THE EVOLUTION OF CIVILIZATION: A THEORETIC APPROACH TO THE DIFFUSION 0F INNOVATIONS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MODERNIZATION Thesis for'the Degree of Ph. D. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY NIELS GERARD ROLING 1970 l'HECv‘ LIBRARY Michigan State University This is to certify that the thesis entitled The Evolution of Civilization: A T eoretic Approach to the Diffusion of Innovations with Special Reference to Modernization. presented by Niels Gerard Rdling has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for PhD Communication degree in <3“ V—e , "' '9 Il-:-.. __-£--..-_ Date ill—E I 0-169 4v; _ 4H H“ L -‘_—h .._.__ ._. V4- Y Imome av v IIIJAG & SONS' INK BINDEIY INC. LIBRARY SINGERS ounce-nor Italic“ ' 0-- ‘io-‘o 'P-' In! I 0-.- ~'»~~--\ ‘9‘“ “a “Ap“‘ I“... "“'.“'I_e ‘ U a~=a "‘ “931791 .3 I- I Dv- ""329? D t .u.?:‘25::n‘ U. I (138::‘3 I . 'c C. "“233? “A O : 4 (m .N (I a CA‘ V: 'Cvs ~"e . ‘ " L94: ,:l ‘ 1 “NC". «5“ ~ Hal 6 h"? 1“ “d“: I “M "etEVN ‘«On '3] Q G 'Xtfl“ fir Q "‘ A w..-“ ABSTRACT THE EVOLUTION OF CIVILIZATION: A THEORETICAL APPROACH TO THE DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE To MODERNIZA‘I‘ION By Niels Gerard Rbling Emphasis on middle range analysis in diffusion research has led to many useful generalizations and little concern with consolidating them into a theoretical framework. The present thesis represents an effort to contribute to such a framework by developing assumptions and derived predictions. The resulting model is applied to phenomena, as observed especially by students of modernization. Library research thus provided the data. .Assume a controlling system consisting of (1) a criterion for wellebeing by which outcomes are evaluated and (2) a control mechanism which can make the environ- ment yield desired outcomes. Assume the control mech- anism to consist of a set of recipes (prescriptions for manipulating the environment). Consider a group of controlling systems. Assume its members have a similar criterion for well-being. Assume perfect vicarious eXperience of outcomes. Assume perfect communication of a. “ :tr.::'s, 8.. if? . - Dl‘ C 2. .99 luv-lo I q“ 'OQVET‘On "i‘ 25% 33:9 rant. ‘ VV‘I 1‘31“: “p A ..e r-nQ‘u 'U 3'”, .R ‘ Niels Gerard Roling recipes. The following can be predicted. 1. If one member uses a recipe allowing better fit between outcomes and criterion than recipes used by others, all will adopt the recipe. 2. Seeking coincidence of outcomes and common criterion will lead to equilibrium when all members use the same recipes. 3. The recipes will consist of those which allow best fit between outcomes and criterion. b. Two sets of recipes which allow differential fit between outcomes and criterion cannot co-exist with- in one group. 5. Members of two groups which come into contact will tend to use the same recipes. These predictions seemed to impose parsimonious pattern on crucial diffusion phenomena. Hence the assumptions were elaborated for better fit. Thus. controlling systems were assumed not to have an in- built criterion but to learn to aspire to Specific out- comes. However. they will learn to aspire to similar outcomes affecting physical well-being. Also assumed was that unsatisfied aspirations lead to their pacifica- tion by means other than adopting recipes, for instance, by construing external forces of control. The resulting model focuses on the dynamic relation- ship of changes in aspirations and changes in recipes .55: ”W c"n ooVocVV AA¥‘ "a“ 1 a- " “I I“will .. 'U‘V.. :bicwl 28‘ ‘ ay- . U ..“ HOV-a. ‘cul ““933 of tr: Niels Gerard Raling (and hence changes in outcomes or levels of living). The model allows conceptual linkage with evolution theory and systems theory. An effort was made to apply the model to reported phenomena, such as: (l) the increase in perceived eff- icacy during modernization; (2) the decrease in the use of external forces of control, such as gods, during modernization: (3) the diffusion of an innovation in a social system; (A) the similarity in recipes used by members of traditional societies; (5) social change resulting from contact between different social systems; «6) empathy and its role in modernization;y(7) changes in aspirations during modernization; (8) pacification in situations of relative deprivation; etc. The model seems useful for understanding such phenomena and heuristic in that it allows the identifica- tion of "blank areas" not "mapped" by previous research. Chapter 4 represents an effort to elaborate on the assumption of perfect communication of recipes by asking the question: When and why is such communication im- perfect? (A number of conditiOns were eXplored. the main being that a recipe must be perceived to lead to a desired outcome to diffuse autonomously] The change agent's function of creating such a link was stipulated and his communication of instructional and motivational information explored. :n- ' 'I 2 l M23"! uhunn. ¢ . l--.¢ v-q -o-c THE EVOLUTION OF CIVILIZATION: A THEORETIC.APPROACH TO THE DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MODERNIZATION By Niels Gerard Rbling A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Communication 1970 ““'“A‘ 0’ are . .“'“‘V' v..- . . ‘ No, A Lvszane .. e v 'Aab Cy, ‘ 9"" .U U ‘Oc.“_..“ ‘ ': vl :fiaz. do. to. . “Us- ‘ ~ 0-. ~30“. rigge‘ I‘D Hr. "'a33hor. . I 5‘4““ Q a ‘ .55 O. ‘P c iorufther n) ‘w a ‘5‘ {V ‘ ‘ ‘ t Lov‘ci.‘ 2F " G t‘ ' fi.‘ XV‘EII’Q ] \- .aifl‘k‘ ‘ I“ V»: pro; ‘ "V U‘. J.R EZVIA ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A thesis such as the present one is largely the product of one's struggle with views of the world given one by others. It is, of course. impossible to enumerate all who have contributed in this reSpect. Most influential for the present thesis were perhaps Dr. E.W. Hofstee, Dr. R.A.J. van Lier. Dr. D.K. Berlo, Dr. E.M. Rogers, Dr. F. Waisanen and Dr. J.R..Ascroft. I am grateful to them all for having enabled me to help in the exploration of an exciting field. I am grateful also to the members of my guidance committee. Dr. L.E. Sarbaugh, Dr. V.F. Farace, Dr. F. Waisanen and eSpecially its chairman. also my academic advisor. Dr. E.M. Rogers. They stimulated and encouraged the author. meanwhile zeroing in on the central short- comings of the thesis and thus helping to keep the road to further exploration Open. I want to eSpecially thank Dr. Rogers for his sustained faith and encouragement and for providing me with the opportunity to participate in an exciting research project and equally exciting graduate program. Dr. J.R. Ascroft served as an informal academic advisor. It was with him that I first explored the 11 twining CO. dh 5 act paymoes - ‘ ‘ ‘ I. :59 1'.S (3’ . -'v-56 ‘ a-v’ 8., . - .- r;.. n L 00“: Cg“ “ k intriguing concept of control. It was he who took many hot potatoes out of the fire for me by first venturing on the risky road of exploring "control" in his dissertation. His wife, Mrs. Irene Ascroft. painstaking- ly typed the final copy of the thesis. Thank you Irene. Then there are, of course, Kootje. Jorien and Arne, who put up with the thesis-writing zombie most of the time, that is, more often than could be reasonably asked. They contributed where it counts most. 111 "2”" ran: n ndmtbltd-_.l* .T. O? vyatvt: ‘0'. ' OUSCA- "~.C’~ . . . Hamill Y rt 10 “HI fi‘h‘ 20 Lc~€ '1 A a )0 C331, I I“ A“!\\ . J- v. C ,0 3&2 ‘ a 60 ;-3 7 “u. I. .“Q f" "‘ Tv-d- '. ‘o.' 7“ 9. 31‘...“ ‘ k '\ A- V'. by.- fi.“q‘o ~I‘“."IU BCTIC‘; 1 "kl O k~ \ 2 v 0 fr! _|\ "u fik‘n.:. _~ “A 1° 1: 2. 3r 3. C: II. is S. T). e. C: 7. '7‘“. Q ~. ‘1‘ y 9 . 0 :rr (,) o (7 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS LIST OF FIGURES OVERVIEW 1. Introduction 2. Objectives 3. Controlling systems h. Group of controlling systems 5. Man the controlling system 6. Group of man the controlling systems 7. Two groups of man the controlling system 8. Internal and external control 9. Applying model, assumptions and predic- tions to phenomena 10. Communication of recipes INTRODUCTION 1. Objectives 2. Problem statement CHAPTER 1 A DYNAMIC MODEL OF EVOLVING CIVILIZATION 1. 2. 3. u. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Introduction Properties of systems Controlling systems Regulation of non-human organisms The organization of matter/energy and man Civilization The human criteria for well-being Motivation A model for the evolution of civiliza- tion Conclusion iv Page ii vii HV OU‘C’UNNHH H I ‘*‘*u&‘ '~o'v 'pfifim inns...“ _h r“ Y. 9%... fix - vlhtv 7.5?qu V. ..v!a- .I II . J ‘ sLfik . Q ‘ ..x...V..~.V..:u. .. .. OOOOOOOOOOIACL on... .000 Inc 11.-» (a/C 7LC o7 nJli 3. 17a 35» (a (C 755 9A). “IL 13; a... A» (J Table of Contents (continued) CHAPTER 2 GENERALIZED EXPECTANCIES OF CONTROL 1. 2. 3 AI. 5. 7. 3 THE TENDENCY TOWARD ENTROPY AND CIVILIZATION 1. 10. 11. Introduction Internal control External control and absolute poverty The conditions which give rise to relative poverty Relative poverty and pacification Expectancies of control as independent forces Conclusion Introduction Entropy in less evolved civilizations Mainstreams in civilization The development of modern civilization Modernization Research on modernization Vicarious eXperience Standards for living Levels of living Standards and levels combined Conclusion A INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION 1. 2. 3. it. 5. Introduction Reality Information Communication Messages of instruction as a bottle- neck in modernization Messages which motivate Messages which instruct Channels Changes in internal network Conclusion 5 IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE REEARCH AND LIMITATIONS 1. 2. 3. Introduction Aspirations Empathy Page 100 102 IDA 109 112 116 12h 128 13h 138 138 1&0 1&3 lh8 152 157 161 167 172 179 183 183 183 185 five 0' "AV-0’ .5-. A VH0.»- ~ “PT-d . n O-.-. Q ‘1 . On.- 5 I‘d-.- Ohio-A. L“..- “".J ( ) CID—\J O\\.I\ l‘ I 0 it '11 'l (J .\ N . ca: '4 0 L; F .. V IF I. . . ‘a. v ' V ‘-. ‘5 R‘ -_ I A‘. .. A ‘ 4 .. 0 U\ A a Y J. L ‘.:.. Av. Table of Contents (continued) CHAPTER 5 IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH AND LIMITATIONS 4. Voluntary isolation 5. Poverty reality 7: a 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. Motivation to innovate Reference group change Link between desired outcomes and innovation Knowledge Instructive communication The control of aspirations Social movements Limitations of the present undertaking BIBLIOGRAPHY vi Page 186 187 189 190 192 19“ 196 198 200 203 205 \ \,A’ A, O (\J \d “V'WOQ ‘3‘-.- SIP. A "‘Q'O V“ 'E FAC- Mu- -.'° .n‘v ] ‘1‘ ‘L ’.l .b‘. A; 5" u"a U‘. . .V‘ ‘s. 5;; h V. CC ‘ LIST OF FIGURES Curve describing the upgrading of standards for living Curve describing the diffusion of a novel recipe in a social system The relationship between standards for living and levels of living during the modernization of the model inhab- itant of a developing country Diffusion of modern desires and recipes in the world-encompassing communication system Communication system changes in moderniza- tion vii Page 123 125 130 132 172 “ . one preS‘ O ‘ . 3. the thesis “:35!- 98319:- ties‘. , The ( ‘“:§F‘g§ l‘"~v.;.\,\‘ 1r 1 . 1"" . a. §....er.t "A‘ “V.‘ OVERVIEW 1. Introduction The present overview is given at the beginning of the thesis rather than at the end to allow the reader easier access to the material presented in the thesis. The overview looks at the basic formulations presented in the thesis from an angle which is slightly different from the one used in the main body of the text. It is hoped that the presentation of the main formula- tion from such slightly different perSpective allows easier access also. 2. Objective Diffusion research seems to have reached a stale- mate because the lack of a systematic view of the pro- cess as a whole prevents the development of the field and leads instead to repetition. The present essay is an attempt to develop a systematic theoretical framework for the diffusion process, with a view of opening up new areas for research. A t t aural .2; '.-I 5.23 t (2) 8 r 5:..ity to c2152: 533:9: cons‘ sts nicht is evald 33:9: 0022‘ ‘ r c ‘6... 23".“ .H “ralah‘ré re: 3. Controlling system Control implies (1) an outcome or actual state of being A, (2) a preferred state of being B and (3) the ability to change the state from A to B. A controlling system consists of (l) a criterion for well-being B with which.A is evaluated and (2) a control mechanism which can change A. Assume that the control mechanism of the system contains recipes which are prescriptions for manipulating relevant aSpects of the environment to change A to B. Assume that these recipes can be communicated. A. Group of controlling systems iNow consider a group of controlling systems and assume that its members have a similar criterion for well-being.1 The following predictions can be made: (1) If one member of the group has a recipe which allows better fit between A and the common B than the recipes used by other members. that recipe will be adopted by all members. (2) The wish to make A coincide with a B which is similar to all members will lead to a steady state in which all members use the same set of recipes. (3) This set will consist of those available recipes which allow best fit between A and the common B. (h) Over time two sets of recipes which allow different goodness- I O 3f..'.t bemee: grzxp of cont these to ;:::‘.se for a “fiagcs I 1.. UUV~ of-fit between A and B cannot coexist within the same group of controlling systems. These formulations form the core of the thesis. The assumption of the controlling system seems to hold promise for a better understanding of the diffusion process. 5. Man the controlling system The controlling system assumed must be enlarged to allow better fit with man. Man's criterion for well- being is assumed to consist of outcomes which have been recognized as closer to well-being than others so that they have become desired outcomes or aspirations. Aspirations are assumed to motivate man to act to satisfy the aspiration. The set of man's aspirations is called his standard for living (B). By using recipes, man elicits certain outcomes from his environment, his level of living (A). The following predictions can be made: (1) If the level of living coincides with the standard for living. man-the-controlling-system will reach a steady state or satisfaction. (2) If the level of living is higher than the standard for living, man will upgrade the standard by incorporating outcomes closer to well-being than those previously in the standard. (3) If the level of living is lower than the standard for living, man is 2::inted t 12' 3’1 '4 Tilda-$.02: ‘ d thl ' .vw.m:ion 1r “‘A“.' “ .IIV‘ “‘2‘ files L‘J o ‘3263 I'CD‘ " 7:18:10. “In; ".1“ *t \. Nine 0‘ .. ‘Ure ‘ . all 2‘ 515'; “5311 9 , ‘0‘ Lists ”b motivated to upgrade the level for living by applying recipes. (b) If such recipes cannot be applied, man resigns to the difference between the level of living and the standard for living by pacifying motivation by means other than the application of recipes. (5) If pacification is used, application of recipes to reduce motivation in the normal manner will occur when opportunities to do so are perceived available. 6. Group of man-the-controlling-systems Now consider a group of man-the-controlling-systems. Assume that each can experience the outcomes of others as if they were his own. Assume that each will recognize similar outcomes as closer to physical well-being than others, because all man-the-controlling-systems have the same body. Assume perfect communication of recipes. The following predictions can be made: (1) If man vicariously experiences a level of living higher than his standard for living. he will upgrade his standard to in- clude the outcomes vicariously experienced. (2) There- fore, all members of the group will share in common the standard for living of those who upgraded their level most. (3) If a member of the group has a level of living which is lower than the common standard. he will be motivated to adapt the recipes used by those who upgraded 3.51: level mOS’ ‘6" '1t beams: 13:: till diffu. tiz'r. allows he " 3159‘ a *‘r- ‘1“‘*“ cv t... arm-I 3-. .enC 9:1 ty 5 ”'31?” 6:13: t6 a. ‘ . fl '1 .b.. M .v’ I. "‘6 9WD ca 1, the a ‘ . “ .. on. go‘p' S ‘le‘ gq‘fi‘g to c01nc at; Amy his let; «a va rectpes. M" ‘. 3:731“ - "“yo 7. TWO : \w “or Co“Si 57ts° “vd‘q W ASS'I J In“ “u." a I Rink?» 1 \“’l \I‘rg ‘ their level most. (A) Therefore, the recipes which allow best fit between the level of living and the common stan- dard will diffuse through the group until a steady state is reached in which all members use the same set of recipes. (5) If a new recipe is introduced into a group which allows better fit between standard and level, it will diffuse through the group until all members have adopted it. (6) If desired outcomes are sometimes eXperienced by some members of the group. while no recipes exist to elicit these outcomes, those who do not eXperience the outcomes will pacify their motivation by means other than the application of recipes. This situa- tion will be called absolute poverty. (7) If a member of the group cannot apply some of the recipes available in the group. so that he cannot upgrade his level of living to coincide with the common standard. he will pacify his motivation by means other than the application of recipes. This situation will be called relative poverty. 7. Two groups of man-the-controlling-systems Now consider two groups of man-the-controlling- systems. Assume that the groups have sets of recipes which differ in the extent to which they allow levels of living to approximate physical well-being. Assume the two groups come into contact. The follow :e:':ers of the I riseriously exp 1:2; Iith the ‘. “Iris for livir. :luie the outca 3? both groups 11153- (3} ”Ir 157515 of 11.71! ‘cnl . "'¢ ' l. . :63 .sec. t 5’ I ‘0 ‘ Virg. (g C V Rhia- ,_ + cal V0 bees“: u"\ I“ ?‘H‘ .11 en‘s Set ‘ 3., HM ,. D. h Call in: ag‘ U. “at . av.‘?es a c A0 I» ‘ .. , \_‘i ‘ ‘ \ b 'VlQ b“ “Ce The following predictions can be made: (1) The members of the group with the lower levels of living will vicariously experience the outcomes of the members of the group with the higher levels of living, so that the stan- dards for living of the former will be upgraded to in- clude the outcomes of the latter. (2) Therefore, members of both groups will tend to have a similar standard for living. (3) The members of the group with the lower levels of living will try to upgrade them by adopting the recipes used by those in the group with the higher levels of living. (4) Therefore. members in both groups will tend to become similar in the set of recipes they use. (5) This set will include those recipes which allow best fit between the common standard for living and the level or 11v1n80 8. Internal and external control Call internal control the situation in which man perceives a causal relationship between his application of recipes and his outcomes. Internal control is gen- eralized to the future when the causal relationships are repeatedly experienced. Such generalized expectancies of internal control can range from powerlessness. in which little internal control is generalized to the fu- ture so that apathy results. to arrogance in which very :‘xi'. r.terral c Cell exter five; D'OU‘ '1 I0 (I) '.D (3 D .0. “mag: nub-:1 «:3 .4..... V"_~“ o ‘ ‘ ~ ‘ :3; IS 59:29-8 . ‘s u a ' , 5.. 3:398 tar-1", U'v‘ 3"“ “ Mr. uvo'v go a-.. p.” I 2“ A .‘ . Q ‘ s.‘ "‘ asyl‘ c 3 £5 a.” “as * - a -53. neafi g Y l“.€ & A ‘L‘ I 9. ‘1‘ K»: '5‘ vane ~ “‘. “O U‘ u “33“‘ high internal control is perceived in the future so that activism results. Call external control the situation in which man perceives a causal relationship between the activity of forces outside himself and his outcomes. External con- trol is generalized to the future when the relationships are repeatedly perceived. ‘External control perceptions serve to pacify motivation by means other than the application of recipes. The following predictions can be made: (1) The amount of internal control perceived increases as levels of living approach physical well-being and absolute pov- erty decreases. (2) The amount of internal control per- ceived increases as levels of living approach standards for living and relative poverty decreases. (3) The amount of external control perceived decreases as levels of liv- ing approach physical well-being and absolute poverty decreases. (h) The amount of external control perceived decreases as levels of living approach standards for living and relative poverty decreases. 9. Applying model. assumptions and predictions to phenomena The model of man-the controlling-system and the set of assumptions and predictions made. seem to make up a ed to ’w-ew .c. o"-"' $ 1 -.. e vi. 5 ed Auk. be e I o t. r a. a; r. If. r. E I n 3 E S a e S 1 an .1 .1 1 a 5 a we... a: O .Q 3 a . l 3 Z a. n. u. I e u. a 1 . . \ C a a I. a. a. a. a. h“ 3 0 O S l O we a a 1 Q h. u a“ 3. .PH 7- .. I 5 To 0.. 1 a. \ O 2 A.» $ \P he : h. it Q. w. . .... I .u «a a. a. 0 {a v r 6 \. pfiw O a. a t . a. C a. O . x u. .. I a. a... If. at n. t. r. a; .3. . .... .. . .4 w: a . an. an r... d u .a... aw . an 2. A. 6". u.“ .0. M.“ .3. ‘K s , 0. IN”. E I“ Q “s a (VN ‘hh ‘hb An‘ ‘ i. h. L. .H ..\ .h‘w framework for accounting parsimoniously for phenomena related to diffusion and modernization.* In Chapter 2 and 3 of the thesis, an effort is made to test some aSpects of the theoretical framework on their goodness of fit with aspects of the diffusion and modernization processes on which pattern has been imposed by others. "Evidence" used in this thesis thus consists of expert opinion and interpretation of empirical research by others. The method of evidence collection was bas- ically “library research". The result of the effort to apply the theoretic framework is considered both preliminary and suggestive by its author. The following remarks can. however. be made to illustrate the possible applicability and fertil- ity of linkage of the theoretic framework. 1. A strong simile exists between the evolution of Species and the development of the set of recipes. used in human societies, along a continuum which allows more control and more physical well-being. 2. The tendency for all members of a social system to use the same set of recipes invites comparison with *The assumption of man-the-controlling-system seems an improvement over "economic man" who is axiomatic to the predictions of economic models. This connection with economic theory as well as such similar constructs as "demonstration effect" and "vicarious experience of higher levels of living" may allow a better integration between diffusion and economic theory (see Rbling. 1966). the tendency t systems. :siem nan see :eztrol is pe: speech pings: II. ' 19\' ‘IF‘ . $38!“. cons: fruitful in t 10 lose their Ellen closer 5- Lock 312:3 °f rele D.‘ ‘l. “.61er C“ ‘ «L. “we ‘uefil‘y 180131 “e: ‘ e rela it I“! Vue rela‘ «I v‘ 1n+ the tendency toward entropy which characterizes closed systems. 3. {Empirical work on the psychological make-up of modern man seems to support the prediction that internal control is perceived to increase as levels of living approach physical well-being: h. Viewing religion and magic as pacification through construing forces of external control seems fruitful in that such external control perceptions seem to lose their function as the set of recipes develops to allow closer approximation to physical well-being. 5. Looking for methods of pacification in situa- tions of relative poverty allowed the identification of voluntary curtailment of the reference group and vol- untary isolation from outcomes of those not in the ref- erence group as pacifiers. tEvidence for powerless in extreme relative poverty seems availablet EXploration of the relationships between relative poverty. the amount of internal control perceived. voluntary curtailment of the reference group. empathy. voluntary isolation and class-formation seems necessary to qualify the important assumption of perfect vicarious experience made in the theoretic framework. 6. Expert opinion on the role of empathy in modernization seems to agree with the role of vicarious experience assumed in the theoretical framework. 7o EIPCTI\ Tr: the predie mied to into: is physical we: at There {iffusion resee. {Ant 'Vvoal SYSteE. . 57.»..- ""‘t 0V8? tize "Ha ‘ -...5 SEI is tub-e ‘qu‘ 3...I5‘c&l envir: A5 3 res: {av-b u... ‘ .V uuvstantiat‘“ A.“ .4.» scect Con‘. a. 3‘qu ‘ Renter QEVBW ”a :19 n1 a.‘y 51-.“ “PA a‘. “ 3'" a n ._ .gt a I‘ ~ to Evai ate 1 10 7. IExpert opinion and some evidence seem to sup- port the prediction that standards for living are up- graded to incorporate outcomes experienced as closest to physical well-being; '8. There is evidence from anthropologists, and diffusion research for the prediction that members of a social system. or of two social systems in contact. tend, over time, to use the same set of recipes and that this set is the one which allows most control over the physical environment.)I As a result of such and other "support". the pre— sent author feels that the framework developed so far is useful and that its further develOpment could have high payoff. Further development will have to concentrate on substantiating the predictions and/or assumptions made. Two assumptions, perfect vicarious eXperience and perfect communication,* seem of crucial importance in further developing the framework. Both assumptions are clearly simplifications, while it is the imperfection of both. vicarious experience and communication, which seems a bottleneck in the normal process by which standards for and levels of living are upgraded. *An assumption not stated in this summary refers to perfect availability of matter/energy to organize accord- ing to some recipe. This assumption seems to refer to the realm of scarcity and hence of economics. Sore re. tin of per? :3 recipes 1 hay. ”'«HTOI me D .. .3“;- ‘ cue Mac 5' E.\‘. I -301. Age a ell .5“ "#5:: we“ 1 ‘ AA..- ‘n. v‘. 11 [Some remarks have already been made about the assump- tion of perfect vicarious experience. The communication of recipes is further scrutinized in Chapter 4. 10. Communication of recipes To talk meaningfully about communication. we must come back to the control mechanism of man-the-controlling- system because the communication of recipes changes this control mechanism. We call the control mechanism reality.’ Reality is a representation of the environment. a system of elements and their relationships. which stand for events in the environment. These elements and their relationships (1) have value or significance for well- being otherwise they would not be in the reality. (2) they are attributed with a probability of occurrence in the environment and (3) they are attributed with a cue which activates them when the event takes place for which the one was recognized. The cue can be a sign or a symbol. EI'he function of reality is to allow correspondence between intended and actual outcomes (i.e.. existence) because it contains intentions and recipes,f The adequacy of reality depends on the degree to which it allows intended, or at leaSt predicted. outcomes to be exper- ienced. Adequacy is thus a function of (l) intentions mi (2) reel] ten the envln . ._ “3 ‘E‘M '“I‘Dora . tie ‘ts \ 12 and (2) recipes. A reality can become inadequate when the environment changes, either because intentions change so that previous recipes become irrelevant, or because recipes become useless, even if intentions remain unchanged. We are concerned with the former case. A reality can become adequate again by the reception of new recipes. Diffusion of recipes is thus based on reality change. Information is experience which leads to reality change by increasing or decreasing its adequacy, i.e.. by affecting the goodness of fit between reality and exper- ience. In view of the theoretic framework develOped earlier, the following types of information can be distinguished. (1) Feedback is the information about the change in the environment which occurs as a result of action on the basis of a recipe. Feedback thus allows man to evaluate the adequacy of his reality. (2) Environmental information increases the number of options perceived available in the environment. It allows recognition of previously unknown outcomes as closer to well-being than others and hence the creation of new aspirations. (3)Ilnstruction is information which leads to the incorporation of new recipes in the reality to improve its adequacy. Recipes, or minimally patterns imposed on the environment fare, orly be i :cleoatlon. ::::o:es. Of these 1 the last two, 302212195 :13: I1) pa:- 13153338 3 SE '0: 5° 88 to h8?e ...E.’.ge 01‘ int. A) we are H “0’1 of rec“: ease“ Were 1' Kan .‘e~« 3“ 11y: ‘ng 08v 353‘ ‘ .963 which .228 p . IDErIEV $311“: 13 the environment, are creations of reality and can, there- fore, only be incorporated in the reality by invention or communicationzz (A) Motivational information links recipes with outcomes. Of these four types, we are especially interested in the last two, because they allow increasing adequacy. Communication implies the following minimal condi- tions: (1) parties, who have some communality of reality and share a set of cues for evoking reality, send (2) messages, which are packages of matter/energy organized so as to have cuing and informative ability. through (3) channels for sending packages of matter/energy and link- ing the parties, with (h) effect, which is the reality change or information received by the parties as a result of receiving messages. we are now in a position to Speak about the communica- tion of recipes. The question guiding us is: Why is the communication of recipes imperfect? A few possible reasons were explored in the thesis. 1. {Man can be expected to make efforts to apply the >//’ recipes of those who upgraded their level most.7 Levels of living cannot be thought of in isolation from the y” recipes which allow them to be elicited. Thus the vicar- ious experience of the outcome leads to the virulent /‘ desire to apply the recipe. Thus recipes which are dearly and d1: iiffuse auto”: 3251' 3005‘s ' .': ' I ‘ ‘ “team! an: I 3221'. 033303-93 C 2: ‘ ‘ “:38 tr‘e’ “ I ¢¢“ axe" _ ...s, advert? szzh recipes: IM- *. nos-rod .vganV‘ . r the Ea'“ «I. is give motive tzeoretlcal I": H runs for other a]: =..er thezs e11 ESpeot: 14 clearly and directly linked to desired outcomes will diffuse autonomously, as is the case with so many con- sumer goods.‘ IHowever, recipes which are newly introduced are not directly and clearly linked to desired outcomes because such outcomes cannot be vicariously eXperienced anywhere} Hence they will not diffuse autonomously so that change agents, advertisers or salesmen must be hired to promote such recipes. ilt is with such recipes that diffusion of innovations research, in the restricted sense, is con- cerned.7 [The main Job of change agents, advertisers, etc., is to give motivational informationaf This deduction from our theoretical formulations seems to have important implica— tions for change agent strategy. IMany change agents con- sider themselves instructors only. In the thesis a num- ber of aSpects of motivational messages will be discussed. IIn a sense, motivational information is an altern- ative to instructionzz Instruction implies the acceptance of the diagnosis of an unwanted situation, so that the recipe is accepted as a method to change the unwanted situation. [However, getting a diagnosis accepted implies a certain commonality of reality between change agent and clienttj Such commonality may not exist, eSpecially in reality premises, the unSpoken assumptions on which reality is constructed. In the thesis a number of reality raises based 1:30! rodent: rill be made tizrsl effort " :1221 1:30:38” the need to :36“ :.‘.s:ts utters :18 Social 5'; 2:8 outcomes 1 1:5 lould Elbe LS does not 15 premises based on experience before the great discontinu- ity of modernization will be discussed, and an effort will be made to show how such premises may hamper instruc- tional effort by the change agent. .Therefore, motiva- tional information is stressed. It seems to shortcut the need to get a diagnosis accepted because it makes clients understand that a new recipe really works, regard- less of the reasons why.7 2. Once the change agent has convinced a few clients in a social system that a recipe really works, so that the outcomes it allows can be vicariously eXperienced, one would expect the recipe to diffuse automatically. This does not always happen. To impose some pattern on the process of diffusion within a social system, we look upon the social system as a communication system. i.e.. as a network of channels connecting nodes with certain communication functions and ask: What happens to such a system as it becomes more Open to inputs of information from outside the system? For a recipe introduced from outside the system to dif- fuse, a number of network nodes must acquire the following functions: 21) they must receive external information, “’ (2) they must pass it on to others. Nodes which perform both functions are called development elite. It seems that sometimes a development elite fails to emerge be- cause the nodes who perform each function do not overlap. Possible reasons for this are explored. This 8559 I. :QQA““ ' “'""!"LS rzen. ”VI-“JIM- at ov.....“' V‘On 1.335, as an a .6 ‘ "E‘s ll'l fact ‘15. BC“; search pre'e U .A“ ‘ “adorated t Era . , E'es' 176 :ut this 35 ‘ “his t... 1L? ‘ CM: I "aSea I12? I INTRODUCTION 1. Objectives This essay grew out of dissatisfaction with the accomplishments of research on the phenomenon of modernization in general. and the diffusion of innova- tions, as an aspect of modernization. in particular. These accomplishments are quite substantial--so substan- tial, in fact, that the results of a million dollar research project on the diffusion of innovations recent- ly completed in three developing countries largely corroborated the main generalizations of the classic work (Rogers, 1962) on the subject of diffusion. But this corroboration also points to the source of dissatisfaction. TWe seem to be playing the same record over and over again. while our results have so far not allowed us to greatly affect the modernization process in desired waysi’féaining such control over the moderniza- tion process seems, meanwhile, to be the most important objective of the research endeavor.3 In short, we seem to be asking the same questions over and over without gain- ing increased payoff for our efforts. In the present essay, an attempt is therefore made tg_do_something about 16 oi 8+ +‘fi‘ ._',.5 5.939..