Search

This paper reviews the literature on authority patterns in Indian organizations in a comparative framework. These patterns are found to be dominated by the parental ideology of authority relations. On the basis of an empirical study, the paper suggests that this ideology, though legitimized by social-cultural factors, may be dysfunctional in having a negative effect on subordinate performance and satisfaction. The results of the empirical study suggest the hypothesis that the effect of social-cultural factors on organizational behavior is better understood through the concept of psychosocial identity, in which the effect of occupational identity is an extremely important factor, rather than through the concept of national character with its implications of cultural relativism in work behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about the meaning and usefulness of history as a primary element of the educational program is presented. It examines the moral purposes of the study of history. Subjects of the paper also include how the experience of the past influences public policy, the relationship between American identity and revolution, and Puritanism.

Symbolic interaction theory as derived mainly from the work of George Herbert Mead views the self-concept as a structure of attitudes which arises in social experience and organizes the individual's perception of his social milieu. Recently, tests based upon this symbolic interaction orientation have been developed for the elicitation of self attitudes. One such test frequently used is the Twenty Statements Test (TST) constructed by Manford Kuhn and Thomas McPartland. The TST attempts to ascertain the specific statements respondents use to identify themselves to themselves. The applicability of the TST to problems of self theory is indicated by the rather wide use which has been made of the instrument. Investigations using the TST have focused upon the following: self-concept and social position; a self-concept and behavior; and the self-concept and attitudes toward other social objects. While TST results have been of substantive interest, little attention has been given to the methodological issues involved in the instrument and its use. For example, little is known concerning the validity and reliability of the test and its scoring procedures. If substantive assertions based upon TST results are to be considered as sound, judicious concern should be directed toward basic methodological issues. It is the purpose of this paper to consider empirically one methodological aspect of the TST. The focus is upon the test format itself. The question is posed: Do variations in the TST format produce variations in individuals' response patterns? Specifically, does the length of the test influence the number and the nature of statements made by respondents? This paper is directed toward answering this question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an account of the book "Ego Psychology and the Psychoses," by Paul Federn. The book is an interesting collection of theoretical papers by Paul Federn edited and with an introduction by Edoardo Weiss. Federn's ego psychology implies the necessity of evaluating ego strengths and weaknesses and the various ways in which ego libido manifests itself.

Theories of symbolic interaction and ethnomethodology, assume that everyone undertakes a complex process of construction of reality, including self-identity, in interaction with significant others. Utilizing insights into variations in identity reformulation in marriage obtained from a study of American metropolitan women, this paper concentrates on variations of identity reformulation among widows. The major hypothesis guiding the discussion is that the higher the education of the woman, as measured by formal schooling, the more she is likely to experience and undertake identity reformulation in marriage and in widowhood. The less education a woman has, the less she will be consciously affected in her identity formulation by these events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to report on the relationship found between a variety of content dimensions of the self and the expectations of each of four biographically significant others. The subjects whose self-conceptions are examined are 256 business executives and managers, and the four significant others whose expectations are perceived are wife, boss, a colleague, and father. Before turning to the findings it is necessary to discuss at least three methodological questions: (1) How do we know who is a significant other? (2) How do we measure the self? (8) What forms the link between others and the self? These issues are discussed in order below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development of an activities program in a home for the aged in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. The program was designed to offset the dehumanizing aspects of life in an institution that can strip away a person's feelings of identity and Independence. It is important, the authors think, for Institutions to provide more than custodial care-they must be responsible for the fulfillment of a person's potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a method in treatment--a direct, risk-taking encounter between the adult client and his parent. The encounter can activate anxiety and feelings previously encapsulated in the character structure and can encourage ego differentiation and identity. This belated separation experience emphasizes real rather than transferential responses and can help integrate affect, intellect, and self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper first presents a framework of psychological and sociological research on careers. It then describes a model for describing a phenomenon largely unexplored in the psychological career literature—identity changes during the course of a person's occupational career experiences. In this model the individual's total identity is viewed as a number of subidentities, with each subidentity representing the person's image of himself in a particular social role (Miller, 1963). The model examines the development of the career subidentity, the person's conception of himself in his career role. Growth in the career subidentity and career commitment is seen as a series of cycles of challenging goal setting, independent effort, success, subidentity growth, and increased career self-esteem and commitment, leading, in turn, to further goal setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of "priorization-that definitional process whereby an acts Mg unit, in regard to a given situation, gives precedence to one of his role-, identity-, self-, or membership-/reference-orientations over another or others is introduced. Examples from past studies of academic organizational roles arid of ethnic identity experiences are cited. A research case illustration, concerning the definitions of 42 Jewish born college professors in dilemma situations involving their academic and. religio-ethnic identities, is presented. Findings in regard to how these respondents priorized chokes about whether or not to work on the Yom Kippur holiday are then used as a springboard for more general analytic formulations about the nature of the priorization process in academic situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A list of books that explore psychology is presented, including "Studies in Organizational Psychology," by B. M. Bass and S. D. Deep, "Methods for the Measurement of Psychological Performance," by S. Biesheuvel, and "The Roots of Individuality: Normal Patterns of Development in Infancy," by S. K. Escalona.

