CONFORMITY AND THE INNER A NOTE TO EDUCATORS Reprinted with permission from the JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL AssocIA­TION OF WOMEN DEANS AND CouNSELORS, Vol. XXI, Number 4, June, 1958. The JOURNAL also granted permission for the inclusion of the addi­tional material by Dr. Eugene C. McDanald, Jr. Printed by THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRINTING DIVISION Art work by BRUCE LYNN Price: 20c 1959 by ROBERT L. SUTHERLAND, PH.D. and EUGENE C. MCDANALD, JR., M.D. CONFORMITY THE HOGG FOUNDATION FOR MENTAL HEALTH THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS : AUSTIN 12, TEXAS INTRODUCTION Conformity is an emotionally loaded word these days. Books have been written which have all but advocated its elimination, since conformity has been equated by some with supine followership. Yet, every social scientist knows that without conformity there can be no social order. Without social order, there can be no freedom for creativ­ity. Conformity's opposite is anarchy. Creativity does not arise from chaos any more than it is derived from monotonous rigidity. Robert L. Sutherland, Director of The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health and Professor of Sociology, The University of Texas, has attempted to clear the blur of popular overstatement against conformity by putting it in perspective with the unique­ness of the inner self. Moreover, Eugene C. McDanald, Jr., Professor of Psychiatry, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, and an analyst concerned with the interpersonal theory of human rela­tions, has added comments which offer both re-emphasis and clarification to the thesis of the eternal relationship between social conformity and personal differences. While Dr. Sutherland originally wrote Conformity and the Inner Self for college and university counselors, deans, and others in student personnel services, what he has to say, as well as what Dr. McDanald has added, is of importance to parents as well as personnel administrators, and to faculty as well as their students who are still in process of integrating their own "inner selves" by interaction with and containment within the social milieu in which they live. As Dr. Sutherland and Dr. McDanald stress, the creative person is set free both by his healthy social conformity and by his equally healthy refusal to be a "con­formist." Bernice Milburn Moore Conformity and the Inner Self* ROBERT L. SUTHERLAND 3-nthe beginning, children are "de­pendency prone" for excellent and obvious, that is, for biological and psychological, reasons. Because of man's extra-long period of dependency in childhood, the human animal discovers that for survival he must learn to adjust to those who care for him. His need for food and warmth merges with a need for emotional re­sponse and support. Consequently,. the study of adjustment to family patterns and to other groups, does not concern itself with the question: Is it abnormal to conform?, but, more subtly, Does this conformity indicate a loss of individuality? How can one develop his own individuality and yet become a good member of society? Alarmists about youth's conformity often assume that simi­larity in outward behavior means a complete loss of individual­ity, whereas Erik Erikson points out that even though the college age youth's fads and fashions bring an amazing degree of con­formity, it is on a superficial level. Ten college youths, all with the same style haircut, may vary widely in other values as well as in personality characteristics, and ethical standards. Outward conformities may have little to do with the inner self 0 Originally given as a talk before the National Association of Women Deans and Counselors, St. Louis, Missouri, 1958. with which deans and counselors are concerned because the "inner self" is not a visible entity but a central con~ of personal­ity. The self might be explained through the term "ego identity," meaning an awareness of what one regards as the most important values drawn from his earlier experience, and what he sees, ten­tatively at least, as goals toward which he is going. The inner self thus means an accrued confidence in a person's ability to main­tain some consistency in outlook and objective. It is continuity through growth. The inner self, to be effective, needs a unity of purpose. Four decades ago Richard Cabot of Harvard University referred to the need of the person for a sense of inner unity, a way of sorting from the more tangential current impulses a master trend, de­sire, or goal. This integrating principle is a distillation of one's past experiences, which helps one to reckon with the future. It is not mysterious. The deep emotional experiences of childhood shape one's outlook and mode of reacting. And it is these un­conscious processes, supplemented by memory and imagina­tion, which give each person a sense of identity and even of direction. Both theologians and social psychologists recognize these processes, often with insight and assurance, sometimes with the aid of clinical or experimental