m 225-051 masts t, NW \\\\\\\\\l M \\\\\\\\\‘.\\\\\\ 3 1293 10271 55 \\ \H W This is to certify that the ,. ‘47 , . thesis entitled OCCUPATIONAL EVALUATION AND SELF IDENTIFICATION presented by Charles Wright Tucker,Jr. has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for _Eh._D_.. degree infinciology - “‘5 LIBR A R Y AM’Tl‘;".’?‘.t 2w; U m chsi t'f Major professor Date 51M Lyi /4éé 0-169 *. ABSTRACT OCCUPATIONAL EVALUATION AND SELF IDENTIFICATION by Charles Wright Tucker, Jr. The guiding question of this study was: "What are the social processes that produce, maintain and alter self— identification behavior?" This question was reformulated for empirical research by: (1) setting it within a theo— retical framework, (2) relating it to a single principle of self-identification behavior, and (3) limiting the question to a certain class of activities and identities. The pro- duct of this reformulation was the general research hypothe— sis of this study. It stated: The higher the degree of positive evaluation of a person's occupational activities by , himself or others the greater the likelihood a person will identify himself in occupational and work terms. From this general hypothesis, three separate hypotheses were derived using three different variables to measure the evaluation of occupational activities. The variables were: ”Occupational Prestige, "Subjective Social Class," and Comparative Evalu- ation of Self with Occupation. Sub-hypotheses were derived from each of these major hypotheses for both occupational Charles Wright Tucker, Jr. and work self—identification. They were then submitted to empirical test using several statistical techniques. The data for the present study came from a survey research study done in the United States in 1963. The de- sign of the original study was an area probability sample. The data were obtained by interviewing 1528 persons of voting age. From the original study a sub-sample of full- time employed men was selected for this analysis. This sub- sample was assessed as representative within 95% level of confidence using U. S. Census information for 1960. The general research hypothesis was supported for all three evaluation of occupation variables and occupation— al self-identification. The results for the relationships between Occupational Prestige, "Subjective Social Class" and work self-identification were not consistent with the hy- potheses. These results were interpreted within the theo- retical framework. A number of other findings were found to have implications for future research within this theo- retical framework and social stratification. These impli— cations were briefly elaborated in the final chapter of the study. OCCUPATIONAL EVALUATION AND SELF IDENTIFICATION BY Charles Wright Tucker, Jr. A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of SOCiOlOgy 1966 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I express my appreciation to William Faunce for serving as Chairman during the last year of my graduate studies. His performance in this role went far beyond the organizational requirements. I particularly appreciate his insightful suggestions and the willingness to share his ideas. His careful attention to the construction and content of this thesis contributed significantly to its completion. The members of my committee--Jay W. Artis, William H. Form, James B. McKee and Frederick B. Waisanen—-have all contributed as teachers and scholars to my intellectual de- velopment. The high standards they set for themselves and their students will be appreciated by future generations of sociologists. One committee member I wish to single out for special recognition is Fred waisanen. Since beginning my graduate career he has stimulated and encouraged my research interests in sociology. His comments, criticisms and speculations are found throughout this thesis. For the permission to use the data analyzed in this thesis, I express my appreciation to Charles P. Loomis. ii For serving as the first Chairman of my Guidance Com- mittee and critically encouraging my efforts to formulate meaningful questions regarding social behavior, I am deeply grateful to Robert L. Stewart. For reading parts of the initial draft and providing encouragement during the problematic moments of thesis writing, I express my appreciation to Clark McPhail. For financial support I express my appreciation to the following agencies: Carnegie Corporation, International Programs, International Communication Institute, United States Public Health Service, and Agricultural Experiment Station of Michigan State University. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi LIST OF APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vii Chapter I. INTRODUCTION AND PROBLEM I Overview of Self—Other Theory 1 Specification of the Problem 6 Review of a Relevant Study 7 Summary 11 II. THE THEORETICAL CONTEXT OF THE STUDY . . . . . 13 Some Theoretical Assumptions 13 A General Statement of Self—Other Theory 16 Self-Other Theory: Definitions 24 Self-Other Theory: PrOpositions 28 Specification of the Central Preposition for Empirical Research 38 Summary 44 III. THE METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE STUDY . . . 47 The Sample 47 The Presentation of Hypotheses 49 The Operational Specification of the Variables 60 Operational Restatement of Hypotheses 83 A Preview of Analysis Plans 86 Summary 90 IV. PRESTIGE AND SELF—IDENTIFICATION: RESULTS . . 92 Prestige and Occupational Self- Identification 93 Prestige and WOrk Self-Identification 104 Prestige and Occupation and WOrk Self- Identification llO Prestige and Self-Identification: Summary 111 iv Chapter V. SUBJECTIVE EVALUATION AND SELF- IDENTIFICATION: RESULTS . . . Subjective Social Class and Identification Comparative Evaluation and Identification subjective Evaluation and Self- Identification: Summary VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS An Overview Results and Implications General Conclusion APPENDICES BIBLIOGRAPHY Page 114 114 131 149 152 152 157 165 167 177 Table IVPI IV>2 VI-l LIST OF TABLES The Relationship between Prestige of Occu- pation and Occupational Self- Identification . . . . . . The Relationship between Prestige of Occu- pation and WOrk Self-Identification The Relationship between Subjective Social Class and Occupational Self-Identification The Relationship between Subjective Social Class and Occupational Self-Identification for levels of Prestige of Occupation The Relationship between Subjective Social Class and WOrk Self-Identification The Relationship between Subjective Social Class and WOrk Self-Identification for levels of Prestige of Occupation . . The Relationship between Comparative Evalu— ation of Occupation and Occupational Self- Identification . . . . . . . . The Relationship between Comparative Evalu- ation of Occupation and Occupational Self— Identification for levels of Prestige Occupation . . . . . . . . . . . The Relationship between Comparative Evalu- ation of Occupation and WOrk Self— Identification . . . . . . . . . . The Relationship between Comparative Evalu- ation of Occupation and Wbrk Self- Identification for levels of Prestige of Occupation . . . A List of Statistical Test Results vi Page 95 106 118 122 126 129 134 136 140 147 156 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix Page A Procedures and Analysis for Assessing the Representativeness of the Sample . . . . . . 167 B General Wbrk Statements . . . . . . . . . . . 173 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AND PROBLEM The general question that guides this study is: "What are the social processes that produce, maintain and alter self-identification behavior?" To answer this question several alterations and specifications of it are made in this study. First, the question is set within a theoretical framework. Secondly, a principle of evaluation is derived from several studies dealing with self-other relationships. Thirdly, a general research hypothesis is derived from the central proposition of Self—Other Theory and the Evaluation Principle. Fourthly, a number of sub- hypotheses are developed from the general research hy— pothesis. And, finally, these hypotheses are submitted to empirical test in a secondary analysis. This chapter pre- sents an overview of the theoretical framework, a specifi— cation of the problem and a review of pertinent research. Overview of Self—Other Theory Self-Other Theory, according to Manford Kuhn, is a "sub—theory" within the tradition of Symbolic Interactionism.l Its central assumptions are taken from the philOSOpher George Herbert Mead. This theory is, in a sense, a re-statement of Mead's ideas in a form that is empirically verifiable. It was the intent of Kuhn and the ”Iowa School" to empirically test this theory. This study is seen as an extension, elaboration and continuation of that plan.2 1See M. H. Kuhn, "Major Trends in Symbolic Inter— action Theory in the Past Twenty-five Years," Sociological Quarterly, 5 (Winter, 1964), pp. 61-84. This article also contains an extensive bibliography of studies done in this tradition (pp. 79-84). 2Some of the studies are: C. J. Couch, "Self- Attitudes and Degree of Agreement with Immediate Others," American Journal of Sociology, LXIII (March, 1958), pp. 491- 496; C. J. Couch, "Family Role Specialization and Self- Attitudes in Children," Sociological anrterly, 3 (April, 1962), pp. 115-121; W. S. Garretson, "The Consensual Defi— nition of Social Objects," Sociologicalnguarterly, 3 (April, 1962), pp. 107-113; M. H. Kuhn and T. S. McPartland, "An Investigation of Self-Attitudes," American Sociological Re- view, 19 (February, 1954), pp. 68-76; M. H. Kuhn, "Self- Attitudes by Age, Sex and Professional Training," Socio- logical Quarterly, 1 (January, 1960), pp. 39-55; T. S. McPartland and J. H. Cummings, "Self-Conceptions, Social Class and Mental Health," Human Organization, 17 (Fall, 1958), pp. 24-29; T. S. McPartland, J. H. Cummings and W. S. Garretson, "Self-Conception and ward Behavior in Two Psychi- atric Hospitals," Sociometry, 24 (June, 1961), pp. 111-124; C. McPhail, "Perceived Consensus regarding Statements about the Self in Response to the Question "Who Am I?"," Paper read at the Ohio Valley meetings (Spring, 1964): S. C. McPhail, "Self Identification within a Specific Context of Experience and Behavior," Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, 1965: H. A..Mu1ford and W. W. Salisbury II, "Self-Conceptions in A General POpulation," Sociologicalgguarterly, 5 (Winter, 1964), pp. 35-46; K. P. Schwiran, "Variations in the Structure of the Kuhn-McPartland Twenty Statements Test and Related Response Differences," Sociological Quarterly, 5 (Winter, 1964), pp. 47-59; R. L. Stewart and G. M. Vernon, "Four Correlates of Empathy in the Dating Situation," Soci- ology and Social Research, 43 (March, 1959), pp. 279- Briefly stated, this theory begins with the con- ception of human society as an ongoing series of social activities and acts taking place between and among acting units.3 The child is born into a family where the pro- cedures of living are being carried on. Within such a context the child becomes aware of the social world. Of central, although not exclusive importance, in this process of becoming conscious of the world is the class of behavior called language. It is by means of simple act symbols which accompany other behavior (e.g., non-vocal gestures) that the child is introduced to the "objects" in his social environment. Hence, it is asserted that all "objects" are social before they become physical. It is from the assertions involving a "behavioral theory of meaning" that the ideas regarding self—other re- lationships are formulated. If all "objects" are such by virtue of the behavior taken toward them, then this is true for the self as an "object." The self is possible only by 285; C. W. Tucker, "Dimensions of Self-Attitudes: A WOrking Paper," Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, Spring, 1965 (mimeograph); G. M. Vernon, "Religious Self- Identification," Pacific Sociological Review, 5 (Spring, 1962), pp. 40-43: L. H. warshay, "Breadth of Perspective," in A. M. Rose (ed.), Human Behavior and Social Processes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1962), pp. 148—178. 3At this point of the study I just briefly present the main features of this theory and oversimplify somewhat. A detailed account will be given in the next chapter. The account of "Society" which is used in this theory is ade- quately presented by Herbert Blumer in "Society as Symbolic Interaction," A. M. Rose (ed.), Human Behavior and Social Processes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1962), pp. 179-192. reflexive acts or acts of self-consciousness. As Blumer states: The human being may perceive himself, have con— ceptions of himself, and act toward himself. As these types of behavior imply, the human being may become the objects of his own action. This gives him the means of inter-acting with himself, ad— dressing himself, responding to the address, and addressing himself anew. Thus, the human being, as conceived in this theory, can be alternately the subject and object of his own activities.5 This is a central conception in the theory of this study. It is further stated that the selfing process we ob- serve in a consequence of the person's interaction with others. As Becker and Carper point out: individuals identify themselves--answer the question "Who Am I?"--in terms of the names and categories of the groups in which they participate. By applying these labels to themselves they learn 4Herbert Blumer, "Sociological Implications of the Thought of George Herbert Mead," Paper read at the American Sociological Association meetings, Chicago, 1965, p. 2. 5This conception is a behavioristic notion of the "self." The notion of "self” as behavior is not popular in the social sciences, especially in those which are more psychological. Heine comments on the behavioristic notions by saying: "There remains a stubborn insistence that a person cannot be defined solely in terms of his behavior; there is a recurrent notion that if we define the self in behavioristic terms we are missing part of the person. That indefinable part was, in the past, called 'soul'; it may now be variously labeled 'style of life,' or 'character,‘ or 'inner self.‘ Its elusiveness is linked to the fact that it is indeed hard to know another person completely; but it is also linked to our ideas of privacy and our implicit as- sumption of a kind of absolute solitariness of the other that we cannot really bridge." c. wepman and R. Heine (eds.), The Concepts of Personality (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1963), p. 406. who they are and how they ought to behave, acquire a self and a set of perspectives in terms of which their conduct is shaped. A person becomes an object to himself ” . . . only by taking the attitudes of other individuals toward himself within a social environment or context of experience and be- havior in which he and they are involved."7 Hence, the central proposition in this theory is that self behavior and the activities of other are reciprocally related. For example, if others behave toward a person in a certain manner, we would expect him to identify himself in that manner. That is, if others consistently praise a person's activity it is expected that he will identify him— self in terms of that activity. If his actions are de- graded, he will either identify himself in derogatory terms (e.g., "poor student," ”lousy worker," etc.) or not identify himself with the activity. In addition, if the behavior of others toward a person alters, it is expected that his self— identification behavior will also alter. The investigation of the circumstances for the appearance of certain self- identification behaviors is the focus of this study. 6H. S. Becker and J. Carper, "The Elements of Identification with an Occupation," American Sociological Review, 21 (June, 1956), p. 341. 