-. W allows ask in: M The main Luvs 0‘ ‘2 ‘ I RA '«C‘J‘s \«Q ‘.i; \. I‘IIZa u“ t}: I: "E 17 this situation, by;creating a theoretical framework which allows asking;a new se§_ofgquestions. The main bottleneck in the development of an ade- quate body of knowledge about modernization is. in our opinion, the inadequacy of our theory. According to Rogers with Svenning (1969. p. 67), a theory is a "postulated relationship between two or more concepts, which are defined as dimensions stated in their most basic terms."‘ The existing body of knowledge about modernization consists of such "postulated relationships between two or more concepts." In developing them, we have tended to limit ourselves to relationships which are closely linked to the empirical results of correlational analyses, so that the theories never go beyond what our limited statistical tools allow us to say. Our so called theoretic reationale consists of sketchy reasoning. based on small pieces of information. Under such conditions, each hypo- thesis requires Specific empirical support before we can have any confidence in it. The lack of theory leads to the use of the name 'correlational science' for what most of us are about (Berlo, 1967, p. 10). As a result we have long shopping lists of attri- butes of people, villages and societies which we know change in relation to each other during the process of modernization while we are still virtually unable to say how the process works. The situation can be likened to the understanding :"zr ‘. Dal MI. "it 'N. 'I.‘: t .r , . le I h. I.” i‘ §e O 3 5C ‘4. :r- v.J 18 of the working of a combustion engine. One can postu- late many relationships between aSpects of the engine, such as "the amount of fuel consumed is positively re— lated to the number of revolutions per minute." However. even a large number of such perceived relationships does not lead to complete understanding of the process by which the engine operates because the different relationships have not been combined into a logical story, a cognitive pattern imposed on the engine, which allows us to under- stand the process of its operation. Our statement that the main bottleneck in the develop- ment of the body of knowledge about modernization is the inadequacy of our theory therefore does not refer to theory in the sense of a "postulated relationship between two or more concepts," but to the somewhat broader mean- ing of theogy as "a set of interrelated constructs (con- cepts), definitions and propositions that presents a systematic view* of phenomena by Specifying relations among variables, with the purpose of explaining and pre- dicting the phenomena" (Kerlinger, 1966, p. 11). Theory in this sense includes not only the relationships between two or more variable attributesl_but also i§_a logical stogy in which the observed relationships are related to form a "systematic view" of a process. *Emphasis added. ‘ I :w. : tuv no: ,-.‘- a u'vu . :,. ~‘bu' "kw ."'..u “'l ‘Afi. “Jr: . . l .- ~ . u A q 'H .5”: ' I I R ._ n a. ’Q: r-' I .f t I I; on 0‘ ( I~ \ ’ L L l 0 v‘ o ’ t t '9 7.- H / H 1 I 19 It is with this broader meaning for theory as a systematic representation of a process as a whole that the inadequacy of our theory of modernization is a bottle- neck in the development in our field of interest. In fact, we do not seem to have a "systematic view" of the modernization process while little attempt is made to arrive at one. Since all research. however exploratory, must start with questions and since questions must always derive from a logical story, a reality or systematic representation of the phenomena of study in our mind, the lack of a systematic view of modernization leads, in our opinion, to repetition and stunted development in our science, while new vigor can only come from new questions and hence from the development of a systematic view of modernization. In this essay, an attempt has,_ther§fore,_been made to developia theory of modernization in whichla systemat- ic understanding of the whole process_has been emphasized, because such an;gttempt_ls4§een;as having a high 22333- tial for academic and, eventually, practical_payoff in the present stage:gf_develgpm§nt of our scienqg. In the present stage of development of our science, many lower generalizations about the modernization pro- cess have been coined and confirmed by other researchers. The theory building attempted in this essay can. there- fore, differ somewhat from similar attempts by the "grand a l ...A‘ en‘ié A ; "I, “A... I v \"" can. i- .0 z 3-. 4...-.. . :‘EV‘I - '.§.,y ‘ Q .a n . " HE C “A M'- .' UV.-. :o"... 'O. " . uh he I; I; A I ‘b ‘ Ftile I I i? I t a.‘n'¢ I O a‘ 20 theorists” who could only evaluate their theories by drawing on the rules of logic or individual incidents. Such evaluation resulted in the fact that many such attempts could not withstand the onslaught of more sub- stantial feedback. In this essay we are in a position to make an effort to draw on the host of existing generalizations which can be confidently made about modernization. In fact. the effort made can be called integrative. in that it endeavors to fit together parts to arrive at a more parsimonious explanation of the modernization process as a whole. and thereby of the relative roles of the individ- ual parts studies thus far. However. the effort made would defeat its purpose if it did not go beyond existing knowledge. To be worth- while, it has to open new areas and raise new questions. An integrative effort allows the raising of new questions, if alone because the systematic view one thus develops tends to highlight the blanks to be filled in. as well as the misunderstandings resulting from limited perSpectives. In summary. the lack of a systematic theoretical framework for the process of modernization is seen as the bottleneck in the develOpment of the body of knowledge about modernization because it is only the development of a systematic view which can lead to new questions. The objective of this essay is to contribute towards developing 21 Such a systematic view in which lower order generaliza- tions developed thus far by others can be integrated. lit; is hoped that a more systematic view will highlight YDJLanks and misunderstandings in our knowledge of modernizat ion. 2. Problem statement A confirmed theory is a prerequisite for solving 'problems because it allows identification of crucial aspects in the environment which can be profitably mani- pulated to change a state of the environment which causes the problem. If one's car stalls in the morning. one may test the battery. kick susceptible parts and perform other purposeful behaviors which are suggested by one's theory of how a car operates. Since I have set about, in this essay, to develop theory and since theory is a pre- requisite for solving problems, the implication is that I have a problem which I wish to solve. Being of modern vintage, I believe that a paradise <3n earth can be created by man's own effort. ;I am, 1:herefore. interested in the optimization of man's well- Iaeing during his lifetime and especially in the recipes Innanruses for interacting with his environment so that it 29'ields outcomes which are experienced as well-being.} If a paradise is to be created, it must be through the H -|-.\J {A I: ' “.5 *6 "C 31" u“- VOA (In “‘5 22 development and use of such recipes, that is, through 131113 development and use of man-made rules for acting upon the environment to change its present state to one which 1 8 preferred . * The interest in creating an earthly paradise through the application of man-made recipes is served by several tipproaches. {fine such approach is the creation of recipes through research and experimentation. An example is the research and experimentation which led to the new wheat and rice varieties which have changed areas where mass starvation was common to food exporting areas. *The recipe. which prescribes how certain aSpects of the environment are to be manipulated to yield preferred environmental states, must be based on theory, i.e., on a representation of the environment which identifies rele- vant aspects in the environment and their relationships. fi'he payoff of good theory is good recipesJ The concept of recipes differs from that of innovation, defined by Rogers (1962, p. 13) as an idea perceived as new by the individual.g;1n the first place. a recipe does not have to be novel. in that it refers to any set of rules which were used to elicit preferred states of being from the environment.] In this sense, recipe refers to more pheno- lnena than does innovation. However, apart from the novelty aspect. recipe is seen by this author as more Especific than innovation in that it refers to the subset <>f ideas which have to do with manipulating the environ- Inent. I have chosen the term recipe over means, a con- <3ept used by Merton (1957. p. 133) to indicate possible Duodes of reaching culturally defined goalsg Merton (1957) Vmas especially interested in acceptable. institutionally Iarescribed means for reaching goals in his effort to (areate a typology of deviant behavior. In using "recipe" 3E stress my concern with the cognitive, ideational aSpect <>f means and my lack of interest in physical resources asLnd their distribution among members of a social system. 23 Another approach is that of economics, which studies 131163 implications of the choices man makes in seeking ‘V6511-being. given his ends and given scarce means which llexve alternative uses (Robbins, 1946. p. 43). The theo- lfies developed by economics serve to enhance the success <>f efforts at manipulating the economy so that it yields tauch outcomes as increased levels of living for the rarticipants in the economy. 19ne's level of living is a w#( nmasure of the types and number of recipes one can apply. be it hot running water, a car. etc.] Thus economics is also concerned with Optimizing well-being through the use of recipes, be it that it assumes as given a set of such recipes in a social system and mainly concerns itself with the distribution of the use of the available recipes. We spall take stil;_another approach topphepcreation of an earthly paradise through the application of man- made recipgsp. This approach does not assump as given a gust of recipes in a social system. Instead,pit makes the £221§9E;9f study the development of such a set of the Qii: ggggion of new_pecipg§_wiphin and between social systems. ltnd, having seen children die because people lacked the ltnowledge of recipes which I knew to be available else- ivhere. I think I am concerned with an important cause of ‘Vrariation in human well-being. Given my general concern I wonder how people, who szave lived well-adjusted lives for centuries with a set "is, "any. p h .5 ‘1’ '76 N: c twine: ‘.A 24 c>1? recipes which we now perceive as inefficient, can be- come mobilized into frenetic activity upon contact with EL social system with a more efficient set of recipes. Clcanversely. I wonder how such people have been able to '141ve well-adjusted lives before. _Iaalso wonder why the People of the richest nation of them all, my current host, tire perhaps more concerned with the good life than any other people and feel more deprived if they do not have it. even though their well-being may still be regarded as greater than that of more content people elsewhere: My viewpoint allows me to perceive powerful forces which are kept at bay or unleashed, depending upon changes in the set of recipes for interacting with the environment and the diffusion of such recipes within or between soci- eties. And I wonder about these powerful forces and their effect on society. I believe that these forces are a fruitful area for investigation. Understanding them may 'well lead to the development of recipes for controlling 'them, thereby yielding powerful tools for those concerned with improving well-being. [pne can call the set of recipes which has developed (Iver time in a social system the civilization* of the ssocial system.) The theory which shall be developed in ¥ LThis definition of civilization is inspired by JNIacIver and Page (1957, p. 500) who refer to civilization :aLs the utilitarian, the means used to reach cultural 80318 03 ' 25 1:11 is essay is thus concerned with civilization. £232 SEecificallz. we shwet _a_boup to construe a reality“ (>1? civilization which explains the dimension alpng which 13b chapges. the forces which make it change and_the naechanips of its change: the communication p: recipes. {7: will endeavor to develop the reality of civilization in such a way that it does not contradict historical pheno- mena. but rather incorporates them.‘ A reality which does not ". . . increase the correspondence between what man perceives in his environment and what that environment turns out to be when he acts within it to eXperience some intended consequence . . ." (Cantril, 1965. p. 11) is inadequate. Jn summary, the reality we propose to develop will deal with civilization which is the set of recipes for interacting with the environment so that it yields out- comes which are eXperienced as well-being. We will try *Cantril (1965. p. 11) uses the notion of "reality 'world," which can be defined as the "pattern of assump- tions which increase the correspondence between what man jperceives in his environment and what this environment 'turns out to be when he acts,within it to experience some intended consequencesg}. ' I borrowed his notion but call it "reality.'' It is a concept that is central to 'this essay. while it is difficult to develop some mean- iing for it from a definition. It took me a year to do ‘that, largely as a result of listening to the lectures <3f Doctor Berlo on the subject of reality. For the Inoment. let me leave the reader with the statement that :reality can be reified because it is the subjective property of its bearer. which can. at most. be shared £33 a result of communication or similar eXperience. to G' ,V v! .;., ‘1 '4: avaod 26 to explain change in civilization in terms of the dimen- 8 ion along which change takes place. the forces which make for change and the mechanics of change. An effort Will be made to optimize chances that acting upon the reality will reinforce our confidence in it.’ A» -‘11. , "I -0‘a-c-n . I .' ‘, ‘§A Use r o :.“"“ fi‘wl .1“... V.‘ Chapter 1 A DYNAMIC MODEL OF EVOLVING CIVILIZATION 1. Introduction In the present chapter I shall develop the model of evolving civilization which is the core of this disserta- tion. As such. the present chapter will be used to develop and define concepts. to further prepare the ground for the model, and to describe the model itself. In developing the model. I shall use a systems approach. That is. I shall apply to the phenomenon of civilization, "a set of related definitions, assumptions and propositions which deal with [phenomena] as an inte- grated hierarchy of organizations of matter/energy"* (Miller, l965.a). By calling a phenomenon a system, one can make certain observations about the phenomenon be- cause a system has certain properties, which shall be described in the next section. The systems approach is useful, therefore, in the same way as the normal distribu- tion is useful. *"Matter is anything which has mass (m) and occupies space. Energy (E) is defined in physics as the ability to work" (Miller, 1965. a). "Given Mr. Einstein's expression of the relationship between matter and energy (E=mc2), we can use the two terms interchangeably and simply speak about matter/energy . . ." (Berlo. 1969) 27 :h"“‘= “u. as) QAAB- J +1 ‘- ‘mrb -C-‘~.‘ interior ‘ 5‘ hfi‘WfiOF ‘ v- :‘y‘VA-‘g. systez a balsa: | b ".. tea. 2‘ b L S. :8 x c C," .\ u. A arr a, I b. 33“): 19:? ‘fl -‘ a a ”’1 up E1“ RHCN {“ 28 2. PrOperties of systems A system. as defined by Schramm (1963, p. 30) is a Boundary maintaining set of interdependent particles. The key words are boundary and interdependent. By interdependent we mean a relationship of parts, in which anything happening to one of the components of the system affects, no matter how slightly, the balance and relationships of the whole sys- tem. By boundary maintaining we mean a state in which the components are so related that it is possible to tell where the sys- tem ends and where the environment begins. Any phenomenon can be called a system. in that the identification of the system's boundaries is an arbitrary act of the observer. By looking at an event as if it were a system, one merely hopes to gain certain advan- tages in explanation and prediction, because systems have certain properties. I am largely concerned with man and groups of men and will regard both phenomena as systems. .A system is closed when its boundaries are imperm- eable and. therefore, do not permit the exchange of matter/energy (or the information* carried by matter/ *Information is defined as a measure of the organiza- tion of matter7energy. i.e.. the negative of its entropy (Brillouin. 1968. p. 154). This meaning for information allows one to say that bread has information. "The living organism can only keep alive . . . by continually drawing from its environment negative entropy" (Schrcdinger. 1968. p. 14#) (We shall define entropy later). However, the social scientist runs into difficulties with the above definition of information, since man has no way of knowing about the organization of matter/energy except through imposing pattern on that matter/energy (Berlo. 1969), or as we would say, except through develop- ing a reality of that matter/energy. In this sense, information does not exist until someone has imposed patt- ern. We shall come back to information in greater detail later. lo. "- u" i. O': 'u- “I. . ‘Q. 29 energy) between the system and its environment. No phenomenon has completely impermeable boundaries. How- ever, a system's boundaries can be impermeable to certain specific matter/energy exchanges. A system is 2232 when it has "boundaries which are, at least, partially permeable, permitting sizeable chunks of matter/energy or information transmissions to cross them" (Miller. l965,a). No system has completely perm- eable boundaries, because that implies absence of boun- daries. while a system has a boundary by definition. Therefore, every system is partly closed and partly open, while closedness or openness depends on the type of matter/energy exchange one has in mind. Within any system, forces are at work which tend to bring the system in a steady state or equilibrium.* The extent to which a system is open or closed determines *A system can be described by certain critical var- iables. The relationship between these variables defines the behavior of the system. One can express the relation- ship by an equation. The behavior of the system is completely described by the equation. An example is the so-called perfect gas, for which PV=RT. where P=pressure, V volume and T temperature. R is a constant. If we im- pose a certain value on two out of the three variables P. V. or T. the third will adjust to satisfy the equation. The equation. therefore, describes the steady state or equilibrium (Rapoport. 1968a, p. xviii).- For most sys- tems, the equation describing the steady state has not been created. A steady_state is a state of a system in which the composition of the system remains constant (von Bertalanffy, 1968, p. 18). The steady state can be a dynamic equilibrium (open system) or a static equilibrium (closed system). 0" ‘w‘ I“ "' U 0 pi r A ...'C EX» 9 mm- Au - y‘ae - :‘JF‘G ‘.VuV" man- I :4 .I";‘ " ich.‘ u 'G‘ aw 6‘ lb- ‘1‘»- av. 30 the type of steady state the system will finally assume. The exchange of matter/energy with its environment allows an open system to reach a steady state in which diff- erence between system elements are maintained. A closed system cannot maintain difference between system elements so that a steady state will only be reached when all sys- tem elements are the same. As the Second Law of Thermodynamics states: "Entropy in a closed system will always increase toward a maximum, attained in equilibrium" (Rapoport, 1968a, p. xviii). Entropy is a measure of the degree of sameness between system elements and is, therefore, an indicator of dis- order, disintegration, or disorganization in the system.* *Entropy is a difficult concept. It has been called a "chaotic state," an "inert state" (Schrodinger, 1968, p. 1&5), a "state in which no observable events occur" (Schrcdinger. 1968, p. 1&4). "roughly a measure of dis- order" (Rapoport, 1968a, p. xviii). or of "disorganiza- tion" (Wiener. 1968, p. 33). A more precise definition of entropy results from the statistical interpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: "The natural tendency of entropy to increase is interpreted now as correspond- ing to the evolution from improbable to the most probable structures." Entropy thus becomes "a physical substitute for probability" and "acquires a precise mathematical definition as the logarithm of probability" (Brillioun. 1968, p. 150). However, to regard the trend towards equilibrium as the "predominance of the occurrence of the more probable states over the less probable" (Rapoport, 1968b. p. 138) does not tell me much, since I do not know what the most probable state of the system is. Therefore, the statistical interpretation makes the concept of en- tropy less adequate, because it no longer predicts what happens across a wide variety of systems. In this res- pect, the notion of chaos was more powerful. But then, chaos is a vague term. which does not help in finding adequate measurements. I believe. therefore. that Wiener 31 Only when parts of the system differ in some reSpect, can one speak of interdependence and organization. An example of a closed system is the battery-driven toy car. It is closed in terms of inputs of electrical energy. Therefore, the system cannot maintain the diff- erence in electrical potential between its parts. As it works, the difference in electrical potential becomes smaller. until all elements are the same. Entropy has then been reached and the car stops its movement. *(continued from last page) (1954, p. 12) spoke the magic words when he said: "As entropy increases . . . all closed systems . . . tend naturally to deteriorate . . . to move from the least to the most probable state. from a state of organization and differentiation . . . to a state of chaos and sameness." At minimum a system's organization implies difference between system elements. An increase in disorganization must be, at least, accom- panied by an increase in similarity (in some attribute of interest) between system elements. That is why I min- imally define entropy as the degree of sameness between system elements. I believe this definition to be app- licable to a wide variety of systems and to allow for measurement, even in the social sciences. As for the Second Law. I would speak of the natural tendency of a system to show an increase in similarity between its elements, with reSpect to attributes which are affected by matter/energy exchanges to which the system is closed. An example would be soil erosion, which demonstrates the tendency toward entropy because differences in height are diminished as long as the sys- tem remains closed to new inputs of height differential. The example illustrates that the observation of a ten- dency toward entropy in a system begs the question as to the force which makes for entropy. In case of erosion, the force normally is water which seeks its lowest point. The term entropy refers to a state of a system. However, knowledge of a future state allows us insight in the pro- cesses operating in the system. We are of course in~ terested in process, in dynamics, in change. But the ability to characterize change of the system by saying that the system tends_toward§_entropy allows us to under- 8tand the process. ‘I t. vo- 4’. ’V l ‘r .- “'. Oct-1 1 '7’ I 32 An open system can resist the tendency toward en- tropy and maintain gradients by "throughputs" of matter/ energy. Thus, in an open system, the steady state "does not depend on initial conditions. It will entirely de- pend on the properties of the system itself, that is, on the constants of proportionality which are independent of the conditions imposed on the system" (Rapoport, 1968a, p. xviii) . The degree to which a system's steady state is independent of the conditions imposed on it depends, however, on the type of open system one has in mind. ‘Open systems differ in the range of variation within which they maintain a steady state. A lake cannot do; much, for instance, about the amount of nutrient flowing into it. If the amount increases as the lake becomes polluted, a steady state is again established at a level which is marked by more plant growth. Other systems have a much narrower range of varia- tion within which they maintain a steady state. They can better regulate the exchange of matter/energy with their environment. An example is a mouse which has the ability to regulate its exchange of matter/energy with its environment within much narrower limits than the lake. Systems, such as the mouse, have a "preferred state" or a "purpose" to maintain a certain state, what- ever the conditions imposed on it. For such systems, 33 one can indeed say that the steady state is determined by "system parameters and not by initial conditions" (von Bertalanffy, 1968, p. 18). In summary, I shall regard man and groups of men as systems because systems have pr0perties useful for my purpose. _In all systems, forces are at work which tend towards a steady state.? In closed systems, a steady state can only be reached when system elements are the same. An open system can maintain a steady state in which differences exist. But open systems differ in the range of variation they allow in their steady state, depending upon their ability to regulate matter/energy exchange. 3. Controlling systems With the mouse, we touch upon living systems (Miller, 1965a, 1965b, 1965c), a subset of open systems, which have "the property of self-maintenance of structure in the midst of a throughput of material" (Boulding, 1968, p. 7). That is, the living system will try to maintain its variables within a given range of values (Miller, 1965a). (In order to do so, it must regulate its exchange of matter/energy with its environment. To the extent that it can regulate matter/energy, one can say that the system has achieved control over its environment (Ashby, 1968. p. 301). 3“ Control therefore implies (1) an actual state of being, A. (2) a preferred state of being, B:/and (3) the ability to change the state from A to B. »One could say that the living system has a criterion for well-beipg (B) programmed into it, by which it makes decisions on reg- ulating its exchange of matter/energy.? One could liken this criterion to the temperature value set on a thermo- stat. It allows the thermostat to evaluate its A so that it can call for regulation if A becomes too differennt from it. A controllinggsystem thus (von Bertalanffy, 1968, p. 16) consists of (l) a sensory perceptor which tells the system about the state of being, A. (2) a criterion for well-being with which A is evaluated, and (3) a con- trol mechanism or regulator which can act to change A. When the effect of the action, performed on the environ- ment to change A, is again perceived by the system, one Speaks of feedback.* A simple model of a controlling system would thus appear as follows (von Bertalanffy, 1968. p. 16): "Feedback is the perception, by the controlling system, of the change in the environment which results from the action performed by the controlling system. Such perception serves to guide subsequent action. ~fl .A H 10 35 [RECEPTOR—9 CRITERION .9 REGULATORFCHANGE A L FEEDBACK ( An example of a controlling system is the seven-year old boy who had not spoken a word since he was born, much to the consternation of his parents. One day, at the dinner table, he finally spoke two words: "Too sweet." His parents were overjoyed and asked him why he had not spoken before, to which he replied: "So far, everything was OK." The example shows that the goodness of fit be- tween the controlling system and man's behavior still leaves much to be desired. However, since we aim to ex- pand the model of the controlling system to arrive at a better fit between it and man, we shalli fopppurposes of this essay, assume that man is a controlling system. {in summary, man is seen as a controlling system which regulates its exchange of matter/energy with its environment by acting upon that environment with a con- trol mechanism, if its state of being does not coincide with its criterion for well-being. u. Regulation by non-human organisms To understand man-the-controlling-system, we must first deal with non-human controlling systems. A living ‘l 11 \a AI 'o l 36 system does not just exchange matter/energy. It can only maintain A close to B if the matter/energy exchang- ed is organized in a certain way, in terms of quantity, time and type. ‘Non-human organisms rely on organizations of matter/energy already available in their environment. Their control mechanisms are adaptations of the organism itself, used to optimize the input of available organiza- tions of matter/energy. In fact, in an ecological system, matter/energy is recycled through a multitude of organisms, each of which is a temporary organization of matter/energy available to others at any given time, while the whole system resists entropy by the intake of energy from the sum and matter from the earth. In observing such a system, one can focus on balance, that is, on the numerical availability of the units of matter/energy to each other, given their organization. This is essentially the viewpoint of the ecologist. One can also look at the organisms in terms of their organization and especially in terms of changes in their organization. This is essentially the viewpoint of the evolutionist. According to his theory, the idea, or principle, according to which the living system is org- anized, is carried by the gene (Rapoport, 1968a, p.xx), while the organization of the living system only changes u. l.- o '. up (u ‘I a... t'w. .‘y' “|‘~ 37 as a result of a mutation of the gene. According to evolution theory, one can further say that/a new idea orpprinciple for organizing matter/ energy will on1y_diffuse in_a_species if that idea allows the membpr§,0f_the species1 organized according to itppto regulate their exphapgepgf mattepégpergy closer to the criterion fpr willybelng than members of the species qu- apized according to the old idea./ This implies that "the general direction of evolution has been to produce systems with more information or greater complexity of organization." The more complex system is "likely to have more adjustment processes" and "is more likely," therefore, "to adjust to stresses in the environment and to survival (Miller, 1965b). Miller (1965b) also names, as some of the criteria for progress in evolution, "increased adaptability, control over the environment, success, independence from environment, self-regulation..." In summary, a living system is organized according to an idea or principle which is carried by the gene. This principle implies a certain ability of the creature, organized according to it, to control its environment. A new principle for organizing matter/energy is invented by mutation. But that new principle only diffuses, if it allows the creature, organized according to it, to control its environment better than creatures not so endowed. Consequently, the trend in evolution has been :P' .“l ..', III. 'Iv :r: ..-_ v ?- . Qt“- Lia 'u:‘ :‘1. '\ 'VJ N 38 the develppment and_diffusion of principles for organiz- ipg maptgr/energy which allow gpeater control over the environment. 5. The organization of matter/energy and man One can assume that man's predecessor was just an- other organism in the ecological system, which adapted to optimize its use of available organizations of matter/ energy, such as available wild fruits, etc. But then some remarkable change must have occurred. For man acquired the prerogative of species. [That is, man.acqpired the ability to organize matter/energy accordipg to principles which are carried in his mind, so that his ability to control his environment became independent of principles for organizing matter and energy carried by the gene. Man further acqpired the ability to communicate such ppinciples as he invented, so that the diffusion:>( of a new principle became indepen- dent of the living system which embodied it. Man, as a controlling system, does not have a static and built-in control mechanism for affecting his environ- ment. Instead, he controls his environment, so that it yields outcomes which fit his criterion for well-being, according to recipes which are develOped and stored in his reality or representational system. Thus man himself E. .e' ‘1 .A 'V "V a, 39 is responsible for making his A correspond to B, he knows he has the potential to do so, and consciously seeks con— trol if his outcomes do not fit his criterion. Thus man-the-scientist (Kelly, 1963) enters the $016,116. [According to Kelly (1963, p. 5), "it is customary £6” say that the scientist's ultimate aim is to predict and. control."__ Or, as I would say, given (1) a state of be 12:13 A and (2) a preferred state B, the scientist tries to explain A by developing a theory or reality which identifies the elements in the situation which he be- lieves to have high probability of being related to A. He verifies this reality by testing hypotheses derived from it. If his reality is supported by feedback, if there is "' correspondence between what the environment is per- ce 1Ved to be and what it turns out to be when one acts within it to experience some intended consequences" (Cantril, 1965, p. 11), the scientist has some confidence in his reality, i.e., he has diagnosed A. He can now Start to manipulate the elements which he has identified t° change A to B. When B is attained, the scientist has 88Llined control and developed a recipe for organizing Inat3‘l=er/energy which can be used to change A to B over and over again. glow, says Kelly (1963, p. 5). "might not individual 3h. each in his personal way, assume more the stature q’ E L. 4“" iv“ N.