Showing papers on "Identity (social science) published in 1981"

The Link between Identity and Role Performance

Abstract: Despite interest in the influence of self-concept on behavior, research has been limited by (I) the need to better understand the mechanism by which self influences role behaviors, (2) a reliance on self-esteem as the only measure of self-concept, and (3) the absence of quantitative measures of self-concept. The research reported here is designed to test one formulation ofthe link between identity and behavior. It is based on recent theoretical conceptions of identity, advances in its measurement, and the assumption that identities motivate behaviors that have meanings consistent (isomorphic) with the identity. Data obtained from 640 college students are used to discover and measure four dimensions of meaning pertaining to the college student identity, and to assess the impact of student identities on the two "performance" variables of educational plans and participation in social activities. The findings strongly support the hypothesized link of identity and performance through common meanings.

Men and their work

Abstract: The author emphasizes his conviction that a man's work is a clue to the course of his life, to his social being and identity; that his work influences his social outlooks and attitudes. These thirteen papers are concerned with the social/psychological rather than the organizational aspects of work, with the professional and would-be professional rather than the industrial and bureaucratic occupations. They discuss the ideas which grew out of Professor Hughes' studies on the organization of work and the nature of work experience.

On Female Identity and Writing by Women

Abstract: Men who are sure they have them fear other men are losing theirs; women with the authority of possession urge other women to seek and find. "Identity" is a central concept for much contemporary cultural and literary criticism, which, along with its even vaguer terminological twin, the "self," has become a cliche without becoming clear. The word "identity" is paradoxical in itself, meaning both sameness and distinctiveness, and its contradictions proliferate when it is applied to women. Carolyn Heilbrun's brave book, Reinventing Womanhood, inadvertently illustrates some current confusions about female identity and literature. For example, she claims that successful women are "male-identified" but that it is a "failure" for a "woman to take her identity from her man."' Women never form a self because they "need never undergo an identity crisis," yet they have an identity to lose: "the price of wifehood is abandonment of self" (pp. 103, 178). And fictional women are worse off than real ones: women's "search for identity has been even less successful within the world of fiction than outside it" (p. 72). Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar find "the woman's quest for self-definition" the underlying plot of nineteenth-century writing by women, while Elaine Showalter sees "self-discovery," "a search for identity," as the main theme of women's literature since 1920.2 In a recent anthology of feminist criticism, one scholar claims that "a feminist critique . . . is helping women to

Retirement, Identity and Well-Being: Realignment of Role Relationships

Abstract: Gerontological research has struggled with the meanings of adjustment and the implications of retirement. Data from a national survey are used to investigate the impact of background variables and the retirement of men on their community activities, visiting friends, identity, and well-being. Findings include that: (1) retirement is not directly associated with visiting friends, identity, or well-being; (2) but does indirectly encourage an older identity and discourage well-being through its effect on community activities; (3) lack of community activities is the strongest predictor of an older identity for both working men and retired men; and (4) community activities has the strongest effect on the well-being of both.

The parental figures and the representation of God : a psychological and cross-cultural study

Abstract: The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems- both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretical orientation with the empirical and historical data of religion and such aspects of religion as ritual, the religious imagination, constructions of tradition, iconography, or media. In addition, the formation of religious communities, their construction of identity, and their relation to society and the wider public are key issues of this series.

Development of an objective instrument to measure identity status in terms of occupation crisis and commitment

Abstract: Using male/female high school seniors and college students (freshman through seniors), a 40-item, forced-choice, easily scored, group-administered, objective instrument (DISI-O) was developed, corr...

Ego identity status, ego development, and locus of control in college women.

Abstract: This study examined the relationship of identity status to ego development and locus of control in 75 college women. The identity statuses did not differ significantly in self-reported locus of control, but did differ on the “depth” measure of ego development. Consistent with identity theory and with previous research with males, identity achievers and moratorium (incrisis) women were more advanced in their ego development than fore-closure and diffusion women.

Definition and Meaning of Sexual Orientation

Abstract: This essay first examines the current discourse on homosexuality and shows how a "gay identity" has been forged within the doctrines and rituals of the gay liberation movement. This substantiation of the gay person is then linked to "the homosexual," created by medicine in the nineteenth century as one piece in a vast mosaic of sexual "perversions." Finally, it is argued that to depict sexuality as fixed, bifurcated states of sexual orientation, and to ignore the fact that erotic preference is labile and interpenetrated by elements of physicality, emotion, and fantasy, is to impede and even to misdirect research.

The Identity of King Adon

Abstract: A recent reconstruction of a late-7th-century B.C. papyrus letter, identifying the writer as King Adon.

