Social Conformity and Psychological Differentiation

Abstract

HollandThis study examined the role of socialization experiences in the development of psychological differentiation. In each of three countries (Holland, Italy, Mexico) two villages were selected as presenting a contrasting picture with regard to degree of emphasis on conformity to family, religious and political authority. It was hypothesized that within the pair of villages in each country children from the village which stressed social conformity would tend to be more field dependent and show other signs of less developed differentiation than children from the village in which social conformity was less emphasized. In each of the six villages approximately IOO children (boys and girls, aged 9-11 and 13-15) were A congruent study conducted in Norway, in which two villages were selected on the basis of political orientation rather than social conformity, will be described in a later report.Because of space limitations, only a brief summary description is given in this paper of the six villages studied and of the selection procedures followed to insure that the subject groups used would be representative of the total populations from which they were drawn. Extended accounts of the villages and of the subject selection procedures are given in a

Social Traditionalism and Personality: An Empirical Investigation of the Interrelationships Between Social Values and Personality Attributes*

“…The analyses of covariance using EFT as the dependent variable (table 2), provides strong evidence in support of the claim in much of the literature (Witkin et al 1974;Witkin and Berry 1975;Nedd and Gruenfeld 1976) that social values emphasizing conformity on the one hand, or self-assertion, on the other, are determinants of field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles, respectively. Finally, the finding that, of the variables investigated, age is the most important determinant of EFT, appears to challenge the claims made by others (Witkinct al.…”

Nyborg's Analytical Rod‐and‐frame Scoring System: A Comparative Study in Zimbabwe*

“…If one looks at the most field-independent subjects with USD scores or less than 2 O , it will be seen that none of them had a significant simple frame effect; and among the remainder with greater mean USD scores only 29 per cent had such an effect, findings similar to those * The present sample as a whole was found to be more field-independent than the college sample in Oltman's (15168) original description of the PRFT. However, Oltman's sample was never claimed to be in any sense a normative one, and subsequent studies employing the PRFT (e.g., Witkin et al 1974) have sometimes found wider inter-sample variations in levels of PRFT performance whose causes are not adequately understood. of Nyborg (1977a).…”

Psychological Factors Affecting Change in Women's Roles and Status: A Cross‐cultural Study*

“…A similar distinction has been made by Bakan (1966) who theorized that whereas a sense of self or agency constitutes the "male principle", a sense of selflessness or communion constitutes the "female principle". Parallel male and female principles have been advanced by other theorists, such as field independence vs field dependence (Witkin 1974), allocentric vs autocentric orientation (Gutman 1965) or outer vs inner space (Erikson 1 964). Women's allegedly greater expressiveness, combined with their lesser instrumentality, has also been linked to theories of sex-differences in achievement motivation and achievement behavior (e.g., Hoffman 1977).…”