of solution and for other individuals to have a predisposition
toward another type of solu- tion? If such a
predisposition exists, there should be a tendency to carry over certain types
of behavior from one role conflict to another with some consistency. 1
The research here reported was conducted with the assistance of the Laboratory
of Social Relations, Harvard University.
Special acknowledgment is due Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Talcott Parsons, and
Gordon W. Aliport. Professor Lazarsfeld
proposed the applicability of a new form of latent distance structure and
himself carried out the computations reported in the note appended to this
paper. A pretest of the present study
was the subject of a paper by the authors at the American Sociological Society
in December 1949, at which the paper's discussion by Professor Leonard S.
Cottrell contributed to the present formulation. 2
Samuel A. Stouffer, "An Analysis of Conflicting Social Norms," American
Sociological Review, XIV (December, 1949), 707-717. 482 The Theory and Its Application An especially common role conflict is that between one's institutionalized obligations of friendship
and one's institutionalized obligations to a
society. The obligations of
friendship in Western culture, to use the
terminology of Talcott Parsons, are particularistic rather
than universalistic, affectively toned rather than affectively neutral, and diffuse rather
than specific.3 A universalistic obligation is applicable to dealings with
anybody (for example, obligation to fulfill a contract) ; a particularistic
obligation is limited to persons who stand in some special relationship to one
(for example, the obligation to help a relative or a close friend or neighbor). Diffuseness of particulartistic
obligations provides flexibility in the definition of these roles. That is, the content of an individual's
particularistic obligations (toward a friend, a brother, a grandchild) depends
in part on the intimacy of the relationship itself. The greater the affection, the greater the sense of
obligation. On the other hand, universalistic
obligations are defined more rigidly, for
they regulate behavior toward all human beings - regardless of affective
involvement. Hence, in any specific
situation involving conflict between duty to a friend and duty to society, we
would expect that some individuals are more prone to regard the particularistic obligation as
taking precedence than others, because there is variability from individual
to individual in the intimacy of friendships. That is, respondents tend to
project into the hypothetical situations reference
friendships drawn from their own experience.
A description of an institutionalized social norm must not only take into account, then, the beliefs and
behavior of a modal member of the group but must
also observe the individual variability in the perception of
obligations. This variability - or
"social slippage" - was a major concern in the earlier analysis of
role conflict cited above. In the
present paper we shall deal with several situations involving conflicts between
obligations to a friend and more general social obligations. If, as our conception of the intrinsic
variability of particularistic obligations would lead us to expect, some people
are more likely than others to choose in a variety of situations the
particularistic horn of the dilemma rather than the universalistic, we should
be able to devise a scale to measure such a tendency. With such a scale people should be ranked along a single
dimension according to their probability of possessing the attribute
or predisposition of choosing one type of solution rather than the other. What
we have to present here is only a crude beginning; indeed, only a classroom
example. Yet it should prove
instructive in a number of respects to those who may wish to carry on further
research with needed refinements. Our
data are based on a short paper-and-paper questionnaire completed by 648
undergraduate students at Harvard and Radcliffe in February 1950. No claim is made for the representativeness
of the sample, since almost all were members of a single course in Social
Relations. 3 See, e.g.,
Talcott Parsons, Essays in Sociological Theory (Glencoe, Illinois: The
Free Press, 1949), chap. viii. An Empirical Study 483 Four
little stories were presented, as follows: 1. You are riding in a car driven by a close friend, and he
hits a pedestrian. You know he was
going at least 35 miles an hour in a 20-mile-an-hour speed zone. There are no other witnesses. His lawyer says that if you testify under
oath that the speed was only 20 miles an hour, it may save him from serious
consequences. What right has your friend to expect you to
protect him? Check one: [] My friend has a
definite right as a friend to expect me to testify to the lower figure. [] He has some right
as a friend to expect me to testify to the lower figure. [] He has no right
as a friend to expect me to testify to the lower figure. What do you think you'd probably do in view of the
obligations of a sworn witness and the obligation to your friend? Check one: [] Testify that he
was going 20 miles an hour. [] Not testify that
he was going 20 miles an hour. 2. You are a New York drama critic. A close friend of yours has sunk all his savings in a new
Broadway play. You really think the
play is no good. What right does your
friend have to expect you to go easy on his play in your review? Check one: [] He has a
definite right as a friend to expect me to go easy on his play in my review. [] He has some
right as a friend to expect me to do this for him. [] He has no right
as a friend to expect me to do this for him.