7G. H. Mead, Mind, Self and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937), p. 138. Specification of the Problem This study focuses on a certain class of self- identification behaviors in order to investigate the central theoretical proposition. This class is called "occupation and work identities.” Occupational self— identities are terms which specify a specific occupational title. These terms are usually found in answer to the question: ”What is your occupation?" WOrk self-identities, on the other hand, are terms which do not specify a particular occupational title. They are, instead, general references to the activity of work. From work self— identities an observer would not be able to discover the exact occupational title of the person. These are the two types of self—identities used in this study. The self—identities used in this study are obtained by having the respondent ask himself the question, "Who Am I?" The procedures used are a revision of the Kuhn— McPartland "Twenty Statements Test" which was derived from the Self-Other Theory.8 A complete discussion of this technique is given later in this report. Finally, this study is only concerned with one principle of self—other relationships: evaluation. More specifically, this evaluative behavior is focused upon 8M. H. Kuhn and J. S. McPartland, "An Investigation of Self-Attitudes," American Sociological Review, 19 (February, 1954), pp. 68-76. occupational activities. Prestige of occupation and several "subjective" questions from the original research are used to measure evaluation. Hence, by way of specification, this study investi— gates the general question of self identification using occupational behavior. It focuses on the relationship be- tween evaluation of occupational activities and occupational and work self—identities. Even with this focus, the major concern is self-other relationships, Egg occupational be- havior. In doing this, of course, some information regard- ing occupations is used, especially as this information re- lates to the theoretical rationale for the hypotheses. Therefore, this study: (1) investigates the central propo- sition of Self-Other Theory, (2) provides some information about occupation-work self-identification, and (3) presents some information relevant to the sociology of occupations. Review of a Relevant Study In this section I discuss an empirical study dealing with occupational self—identification. This study is rele- vant to the theory used here and deals explicitly with occu— pational self-identification. Studies which deal with other theoretical and conceptual issues are discussed in the next chapter. . In 1964, Mulford and Salisbury did a study of a quota sample (N = 1208) in the state of Iowa.9 To obtain self-identification behaviors they asked each respondent to write answers to the question "Who Am I?" These statements were content analyzed into thirteen different categories.10 Here we are only interested in the category of "occupation— work" self-identities. In this study "specific occupational identity" was defined as: All statements which refer to a specific type of job that could be classified in the U. S. Census Occupational categories . 11 It was found that 62% of the respondents made one or more ”occupational identity" statements.12 With regard to sex, 60% of the men (N = 572) and 64% of the women (N = 631) mentioned specific occupational identities. A second observation of interest is the comparison of occupational categories with the mention of 9H. A. Mulford and W. W. Salisbury II, "Self- Conceptions in a General Population," Sociological Quarterly, 5 (Winter, 1964), pp. 33—46. 10See Mulford and Salisbury, Sociological Quarterly, 5, pp. 37-39 for the list of their categories. 11Mulford and Salisbury, Sociological Quarterly, 5, p. 39. 12It should be noted that the word "housewife" was coded as an "occupational identity" in this study. Occu- pation had the highest percentage of mention for all identities. occupation-work identities.l3 The table below presents these data: Mention of Occupation and WOrk Roles by Occupation and Sex* Number in Sample Percentage Mention Occupation Total Men WOmen Total Men WOmen Professional, technical 46 36 10 74 69 90 Business 72 64 8 60 61 50 Clerical, Sales 93 56 37 66 63 70 Skilled 63 61 2 59 59 —- Semi-skilled 54 45 9 52 49 3 Service 63 28 35 67 64 69 Farmer 137 137 -— 89 89 -- Unskilled 29 27 2 62 59 3 Housewife 506 —- 506 68 -- 68 Not in work force 95 77 18 61 66 39 Blank (N.R.) 55 44 18 60 66 36 TOTAL 1208 575 633 68 68 67 *Adapted from Table 6 in Mulford and Salisbury, Sociological Quarterly, 5, p. 45. Several descriptive observations can be made from this table. First, "Farmers" have the highest percent in mention of these identities (89%), "Professional, Technical" is next (74%), while "housewife" (68%), "Service" (62%) and "Clerical, Sales" (66%) cluster in the third position. 13It should be noted that excluding statements re- ferring to specific occupations, only six percent of the sample made statements which referred to work roles. Ex- amples of such statements are: "I enjoy work,” "I help my husband with the crops," etc. Mulford and Salisbury, Sociologicanguarterly, 5, p. 39. 10 Secondly, sex makes little difference in the total per- centage of mention in occupation. Thirdly, "Retired, stu- dents, unemployed," although a gross category, has a higher percent of mention than does "Business" (60%), "Skilled" (59%), and "Semi-skilled" (52%), and almost equal to the percentage of those in the "Unskilled" (62%) category. And, finally, in three occupational categories, "Professional, Technical," "Clerical, Sales," and "Service," women have a higher percentage of mention of occupation—work than men. Several other observations can be made from this table which are relevant to the present study. First, if the list of occupations is considered as a ranking in terms of "prestige," then ”prestige" has a weak relationship with occupational mention. That is, such categories as "Farmer," "Service," and "Clerical, Sales," have a percentage of occupational-work mention which is not "significantly" lower than the category of “Professional, Technical." The problem is that these categories are too gross to use as measures of "prestige." A measure of prestige is employed in the present study which attempts to eliminate this problem. Another difference which is unexplained in the article is that between Farmers and all the other occu— pations. Eighty-nine percent of the Farmers mention these identities; this is fifteen percent greater than any other occupational category. This points to a difference which the present study attempts to explain. 11 As one can see the Mulford and Salisbury study is just an initial step in the investigation of occupation-work identities. Their study mainly serves as a heuristic de- vice leading to further investigation of these identities. The present study is an attempt to increase our knowledge of these self-identities in the hope that this will lead to a clearer understanding of self-other relationships. Summary This chapter included the introduction and problem statement of this study. It began with the general question: "What are the social processes which produce, maintain and alter self-identification behavior?“ Then this question was set within a framework called "Self-Other Theory." The central proposition of this theory is that the self and activities of others are inter—dependent. This study deals with this proposition. This chapter included other specifications of the problem. First, the problem deals with one class of self- identities: occupation and work. Secondly, it is based on one principle of self—identification: evaluation. Thirdly, the problem focuses on one class of activities: occupation. Therefore, the problem of this study is the relationship between evaluation of occupational activities and occu- pational work self—identities. 12 Finally, this chapter included a brief review of a study relevant to occupational and work self-identification. There were several unexplained observations noted in a table from that study. The present study will attempt to account for several of these discrepancies. By doing this, we hope to increase the knowledge of self-other relationships. CHAPTER II THE THEORETICAL CONTEXT OF THE STUDY This chapter includes the theoretical rationale for this investigation. Theory, in this case, refers to " a logically interrelated set of 'propositions' or 'statements' that are empirically meaningful, as well as to the assumptions the scientist makes about his method and data."1 The assumptions and propositions are in this chapter, while the discussion of methodology is found in the next chapter. Some Theoretical Assumptions2 As Sjoberg indicates, some of the assumptions con- cerning the "nature of reality" and the "nature of man" are rarely stated by sociologists but are frequently implied in lG. Sjoberg, "The Nature of Social Reality and of Man: Some Implications for theory Construction in Soci- ology," Paper read at the ASA meetings, Chicago, 1965 (mimeograph), p. 3. 2Many of these assumptions are part of the "world- taken-for-granted" of present-day American Sociologists. In light of this, extensive quotation from various sources seems unnecessary. The quotations would not alter the character of these statements as assumptions. Some of the sources for these assumptions are cited in previous footnotes and in- clude the works of Mead, Kuhn, Rose, Blumer and Goffman. A similar discussion of theoretical assumptions for various theories is found in D. Martindale, The Nature and Types of Sociological Theory (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960). 13 14 their research efforts. So, at this point, I mention some of the assumptions that are evident in this theory. The theory begins with the notion that social life consists of the activities and behavior of acting units. There is an emphasis upon the social processes involved in human action. The question of how fluid or stable these processes appear to be is never completely resolved because their character depends upon the problem one is attempting to solve. That is, if one is asking a question which re- quires that he find a stable pattern of action, then he is apt to find the pattern. Thus, one resolution of this issue (i.e., fluidity or stability) is to frame the problem to al- low for the investigation of both the stable and fluid features of social action.3 Related to the above assumption is one which in— volves the organism versus environment issue. It is assumed that this issue is resolved by considering relationships or co-determining actions as the main concern of study. There- fore, there is no concern over which is the determining factor because, by paying attention to relationships, the duality is not relevant.4 3This is done in the present study by asking the guiding question so it includes the phrase "produce, main— tain and alter." 4Part of the problem is that the structure of our language, with its "linear codification of reality," forces us to think and write in dualistic terms. ' 15 The problem of materialism versus idealism is a false duality in this theory when one considers its con- ception of experience and reality. Reality is not conceived as an absolute within experience or as a structure beyond experience, but as Mead puts it: . experience is not itself a problem. It is simply there. The problems arise within it. The criterion of truth does not then transcend ex- perience, but simply regards the condition of on- going experience which has become problematic through the inhibition of the natural processes of men. The solution of the problem lies entirely within experience and is found in the resolution of the inhibitions. Hence, the so—called "material" or "physical" world is that part of man's experience which he designates as ”material" or "physical." It is not, therefore, something which is be- yond and apart from his ongoing social experiences. And, finally, there is the assumption concerning the basic unit of observation and analysis. In the past this issue was concerned with the dualism of “individual versus group."6 But in this theory the basic unit of analysis is neither the "individual" or the "group." The central unit is called the "social act," which is a " . . . class of acts which involves the co-operation of more than one 5G. H. Mead, "A Pragmatic Theory of Truth," re- printed in A. J. Reck (ed.), Selected Writings: George Herbert Mead, p. 342. 6See C. K. warriner, "Groups are Real: A Reaffir- mation," American Sociological Review, 21 (October, 1956), pp. 549-554 for a discussion of some of the questions in- volved in this issue. 16 individual, and whose object as defined by the act . . . is a social object . . . one that answers to all parts of the complex act, though these parts are found in . . . the life process of the group, not in those of separate individuals alone."7 Hence, the concern of this theory is with the on- going social action of human life as seen in behavioral relationships. A General Statement of Self—Other Theory As mentioned above, the child is born into a spe- cific family context where the procedures of living are be- ing carried out. By behaving toward him and the "world" about him, others construct social objects for him. They behave toward and designate the clothing he is to wear, the toy he is to play with, the oven he is not to touch, and the like. In doing this, others construct for the child a world of social objects and their correlative symbols.8 7G. H. Mead, Mind, Self and Society, p. 6. For a brief discussion of the conception see: M. H. Kuhn, "Social Act," in J. Gould and W. H. Kolb (eds.), A Dictionary of the Social Sciences (New York: The Free Press, 1964), pp. 643f and S. Frank Miyamoto, "The Social Act: Re-Examination of a Concept," Pacific Sociological Review, 2 (Fall, 1959), pp. 51-55. 8Therefore, a sodial object is defined as: " . . any distinguishable aspect of social reality. It may be a thing, quality, an event, or state of affairs. All that is necessary is that it has been given unity and disjunctive— ness from other matters by having been given a name (i.e., label, symbol) which distinguishes it and assigns it a mean- ing." M. H. Kuhn, "Social Objects," in J. Gould and W. H. Kblb.(eds.), p. 659. . 17 In a like manner, others designate the child's own behavior. They tell him what he can do and how he is to do it. Statements like: "Stop biting yourself" or "Stop hitting yourself" refers to his own behavior. When re- ferring to the child's behavior the others use such words as: "you," "yourself," "his," "him,” "he," "baby," "boy," but never the word "I." Therefore, the child's first words referring to his own activities are incorrect pronouns. But these are the only words that he has to refer to himself: these were given to him by others.9 In the "play stage" of socialization the child in- creases the behavior that is directed toward his own activi- ties.10 He speaks to himself in terms of another role or "takes-the-role-offithe—other." This is done within certain activities where the child plays the role of another toward himself or the role of the other toward another social 9One early study of this phenomenon was C. H. Cooley, "A Study of the Early Use of Self WOrds of a Child," Psychological Review, 15 (1908), pp. 338—357. A "repli- cation" of that study was reported in Read Bain, "The Self- and—Other WOrds of a Child," American Journal of Sociology, XLI (1936), pp. 767-775. 10The labels for and discussion of the "stages" in the socialization process come from G. H. Mead, Mind, Self and Society, "Play, the Game, and the Generalized Other," Section 20, pp. 152—164. It is unfortunate that there are very few empirical studies of childhood play, especially in these terms. For an excellent article on the issue, see: G. P. Stone, "The Play of Little Children," Qgest Mono- graphs, I (1965), pp. 23—31. 