The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to investigate whether adolescence is a period of disturbance for the child's self-image and, if so, at what age of adolescence and under what social conditions the disturbance is greatest. Several dimensions of the self-image were measured among 1,917 urban school children in grades three through twelve. Compared to children in the eight to eleven age group, the early adolescents, particularly those between twelve and thirteen, were shown to exhibit heightened self-consciousness, greater instability of the self-image, slightly lower self-esteem, and a less favorable view of the opinions held of them by significant others. Evidence is presented suggesting that the child's environment may have a stronger effect than his age in producing such changes. Children who had entered junior high school appeared more disturbed along these lines than their age-peers still in elementary school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘There is a high consistency in the way a school-age child views his sexual role and the way an adult views it. The child's formation of his sexual identity and role is influenced by many cultural factors and relationships from birth on. It is an integral part of his self-identity and in many areas of his daily life affects his behavior, his attitudes, and his beliefs.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article represents the attempt of a counselor-educator to examine openly the philosophic-psychological premises and related value commitments which sustain his functioning, professionally and personally. Perhaps only as the counselor-educator opens himself up for full scrutiny can he serve as an effective model of the mature, integrated personality whose emotions are not at variance with the cognitive dimension of his being. As the prospective counselor gropes for a defensible professional image for himself, he needs to encounter the complete person of his professor in whom, ideally, one should find verbalized value commitments that mesh congruently with overt behavior patterns. Like the client, the counselor and counselor-educator must also acknowledge the impact of their own personal values on what they do if they are to come across as genuinely open persons in their interpersonal encounters. If the counselor and counselor-educator are to function with maximum effectiveness, the periodic open scrutiny and appraisal of their own personally held convictions about man and the human adventure is an undertaking of pivotal significance, no matter how anxiety-provoking the experience may become.

Identification patterns of male and female children (110 boys and 114 girls) in grades one through five were studied by two methods that have been used in "identification research"; identification inferred from sex-appropriate and sex-inappropriate games, preferences and identification inferred from profile congruence between "self," "mother," and "father" concepts on a semantic differential (SD). Results showed that the two measures are meaningfully related as "self" rating scales; however, there was no apparent association between the Games and Activities Inventory (GAI) (games preferences) and the SD as indicators of identification. The patterns of identification found using the SD were generally consistent with the theoretical formulation of identification proposed by Lynn (1959,) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An attempt was made to measure the evolving sense of self, as defined by the McKinney Sentence Completion Blank, of 225 students in grades 9 through 12. Developmental changes in grade level were observed on four aspects of the self: Sense of Continuing Self-Identity, Sense of Self-Esteem, or Pride, Sense of Self-Extension, and the Sense of Self as a Propriate Striver. Relations of the adolescent self-concept were also compared with sex, fathers' and mothers' formal education, and extracurricular activities of the students. Data supported the use of the McKinney Sentence Completion Blank to evaluate the modification of the self-concept through the high school years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explains the main foci of interest of contemporary of work on the psychology of the interview, and show how investigations which have been proceeding on lines of enquiry related to, but not exclusively concerned with, the interview technique have been found to provide material of considerable significance for interviewers. Although the modern interview still remains more an art than a scientific instrument, the information which may be obtained about a person by a highly skilled interviewer using a well-developed technique is potentially very accurate. The technique has progressed a long way from the early days of physiognomy or snap intuitive judgments. Even so far as physiognomy is concerned, however, Allport has shown that certain things may be deducible about a person in some cases. It is well known that extreme cases of glandular disturbance, e.g. thyroid and eunochoid types, are accompanied both by obvious facial stigmata and by personality and temperamental changes. But these are extremes which are widely divergent from the norm. Within the normal range itself, however, bodily build may be indirectly related to personality traits: those whose fortune it is to posses strong, healthy and attractive physical characteristics may find that they receive far more social approval than those who are weak, unattractive, or repulsive, and thus they will develop more extroverted and social traits of temperament.