Would you go easy on his play in your review in view of
your obligations to your readers and your obligation to your friend? Check one: [] Yes. [] No. 3. You are a doctor for an insurance company. You examine a close friend who needs more
insurance. You find that he is in
pretty good shape, but you are doubtful on one or two minor points which are
difficult to diagnose. What right does your friend have to expect you to
shade the doubts in his favor? Check one: [] My friend would
have a definite right as a friend to expect me to shade the doubts in his
favor. [] He would have some
rights as a friend to expect me to shade the doubts in his favor. [] He would have no
right as a friend to expect me to shade the doubts in his favor. 484 The Theory and Its Application Would you shade the doubts in his favor in view of your
obligations to the insurance company and your obligation to your friend? Check one: [] Yes. [] No. 4. You have just come from a secret meeting of the board of
directors of a company. You have a close friend who will be ruined unless
he can get out of the market before the board's decision becomes known. You happen to be having dinner at that
friend's home this same evening. What right does your friend have to expect you to
tip him off? Check one: [] He has a
definite right as a friend to expect me to tip him off. [] He has some
right as a friend to expect me to tip him off. [] He has no
right as a friend to expect me to tip him off. Would you tip him off in view of your obligations
to the company and your obligation to your friend? Check one: [] Yes. [] No. The
problem is: do the answers to these questions indicate the existence of a
unidimensional scale, along which respondents can be ordered according to the
degree to which they are likely to possess a trait or bias toward the
particularistic solution of a dilemma?
For simplicity, we label for a given item the response, "My friend has
a definite right . . . ," as particularistic; the response, "He has no right . . . ," as universalistic. If a person marks, "He has some right . . . ," we label
the response particularistic if in the second part of
the question he says he would favor the friend in action; and universalistic, if he says he would not favor the friend. There
was a considerable spread among the four items in the percentage giving
particularistic responses: Item Per cent 1 (car
accident) 26 2
(drama critic) 45 3
(insurance doctor) 51 4
(board of directors) 70 Such frequencies suggest the hypothesis of a distance or
cumulative scale. Following
Louis Guttman's scalogram method, the responses to all the items were
cross-tabulated and scale patterns arranged according to nearest scale type, as
shown in Table 1. While the reproducibility (0.91) and the distribution of cutting
points suggest the admissibility of the hypothesis that these items form a
Guttman scale, the items are too few in number for us to speak with confidence,
especially in the presence of two sets of rather numerous non-scale responses
(+-++ and -+-+). Rigor would require ten or more items to
start with, in order to determine scalability, although we might in the end
select fewer items for subsequent use. An Empirical Study 485 Table 1 SCALOGRAM PATTERN FOR RESPONDENTS TO FOUR ITEMS ON ROLE
CONFLICT Scale Particularristic Universalistic Scale pattern response
to item no. response
to item no. type l 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 "Error" 5 ++++ 66 66 66 66 0 +-++ 52 52 52 52 12 + + + 15 15 15 15 15 +++- 8 8 8 8 8 + - + - 5 S 5 5 10 + + -- 6 6 6 6 12 4 -+++ .. 95 95 95 95 0 +++ - .. 16 16 .. 16 16 16 3 -+++ 80 80 80 80 0 --+- 14 .. 14 14 .. 14 14 2 ---+ 71 71 71 71 .. 0 -+-+ 66 66 66 .. 66 .. 66 +--+ 13 13 .. 13 13 .. 13 1 -+-- 21 21 .. 21 21 21 +--- 6 .. 6 6 6 6 ---- 114 114 114 114 0 171
293 336 458 477 355 312 190 233 Reproducibility
= 1 - ~33/ (4~648)] = 0.91 The pure Guttman model can be
viewed as the limiting case of a more general latent distance model which Paul
F. Lazarsfeld has introduced.4 It seems worth while, therefore, to examine the applicability to
these data of the Lazarsfeld latent distance model, which postulates a latent
continuum with as many ordered classes as there are items, plus one. The model assigns to each item a probability
that a positive (e.g., particularistic) response to that item assigns the
respondent to a particular segment of the hypothetical latent continuum.5 4
Stouffer, Guttman, Suchman, Lazarsield, Star, and Clausen, Measurement and
Prediction, Vol. IV of Studies in Social Psychology in World War II
(Princeton University Press, 1950).