- "Au: '4‘“ 1+0 of a scientist, ever seeking to predict and control the course of events with which he is involved?" Might not, in other words, every man operate the same way to get from A to B, whatever they may be? When the room becomes dark with a noise of "pop" do I not develop a theory which says: "The room has become dark because the light bulb is blown out?" of loose filaments to confirm my theory? And do I not Do I not shake the bulb for evidence act on the recipe of "new light bulb" derived from my 0011:? irmed theory? I do. In short, says Kelly (1963, p. 43), Mankind, whose progress in search of prediction and control of surrounding events stands out so clearly in the light of the centuries, comprises of the men we see around us every day. The aspirations of the scientist are essentially the aspirations of all men. I add that, notwithstanding Kelly's claim that he aVOids "push and pull theories" which use, respectively, Stimuli and needs (1963, p. 36) to explain man's behavior, he does not say anything about the aspirations of all men. ' Kelly (1963) Speaks of control as a goal in itself, while, in 1&7 opinion, control can only serve to achieve a pref- erred state.:L Thus Kelly (1963) seems to speak of a con- trolling system which has no preferred state or criterion for well-being, but only a control mechanism. Neverthe- less. Kelly's contribution of man-the-scientist, given a criterion for well-being, is important to the present Study. It" 1+1 In summary, my postulation_of man-the-controlling- szstem is expanded to whgp the control mechanism of the szstem is said to consist of a realipy in which man "construes" (Kelly. 1963, p. 50) a replication of this environment or creates "images" (Bouldingo 1956) of it. Elie reafiltity s_e_rves po_predicp and control the course of events in that it can develop and store recipes for org- anizipg mattpp/energy which serve to improve the goodness- of—f it betwpgn outcgpes experienced and the criterion for we 13.-being. The realipy is amenable to change, it is ad: usted on the basis of feedback and communicab_l§_. 6. Civilization Given a controlling system with a control mechanism which contains recipes for organizing matter/energy which are communicable, let us now consider a set of such con- trolling Systems and assume that they share a common cri t erion for we ll-be ing . Under such assumptions, one can expect that a re- c1 e which allows a better fit between A and the _s_hared \crlterion than oth_e_r recers,_will diffuse throughout t\he‘set of controllipg systems, until all members have wed it. tro in the sen/in that all members will tend to become One cantphus_pre_dict a tendenpy toward en- the same in terms of the recipes which they use to con- 171‘01 their environment.“ 42 Over time, one can expect a number of such recipes to be developed or invented and to diffuse throughout the set. The members will thus share in a set of recipes. (Civilization is the set of shared recipes which members of a set of controlling systems use to make their state of being coincide with their shared criterion for well- being.*‘ Civilization evolves as new recipes are added to the set by invention.** However, not all invented recipes will diffuse. This happens only to those which improve the ability to make A coincide with a shared B. That is, *Common parlance calls a people civilized when that people conforms to norms the speaker considers desirable. One can also Speak of "Western civilization," "Chinese civilization," or "Egyptian civilization," indicating the highly developed state of arts and crafts by which a certain society distinguishes itself from others. The use of civilization in the present essay does not imply a certain level of civilization. A tribe of Bushmen also has its set of recipes for controlling its environment. I will, however, speak of different levels of civiliza- tion, depending upon the degree of control over the environment which the recipes, making up the civilization of a society, allow the members of the society to exert. C"""Invention is the process by which new recipes are created or developed.; This definition is Slightly adapted from Rogers with Svenning (1969. p. 3). lThey speak of the creation and development of new ideasJ In my opinion, the typical inventor is someone who develops or creates a method of organizing matter/energy which better achieves a goal than previous methods. Although some new ideas may have been developed in this essay, the author is not considered an inventor. .- - ‘Q I. -.~ I 1.1 h.\~ I U. ‘ h. . i . B. n . . i . I 4 Iri ‘5. on. 5". .6 -‘ u-‘ l n‘ U ‘\ \ o l a ‘4 I 5“ a :. 43 only those recipes will diffuse which allow greater con- trgiiover the environment. Civilization thus evolves along_a certain dimension, the degree of control over the environment, which it shares with evolution.* In fact, one can say that the development of civilization to levels, which allow more control over the environment, does for the controlling system assumed here what evolu- tion does for the species. One can thus also speak of more or less evolved civilizations, or higher or lower levels of civilization, depending upon the degree of con- trol the civilization allows the controlling systems participating in it. 1 Still assuming a shared criterion, one can predict that two ievels of civilization cannot exist, over time, .yippin the sage set of controlling systems. The tendency toward entropy, caused by the wish to make A coincide with the shared B, will eventually lead to a steady state in which all members of the set share in the highest ievel of civilization available in the set. - *Evolution can be defined as the irreversible pro- cess by which the hereditary organization or genotype of living systems changes from one state to another, gen- erally more complex, one (see Miller, 1965b). Evolution has been compared (Miller, 1965b) to learning. "Both in- volve feedback with reward and punishment for 'correct' or 'incorrect' reSponses. In case of the development of a Species, these responses are mutations either capable of surviving or not." Man's ability to survive does not depend on his genotype, but on the recipes he is able to apply. However, the development of civilization to high- er levels is very similar to the evolution of a species. slur-e in tr “hr [Nah "5V“ ‘O‘UA1 6 - £er :0 pr». . Pflf‘Vh q" 7 on» ‘5” ‘4 ‘ _ 'i N we; \\ /./ '7 [ ""‘\I V 5 gown. / 3.363: or. ‘r v-al‘ u. :t:. “‘5 “ “Q4911; ( 44 The recognition of the tendency for all members to share in the highest level of civilization, in a situa- tion which made this "normal" progress impossible, led Marx to predict the revolution of the proletariat. [Though my predictions thus seem to hold promise of at least finding some support from expert opinion, they still depend on the assumption of a shared common criterion for well-being.] Since a model of man which assumes such a common criterion does not seem to fit man very well, we must now scrutinize the human criterion for well-being. In summary, the assumption of man-the-controlling- system, enlarged to include a control mechanism which con- sists of a communicable set of recipes and a criterion for well-being which is shared in common with others, allows one to predict that: (l) A new recipe which allows better fit between A and a common B than other recipes will dif- fuse throughout a set of controlling systems of the type assumed: (2) All members in the set will thus tend to share a common set of recipes, so that one can Speak of a tendency toward entropy in the recipes used; (3) Entropy will be reached as the highest level of civilization available in the set, that is, the members will all tend to apply those available recipes which allow best fit be- tween.A and the common B: (4) Only those recipes will diffuse which allow better fit between A and B than was previously possible and (5) Two levels of civilization, 45 which differ in the amount of control they allow those participating in each cannot persist, over time, within one set of controlling systems. 7. The human criterion for well-being So far, I have assumed that the man-the-controlling- system has a criterion for well—being programmed into him much like the temperature value set on a thermostat. But such an assumption would lead to ridiculous conclusions. It would imply that Papouans of a generation ago were born with an ideal state which included being a success- ful headhunter, while for many of those recently born it would include owning a jeep. From such examples, it would seem that man is born without a Specific preferred state, but acquires one dur- ing his lifetime, so that an outcome which has never been experienced cannot be missed or aspired to. But, if man is born a tabula iaaa, i.e., without a criterion or in- herent ability to judge his state of well-being, how would he acquire specific and motivating tastes during his life-time? Eget us assupe, for purposes of the present essay, that man is born with the apiiiiy to "recognize" a cer- tain outcome as closer to well-being than another; (That is, he is not born with a criterion which includes root beer, fast cars, head hunting, etc., but with the ability 46 to recognize such specific outcomes as closer to well- being than others, so that they take on the character of a criterion for well-being.. That is, people learn to aspire to specific outcomes and make efforts to control their environment to experience them. The object of such efforts is thus the regulation of the frequency of occu- rrence of specific outcomes people have learned to aspire to. An outcome which never has been eXperienced cannot be part of the motivating set out outcomes.* I leave untouched the question as to what "really" constitutes human well-being. There have, of course, been efforts to answer that question, as we shall see. In the absence of measures of well-being actually exper- ienced, but with the assumption that man will recognize a state of well-being when he experiences one and will, therefore, try to control the frequency of occurrence of that experience, one can try to infer the states man experiences as well-being by factoring the controls he seeks to apply or has applied. One such effort was made by Cantril (1965), who studied the concerns of people in a number of countries and concluded that men share a concern for survival and physical well-being. Another such approach was by Maslow (1943), who suggested a "hierarchy of needs" based on the urgency with which man tries to satisfy them:/ Achieving physical well-being was considered the most 47 urgent need. However, such approaches as Cantril and Maslow's suffer from the fact that they are based on an historical situation and do not allow conclusions about human well-being as such because there may be a host of outcomes which have never been experienced and/or cannot be controlled, but which could be recognized and become aspirations. (Therefore, I continue to assume that man is born with the ability to recognize an outcome which he eXper- iences as closer to well-being than another and that he thereby learns to aspire to that outcome._ Since exper- ience differs among men, aspirations may also differ. Likewise, they can be similar. And it is similarity we are interested in as social scientists. When would men recognize similar outcomes as closer to well-being than others, so that the former become shared common aspira- tions? The experience of well-being is partly of a physical nature. That is, matter/energy exchange with the phys- ical environment will, at least, partly determine well- being. Since men are of a similar physical make-up, since they share the same "cage of flesh," we Shall further assume that men will recognize the same matter/ energy exchange as closer to physical well-being than 48 oth ers.* In the present essay, the terms aspiration, re cipe and civilization will thus apply to the seeking or physical well-being. In summary, I eXpand man-the-controlling-system to include a criterion for well-being which develOps as a I“é‘osult of recognizing outcomes as closer to well-being than others. Such outcomes become aspirations, i.e., man tries to seek control over the frequency of occurrence _¥ *It is of interest to Speculate about the consensus between men of different background on types of exper- iences other than those affecting the physical system. 0 men recognize similar interpersonal relationships as <=Z'Loser to well-being than others, for instance, even if the men are from widely differing cultural backgrounds? I could certainly recognize the interpersonal relations €3tween friends in Nigeria as closer to well-being than those which normally exist between Dutch and American 1‘2}:‘iends. Conversely, I observe that Africans in Europe or America feel deprived of such relationships. One S‘tzudy (Child, 1968) did not look at the question of men's sic similarity in terms of interpersonal relationships, blat in terms of art appreciation. The researcher showed a number of pairs of widely different art objects, such 38 two fairly similar modern paintings, two Japanese vases, etc., to artisans of widely differing cultures. The e~3t‘tisans had to judge the superior art work in each pair which had been so chosen by Western eXperts as to include The cross-cultural superior and an inferior art work. Onsensus on the superiority of the "superior" art work ‘Such studies raise the question was highly significant. 8 to whether man is indeed a tabula rasa when he is born, 5. a8 is often assumed in social science: Animals seem no tabulae rasae at birth. In one experiment (Terres, 1965) tork eggs from East Germany, from where the storks glgmte via Israel to Egypt, were placed in nests of West agmn storks, which generally migrate to Egypt via Spain 116. the north African coast. West German eggs were glaced in East German nests. When time came for the young, Fe- tched from the eggs, to migrate, they did not join the Q ocks of their foster parents, but set out alone to Ventually join the flocks of their real parents. 49 of. such outcomes. Since men have a similar cage of flesh, they will be similar in the type of matter/energy exchange "1 th the physical environment which they recognize as phys ical well-being, and which motivates them to seek control over their physical environment. 8. Motivation '1 Motivation is defined as the force which makes man act; when the value of essential variables on one side of an equation describing man's reality are not equal to the value of the essential variables on the other sided" *The definition of motivation used is a very general one- I have chosen it because it seems to provide room for the many different types of motives, needs, drives, desires. etc., which have been said to motivate man. All these concepts refer to an "inner state that activates or moves people toward goals and it results in purposive geanS/end behavior . . . The goal is the objective or 8:31 ition or activity toward which the motive is directed and Which will satisfy or reduce the striving" (Berelson bee Steiner, 1967, p. 159). A large number of motives has ex ‘51 construed as the seemingly most parsimonious way of dri’laining certain behaviors. All terms such as need, ca Ve, etc., imply a goal, a preferred state B which will pruse man to act if A does not coincide with it. In the 1 6Sent essay, B will be limited to states of physical be- tfig which have been recognized as closer to well-being Sean others and hence have become aspirations. Man is seen as motivated to satisfy these aspirations. The pre- lhht author is aware that there is a certain redundancy 11h using both aspiration and motivation. . Aspiration ~hhblies a desired outcome which one does not experience so 1 at one will do something to experience it. Motivation Inbliss action to change an actual outcome to a preferred b tcomeg/ Therefore aspiring to experience an outcome and a ing motivated to experience that outcome refer to the glue type of phenomenon. 50 of- course, we are in no position yet to define and measure the variables on each side of the equation. For the pur- pos es of the present essay, {I shall use the criterion for we 13.-being (Bf/and the actual state of being (A) as the me. 121 variables on each side of the equation A = B. “of: 1vation occurs if A 9‘ B. The normal result of motiva- tion can be said to be a change in A to make it equal to _B_- However, motivation to eXperience an outcome not only predicts search to control the frequency of occurrence of that outcome, but also search for pacification of the not 1'vation if such control cannot be exerted.* Pacifica- tion is defined as ways of making A equal to B, other than through changing A to make it coincide with B. I shall come back to pacification in greater detail later. Having gained control over an outcome implies that one applies the recipe for organizing matter/energy which leads to that outcome, whenever one wants to experience it- However. having learned to aspire to an outcome does not; necessarily lead to seeking a repetition of that \ Ga. *The notion that motivation must be pacified if A thhrmt be made to coincide with B is inspired by the 6or of cognitive dissonance (Deutch and Krauss, 1965, ‘ 68 , although the construed "need for cognitive consis- N hey" on which the theory is based is not at issue here. qhat makes dissonance theory of interest to us is that it Q2.319 with cases where a choice leaves motivation which 111 linot be reduced by what I have considered the normal ~bfithod. Hence alternative modes of drive reduction must 1% used, such as "rationalization'I (Deutch and Krauss, “965, p. 71+) , voluntary isolation from information which ( ng the set of items which correlate highest with the total score on the short scale. Thus Smith and Inkeles (1966) seem to have developed a 8 cale measuring the degree to which the individual has r ( l *The five items are summarized by Smith and Inkeles a. 966) as follows (underlined response is response scored 8 efficacious): Accident prevention at work depends on: luck always/ care alwa s Man‘s position in life depends on: fate always/913 effort always Do you prefer Job with ma /few/no responsibilities which is most important or future of your country: work gov't planning/God/luck f man explores nature's secrets (by science) is it: Not ood bad (ungodly). Ge ice t t some of these items use external control (luck, 3 11d. etc.) and internal control on one dimension. We all come back to the distinction later) J 65 a modern reality. The scale seems to be applicable across different settings, since it was develOped from findings across six different countries, five of which are considered less-developed. Furthermore, and import- ently, the scale seems to show that efficacy is closely related to the degree to which a person has experience in a modern environment (city, school, or factory). {If we accept that participation in modern civilization* allows greater control over the environment, we can say 13 hat the work of Smith and Inkeles (1966) demonstrates that people perceive more internal control when they mrticipate in a higher level of civilizationJ A further example of the relationship between level or civilization and degree to which internal control is Perceived is the optimistic belief in man's ability to create an earthly paradise which gave rise to the philos- ophy of Enlightenment (Gay, 1969) during the early stages or the industrial revolution in 18th century Western EurOpe. This optimism seems to be a special characteris- tic of those who perceive high internal control, in that the expectancy of internal control not only holds for \ Q1 *hodern civilization is defined as the set of re- 3L‘eI3ee developed in industrialized society, largely as a Mosult of the application of scientific research. \t idernization is not to be confused with modern civiliza- oh. It is the process by which a social system becomes e uainted and starts to use modern civilization. I “all come back to modernization in greater detail later. 66 control already gained, but is generalized to the extent of arrogance in face of the presently uncontrollable, in that the presently uncontrollable is believed to be controllable in the future. The generalized expectancy of internal control is, as said, the core element of the reality which Smith and Inkeles (1966) seem to have observed in modern man. other elements, which seem related to this core, have been observed by Inkeles (no date) and Rotter (1966). Thus Rotter (1966) observed a greater alertness to those aspects of the environment which provide useful information for future behavior, while Inkeles (no date) Speaks of a concern with planning, a readiness for new experience, and energetic collection of information. Where Rotter (1966) mentions a readiness to take steps to 1~1n~r>1—ove environmental conditions, Inkeles (no date) speaks of openness to innovation and change. While Rotter (1966) observes a greater critical attitude to- "a'm messages that try to influence, Inkeles (no date) “3’8 eI'ves a similar unwillingness to be pushed around in modern man's greater sense of dignity, [which he is also "111 ing to accord to others, in that modern man believes more strongly in social Justio than does his traditional oo‘ahterpart. / Other concomitants of his greater sense of efficacy ape aaid. (Inkeles, no date) to be modern man's 6? willingness to hold opinions on diverse matters and respect of others' opinions of same; his greater trust in others: his concern with ability; his valuation of skill and achievement; and his higher aspirations. In short, says Kahl (1968, p. 133), in conclusion to an effort to measure individual modernity in Brazil and Mexico: The modern man, through the way he perceives the world around him and its opportunities for himself, and through the way he chooses which paths to follow, is a man who seeks to control his life, plan his future, climb up a bit in the status hierarchy, and improve his material circumstances because these ends are desirable and also because they are seen as obtainable. The reality of this confident modern man, who not only knows what he wants, but also believes that he will 8’3 t it, can be seen as the counterpart of a situation in vhf... (311 new recipes for organizing matter/energy become 37a liable, together with the opportunity to apply at leas 1: a number of them. vI‘his situation seems to occur in “‘8 e of a number of persons who live in a society with a 10" navel of civilization which has come into contact nth industrialized society”? However, it does not seem that the modern reality ma 1‘ gee to remain. "when men are prosperous, they are :: 1t:nal,' said Spinoza (Smith, 1962, p. 392). "but when bet: & fall into misfortune, they trust childish omens, or h&§ke themselves in still more childish remedies in 1 9." Constandse (1961+) observed the loss of modern 68 exuberance in prosperous Dutch farmers, who began to doubt the future viability of their enterprises, while they even showed a certain conservatism* in their un- willingness to accept new forms of organizing those enterprises which might be more viable in future. In other words, modern reality, and especially the perception of internal control, seem to depend on the degree to which control can actually be exerted. In summary, the hypothesis that an increase in the level of civilization is accompanied by an increase in the expectancy of internal control seems not thhout 8 uzport. However, more research seems necessary, while more precise distinctions will have to be made, opera- t;1 onally and conceptually, between internal and external control. The notion that under certain conditions intern- all control is extrapolated to include future control over the presently uncontrollable seems worthy of further exI=DJ_oration. 3. External control and absolute poverty :In the model of evolving civilization. I defined a. b\___p___l W as the situation in which the highest 13". §l of civilization available in a social system does “6 t allow control over all desired outcomes, In this \ 3e. l *The farmers studied were a group of carefully 9% §e oted settlers in one of the new "polders." These gone are normally regarded as most innovative. ‘ 69 situation, I predict pacification by the creation of supernatural forces of external control. Gods and deities, the external forces par excellence, which man creates when controls over desired outcomes are unavailable and inconceivable, abound especially in soci- eties with a less evolved civilization. In fact, one could do a content analysis of gods and deities, created over the years, to make explicit what man experiences as well-being, Just as Cantril (1965) tried to do with the outcomes over which man tries to gain control.* In this sense, religion seems to be the negative of civilization. Man turns to prayer if faced with a hopeless situa- tion, he turns to prayer, even in modern South Africa, if the rains do not come in time, he turns to prayer if he lacks control over desired outcomes. Thus man uses his gods either for instrumental purposes, as when he asks his gods to bless his crops, or he uses them to make acceptable the very things his nature cannot make him accept otherwise. It is under such circumstances that man sayssfiGod's will is well, even if I do not under- stand in"; This view of the function of religion is fairly consistent with views developed by others. It is said to provide; *See Chapter 1, section 7. 7O . . . a sense of security in a world which appears to be full of the unpredictable, the capricious, the accidentally tragic. By giv- ing consistency and reality to eXperience, the religious system carries man over areas of life beyond control of ordinary techniques and rational understanding which work so well in ordinary affairs (Keesing, 1960, p. 329). Under the term "magic," anthropologists summarize a variety of methods . . . by which man purports to influence auto— matically the course of events by mechanisms that touch the supernatural. A magical act is a rite carried out to twist nature in a spci- fic way to satisfy human desire.* It comes to play in areas of eXperience not mastered by knowledge . . . and has been called primitive science** (Keesing, 1960, p. 332). /*As we would say, a magical formula is a recipe not based in a reality supported by feedback, although an ele— ment of self-fulfilling prophecy is present (Keesing, 1960, p. 332). **Malinowski (1928, p. 82) Speaks of the "three- cornered constellation of magic, religion and science." "By acquainting man with his surroundings, by allowing him to use the forces of nature, science, primitive know; ledge bestows on man an immense biological advantage, set ing him far above all the rest of creation." But "wherever man has to recognize the impotence of his know- ledge and his rational techniques (1928, p. 34) . . . ma ic acts are directed toward the attainment of prac- tlgai‘EIEE (1928. p. 79). . . . while the theories of magic are not dictated by logic, but "by the association of ideas under the influence of desire,n which cannot be satisfied by practical action (1928, p. 80). Heli ion is said to have a reintegrative function in the centri- fugal effects which characterize unavoidable results of human impotence, such as death (1928, p. 51). However, Malinowski (1928) also ascribes religion with functions of a more purely social nature, such as providing moral control (1928, p. 41), the enhancement of reverence for tradition (1928, p. 82) and other functions which allow the continued existence of the society. SElf r. that I". f0r th. 71 Although most anthropologists feel that no clear- cut distinction can be made between magic and religion (Keesing, 1960, p. 33“), magic exemplifies the instru- mental function of religion, in that it provides make- believe control where actual control does not exist. Magic, therefore, has a pacifying function. "Short of more confident substitutes provided by scientific know- ledge, it is argued . . . that the forced cessation of magic . . . would leave a people psychologically defense- less before the unknown" (Keesing, 1960, p. 33%), or as we would say, before the uncontrollable. I do not say that religion only has an instrumental purpose.* But it seems logical to assume that man was motivated to create gods after having become dependent on man-made recipes for his well-being, which made him- self responsible for his well-being. It is in this sense that religion is the negative of civilization (an "opium for the masses"),[because religion spells the negation of man's responsibility for his well-being and, thereby, for his ability to control his outcomes.i But the beneficial function of gods, thus created, in keeping man pacified over the centuries cannot be acknowledged sufficiently, although their creation still testifies to man's suffering. *Buber (1958) points out that man's relationship to his environment is not limited to the technical (I-it) relation, but that one can also speak of an "I-Thou" relationship. 72 if religion has indeed, as one of its functions, to be the negative of civilization, to pacify man when he lacks control, if religion is indeed "born of the need to make tolerable the helplessness of man"Z(Breud, 1957, p. 67), then there must be evidence that an in- crease in the level of civilization is accompanied by a decrease in the importance of religion in man's every- day life, simply because he needs his gods no more. And we can indeed point to such evidence, which ranges all the way from the myriad of gods and deities documented in anthropological descriptions of societies with a less evolved civilization, to the cries of "God is dead" in our own society, typifying the arrogance born in prolonged success.“ Hedfield (1955, p. 229) documented the change at some intermediate state between these two extremes. *Even though some proclaim that "God is dead," the success of such men as Billy Graham in the most tech- nically advanced society-ever needs to be explained and seems to contradict my contentions. My hypothesis is that Graham's success is not based on the proclamation of a god which pacifies unsatisfied aspirations to ‘ experience physical well-being, but aspirations to experience other types of well-being, such as dis— satisfactions with a social or_economic system which people feel they cannot affect, ”The element of extern- al control is clearly present in Graham's speeches. In a recent mass sermon, he proclaimed that peace cannot come about through human effort, that we will have to wait for the "Prince of Peace.“ Compare this with the perceptions of internal control evident in the activism of the “Chicago Seven," also interested in peace. 73 He compared communities in Yucatan at different levels of civilization and observed that the belief in gods and deities disappears as the community becomes more modern. Other support for the pacifying function of religion is [heber's (1963, p. 97) statement that the non-privileged tend to embrace religions of salvation, while privileged classes assign religion the "primary function of legit- imizing their own life pattern and situation in the world.fl This view Jibes with the finding (Lewis, 1969) that poor Mexican families spend more, in absolute terms, on religious paraphernalia than the more prosperous. It also fits the finding (Fliegel and others, 1968, p. #7) that Indian peasants who have adopted more modern recipes for organizing matter/energy tend to be more secular, indicated by their negative answers to such questions as: "In case of serious illness in your family, would you bring a sacrifice in the temple?" But quite apart from such carefully documented ev- idence, one can see the demise of supernatural forces of control in any developing country that one visits: The tourist can now buy the idols of once revered gods, while the art of making them vanishes with the death of old men who leave no apprentices. Meanwhile, the modern men in those societies are embarrassed at the tourist's interest in the exhibits of their people's former weakness. My view of religion seems to conform to the functional 71+ theory (O'Dea, 1966, p. 5) which sees the "role of reli- gion.as assisting men to adjust to the three brute facts of contingency, powerlessness and scarcity (and con- sequently frustration and deprivation)," so that there are I'seoular alternatives to religion . . . and religion- nonpreligion can be seen as a continuum*" (O'Dea, 1966, p. 17). From the functional point of view, Technological development in the sphere of work has reduced the impact upon human experience of the three elements we earlier saw as closely related to the function of religion: contingency, powerlessness and scarcity. The need for the related func- tions of religion was thereby reduced . . . Moreover, man learned through this success- ful betterment of their control over their environment, to achieve security through the active manipulation of natural elements and forces, rather than finding it in a religious relationship (O'Dea, 1966, p.83). The role of the increase in man's level of control in the demise of gods and deities is perhaps highlighted by the fact that the belief in magic remains or even in- creases in the initial stages of modernization (Redfield, 1955, p. 303: Field, 1960). Given that a people perceive *Moulik and Lokhande (1969) use fatalism-scientism as a variable which they found correlated .48 with flparochialismpcosmopolitanism." See also Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961, p. 13), who make a distinction between mastery-over-nature and subjugation-to-nature as value- orientations. Two attitude scales used by Beal and Sibley (1967, p. 98), measuring control-over-nature orientations, were found to correlate .31 and .h2 with a farm practice adoption score. 