The article discusses the theory of female psychology. It refers to the views of sociologist Helene Deutsch on the development of the female personality. Based on his experience, the author discusses the American women who are unable to integrate the traditional ideals of womanhood with the expanded experience and opportunities of modern woman. It is opined that many women are strongly connected with an internalized image of the "natural" role a woman. Some single women are afraid of marriage because they believe that it will adversely affect their individuality and freedom.

The present study was designed to measure objectively ego functioning in the schizophrenic child by evaluating conceptual thinking, or in other words, the level at which the schizophrenic child conceives of the relationship of environmental objects. Dynamic psychology, with its recent emphasis on the role of ego impairment in psychopathology, postulates that childhood schizophrenia is the consequence of defective ego development. From the foregoing, it would follow that if the schizophrenic child has defective ego development, its concept formation should be severely impaired. Thought characteristics of the unconscious should be palpable in the schizophrenic child when he attempts to determine object relationships, i.e., symbolism idiosyncrasies, etc

Presents information on a study which hypothesized that the differential reinforcement value of male and female adults and of various forms of human content being reinforced in a verbal conditioning situation is a function of the level of sex-role identification in young children. Measure of sex-role identification; Confirmation of the relationship between a strong masculine-role identification and the reinforcement value of a male; Effectiveness of the verbal conditioning procedure.

A sociometric questionnaire (following Lundberg and Dick.son), covering choices of leaders, co-workers, dates, friends, and enemies, was administered to the entire population of a high school, 32 per cent of whose students were rural residents. The study has implications for the processes whereby social character and personal identity become established. A consistently lower degree of preference for the rural than for the urban students was expressed by both rural and urban students. The “tolerance” of urban students for rural residents in specific activities ranged upward from leadership through dating, co-work, and friendship to enemy choices; the order was reversed in the choices made by rural students, with the exception of choices of enemies. This suggests that a consensus may exist regarding areas of permissible and impermissible mutual contacts. A variety of participation factors were significantly related to out- group choosing. It may be that certain kinds of participation by rural students in school and non-school activities axe related to the process of alienation of rural students from rural values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The confusion in the use of the terms neighborhood and community indicates a need for other approaches to the problem of locality-group classification. Sociological literature dealing with locality groups suggests the possibility of a continuum approach to the classification problem and emphasizes, through omission, the need for considering group identification as a factor in the formulation of an adequate classification scheme. A scheme of locality-group classification based on service and group-identification ratings, which has been used in three recent studies of rural social organization, is suggestive but inadequate because of difficulties involved in following subjective procedures for determining group-identification ratings. An attempt to determine group-identification ratings objectively has been made recently in a Minnesota village-centered locality group. Further investigations of this kind are needed. Experimentation with intercorrelations of classification factors offers art opportunity for arriving at a limited number of significant factors that may be quantified easily. It is believed that a classification scheme formulated in this manner will provide a practical tool for both researchers and planners. Cooperative efforts among researchers will be required in making a basic attack on this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Americans have perpetuated inaccurate images and attitudes concerning the Chinese that suggest the operation of social-psychological anomalies and prevent the growth of healthy human relations. Narrow stereotypic perceptions of and prejudice toward the Chinese have been so pervasive and tenable that Americans of Chinese ancestry do not perceive themselves with a meaningful identity. Examination of American social studies textbooks for elementary and secondary schools shows that Asian studies and the involvement of Asians in American history are barely mentioned or neglected completely; furthermore what information is given reinforces stereotypic illusions. There is rising protest and counterresponse to the restrictive perceptions among younger Asian Americans who seek the identity and acceptance they have been denied by others and themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distinctive theoretical features characterizing research in the area of the self-concept, with attention paid to the approaches of phenomenology, existentialism, behaviorism, and symbolic interaction, are related to investigations into the nature of the black self-concept. A modification of Mead's symbolic interactional approaches is developed. The grounding of research on the black self-concept in non-African epistemologies is considered sufficient reason to discard most, if not all, previously published research in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correlates and consequences of African as compared to American identity of Negro Americans in a remedial junior college program were investigated. The major findings were: (a) males were more likely than females to identify themselves as coming from an African family background, and (b) those who identified themselves as American achieved higher grades than those identifying themselves as African. The major explanations concern the ambivalence of the African "protest identity" and issues concerned with the criterion variable of achievement. It was suggested that a positive identity will be related to successful socialization or achievement in a particular culture only when the identity is congruent with the core values of that culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on identity and Negro youth. A lack of familiarity with the problem of Negro youth and with the actions by which Negro youth hopes to solve these problems is a marked deficiency in the author's life and work which cannot be compensated for with theoretical speculation; and this least of all at a time when Negro writers are finding superb new ways of stating their and the predicament and when Negro youth finds itself involved in action which would have seemed unimaginable only a very few years ago. The growing child must derive a vitalizing sense of reality from the awareness that his individual way of mastering experience is a successful variant of a group identity and is in accord with its space- time and life plan. Minute displays of emotion such as affection, pride, anger, guilt, anxiety, sexual arousal, transmit to the human child the outlines of what really counts in his world, that is, the variables of his group's space-time and the perspectives of its life plan.