Guttman's theory and procedures are described in Chapters 2 to 9,
Lazarsfeld's in Chapters 10 and 11.
Chapter 1 provides an introduction to both methods. 5
Latent structure theory postulates that all the relationship between any two
manifest items can be accounted for by the Joint correlation of the items with
the latent structure. In other words,
within any segment of the latent structure the correlation between two manifest
items is zero. 486 The Theory and Its Application For
reasons of space, the arithmetic in testing the applicability of the latent
distance model to our data will not be exhibited here. However, a brief technical summary of the
results appears at the end of this paper.
Al-though the procedure used is still too new to have developed wholly
satisfactory acceptance standards, the outcome was quite encouraging. Actually,
an additional precaution was taken. Experience with projective material has
taught us to expect considerble differences when we ask, "What do you
think about something?" from results if we ask, "What do you think
somebody else would think about something?" Especially when we are seeking by crude question and answer
procedures to learn something about social norms, it is very important to know
what, if any, differences are produced by such shifts imposed on the point of
view of the respondents. Hence, only a
third of our 648 respondents were asked questions in the form exhibited above. For a
third of the subjects the stories were rewritten so that the friend of the
respondent, not the respondent himself, faced the role conflict. To illustrate with the motor car example: Your close friend is riding in a car which you are driving,
and you hit a pedestrian. He knows that you were going at least 35 miles an
hour in a 20-mile-an-hour zone. There
are no other witnesses. Your lawyer
says that if your friend testifies under oath that the speed was only 20 miles
an hour it may save you from serious consequences. What right do you have to expect him to protect
you? Check one: [] I have a
definite right as a friend to expect him to testify to the lower figure. [] I have some
right as a friend to expect him to testify to the lower figure. [] I have no right
as a friend to expect him to testify to the lower figure. What do you think he would probably do in view of his
obligations as a sworn witness and his obligation as your friend? Check one: [] Testily that you
were going 20 miles an hour. [] Not testify that
you were going 20 miles an hour. For
still another third of the respondents, a third version was presented. In this case neither the respondent nor his
friend faced the dilemma, but two hypothetical people, Smith and Smith's
friend, Johnson. Again to illustrate
with the motor car example: Smith is riding in a car driven by his close friend,
Johnson, and Johnson hits a pedestrian.
Smith knows that his friend was going at least 35 miles an hour in a
20-mile-an-hour speed zone. There are
no other witnesses. Johnson's lawyer
says that if Smith testifies under oath that the speed was only 20 miles an
hour, it may save Johnson from serious consequences. An Empirical Study 487 What right does Johnson have to expect Smith to
protect him? Check one: [] Johnson has a
definite right as a friend to expect Smith to testify to the lower figure. [] He has some
right as a friend to expect Smith to testify to the lower figure. [] He has no right
as a friend to expect Smith to testify to the lower figure. If Smith were an average person, what do you think he
would probably do in view of his obligations as a sworn witness and his
obligation to his friend? Check one: [] Testify that
Johnson was going 20 miles an hour. [] Not testify
that Johnson was going 20 miles an hour. The
different forms of the questionnaires were interleaved and handed out at
random. In testing for the goodness of fit of the latent distance scale,
separate tests were applied to each of the three types of items. The model seemed to fit about equally well
in all three cases, and the rank order assigned to particular scale patterns
was very much the same, except for a few scale types containing a negligible number
of cases. As would be expected, the
rank-order groupings derived from the latent distance model is very close to
the rank-order grouping obtained by scoring to nearest scale type in scalogram
analysis.6 For purposes of subsequent analysis the rank groupings for
each of the three forms were constituted as in Table 1. The extent to which the three forms agreed
with one another can be seen from Table 2. The principle discrepancies are due to differences in
frequency of responses to Items 2 and 3 respectively, but the groupings in Table 2 do not differ from one form to another more
than would be expected by chance, according to the chi-square test.