research findings. Note, for example, two young people whose conformity or nonconformity implies different meaning about their inner selves. First, the overtly defensive youth, the one who is so eager to conform that he jumps at the suggestion of a group pattern, is now known through clinical studies, to have a minimum of awareness of inner self or ego-identity. For him there has been no accrual of self-confidence, but rather, the insecurities or high mobility of his childhood and youth have kept him from becom­ing a balanced person. He is a shadow of whatever group he de­pends upon at the moment. Inconsistencies among group pat­terns bring him frustration but not insight. He may cling hard to the illusory security of the nearest pattern, even though he jumps to another dependency in the next experience. On the other extreme, the youth who makes individualism a fetish is also not quite a whole person. He rebels for rebellion's sake. Early experiences may have been so constraining, all en­compassing, and overwhelming that he fought for psychological freedom. Now he has no self, that is, no organizing principle or trend which enables him to conform in part but remain true to his own direction of development. Rather, he is a center of re­bellion without either content or direction in his personality. How can personnel workers and other faculty members aid youth in their growing up process to become "balanced persons" and avoid these two extrem_es? How can the four years of college experience help a person develop an ordering principle for his own multiple experiences? How can he be encouraged to acquire self-confidence, a sense of direction, and a sense of goal without grasping at dogma or depending upon superimposed patterns? How can he learn to be himself and to discover what that self is? How can he conform, sort out, invent, and lead? How can he re­bel, cooperate, subordinate his immediate desires, and move in a consistent direction? How can he be a distinctive individual and also a member of society? Youth cannot &o through this complicated, seemingly contra­dictory, process of growth all of a sudden. He sometimes needs to be helped and encouraged; he may need to be restrained temporarily; sometimes he needs to be let alone; but seldom if ever does he need to be ordered or dominated. Each evolving personality does require exposure to stimulating patterns of development, and does have to build up skill in communication and interaction with other youth and adults. He needs the sup­port but not the domination of his peer group, and the support but not the domination of older people: teachers, counselors, parents. The entire process is experimental, never the same in two cases; nevertheless, there are general ways in which the older members of the college community can help youth more and hinder them less in the process of growth. Look first at the ways they often hinder. 1. Some immature adults in a college community attain their own ego-identity in a pathological way through an insatiable desire for disciples. Subtly, in saccharine, enticing ways, they Hatter youth into being like themselves or, more crudely, they punish for lack of conformity. This is ail extreme statement of the case. Imitation is one of the processes of learning. Through identification with another, one acquires new insight and feeling tones. A faculty member without healthy "disciples" would be a poor teacher. A faculty member who demands carbon copies of himself is, however, even a poorer teacher! 2. Some immature adults who have never settled the score with themselves find that a perpetual state of rebellion is possible in the somewhat protected environment of a college community. Their only consistent pattern is one of cynicism, sarcasm, neg.a­tivism, skepticism, which they gloss over with the favorable glow of intellectualism and scholarly caution. Their sour person­alities are often contagious in influence. Again, this is an over­statement. The intellectual freedom of a college campus does provide one of the few places in our culture where diversity is stimulating. But conscious non-conformity as an attention-gain­ing device is indication of immaturity at any age. 3. Some adults take the easy way out of modern complexity by withdrawing from people. Dark glasses worn indoors help them psychologically to sit quietly in the corner, dodging committee assignments, avoiding response in arguments, and seeking the most isolated niche on a secluded campus. They are nice and gentle people but of little help to fast-moving youth who are still unafraid to meet life head-on. 4. Other adults fail to develop their own inner selves by losing themselves in surface activity. The nervous talker who dominates any conversation keeps up a barrage which never allows a pene­trating question to get through. The "joiner" who has so many engagements that he feels important merely by his inability to keep them all, is running away from a self he has never met. He is so engrossed in keeping up with the buzzer, the phone, the calendar, and the Joneses that no glance over his shoulder tells him where he has come from, and he appears to be afraid to look where he is going. He encourages students who are like himself but has difficulty in understanding others. 