75 control over desired outcomes to be available while they lack the recipes to achieve them, they turn to familiar models for help or explanation of their failure to gain controli 8 Field (1960, p. 107). in her study of the shrines that had recently sprung up in the Ghanaian countryside, said of the people who come to them for remedy: "Of all the supplicants who bring their troubles to the shrine, the most frequent is the frustrated, unhappy and deepair- ing man whose complaint is: 'I am not prospering.'" In summary,‘gymodel of evolvinggcivilization allows the statement of two hypotheses:(l) the creation of supernatural forces of external control serves to pa- cify motivation which results from experience of a state «of beipg which does not coincide with thegpreferred estate: and.(2) when civilizapign evolves to higher lev- eelsI the supernatural forces of external control, created ‘txnder a lower level of civilization, graduallyilpse their function. Both hypotheses seem to have some support. 1+. The conditidns which give rise to relative poverty* When people learn that a recipe exists, which allows control over the frequency of occurrence of a desired outcome, the aspiration to experience that outcome *Partly based on Reling (in press). dise. IMO}! C because atle 01 straie 1 car-tan cially 5 man-z Fe houses: thing < Game 3'. 76 becomes virulent because it can be experienced, thus rendering secular what could be imagined only in para- dise. Therefore, the availability of recipes determines which outcomes are salient and are actively aspired to, because their availability shows that hitherto unattain- able outcomes can be eXperienced. That is, people up- grade their standards, as a result of recognizing a certain outcome as closer to well-being than others, espe- cially when that outcome is seen as caused by applying a man-made recipe. People may have lived for centuries in thatched roofed houses, but accepted this situation because there was no- thing one could do about it. But since zinc roofs be- came available, the latent aspiration to have an adequate :roof became virulent. Asked why he started planting «cocoa many years ago, an old Yoruba farmer replied: "To éget money." Asked, then, why he suddenly wanted money, after centuries during which the Yoruba had not much use 1P<3r it. he said to have been in a city where he saw zinc roofs and then planted cocoa to be able to buy one. This process, by which the vicarious experience of controllable outcomes leads to virulent aspirations, is aptly called the "demonstration effect" by economists. ‘514'=l<5l it evokes new standards for living rapidly. Lerner ‘1 963, p. 330) spoke of the 1950's as the decade of the D “3:7“EE*“rclution of rising expectations" in developing count: dards eXperi develc eXperi hither thich level inclie throug' desire: 77 countries. indicating that, in those ten years, stan- dards for living were upgraded tremendously. The outcome experienced, as a result of the application of recipes developed in industrialized societies, were vicariously experienced by many in the developing nations who had, hitherto, been isolated from them. But a higher standard for living creates motivation, which can, in the end, only be satisfied by upgrading the level of living to a point where standard and level co- incide. 5 Upgrading levels of living can only occur through adoption of the recipes which allow control over desired outcomes. Entropy at the highest level of civilization available, the steady state of the social system, can thus only occur through the adoption of re- cipes which I, therefore, consider the "normal" method of satisfying the motivation created by upgrading standards for living. When a steady state cannot be reached, powerful forces are rampant which determine societal processes, in that methods of pacifying those forces must be worked out. And a steady state is indeed difficult to attain. For the acquisition of recipes is a slow process which is compounded by labor division and specialization. Where once upon a time, people could only experience desired outcomes as a result of applying recipes themselves, such 5-1 rect control is now the exception. Instead, one exerts dezree other 78 control which results from the application of recipes by others, while one can only exert such control in exchange for the products of one's own skill in applying certain recipes. The level of one's skill determines the degree to which one can exert controls resulting from other people's skill. The acquisition of sufficient skill is difficult and will lag behind the acquisition of virulent aspirations, a reason why Lerner (1963, p. 331) called the 1960's the decade of the "revolution of rising frustrations." But such frustrations not only characterize the developing, but all societies in which the steady state has not been reached. In the following section, I shall deal with the ways ‘by which such frustrations are pacified, other than by 'the adoption of recipes. And these methods must be in- ggenious, because pacification can now not so easily be xfound in the creation of gods and deities, because man- Jzuade recipes are known to exist. It is difficult to 't>€311eve in.Santa Claus if father is seen putting on the costume, Yet, pacification is all the more necessary when relative, rather than absolute, poverty is exper- 1 ehced because the availability of recipes makes the deg :ire for the outcomes, over which they allow control, aaLl]L.£]L the more virulent. 79 In summary, people become relatively poor_ when the demonstration of others' outcomes, experienced as a result of applying man-made recipes, leads to the virulent desire to experience those outcomes, but when adoption of the recipes which allow control over the out- comes is, at least temporarily, impossible so that the resultant motivation must be_pacified otherwise. Pacification by supernatural forces of external control seems difficult in case of relative poverty. 5. Relative poverty and pacification* Ip;the absence of opportunities to applygall_avail- able recipes for organizipg matter/energy, other methods for reducipg continuing motivation must be developed. In societies in which unscaleable class-barriers do not exist, the principle method for reducing motivation is 'to allow the members to adopt recipes in piece-meal fa- sshion. Thus the members experience achievement and improvement and it is perhaps then that the modern real- ity, with all its self-confidence and efficacy arises. And where two societies are in contact. which differ in the extent to which opportunities for such piece-meal improvement are provided, one can expect massive migra- t 1 on to that society, where more such opportunities are v *Partly based on Reling (in press). perceiw school "Emir: expect: fr! thOS 80 perceived to be available. The favelas in Brazil, the school leavers' problem in West Africa, and even the "brain drain," seem adequate evidence to support this expectation. (These phenomena may be seen as the result of people's preference for social systems where parti- cipation in a higher level of civilization seems possible, if they are given a choice. But piece—meal improvement may not be able to suffi- ciently minimize motivation. The differences in outcomes experienced between the members of a social system may be too great to be annihilated, even by piece-meal satisfac- tion. A simple device for pacifying the motivation which results seems to have developed. For relative poverty results from invidious compa- rison, and can, therefore, be reduced by selecting the group of one's comparison or reference group* to be composed of people with Opportunities to exert control which are similar to those one has oneself. This reduc- tion of one's range of comparison must, of course, be well-supported by rationalization of one's inability to compare with those more fortunate. Such rationalizations, or ideologies, which not only pacify the motivation of those below, but also legitimize the priviliges of those *See Merton and Kitt (1950, p. to). Reference group refers to the set of persons which become points of ref- erence for the individual in shaping his attitudes, evaluations and behavior (Merton. 1957. p. 233). 81 above, give rise to perceptions of external control among the former. For throughout history, the stratification of soci- ety in caste, estate or class, has not only been seen as preordained by a god, or birth, or luck, or the color of one's skin, but also as the result of unscaleable ba- rriers which society has erected. Thus people replaced the supernatural forces of external control with social forces, also of their own creation. An example is the illiterate Africans, who explained away the unattainable outcomes of expatriates by calling them the "makers of money.”* The importance, even in societies where no unscale- able class barriers exist, of reference groups for the self-limitation of the level of living actively aspired to. is illustrated by a recent change in the reference group of Dutch farmers, who started to compare themselves with small businessmen, rather than with factory workers. This shift had implications for guaranteed milk-price regulations because the norm for "acceptable income" had changed substantially. *It is possible that the reduction of motivation by class formation is a social invention which must be learned by people in societies in which differences in relative poverty have recently been introduced. In Nigeria where the villager often knew of village brothers who had become top government officials, professors, etc., it was often difficult for him to pacify his aspirations by limiting his reference group. levei ‘ .fl'l Sv'du‘ incl tlac O V. .Ouli- 3H. u‘u as *i (D (n 82 How'hard it sometimes is to rationalize away the levels of living of the more fortunate is suggested by a study (Parker and Kleiner, 1966), which compared the incidence of mental disease among black immigrants and black natives in a U.S. seabord city. The researchers found the latter group to have the higher incidence and reasoned that the immigrants could blame their poverty, relative to whites, on differences in opportunity and training, while the natives could not. This example also shows how powerful the forces are which must be kept at bay by social stratification. And, as in case of gods and deities, the existence of strati- fication spells a vacuum and potential movement toward greater equity. Of interest, however, is when and why such movement occurs. People accept inequity for cen- turies, but suddenly reject it. In this connection I ask you to remember one of the elements of the modern reality observed by Inkeles (in process): A belief in distributive Justice. We saw that the modern reality develops when opportunities for, albeit piece-meal, improvement become available. LTherefore, one would expect rebellion against stratification to occur sometime after such Opportunities have been provided, but when H I such provision is not fast enough or reversed, That hypo- thesis is the very one which recent studies of the Russian.and other revolutionary movements have supported 83 (Davies, 1962).* The limitation of the range of comparison in social stratification is, of course, facilitated by isolating oneself from those outside one's reference group. For isolation to be effective, the vicarious eXperience of the outcomes of those above must be avoided. And one finds evidence of this avoidance, eSpecially in cases where effort to gain controls, available in the social system, have been persistently frustrated; where, in other words, no opportunities for piece-meal improvement are perceived to exist, now or in the foreseeable future. [Hofstee (196h) speaks of the "voluntary isolation" of Dutch ultra-conservative and less successful farmers, while Mayer (1963, p. 90) Speaks of "incapsulation" in case of Xhosa tribesmen who refused to become modernized: ~ Frey (1966, p. 179) found in Turkey that mass media expo- sure was strongly related to the degree to which a respon- dent felt relatively deprived. "It would seem that some of the differences (between rich and poor) in exposure are of such magnitude that it is unlikely they could be entirely attributed to variations in access to the media" (Frey. 1966. p. 80)o** *See also Brinton (1938, p. 46). "*It is of interest to remind the reader here of Inkeles' (1969) remark that modern man seems to "strive energetically to keep up with the news." T} controi persiS‘ iniuce. Herton method while 84 The experience of frustration of efforts to exert control is often also accompanied by a ritualistic persistence in old forms of behavior, which has even been induced in rate under such conditions (Meier, 1949, p.52). Merton (1957, p. 140) mentions ritualism" as one of the methods to achieve compromise between ends and means, while Mead (1955. p. 274) reports, as one of the con- sequences of persistent frustration in developing countries: The return to old forms of behavior, which . . . are now less satisfactory. The vill- age people, who ignored the changes which took place in the larger town, may acti- vely combat them when they have failed to incorporate them into village life. [The voluntary isolation against stress-renewing mess- ages and the ritualistic persistence in old forms of behavior can be expected to occur together with a percep— tion of internal control low enough to speak of_powerless- mess, which Seeman (1959) defines as "the eXpectancy or probability held by the individual that his own behavior cannot determine the occurrence of the outcomes . . . he seeks."**/In such conditions, one can also expect a high "Merton (1957. p. 184) defines ritualism as a patt— ern of response in which . . . aspirations are abandoned ‘while one continues to abide almost compulsively by .1nstitutionalized norms. "*Fatalism is defined (Rogers with Svenning, 1969, p. 32) as the degree to which an individual recognizes a lack of ability to control his future. However, I would like to make it conceptually distinct from powerlessness Ln.that powerlessness refers to a perception of low 11rternal control, while fatalism refers to a perception 85 generalized expectancy of external control. One could say that these elements constitute a poverty reality* with which one cOpes but does not control. Notice that the reality and the behaviors, expected to accompany extreme relative poverty, are the opposite of some aspects of the reality and of behaviors observed by Smith and Inkeles (1966) to characterize modern man. Yet the poverty reality can also be seen as a result of a situation in which a mass of new recipes for controlling desired outcomes become available to a social system, and thus as one possible result of modernization. The poverty reality can be expected to make its bearer hard to change. One could thus raise the question as to what extent the resistance, which is so often said to thwart change efforts,[}s not more the result of (continued from last page) of high external control. These two may well be impossible to separate Operationally, but it is worth trying. So far, most researchers (e.g., Smith and Inkeles, 1966) have phrased their questions to respondents to respondents on this topic in a way which makes external and internal control each other's opp- osite. Bose (1962) differentiated "rationality" (ability to manipulate one's fate) and "religious inclination." These two variables, together with "scientific outlook" loaded resp. +.73, -.72 and +.82 on one factor. Adoption loaded +.43 on the same factor. "Poverty reality refers to certain patterns in real- ity which characterize poor individuals, eSpecially the (extremely poor ones, and which distinguish them from others . g leoe t4 «0a 37aa' 86 anomalies in/the modernization process, than of tradi- tionalism.J7If that were so, the "revolution of rising frustrations," said to mark the past decade, would Spell severe problems ahead. But with this indication that the reality can become independent of the situation which gave rise to it, we have the topic of the next section. /In summary, it seems that phenomena have been identified which allow us to say that the situation of relative poverty gives rise to efforts to seek pacifica- tionn’“As such efforts we mentioned piecemeal innovation, voluntary curtailment of one's group of comparison,_vol- untary isolation," and ritualism. [By suggesting that relative poverty is a motivational state which must be pacified, the model of evolving civilization was heuris- tic in suggesting us to look for pacifiersj/ A view of class ideology which recognizes it as equally necessary to pacify the frustrations of those below as to legit- imize the position of those above is, to my opinion, new and invites research, especially on the voluntary curtail- ment of the comparison group. ihe identification of voluntary isolation as a defense against stress-bearing messages, and a necessary concomitant of search for pacification, seems of prac- tical importance. Where modern man's eagerness to "keep ‘ *Voluntar isolation is defined as the non-use of available external channels of communication. I shall come back to it in Chapter 4. 87 up with the news" can be expected to act as a multiplier of his ability to gain control, voluntary isolation can be seen as a dampener, a self-imposed barrier which keeps the poor poor. (Thus those who need information most are least likely to obtain it."] It seems that research on voluntary isolation is necessary to provide a basis for ’developing strategies to change agents working in poverty areas. Further search for pacifiers in case of extreme relative poverty may well allow the development of a model of poverty reality, not unlike the one Inkeles (in progress) has-deve10ped in the case of modern reality. 6. Expectancies of control as independent forces So far, I have implicitly accepted Marx's notion that the system makes the man. That is, I have treated expectancies of internal and external control as the result of probabilities man learns to attach to certain events on the basis of the frequency with which he ac- tually experiences such events. One can eXpect, however, that expectancies of internal and external control have a certain momentum of their own, in that the learned probabilities will be used for the prediction of future events, so that they continue to determine behavior. "Similar remarks have been made by van den Ban (1963b,‘p.114) about farmers who seek advice from exten- sion agents. Those who need it least seem to get the most advice. once ‘73 w J a) D K ,_ 5.“ 88 even if the conditions which gave rise to the eXpec- tancies are no longer present. Thus the generalized expectancy of external control may have the character of a "self-fulfilling prophecy"": once one believes that forces outside oneself determine one‘s outcomes, one cannot be eXpected to actively try to affect those outcomes. fBesides, one can assume that the pacification, found in the generalized expectancy of external control, will not be easily desertedgl/ We already had occasion to mention that a high gen- eralized expectancy of internal control leads to arrogance in the face of the presently uncontrollable, in that it is believed to be controllable in the future. One can assume that a low generalized expectancy of internal control also has this character of self-fulfill- ing prophecy:\3hen one takes one's impotency to affect one's life trajectory for granted, one cannot be expected to actively seek to change 1th " Let us look at both types of expectancies and the degree to which they continue to determine behavior, even if the conditions which gave rise to them have changed. "Merton (1957, p. 423) defines a self-fulfilli prophecy as a false definition of the situation evofiing a new behavior which makes the originally false concep- tion come true. One cannot only Speak of the self- fulfilling prophecy when new behaviors are evoked, but also when old behaviors continue to be performed in a changed situation. 89 There is little evidence that the generalized expectancy of external control continues to determine behavior when conditions change. It seems. indeed, to be a defense mechanism which vanishes with the threat. Evidence for this notion is supplied by the fact that the fatalism of the peasant does not seem a strong explainer of resistance against social change. In fact, "the research results suggest the possibly greater util- ity of viewing a reduction in fatalism as a result of previous modernizing activities, rather than as a ba- rrier to modernization" (Rogers with Svenning, 1969, p. 289)." (A similar observation can be made for gods and deities, which seem to leave the scene without much fuss, although their destruction by missionaries in the early stages of modernization may have to be more care- fully explored.< It seems that expectations of internal control are not rapidly affected when circumstances change. The results of a few studies support this statement. In one study (Seligman, 1969) the experimenters compared two sets of dogs. Dogs in group A underwent a painful elec- tric shock in a box from which they could escape. Such dogs soon learned to escape the Shock, whenever lights dimmed, warning them that shock was imminent. Dogs in "See also Niehoff (1966). 90 group B, however. underwent shock in a harness 24 hours before they received a treatment similar to that of dogs in group A. But once in the box, dogs in group B did not make serious efforts to escape. In fact, after a number of trials, they gave up altogether and underwent the ordeal by "howling and whining." Dogs in group B had be- come helpless. (They had learned that the trauma was in- escapable. "Learning that the environment cannot be con- ' trolled is central to developing the helplessness syn- drome."] The experimenters found that they had to phys- ically pull the helpless dogs out of the box a few times, before they learned to escape. However, "If a dog first received escapable shock in the box, and then controlled Shock in the harness, it will escape normally when it is returned to the box." The study suggests the momentum of both a low and a high expectancy of internal control. Let us look at other evidence of the former. It seems that the develOp- ment of modern reality is a slow process, Inkeles (1969) compared an individual's score on the scale of indivdual modernity with his number of years of formal education and observed that "the amount of formal schooling a man has had emerges as the single most powerful variable in deter- mining the score on our measures."" "On the average, for "Inkeles (1969) does not mention many other independ- ent variables which competed with education for Special mention. except years of factory experience. ever: some: scale year case of it deve] tion Vide Shion 91 every additional year a man Spent in school, he gains somewhere between two and three additional points on the scale of modernity scored from 0 to 100." The gain per year of factory experience is about one point. Both in case of education and factory experience, the development of modern reality seems to be a slow process. Where Inkeles (1969) gives the impression that the development of modern reality relates to years of educa- tion in linear fashion, Waisanen and Kumata (1969) pro- vide evidence to show that the development of modern real- ity is related to years of education in curvilinear fa- shion. In fact. it seems that modern reality "takes off" after a certain number of years of education, a number which seems to depend on the level of develOpment of the nation in question. However, the fact that a number of years is involved still attests to the momentum of non- modern realities. Waisanen and Kumata (1969) attribute the relatively long period before take-off to the fact that certain "manipulative skills are demanded of modern man" and that these skills are taught in school. "However, it is one problem to acquire these skills and quite another problem to see a situational relevance to these skills and to apply them to the consequence of self-enhancement." Of special interest to us is the fact that Waisanen «and Kumata (1969) do not use a composite scale of modernity 92 but individual dependent variables, one of which is eff- icacy. Notwithstanding the logical expectation that it would take longer for perceptions of internal control to develop in a less developed country than in a more modern one, the authors find that this is not the case. In fact, the take-off point of efficacy was estimated to be 3.7 years in Costa Rica and 10.7 years in the U;S. rThiS diff- erence seems to indicate that perceptions of internal con- trol are determined by the level of civilization in which one can participate, in that it takes less effort to parti- cipate in a satisfactory level of civilization in Costa Rica than in the U.S. One could even explain the data by the fact that it requires a certain amount of education to get a Job which allows one to apply the recipes available in one's society. This required amount of education is higher in more developed countries. It seems to take quite long for old realities to lose their momentum and for modern reality, and especially eff- icacy, to emerge even when opportunities for gaining more control have been provided. [Therefore, the necessity may arise to help people to shorten the time lag with which efficacy follows the situation. This neceSSity may arise especially in case of individuals who feel powerless as the result of having experienced prolonged and severe relative poverty. 216 such cases, the careful nursing of a 93 new reality may be called for (van den Ban, 1963a)." The ability to do so may be one of the more necessary skills in the years ahead. When a high expectancy of internal control exists, but opportunities to exert it are not available, one can expect that opportunities will be created or graSped as soon as they become available. The success of the Marshall Plan in EurOpe and the failure of similar plans in developing nations may well be partly due to higher expectancies of internal control in Europe (Rogers with Svenning, 1969. p. 10). A study by McClelland (1961, p. 63) shows that significant increases in the develOpment of several na- tions occurred after popular children's stories in those nations began to deal with characters who had achieved success and excellence in life through their own effort."" It is not certain, of course, whether those children's stories were an expression of prevailing cognitive modes, or whether they gave rise to them. In the latter case, one would have uncovered an important tool for developing a more modern reality. It is under this impression that McClelland and Winter (1969) tried to teach Indian busi- ness men to have a higher expectancy of internal control. "See also the case study by Eugster (1964). ""The effects of Superman, Superboy and eSpecially Superdog can be awaited with some interest. ical elm/é 94 He claims considerable success as a result of a course Of short duration (1969. p. 230). In summary, the expectancy of internal control seems to have considerable momentum. This momentum seems rel- evant, especially in case Of a low expectation of internal control because such perceptions can be expected to lead to apathy, even when Opportunities for improvement are available. Where the momentum Of an expectation of high internal control can be expected to create opportunity, powerlessness may lead to losing opportunity. Strategies to affect control perceptions, §_lg McClelland (1961 and 1969) may be one Of the more necessary skills in the years ahead. But before suggesting recipes, considerably more re- search seems necessary, for instance, to decide between the two alternative (or possibly complementary) hypo- theses: (l) perceptions Of control are the result Of experience and therefore follow the situation more or less automatically, but with some lag, andw(2) perceptions Of control determine experience, in that they explain the willingness to grasp opportunities once they are provided. 7. Conclusion Chapter 2 served the purpose of supporting some crit- ical hypotheses which derive from my model of evolving civilization. These hypotheses concerned the relationship 95 between expectancies of control of the individual and the level of civilization in which he can participate. The hypotheses for which some support, be it from eXpert opinion or empirical work of others, seems to be avail- able are: 1. (The internal control people expect to be able to exert increases together with the level of civilization in which they participate. 2. Supernatural forces of external control serve the function Of pacifying motivation in situations of absolute poverty. 3. The supernatural forces of external control created by the members of a social system lose their function when the level of civilization available in the social system becomes higher. 4. In situations Of continued relative poverty, motivation must be pacified in some fashion. This hypo- thesis led to the identification of some methods Of pacification. As a result of the support" found for these hypo- theses, I am now more confident in saying that the "When I speak Of "support" I am fully aware that my individual hypotheses have not been supported to the extent that they are knowledge claims which stand above dispute. However. the individual hypotheses are related to each other since they derive from the model of evolv- ing civilization developed in Chapter 1. Therefore, the albeit insufficient support found for the individual hypotheses considerably strengthens my confidence in the model as a whole. 1115 he 96 individual seeks to gain control over the outcomes which he recognizes as closer to well-being than others: that he must be pacified to the extent that he has not gained it and that gaining it is a necessary condition for behaviors and a reality which we believe to be desirable. In the next chapter, I shall scrutinize the correspondence between my model of evolving civilization and historical phenomena in case, not of individuals, but of social systems. That is, I shall be concerned with my predictions of entropy in standards for and levels of living. Chapter 3 THE TENDENCY TOWARD ENTROPY AND CIVILIZATION 1. Introduction Raving in my Opinion, increased our confidence in the enlarged model of man-the-controlling-system, we must now turn our attention to groups Of men, to see whether they behave as can be SXpected of groups Of man-the- controlling-systems. That is, I shall in this chapter scrutinize accounts Of historical situations for evidence for two basic hypotheses (and their derivates) which de- rive from the model of evolving civilization: 1. A social system displays a tendency toward en- tropy in standards for living, in that all its members tend to Share in the highest standard for liyinggpossible in the social system. 2. A social system displays a tendency toward en- tropy in levels Of living, in that all members tend to Share in the highest level Of civilization available in the social system. 2. Entropy in less evolved civilizations In a not-tOO-distant past, many areas of the world were occupied by small societies which were more or less 97 98 isolated from each other for long periods of time. This isolation implied that no communication occurred between those societies and, therefore, that neither vicarious experience of outcomes, nor communication of recipes for organizing matter/energy could take place across their boundaries. To the extent that no inventions were made in these societies, one can consider them as systems which were closed in terms of information affecting both standards and levels of living. Where closed systems are cha- racterized by their tendency toward entropy, one would expect these societies to Show entropy in standards and levels of living. And that is precisely what accounts of such societies tend to demonstrate; For among those who first Opened such societies were anthropologists who took great pains to describe the societies in their still fairly pristine state. In read- ing such descriptions, one is struck by the extent to which entropy was encountered. In fact, the early anthropologists had no need for statistics: variables were few but constants many. Thus, the description Of farm Operations, tools, shelters, sources of power, clothes, food, beverages and so on. used by one household, was sufficient to describe them all. Few did with less and few did with more, except where the means to apply 99 available principles for organizing matter/energy were not distributed equally. And even where such relative poverty existed within the small range of variation allowed by the less evolved civilization, very humane systems were sometimes devel- Oped to soften the stress. An example is the system Of social stratification Of the Natchez, who Were divided into two halves: the aristocracy and the common people, referred to as Stinkers. The catch to this was that the common people could marry as they pleased, but the aristo- crats could marry only Stinkers. When a male aristocrat married a common woman, his chil- dren . . . became ordinary Stinkers. When a female aristocrat married a male Stinker her children inherited her rank. Thus even the Sun king himself was half Stinker on his father's side (La Farge, 1966, p. 21). But the overriding impression one Obtains from anthropologists! accounts is that /Before coming into touch with Western technol- ogy, the number Of needs and ways to satisfy them was practically constant. As a consequence the ideal and the real were practically iden- tical (Friedmann, 1954, p. l)./ Although Friedmann does not deal with absolute poVerty, his view adequately supports our expectations regarding small, isolated societies with a less evolved civilization: since recipes were few and simple to apply, everyone could apply them and did. Given this set of recipes, there were no virulent aspirations to control outcomes not yet con- trolled, so that standard and level could coincide, except for absolute poverty. 100 In summary, accounts of small, isolated societies with a less evolved civilization seem tO support our expectations regarding entropy in standards and levels of livipg. 