Incidentally, it is of some interest to note that the reproducibility of each form is in the neighborhood of 0.90. 6 In scoring to
nearest scale type by scalogram procedure, the objective is to arrange the
scale patterns to minimize error."
Thus ++-+ is grouped with ++++, on the assumption that only the response
to the third item is an error. If it
were grouped with -+++, we should have to assume two errors, in the first and
third items, respectively. However,
there are some items which might be grouped in different ways with the same amount of error. For example, - + - +
would be grouped with - +++ if we assumed that the third item was an error, but
would be grouped with - - -+ if we assumed that the second item was an
error. Such doubtful cases arc resolved by the latent
distance analysis, which in the present example usually gave clear and
consistent information. 488 The Theory and Its Application This is, of course, much too small a set of items about
which to make any serious claims either to rigorous scalability or to
generality, but the results encourage one to believe that we can develop good
measures of individual predisposition to a bias in a particularistic or
universalistic direction. We must note
that a scale such as this is not an unequivocal measure of particularism-universalism. Since friendship obligations are diffuse and
affectively toned as well as particularistic, and societal obligations are
specific and affectively neutral as well as universalistic, we have scaled a
predisposition for diffuse, affectively toned obligations over specific,
affectively neutral obligations as well as a predisposition for particularistic
over universalistic obligations. But
this fusion of variables in our situations does seem to generate a
unidimensional scale, the dimension involved being the degree of strength of a
latent tendency to be loyal to a friend even at the cost of other principles. The rank groupings would represent ordered
degrees of probability of taking the friend's side in a role conflict.7 Table 2 SCALE PATTERN GROUPINGS SHOWN SEPARATELY FOR THREE FORMS OF QUESTIONNAIRE Scale Scale Form
A: Form B: Form C: type patterns Ego faces Ego's
friend Smith laces 1234 dilemma faces
dilemma dilemma 20 20 26 + ++ 9 23 20 6 4 5 5 2 3 3 2 3 0 { 1 3 2 + 40 56 56 38 4 { i++++t 7 45 25 32 6 3 31 24 29 27 3 { ++ 6 5 3 I1+ 30 34 r -~ -+ 23 31 2 j +-~~++ 25 15 4 4 52 50 35 30 17 26 5 48 6 6 9 1 { ~ 1 2 3 42 37 35 49 45 47 216 216 Reproducibiuty 0.92 0.91 0.90 I' 7 Of course, we
shall eventually be interested in finding out whether a more abstract scale -
for example, one of universalism-particularism alone - would stand up and, if
it did, more about its genesis. An Empirical Study 489 Ideally,
having assigned each of the 648 individuals to one of five scale types or rank
groupings, we would like to see how these groupings relate to behavior in a
new, nonverbal situation of role conflict.
Such a design would be very costly and complicated but must
be carried out sooner or later if we are to have full confidence that our scale
is not an artifact - that it does not, for example, arise merely from
differences in imaginative ability, a possibility which was suggested by
Leonard S. Cottrell in his discussion of the first draft of this paper. As a simple but decidedly inferior
procedure, we investigated the relationship between the scale and other verbal
responses relative to role conflict. We
selected some academic situations not too far removed from the experience of
college students. The problem was to see
whether respondents who were near the particularistic end of the scale, for example,
tended to have a higher probability of giving particularistic responses in
these academic situations than other respondents. (The scale itself involved no academic situations.) Consider
the following story: You are employed by Professor X to mark examination hooks in
his course. Your close friend makes
somewhat under a passing grade. If you
give him a special break you can boost him over the passing line. He needs the
grade badly. What right does your friend have to expect you to
give him a special break? Check one: [] He has a
definite right as a friend to expect me to do this for him. [] He has some
right as a friend to expect me to do this for him. [] He has no right
as a friend to expect me to do this for him. Would you give him this special break in view of your
obligations to the university and your obligation to your friend? Check one: [] Yes. [] No. The
same scoring system was used as in the scale items. Among those with Scale Type 1,
only 7 per cent responded particularistically in this situation, but the
percentage rose to 49 among those in Scale Type 5: Scale
type Per cent 5 49 4 25 3 31 2 30 1 7 490 The Theory and Its Application Another
situation presented was the following, scored similarly to the others: You are in charge of the reserve desk at a library. A certain reserve hook is in heavy demand. A
close friend is pressed for time and can only use the book at a certain
hour. He has suggested that you hide
the book for a while before his arrival so that he will be sure to get it. He needs it badly. What right does your friend have to expect you to
hide the book? Check one: [] He has a
definite right as a friend to expect me to hide the book for him. [] He has some
right as a friend to expect me to do this for him. [] He has no right
as a friend to expect me to do this for him. Would you hide the book for him in view of your
obligations to the library and your obligation to your friend? Check one: [] Yes. [] No. Variation
in proportions responding particularistically was from 16 to 70 per cent: Scale
type Per cent 5 70 4 55 3 58 2 46 1 16 The
following story, almost identical with that used in the paper published in 1949
in the American Sociological Review, also was presented and scored
according to the methods used in the present paper. You are proctoring an examination in a middle-group
course. You are the only proctor in
the room. About half-way through
the exam you see a fellow student, who is also your close friend, openly
cheating. He is copying his answers
from previously prepared crib notes.