18 object. Or the child may play a sequence of different roles toward his own activities. This type of activity increases the awareness of the child's relationship with other roles within certain social acts. In this sense, the child is taking another into account in his ongoing activity and learning to control and adjust his behavior in accord with another.11 The "game stage" of the socialization process is fundamental for the development of the person as a self. It was for Mead the best "model" for explaining self develop— ment. The "game" differs from "play" in that the person cannot as easily ”cast" the other to suit his own behavior. Secondly, he has to deal with a number of others and not just a single other. And, finally, the place of the rules as they develop in the game are not as evident in the "play" stage. The consequences of these differences for self de- velopment are discussed next. Initially, the child's games are quite simple. They involve only three or four others and a simple set of rules. Such games as "Duck, Duck, Goose," and ”Ring around the Rosie," have very simple rules. The "purpose" of these lJ‘The advantage that the child has in the "play stage” that is not evident in the "game stage" (to be discussed next), is that the child is "casting" both sets of role be- haviors: his own and the other. This makes it possible for the child to "cast" the other as he intends it to be within his knowledge of the behavior of the other role. Only systematic observation of these acts can give us any notion of the variations and the consequences of this "casting" behavior. 19 games, from a theoretical point of view, is to show the children how to co-ordinate their behavior with others with— in a specific set of rules. If they fail to do this, they leave the game to take part in it another time. As the child goes through school the games become progressively more complex. More others must be taken into account, the timing of the activity becomes a factor and the rules and their ramifications appear complex. One game that is a good example of this change is "Dodge Ball." In this game a player must take a number of others into account in a sequence. To stay in the game, a player must be able to anticipate the behavior of another and respond to that be— havior quickly.12 If he has anticipated wrongly or he does not respond quickly, he will be out of the game. This is an example of an early game in which the child must take a number of others into account. After the child has experienced a number of games in which he has to take a number of others into account in sequence, he is ready for more complex games (e.g., base- ball). In this type of game the player has to take a number of others into account at the same time. For a player to execute certain plays, he must know what several others are 12This anticipation behavior is called an "attitude" by Mead. It usually is a physical position of the body or intonation of the voice which suggests the next act. In this way they are "incipient acts" as Edward Gross and G. P. Stone discuss them in "Embarrassment and the Analysis of Role Requirements," American Journal of Sociology, LXX (July, 1964), P. l. 20 going to do and anticipate their behavior in relation to his own behavior. He must act in terms of a "generalized other" or a rule to have his activities co-ordinate with the others in the game.13 Only by behaving toward himself in terms of the "generalized other" can a person stay in this type of game and continue to play. This brief discussion of the "game stage" was not presented out of an interest in games pg; se, but rather with a concern for the behavioral process they illustrate. The process, which is essential for self development, is known as "taking—the-role-of-the-other" or generally, "taking-others—into—account." Before proceeding to the final notion of the selfing process a brief account of this process is given. Several accounts of this process in the literature can be used as a comparison to the one given here.14 First, this process does not necessarily include conceptions which 13For a discussion of this process, see: R. H. Turner, "Role-Taking, Role Standpoint, and Reference Group Behavior," American Journal of Sociology, LXI (January, 1956), pp. 316- 328. l4W'alter Coutu, "Role-Playing vs. Role-Taking: An Appeal for Clarification," American Sociological Review, 16 (1951), pp. 180-187: Herbert Blumer, "Psychological Import of the Human Group," in M. Sherif and M. O. Wilson, Group Relations at the Crossroads (New York: Harpers and Brothers, 1953), pp. 185-202; R. H. Turner, American Journal of Soci- olo , LXI, pp. 316-328; G. M. Vernon, Human Interaction (New York: The Ronald,Press, 1965), Chapter 13, pp. 179- 192: and J. T. Borhek, "A Theory of Incongruent Experience," Pacific Sociological Review, 8 (Fall, 1965), p. 92. . 21 are characterized by the words: ”empathy," "sympathy," or "identification Kipp." When one takes another into account within social acts, this class of behavior may be exhibited, but it is not necessary. For example, in the doctor-patient relationship "empathy" in terms of "bed—side manner" may be appropriate and necessary for the treatment to continue, but if "empathy" is displayed in an employer—employee relation— ship the action could discontinue. Whether "empathy" is shown or not, the actors must take each other into account for the activity to continue. So, "empathy" (and any simi- lar notion) is added to certain social acts but not necessary for them to take place and continue.15 In addition, "taking-the-role—of—the-other" is al- ways a reflexive class of behaviors.16 Reflexive behavior is self-conscious behavior. In other words, the person is, 15This point is emphasized in a paper by Sheldon Stryker. He writes " . . . it is useful to emphasize that the concept of role-taking--anticipation of responses of others implicated in some social (act)--contains no neces- sary element of sympathy. Much confusion stems from read- ing sympathy into role-taking concepts. I am asserting, simply, that one can anticipate behavior of another without becoming emotionally involved," in "Symbolic Interactionism." Paper read at the Ohio Valley Sociological Society meetings, May, 1965, p. 8. l6Turner writes of non-reflexive role-taking (p. 321), but he holds that reflexiveness always includes an element of evaluation. Evaluation is not necessarily a factor in re— flexive behavior. A person can just designate his own be- havior without making or implying an evaluation of that be— havior. In fact, I would maintain that designation must preceed evaluation. 22 aware of his own activities within the ongoing social act. He must be aware of his behavior to have it "fit" with the behavior of others within the social act for the action to continue. For a person to develop a self, he must become aware of his own behavior and how it is co—ordinated with the activities of others. Therefore, "taking-the-role-of— the—other" is always a reflexive activity. In sum, "taking-the-role-of—the-other" involves co- ordinating one's activities with the activities of others within the context of ongoing social acts. This is done by seeing what the other is doing, anticipating what he will do next, reflecting on one's own behavior and adjusting one's behavior for the next action that is anticipated. Within this situation, "others" who are not "physically present" and one's past experiences may be brought into the action. This will depend upon the content of the activity and whether the rules allow the expression of such activities. But, the point of this discussion is, that the self can not develOp without the experience of this process within the activities of group life. A person acquires a self by becoming conscious of his own activities (i.e., self-conscious). He becomes an object to himself by attending to his own activities. For a person to have a self means that he " . . . can designate things to himself-—his wants, his pains, his goals, objects around him, the presence of others, their actions, their 23 expected actions, or what not."17 So, like other social objects, the person has a self by virtue of naming his own behavior. The symbols or labels that he uses for his own activities refer to the self, just as symbols refer to the other social objects in his world. As labels for other objects in his environment are developed through transactions with others, this is the case for the self as an object. ”It is the social process itself that is responsible for the appearance of the self; it is not there as a self apart from these types of experiences."18 The self is a social product when the person names his own activities with those symbols that others have directed to— wards him. In other words, when he takes over into his own behavior, the behavior of others, he then becomes a self. This means then, that the self is always developing rela- tive to the social processes in which the person is involved. As new groups are encountered the labels for those groups are taken over into one's own behavior. And, finally, it is asserted that only through the continual develOpment of selves in human group life can society control and make possible its present and future existence.19 l7Herbert Blumer, "The Sociological Implications of the Thought of George Herbert Mead," p. 2. 18G. H. Mead, MindL Self and Society, p. 161. 19G. H. Mead, "The Problem of Society--How we become Selves," Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1936), pp. 360—385. 24 Self-Other Theory: Definitions Given this general statement of the theory, this section presents its central definitions. The next section presents the major propositions with a review of the rele- vant literature. Self As mentioned above, the self is the person as he acts toward his own activities. The self as a social ob— ject, similar to all social objects, is known by symbols within naming behavior. Hence, the term "self" is defined as the set of symbols or labels a person employs when naming his own activities.20 This means that all the labels a person uses for his own activities are the self. Some of these include: one's identity, in role and status terms (e.g., "son," "father," "banker," "wife," etc.); one's evaluation of role and status terms as well asother activities (e.g., "good father," "bad writer," "poor reader,"); one's View in ideological 20With this definition one can easily refer to the "self" as "self—symbols" or "self—identities" as long as he remembers that the labels refer to the person's own activi- ties. This definition is similar to that used by S. C. McPhail in "Self Identification . . . , " p. 37. Likewise, the definition by Kinch which states: "The self—concept is that organization of qualities that the individual at- tributes to himself" in "A Formalized Theory of the Self— Concept," American Journal of Sociology, LXVIII (January, 1963), p. 481, is similar to this one. For a discussion of "Self" and "Self—Conception" see M. H. Kuhn in J. Gould and W. H. Kblb (eds.), pp. 628-631. 25 terms (e.g., "religious," "politically active,” etc.); one's interests and aversions (e.g., "stamp collector," "football fan," etc.), and the like. Theoretically, any statement made by a person which refers to his own past, present or future activities (usually "I" sentences) can be classified as self behavior. Self and Self Identification As one can see, the self as a set of symbols for one's own activities is rather a large class of behaviors.21 One sub-set of these labels, which is used in this study, is called'identities" and the activity is called "self- identification." But the term "identity" used in this study does not have the meaning given to it in most of the social science literature. The most prevalent meaning of the term "identity" in social science is one which includes some feeling or cathectic relationship with objects.22_ Accordingly, a person is identified with an object if he is emotionally at— tached to the object. But, this is_ggt the meaning of identity used in this study. 21This fact is evident to many students of self be— havior. The most recent expression of this is found in Edward Gross and G. P. Stone, "Embarrassment and the Analysis of Role Requirements," American Journal of Sociology, LXX, p. 3. 22For a discussion of this use of the term and sources, see: P. Halmos, "Identification," in J. Gould and W. H. Kblb (eds.), pp. 314-315. 26 In the usage employed here, the terms "identifi- cation" and "designation" are synomous. The emphasis is upon description or identification pf, rather than identifi- cation with.23 As Stone appropriately states: when one has identity, he is situated--that is, cast in the shape of a social object by the ac— knowledgment of his participation or membership in social relations. One's identity is established when others place him as a social object by assign- ing the same words of identity that he appropriates for himself or announces. It is in the coincidence of placements and announcements that identity becomes a meaning of self. Therefore, one's identity is " . . . his generalized position in society deriving from his statuses in groups of which he is a member, the roles which stem from these statuses, and the social categories which his group member- ship lead him to assign to himself."25 So, identification is defined as the naming of one's activities by using role, status, or category labels.26 This study is limited to 23"Identification with" would be called "preferential" or "appraisive" signs as compared to the usage employed here. As Stone points out " . . . identification with one another, in whatever mode, cannot be made without identification-pf one another," in "Appearance and the Self," in A. M. Rose (ed.), Human Behavior and Social Processes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962), p. 90. 24G. P. Stone, "Appearance and the Self," p. 93. 25M. H. Kuhn, "Self-Conception," in J. Gould and W. Kolb (eds.), p. 630f. . 26Therefore, all identities are relational and not property terms. That is " . . . the full meaning of a symbol (identity term) includes all of the potential be— havioral relationships between an actor and objects which might occur in a sequence or in different situations, either actual behavior or as this behavior can be known through 27 self-identification behavior and is not concerned with all of the self-symbols which are possible. Others There are a variety of conceptions for the term "other(s)" in the literature of sociological social psy- chology.27 Various labels are used to discuss the "other" such as: "significant," "relevant," "generalized," "orien- tational," and "reference group." Most of the definitions which use these labels refer to such notions as: "to relate to," ”to identify with," "to assume one shares the norms with," "to aspire to attain or maintain membership in," "norm enforcement," "evaluative group," "comparative group," "per- spective” and the like.28 But few, if any, accounts use this term as a class of activities which can be employed in an empirical study. The main task is to conceptually distinguish self be- haviors from non—self behaviors. To do this "others" is reflexive thought," Worth Summers, "Social Structure, Be- havior, and the Meaning Component of Self Symbols," Un- published M. A. Thesis, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Michigan State University, 1964, p. 56. 27For a brief review of the definitions and their sources, see: R. L. Gold, "Generalized Other," and M. H. Kuhn, "Reference Group," in J. Gould and W; H. Kblb (eds.), pp. 283ff, pp. 580f. A short article which illustrates the confusion concerning this term is the one by Everett Hughes, "What Other?" in Rose (ed.), Human Behavior and Social Processes, pp. 119-127. 28M. H. Kuhn, "Reference Group," in J. Gould and W. H. Kblb (eds.), p. 581. 