3. Mainstreams Of civilization When the isolation of such small Societies which had reached stability in sameness was broken by coming into contact with societies with a different level of civiliza- tion, new movement toward entropy, within the now larger communication system" tended to occur. Or, as Herskovitz (1962, p. 4) puts it: / (The development Of wants is irreversible§7Small isolated, non-literate societies may seem to the observer to live in a degree of stability and conservation that belies this. But there is no study of cultural change in process or Of contact between peoples having different cultures, which does not document the proposi- tion that people give over an item in their cultural store only when it becomes apparent to them that a more desirable substitute, iron implements for stone tools, for example, is at hand, or when circumstances beyond their con— trol dictate this. ‘There is nothing more diff- icult to accept than a lowered level of living or, as I have called it, relative poverty. Thus, some societies provide their members with a higher level of civilization than others. Members of "I define communication 3 stem minimally as a set of parties linked by channels of communication and using those channels. I shall return to communication systems in Chapter 4. 101 societies with the lower level will adopt the recipes of the society with the higher levels, as soon as communica- tion permits. A tendency toward entropy at the highest level of civilization available in a communication sys- tem seems, therefore, indeed to be at work. This is not to say that the societies within a communication system will become similar in culture, but Just that the utilitarian, the recipes for organizing matter/energy which allow control over the environment, will pass relatively unchanged from one society to an- other, whatever the cultural differences between them (MacIver and Page, 1957, p. 500)./ After all, his civilization determines man's relative ability to op- timize well-being. In summary, one can say that societies which belong to one communication system will develop a mainstream of civilization, which_is also the highest which those soci- gpies are capabl§,of_producing in concert, while all mem- bers of the communication will tend to participate equal- lyyin that level. Examples Of such mainstreams are pro- vided throughout history. such as the civilizations which develOped around the Gulf of Mexico. the Mediterranean, in Europe, or in New Guinea. 102 4. The development of modern civilization In all these mainstreams, the level of civilization was never high enough. however, to obliterate absolute poverty and the reliance on gods and deities, except in the case of one. It was perhaps because it was based on the broadest communication system of them all, which in- cluded, in written records. the memory of civilization which had long since crumbled, that one mainstream was able to accumulate recipes" to a level of civilization never reached before. 7This level was high enough to allow the emergence Of a reality which had, as its characteristic element, a high expectancy of internal control. “Thus Renaissance man"" was the first to question the validity of models of external control and the blows exchanged, as a result of this questioning, between secular interests and the church, between modern man and the institutionalized pacification for which he no longer had any use, rever- berated throughout history up to this very day. It was indeed a remarkable development. For man, who has thus far always relied on external forces of con- trol to take the responsibility for his failure, threw "Ogburn (1964. p. 24) speaks of "accumulation of culture" in a society over time. ""See Smith (1962) and Gay (1969). 103 those crutches overboard to face the music alone. That is, he developed a completely new reality, which included an expectation of internal control which was generalized to outcomes not yet controllable. And this element of generalization, of arrogance, of undiluted faith in his own capacities, is perhaps the most significant Of modern man's emergence. Whether, as I tend to believe, this development was the predictable outcome of a period in which the accumula- tion of new principles for organizing matter/energy allow- ed a rapid succession of successes in gaining control, or whether the new world view was an invention, only histor- ians can tell. It seems. however, that in taking full responsibility for his well-being and in developing the expectation that he would be able to live up to it, mod- ern man developed a new set of models of his environment, in which the emphasis was no longer on pacification, but on manipulation through accurate prediction. Instead of placing all hope on entering heaven after death, man started working for a heaven on earth. And it seems thus that science was born and that the generalized expectancy became a self-fulfilling prophecy with unbelievable consequences.) Science allowed modern man to develop a great number of new recipes for organizing matter/energy in quick succession. This led to a slightly Slower upgradation 104 of standards, while man is still trying tO catch up with the new level of civilization, as far as his levels of living are concerned. In summary, one can thus say that a very high level of civilization was reached in one of the mainstreams carried by the world's communication system. This civilization signified a break with the slow development which had characterized the previous centuries, in that it "took off," because the basic parameters of man's real- ity had changed. This change allowed the development Of science. The members Of the societies, in which that civilization developed, are still busy catching up with it. in that the tendency toward entropy at the new level is still ongoing, while the development of the new re- cipes for organizing matter/energy has so far never stopped. 5. Modernization Modern civilization allowed the communication sys- tem. in which it developed, to expand to a point where it virtually encompasses the whole globe. In fact, the daring exploits Of early European travelers and conq- uerors are perhaps the best examples of modern man's new found arrogance." The establishment of the world- "To me, Pizarro's conquest of the Inca empire and the lrfiJlling of 70 million.buffalo. to a point where the last 20 11£i<1 to be protected, are all-time monuments of this arrogance. 105 encompassing communication system is by no means complete, in that there is still great variation in the degree to which societies are isolated from it. However, the continuation of that isolation can only be temporary. This breakdown Of isolation from the mainstream of modern civilization results in the rapid process Of change which we call modernization. This rapid process is in essence not different from the one which cha- racterizes other periods in history in which different levels of civilization came into contact. It seems, how- ever, that the difference between the levels of civiliza- tion coming into contact is greater, and that the impact of the contact is more sudden, than was the case in prev— ious instances of contact between different levels Of civilization. Also, the adOption Of modern civilization seems to allow a generalized expectancy Of internal con- trol to emerge to a point where supernatural forces of external control are no longer needed so that absolute poverty is abolishedtg However, notwithstanding such as- pects which make modernization a unique phenomenon, it seems that our reality of evolving civilization can be profitably applied to the modernization process. One can say that modern civilization, i.e., the set (of’recipes developed in industrialized society, allows the individual more control over his physical environ- ment than any other civilization. Therefore, the U 106 vicarious eXperience of the level of living possible by applying modern recipes leads to a rapid upgrading of standards for living: The revolution of rising eXpecta- tions. This tendency toward entropy in standards for living within the world-encompassing communication sys- tem seems one crucial aspect of the modernization process. The upgrading of standards for living implies that relative poverty is introduced, that individuals become motivated to reduce the difference between their new stan- dard for living and their levels of living. When modernization runs its normal course, the motivation is reduced by the adoption of modern recipes. A second cru- cial aspect of modernization is therefore the tendency toward entropy in recipes used within the world-encompass- ing communication system. However, in many cases the novel recipes cannot be applied as fast as desired, giving rise to the revolution of rising frustrations. In that case the motivation resulting from the emergence of relative poverty is re- duced otherwise. L— Thus modernization is the change process which results when societies come into contact with modern civilization, so that (1) individuals in those societies become relatively poor and therefore (2) make efforts to reduce the ensuing motivation. The crucial elements in the modernization process seem to be: 107 1. The breakdown of isolation from modern civiliza- tion in the establishment of a world-encompassing communication system. 2. The upgrading of standards for living to incorp- orate outcomes possible by the application of modern re- cipes, i.e., a tendency toward entropy in standards for living within the world-encompassing communication system: 3. The effort to upgrade the levels of living to make them coincide with the new standards for living by- adopting modern recipes. In normal modernization these efforts are successful and result in a tendency toward entropy in modern recipes used. In case of anomalies in the modernization process, efforts to upgrade levels are not successful so that motivation must be pacified other- wise. However, such pacification implies the potential for eventual movement in the direction of normal modernization. 4. In case of normal modernization, the emergence of the modern reality. There seems to be but one steady state in which the feverish change, brought about in modernization, can come to rest, regardless of temporary anomalies which can be expectedzéipe state in which all men partake more or less equally in the highest level of civilization available in the modern communication system; In fact, the spread of the highest level of civilization is inevitable, as soon .i 108 as communication permits it, simply because one cannot seriously continue to seek well-being with recipes which are less efficacious than the ones one knows to be avail- able. Given that the communication system encompasses the whole globe, the predicted entropy implies a steady state which can only be upset by invention, or contact with higher levels of civilization which evolved in outer space. In summary, the communication system which carries modern civilization has expanded to include the whole world. This led to feverish change, in that the tendency toward entropy in standards for and levels of living has begun to operate in the communication system. This change process is called modernization.* *Rogers with Svenning (1969, p. 8) make.a distinc- tion between development and modernization, in that the former refers to the social system and the latter to the individual.3 Development is defined as "the process whereby a contemporary society improves its control over the environment by means of an increasingly competent technology applied by increasingly complex organizations" (Caplow and Finsterbush, 1964), and modernization as "the process by which individuals change from a tradi- tional way of life to a more complex, technologically advanced and rapidly changing, style of life" (Rogers with Svenning, 1969, p. in). My view of modernization as outlined in section 5 of the present chapter also refers to individuals and agg- regates of individuals. To me development is the change in production, distribution, political, educational and other systems of societies so that these systems allow 'the application of modern recipes by members of the soci- eties. In this essay, such system changes have not been dealt with. 109 6. Research on modernization The modernization process is perhaps better docu- mented than other historical changes in modernization because men want to gain control over the process, to speed it up. or to avoid its anomalies. More thorough documentation does not mean, however, that the mass of studies of the process have led to a reality which allows a systematic process view of modernization as a whole. As a reaction to both the grand theories of men like Parsons and the decriptive particularism of anthropology, research on modernization has often taken the route of developing middle range theories* as suggested by Merton (1957. p. 5). An example of this orientation is the work of Rogers with Svenning (1969). Such an orientation has led to a large number of useful and testable propositions for which support has often been provided. However, little effort has been made to integrate the many propositions developed into a theoretical frame- work. The resultant situation can be likened to a group of men studying a combustion engine. One of them ob- serves a high correlation between the gasoline level and number of revolutions per minute, another has removed the spark plugs and observes that the engine cannot *Working in the middle range implies using "postu- lated relationships which are testable but deal with .rather limited particular types of behaviors" (Rogers with Svenning. 1969, p. at»). 110 Operate without them, etc. But the insights thus gained do not add up to an integrated dynamic model of the en- gine which allows statement of the functions of the diff- erent parts of the engine, and thereby its repair or improvement. In short, we have not needed the advice Merton (1957) gave when he made his plea for theories of the middle range: I believe, and beliefs are of course notor- iously subject to error, that for some time to come, it is theories of the middle range which hold the largest promise, provided that,* underlying this modest search for social uniformities, there is an enduring and pervasive concern with consolidati * the special theories into a more genera set of concepts and internally consistent propositions (Merton, 1957, p. 10). The lack of a more comprehensive theoretical framework can have serious consequences for our efforts to impose real- ity on the complexity of the modernization process. Except for hunches we have little guidance in determining which phenomena to categorize into a concept and in deter- mining the types of relationship between concepts. It is as if we are working on a prefabricated house without regard to a blueprint of the whole house. I do believe with Merton (195?) that the effort to create theories of the middle range is useful and pose- ibly the only way to advance our ability to impose reality on modernization. But that reality should be our *Merton's emphasis. 111 ultimate goal and I protest the fact that we seem to have lost sight of this ultimate goal. In my cpinion, efforts to develop testable propositions AND a framework into which they fit must go hand in hand and mutually revit- alize each other. It is the lack of an adequate theoretic framework for understanding modernization as a whole which provided the motivation for this essay. Therefore, this essay is an effort to contribute to a theory that includes more than a single proposition. In continuing my effort, I shall endeavor to further underpin the reality developed thus far by using some of the insights others gained in aspects of the moderniza- tion process. I shall only be concerned with evidence for the expected role of vicarious eXperience, standards for living, and levels of living. I single out these ele- ments for scrutiny and postpone the examination of the role of communication for good reason. The tendency to- ward entropy, the dynamic of modernization, occurs in standards for and levels of living. Communication, on the other hand, is the tendency toward entrapy at work, the mechanism of change, in that its occurrence implies diff- erence in the process of being minimized. One could even go as far as to say that entropy, once reached, obviates the need to communicate, because it implies similarity. When they are similar, people have nothing to say to each 112 other, although they would understand each other perfect- ly if they communicated. In summary, some of the many accounts of the modernization process, which themselves have not led to an adequate reality of modernization, will be used to further underpin my effort to arrive at one. 7. Vicarious experience According to the model of the evolution of civiliza- tion, the process of modernization starts when members of a society with a less evolved civilization vicariously experience thewntcomes of those who participate in modern civilization. This vicarious experience leads the former to upgrade their standards for living. Vicarious exper- lgggg is the experience of others' outcomes as if they were one's own. It not only implies knowledge of others! outcomes. but also the ability to see oneself as having those outcomes.'* In Chapter 2, we suggested that the frustrations which result from relative poverty can be minimized by the voluntary curtailment of one's reference groups, but that the modern reality, with its belief in social Jus- tice, tends to destroy such self-imposed curtailment. The man who can see himself as having others' outcomes, regardless of who those others are, can be said to have accepted the fact that he has as many rights and chances 113 as others. However. the man who can only bring himself to vicariously experience outcomes of people more similar to himself, probably has a limited reference group. One can thus expect one's ability to experience outcomes vicariously to vary with the nature of one's reality. ‘The concept that comes closest to our notion of vicarious experience is Lerner's (1958) empathyi Accord- ing to one of the several definitions he gives the con- cept, empathy is "the capacity to see oneself in the other fellow's situation" (1958, p. 50) which is similar to my definition of vicarious experience. The role this capacity is supposed to play in modernization is, however, difficult to understand. Thus empathy, or "the ability to arrange the self-system on short notice" (1958, p. 51) is said to allow the mobile person to identify with new aspects of his environment. It is seen (Rogers with Svenning, 1969, p. 53) has one result of communication with the world outside the village," while the lack of it is said "to act as a sort of 'mental insulator' which immunizes the villager against cosmopolite influence" (1969. p. 38).f§ Lerner measured empathy by asking his respondents to *This is not necessarily contradictory:one encounters many such chicken-and-eggs problems in studying moderniza- tion, which can probably only be solved by viewing them as the result of the mutual influence of variables on each other (Zetterberg, 1965, pp. 72-73). 114 imagine themselves in the position of the head of govern- ment, the editor of a newspaper, the owner of a radio station, and by further asking what people miss by not getting a newspaper, how people who attend movies differ from those who do not, what other country they would like to live in, what they would like to know most about that country, what problem people like them face in life, and what such people can do to solve this problem.* Lerner's empathy seems a mixed bag. But it does include measures of the respondent's knowledge of the outcomes of, be it "far out others," including foreign nationals, and the ability to see oneself in the position of those others. Though not exactly the same as our notion of vicarious experience, empathy seems close enough to it to serve our purpose. We suggested that the type of persons with whom one can empathize indicates the range of his reference group. It is interesting, in this reSpect, that Lerner used such distant others, as newspaper editors. Most respondents probably had a good knowledge of the outcomes of people a little more like themselves and could identify with them. It seems logical to assume that trips to the market, the city or a friend's house, lead to vicarious experience of outcomes of people more like oneself, as was the case *This is more like a Smith and Inkeles (1969) eff- icacy item. 115 with the Yoruba farmer who saw zinc roofs in Ibadan and raised cocoa to get one. Such small increases in stan— dards, followed by small successes, probably lead even- tually to a modern reality and Lerner's empathy. However, even with his meaning for empathy, Lerner (1958, p. 71) could develop the following conceptual typology of his respondentss Literacy urbanization Media participation Empathy Modern + + + + Transi- tional 3 - + + + Transi- tional 2 - - + + Transi- tional l - - - + Trad 1-9 tional - - - - iIn other words, Lerner sees empathy as the first change toward modernity, which implies that links, less sophisticated than through the mass media, with the mo- dern communication system must have been established, as I suggested. That this type of empathy is acquired easily, and does not seem to hamper modernization, is supported ‘by the revolution of rising expectations which Lerner (1963. p. 330) himself identified. After all, rising 81pectations come about as a result of empathizing with jpersons with a higher level of living than oneself. £12 1 116 Notwithstanding the somewhat fuzzy role of empathy in the modernization process, Lerner thus still provides support for the role of vicarious experience as it is envisaged in the model of the evolution of civilization. In fact, Lerner (1958, p. 72) says of the transitionals, who "were marked less by their manifest ways than by their latent wants": The true Transitional is defined, dynamically by what he wants to become. What differen- tiates him from his Traditional peers is a different latent structure of aptitudes and attitudes. The aptitude is empathy, he 'sees' things the others do not see, 'lives' in a world populated to imaginings alien to the constrictive world of the others. The atti- tude is desire, he wants to really see the things he has hitherto only 'seen' in his mind's eye, really to live in the world 'lived in' only vicariously.* And thus we pass from empathy to the desire which results from it o In summary, our identification of vicarious exper- ience and the role it plays in the evolution of civiliza- tion is supported by Lerner's empathy if one is willing to see a correspondence between it and vicarious expgrience. 8. Standards for living Let us turn to a study of standards for living (Cantril, 1965), for support of their expected role in *The underlinings reflect Lerner's emphasis. 117 the evolution of civilization. Cantril's point of depar- ture is man's reality, a notion I borrowed from him and rely on heavily in the present essay. '"Man's desires are embedded in his reality," (1965, p. 19) for man "has to learn what to desire," so that "desires spring from society." "Because desires are social, they are relative." If society changes, in terms of the outcomes people exper- ience, the desires embedded in reality will change. Where the demonstration of outcomes, allowed by modern civiliza- tion, causes a "great discontinuity" (1965, p. 17) in the experience of many, one can expect a great change in man's desires to result from it. Where desires are seen as relative, Cantril sets out to measure them, not by an absolute yardstick, but with a ten-point, self-anchoring scale. That is, with a contin- uum of outcomes, for which the respondent himself defines the poles in terms of the best and the worst set of out- comes he can imagine from his social eXperience. On this scale, the respondent then identifies the step he respec- tively is at now, was in the past and expects to be at in the future. This instrument was used with 20,000 respondents in 15 countries, which vary across a wide range of levels of civilization. It should, therefore, yield some interesting results in view of the predicted entropy in standards, although Cantril's results are sometimes difficult to assess because they are not 118 always consistent. I will often rely on Cantril's own emphasis and interpretation. A content analysis of the hOpes and fears expressed by people, when defining the poles of the continuum, allows Cantril (1965. p. 279) to say that the "vast majo- rity of both hopes and fears revolves around the complex well-being as this is rather simply defined: A decent level of living." But what constitutes a decent level of living appears subjectively defined. In poor countries, people are more concerned with survival, while in richer nations there is an increased sophistication and complex- ity of the concerns people express. Improvement in one area therefore seems to lead to a wider range of concerns in other areas. "If satisfaction is constantly eXper- ienced, it becomes part of a neutral world and loses its original value satisfaction until threatened or otherwise brought into awareness" (1965. p. 273). An outcome which is constantly experienced, therefore, allows seeking of other types of satisfaction.* When considering the pure volume of concerns expressed by people, Cantril observed a wide variation between countries. People in nations which seemed "on *Thus Cantril suggests, as does Maslow (1993), that there is a certain priority in desires, in that worry about basic necessities "blankets out" (Cantril. 1965, p.227) more sophisticated concerns. This may be another, mechanism for relieving the stress of relative poverty. 119 the go," such as Nigeria, Germany, Yugoslavia and Israel, express a larger volume of concerns, while Brazil, India and the U.S. are called "complacent," because people in them expressed a low volume of concerns. This may be attributed to absence of relative poverty: In India and Brazil because people are not yet aware of outcomes which are possible, and in the U.S. because such outcomes are always enjoyed. Cantril developed an objective development index out of such items as Gross National Product per head, number of doctors per 10,000 population, etc. This development index was found to correlate highly with people's assess- ment of their present situation on the ten-point, self- anchoring scale. If one compares individuals who rank their present situation as high, middle or low on the ladder. one finds that the percent of individuals in a country, who rate the present high, rank-order correlates .60 with the development index. The percent who rates their present situation low correlates -.7h (1965, p.257). Thus people know where they stand, which can only have come about through comparison and vicarious experience. If desires spring from society and are relative to what others in it have, that society seems indeed to be the world-encompassing. modern communication system. In comparing a country's score on the development index with the difference between the ratings of present rick p00: 9‘ . h). t 120 and future by the people in it, Cantril observes that future ratings are "dramatically high" relative to the present for developing countries while this was not the case in rich nations, such as the U.S. and Germany (1965, p- 195) .* Such findings allow Cantril to reach conclusions, which seem to support our notions: "It is clear that the West, with its abundance and technology that diminishes burdens, serves as a model by which other people define and expand their wants," or, as I would say, what people want out of life is determined in terms of the outcomes allowed by modern civilization, as it has develOped in the industrialized nations. "In a world where more people are becoming aware of what others have and what is potentially available, they perceive and assess their own situation in terms of relative difference between what is and what might be for them." If modern civilization serves as the model by which people define and expand their wants, entropy in the types of outcomes which are aspired to can be predicted, while this shared standard for living can be expected to include the out- comes, which can be controlled with the set of recipes which constitutes modern civilization. *There may be a ceiling effect at work here. The richer nations scored their present higher than the poorer nations, so that there is less room for diff- erence with future ratings on the ten-point scale. 121 In view of his results, Cantril (1965, p. 303) also develops a number of stages of development, which are described as follows: 1. "Acquiescence to circumstances," for which the modal respondent in India and Brazil is given as an example.* [In this stage people are not yet awakened to potentialities, while "fatalism makes them accept their lot."f]They are unable to rate themselves on the scale because they have no comparison. They are not yet frustrated or mobilized. Their concerns are restricted to survival needs. 2. "Awakening to potentialities": People become aware of possibilities and learn what to want out of life. They become mobilized. Frustration results from the con- straints imposed by the social environment, which has not changed yet. This period is one of chaos, characterized by the break-up of established institutions and loyalties which, we would add, have developed over time in a rela- tively stable state at a low level of civilization. 3. "Awareness of means to realize goals," when people sense the possibility that the new potentialities perceived can become real. Cantril thus sees this as the stage in which perceptions of internal control emerge. *The study was reported in 1965, so that the data are even older than that. Present news reports from India and Brazil make us believe that Cantril's characteriza- tion no longer holds. 122 "But faith must be engendered" in this stage, while people are not interested in freedom, as long as better levels of living are made possible. Cantril sees this as the situation in which strong leaders emerge. h. "Awareness and self-reliance" in the experience of intended consequences through action. This stage may thus be likened to Rostow's "take-off." 5. "Satisfaction and gratification," in which gen- eral satisfaction with the way of life achieved is exper- ienced, while continued develOpment is seen as possible. It is characterized by general confidence and few frustra- tions. The typical case is the modal U.S. respondent. The last stage is said to be different from the one described for India because the former is marked by satisfaction with the level of modern civilization achiev- ed, while people in the latter stage are not yet awakened to its potentialities, and still need pacification by the reification of forces of external control. However, both stages can be said to be characterized by complacency, in that perceived potential is attained, while many altern- atives are not perceived available. One could thus say that both are characterized by entrapy, but differ in the level at which it is attained. In summary, Cantril's (1965) views seem to support our expectations about standards for living by showing that individuals are mainly worried about a decent level LEVEL OF CIVILIZATION INCORPORATED IN STANDARD FOR LIVING 123 p-.-------- ---p- . PREMOBILIZATION" MOBILIZATION“ MAJ ORITY“ TIME -——-) Figure 3-1: Curve describing the upgrading of standards for living "The terms are Cantril's (1965). 124 of living, where decent is subjectively defined: by showing that those concerns are expressed by those who have become relatively poor, but that volume of concerns is unrelated to objective measures of poverty: by point- ing to felt poverty as a function of the difference be- tween standards for and levels of living: by showing that individuals know where they stand so that a world-‘ encompassing communication system can be assumed: and by showing that individuals become poor relative to what individuals in industrialized society have. Cantril puts some more flesh on our model, in that his comparison of the aspirations expressed in different nations, in terms of the development index, suggests drawing the curve (Figure 3-1), along which standards for living are up- graded from entropy at a low level to that at a high level, as a result of the "great discontinuity," which occurs in modernization. 9. Levels of living According to Rogers (1962, p. 162), the diffusion of a novel recipe for organizing matter/energy through— out a social system can be described by a growth curve, which has been depicted in Figure 3-2. The diffusion of the recipe starts slowly, takes off, and tapers off when most members of the system have adopted, while the pro- cess ends when the members are similar, once again, in 125 71.00% PERCENT OF PEOPLE IN SwIAL SYSTEM WHO HAVE ADOPTED NEW RECIPE TIME —--9 Figure 3-2: Curve describing the diffusion of a novel recipe in a social system (Rogers, 1962) 126 the recipes they use, i.e., when entropy has been reached. Most studies of this entropy process look at the diffusion of agricultural practices, but similar curves have been observed for a great variety of recipes. One could say, in the case of radio receivers, for instance, that most societies are still somewhere on the take-off part of the diffusion curve, so that researchers can still use "radio ownership" as a variable. In other soci- eties, however, such as the U.S.. there is a radio for every inhabitant, so that "ownership of radio" becomes a constant, similar to the ones encountered by the early anthropologists. 