When he sees that you have seen the notes as you walked down the aisle
and stopped near the seat, he whispers quietly to you, "O.K., I'm caught.
That's all there is to it." Under these circumstances, what right does he
have to expect you not to turn him in? Check one: [] He has a
definite right as a friend to expect me not turn him in. [] He has some
right as a friend to expect me not to turn him in. [] He has no right
as a friend to expect me not to turn him in. Under these circumstances, what would you probably do in
view of your obligations as a proctor and your obligation to your friend? Check one: [] Report him. [] Not report him. An Empirical Study 491 Variation
was from 6 to 50 per cent, in proportions responding particularristically: Scale
type Per cent 5 50 4 35 3 28 2 25 1 6 These
items, like the items included in the scale, were asked in three alternate
forms. A respondent, for example, who had the Smith-Johnson form of
the scale items also had a Smith-Johnson form of the new academic items. There was considerable variability in
patterns of relationship, but the upward progression was present on all forms
on each item, as is shown in Chart I. 80 8C 8C 4C Library p
~ 20 2C Book 2C 0 0 C 12345 12345
12345 SCALE TYPE When
responden~ faces the dilemma When
respondent's friend faces the dilemma When '1Smith11
faces the dilemma Chart I. SCALE SCORES AS RELATED TO THE PROPORTION
"PARTICULARISTIC" IN CERTAIN ACADEMIC SITUATIONS An
important element of a friendship relationship is what Parsons calls an
"other-orientation" rather than a self-orientation, such as is
institutionalized in our society in a business transaction. Though other-orientation is
institutionalized, it is probably not an absolute value. While the individual is supposed to
subordinate his own interests to those of his friends under many circumstances,
there are limits to the sacrifices which one may legitimately expect of a
friend. These limits tend to be vague
and undefined, per- haps so that they may vary with the intimacy of the
friendship. This introduces another
source of behavioral variability: the respondent's perception of the risk to
himself by defying universalistic norms and coming to friend's aid. It was of interest, therefore, to vary the
cheating situation asking the respondent to imagine an analogous setting with
much greater to the proctor: 492 The Theory and Its Application Consider the same cheating situation as above, with an
additional element. Suppose now there
is another proctor (an extremely conscientious fellow!) in the examination room
with you and that you would be running a fifty-fifty risk of personal exposure
by him to the authorities for failing as proctor turn in a cheater. The
list to be checked was the same as before, How the
increase in risk reduced the particularistic responses is shown Table 3. Table 3 PERCENTAGE "PARTICULARISTIC" WHEN RISK VARIES Scale In both In
low-risk In neither type situationS SituOtion only SituOtion Totol 5 20 30 50 100 4 16 19 65 100 3 10 18 72 100 2 11 14 75 100 1 2 4 94 100 We had
hoped to make a further study of high and low risk to see differences in predispositions
might be related to other factors in this specific cheating situation, such as
students' perceptions of the severity of penalties, of fellow students'
attitudes, and of the cheater's own probable reactions. Questions were designed on these points, but they were not
satisfactory. - main problem which emerged, however, and which negated much
further intensive cross-tabulation, was the sizable differences in response
depending on whether we asked the cheating question involving little risk to the
proctor be/ore or alter the cheating question involving risk to the
proctor. Actually, in a random half of
the cases the little-risk situation was presented first; in the other half the
higher risk situation was presented first.