Data collected from 515 Negroes in two American communities provide an opportunity to test a number of hypotheses regarding the correlates of minority group identification. A review of the literature suggests that group identification is a multi-dimensional phenomenon and, therefore, our findings cannot be generalized beyond the confines of Tnilitant group pride and general disparagement. However, within the limits of this pattern of group identification, the Cornell data justify three major conclusions. First, the data confirm Himelhoch's hypothesis that among minority persons the personality characteristics associated with rejection of (i.e., prejudice toward) out-groups are also correlates of rejection of the in-group. Both authoritarianism and frustration manifest strong negative relations to group identification. Second, this is paralleled by a striking similarity of the social correlates of out-group and ingroup attitudes among Negroes. In contradiction of prevalent hypotheses, education, occupation and interracial (social) contact are positively related to group identification and organization membership and age also bear approximately the same relation to group identification as to anti-white and anti-minority prejudice. The similarity of social correlates is less clear-cut with respect to sex, marital status and region. However, the Cornell data indicate that the relation of sex to prejudice is highly variable dependent upon the dimension of prejudice involved and that the marital status and regional correlates of prejudice toward whites do not extend to prejudice toward minority out-groups. Consistent with the first two conclusions, the third conclusion is that in the population studied attitude toward the in-group is positively related to attitude toward out-groups. This challenges the belief that the rejection of out-groups is an almost inevitable concomitant of in-group pride and suggests that an unequivocally positive group identification can be functional for societal integration. The differences in the findings and inferences of the present study as compared to previous researches underscore the necessity of specifying the type(s) of group identification under consideration. Such specification is pre-requisite to further advances in our understanding of the causes, processes, and consequences of group identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of the transsexual's stigma is such that she can pass as a natural female with little difficulty if she chooses to. At the same time, transsexuals do not once and for all become women after their conversion operation. Their ambiguous gender implies at least a double identity: some of the feminized tranasexual's social circles remain associated with her former (male) gender, while some center around her new identity. Thus, it is more accurate to say that the transsexual is ongoingly passing than that she has passed. This led to the formulation of two hypotheses: (1) transsexuals compartmentalize their social circles to a greater extent than normals, and (2) transsexuals experience greater incompatibility of their social circles than normals. To operationalize social circles, the family and present friends were chosen. In terms of this operationalization, the findings support the first hypothesis but not the second. It is argued that transsexuals do not experience unusual incompatibility between family and friends because they either minimize contacts with the former, or do so with the latter, or segregate the two. In the final analysis, the transsexual's double identity is not simply a double gender identity, but also the product of participation in the radically different cultures and lifestyles of her rural background on the one hand and her present urban underworld environment on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Twenty Statement Test (TST) was first reported by Kuhn and McPartland (1954) as a valid instrument for identifying and measuring self-attitudes as they are defined in the self theory of C. H. Cooley, G. H. Mead, H. S. Sullivan, T. Newcomb, and others. Since 1954 the TST has been used in studies of the general adult population, businessmen, students, the professions, and other populations in order to learn how self-conceptions vary and how they are related to changes in age, the reference set, and other social variables. Although this instrument and its associated theory have been assessed in several ways (see Wylie, 1961; Kuhn, 1964; Kemper, 1966), it has not been assessed in terms of its cross-cultural adequacy in eliciting self-conceptions. Yet, this evaluation is quite important both because self theory is not viewed as having subcultural or cultural boundaries and because the users of the TST implicitly suggest its rather general applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obesity is a complex phenomenon having a variety of causes and consequences, and accordingly, it is very insufficiently understood. In the vast medical and nutritional literature on the topic, obesity is usually treated as a clinical problem residing in the physical make-up and the behavior pattern of the individual, and it has been only recently that social causations and their consequences, amounting to stigmatization, have received increased attention. However, obesity is hardly ever mentioned in the writings of sociologists, and not at all in the literature on social deviance. This omission is amazing because it ought not to escape any one scanning the articles and advertisements in popular journals or listening to radio and television commercials that obesity is a social phenomenon. Clearly, in our kind of society, with its stress on affluence and upward mobility, being overweight is considered to be detrimental to health, a blemish to appearance, and a social disgrace. What is much less obvious is that it is held to be morally reprehensible. In the deliberations that follow I intend to review some pertinent findings in recent research with regard to these factors, but with emphasis on the moral factor which I believe to be of decisive importance, both diagnostically and therapeutically. I shall attempt to construct an ideal-typical model of the stigma of obesity, not so much as a hypothesis to be verified or modified, but as a conceptual guidepost with which the varieties of actual occurrences may be compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social psychological theorists have persistently emphasized the fact that persons come to hold attitudes not only toward others but also toward themselves. As a result, the self-concept as a construct has achieved considerable prominence in current research. With the popularity of the self as an object for study there has been a corresponding interest in the development and application of instruments designed specifically to tap some aspect of self-evaluation. Concurrent with the accumulation of research on the self, a number of problems have become salient. Among the more important of these are the equivalence of measures of self-evaluation and the validity of such instruments. A perusal of Wylie's The Sell Concept discloses the existence of no fewer than 100 instruments, only a small minority of which have seen repeated use. It seems that every student of the self-concept, either because of dissatisfaction with existing instruments or the choice of research problems, has contributed at least one additional device. Consequently, the integration and interpretation of results yielded by this plethora of instruments is by no means simple. Some of the difficulty lies no doubt in the labeling of self-evaluative statements, for self-esteem, self-acceptance, etc. are used interchangeably in self-concept research. But it is not sufficient to assume that instruments purporting to assess self-evaluation are equivalent in the absence of empirical demonstration. Since the various instruments employ divergent types of assessment operations, frequently contain different item content, and are rarely based on theory, it is impossible to generalize with any degree of confidence from results based on one instrument to those based on another. The primary purpose of this investigation, then, is to explore the extent to which several of the more popular self-concept instruments can be considered equivalent measures of self-evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article shows that a considerate regard for the individual is a primary requisite for optimum maturity and mental health. It demonstrates that this developmental philosophy is a part of the democratic ideology and a motivating force in the home and society. Finally, it points out that freedom from want in a socio-economic sense remains a first essential for freedom from psychological want. The laws of mathematics, chemistry and physics are well known and efficiently exploited either for the benefit or for the destruction of man. But the laws governing the behavior of man himself in his relation to other men remain the mysterious possession of philosophers and psychiatrists, who are still fascinated by the intricacies of vocabulary and exploration rather than by the practical application of these laws to daily living. Not until there is a common alignment of the natural laws governing the psychobiological nature of man, his spiritual nature, and his economic relation with others can one hope to develop a healthy social organism.