'Given that individual recipes diffuse throughout a social system until entropy has been reached, we can expect modern civilization, the set of such novel recipes, to diffuse throughout the world-encompassing communica- tion system in similar fashion, but more slowly and less orderly. My prediction of entropy in levels of living at the highest level of civilization available seems to hold for historical phenomena observed during modernization. Mean- while, there is also ample evidence that modern civiliza- tion improves the physical well-being man experiences. Hardship, hunger, and disease can be avoided if known re- cipes are applied. If one looks at the improvement of man's ability to survive relative to other organisms, 127 one sees the impact of modern recipes in a population explosion which becomes a threat in itself. In fact, the control over nature man can now exert is such that danger to survival no longer derives from what nature does to us, but from what we do to nature. The side effects of our relentless efforts to improve the physical well-being of the individual are beginning to upset us. The amount of DDT in the milk of American mothers is al- ready higher than officially tolerated in food products which cross state boundaries (Look, 1969). But one does not need such dramatic examples. The "dirt" which accumulates on your windshield during a sum- mer day, and is casually washed off with a strong deter- gent, is evidence of the countless animals we deprive of food during the year and, implicitly. of our impact on the balance in the ecological system, a balance we care- lessly neglect as long as our momentary convenience is safeguarded. And it may be long before we take ecological balance seriously because it will take time before the unheeded warnings develop into serious consequences for our eXper- ience, while it is only a change in experience, which is, be it with a lag, followed by a change in the reality. Let us hope the change in experience will not be a "great discontinuity." 128 In summary, levels of living seem to be upgraded in the manner predicted,_while an increase in_physical well- beipg seems indeed the common result of such upgrading. The question can be raised as to whether the negative side-effects of our efforts are not beginning to offset the benefits of continued develOpment in the same direction.* 10. Standards and levels combined Having so far encountered nothing that would lead me to feel less confident of my reality of the evolution of civilization and the role of the tendencies toward *In view of the fact that absolute poverty seems to be abolished ("God is dead") and that desire must now be created by a multi-million dollar industry, one can further ask whether the economic system should perpet- uate the develOpment and promotion of recipes for individ- ual physical well-being, while neglecting to develop re- cipes which could lead to outcomes that would create and satisfy alternative desires, for instance, desires that ca: only be satisfied by community consumption (Galbraith, l9 9 . After all, one cannot miss what one does not know, so that what peOple desire is relatively arbitrary, depend- ing upon available outcomes which are recognized as super- ior to others. (The people who demonstrate such outcomes can be called "taste-makers." In our present society, taste—making seems very much the function of self- interested businessmen.1 One can ask the question whether this is more legitimate than government planning in this respect. Those who counter with Mannheim's (1950) "Who plans the planner?" can be assured that even government taste-makers can only create alternative tastes, if the outcomes demonstrated‘are recognized as superior to other by those whom they are trying to affect. 129 entropy in standards and levels as its dynamic, I shall now sum up the reality by describing the relationship between standards for living and levels of living, as it seems to develop when modernization takes its "normal" course. Let us first look at the modal inhabitant of a mo- dernizing society (Figure 3-3). The figure shows how the relationship between standards for and levels of living determines motivation by creating poverty; The type of poverty is determined by whether the desired outcomes are seen as out of human control, or under human control. In case no human control is perceived possible, absolute pov- erty results. When people learn that desired outcomes are under human control and when awareness of many new controllable outcomes is created, the standard "takes off," creating relative poverty. If the level of living does not show a concomitant increase, frustration and extreme relative poverty occurs. If the level of living can be upgraded, normal modernization occurs, which may, at some future date, lead to a coincidence of standard for and level of living, without absolute poverty. Thus Figure 3-3 implies a relationship which Lerner (1963, p. 333) called the "wants/gets ratio": achievements satisfaction = aspirations ‘ 130 STANDARD FOR LIVING v EVEL OF LIVING .0... C..'.O‘O..O..OCC....C .6 LEVEL OF CIVILIZATION ASPIRED TO AND ENJOYED “"u-. Ox. an. 0.. 000.000.. 00.... 00 O O. 0 .0. AT ISFACT IOIL MODERNIZATION .4pTIME Figure 3-3: The relationship between standard for living and level of living during the modernization of the modal inhabitant of a developing country. 131 However. Lerner's formulation seems an oversimplification of the relationship between standards for living and levels of living which seem so crucial in the moderniza- tion process. [For one, the creation of relative poverty seems a necessary condition for modernizationg “When it is followed by the adoption of new recipes, as assumed in Figure 3-3, normal modernization occurs. A question worthy of further research is: Under what circumstances does frustration and abnormal moderniza- tion occur? 5:? view of the eXperiments with dogs (Seligman, 1969) discussed in chapter 2, one could suggest that an individual's experience in the early stages of his modernization may be crucial, in that those early experiences may teach him whether he can improve his situation or is helplessgfafgj There is evidence (Rogers with Shoemaker, in press) which shows that individuals learn to innovate, in that the time a new recipe takes to diffuse grows shorter after initial success at adopting new recipes. On the other hand, there are examples which show that the ini- tial failure of new recipes may make a social system un- responsive to subsequent efforts to introduce new recipes. Figure B-h shows the same relationships as Figure 3-3, but this time not for the individual, but for the whole social system. It illustrates how modern civiliza- tion as a "package" diffuses throughout a system. 132 ‘T‘lOOZ DES IRED OUTCOMES NLQONTROLLED OUTCOMES C. 0.00.... O. OOOOOOOOOOO PERCENT OF INDIVIDUALS WHO ASPIRE TO CONTROL OUTCOME ALLOWED BY MODERN CIVILIZATION TAKE- OFF SAT ISFACT ION q090000900000oo. .909 o .- ENTROPY' MODERNIZATION ENTROPY 'r’ .1 ——-§ T IME Figure 3-4: Diffusion of modern desires and recipes in the world encompassing communication system 133 Figure 3-4 clarifies what we meant by entropy in stan- dards for living and levels of living and by our predic- tion that such entropy will be reached at the highest level of civilization available in the social system (see Chapter 1). Ip,short. the dynamic of modernization is said to be: (l)_the emergence of a virulent desire to have outcomes experienced as well-being, which have become salient be- cause theyrhave been demonstrated to be controllable by the applnmtion of modern recipes, and (2) the consequent adoption of those recipes to control those outcomes. To the extent that the number of outcomes, over which modern civilization allows control, is finite, will the modernization process end when all eXperience those outcomes. And even though the reality of most of us, developed in a period which at least includes the first TV set and the first man on the moon, will find it hard to accomodate the expectation that it might all end one day, this seems, nevertheless the more logical eXpecta- tion. For the present world view of a growth curve which never tapers off, the view that modernization is a "moun- tain without a top" (Hofstee, 196“) cannot withstand our evidence on the tendency toward entropy in the world encompassing communication system. What would happen when stability is reached at a new level of entropy and the gains are consolidated to become 13L» a normal part of everyday existence, is a matter of speculation, since such a situation is not yet histo- rical. (Some observers have suggested that there are al- ready signs which indicate that concerns shift from seek- ing control over outcomes eXperienced as physical well- being, to a search for meaningfulness (Berlo, 1969), which would conform to Maslow's hypothesized hierarchy of needs. After all, what do you do once you have ensured your physical well-being. once you have made sure that you will survive?"* In summary, our efforts to find support for our dypamic model of the evolution of civilization in descriptions of modernization seems to have been success- fu1 O 11. Conclusion Our model of man as a controlling system, and Of society as a group of such man-the-controlling-systems, seems to be able to account fairly parsimoniously for experiences which had, hitherto, not been patterned into a reality. In fact, some, who are convinced of the unique moral character of man, may find the power of *Biologists (Portmann, 1965, p. 173) are beginning to ask similar questions, in that they have realized that survival is not an end in itself, but a necessary condi- tion. Thus they raise the question: Condition for what? Portmann (1965) observes many aspects of animal bodily characteristics and behavior which do not have a purely survival function and probes such notions as animal self- expression. 135 man-the-controlling-system somewhat disheartening. But then, our respect for feedback should keep us from operat- ing under disconnected realities. As a result of observations made in Chapter 3, I feel I can have more confidence in making the following knowledge claims: 1. When two social systems with different levels of civilization come into contact (i.e., becomegpart of the same communication system), vicarious experience of the outcomes of the members of the social system with the higher level of civilization by those of the system with the lower level leads to new desires, to appoint where all members of the communication system share the same desired outcomes. 2. As a result of the new desired outcomes, the mem- bers of the social system with the lower level of civilization will make an effort to adopt the recipes which are used by those of the social system with the pigher level of civilization, so that there is a tendency ‘Epp_all members of the communication system to use the same recipes, i.e., to share the same level of livipg. (These knowledge claims seem useful in that they explain and predict such phenomena as described by the diffusion curve, which indicates a tendency toward en- tropy, but for which the force, or gradient, leading to entropy, had never been identified.) However, the 136 usefulness of the reality develOped so far does not stOp here, as we shall see in the next chapter, which deals with some pertinent characteristics of the mechanics of evolving civilization. Meanwhile, our reality has so far definitely not accounted for some important aspects of modernization, even though we believe it to account for its dynamic. In Chapter 2 we made a distinction between consumption and production. In light Of this distinction, we can say that we focused in this essay on the realm of consumption and neglected the realm of production. And where a ten- dency toward entropy is evident in the former, the Opp- osite seems to hold in the latter. In case of the realm of production, the evolution Of civilization is accompanied by increasing specializa- tion and interdependence. Where man once adapted himself to the ecological system because of his dependence on it, he now adapts to the economic system because it is only through participation in that system that he can enjoy the level of living possible under modern civilization. But the economic system thereby places heavy con- straints on us, and an effort to free ourselves from these constraints may well be the next step in our strug- gle for well-being, especially when physical well-being seems secured and absolute poverty abolished. People who started such a struggle would perhaps say: "I want to 137 do my own thing."* One could thus write another essay on the increasing interdependence and complexity of the economic system and its institutions that accompany the evolution of civilization, without even bothering to Speak about the tendency toward entropy in standards and levels of liv- ing. But that is not our Objective here. In the next part Of the present essay, I shall continue to develop the reality of evolving civilization, and especially modernization, by scrutinizing its mechanics, i.e., pro- cesses of information and communication. In summary, the model of evolving civilization seems powerful although limited. In Chapter 4, I Shall expand it by looking at information processes which allow modernization to occur. #The so-called "generation gap" may, in light of our reality of civilization, have developed because the adolescents of this age are the first who take physical well-being for granted.. Their reality develop- ed in a different stage of the modernization process than that of their elders: hence their concerns are different. Chapter U INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION 1. Introduction One of the advantages of a reality in which one has confidence is that it allows statements of the "if-then" type. Our reality Of evolving civilization seems espe— cially valuable in this reSpect. For our understanding Of information and communication is very scanty on the one hand, while these processes seem so essential in the diffusion of desires and recipes on the other hand. Even though it assumes communication as given, our reality of evolving civilization can be very useful in guiding our Specification of elements and functions of communication and information processes, because the entropy predicted in that reality can be seen as the result of communica- tion and information. The reality thus becomes a heuristic tool. But it might be able to do more for us than that. To the extent that it specifies how modernization norm- ally Occurs, or "should" occur, may it allow us to make statements about how information and communication pro- cesses should occur to allow modernization to progress 138 139 normally. And constructing such statements is the long term goal of the communication scientist interested in pay-off, for it is such statements which allow the development of recipes, or as one calls them in case of communication, strategies. Our efforts to construe an understanding of the mechanics of modernization will rely, for guidance, on the reality developed so far, although we shall, again, endeavor to avoid a disconnected reality of information and communication processes, by taking into account empi- rical work which is available. In foregoing pages, the world-encompassing communica- tion network was the social situation of concern: the pages which are to follow will be more limited in this respect. In fact, I shall focus on a rural village in a developing society, because ensuring that such villages modernize normally is, perhaps, the most important task ahead, if alone because of their numbers. In summary, our identification of elements and func- tions of information and communication processes in modernization will be guided by the reality of evolving civilization. Such guidance is possible because this reality can be said to have described the effect of information and communication. In our discussion, we shall limit the social situation to the modernizing rural village. 140 2. Reality y CThe acquisition of new desires and the recipes to satisfy them are, in essence, changes in reality,3 A discussion of the mechanics Of modernization must thus start with scrutiny Of reality. Reality is a black box. That is, one can construe a reality of it, because this reality of reality cannot be based on feedback. All realities of reality are, therefore, based on inference from Observation of action, under the assumption that all action derives from, and is therefore indicative Of, reality. Let me go ahead and make some statements about reality anyway, because it may be useful. Reality is a representation of the environment, a system (cognitive structure) of elements and their relationships (theories), which stands for events (changes, differences) in the environment. The elements and their relationships have (1) value or significance for well-being (connotative meaning, attitude, aspira- tion), otherwise they would not be in the reality, (2) they are attributed with a probability of occurrence in the environment (eXpectation, prediction) and (3) with a cue which activates them when it is appropriate, i.e., when the event takes place for which the cue was rec- ognized, so that an epistemic or semantic link is lhl established. The cue can be a sign (Operation) or a sym- bol (word). One can further say that the reality is internally consistent, so that individual relationships are logical, relative to the whole reality.‘ Since real- ity is a system, change in one respect affects all others. L;The function Of reality is to allow existence, i.e., correspondence between intended outcome and actual out- come, when one acts within the environment to experience intended outcomes, by providing recipes and intentions. A reality is like a blank sheet of paper which is gradually written upon by experience. One can assume, for instance, that expectations are based on the freq- uency of occurrence with which something is experienced. If one says of someone that he has a "lot of eXperience," one indicates that he probably has accumulated an ad- equate reality to deal with a certain problem. The words "adequate reality" are important. A reality is not correct or incorrect, because the criter- ion for that is another reality. But a reality is ad- equate if intended, or at least predicted, outcomes are experienced. Adequacy depends on the amount of control the reality allows its bearer. and is a function of (1) its intentions, and (2) its recipes for arriving at intended outcomes. If experience does not change, i.e., if the type of event in the environment, and the type of outcome that 142 results from it, stay fairly constant for a prolonged period, a reality will gradually develOp which takes that experience into account, because it is adjusted to a point where feedback reinforces it most of the time. Thus an adequate reality will develop, especially where one can expect that intentions will be limited to what is possible, while the recipes allow the intended outcomes to occur. A group of people in such conditions will share the same reality, so that there are no alternatives. Then reality is reified to dogma.* If experience changes, either intentions change, so that recipes become irrelevant, or recipes become useless, even if intentions remain unchanged. Then reality be- comes inadequate because it does not allow control and creates uncertainty instead (Berlo,1969). One can expect that the "great discontinuity" in experience, brought about by modernization, will have the effect of render- ing inadequate the reality Of those who eXperience it (Cantril, 1965, p. 17). But, when modernization pro- gresses normally, realities are adjusted to take into account the new experience, until they are adequate once again. Therefore, the process of modernization can only be understood via the causes of reality change. Reality *See Inkeles' (no date) observation that modern man is tolerant of opinions of others. 1&3 change can be said to be the result of receiving informa- tion, the topic of the next section. In summary, we made some minimal and unverifiable* statements about reality which will be useful for Observa- tions which are to follow. Since the interaction between changes in intentions and recipes, the essence of modernization can be seen as reality change, such reality change must be understood, if one is to control moderniza- tion. Reality change can be seen as the result Of receiv- ing information. 3. Information Information is an exchange of matter/energy with the environment (an experience), which leads to change in reality by increasing or decreasing its adequacy. That is, information only occurs when experience does not con- form to reality, when the goodness-Of-fit between reality and experience is affected.** Because reality is a black box, it is difficult to assess its changes, except by the actions based on it. *Since reality is a black box, computer simulation of reality change as a result of receiving information may be beneficial to our understanding of that process. **Our definition of information is consistent with Berlo's (1969) definition: information involves the imposition of pattern on previously undifferentiated matter/energy. 14b Thus we give students an examination to see whether our teaching (the student's experience) led to the desired reality change. The nature of the information received cannot be determined by the nature of the experience, be- cause reality is not a snapshot of the environment. In short, a discussion of information is hampered by a "meanings are in peOple" problem (Berlo, 1960, p. 175). Let us, therefore, look at some of the ways reality Egg; ,pg affected by experience if modernization is to take place. (1) Feedback. Given intentions and given recipes to achieve them, man acts in his environment guided by his recipes.t Feedback is information about the change in the environment which occurs as a result of action and tells men how well his recipes allow him to experience intended consequences. Feedback thus reinforces or weakens the confidence in recipes, by affecting the probabilities attached to certain relationships. An example of feed- back which reinforces reality and makes it more adequate, is the scientific theory which is supported by evidence. A reality is inadequate if actions based on it do not lead to feedback which shows that intended consequences were achieved. An inadequate reality can only be a temporary phenomenon and occurs, for instance, when changes in the environment lead to feedback which weakens the reality. An example is the expatriate's culture 145 shock, the "mental disease" one passes through before one is completely adapted to a new social environment (Foster, 1962, p. 187). A sufficiently weakened reality allows prediction of search for new recipes. An example are the Indians who took up ghost dancing after their environment had undergone a great discontinuity. (2) Environmental information.* An experience,which increases the number of options perceived available in the environment can be called environmental information. Environmental information is especially important because it allows changes in intention. This occurs when new Op- tions include outcomes which are recognized as closer to well-being than others.‘ A change in intentions renders recipes, developed for attaining the old set of inten- tions, irrelevant. As an example is the Yoruba who be- came aware of zinc roofs, for the acquisition of which his ability to subsist as a self-sufficient farmer is ir- relevant. Environmental information, in this sense, thus has the immediate effect of making the reality less ad- equate, because intended consequences are not experienced. Reality must thus be changed by incorporating new recipes or by pacification. *See Ackoff's (1958) "information." Since Ackoff distinguishes three types of information, one Of which he calls information also, people have been trying to find a better word for it. In using "environmental information," I adopt Berlo's 1969 term. {I f (. \ 1&6 Modernization thus renders reality inadequate, either because the environment changes to a point where recipes no longer lead to intended consequences, or because inten- tions change which render irrelevant existing recipes. This also has the effect that intended consequences are no longer experienced. In both cases, search for new re- cipes can be predicted. Or, in Berlo's (1969) words, people will seek to impose new "pattern on matter/energy." while man only "acquires power to control" by imposing such pattern. (3) Instrugtipp.ilnformation which leads to incorpora- tion of new recipes in the reality, and thereby improves its adequacy, or the ability to experience intended con- sequences, is called instruction (Ackoff, 1958). Feedback and environmental information seem to render reality in- adequate more or less automatically as the great discontin- uity takes effect. The problem, in making modernization run its normal course, is to make realities adequate again. ”According to our discussion of instruction, normal moderniza- tion can only come about as a result of instruction.' Recipes, or at least, patterns imposed on the environment, are creations of human realipy,* because *I limit myself here to human realities, although it is well known that animals impose patterns on the environ- ment. Migrating birds which navigate by the stars must have some reality of the firmament by which they evaluate feedback and redirect their course. The same can be said for salmon, which seem to find the stream in which they were born by smell. Modern biology is very interested in such phenomena (Portmann, 1965). 1L»? such recipes or patterns can exist nowhere else. That is, one cannot pick them up by receiving information from the physical environment or other sources, except for such peOple as Mormons, who receive whole books full of revela- tions from God. :Therefore, the only way to improve the adequacy of the reality is through one's own invention of recipes or through instructional information one receives from others through communication. We will not occupy ourselves further with invention and deal with communica- tion in the next section. (b) Mppivational information. Information about out- comes, their value and assessment (Keith, 1968, p. 13) can be called motivational information (Ackoff, 1958). Such information is of crucial importance in ensuring that modernization runs its normal course. The typical mo- dernizing villager will have acquired new intentions, but not the recipes to achieve intended consequences. The link between new recipes of which he grows aware and his existent intentions may not always be immediately obv- ious. Motivational information serves to link the out- comes, possible with the new recipe, to the villager's intended consequences. These four types of information can be seen as essen- tial to modernization. Since we are not interested in making realities less adequate, and since this seems to Occur more or less automatically anyway, we shall not 1&8 consider feedback and environmental information with any special attention. We Shall concentrate, instead, on the communication of instructional and motivational information. In summary, crucial reality changing experiences or types of information are feedback, environmental informa- tion, instruction, and motivational information. The first two make the reality less adequate in the great dis- continuity, while the last two increase such adequacy. We shall be especially concerned with them. Instruction and motivational information are received as a result of communication. b. Communication* Minimal conditions for communication are the follow- ing: at least two parties send packages of matter/energy through channels which connect them. Each organizes, or patterns, the matter/energy he sends to others in such a way that it serves as a cue, which activates reality according to linkage rules on which all more or less agree. The patterned matter/energy thus refers to, or is symbolic of, elements and relationships in reality,** *The present section will rely heavily on Berlo's (1969) discussion of the subject. **Here I differ from Berlo's (1969) Opinion that the patterned matter/energy is symbolic of the environment. But we do not talk of the environment, we talk of our reality of it. lu9 which, it will be remembered, in their turn represent the environment. \Communication cannot occur (1) if there is no simi— larity in the realities of the parties, and/or (2) if they do not share rules for organizing matter/energy into a set of mutually agreed upon cues for activating reality. The set of cues can be called language.*1 While communication is impossible if realities do not overlap, because cues will not activate similar real- ity elements and relationships, communication can have no informative effect if realities are completely similar. What is more, communication with informative effect can be said to make realities more similar. These two extremes imply a paradox which has plagued attempts to develop a reality Of the communication pro- cess. pp the one hand, the patterned matter/energy units which people send to each other can only function as cues for activating reality to the extent that it is already there. Or as Berlo (1969) says: "Matter/energy is trans- ferred, pattern is transferred, but significance is not transferred," because "meanings are in people.w1 /' *In this light, one can say that education has two functions: (1) to socialize new members of the group by ensuring that they share the set of cues and the reality used by the group, and (2) to give new group members an adequate reality. These two functions do not necessarily coincide. Teaching Nigerians the British Constitution can be said to serve the former function better than the latter. 150 The patterned matter/energy units "elicit an idea" in the one who receives them. Therefore, "the meanings you want other people to have must be in them . . . before you communicate." But then Berlo (1969) also says: "If meanings are in people, where do they come from? They come from exper- ience, they are learned . . . ." And that has been my position, especially in case of instructional information, which can only come about through receiving recipes from others through communication. In fact, the accumulation of recipes in the evolution of civilization would be im- possible if the communicative act could not create or develop reality where it did not exist before. (Thus, the paradox: Communication can oply occur when communality in meaning exists, but can onlyhave an informative effect to the extent that communality_does not Exist] This paradox hampers the development of a reality of communication, because it affects our understanding of what is communicated, of message, directly. For, if mean- ings must be in people before they can be elicited, scru- tiny Of the message does not allow prediction of its effects, unless one knows that the reality to be evoked is already there, in which case it is useless to send the message in the first place. Clearly, the paradox must be resolved before we can speak of messages which instruct: the only means of improving the adequacy of reality. 151 I propose to solve the paradox by saying that a mess- age can be informative, i.e., change reality by adding new recipes for instance, even though it can only do that by using cues to activate what is already there. That is, starting from a communality of meaning, a message can create meaning, expand reality. I would assume, for in- stance, that definitions, analogies, and examples serve that function, as well as a new juxtaposition of old real- ity elements evoked by familiar cues. If Whorf (Miller and MacNeil, 1968) is correct, the cognitive categories of the reality derive from the categories of language. I would go further and say that the use of familiar cues can create new reality elements and relationships and even new cues for them. "Are you beginning to get some mean- ing?" for one and reality or "have I lost you?" \Thus, I concur with Berlo that "meanings are in people" but insist that it is misleading to say that mean- ings must be there before they can be elicited, for that negates the ability to learn, to be informed. I further conclude that the message must be of a certain nature, if it is to elicit and create a certain meaning: its poten- tial effect. fEffect itself can only be evident in the change in action based on it. Therefore, we look for feedback to see whether potential effect was indeed achiev- ed, whether our recipe for organizing matter/energy into a message led to the intended consequences, in terms of 152 reality change. In summary, our discussion of communication allows us to discern:(l)gparties who have some commonality of meaning and share a set of cues for evoking meaning: (2) Messages, which are packages of matter/energy, organized in such a way as to have cuing and informative ability: (3)_channels for sending the packages of matter/energy linking the parties; and (u) effect, which is the reality change (information received) as a result of the messagi. We already discussed the effect of our interest at length: making reality more adequate by expanding it to include new recipes. In the next sections we will, therefore, be mainly concerned with messages, parties and channels. 5. Messages of instruction as a bottleneck in modernization We saw that the existence of an inadequate reality allows prediction of Search for new recipes. However, the new recipes found do not always make the reality more adequate, as in case of the Ghost Dance and other magical recipes. But, given a chance, people can be expected to be more rational: when they have upgraded their standards for living, they will make efforts to apply the recipe of those members of their social system who upgraded their level most. That, at least, is the prediction according to my reality of evolving civilization, in which I have 153 some confidence. One can go further and say that it is the demonstra- tion of outcomes, resulting from the application of re- cipes, which leads to virulent aSpirations, so that the outcomes cannot be thought of in isolation from the re- cipe which allows its experience. Thus I desire to have a campmobile, which is not the outcome I hOpe to exper- ience, but matter/energy organized according to some recipe. However, this inseparability* of recipe and outcome holds especially in case of consumption: the satisfaction of aspired-to outcomes. In modernization, such satisfac- tion can only come about by using matter/energy organized (produced) by others, according to recipes the consumer hardly knows. Meanwhile he can only acquire such matter/ energy, organized by others, by applying recipes himself, in such a way that the matter/energy, organized accord- ing to them, can be exchanged for the products of other people's skills. In such conditions, the recipes one applies oneself and the outcomes one experiences are no longer insep- arable,_in that one's recipes do not immediately allow the expepience of outcomes one desires. Understanding this is crucial to understanding anomalies in the *I shall come back to this when talking about advertisement. 