28 defined as persons whose activities the actor takes into ac— count when ordering his behavior in any activity. The labels given to these persons (e.g., friend, wife, son, teacher, etc.) usually indicate the class activities which the actor takes into account. What makes other "significant" is that they are taken into account in terms of the ongoing activity of the person. Summary In this section three terms were defined: self, self-identities and other. Self is the set of symbols or labels a person employs when naming his own activities. One sub-set of these labels refer to roles, statuses and cate- gories. This sub-set is known here as self-identities. And, finally, the term "other" is defined as persons whose activities an actor takes into account when ordering his behavior in any activity. So, with these terms briefly de- fined, the next section considers the propositions and relevant literature. Self-Other Theory: Propositions Proposition I From the discussion of the theory and the definitions of major terms, the first proposition is: 29 I. Initially, a person's self is developed from the behaviogghis others direct toward his actiVities. In this prOposition the self is cast as the "dependent variable," while other behavior is the "independent vari- able." This means when an investigator uses this prOpo- sition to derive hypotheses for test, he must establish the logical priority of others' behavior over self. One case is when one is studying children who are developing a self. Another might be a case where persons are being introduced into a new group or a new country. In these instances, an investigator would observe a person's self behavior at one point and then make similar observations at a second point, noting any alterations. He would have to investigate the activities of the person's "others” to note what behaviors they directed toward the person in the intervening time period. In this way an investigator can show that the alterations in the person's self are contingent upon the activities of others. Although most studies do not use this 29This proposition is similar to Zetterberg's Second Cooley Hypothesis: "In an action system (social act) any actor has a tendency to develop self—cognitions (self be— haviors) that are synonomous with the uniform description of him ("other" behavior) that are in the system." In "Compliant Actions," Acta Sociologica, 2 (1957), p. 193. He found empirical support for this hypothesis (pp. 193f). 30 specific design, there are several which tend to support Proposition 1.30 Several of the studies done by Manford Kuhn and his 31 students give support to this prOposition. An example is 32 In one hypothesis the study by McPartland and Cummings. they were interested in the relationship of class to self- conception. Their observations of class were based on occupation, education and income, while self-conception was measured by the question "Who Am I?" Using only two classes (i.e., middle and low), they found that those in the middle class give a significantly higher modal response in terms of role and status identities than did the lower class persons. Reasoning that self-conception is an organization of social 30The rule for citing supporting literature used by Zetterberg is also used in this study. He contends that it is more helpful to the theorist and his readers if he just cites a few strategic studies which support his proposition. The number of studies used to support any proposition does not change its character as a proposition; it still is being suggested for empirical test. On Theory and Verification in Sociology (New Jersey: The Bedminister Press, 1965), pp. 153-156. 31M. H. Kuhn, "Major Trends in Symbolic Interaction Theory in the Past Twenty-five Years," Sociological anrter— l , 5 (Winter, 1964), states that "Self theory of this variety (i.e., Kuhn's) has implied one or another of the five deterministic models in our diagram (the same type of prOposition that is stated here), although this point is implicit rather than explicit, and never a salient issue.' p. 71f. For this reason it is difficult to clearly assess much of the work by Kuhn and his students. It was seldom explicit as to how they treated the "self" and "others" as variables. 32T. S. McPartland and J. H. Cummings, "Self- Conception, Social Class and Mental Health,“ Human Organi— zation, 17 (Fall, 1958), pp. 24-29. 31 experience and that middle class persons are highly in- volved in activities, this high modal response is the re- sult of others directing behavior toward them in this variety of activities. A similar notion was expressed in research reported by Kuhn.33 Using data gathered in a variety of studies done in grade schools, high schools and professional schools he investigated the relationship between age, professional training and self-conception. With regard to age he found a direct relationship between the mention of self-identities and increase in age up through the early twenties.34' The rationale for this relationship is that those persons become increasingly involved in group activities and take over the labels of these groups for their own behavior. Another relevant relationship is the one between professional training and professional role identity. Using a sample of nurses, he found that those in the last years of training have a proportionally higher mention of the role identity than those in the early years. This finding Shows, according to Kuhn, that as one becomes increasingly involved in training for a particular role, identification increases. 33M. H. Kuhn, "Self-Attitudes by Age, Sex and Pro- fessional Training," Sociological Quarterly, 1 (January, 1960), pp. 39—55. 34This trend has not been investigated for all identities beyond that age limit. It seems reasonable that these identities would decrease after the age of seventy when involvement in community activities decreases for most persons. 32 Involvement is the result of others directing behavior to— ward the person relevant to the particular role. This find— ing lends additional support to the proposition under consideration. In a recent study, Sherwood explored the relation— ship between self-identity and the evaluation of others in 35 He assumed, operationally, that the six training groups. same categories are used for self as for others. Bipolar scales were used to measure the evaluations of self and others. By a variety of statistical tests of a number of hypotheses he concluded that there was only indirect support for the relationship between evaluation, identity and one's own view of these behaviors. But, he did support the re- lationship between one's view of others and one's assessment of self. Finally, the McPhail study was designed to test the pr0position: "The person who is implicated in a religious context of experience and behavior will identify himself as 36 religious." It was asserted that the "context of experi- ence and behavior" is logically prior to self-identification 35J. J. Sherwood, "Self Identity and Referent Others," §ociometry, 28 (March, 1965), pp. 66—81. 36S. C. McPhail, "Self Identification . . . , " p. 61. The present study is similar to McPhail's in that it is a secondary analysis of the same survey study. It differs, in that it focuses upon a different set of observations. 33 and served as the "independent variable." Identification was defined as it is in this study and "context of ex— perience and behavior" was defined as those activities in which a person is implicated where the behavior of others could be directed toward his behavior. The two variables in the prOposition are called "religious implication" and "religious self-identification." Using a combination of three variables for "re- ligious implication" he found that the extent of association between the variable was significant and accounted for seventy-seven percent of the cases in the predicted cells. Of these three variables he found that religious partici- pation contributed most to the association. These studies, if my interpretations are acceptable, contribute to the empirical support of Proposition I. In addition, the review of these studies shows that some re- search has been done on this proposition but that further empirical work is necessary. Proposition II The next prOposition derived from the theory is: II. The activities that others direct toward a person are dependent upon the symbols or labels he employs when naming his own activities (i.e., self). In other words, the labels that a person placed on his own activities effects the behaviors that others direct towards him. 34 This proposition seems to contradict the first prOposition but a careful consideration shows that it complements rather than contradicts. In the second prOpo— sition, although not always in the first, we begin with a person who displays self-symbols. So, this proposition is more concerned with the continuance and alteration of self, than with the initial development of self. Much, but not all, of Erving Goffman's work takes 37 One of the first the View evident in this proposition. articles that indicates this view was on the idea of "face work." He stated: "one's face (self image) then, is a sacred thing, and expressive order required to sustain it is therefore a ritual one."38 In a similar manner, he points out that through embarrassment one discovers which identity he can safely project.39 And, of course, one of the focal ideas in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is that the way a person presents himself influences the behavior that others take toward his activities. 37See C. W. Tucker, "Erving Goffman: A Comparative Analysis," Unpublished M. A. Thesis, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Michigan State University, 1963 for a more complete review of Goffman's work. 38Erving Goffman, "On Face WOrk: An Analysis of Ritual Elements in Social Interaction," Psychiatry, 18 (August, 1955), p. 213. 39Erving Goffman, "Embarrassment and Social Organi— zation," American Journal of Sociology, LXII (November, 1956), pp. 264-271. For an extension and refinement of these ideas see:, Edward Gross and G. P. Stone, American Journal of §ociology, Lxx. PP. 1-15. 35 Gregory Stone's study on "appearance" also lends some support to this proposition.40 Appearance, as a part of a social transaction, establishes one's identity in a non-verbal but meaningful manner. How one makes himself appear to others influences their behavior toward him. By dressing in a particular manner one can determine, to a great extent, the behavior of others. This is the central thesis of Stone and it is consistent with the proposition under discussion. Although little systematic evidence has been gathered on this proposition everyday experience seems to testify to its utility. One only has to make certain an- nouncements about his behavior and observe alterations in the behavior of others toward him. But, systematic obser— vation of an inter-subjective character, must be collected before clear confirmation of this proposition is possible. Proposition III The final proposition is derived from Proposition I and II and it states: III. The self and the activities of others are co—determining. 40Stone, "Appearance and the Self," in Rose (ed.), pp. 86-118. 41Other terms for "co-determining" are: "mutually re- lated," "reciprocally related," and "inter-dependent." The form of relationship specified in this proposition is called "interdependent" by Zetterberg. It contains the causal re- lation which is.a combination of "reversible, sequential, and contingent," according to him, in On Theory and verifi— cation . . . , p. 72f. 36 This proposition focuses on the relationship between self- symbols and others activities. It holds, in contrast to the previous propositions, that neither variable is "inde- pendent" because their logical and behavioral priority can not be clearly established. Even though, for technical reasons one may have to establish a sequence for these activities, the main concern is with the association that appears between them. This will be the focal concern of this study. Other articles by Erving Goffman take the position of this proposition. In one place he states: The Meadian notion that the individual takes toward himself the attitudes others take toward him seems very much an oversimplification. Rather the indi- vidual must rely on others to paint in certain parts. Each individual is responsible for the demeanor image of himself and deference image of others, so that for a complete man to be expressed, individuals must hold hands in a chain of ceremony, each giving deferential- ly with proper demeanor to the one on the right what will be received deferentially from the one on the left.42 This statement implies that a transaction is necessary to maintain an ongoing process of action. Although, there are times when Goffman uses this proposition in his work, it usually is unclear because of his concentration on rules of interaction and the dramaturgical model.43 2Erving Goffman, "The Nature of Deference and De- meanor," American Anthropologist, 58 (June, 1956), p. 500. 43This is pointed out by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in "Awareness Contexts and Social Interaction," American Sociological Review, 29 (October, 1964), pp. 674f. 37 Recent work by Glaser and Strauss shows that some attention is being given to this proposition.44 Done within a paradigm they call "awareness contexts" they suggest a concern for the observations which are necessary to study this prOposition. By "context of awareness” they mean " . . . the total combination of what an interactant in a situation knows about the identity of the other and his own identity in the eyes of the other."45 For them it is a "structural unit" which encompasses the unit under study--interaction. Using this idea they attempt to study the " . . . develop— mental interaction process--interaction changes as it con- tinues—-as distinct from the relatively static study of the rules that govern interaction."46 So, their work is the be- ginning of a detailed study of social transactions. With the exception of the Glaser and Strauss study, a systematic empirical investigation of this proposition is not available. To bring evidence to bear on this propo- sition requires a constant set of observations over time re- garding the detailed character of social acts. Usually, as is the case here, an investigator studies certain activities 44Glaser and Strauss, American Sociological Review, 29, pp. 669-679. Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, Aware- ness of Dying (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1955). 45Glaser and Strauss, American Sociological Review, 29, p. 670. 46Glaser and Strauss, American Sociological Review, 29, p. 671. 38 and attempts to reasonably infer to the character of social acts. The fact that this is done in this study is con- sidered to be one of its limitations. In the next section further specifications of this proposition will be made so it can be utilized in empirical research. ,Specification of the Central Proposition for Empirical Research As stated above, the central proposition of this theory is: The self and the activities of others are co- determining. In this form the proposition contains no specific set of directions or content to be used in a research study. It is a general theoretical statement which can be used to derive both general and specific research hypotheses for use in an empirical investigation. Hence, this section: (1) presents a general research hypothesis which is related to this theoretical proposition, (2) discusses the type of activi- ties which are the focus of this study, and (3) presents by example, several circumstances where this research hypothe— sis should be confirmed. we begin with the presentation of The Evaluation Principle and its relationship to the central proposition of Self—Other Theory. The Evaluation Principle The Evaluation Principle attempts to specify the circumstances under which any particular set of 39 self—identities is expected to appear. It is concerned not only with the appearance of self-identities but also with their salience or importance. Hence, the question which directs the develOpment of this general hypothesis is: What is a rationale and set of circumstances for the appearance and importance of certain self-identification behaviors? Probably the most recurrent theme for those con— cerned with the study of self behavior is the notion of self-evaluation or self-esteem.47 For example, Zetterberg posits, as a basic psychological assumption in his theory, the notion of consistency in a person's evaluation of him— self.48 Erving Goffman, as mentioned above, employs the idea of a favorable presentation of self in some of his writings. William Faunce explores a variety of conditions under which occupational identities are used in self-esteem testing.49 Ernest Becker presents the notion of self-evalu- 50 ation as the basis of his theoretical orientation. And, most recently, Sherwood's study is part of a continuing 47For a brief review of this theme see: D. R. Miller, "The Study of Social Relationships: Situation, Identity, and Social Interaction," in S. Koch (ed.), Psychology: A Study of a Science, Volume Five (New York: McGraw—Hill Book Company, Inc., 1963), pp. 681-688. 