Ecstasy and healing in Nepal: An ethnopsychiatric study of Tamang shamanism

Abstract: Much of the earliest anthropological concern with medical and health-related issues was closely linked to the study of comparative religion and ritual. As medical anthropology has matured into a semi-autonomous subdiscipline, the problem of explicating the relation between medical and sacred realities has receded into the background. This is in part for the apparent reason that the field addresses an increasingly broad range of topics that are not immediately relevant to the anthropology of religion. Yet it also seems to be due in part to a felt but unspoken need to establish an identity for medical anthropology as a clinically relevant, applied, and 'scientific' subdiscipline in sharp distinction from the theoretical, interpretive, and 'humanistic' fields of comparative religion and symbolic anthropology. The implicit assumption in much work is that folk and religious healing, or phenomena of ecstatic trance and spirit possession, can be acknowledged as religious in an emic sense, but must, in an etic analysis, be discussed in medical or psychiatric terms. In this methodological disposition the relevant questions have been whether religious experience is pathological or therapeutic, and whether religious healing can be understood as an equivalent form of psychotherapy. It is this reviewer's contention that medical anthropology is now mature enough to reopen consideration of the religious element in religious healing (and perhaps in ostensibly non-religious healing as well), and that comparative religion can in turn contribute valuable hermeneutic or interpretive tools to medical anthropology. That is, questions about the medical and the sacred can be posed in a fresh way that takes advantage of advances in both fields. The methodological point de repdre between the two disciplines may be found in phenomenological concepts of the sacred. While a fully adequate elaboration of a phenomenological approach cannot be presented in the present context,

“I'd Rather Be Dead Than Gay”: Counseling Gay Men Who Are Coming Out

Abstract: Until recently, most articles about gay men have focused on etiology or cure. This article focuses on the initial phase of counseling male clients who have a negative gay identity and want help accepting their homosexuality. The article includes some basic concepts in gestalt therapy and how they can be applied when working with men who are acknowledging their homosexuality. It also includes tools and guidelines for therapists who want to work effectively with gay men desiring a positive gay identity.

Moral Development through a Theory of Social Construction: An Analysis.

Abstract: This paper offers a discussion of contemporary theories of moral development. At present, these theories are at odds regarding the origins of morality. One camp has proposed a cognitive basis, while the other claims that morality con sists in affectivity. Both these positions are discussed, and a third alternative is proposed for their resolution, based upon the model of the subject within communicative relations, whose life involves constructing reality through so cial procedures with others. This model is described and contrasted with the model of the self-reflecting individual which seems to underlie most current theories. In addition, a number of studies are reviewed in order to show more clearly how this third alternative provides insight into the social basis of moral judgment. Throughout the paper, two themes remain central: (a) that rational ity can be considered to result from consensual validation which is obtained through communication; and (b) that sense of community, the grounds for moral action, is not incompatible with establishing or maintaining one's own individual identity.

Industrial social work as an arena for practice

Abstract: Paul A. Kurzman, Ph.D., is Professor and Chairperson, World of Work Pro gram, Hunter College School of Social Work, City University of New York, New York, New York. Sheila H. Akabas, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Director, Industrial Social Welfare Center, Columbia University School of Social Work, New York, New York. Portions of this article were presented at a conference "A World of Work Per spective for Social Work Education," Racine, Wisconsin, April 1979. The work was funded in part by the Lois and Samuel Silberman Fund and the Johnson Foundation. DILEMMAS AND OPPORTUNITIES quietly—or perhaps not so quietly—a may be translated into specific activi revolution has taken place. New workties and programs whereby social work ers have entered the labor force. can fulfill the commitment noted in the Women, members of minority groups, Working Statement on Purpose of and the disabled have brought new Social Work to "mutually beneficial in skills and new needs into the workteraction between individuals and soci place, and they are making new deety in order to improve the quality of mands on employers and trade unions. life for everyone." This article will at In their concern about conditions in tempt to explore this issue within a these work institutions, consumers, definitional framework. It will examine environmentalists, and students have the history of industrial social work, its been defined as relevant publics. New present structure, and the use of laws have been passed to guide actions knowledge and skills in this field of and expectations in the world of work. practice, all of which both confirm and Among others, the Occupational Safety strain the professional identity of the and Health Act, Employee Retirement industrial social worker. Income Security Act, Age Discrimina tion in Employment Act, and affirma tive action as provided for in Title VII of the "Civil Rights Act and Title V of The dilemmas of industrial social work the Vocational Rehabilitation Act have are worthy of examination. The first established new requirements for trade strain between professional opportu unions and employers. nity and professional predicament con The myth that work and the rest of sists of the very abundance of opportu life exist in two separate worlds has nity, which becomes apparent in the been exposed for the denial of reality it definition of this field of practice. The represents.1 No longer will workers authors define the population of inter buy the notion that their work roles and est as workers and the auspices as trade other roles are unconnected. No longer unions and employing organizations, are communities willing to accept the The unit of attention encompasses the concept that the behavior of work inpoints of interaction where service de stitutions is economic, the behavior of livery or policy positions adopted by communities social, and never the these institutions affect the availability twain shall meet.2 The "revolution" in of services and the enactment of social