154 modernization process. For, were it not for Specializa- tion and interdependence, people would more or less automatically upgrade their levels by adopting the re- cipes used by those who upgraded their levels most." In many cases, such automatic upgrading still occurs, even where there is an indirect link between outcome and recipe applied. Remember our Yoruba cocoa adOpter, for instance. In fact, cocoa diffused throughout Western Nigeria and Ghana in such fashion (Berry, 1968). The same can be said of groundnuts in Northern Nigeria (Hogendorn, 1968), which diffused notwithstanding the opposition by the then colonial government. More dramatic examples of individuals' efforts to adopt the recipes used by those who upgraded their level most are, perhaps, the great migration to cities ("bridge- heads of modern civilization") to find wage-paying jobs, and the unbelievable rapid adoption of formal education in countries which have recently become mobilized. However, the fact that many governments find it necessary to pro- mote back-to-the-land policies, that a school-leavers' problem exists in West Africa. that Indian doctors fin- ally find employment in Akron, Ohio, that the former "Given the availability of matter/energy to organize according to some recipe ("The availability of idle re- sources" (Hla Myint, 1966)). We shall leave scarcity for economists to worry about. They can, in turn, assume "perfect knowledge," i.e., communication. 155 Eastern Nigeria Government had to slow down voluntary school building, that 400 secondary school-leavers ap— plied to 10 temporary jobs in that same region, which had, 50 years ago, been more or less completely isolated from the mainstream of modern civilization, all indicate that such autonomous efforts of those who upgraded their level most are often self-defeating, and can result in anom- alies in the modernization process. The problem, therefore, is to (1) develop and (2) communicate useful recipes, i.e., recipes which lead to intended consequences and avoid extreme relative poverty.‘ Although I am convinced that the development Of useful recipes is as important as their communication, I feel that the determination Of the potential utility of a re- cipe (in an exchange economy) depends on the scarcity of the skill it gives the man who can apply it, and there— fore, is a problem for economists. Meanwhile, the develop- ment of such recipes seems to be the realm of the techni- cian. Therefore, I Shall not be concerned with the development of useful recipes, but only with their communication. The communication of such recipes is beset with Spe- cial problems. According tomy_reality,people shall adopt a recipe only if it is linked with an outcome they aspire to. When this condition is satisfied, one does not have to make an effort to get people to adopt recipes. 156 In fact, we saw that people do that by themselves to an extent that it becomes dysfunctional. But a special communication problem occurs in case of useful recipes which have been develOped, but are not usedtyet in a social system, so that even their indirect link to desired outcomes is not evident. The autonomous diffusion of such recipes cannot be predicted, unless such a link has been made evident. And that is why communication of such recipes is a crucial bottleneck in modernization: that is why Specialists (change agents) must be hired to communicate them: that is why their work is beset by special problems: and that is why Mr. Schultz (1964, p. 164) "misses the boat" completely, when he says: "Since differences in profitability are a strong explanatory variable, it is not necessary to appeal to differences in personality, education and social environ- ment." {In summary, a recipe will only diffuse if it is clearly linked to a desired outcome. In fact, if that is the case, the recipe will diffuse more or less autonomous- ly. However, this very process can lead to severe anom- alies in the modernization process, which can only be overcome or avoided by the diffusion of recipes not yet used in the social system. However, their not being used implies that their link to desired outcomes has not been demonstrated. Thus, they will not diffuse autonomously, 157 which defeats their purpose. Therefore, change agents must be hired to communicate such recipes, a fact that negates the strictly economic vieWpoint. In the follow— ing sections we will be eSpecially concerned with the communication of such novel recipes or innovations," be- cause that is where the payoff is, if one wants modernization to take its normal course. 6. Messages which motivate 'We saw how the communication of recipes, which are not linked to desired outcomes, represents a Special problem in modernization.— We also saw that professional change agents are used to overcome this Special problem, so that one can expect them to emphasize the creation of such links by giving people motivational information.** Fact is, many change agents seem little aware that this is an important aspect of their function, and if they are, many operate under the assumption that it is sufficient to mention that such links exist to create belief and motivation. Because of this situation, which probably results from an inadequate understanding of the function of the change agent, the motivating message deserves some scrutiny. “Rogers (1962, p. 13) defines an innovation as an idea that is perceived as new by the individual. "*See Chapter 4 section 3. 158 The motivating message is, in essence, an advertise- ment:" a young man (easy to identify with or emulate) is seen kissing the beauty (desired outcome) which is shown to be the direct result of the young man's use of a cert- ain shampoo (application of recipe). It seems that the advertisement must convincingly show that there is a causal relationship between the desired outcome and the recipe, if it is to motivate."* In case of the change agent, the crucial words seem to bezfconvincingly show.fl’ For if we assume that the agent promotes a recipe which is potentially useful, in that it can lead to desired outcomes, the establishment of a causal link between outcome and recipe is a matter of conviction. Yet it seems difficult for the change agent to satisfactorily prove that causal relationship. "Advertisement is defined as a message constructed so as to motivate its receiver to apply a recipe. ""The modern commercial advertisement seems weakest in convincing people that the recipe can lead to the out- come, or when it does, that the outcome is desirable in the first place. Both weaknesses may be seen as indica- tive of a level of individual physical well-being at which absolute poverty has been abolished, so that the economic system, develOped in another period, can only continue to grow by massive efforts to create deprivation by advertise— ment, that "merchant of deprivation" (Monane, 1967, p.96). One can ask whether such efforts can be successful in sustaining growth in a direction which has surpassed its utility. If one accepts this view, i.e., that the strife for individual physical well-being has reached its Rococo, there may be need for thought, either about stabilizing the economy, or the creation of desires for outcomes other than those concerned with individual physical well- being. 159 Because of the nature of his recipe, there are few com- parable people he can point at in the environment. 7Mean— while, he himself is not immediately trustworthy, being a stranger, sponsored by government and paid to make promises. But there are a number of appeals and arguments which the agent can use in this situation. ”He can appeal to his own credibility or authority if he has develOped a special position and reputation, based on past success, in the social system in which he works.: He can also use the credibility and authority of others, by letting them Speak for him. He can appeal to logic by eXplaining why the causal link between outcome and recipe exists, he can appeal to fear of force or to friendship." The fin- al, and probably most generally effective, method is to actually demonstrate the link between recipe and outcome, so that feedback speaks for itself. It seems that the agent must use such arguments or appeals to develOp a small beachhead in the social system in which he works. After it has been established, one can expect the demonstration of outcomes, by those who have started to use the recipe, to render unnecessary further use of the appeals and arguments just mentioned, "See-Kelman (1958) on'compliance, internalization and identification. We shall come back to internaliza- tion in the next section of this chapter. See also Ascroft (1969, p. 54). 160 so that the recipe spreads further throughout the system on its own. That the agent's crucial impact occurs at the beginning of this process, in fact, is the beginning of it, while the innovation spreads on its own after- wards, seems supported by research (Rogers with Shoemaker, in press). There is, however, wide variation in the Speed with which the whole process occurs, while Speed seems impe— rative, if prolonged relative poverty is to be prevented. Apart from other factors to be discussed later, one reas- on for this variation in Speed can be expected, and has been shown, to be the degree to which outcomes which result from adopting the recipe can be demonstrated (Rogers with Shoemaker, in press). A method of making such results more visible might be the identification of the houses of adopters with signs showing that they are using the recipe. So far such signs seem only to have been used to advertise commercial seed grains and live- stock strains. In summary, the special character of the recipes that change agentsppomote leads to the eXpectation that they will devote much effort to linking such recipes to desired outcomes - which does not always seem the case. [The motivational message must convincingly show that a causal relationship exists between desired outcomes and recipe promoted,if the agent is to establish a beachhead 161 in the social system:; A number of possible strategies for showing such a causal relationship were mentioned. It seems, however, that the use of motivational messages by change agents is a neglected but critical research area. 7. Messages which instruct As a result of upgrading standards for living in modernization, people desire to outcomes B, while they experience outcomes A, which do not fit B, in that they represent a lower level of living. The problem is to get from.A to B, to change what is to what should be. As we saw, one can regard this as the fundamental human problem, which requires the fundamental human solution: the application of control. This solution depends on the ability to answer two basic questions: (1)7G1ven B, why do I have A? The answer to this question can be called the diagnosis.i (2) Given the diagnosis, how can I change A to B? The answer to this question can be called the recipe. Answering these two questions implies an adequate reality (pattern imposed on the environment, model, theory, etc.), which identifies the critical elements and their causal relationships in situation A (diagnosis), and prescribes methods for manipulating some of these 162 critical elements to change A to B (recipe).* An example is the reality of the 1313 priest in an African village, who diagnoses the occurrence of chicken pox in the village as a result of the anger of a hungry chicken-craving god, i.e., he identifies critical ele- ments and their relationship in the situation. Based on this diagnosis, he prescribes a recipe: Sacrifice a chicken."" When chicken pox occurs in the village, the jpjp,priest, being the Specialist, instructs the vill- agers to sacrifice a chicken. In order to be able to instruct them. the jpjp priest must have made the vill- agers accept his diagnosis, i.e., made them understand why the recipe can lead to the desired outcome. Now imagine the African farmer, who has recently be- come poor,""" because he has received information about "We saw, when discussing man-the-scientist in Chap- ter 1-5, that science has very much the function of developing such adequate realities, in that it empha- sizes support of reality by feedback. ""We laugh at this, not because the link between recipe and diagnosis is unacceptable, but because the diagnosis is not based on feedback. """Examples of how people can become poor by upgrad— ing their standards of living are provided by the Pakistani camel driver who President Johnson took for a tour through the U.S. He is now an unhappy man. Erasmus (1961, p. 5) describes the sa result of his taking a villager with him to the U.S. eople can also not be poor enough for development to occurrJThere are many accounts of Old "colonialist" who said it was a waste Of time to pay the "natives" too much at the time, because the natives only needed a certain amount of money, so that paying them more simply meant that they would work less. Examples of young "do-gooders" arriving from the home country and doubling the pay of the local people, with the result 163 states of well-being which he recognizes as superior to his own, while he does not know how to get from this A to his new B. After all he cannot copy those who eXper- ience B: Educated city folk with wage-paying jobs. All he can do is to give his children a good education so that they, at least, will lead a better life. In fact, he expects a few crumbs for himself in his old age. Now suppose that this farmer comes into contact with a change agent promoting fertilizer. What would have to" happen to instruct the farmer so that he adopts fert- ilizer. The following can be suggested. The agent has to expand the farmer's reality of A, in such a way that it is patterned to include low yields as a cause of A and the need to feed crops to change A to B. That is, the farmer must start to see things the agent's way and to accept his diagnosis (Kelman's (1958) internalization). And it may not be easy to do that. We saw before that the eXpansion of reality can only occur by building on elements and relationships which al- ready form part of the reality, so that the agent can (continued from last page) that the local people did indeed work less have been given. Such examples of work- ing till one has enough reflect on our own society. Are we kept in constant poverty, or at least, under the threat of becoming poor, or socialized to feel guilty if we are not busy? "Notice that we are still in the deductive business. I regard this as fruitful because we know so little about instructive messages that deduction from a relatively powerful reality can, at least, provide leads for investigation. 164 only succeed if he starts from a common base, from a commonality of meaning with his client. And it may be difficult to find such a common ground. Examples of some of the difficulties, which our agent may encounter, are provided by efforts to diffuse fertilizer in the former Eastern Region of Nigeria. Some farmers, apparently holding an "image of the limited good"" (Foster, 1965), believed that the cake of soil- fertility was of fixed size, so that the increase in fertility in one field by fertilizer could only have come about by the fertilizer draining the fertility from neighboring fields. Another problem was that farmers regarded the white powder as a medicine and found it difficult to accept it as a plant food, while many also found the notion of "optimum quantity" difficult to comprehend. iii these difficulties seem to point to differences in reality between agent and farmer, which have nothing to do with fertilizer as such, but derive from a more ‘pasic lack of communality_of meaning,gfrom differences in the fundamentalipremises in the realities of agent and ‘piient, which represent the unspoken assumptions on which each bases his actions. "The image of the limited good can be defined as the perception that all desirables in life exist in finite quantity (Rogers with Svenning, 1969, p. 20). 165 An example of such a premise is the self-sufficiency syndrome. A poster used in a campaign to rejuvenate orchards in Holland showed a large apple tree, with the words "out it down," because such trees had to be re- placed by small, easy-to-pick, trees which are trained along wires. This poster was found to be ineffective, because people did not think in terms of efficient parti- cipation in the money exchange economy, but in terms of quantity Of apples, regardless of production cost (Wichers, l958)i Such major unspoken assumptions seem to affect the more specific relationships in the reality, so that one cannot change the latter without first changing the pre- mises on which they are based.‘ Such premises seem, therefore, to play a crucial role, in that they render communication of recipes more difficult between agent and farmer.. Apart from the image of the limited good and the self-sufficiency syndrome, one can mention such basic premises as: children are labor (which hampers birth con- trol campaigns), the eXpectations of external and low internal control and, maybe basic to them all, the pre- mise that reality is real. [All of them seem to be V//‘ summaries of experience before the great discontinuity, and, therefore, represent carry-overs or cultural lags, which are no longer functional in the modernizing 166 stage.:j Thus they must be unlearned before more adequate realities can be adopted.f Specific instructional efforts to change such basic premises may pave the way for the change agent, in that they will make it easier for him to establish communality of meaning when he comes with his recipes. Perhaps formal education in developing countries should also direct its efforts more to changing such premises than to English literature, bible knowledge and what not. Expanding peoples' reality to include the diagnosis of A, so that the recipe promoted becomes accepted as a method Of changing A to B (internalization), is beset by some grave problems, reason why change agents, more often than not, have to resort to making people believe that the recipe works, whether they understand the why of it or not. It is then that the agent must use motivational messages of the type discussed before, Apart from linking the recipe to desired outcomes, the instructing message must of course also give informa- tion about the specific rewards that can be expected }"Rogers (Rogers with Svenning, 1969, p.24) develOped a model of the subculture of peasantry, which consists of (l) mutual distrust: (2) perceived limited good: (3) depen— dence and hostility toward government: (4) familism: (5) lack of innovativeness: (6) fatalism: (7)11mited aspira- tions: (8)deferred gratification: (9) limited view of the world: and (10) low empathy. In view of the reality pre- mises we discussed, it could be suggested that the sub- culture Of peasantry be eXpanded and changed to a model Of "traditional reality." Similar models could be develop- ed for "severe poverty reality," and "modern reality" (Inkeles, no date and Hofstee, 1964). 167 from adopting the recipe, the steps involved in applying it and the cost and effort it takes to do so. In summary, the agent's instructional message should, perhaps, have the following content to be effective (Lippit, Watson and Westley, 1958). (1) It must appeal to a desired outcome B: (2) It must diagnose A, so that the recipe is perceived to be able to change A to B: (3) It must give the recipe and show the rewards that can be eXpected from it: (4) It must give arguments why the agent's re-: cipe can be believed to lead to the rewards mentioned (motivational information): (5) It must give the steps involved in applying the recipe: and (6) It must be Specific on costs and efforts that can be eXpected. 8. Channels Where the message is, at minimum, a set of matter/ energy units, it can only reach another party, if the participants in the transaction are connected by a chann— el through which these matter/energy units can be sent. Channel thus refers to (l) the type of matter/energy unit chosen to cue reality concepts and their relationships, (2) the method by which the matter/energy units are trans- ported to others, and (3) the fact that persons are connected by the channel (Berlo, 1960, pp. 63-65). We could add as a fourth element: (4) the frequency with 168 which messages are transported through the channel. Where the channel is a potential, it only becomes a link (Alchin, no date) when messages are actually tranSported through it, the more so, the more frequent the use of the channel. When we Speak of channel, we thus refer to the phys- ical, visible and more measurable aspect of communication, reason why most communication research is concerned with channels and their frequency of use in some way. In fact, one could say that all communication variables used in modernization research are descriptive of channels. Thus we study the relationship between the adoption of new agricultural practices and the frequency of change agent contact, mass media exposure, number of trips to urban centers, etc., all the time assuming that the messages which were sent were instructive. Mind you, this is not a bad assumption, because the results of some of these studies tend to be substantial. In a recent cross-national study (Rogers, Ascroft and Rcling, forthcoming), it was found, for example, that sheer frequency of contact between change agent and farm- er was the best explainer of variance in agricultural adoption at village level across three developing nations. The existence and use of a channel between parties can be seen as a necessary condition for communication to take place between them and for them to progress 169 towards an entropic state. {One can, therefore, minimally define a communication system in terms Of channels and the frequency of their use. A closed communication sys- pgp is a set of parties interconnected by channels and using those channels. An open communication system is a set of parties more connected to each other by channels than to other parties and making more frequent use of the channels connecting themselves than of those connect- ing them to others. One can describe a communication System, therefore, by its network or grid of channels, the communication functions of the nodes in the network and the frequency and direction of message transport along the channels connecting the nodes. With this framework, we Shall look at the modernizing rural village in a developing country." First, let us look at the closed village, i.e., a village not connected by channels to the modern communica- tion system. All its inhabitants are potentially "One could, of course, also use this framework to look at a whole country, using cities and villages as nodes, regarding the city as a beachhead of modernization. Similarly, the framework could be used with countries as nodes. Caplow and Finsterbush (1964) found, for example, in clustering countries on a modernization index, which they develOped, that the cluster of least develOped countries seemed to consist of those which were isolated from European influence in an earlier period, i.e., those which "did not have access to the methods of controlling the environment which diffused from EurOpe." 170 connected by interpersonal channels, but not all channels are used, while those that are, are not always used with the same frequency. Such a system thus has a characteris- tic network, which we will call its internal communica- tion. Suppose, now, that the isolation is broken, that channels between the village and the modern communication system are established which could, potentially, be used. The community could, of course, remain closed if it does not make use of these channels. §In fact, one may find such relatively closed systems living in voluntary isola- tion in the middle of a metropolis.‘ But let us assume that the system becomes Open, that "its boundaries be- come, at least, partially permeable, permitting sizeable chunks of matter/energy or information transmissions to cross them" (Miller, 1965a). That is, we assume that the village starts to use external channels, linking the vill— age to the modern communication system, its external communication. As one example of such external communication, one can mention travel to cities, or geographic mobility (Lerner, 1963, p. 332). The degree to which peOple have made such travel is called cosmopoliteness (Rogers with Svenning, 1969, p. 159). But not only do people from the village travel to the city. City people, such as tax- collectors, priests, teachers, change agents and emigrated 171 villagers, also come to the village. Other examples of external communication are provided by channels in which some electronic or print medium is interposed between the parties. Such mass media allow communication without physical travel, they allow psychic mobility (Lerner, 1963, p. 332). In all the Open village has "access and exposure" (Frey, 1966, p. 174) to informative messages emanating from the modern communication system. Now we may ask: What happens to the village as it becomes more open? We shall try to answer this question especially in terms of changes in the internal network and in the communication functions of the nodes in that network. Scrutiny of these two aSpects seems useful, be- cause they seem to have much to do with the diffusion of recipes throughout the village, and with the Speed with which this occurs. In summary, the develOpment of the notion of communication system, as a network of channels connecting nodes with certain communication functions, allows us to ask: What happens to the village as it becomes more open to inputs of information from the modern communication» system? In answering this question, we shall concentrate in changes in the internal network and the communication function of the nodes, because these can be eXpected to be related to the speed with which modern recipes diffuse throughout the village. The schematic in Figure 4-1 may 172 illustrate our notions. Communication External External Change in Diffusion System Type Channels Channels Internal Of Recipes Available Used Network Closed _ - - - Transitional (also vol. Isolation) + - - - Transitional + + - - Transitional + + + - Open + + + + Figure 4-1: Communication system changes in modernization 9. Changes in the internal network The basic characteristic of the closed system is that it tends to run out of information. The closed vill- age is no exception: People give each other information until everyone has very much the same reality and entropy sets in. Except for incidents, routine and inter-genera- tional information transfer, people have little to talk about. Therefore the members of the closed village can be expected to use communication channels infrequently, especially for messages of instruction. When the village becomes more open, however, one can expect instructive messages to enter it." But some "We shall assume upgradation of standards has taken place. 173 people will receive more instruction than others, in the beginning, so that the stable state of entropy is dis- turbed. People become different in terms of the recipes at their disposal. Instructional messages will therefore begin to flow from those with more instruction to those with less, so that a network for sending such messages will develop and channels are more frequently used. Instead of entropy, one now observes organization: "The greater the frequency of sending and receiving messages among system components, the more highly organized the system is likely to be" (Monane, 1967, p. 42). A recent study (Guimaraes, 1969), Showed that farm- ers in Brazilian communities with less external communication, were less interconnected with other farm- ers, than those in villages with more external communica- tion. Other research (Rao, 1966: Yadav, 1967: Leighton and others, 1963) points in the same direction. In fact, it is implied in the generalization (Rogers with Shoemaker, in press) that a recipe diffuses throughout the system, once a small proportion of the members of the system have adopted as a result of external contact, e.g., with the change agent." "Studies (e.g., Rogers with Svenning, 1969, p.132) show that most members of the system tend to adopt as a result of contact with other members. This has obscured the importance of the change agent in setting in motion the diffusion process, because the correlation between adoption and agent contact is suppressed for systems where many have adopted as a result of contact with other system members. If one studies communities where this is not 174 This brings us to the fact that the increased inter- connectedness can be seen as a concomitant of greater differentiation between the nodes in the network (Yadav, 1967, p. 197), and a change in the communication func- tions of the nodes. As the village becomes more open, it must develop organs" for receiving, processing, distributing and act- ing upon external communication. The closed village does not need such organs. 'It is like a blind cave dwelling fish. When such a fish is swept into a sun-lit part of the river by a storm, it does not immediately acquire eyes. Likewise, one can expect that the organs for "tak— ing into account" (Thayer, 1968, p. 26) external communica- tion must be developed by a village as it becomes more Open. We will look at such organ develOpment in terms of the communication functions of network nodes, and eSpe- cially at the set of communication functions of the nodes who play the role of "develOpment elite" (Eisenstadt, 1966, p. 587). in.order for recipes to diffuse throughout the sys- tem, a nupber of network nodes must acquire the following (continued from last page) the case, agent contact be- comes more important (e.g., Rogers, Ascroft and Reling. forthcoming). "Miller (1965b) describes the functions of a number of organs which must be develOped by a living system in order for it to interact with its environment. Harp and Gagan (1968) take a similar "organ approach" in explain- ing the difference between the adoption of renewal plans by American townships. 175 functions: (1) thsy must receive external information, and (2) they must pass it on to others. ~Nodes which perform these two functions will be called the develop- ment elite Of the viilage.1 To receive external information, a node must be exposed to external channels, such as neWSpapers, radio and especially the change agent. To take into account such information, a node must have certain aptitudes, indicated by his education, literacy, mental flexibility (Frey, 1966, pp. 113 and 123), etc. In case of external instruction, a node can be eXpected to adopt the recipes promoted and to have the means to do so. If one accepts a node's frequency of change agent contact as descriptive of the degree to which its occupant receives external information, one finds that it is indeed strongly related with most of the characteristics mentioned (Ruling, forthcoming: Rogers with Shoemaker, in press). ETO pass on external information, a node must, first of all, occupy a central position in the network, indic— ated by its opinion leadership. Given that the link be- tween the recipes of our concern and desired outcomes is not immediately evident, one can expect the node, who communicates the recipes, to occupy a position in the network which allows it to legitimize recipes (Pool, 1967, p. 251). In all, the node who passes on external information to others must occupy a central and legitimizing 176 position. These positions can be eXpected to already exist in the village, before it becomes more open, in the form of formal traditional leaders. In fact, one can eXpect that it is more likely that new functions are added to existing structural elements, than that new structural elements are develOped to take care of the new functions. ‘The SXpectation that opinion leaders, i.e., people who can be eXpected to legitimize and pass on external information, are traditional formal leaders is supported form many quarters (Sen, 1969: Frey, 1966: Leighton.§p.ai., 1963: Rao, 1966: Eisenstadt, 1966: Rogers, Acsroft and Rcling, forthcoming). We thus identified the functions of the development elite, Operationalized by change agent contact and Opinion leadership. We further saw that each function tends to be performed by a certain type of person. The problem is that the people who perform each function do not ne- cessarily have to be the same and, in fact, are not (Reling, forthcoming). Yet, one can eXpect that, for modernization to pro- gress normally, these two functions must be performed by the same node. Evidence for this is found in a recent study (Rbling, forthcoming), which compared two groups of villages across three developing nations: one group with a high mean adoption of modern recipes and one group with a low mean adoption of such recipes. The relationship 177 between change agent contact and opinion leadership was much stronger in the modern villages than in the tradi- tional one. One reason for the lack of overlap between the two functions in the more traditional villages may be the fact that, in the earlier stages of modernization,xthe people who have external contact and adopt recipes are people who are "too far out" for the other villagers to accept tham as Opinion leaders, while it is only in later stages that more central nodes begin to see the light (Rogers, 1962, p. 169). ”With Marsh and Coleman (1954), one could even say that it is only in later stages that leaders begin to perform a scarce service by becoming a development elite, because it is only then that the mass of the villagers begin to see the need to modernize. If this is the reason for the lack of overlap between nodes who receive and pass on external information, one can eXpect this lack of overlap to diminish as the modernization process progresses along its normal course. In that case, one can only admonish change agents to speed up the process by seeking out, as their clients, those who can also be expected to pass on the instruc- tions they receive. There may, however, be another reason for the lack of overlap. :For it seems that, in some villages, a development elite fails to materialize; Rao (1966, p.41) 178 Speaks of an "isolated village elite" and the unsuccess- ful efforts of "stalwarts" to perform the function of a development elite. ‘Eisenstadt (1966, p. 587) mentions much the same phenomenon, except that he calls the stal- warts "aspirant elites." From a study by Leighton and others (1963), it seems that such a situation can develop if the traditional communication network disintegrates, instead of changing to develop organs which allow modernization. In such a situation one can eXpect frustration to develop as a result of structural constraints (Damle, 1955), which cannot be removed by effective action. When a system has no organs to take into account available external information, i.e., when available channels are not used, one can say that the system is voluntarily isolated or incapsulated. Rao (1966, p. 36), who describes a village in this state, says of its people that they were "utterly discontented and lost in confu- sion." ‘"Their appetite was stirred, but no way to satis- fy it shown." Thus, they had upgraded their standards but were frustrated in upgrading their levels.