48H. L. Zetterberg, "Compliant Actions," Acta Socio— logica, 2 (1957), p. 181. 49W; A. Faunce, "Occupational Involvement and the Selective Testing of Self-Esteem," paper read at ASA meet— ing, Chicago, 1959. . 50Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning (New York: Free Press, 1962). 4O effort, using the approach of Daniel R. Miller, to investi- gate self—evaluation in an experimental-like situation. All of these studies illustrate the continuing interest of social scientists in the principle of evaluation as it re— lates to self-other relationships.51 In this study the principle of self—other evaluation is utilized as a link between the theoretical proposition and the observations used in a secondary analysis.52 The central proposition, stated above, posits a co—determining relationship between a person's self behavior and the activities of others. This means that any sort of self- evaluative behavior requires the behavior of others for its continuance. As long as others evaluate a person positively he will continue to evaluate his own activities in a like manner. It is further asserted that those activities where a person is positively evaluated have the greatest likelihood of being continued by him. In addition, it is these activi- ties and their associated labels that the actor Will employ in order to obtain further positive evaluations of his 51For a review of the studies in psychology see: D. P. Crowne and M. W. Stephens "Self-Acceptance and Self- Evaluation Behavior: A Critique of Methodology," Psycho— logical Bulletin, 58 (1961), pp. 104-121. 52This principle of self—evaluation was formulated in W} A. Faunce's "Occupation Involvement and the Selective Testing of SelfeEsteem," paper read at ASA meetings, Chicago, 1959. What is given here is mainly an elaboration of ideas found in this paper as they pertain to this par- ticular study. 41 53 And, to the extent these self—evaluations are behavior. consistent with the evaluations of others in a variety of activities, the person will continue to maintain and express them.54 When considering a particular class of activities the degree of consensual confirmation of the evaluation must be taken into account. Consensual confirmation is mainly concerned with the extent of agreement among those others who participate with the person in the activity. -The probability of confirming a positive evaluation is directly related to the number of others who are taken into account. And, finally, the continued consensual confirmation of a positive evaluation increases the likelihood that the label associated with the activity will be important and salient for the person. With this brief statement of the self—evaluation principle, it is stated formally as a general proposition: The higher the positive evaluation of a person's activity by himself or others the greater the likelihood a person will identify himself in terms of that activity. 53Hans Gerth and C. W. Mills, Character and Social Structure (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1954), pp. 80-111; D. A. Goslin, "Accuracy of Self Perception and Social Acceptance," Sociometry, 25 (September, 1962), pp. 283—297; M. D..and L. Solomon, "Reactions to Evalu- ation by Others as Influenced by Self-Evaluations," Socio- metry, 22 (June, 1959), pp. 93—112. 54J. J. Sherwood, "Self Identity and Referent Others," Sociometry, 28 (March, 1965), pp. 66—81. . 42 we can treat this identity by itself as the label for the activity or, as noted above, we can compare it with other identities and thus incorporate an additional dimension of salience or importance. Therefore, when employing the evaluation principle in this investigation both designation and importance are part of the analysis.55 The General Research Hypothesis The Evaluation Principle is stated above in such a form that it is applicable to any particular class of activities. In this study the focus is on a particular class of activities and their associated identities. As mentioned above, the class is occupational activities and the identities are occupational and work identities. In light of the empirical content of this study the general re- search hypothesis is stated as follows: The higher the degree of positive evalu— ation of a person's occupational activi- ties by himself or others the greater the likelihood a person will identify himself in occupational and work terms. Several circumstances where the confirmation of this general hypothesis is expected can now be considered. 55There are several other "dimensions" of self- identification behavior that one could employ in analysis, but they are not available in the original data from which this study is constructed. In addition, and quite important- ly, one could employ a different principle of self-other relationships which is distinct from evaluation. This study is limited to the self—evaluation principle. 43 The most obvious instance of the evaluation of occupation is the prestige of an occupation. Usually the prestige of an occupation is ascertained by the comparative "general standing" of it among a set of other occupations. It is found that prestige is related to income, political attitudes, education and a variety of other sociological variables. To relate prestige of occupation with self- identification it must be assumed that those in the higher prestige occupations are aware of this in their daily inter- actions with others. Their awareness could come from ob- serving that others defer to them in interaction. It may come from the awareness that they are continually responded to in terms of their occupational role rather than the other roles they can assume. Or, they may find that they are continually forced into "talking shop" with others rather than assuming other roles. If this is the case, one would expect that those in occupations with higher prestige would have a greater tendency to identify themselves in occu- pational and work terms than those in lower prestige occupations. Another equally important way to consider evalu- ation of occupational-work activities is in terms of a person's own assessment of his occupational role. Some may consider that their occupation is not as important as their other role. There may be those, on the other hand, who consider their occupation as the most important role they '\ M I I I {consider their occupation as the most important role they] 44 perform. In terms of this research hypothesis then, we would expect there to be a direct relationship between one's own evaluation of his occupational role and the importance of occupational and work self-identities. Summary This chapter began with the theoretical assumptions of Self—Other Theory. The theory begins with the notion that social life consists of activities and the behavior of acting units. It rejects the dualistic assumptions of many theories which are current in social science. The theory assumes a pragmatic conception of experience as simply phgrg which creates no epistemological problem. And, finally, the central unit of analysis is considered to be the social act rather than either the individual or the group. The next section, included a general statement of the theory. It discussed the "play" and "game" stages of the socialization process and expanded on, and hOpefully clarified, the Median notion of "taking-the-role-of—the- other." It is by way of this latter process that persons develop into selves. They must, within this process, attend to their own activities and co-ordinate them with others. When doing this they gradually become conscious of their own actions as they relate to the actions of others. As they take over into their own activities the behavior of others, persons become selves. It is only by developing persons as 45 selves that society can control its members and continue to exist. Following the general statement of the theory, the definition of terms and statement of propositions were given. Self is defined as the set of symbols or labels a person employs when naming his own activities. Given this gross set of behaviors, only one class will be the concern in this study: self-identities. These are labels which indicate roles, statuses or categories. "Others" is defined as those persons whose activities an actor takes into ac— count when ordering his behavior in any situation. The next section specified the three propositions that are evident in the theory. The first states that initially a person's self is developed from the behavior of others, while the second states that the behavior of others is dependent upon the person's self. So, from these two propositions, the central proposition is presented which states that the self and the activities of others are co-determining. In the final section the central proposition of the theory was linked to the empirical concerns of this study. This linkage is based on the notion of self-other evalu— ation. The Evaluation Principle states that there is a direct relationship between positive evaluation of an activity and self-identification in terms of that activity. This study is concerned empirically with occupational 46 activities, therefore, the general hypothesis was stated such that evaluation and self-identification are in terms of these activities. And, lastly, two general circumstances were cited where confirmation of this central research hypothesis is expected. Exact specifications of hypotheses are given in the next chapter. CHAPTER III THE METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE STUDY This chapter presents all of the methodological and technical aspects of this study as a prelude to the presen- tation and discussion of its results. Initially, I discuss the nature of the sample and the rationale for its selection from the original survey research data. Next, the specific hypotheses are presented. Accompanying each hypothesis is a discussion of its relevance to the general research hy- pothesis and some sociological literature. Following that, there is the operationalization of the variables in each hy- pothesis along with a consideration of validity and relia— bility procedures. Then, each hypothesis is restated in operational language. And finally, the procedures of an— alysis and style of presentation are reviewed. The Sample The original research of which this study is a part was conceived by certain faculty members in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State university and the data were gathered by The Gallup Organization. The interview schedule was constructed by the members of the department, while the 47 48 sampling design, coding and original data card punching was done by Gallup. The original sample was an area probability sample of the United States which consisted of 1528 persons.1 After stratifying the nation geographically and by size of community, 143 different sampling points or areas were se- lected at random. Each interviewer was given a map of the area and told where to begin and the directions to follow. Only persons over 21 years of age were included in the original sample. So, the original sample is an area proba- bility sample of 1528 voting age adults living in the United States between September 2 and October 6, 1963. For this study on occupational activities and identi- ties a sub-sample from the original sample was chosen. The sample consists of all full—time employed males found in the original sample (N = 525). This sample was selected for several reasons. The first reason is convention. Most, if not all, of the studies which deal with occupational activi— ties exclude from consideration females and those who are not fully-employed (i.e., part-time employed, retired, unem- ployed). The main reason is to control for extraneous variables which could effect the relationships to be tested. But in this study there are several additional reasons. 1For a complete discussion of the sample design and interviewing procedures see: Report to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology: G0/6368 GP (Princeton, New Jersey: The Gallup Organization, Inc., March, 1964), pp. 3-4. 49 First, the occupation for females was not coded in a system— atic manner. Secondly, if the occupation for females was available a problem concerning self-identification is present. That is, the term "housewife" was coded as an occupational title. But, as this study developed, the term "housewife" was not defined as an occupational title. For these reasons all females are excluded from the study. A second issue regarding this sample is the degree to which it represents the full—time employed men in the United States. Procedures provided by the Gallup Organi— zation were used to estimate the degree of sampling error. The most recent United States Census data were used to judge the representativeness of the sample. It was found that the sample of this study is within the 95% level of confidence on such variables as: place of residence, age, ethnicity, income and occupation.2 Therefore, all generali— zations from this study can be made, within the limits of the probability error, to all full—time employed men liVing in the United States during the time of the study. The Presentation of Hypotheses In this section I present the hypotheses that will be tested in this study. At this stage they are presented in conceptual rather than operational form: later in this chapter the operational form is presented. For each 2All of the information on the representativeness is found in Appendix A at the end of this report. 50 hypothesis there is a discussion of its connection with re- search literature. The Evaluation Principle The self—evaluation principle, given above in the form of a general research hypothesis, states a direct re- lationship between the evaluation of occupational activities and the appearance of occupational and work identities as part of the self. In the following sections, three measures of evaluation are discussed and their relationship to identification is specified. Prestigp of Occupation.-—One of the most commonly used measures of occupational evaluation is the prestige of an occupation. The subject of occupational prestige has long interested sociologists and social psychologists.3 Empirical studies of this phenomenon date back to 1925 and continue to the present day.4 Over the years occupational prestige has been related to education, income, amount of leisure time, working conditions and minority gnbup 3For some of the best reviews of this interest see: T. Caplow, The Sociology of WOrk (New York: McGraw—Hill, 1954), pp. 33—57, or M. Gordon, Social Class in American Sociology (New York: McGrawsHill, 1958), pp. 210-233, or S. NoSow and W. H. Form (eds.), Man, WOrk and Society (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1962), pp. 236—283 and 579-581. 4See R. w. Hodge, P. M. Siegel, and P. H. Rossi, "Occupational Prestige in the United States: 1925-1963," American Journal of Sociology, LXX (November, 1964), pp. 286- 302. 51 position.5 Just recently a study reported that a "very high" or "high" average prestige score on occupations is directly related to such traits as: "regarded as desirable to associate with," "intelligence required," "scarcity of personnel who can do the job," "interesting and challenging work,” "training required," "education required," "work calls for originality and initiative," "responsibility to supervise others," "having an influence over others," "se- curity," "opportunities for advancement," "income," and ”honorable and morally good work."6 One common type of re— search using prestige of occupation has been concerned with the methodological problems involved in the measurement of the variable.7 Occupational prestige has never been em- pirically related to occupation-work self-identification.8 5For a discussion and review of these correlates see: A. J. Reiss, Jr., et al., Occupations and Social Status (New York: Free Press, 1961), Chapter IV. 6A. P. Garbin and F. L. Bates, "Occupational Prestige and Its Correlates: A Re-examination," Social Forces, 44 (March, 1966), p. 301. All the "traits" given above obtain correlations (r) with prestige of .77 or above., This study was done with 490 subjects which do not repre- sent a cross-section of the occupational work—force in the United States, so generalizability is limited (see p. 296). 