For
each form (ego as proctor, ego's friend as proctor, Smith as proctor) we have,
then, two reports. There are six
replications in all. Results are
graphed in Chart II. The reader will observe that the form in which ego is proctor
stands up well. We get about the same picture,
irrespective of the order of presentation of the low-risk and high-risk
situations, respectively. But the
results are chaotic for the forms in which ego is the cheater or in which the
actors are third persons. An Empirical Study 493 The
reasons for this result are not immediately obvious. Further trials and study are required before reaching a
conclusion. One plausible suggestion is
that a paper-and-pencil test like this requires a good deal of imagination on
the part of a respondent and that the act of imagination is made easiest when
ego himself is pictured as confronting the dilemma. By increasing the salience, one reduces the temptation for casual
or careless checking. However, this
speculation is inadequate to explain why, on the two aberrant forms, the prior
presentation of the high-risk situation produced a higher particularistic
response to the two items than the prior presentation of the low-risk
situation. Ego as Proctor Friend as Proctor SCALE SCORE Low risk SitUa#I'on presen~ed first Hi~h risk situation presented fIrst Chart II. SCALE SCORES AS RELATED TO THE PROPORTION
"PARTICULARISTIC" IN THE CHEATING SITUATIONS-SHOWING VARIATIONS RELATED TO DIFFERENT
FORMS OF QUESTIONNAIRES 494 The Theory and Its Application The systematic study of the extent
to which identification, salience, ego defenses, and so forth, modify
questionnaire responses is still in its infancy. Hence, the superior results shown in Chart
II on the form in which ego himself faced the dilemma should not tempt
us to hasty conclusions. After all, as Table 2 shows, all three forms yielded about the same
pattern of distribution of scale types, and as Chart I
shows, all three scales showed about the same general relationship in the
specific academic situations, including the cheating situation.8 Our
study suggests that it is possible to classify people according to a
predisposition to select one or the other horn of a dilemma in role
conflict. As more studies are made -
not only with pencil-and-paper tests, but also with role-playing in
experimental and real-life situations and with other procedures - information exceedingly important to social science can be
derived. We must anticipate the
possibility, as Edward A. Suchman of Cornell has suggested in a letter to the
writers, that tendencies of a respondent to adopt more stereotyped roles in
hypothetical than in real life situations will complicate prediction. Studies
in this field will help sociologists in developing theories of
institutionalization and social psychologists in developing theories of
personality and, indeed, can serve as a crucial link between the two bodies of
theory. The importance of such a link,
employing such variables as particularism-universalism, affectivity-affective
neutrality, specificity-diffuseness, self-orientation~collechvity-orientation,
has been in the forefront of the thinking of Talcott Parsons and his
associates, who have been working on a new schema looking toward unification of social science theory. The immensity of the technical task involved
in making such concepts amenable to measurement in the years of patient work
which lie ahead is at least suggested by the experience of our present study.
Indeed, one of the most important values of this paper should be its service as
a brake on the enthusiasm of those who may anticipate quick and easy progress
in moving from highly abstract concepts in social science to empirical
operations. Such
studies as ours can also be applied in practical research if sustained effort
is devoted to technical developments.