5. Then there is the adult who acts as though he were not him­self adult. To be democratic with students and maintain rapport with them, he mistakenly assumes that he needs to be one of them. His vocabulary, dress, and impulses keep him at a slightly post-adolescent level. Students do not need another "buddy." They find all they need of these in their peer group. This staff or faculty member has abdicated his real opportunity and responsi­bility. If all of these represent the "don'ts," what then are the "do's?" Since we have argued that no one prescription is possible for enabling youth to work out the relationship between conformity and their inner selves, we must also agree that there is no one kind of faculty member who is always ideal for all youth. There are, however, various roles which may help an adult reach a balance between becoming a cynic or a savior in his relations with youth. Here are a few general suggestions: 1. He might want to learn what recent studies have revealed about present-day conformity. The nature of human develop­ment, social interaction, and group process is now being revealed by a wealth of research findings. If supervisors in industry have discovered that it is worthwhile to devote a week or a month to a seminar focused on "The Nature of Human Nature," possibly college personnel who deal in an even more crucial way with other persons would find it profitable to explore the new prin­ciples and processes in this area. Foundations have given mil­lions of dollars to longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of children, youth, and adults. The social class system in its effects upon human motivations and conformity patterns has been ex­plored painstakingly. Trends toward conformity and individual­ism have been subjected to laboratory analysis by experimental and social psychologists. Clinicians in psychotherapy generalize with caution from their case studies, but they gain insight worthy of application. Can colleges and universities afford not to study what is now known about .the human element in the process of education? 2. The personnel and college administrator can hdp develop a campus atmosphere which stimulates creative growth in youth by.dealing with their own staff members in a creative way. The administrator who dominates his colleagues cannot, through himself or through them, help youth to find themselves in a free atmosphere of experiment, encouragement, and wisdom. The morale and creativeness of a faculty group has much to do with the atmosphere of a campus. 3. Not every faculty member needs to be psychoanalyzed! But if he is aware of his own dominant pattern, trend, and goal and if he is partially aware of how he became the way he is, he may not be prone to judge others by himself. Each student with whom he works will be allowed to develop according to his own back­ground and his own goals. Democracy was built not only upon a toleration of differences but also upon a belief in the desirability of variation. Psychological domination is far more prevalent than is political domination. The adult needs to school himself in ex­pecting, wanting, and understanding variation in others, even though this kind of self-discipline does not come easily. 4. The adult can help ifhe has faith. He needs faith in himself, in his own integrity and work. Without such self-confidence he must find emotional satisfactions indirectly and often at the expense of others. He needs also faith in his colleagues and his students. For such faith will cause him to be slow to alarm, penetrating in observation, and encouraging in attitude. By his example he can show patience with the present and confidence in the future. With such encouragement from adults, youth can acquire creative, inquisitive inner selves even in the presence of pressure toward conformity. Comment on "Conformity and the Inner Self" EUGENE C. McDANALD, JR. 0 ne of the most meaningful lessons learned by children is that a certain amount of conformity to family and social mores is part and parcel of the process of growing up. When a child, acting on the rational insistence of the parents, gives up an immatu:r:e for a mature pattern of be­havior, he goes forward in the acculturation process with new­found ability and self-respect. Each step toward maturity for a developing youngster is attended by pain in relinquishing old techniques and skill~ in living and joy in discovering that new ones, in most instances, contribute to a greater self-sufficiency and a wider participation than before in the lives of others. Although much of a child's learning is based on timely and kindly frustrations imposed by the important people in his environment, much of it comes about on the basis of conscious and unconscious identification with these important people. Regardless of how it comes, aside from unfortunate accidents and involvements with emotionally sick people, learning is usu­ ally fun. Especially is it fun for a child to learn the basic lesson in living: that regardless of his talents and gifts, he is a person in his own right. Karen Horney has said that people who are able to regard themselves as persons in their own right become in time capable of executing three types of interpersonal movement: 1) They are able to move with other people in a friendly and constructive manner. 