7For the latest see:' R. w. Hodge, P. M. Siegel and P. H. Rossi, "Occupational Prestige in the United States: 1925-1963," American Journal of Sociology, LXX (November,. 1964), PP._286-302. 8While citing the work done with occupational prestige I want to caution the reader against drawing two conclusions which may be implied in such a review. First, I have not reviewed all of the studies done using this variable. But as the last statement notes, no studies exist 52 The article most frequently used as a conceptual foundation for discussions of prestige is the one written' by Benoit-Smullyan.9 In this article he specifies three criteria for differentiating social positions. These are: (1) relative position in a hierarchy, (2) membership in a social group, and (3) socially defined function in an organ- ized group. The first is labelled "status," and the second "situs," while the third is labelled "locus." Benoit—Smullyan defines "status" as: A hierarchical position is thus always a position in which one individual is identified with others with regard to the possession or embodiment of some common characteristics, but differentiated from these others in degree or measure, to which that characteristic is possessed or embodied.lO He notes that there are three hierarchies which can be used for status differentiation: economic, political, prestige. The first is a differentiation in terms of wealth or income, the second in terms of power or the capacity to make de- cisions, while the third, prestige status, is in terms of that relate specifically to the problem of this study. Second, this review, as well as many others, seems to indi— cate a high degree of systematic accumulativeness in the re— search. This is simply not the case. The studies reported vary widely on a number of factors such as: sample compo- sition, questions asked, scoring techniques, statistical analysis and the like. So, it is only a very general level that these studies can be deemed accumulative. 9E. Benoit-Smullyan, "Status, Status Types and Status Interrelations," American Sociological Review, 9 (April, 1944), pp. 151—161. g 10E. Benoit-Smullyan, American Sociological Review, 9, p. 151. 53 admiration, deference, imitation, suggestion and attraction.11 The author makes several points regarding prestige which relate to this study. First, the idea that prestige status contains the characteristic of attraction which leads to notions of contagion. That is, those who are attributed prestige attract a following of others who like to partici- pate in this prestige. They are also the ones who can con- tinue the process of maintaining the person's prestigeful status. Secondly, there is a separation between the cri- teria of prestige and the sources of prestige. The criteria of prestige refer not to attributes of persons but rather to " social interrelations surrounding persons."12 Source . or occasion, on the other hand, refers to those character- istics which are considered as valuable in any situation. Therefore, the sources of prestige may vary from situation to situation, but the criteria are always the social inter- relations in which the person is implicated. And finally, the author points out that prestige status differs from economic or political status, in that it can not be wholly described in behavioristic terms. That is, while economic and political status can be seen in the wealth or power displayed by a person, prestige status involves llE. Benoit-Smullyan, American Sociological Review, 9, pp. 156-157. 12E. Benoit-Smullyan, American Sociological Review, 9, p. 158. 54 sentiment and feeling which are not always as easily de- scribed (e.g., feeling of deference, attraction, etc.). It is with regard to this last point that the work of Cecil Nbrth, Paul K. Hatt and others, dealing with the empirical investigation of prestige status, becomes relevant to this study. The work of North, Hatt and others was an attempt to measure prestige status.l3 Their work was based on the notion that stratification is mainly concerned with differ- entially valued positions in society. Hatt chose occu- pational titles as the source of the prestige status on the basis of its availability, simplicity, and commonality. After a review of other techniques used to classify occu- pations he concluded that none of them conformed to the re- quirement of displaying prestige status. Therefore, he de- vised a technique to measure the prestige status of occupations. In March, 1946 the National Opinion Research Center, in cooperation with several other agencies, conducted a national quota survey of 2,900 persons in the United States.14 As part of the survey the interviewees were asked 13For the final report on their work see: A. J. Reiss, Jr., Occupations and Social Status (New York: Free Press, 1961). The most recent study is R. w. Hodge, P. M. Siegel and P. H. Rossi, "Occupational Prestige in the United States: 1925—1963," American Journal of Sociology, LXX (Nbvember, 1964). pp. 286-302. 14C. C. NOrth and P. K. Hatt, "Occupational Status and Prestige," Qpinion News, September 1, 1947, pp. 3-13. 55 to evaluate 90 occupations as to their "general standing" using "excellent," "good," "average," "somewhat below average," and "poor" as labels for evaluation. During the spring of 1963, the study was replicated using the same sampling technique (quota) but with only 661 interviews.15 It was found that the relationship between the prestige ranking of the occupations in the initial study and the Hatest one is unusually high (product-moment correlations of .99). The central point of this discussion is that the prestige status (as "general standing") of occupations can be measured and that these measurements are consistent from one point in time to another. In this study a measure de— veloped from the work of North and Hatt is used to represent the prestige status or evaluation of occupations.16 This section began with the statement of the evalu— ation principle of self—identification and its relationship to self-identification. Then, I discussed the types of status conceptually related to evaluation and, in particular, 15R. w. Hodge, P. M. Seigel and P. H. Rossi, American Journal of Sociology, LXX, p. 288. 16The particular characteristics of this measure will be discussed later in this chapter. It is important for the reader to note that prestige status of occupations is used in this study to measure the evaluation of occupation_ppp as a measure of the stratification system of the United States. It may be the case that the other measures of status (i.e., economic, political, etc.) are highly related to occupation- al prestige status but that is an empirical problem outside the realm of this study. Here we are dealing with only one criteria of status among the many which are conceivable. 56 the notion of prestige status. From that point I discussed the most common way sociologists measure prestige status. This is in terms of the prestige status of a person's occu- pation from the perspective of its ”general standing" among other occupations. So, in line with this discussion, the hypothesis can be stated that: l. The higher the prestige status of one's occu- pation the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occupational and work self— identities. As the reader will note, this hypothesis is in the con— ceptual rather than the operational form. The values of each variable and their Operational specifications are discussed following the main hypotheses for this study. Social Class and Comparative Evaluation.--There are several other hypotheses to be tested in this study which de- rive from the same principle of self-identification. They are concerned with the evaluation of occupational activities, but they involve a different way to measure evaluation. That is, they attempt to assess evaluation of an occupation from the viewpoint of the actor rather than from the "general standing" of his occupation as viewed by others. l7"Occupational self-identities" are occupational titles which are found in the answers to a question which asks the respondent to ask himself "Who Am I?" "WOrk self- identities" are terms which refer generally to working with- out specifying the occupational title. These are also found in answer to the "Who Am I?" question. This procedure will be discussed in detail later in this chapter. 57 In his discussion of the NOrth-Hatt measure of prestige status, Reiss mentions the utility of a perceptual measure of occupational prestige.18 This measure would at— tempt to assess the person's evaluation of his present occu- pation as compared to his other activities. One measure that I propose to use for this purpose is the person's as- signment of himself to a particular social class, commonly called "subjective social class." What follows is the rationale for using this measure and its hypothesized re- lationship to self-identification. The use of subjective social class has received wide and thorough criticism in sociological literature.19 Central in these critiques is the notion that "subjective social class" does not really measure social class.20 But, this study avoids this type of discussion and most of the criticisms related to it. It does this by simply stating that "subjective social class" is used in this study not to 18A. J. Reiss, Jr., et al., Occupations and Social Status (New York: Free Press, 1961), pp. 106-108. 19For example, see: H. M. Hodges, Social Stratigi- cation (Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing Company, Inc., 1964), pp. 78-100, and M. Gordon, Social Class in American Sociology (New York: McGrawsHill, 1958), pp. 193-209. 201 am referring here to the measure devised by Richard Centers and reported in The Psychology of Social Class (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949) and "Social Class, Occupation and Imputed Belief," American Journal of Sociology, LVIII (May, 1953), pp. 543—555. 58 represent or measure social class, but as a measure of the person's evaluation of his occupational activities., In all of the studies that use this measure of "sub? jective social class" a high relationship is found between class and the prestige status of one's occupation.21 That is, those who assign themselves to the higher classes also hold high prestige occupations. To use this measure of "subjective social class" as an evaluation of occupation it must be assumed, from the above mentioned relationship, that one's occupation is taken into account in his class assigns ment. Those who assign themselves to the "lower" or "work- ing" class do so mainly on the basis of lowly evaluated occupations. This variable is an attempt to obtain some measure of the person's assessment regarding the evaluation of his occupation. Therefore, the hypothesis can be stated: 2. The higher the person's "subjective social class" the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occupational and work self—identities. From this hypothesis we move to the next measure of evalu— ation from the actor's perspective. A second way to discover an actor's evaluation of his occupation is to ask him to compare his occupation with 21Richard Centers, American Journal of Sociology, LVIII, pp. 543-555; J. A. Kahl and A. D. James, "A Comparison of Indexes of Socio-Economic Status," American Sociological Review, 20 (June, 1955), pp. 317-325; R. A. Ellis, W. C. Lane and V. Olesen, "The Index of Class Position: An Improved Intercommunity Measure of Stratification," American Socio- logicgi Review, 28 (April, 1963), pp. 271—276. 59 another object. One likely object of comparison is the actor's self. A question was devised for this study which asks each respondent to compare the importance of his occu— pation to himself "as an individual." He was presented with a figure which he was told represented a ladder. The tOp of the ladder was designated as much more important than him— self, while the bottom was designated as much less important than himself. Then, he was asked to place his "occupation" on a step of this ladder as an indication of its importance in relation to himself. Using the responses from this question, the hypothesis will be: 3. The higher the person's evaluation of his occu- pation as compared to himself the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occupational and work self-identities. This hypothesis is the third and final one which deals with the three measures of evaluation in this study. Analyses with "Control" Variable.--As pointed out above, there is a difference between the first measure of evaluation and the last two measures. The first is an ex— pression of the "general standing" of an occupation among other occupations. It is a measure of the evaluations of "others" with regard to occupation. "Social class" and com- parative evaluation of occupation and self are both con- cerned with the actor's point of View. The first reason for controlling is to discover what effect the "objective" measure of evaluation has upon the "subjective" measures and 60 their relationships with self-identification. If the evalu- ations of "others" are consistent with the evaluations actors make of themselves, then we should notice the effect on the relationships. In addition, we might notice some anomilies in the data which will give us insight into the relationship between evaluation and self—identification. For these purposes the following hypotheses are stated: 4. Holding the level of occupational prestige status constant, the higher the person's "sub— jective social class" the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occu- pational and work identities. 5. Holding the level of occupational prestige status constant, the higher the person's evaluation of his occupation as compared to himself the more likely he will be to mention and assign im- portance to occupational and work self— identities. The Operational Specification of the Variables This section describes how the variables are oper- ationalized in this study. Included in the description are the questions asked, the interviewer instructions and the coding instructions. For each variable the frequency and percentage of distribution of its values from the sample of full-time employed men are given. Finally, I discuss the rationale for the way in which the values of the variables are categorized for analysis. 61 Prestige Status of Occupations To obtain the respondent's occupation the following questions were asked: "What is your occupation? TITLE "What do you do in your occupation? Description The interviewer was given the following instructions regard- ing these questions: Occupation of respondent is to be obtained in two steps. First, we want to know the title of the respondent's occupation, preferably in terms of a union or industry designation, e.g., "press oper- ator," pg; press workman or "laboratory worker," etc. Secondly, we want a description of what the person actually does, including a statement of the kind of industry in which the person has his occupation. There are several specific cases which need special attention in this regard. 1. For salesmen (title), note in the description what they sell, e.g., bibles or stock or real estate, and whether it is retail or wholesale. 2. For owners, supervisors, manager, foremen, etc., get type of industry, e.g., construction, steel, etc., and if a retail agency, not what they sell. 3. For laborers and common workers, it is also necessary to get the industry in which they work. From the response to these questions the occupation was coded using a detailed nine column code. For each 22Cited in "Interviewer Bulletin" of the original study. This bulletin was sent to all interviewers involved in this study and dated September 3, 1963. 