Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

140 P. F. Lazarsfeld
Of this active process I should like to isolate a number of recent trends in
social psychology relevant to this report. My plan is to supplement the approach
by W. Moore, mentioned above. Moore systematized certain dimensions of the
social structure which helped to organize problems of human behaviour, but he
did not discuss the mechanisms which might link social structure and individual
behaviour, nor did he contemplate whether social psychologists have developed
new dimensions which could be relevant for sociological research. I begin by
reviewing one such variate, the notion of self-esteem. I shall then turn to a
specific process, the avoidance of dissonance, which now plays such a dominant
rolein theliterature. This being what one might call a micro process, I shall then
turn to a more long-range sequence, now known under the label ‘adult social-
ization’.
Self-esteem
The sociologist confined to such variates as sex, education and age, yearns for
more imaginative ways in which to characterize the subjects who enter his
studies. The social psychologist offers him a variate which he has molded in
many experiments and which seems more and more relevant to sociological
problems: the notion of self-esteem. Sherif in his contribution on ‘the self’ to the
new Encyclopedia locates this notion in the following way. The child fist
locates a ‘self‘ by learning to differentiate his own body and movements from
those of others. As he (or she) grows up attention is paid to the reactions of
others and his own behaviour is evaluated; the self plus this assessment develops
the ‘ego’. Finally, skills, opinions and more permanent goals are acquired which
create the ‘personality’. Self-esteem, positive or negative, is located on the
middle level of the ego, and codetermines a broad area of social conduct.
Ruth Wylie in her book on the self conceptzo6 critically reviews a large number
of ‘instruments for measuring self-regard’. People might be asked how they
feel in various situations, such as taking tests, meeting important people, facing
difficult personal situations. This is a very direct way to assess self-esteem.
Other authors follow more devious routes. They ask for a record of past failures
and successes on the assumption that the residue of such experiences creates and
indicates self-esteem. Other authors ask for judgments from a subject’s associates,
assuming that they are well informed and that in addition, their good or
bad opinion might well affect the subject’s self-esteem.
The direction of self-esteem (positive or negative) is closely related to significant
others, and I shall revert to this later. For the sociologist, the relation of
self-esteem to a person’s occupational role is of special interest and here are a few
examples.
A small selection of typical studies wil give an idea of how social psychologists
approach the issue. The preliminary question is always to what extent, at
least in contact with others, people think of themselves as individuals or as representing
a social type. The best known procedure along this line is the ‘twenty
statement test’ (TST) devised by Kuhn and M~Partland.~7 The subject is
given a single sheet of paper with 20 numbered blanks and instructions to
write in 20 answers to the question ‘Who am I? in the blanks, as if giving the