Relates the birth of an embryo ego in an autistic girl. Identity; Psychotherapy; Process of imaginative activity; Dynamics of the transference.

The article presents a study that determines the relationship between intelligence quotient scores and "Is of Identity" scores for children ages 14-19 years. It also examines whether sex is associated with differences in the extent to which the "Is of Identity" is used. A lists of assumptions for the study is provided. There is a need for a thorough understanding of the various aspects of individual personalities for adequate curriculum planning, effective leadership and equitable student counseling. The limitations of the study are discussed.

Faced with the imminence of adult tasks (e.g., getting a job, becoming a citizen, planning marriage) in which he must now become one of the "givers" rather than the "given," the late adolescent might be dealing with an identity crisis. He may resolve this crisis either by the achievement of ego identity, based on a sense of personal continuity with the past and future, or by continuing in an identity diffuse state, in which commitments to both past and future are vague or nonexistent. The achievement of ego identity requires the individual to relinquish his claims to infantile sources of gratification and to renounce lingering infantile fantasies of omnipotence. In short, he must choose among alternatives and make a subsequent commitment to the alternative chosen. Two crucial areas in which the adolescent must make such commitments are occupation and ideology. For ego identity, an individual is placed into one of four "identity statuses", these are individual styles of coping with the identity crisis. Presence or absence of crisis and extent of commitment in the two areas of occupation and ideology serve to define the statuses.