2) They are able to move against other people in a friendly and constructive manner. 3) They are able to move .away from other people in a friendly and constructive manner. For the person who matures in his interpersonal relationships in the fashion delineated by Homey, the significant corollary is that he is able to move with, against, and away from his own emo­tional and intellectual biases in a manner conducive to self­growth and self-respect. Robert L. Sutherland, I believe, would agree that anyone who can effect these several movements, both interpersonal and intrapersonal, has a desirable inner self. From this inner self, tendencies originate toward reasonable conform­ity, constructive protest, and creative detachment-qualities which make for healthy relationships with persons, institutions, and government in any form. The person who can move freely with himself and others in a thoughtful and constructive manner is open to his own as well as the other person's creative impulses. The person who can move against himself and others in a friendly manner is appro­priately self-critical and reasonable in his opposition to others. The person who moves away from himself and others in order to get a true perspective on interpersonal and intrapersonal issues is not running away from reality but, perhaps, is gaining an objective stance from which he can view the realities of his everyday living and, thereby, cope with problems more effec­tively. Each of these movements may be effected in accordance with what the inner self perceives to be appropriate at the moment. To act appropriately, or to put it another way, to be true to the best aspects of the inner self in social situations, one must know its strengths and weaknesses. If its strengths and weak­nesses are realized, a person may reach out in life for what he wants and, at the same time, depending on what is appropriate, conform to, protest against, or temporarily withdraw from the society whose general good he wishes to advance. The import of Dr. Sutherland's paper is that each adult in the college community, in his role as educator, should be aware of whether and how he releases or stifles the creative potential of himself and of youth. Does he move with, against, and away from himself in a manner that promotes or precludes self-under­standing and self-growth? Does he move with, against, or away from youth in a manner that promotes or precludes mutual un­derstanding and growth? Dr. Sutherland's excellent descriptions of several academic types who fail to effect these three move­ments in relationship to themselves and others require no elabo­ration. His descriptions of these types no doubt will inspire many educators to cultivate the difficult discipline of appraising their attitudes and actions toward themselves and others. Dr. Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher, has said in effect that between the educator and the pupil there is the cur­riculum and that the pupil should not be pressured to conform to the biases of the educator or the curriculum but free to use both creatively in the development of his actual self. Buber's thinking is at one with the essence of Dr. Sutherland's thesis. REFERENCES Ro3ERT R. BLAKE and JANE MOUTON, "Task Difficulty and Conformity Pressures," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 52, Dec. 1957. MARTIN BUBER, Chapter III, "Education," and Chapter IV; "The Education of Character," Between Man and Man. Boston, Bea­con Press, 1955. MAURICE S. FRIEDMAN, Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1955. FREDERIC ELKIN and WILLIAM M. WESTLEY, "The Myth of Adolescent Culture," American Sociological Review, Vol. 20, No. 6. ERIK H. ERIKSON, "Ego Identity and the Psychosocial Moratorium," New Perspectives for Research on Delinquency. Helen L. Wit­mer and Ruth Kotinsky, Editors. Children's Bureau Publication, No. 356, Washington, D. C., United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1956. ROBERT J. HAVIGHURST and BERNICE L. NEUGARTEN, Society and Edu­cation. Boston, Allyn and Bacon, 1957. ROBERT J. HAVIGHURST and ROBERT F. DE HAAN, Educating Gifted ChUdren. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1957. MURIEL IvIMEY, "What is a Neurosis?", Are You Considering Psy­choanalysis? Karen Horney, Editor, New York, W . W. Norton and Co., 1946. MARIE JAHODA, Current Concepts of Positive Mental Health, Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health. New York, Basic Books, Inc., 1958. BERNICE MILBURN MooRE and WAYNE H. HOLTZMAN, "What Texas Knows About Youth," National Parent-Teacher, Sept. 1958.