‘ ‘ngice that this is a completely different situation from the tradipipnal village whiph has not changed suffi- ciently yet for the existinggcommunication system to take on new functions. In case of voluntary isolation, we encounter an anomaly of the modernization process. 179 SO far our confusing inability to make a distinction be- tween traditional situations and anomalies has kept us from understanding the causes of abnormal modernization, the effects of which are bound to become more pronounced, as increased upgrading Of standards Spreads relative pov— erty, while instruction is provided only Slowly to allow upgrading of levels. In summary, our distinction between closed and Open villages allowed us to make a number of Observations about changes in the village communication system as it becomes more open. One of these changes is the emergence of a development elite: network nodes who receive and pass on external information. However, one finds that nodes who perform these functions do not always coincide. Yet such coincidence can be expected to be essential for normal modernization. Two possible reasons for lack of coincidence were suggested. 10. Conclusion In the present chapter, no effort has been made to give a comprehensive dynamic reality of instructive communication. The present author does not possess such a reality, be it by creation or instruction. This does not mean that such a reality is not needed. Therefore, the emphasis in this chapter has been on pushing the 180 frontier beyond the present stalemate in which the cor- relation Of the same variables leads to the same conclu- Sions. The effort resulted in the identification of a number of bottlenecks in the normal progress of modernization. The communication of recipes not linked to desired out- comes, was seen as the biggest bottleneck Of all, requir- ing Special professionals to do it. But even then prob- lems develop. 1. Methods for linking promoted recipes to existing desires must be an essential tool for the change agent.”‘ Yet we know very little about such methods. We identified two basic types: internalization (in which the client accepts the agent's diagnosis which paves the way for re- cipe adoption),and motivation(ip_which the agent pro- vides reasons for believing that the recipe promoted real- ly works). We know little about either one, because, so far, the function of the agent as a communicator of re- cipes, not linked to desired outcomes, has not been understood. 2. Traditional reality can be said to contain pre- mises or summaries of traditional experience. Such pre— mises are no longer functional, even though they can be expected to still determine Specific reality elements. Such premises can, therefore, greatly hamper the establish- ment of communality of meaninggbetween agant and client 181 and the acceptance, by the client, of the agent's diagnos- is of hisgsippation. We identified some of the reality ‘ppgpises,gbut much work needs to be done to develop models of traditional reality, depending on the pype of tradi- tional system in which the premises developedJ 3. The communication functions of the nodes of an Open communication system have only been given the roughest of treatments. Even then the importance of understanding them was evident. This importance derives from the fact that the bulk Of adoptions of new recipes results from the autonomous diffusion of such recipes, one the change agent has "planted" them in the communication system. In this respect, our Observation that,psometimes, certain communicatign functions do not emerge, so that abnormal modernizatipp results, leads to the conclusion that much work must be done to acquire understanding Of the communicatign functions which nodes must perform in a system; for it not to disintegrate in modernization. 4. The study of anomalies may throw much light on some of the questions posed. Yet anomalies have, so far, been hgaped together with traditional situations1 because of the simplistic view of modernization which has gpided research efforts up to present time. It is high time to correct this mistake, by clearly identifying the diff- erences between abnormal modernization, the traditional situation and the modern situation. One indicator of 182 anomalies may be voluntary isolation. The comparison of anomalies with other situations Should do much to avoid the former. After all. we are not only after accelera- tion of the normal modernization process, but also after avoiding its anomalies. Chapter 5 IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH AND LIMITATIONS 1. Introduction The present chapter serves to give a preliminary answer to the question "SO what," which might occur to the research-minded reader Of the results of the present efforts at theory building. The present chapter repre- sents an effort to formulate a number of testable hypo- theses from the theoretical formulations develOped in foregoing chapters. The formulation of new questions and the suggestion of new research was, as will be remem- bered, one of the primary reasons for engaging in the present theory building in the first place. The present chapter will also deal with a number of limitations of the current undertaking. 2. Aspirations One Of the advantages of developing an integrative theoretical framework is that it points to "blanks" or areas not "mapped" by existing research. One such area is the standard Of living, the set of aspirations, and especially its role in development and the factors that 183 184 affect its change. Little past research has been done on aspirations in development.: Lerner (1963) created awareness of the importance of aspirations when Speaking of the "wants/gets ratio" and the "revolution of rising expectations." Also, diffusion researchers have used such independent variables as educational and occupational aspirations. However. the standard for living as the criterion by which the individual measures his well-being and the change in the standard for living as a prerequ~ isite forinnovation has not been sufficiently recognized and studied. The theoretical framework develOped in the present thesis emphasises the crucial role of changes in aspira- tions in determining change, be it towards improved levels of living via the adoption of new recipes, or to- ward increased poverty and pacification. Our basic proposition was that vicarious experience of outcomes of individuals with a higher level of living than oneself leads to new aspirations. jHowever, this proposition must be qualified: Aspiration implies desire for an outcome not now experienced, it implies that one is motivated to act to SXperience that outcome. Yet slaves and servants have very intimate knowledge of their boss' outcomes and the creation of aspirations to experience them seems to be the ability to empathize, i.e., the ability to say: "That is for me too." 185 Thus we can rephrase our original proposition to read: "EXposure to outcomes of individuals with a higher level of living than oneself leads to the creation of aspirations to experience a higher level of living, given that one can empathize with the individuals with the higher level of living." This new formulation leads to the following proposition, which is offered as one illustration: [For individuals with high empathy, mass media expo- sure is positively related to aspiration level? 3. Empathy Empathy, or the ability to see oneself in another person's position varies with the degree of difference between oneself and the person with whom one seeks to empathize. One could thus say that empathy would be higher when one's reference group includes individuals who are much better off than oneself and low if one's reference group only includes individuals much like oneself. Increased empathy has Often been seen as a result of exposure to and, therefore, knowledge of, individuals in different positions. Indeed, one cannot empathize with individuals of whose outcomes one is unaware. Exposure to such individuals is therefore a necessary condition for empathy with them. However, we have 186 suggested (Chapter 2) that voluntary curtailment of the reference group may be one of the mechanisms by which man avoids extreme frustration. Thus, one's reference group and one's ability to empathize are realistically limited, depending upon one's perception of ability to manipulate the environment to achieve desired outcomes. 6 Therefore, the following proposition could be tested: For individuals with high selfgperceived efficacy (internal control), mass media exposure is_positively related to empathy. 4. Voluntary isolation We suggested (Chapter 2) that voluntary isolation may be one of the devices by which man avoids frustra- tion. If this is so, the adaptive mechanism of voluntary isolation could become dysfunctional if circumstances change to a point where this adaptive mechanism is no longer necessary so that voluntary isolation becomes a ". . . 'mental isolator' which immunizes the villager" (Rogers with Svenning, 1969, p. 38) against new desires and the adoption of new recipes. In view Of this possibil- ity, voluntary isolation deserves attention. We saw that Frey (1966) suggested, as a measure of voluntary isolation to mass media messages, the ratio of mass media exposure/mass media access. More generally, one could say that voluntary isolation refers to the. 187 degree Of non-use of available communication channels. Our view of the role of voluntary isolation leads to the following propositions: Voluntary isolation is negatively related to empathy. Voluntary isolation is negatively related to self— perceived efficacy (internal control). Voluntapy isolation is positively related to per- ceived external control. Voluntary isolation is positiveiy related to self- perceived relative deprivation. Testing this proposition would serve to confirm Frey's (1966) finding that mass media eXposure is positively related to felt relative deprivation, a relationship which could apparently not be attributed solely to differences in mass media access. Voluntary isolation is negatively related to innovativeness. ‘Voluntary isolatipn is negatively related to social status. For individuals with high selfeperceived efficacy, mass media exposure is_positively related to mass media access. 5. Poverty reality So far, modernization has been seen as a movement away from tradition. Rogers with Svenning (1969, p.14) paraphrase their definition of modernization by saying 188 that modernization is "the individual process by which one becomes psychologically non-traditional." Given this orientation, efforts have only been made to create models of modern reality (e.g., Smith and Inkeles, 1966) or traditional reality (e.g., the "subculture of peasantry," Rogers with Svenning, 1969). In the present thesis, we had occasion to point to the fact that modernization may lead to anomalies, that is, to situations in which new desires do not lead to increased levels of living but to severe poverty and frustration. Considering such situations as "traditional" ones may lead to misinterpretations of findings and, ultimately, to inadequate strategies of change. iWe therefore suggest research to establish the valid- ity of our notion of poverty reality. That is, we suggest research to develop a scale of individual poverty. The following core elements of poverty reality are suggested: High voluntary isolation, perception of low internal con- trol (powerlessness), perception of high external control (fatalism, religious inclination, dependency on govern- ment), felt deprivation, low innovativeness. low empathy (reference group limited to individuals similar to respondent), low level of aspirations, and high ritualis- tic persistence in Old forms of behavior (high resistance to change)." "All these elements can be SXpected to relate posi- tively to each other. Hypotheses could be formulated for each of these relationships. 189 We expect that these elements are strongly inter- related and scaleable. All of these elements are eXpect- ed to be negatively related to social status, income, years of education, and job stability and to be posi- tively related to such escapist behaviors as drinking, gambling, etc. and the degree of isolation of the respondent in the communication network of his social system." 6. Motivation to innovate In Chapter 3, we said that a certain degree of rela- tive poverty is a necessary condition for innovation.‘ One has to be discontent to adopt new methods of affect- ing the environment. However, very high relative pov- erty can lead to frustration and pacification by methods other than innovation. One can thus raise the question as to the point at which relative poverty becomes optimal for innovation.g That this question is worthy of research is indicated by such findings as Frey's (1966), which suggest that there is a curvilinear relationship between proximity to the city and mass media access and exposure, and by the author's personal observation that very conservative farmers can be found under the smoke of Amsterdam. "Individual hypotheses could be formulated for each of the individual relationships implied in this state- ment O 190 Such Observations give rise to the expectation that perceived relative poverty increases, given the same absolute income level, as proximity to the city increases. Or, to say it differently, those who live closer to the city must have a higher income to feel the same relative deprivation as those further away from the city. This SXpectation leads to the following hypothesis: IA community's urban proximity is positively related to the average income level of the earliest adopters in a communitys Our eXpectation that there is an optimal degree of relative poverty for innovation, also leads to the following proposition: ”Social status, measured py such variables as income, durable_goods_possessed,house type, etc,, are curvi- lineapiy related to innovativeness with highest innova- tiveness among those of intermediate social status." 7. Reference group change In Chapter 2, we had occasion to discuss the con- cept of reference group and its voluntary curtailment. "Research on this question (Cancian, 1967, and Wilkening and others, 1969) has been done. The curvi— linearity predicted seems to be supported to some extent in that the very poor are less innovative than the lower middle group, who in turn are also more innovative than the higher middle group. However, those who are best off in the system seem to be the most innovative of all four categories. It might be suggested that the reference group of this fourth category lies outside the community, so that their relative social status must be measured in relation to a different social framework. 191 Of interest are changes in reference groups during modernization. One can eXpect that the reference group of the villager in a developing country consists of fellow villagers, especially if that country develops from a tribal society with relatively small differences in levels of living. LOne can expect that the reference group will change as the villagers become differentially successful in obtaining diplomas and jobs which allow them better levels of living. That is, one can expect the creation Of rationalizations to curtail the reference group of not-so-successful villagers and changes in the reference groups of more successful villagers to include persons with life styles foreign to the village. The following general hypotheses are suggested: The more differentiated the social system in terms Of education and income, the better developed will be rationalizations explaining differences in success. The more differentiated the social system in terms of education and incomg, the greater the within-status layer interaction and the smaller the between-status iayer interaction. These propositions are not directly testable. The propositions are guides for explorative fieldwork which should, for instance, focus on the develOpment of Operations for identifying rationalizations, measures of 192 the extent to which such rationalizations" have develOped and are generally accepted, and into measures for identifying status layers. In cases such as these, we feel that the results of our efforts to create a theoretical framework are more fruitful as guides for preliminary observation by rela- tively unstructured methods than for suggesting proposi- tions which are immediately testable by highly structured techniques. Our "correlational science" Often does not sufficiently recognize such non-quantitive observational techniques as a necessary research step prior to collect- ing comparative data on larger numbers of units of study. 8. Link between desired Outcomes and innovation We suggested in Chapter 4 that a recipe only diff- uses if its link to a desired outcome has been established. We saw that for many recipes, such as the bicycle, this link is evident in that use of the recipe is closely tied to the outcome. In other cases, potential adopters are aware of the link because other people, using the recipe, have been demonstrably successful. As an example of such recipes we mentioned education as a means of "The present author remembers, as one such rationaliza- tion, the boasting of uneducated Nigerian villagers that they had been too fast for the teacher to catch in the Old days, when student recruitment practices were rather un- conventional due to the novelty of education. 193 acquiring a wage-paying job. We saw that such recipes diffuse rapidly and autonomously. We also suggested that the recipes which must be promoted by change agents are those which are not direct- ly linked to desired outcomes, so that the change agent's job is to demonstrate this link.. We feel that this basic proposition is perhaps most promising of practical payoff. We already suggested that content analysis methods could be used to identify profitable strategies change agents can use to achieve linkage with desired outcomes. Here we Shall Suggest a number of other researchable questions which derive from the stipulation of the import- ance of linkage to desired outcomes. It seems that con- cepts like "conviction," "persuasion," etc., which have been used in describing the stages of the decision pro- cess (Rogers with Svenning, 1969, p. 124) can be more precisely described in terms of awareness of and belief in the link between the innovation and the desired out- come. Research questions Of interest then become: What types of outcomes are most effective as appeals for try- ing an innovation? What eXperience made the adopter aware of the link between innovation and desired outcome? What experiences made the adopter believe that the link existed? Which persons created awareness of the link? 194 Which persons were most influential in making the adopter accept the link? We stress these aspects of the decision process and the factors which influence it because, so far, diffusion research seems to have concentrated on awareness and percep- tion of the innovation itself. In the light of our discus- sion it would seem that the perception of a link between desired outcome and innovation is a prerequisite for innovation. Therefore, it also seems fruitful to look at opinion leadership in terms of the type of linkage we have discussed. One function of the opinion leader must clear- ly be to make the potential adopter aware of and/or be- lieve in the link between desired outcome and innovation. A second function of the opinion leader would be to give the potential adopter technical information, once the potential adopter is interested. We may, by asking the standard question of "To whom do you go for advice and information regarding agri- cultural matters?", have mostly tapped the second func- tion. It may be worth the effort to try and identify persons performing the first-mentioned opinion leader- ship function. 9. Knowledge Our discussion Of reality, and of the importance of changes in its cognitive aspects, invites research, 195 especially where the concentration on changes in att- itudes and connotative aspects of the reality in past research has Shown its severe limitations in developing adequate dependent variables for the study of communica- tion. It may be that a concentration of inquiry on cog- nitive change could finally throw some light on the impact of the mass media. Right now, social science seems to be in the incongruent position of having to say that the mass media seem to have little effect, while everyone, including the social scientist, acts on quite different premises. The remarks made about cognitive change hold for modernization as well. Admittedly, economic knowledge, political knowledge and awareness have been used as in- dependent variables in diffusion research, but the seem- ingly important function of cognitive change in modernization has not been probed fully. It would seem, for instance, that for those living in a rapidly changing environment, the relative earliness of acquisition of an understanding of the new environment brings pioneer profit. The understanding of the role of education is an example. Misunderstanding the potential role in educa- tion in the early days by some chiefs in eastern Nigeria led them to send their slaves to school instead of their sons, an action which they came to regret. At present the perception of the role of education seems to have 196 become dysfunctional in that a B.S. degree is rapidly becoming a difficult but certain road to unemployment. In fact, pioneer profit may now befall those who realize that other areas of investment may be more profitable." The relative earliness of such cognitions may well be related to agricultural innovativeness and/or the types of entrepreneurship which many developing countries need SO badly. Therefore, cognitive change and the types Of cognitions that affect development need careful exploration. Anthropological observational techniques seem, again, most suitable to serve this concern in its early stage. Cognitions which, though functional in an early era, have now outlived their usefulness, must be the focus of such observation. Making individuals un- learn such cognitions could be an important function of the mass media. 10. Instructive communication We have suggested that communication Of cognitive reality elements is possible and is, in fact, the basis for the human cumulation of recipes and for education in general. We suggested also that the creation of new reality elements can only occur by building upon existing 3"Such cognitions as those of the role of education seem to lay at the root of the imbalances which character- ize the development process in many developing countries. The cognitions seem to lead to phenomena similar to econ- omic cycles, such as the hog cycle. 197 reality. (Very little is known about the message aspects of communication which changes reality. {Yet it would seem potentially possible, for instance, to distinguish certain functions which must be performed by such mess- ages, such as baseline building, structure creation, feedback, etc. Another aspect of such communication which may be worth an effort at identification derives from the notion that the ultimate change in reality can only occur after the enactment, by both partners in the communication Situation, of a chain of "proper" responses. Such chains of prOper responses have been identified in animal communication patterns. In fact, sex recognition and mating Often depend on it. The best method of studying such message aspects of instructional communication seems to be some form of simulation because of the black box nature of the real- ity which does not allow ready determination of effect. We suggest the following type of simulation as a research approach. Two actors are isolated by a screen. Actor A has a set of blocks of different forms, size and color: actor B has a set of blocks which may be the same as A's or different depending upon the complexity of the situation one wants to create. A obtains a blueprint according to which he must build a structure with his blocks. His task is to get B to build a structure Similar to his own 198 by communicating with B. Observation of the building that goes on, in combination with the communication would seem to allow identification Of the functions of particular messages and, possibly, the effectiveness of certain alternative strategies. With such methods hypotheses could be formulated which could, subsequently, be tested in "real" Situations by using knowledge gain as the dependent variable. 11. The control of aspirations In the foregoing sections of the present chapter, we gave some examples of possible future research which de— rives directly from our theoretical formulations. If some of the hypotheses and questions given are not novel, the fact that one can derive them from our theoretical formulations still testifies to the usefulness of these formulations. In the present section, an implication of our frame- work for a social concern broader than the development of diffusion research will be discussed. In Lake Erie, one higher organism has been able to survive: A mutant of carp which feeds on polluted mater- ials and has adapted to the unwholesome environment. Recently, this carp has been in the news because it allows raising the question whether man is, like the carp, adaptable to whatever circumstances he has to live in. 199 That man is thus adaptable would follow from our formula- tions which say, in effect, that man only desires to what he has learned to desire, that he does not desire to modes of living he does not know, while he is even able to pacify himself if he cannot experience desired outcomes. These formulations have some severe implications for our present society. If we teach individuals to desire gadgets which lead to pollution, as we do now by allowing limitless advertising of industrial products which must necessarily be gadgets, we may never develop modes of living which can be perpetuated for prolonged periods. In fact, it seems that levels of living now experienced in the U.S. are out of reach for those other regions, not only because of insufficient resources, but also be- cause the resulting pollution would make the earth un- inhabitable. Present thinkers about pollution problems seem to see the only solution in population control and clean-up. They seem to accept as given that nobody can feel content without his host of polluting gadgets. It would seem from our discussion that a lasting solutIOn of the pollu- tion problem must include the manipulation of desires, so as to ensure that further economic growth occurs by the creation of desires which do not lead to a destruc- tion of the environment.1 There seems room for such .g ‘- .I) III. III-.- III I! " I’ll I‘ll." I i I, Ill. II III I I ll \IIIII. III III 1' IV nllll | :r 200 economic growth. In fact, indicants of what one can construe as pacification, such as drinking, drug consump- tion, etc., seem on the rise. Concerns, as the one SXpressed in this section, suggest study of the type of desires which are now paci- fied, so that recipes for satisfying the desires can be developed. In case such recipes cannot be produced by industry, the possibility of advertisement of such re- cipes by government agencies may have to be explored. 12. Social movements So far, the essay has avoided social change in the sense of social system change, in that it has concentrated on changes in individual reality and on the aggregate . effects of individual reality change. The present sec- tion represents an effort to apply some of the theoret- ical formulations to social movements and especially to their emergence. A social movement is a type of collective behavior in which a large number of individuals organize for social change to solve a perceived crisis. A social movement is begun by a collectivity of individuals who experience relative deprivation or when conditions are beginning to improve and they expect further improvement. As Eric Hoffer says: "It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt." 201 Our theoretical formulations would predict exactly the same conditions for the emergence of a social move- ment. It is not the very poor who have pacified their desires by voluntary isolation and the creation of external forces of control who can be expected to agitate for change. Rather, it will be those who have gone through a period of improvement in which they have learned that there is a causal relationship between their actions and their outcomes. It is when a large number of people with expectation of internal control experience frustration, be it because their own position deteriorates relative to others, be it bedause others improve their situation more than they, that social move- ment, or revolution for that matter (Davies, 1962), occurs. Farmers' movements in the U.S. are an example of social movement. However, one can also say that the civil rights movement in the southern states of the U.S. taught students and minority groups that demonstrations and other activities could be effective. The more lib- eral and understanding administration can thus expect more civil disorders than the strict and iron-fisted administration. The reaction of the Russians to the Czechoslovakian revolt can probably be best understood from the Russian realization that, once you show deprived people a working recipe for a desired outcome, they will 202 adopt it, SO that allowing the Czechs a successful revolt would have meant trouble in other satellite countries as well. A third example Of a social movement is the emerging feminist movement. Large numbers of women have been shown, during their education in college, that their ability to achieve good salaries, occupy responsible positions and to make creative contributions, is as good as that Of men. However, upon graduation, they find themselves frustrated in attempts to make good on their potential. In fact most of them are reduced to being,in effect, cooks, charwomen and nursemaids. The diff- iculties of adapting to these roles and of pacifying their frustrations are evident in severe depression, voluntary isolation, "failure motivations," escapes in clothing, in preoccupations with looks and youth, in Obsessive ersatz activities, etc., all of which have been extensively recorded. It even seems that the pOpularity of large families can be partly explained by the need for ersatz activities. The fact that women have, so far, bot formed a strong social movement, and the fact that attempts to organize such movements have so far not been very successful, may be partly due to the absence of workable recipes so that pacification is still the best adapta— tion available at present. 203 13. Limitations of the present undertaking The present thesis set out to contribute to the development of an integrative theoretical framework which could account parsimoniously for the phenomena which have been roughly classified as diffusion and modernization. To what extent have we contributed to such a framework? To what extent can existing generalizations from diffu- sion and modernization be fitted in? It seems to the present author that the endeavor holds promise for a better understanding of the dynamics of diffusion and modernization in that it deals with the forces which underly changes which are observed. However, the present thesis seems to fall short in the area of mechanics: The communication of innovations and the many generalizations which exist about the process are insuffi- ciently accounted for. The theoretical framework seems to account better for the effects of communication than for communication itself, and is, therefore, partly of the "given communication" variety. Although Chapter 4 represents an effort to improve our reality of the communication of recipes, it certainly does not lead to a fully coherent framework for fitting in existing generalizations. Another shortcoming of the present thesis, and diffusion research for that matter, is that it does not deal with the organizations and institutions which allow 204 change in modernization. That is, the present thesis focuses on individual change and on change in aggregates Of individuals, but not on systemic change. It only deals with entropy, but not with growing complexity, with differentiation, Specialization, integration and inter- dependence. A shortcoming Of the theoretical formulations itself is the treatment of the human criterion for well-being. Some explicit and implicit assumptions have been made which are difficult to defend. If we want to Speak of levels of civilization, that is, if we want to evaluate develOpment, amount of control gained, well-being, or "progress" for that matter, it can only be through the use, as a yardstick, of a human criterion for well-being. We can all agree on criteria such as income, health and physical convenience or com- fort. 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