The focuses on self-evaluation and the evaluation of choice alternatives. The tendency for a person, when making a decision, to crease the value of the chosen alternative relative to a nonchosen one has been well documented in a number of experiments investigating manifestations of post decisional dissonance. This change in relative value of the alternatives is conceived of as an attempt by the person to minimize the regret ass sociated with having given up desirable features of the non-chosen alternative or having acquired undesirable features of the chosen one this "dissonance effect" is thus seen as the result of instrumental cognitive work which serves to justify the choice. If, however, researchers assume that the person has a positive evaluation of his ability to make the choice, researchers may also conceive of this effect as an affirmation or confirmation of his self-ability estimate. He had a prior and, in most of the research, only a cursory evaluation of the choice alternatives. In choosing, he exercised his ability in the act of weighing the relative value of the alternatives.

According to the frame of reference adopted herein, professor L. Szondi test may be considered as a projective technique, consisting of partially structured stimulus materials to which the subject responds in his own unique manner, thereby revealing something of his personality structure. Within this frame of reference three assumptions seem basic and necessary, as well as sufficient the individual test pictures have consistent meanings or content values for a given population. The stimulus values of the pictures with respect to the associations evoked are known to the examiner. A given subject's selections among the test pictures result from personal affective investment rather than from the affective valences or stimulus values of the pictures. The alternatives for selection must all have a reasonably equivalent potential for reaction in order for choices to be considered as reflection of individuality rather than as conformity with group selection trends. The Szondi test is designed to appraise personality from an individual's affective discriminations among pictures of mental patients.

This article focuses on the analytic, synthetic and diagnostic studies of individuals. Theories of personality may either be derived from level from novel variations in methodology, or they may dictate the methods of study employed in a given research. In the former instance, new light may be thrown on the structure and organization of personality; in the latter instance, the theory may be extended or clarified. Various theories of personality are represented in the publications, but the most significant advances have been in the direction of study of the inner organization and the uniqueness of personality. The use of definitely structured material such as standardized tests has certain qualitative possibilities.

The article explores the real identity of "C. de B." who wrote the book "Letters from Paris 1870-1875." C. de B. was described as a Political Informant to the head of the London House of Rothschild. Specific evidence provided by two letters of 3 November 1871 and 24 July 1873 reveals that he was a M. de Saint-Chéron living in the Rue du Bel Respiro in Paris. Search in the catalolues of the Bibliothé que Nationale revealed only two references to the name the dates of which would fit, namely one to an Alexandre de Saint-Chéron, who signs "pour copie conforme" a two-page Programme politique du Comte de Chambord of 1871 or 1872, and one to a Guyard de Saint-Chéron, "hom me de lettres," born at Loches, Indre et Loire, on 8 November 1807. So it is certain that "C. de B." may be one of the two persons.

As party organization politics become less passionate and the opportunities for personal payoff and graft decrease, the continued work of party functionaries is something of an anachronism. The political systems of the United States and Canada require party-like voluntary organizations, but decrease the motivations for individual participation. This analysis sheds some light on sustained participation by focusing on the role of politics in the personal identities of 1,250 of the top party officials of Seattle, Minneapolis, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. At present, the significance of politics in the self-concept of even the high-ranking party official is highly variable. They may rise to the top of an organization after very short working careers and without total investment of their "selves." The extent to which the political dimension suffuses the identity of the official and its place in the self-concept are shown to be related to both early and current life experiences in ways that accord with symbolic interactionist theory. Finally, the self-concept is shown to relate to how the party role is played and the respondent's further career expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social conflict is revealed as both natural and functional in human society. Conflict is called "realistic" when rationally determined means are used to achieve culturally approved ends. In the field of Negro struggle, legal redress, political pressure and mass action meet these defining criteria of realistic conflict. This study examines some of the social functions of conflict as here defined. It is asked: does realistic conflict by Negroes have any system-maintaining and system-enhancing consequences for the larger American society? The analysis revealed that realistic racial conflict (1) alters the social structure, (2) extends social communication, (3) enhances social solidarity, and (4) facilitates personal identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]