Leadership, for example, involves skill in the solution of role
conflicts. Classic examples are the
foreman in industry or the noncommissioned officer in the army. If such thoughtful ob' servers as Chester I. Barnard are correct, skill in handling
role conflicts is also an essential at the high executive levels.9 Eventually, we may have role-playing
situational tests, involving nonverbal as well as verbal behavior, which will
be useful in the selection and training of leaders. The present study represents only a primitive effort to formulate
some of the problems of definition and measurement. 8
In the high-risk cheating situation (not shown in Chart I), when the two
sequences of presentation are combined there is also relatively little
difference among the three forms, all showing a definite correlation with the
scale types. 9
Chester I. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1938) see especially chap. xvii. An Empirical Study 495 NOTE ON LAZARSFELD'S LATENT DISTANCE SCALE AS APPLIED TO
ROLE CONFLICT DATA In Measurement
and Prediction, Chapter 11, pages 441-147, the reader will find a numerical
example of a latent distance analysis carried out in full, on Research Branch
data on psychoneurotic symptoms. That
analysis used only one computed parameter for each item. In the present example on role conflict data, Lazarsfeld, who kindly made the analysis,
introduced more flexibility by computing two parameters for each item. T he
latent structure is set up as follows: Latent Item Item Item Item class 1 2 3 4 I a1 a2 a3 a4 II b1 a2 a1 a4 III b1 b2 a3 a4 IV b1 b2 b3 a4 V b1 b2 b1 b4 Each value of a
tends to be a large fraction and each value of b
tends to be small. (The example in
Chapter 11 added the restriction that ai = 1 - bi, In the perfect Guttman scale each a = 1 and each b = 0.)
The algebra and arithmetical routine involved will be
presented by Lazarsfeld in a separate paper.
Final results, however, are shown here as Table
4, using as illustration, for reasons of space, only the form in which
ego faces the dilemma. In this table,
the scale patterns are ordered as in Table 2 and do not follow precisely the
rank order they would have in Lazarsfeld's schema. The most serious discrepancy between the ordering indicated by
the Lazarsfeld model and by the scalogram procedure of scoring to the nearest
scale type is with respect to pattern + - - + based on only four cases (see Table 4). The Lazarsfeld Table 4 ILLUSTRATIVE RESULTS OF FITTING LATENT DISTANCE STRUCTURE (Data for form in which ego faced role conflict) Item Per cent of each pattern in each latent
class Totals 1 2 3 4 1 II III IV V Total Fitted Actual ++++ 95.9 4.0 0.1 100 19.1 20 + - ++ 94.8 3.9 0.2 0.2 0.9 100 10.0 9 ++ - + 91.7 3.7 3.0 0.3 1.3 100 6.5 6 +++- 95.7 4.3 100 2.5 2 + - + - 96.7 3.3 . 100 1.3 2 ++ - - 92.3 5.1 2.6 100 0.8 1 -+++ 0.9 95.6 3.0 0.3 0.2 100 39.9 38 -++ - 0.8 87.7 2.7 OA 8.4 100 5.7 7 -- ++ 0.9 88.9 2.7 4.8 2.7 100 22.2 24 - - + - 0.3 34.8 1.2 1.7 62.0 100 7.4 6 - - - + 0.3 25.3 19.9 34.7 19.8 100 25.4 23 - + - + 0.5 52.3 41.2 3.8 2.2 100 23.7 25 + - - + 86.2 3.6 2A 4.8 3.0 100 3.6 4 - + - - 0.3 23.1 18.4 1.6 56.6 100 6.9 6 + - - - 33.9 1.8 1.8 62.5 100 1.2 1 - - - - 2.1 1.6 2.8 93.5 100 41.0 42 496 The
Theory and Its Application procedure would place this pattern within the top
group. By scalogram procedure, to
assign this pattern to the top group would be to imply that repondents made two
"errors," in both Items 2 and 3, which, indeed, may have been the
case. The present assignment implies
only one error, on Item 1. The reader will note that two-error patterns + - + - and ++ - -, with
two cases and one case respectively, which could have been assigned variously
by scalogram methods, belong, by the Lazarsfeld model, just where they have
been put. The
picture presented in Table 4 is analogous to
the picture presented in Measurement and Prediction, Chapter 11, Table
13, but it must be remembered that it has involved a more flexible basic
design. The
last two columns of Table 4 show good agreement between the fitted and actual
totals. Approximately as good a fit
was obtained with the other two forms of the questionnaire, and the rank
ordering of the scale patterns on the basis of the percentage of a given
pattern in each latent class is not markedly different. Much further study is needed of the latent
distance model used here, especially with respect to reliability of small frequencies
and, as has been mentioned earlier, to the testing of acceptance
standards. The concept of a latent
structure is theoretically quite appropriate to data of the type we are likely to assemble in subsequent investigations of role, and
of informal social norms generally.
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