62 occupation the following were coded: the General Census category, the exact title, a Socio-Economic Index score and a Transformed NORC Prestige score. Of particular interest for this study is the transformed NORC Prestige score.23 The NORC Scale score transformation was devised and calculated by O. D. Duncan using socio-economic data from the 1950 Census and the 1946 NORC Prestige Scale scores.24 These transformations were done so sociologists would have a prestige scale score for occupations that are not found on the original NORC list. In other studies Duncan found that the procedures employed for assigning prestige scores to occupations not on the NORC list were quite arbitrary. Many studies used consensual agreement among judges, but even these procedures are not consistent across studies. There- fore, the transformation procedures used by Duncan are an at— tempt to assign prestige scores to the non-NORC study occu- pations in a less arbitrary manner. First, Duncan calculated a Socio—Economic Index score using income, education and age for each of the 425 23The list of occupations that was used is found in Appendix B of A. J. Reiss, Jr., Occupations and Social Status (New York: Free Press, 1961), pp. 263-275. It con— tains 425 occupations with the Socio-economic Index and N.O. R.C. Scale score for each. 24For a complete discussion of this construction see: A. J. Reiss, Jr., Occupations and Social Status (New York: The Free Press, 1961), Chapter VI, pp. 109—138. As noted above, the 1946 scores have a very high correlation (.99) with the 1963 study using the same occupational titles. 63 occupations found in the detailed classification of the Census\(l950). Secondly, he selected 45 occupations that were found to have the same titles in the NORC study and the Census. He found a high correlation between the socio- economic index and prestige for these occupations. Finding this, he then ranked the 45 occupations with their prestige scores on the vertical axis of a diagram, while the 425 occupations were ranked by their socio-economic index scores on the horizontal axis. The Transformed NORC Prestige Scale scores were then assigned to each of the 425 occupations by interpolation using the linear diagonal of the figure. Thus, the prestige scores which are used in this study are those which incorporate the NORC Prestige Scale scores and the socio-economic data from the 1950 Census. The prestige scores of the sample used in the present study ranged from a low of 23 to a high of 93 with " W’bso. — A.I.L.....,._. the median score of around 65. Most of the scores contain 4% or less of the respondents. One exception to this is prestige scale score number 53. This score contains 8.8% of the sample and is the modal category (by at least 3%) for the distribution. By inspection it was discovered that of the 46 respondents in this score, 43 of them had the occu- pation of Farmer (Owner and Manager). Even though this percentage is not large enough to consider as a separate category, some analyses will be reported to note the effect that Farmers have on the results. 64 With the exception noted above, the distribution of scale scores is even enough to categorize them into quin— tiles. The distribution used initially in the analysis is: Prestige Scale Scores _iL_ _Zi_ 23 - 53 113 21 54 - 60 112 21 61 — 69 103 20 70 - 74 99 19 75 - 93 98 19 When control analyses are done this distribution is divided into thirds. The occupational composition for these categories was discovered by inspecting the occupational title codes with each category. The first category (23 - 53) contains mostly Farmers as mentioned above, and some construction laborers, janitors and gardeners. Operatives (e.g., truck drivers, cranesmen, machine Operators), auto mechanics and shipping clerks are in the majority for prestige scale scores 54 through 60. In the third category (61 - 69), one finds craftsmen (e.g., general mechanics, machinists, welders), some salesmen, civil servants (e.g., firemen, policemen) and some clerical occupations. The majority occupations in the category containing scores 70 through 74 are: craftsmen (e.g., linemen and telegraph, tool and die) engineers, self— employed managers and officials, real estate agents, foremen 65 (n.e.c.), technicians (n.e.c.) and clergymen. The last category (75 - 93) contains mostly those classified in the Professional and Managerial categories in the Census. Ex— amples are: insurance agents, salaried managers, teachers, credit men, authors, accountants, business services, college professors, engineers, and lawyers. These lists of occu- pations show, in a very crude way, that there appears to be some homogenity within these prestige score categories, at least in terms of the Census classification. This would be expected from the procedures used to calculate the prestige scale scores. Subjective Social Class As pointed out above,."subjective social class" is used in this study to indicate the person's evaluation of his occupation. It is assumed that the respondent takes his occupation into account when assigning himself to a social class. If he and others have a low evaluation of his occu— pation, we would expect him to assign himself to lower or working class; if they have a high evaluation, then he would assign himself to the middle or upper-middle class.25 With this assumption in mind we go to the operationalization of this variable. 25An empirical test of this assumption will be made in the analysis of these data. For now, it must stand as an assumption based on the relationship between "subjective social class" and occupational activities found in past research. 66 This question was asked to obtain "subjective social class": "If you were asked to describe your social class, to which class would you say you belonged - work— ing, lower, lower—middle, middle, upper-middle, or upper?" The respondent was handed a card on which the class labels were printed. Interviewers were given the following in— structions: Let the respondent use his own subjective definition of social class and his position. Be sure to have respondent choose only one of the 6 classes. In the sample the following distribution was obtained in answer to this question: Social Class N % Working 161 31 Lower 6 l Lower-middle 49 9 Middle 216 41 Upper-middle 86 16 Upper 6 1 No Response 1 -- One will notice that very few of these men put themselves in the lower or upper class and less than 10% put themselves in the lower-middle class. As in past studies the largest percent is found in the working and middle class but it is interesting to note that 16% of these men put themselves in the upper-middle class.26 The research in the past has 26This is the first time, to my knowledge that the label "upper-middle" has been used in a study of this type. “Usually the labels are working, lower, middle and upper. 67 usually combined the values of this variable into two classes, but because of the relatively large percent of re- spondents in the upper-middle class, I decided to categorize the answers into three classes. The categories are: Social Class N __J§__ WOrking 216 41 Middle 216 41 Upper-middle 92 18 werking class is composed of working, lower and lower-middle class answers, while upper-middle contains upper-middle and upper. These categories are used in the major analysis. Comparative Evaluation of Occupation Another measure which attempts to assess the person's own view of his occupation is the one which asks the respon- 27 Theoretically, dent to compare his occupation with himself. as implied above, the person is supposed to compare his occupation with the other identities and activities in which he is involved (i.e., "himself"). It is assumed that the response to this question is indicative of this comparative evaluation. 27This question was devised by Professor F. B. waisanen using a technique developed by Hadley Cantril called the "self anchoring scale." The results from several studies using Cantril's technique are reported in The Pattern of Human Concerns (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1966). 68 In terms of procedure, this is how the question was asked within the interview. First, the respondent was asked nine other questions which used the Cantril ladder technique. That is, he was given a card on which a ladder was drawn with the "rungs" of the ladder numbered. He was asked to put himself on various rungs of the ladder in answer to certain questions (e.g., where do you stand now in terms of religion if the tOp of the ladder represents those who are very religious and the bottom of the ladder represents those who are not religiou§:at all). After answering these ques— tions the respondent was told: "New, let's use the ladder in a different way. I would like you to think of yourself as compared with such things as your political party, your nation and your family. On this card, imagine that you are in the middle step of the ladder right now. On the top steps of the ladder are things which, in your judgement, are more important than you as an individual, and on the bottom steps of the ladder are things which are less important than you as an individual." The interviewer was given the following instructions: Be sure to switch to the use of Ladder Card B for this item. This ladder places "you" (the respondent) on step 5 of the ladder. Step 5 is still an ac- ceptable answer, however, since the respondent may wish to place something on the same step with him— self. If respondent says "Just a little ways up above myself" don't probe "One step, 6 or 7?" In- stead say: "How many steps above yourself?" Com— munity, family, country, etc., should be judged pg of today. A card was given to the respondent that looked like this: 69 10 Then the respondent was asked, "Where would you place your occupation?" and the interviewer was given the following instructions about this question: Occupation is what the respondent does usually. For "housewives," have them rank it as an occupation. For those who are "retired," have them rank the occupation they had before retirement. For those who are unemployed, have them rank their last job held. The interviewer recorded the respondent's answer by step number. In answers to this question, the following distri- bution of responses was found for the full-time employed men in the original study: 7O Step Number (Occupation) N % (High) 10. 113 22 9 48 9 8 74 14 7 64 12 6 71 13 (YOU) 5 37 7 4 61 12 3 30 6 2 11 2 1 5 1 (Low) 0 8 2 As one can see, the distribution is skewed toward the "top" where more than 70% of the respondents evaluated the occu- pation as "more important than themselves as an individual." In collapsing this distribution for analysis there were several matters taken into account. First, was the skewed nature of the distribution. I did not want to put all those above step 5 together because there may be distinctions within that category which could lead to interesting theo- retical reformulations. Secondly, I did not think that the 7% in step 5 (YOU) was large enough to consider as a separate category in analysis. Finally, I wanted to main- tain some notion of "steps" from the original ladder for analysis. Therefore to dichotomize the distribution would be contrary to the "steps" notion. With the above considerations in mind, the cate- gories for this question employed in analysis are: 71 Step Numbers,(Occupation) N __%L__ O - 5 152 29 6 - 7 135 26 8 - 9 122 23 10 113 22 This divides the distribution about in quartiles and keeps the notion of ”steps" within the variable. The first value (steps 0 - 5) can be called "occupation equal to or less than self" while the other values are relative degrees of "occu- pation more important than self." These values are used in the initial analyses with this variable. Occupation—Werk Self— Identification The question employed to elicit self-identification behavior was derived from the Kuhn-McPartland "Twenty State— ments Test."28 Due to the fact that this variable is used in all the hypotheses of this study, greater consideration will be given to it. First, after discussing the alter— ations of the "Twenty Statements Test" made in this study, I mention several assumptions implied in the question which are relevant to the theoretical framework of this study. Secondly, I discuss the coding procedures used in this study along with their reliability. And finally, I discuss the 28Initially reported in M. H. Kuhn and T. S. McPartland, "An Investigation of Self-Attitudes," American Sociological Review, 19 (February, 1954), pp. 68-76. 72 types of identification used here and the values of each type. I begin with the question used in this study and its relationship to the "Twenty Statements Test." The original "Twenty Statement Test" (TST) asked each respondent to ask himself the question "Who Am I?" and re- spond to this question "as if you are giving the answer to yourself and not to anyone else." Answers to this question were written on twenty numbered lines. The question used in this study differs in three ways. First, the question was asked orally in an interview and second, the respondent was asked to give his responses in order of their importance. A "lead in" was used before asking the self-identification question: New, we have quite a different thing for you to do. Although probably new to you, it is easy and I think you will find it quite enjoyable. Everyone we have asked to do this has found it to be interesting. New, let me tell you what we have in mind. Then the self-identification question was asked: ASk this question of yourself, "Who Am I?" Think of as many answers as you can in answer to the question, "Who Am I?" In a moment I would like you to give me the answers as if you were giving them to yourself, not to me or anyone else. Take a little time to think about it. (Interviewer: Pause here momentarily) and the interviewer continued: a. New please make what you consider the most im- ‘portant statement about yourself first. 1. b. New make what you consider the next most im- pprtant statement about yourself. 2. 73 c. New, make what you consider the next most im— portant statement about yourself. 3. d. (PROBE) Are there any other statements you could make about yourself in answer to the ques— tion "Who Am I?" 4. 10. 29 The interviewer was given the following instructions re— garding this question: 1. Record all answers in the respondent's own words. Do not edit. 2. Record, when possible, a single unit of thought or statement on each line. 3. Present the question with assurance and allow the respondent time to consider the task demanded by the question. 4. In general, probe enough to indicate that the re- spondent is free to say anything in answer to this question. 5. There are three minutes allowed for this question but do not stOp the respondent if he wants to continue beyond the time limit. 6. When initials of organizations are given ask the respondent for the name of the organization. 29The third way this question differs from the TST is that only ten responses are obtained to the question instead of twenty. 30The complete instructions are found in S. C. McPhail "Self-Identification . . . , " pp. 226ff. They are taken from the "Interviewer Bulletin“ pp. 7f. The above was para-phrased from the latter source.. 74 These are the procedures used to obtain self-identification behavior in this study. There are several assumptions implied in these pro— cedures which should be mentioned before discussing the coding procedures used on the responses.31 First, there is the assumption that the person "knows" who he is and puts this "knowledge" into words in answer to the question "Who Am I?" Secondly, this assumption of "knowledge" precludes the use of fixed responses as answers to the self- identification question. This is also consistent with the definition of self as labels or symbols a person uses for his own activities. Finally, the assumption that the ques- tion as stated is general enough to elicit responses which are not applicable to a certain situation but to a variety 32 of situations. These assumptions seem to be in accord with the theoretical framework of this study. 31These assumptions are found in my article "Some Methodological Problems of Kuhn's Self Theory," Sociological Quarterly, Special Issue (Summer, 1966), forthcoming. 