ON EGO AND SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION
Abstract
A study was made of various instinctual and/or biological drives which impel man to action. As a result of his learning experiences, man develops certain expectancies growing out of his own experientially developed conceptions and perceptions of himself. He finds himself in a culture which provides a variety, although not an infinite number, of ways in which these gratifications can be achieved. This world also provides ways of punishing his attempted role behaviors that are not sanctioned within the culture. These punishments are, affectively speaking, painful. The instrumentalities which permit the individual to seek out gratifications and avoid anxieties, as dictated by his own ego structure, function, and identity, from the culturally created social structure, function, and objectively defined social indentificatios, are assigned to the notion of the status positions which he occupies, the attendant role behaviors, and values the latter two of which are learned. The hierarchical manner in which one orders his role behaviors in terms of relative importance, is determined in large part by the values attendant to those status clusters. These values, in turn, are related to intra-psychic gratification of drives on the one hand and on the other, the gratification potentialities offered by the configurations of social status clusters with which he is identified, as well as those that society has identified him with. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1961
- Accession Number
- AD0256361
Entities
People
- John H. Rohrer
Organizations
- Georgetown University