32This is one of the assumptions which appears proble- matic to me as I discuss it in the "methodological problems" article. It is certainly the case that this question elicits responses that are applicable to situations outside of the one in which it is asked. But, the problem of the relative effect of the question-asking-situation has pp; been studied. As in the case of previous studies, the present study offers no evidence relevant to the solution of this prdblem. 75 Next we move to the procedures used for coding the answers to the self—identification question.33 A statement is defined as a "single word, a phrase, or a complete sentence" which appears on a single line or several on the same line of the interview schedule. It is usually found as a noun alone, an adjective with a noun, or an adjective alone (e.g., "I am a teacher," "I am a good teacher," "I am good'). Each statement was coded without regard to: (l) ne- gation or affirmation, or (2) verb tense. The coders were given approximately forty—five categories in which to classify the answers to this question.34 But the only ones relevant to our concerns are two types of statements: Occu- pation and General werk. The Gallup coders were instructed to code all state- ments which contained an occupational title as "Occupation." Such terms as "punch press operator," "musician," "post master," "educator," "teacher," "banker," "carpenter," "farmer," "entertainer," and "businessman," were found in 33 A detailed account of these procedures are pre- sented in Appendix A (pp. 225-232) of McPhail's dissertation. They are also contained in the codebook of the "Five Nations Project" (U. S. and Mexico), Department of Sociology, Michigan State University. 34The coding procedures were formulated by R. L. Stewart, C. McPhail, C. Bettinghause and C. W. Tucker with the advise of F. B. Waisanen. Specially trained coders from Gallup coded the answers to this question: this was the only question they coded from the interview schedule. No alter- ations in coding procedures were instituted by Gallup with- out the written consent of the project co-ordinator, R. L. Stewart. Only a few minor alterations were necessary after the coding commenced. 76 the answers to this question and categorized as "occupation- a1 self-identities." General werk statements were those which included references to working but not a specific occupational title. Some examples found in the answers were: "worker," "retired," I'unemployed," "working," "working man," "make a living,” and "job." These are the two types of self-identitiesused in this study. So that these self-identities can be used with confi- dence in analysis, a set of procedures was devised to calcu- late the coding reliability of the Gallup coding,0peration.35 First, a random sample of 150 interviews was selected from the total in the original study. Secondly, the answers to the self-identification question were typed on ditto masters and reporduced. The lists of answers were then coded by five M.S.U. coders following the same procedures used by the Gallup coders. Then, the codes assigned to each statement by the M.S.U. coders was compared with the code given by Gallup.36 For "Occupational Self—Identities" the following 35Guido Stempel, "Increasing Reliability in Content An- alysis," Journalism Quarterly, 32 (Fall, 1955), pp. 449-455. 36One may wonder about the reason for comparing the M.S.U. coders to Gallup and not to each other. First, we were not so much concerned with how well the coding pro- cedures worked pp; pg, but instead, how well they worked for someone unfamiliar with the theoretical framework implicit in the self-identification question. Secondly, we were faced with the fact that the codes given by Gallup for these statements were already punched on cards. Given this, a pragmatic decision was made to use only those identities which had a reasonable inter-coder reliability quotient (i.e., around 80%) rather than to re—code and re-punch all of the statements that were in error. 77 results were obtained: There were 70 occupation statements according to Gallup in the 150 interviews randomly selected. Each of the five coders made a judgement regard- ing these statements for a total of 350 judge- ments. Of these 350 judgements, 280 of them were in agreement with the Gallup coding. This consti- tutes an 80% inter-coder reliability quotient for occupational self-identities. Given the specificity of "occupational titles" a higher quotient was expected. So to see what was the nature of the disagreements a complete list of them was compiled. It was found that 63% of the statements that the Gallup coders had classified as "occupational title” were consistently coded by the M.S.U. coders as "domestic." This category contains such terms as "homemaker," "housework," or other activities which are done within the household, usually by the woman of the house. In addition, of the 25 respondents on which errors were made, 21 or 85%.of them were females. It seems that the inclusion of the "housewife" label as an occupation- al title not only reduced the utility of using females in the analysis of the data but also had a noticeable effect on the coding operations for this category. The main reason I mention this is to note that the majority of coding errors with the "occupational title self-identity" are found with respondents that are excluded from this study (i.e., fe- males). In light of these observations, the 80% inter—coder reliability quotient is not as serious as first suspected. Next, we consider the reliability procedures for General werk statements. 78 Using the same procedures of five coders compared to the Gallup coding the following was found: There were 33 general work statements according to Gallup in the 150 interviews randomly selected. Each of the five coders made a judgement regarding these statements for a total of 165 judgements. Of these 165 judgements, 156 of them were in agreement with the Gallup coding. This constitutes a 95% inter-coder reliability quotient for General werk self-identities. Within the nine errors I could discern no pattern like that found in the errors of occupational self-identity. But the inter-coder reliability quotient seems high enough not to be concerned with this issue. Next, for categorizing the values of this variable, we look at the frequency and percentage distribution for these self—identities. The initial values of the variables are degrees of importance or the line on which the statement was written by the interviewer. In asking the question, the person was asked to give his most important statement first, the next most important second, and so on. The other value is "not mentioned." Hence, the values are: The Distribution of Occupation-Werk Identities Line Mentioned Occupation General werk First 32 6 23 4 Second 30 6 45 9 Third 28 5 41 8 Fourth 24 5 18 3 Fifth ll 2 25 5 Sixth 4 l 10 2 Seventh l - 2 - Eighth l — 3 - Ninth or Tenth 1 — l - 357 68 \l Ul Not Mentioned 393 79 As one can see only 25% of the full-time employed men mentioned "occupation" as a self-identity, while 32% of them mentioned General WOrk self-identities. .But again, I wanted to categorize this variable so there are enough values that a pattern can be discerned in the relationships with other variables. Yet, the problem is that the respondents who mention these identities are in the minority. Therefore, I decided to use several categorizations and to discover em— 37 pirically whether they were appropriate. The suggested values are as follows: Values Occupationai_Identities- General werk Identitigg N % N’ % Lines 1-2 62 12 68 13 Lines 3—4 52 10 59 11 Lines 5-9 18 3 41 8 NAM 393 75 357 68 Lines 1—2 62 12 68 13 Lines 3-9 70 13 100 19 NPM 393 75 357 68 And the other two values for these variables are mention— nonmention. So, the following variables and values are used in analysis: (1) Occupational Identities, by degree of im- portance, (2) Occupational Identities, by mention-nonmention, 37Appropriateness, in the majority of instances, is decided by the rules of the statistical test being used to assess the relationship. For example, the rules of the chi- square test require that no more than 20% of the cells can have expected frequencies less than five. If that appears in a relationship then one of the variables must be re- categorized to eliminate the low expected frequencies. 80 (3) Work Identities, by degree of importance, and (4) werk Identities, by mention-nonmention. Due to the low percent of respondents who mentioned either occupational or work identities, I decided to con— struct another variable of self-identity.38 This is a combination of occupation and work self-identities. They were combined by the degree of importance for each type. That is, if a respondent mentioned both occupational and work identities in answer to the self—identification ques- tion, then the type of statement with the highest degree of importance was recorded for him. Therefore, a respondent that mentioned Werk on line four and Occupation on line two was coded as "2" for the variable of Occupation-Werk Identity. The frequency and percentage distributions for this variable are: Occupation-Werk Identities Line Mentioned __N_ _;&_ First 55 10 Second 74 14 Third 61 12 Fourth 36 7 Fifth 32 6 Sixth 10 2 Seventh 2 -- Eighth 3 -- Nine or Tenth l -— Not Mentioned 251 48 38This self—identity was used in H. A. Mulford and W. W. Salisbury II, "Self Conceptions in a General Population," Sggiological Quarterly, 5 (Winter, 1964), p. 45. The table is presented in Chapter I of this study. 81 Hence, when these identities are combined the percent of re- spondents who mention them increases to 52%. When the same categories used for the separate identities are employed to categorize the variable, the distributions are: Occupation-Werk Identities _§L .Jfi. .3L. _%; Lines 1-2 129 25 Lines 1-2 129 25 Lines 3—4 97 19 Lines 3-9 145 27 Lines 5—9 48 8 Not Mentioned 251 48 Not Mentioned 251 48 In sum, the total list of values and types of self- identification to be used in this study are: Occupation Identity: Degree of Importance Occupation Identity: Mention - NOnmention werk Identity: Degree of Importance Werk Identity: Mention - Nonmention Occupation—Werk Identity: Degree of Importance Occupation-Werk Identity: Mention - NOnmention OWUltP-UUNH Before proceeding to the presentation of the hypotheses in operational form, a summary of this lengthy section is given. Summary This section was concerned with the operational specifications for the variables of this study. ‘we are con- cerned, in general, with two variables. One type is rele— vant to the evaluation of occupational activities, while the other is occupationework self-identification. In this section I specified three measures for the evaluation of occupational activities and one measure for occupation self— identification. 82 The first measure of evaluation was the Transformed NORC Prestige score of the occupational title. These scores are used in this study as the measure of prestige for an occupation. The second measure for evaluation of occupation— al activities approaches the issue from a different angle. This measure is concerned with the person's own estimate of evaluation for his occupation. A person's assignment of himself to one of six "social classes" is taken as an evaluation of his occupation, especially for the full-time employed men which comprise this sample. The variable was categorized into three values: werking, Middle and Upper- Middle. The final measure of evaluation is also concerned with the subject's perspective. In a question devised spe- cifically for the original study, each respondent was asked to indicate the relative importance of his occupation to himself as an individual. He was given a drawing of a ladder and asked to imagine himself in the middle of it. From that vantage point he Was asked to place his occupation as more important or less important than himself. Self—identification is the last variable considered in this section. This study used a revised form of Kuhn- McPartland's "Twenty Statement Test" to elicit self- identification behavior from the respondents. Each re- spondent is asked to ask himself the question, "Who Am I?" and give the answers, in order of their importance, to the 83 interviewer. From the variety of responses to this question this study only uses two kinds: Occupational statements and General WOrk statements. Then, because only a minority of the sample mentioned each type of statement, a third type of self-identification was constructed. This type is the combination of the other two types and is called "Occupation- WOrk Identity.” For each of these identities, two different values are to be employed in analysis: Degree of Importance and Mention-Nonmention. This makes a total of six different values for the variables of self-identification. Operational Restatement Of Hypotheses In the second section of this chapter, I presented five separate hypotheses derived from the evaluation principle Of self-identification. They were stated in conceptual form devoid of operations. This section takes the information given in the previous section and restates these hypotheses in an operational form. The first hypothesis is: 1. The higher the prestige status Of one's occu— pation the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occupational and work self-identities. Stated in Operational form with the sub-hypotheses, it is as follows: The higher persons' scores on the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale the more likely they will be to: la. assign high importance to an occupational identity made lb. mention an occupational identity The The The 84 1c. assign high importance to a work identity made 1d. mention a work identity le. assign high importance to an occupation—work identity made 1f. mention an occupation—work identity in response to a self-identification question. second hypothesis in conceptual form is: 2. The higher the person's "subjective social class" the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occupational and work self- identities. testable sub-hypotheses are: The higher a person's own assignment in terms of working, middle or upper—middle "Social class" labels the more likely he will be to: 2a. assign high importance to an occupational identity made 2b. mention an occupational identity 2c. assign high importance to a work identity made 2d. mention a work identity 2e. assign high importance to an occupation-work identity made 2f. mention an occupation—work identity in response to a self-identification question. third major hypothesis is: 3., The higher the person's evaluation of his occu— pation as compared to himself the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occupational and work self-identities. This hypothesis takes the following operational forms: The higher a person places his occupation on a ladder where the top is defined as "more important than you as an individual" the more likely he will be to: 3a. assign high importance to an occupational identity made 3b. mention an occupational identity 3c. assign high importance to a work identity made 3d. mention a work identity The is: The 85 3e. assign high importance to an occupation-work identity made 3f. mention an occupation-work identity in response to a self-identification question. hypothesis derived by combining hypotheses one and two 4. Holding the level Of occupational prestige status constant, the higher the person's "subjective social class" the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occupational and work identities. operational form is as follows: For each category of the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale scores, the higher the person's own assign- ment in terms of working, middle or upper-middle "social class" labels the more likely he will be to: 4a. assign high importance to an occupational identity made 4b. mention an occupational identity 4c. assign high importance to a work identity made 4d. mention a work identity 4e. assign high importance to an occupation—work identity made 4f. mention an occupation-work identity in response to a self-identification question. The final hypotheses is a combination of hypotheses one and three and reads: 5. Holding the level Of occupational prestige status constant, the higher the person's evaluation Of his occupation as compares to himself the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occupational and work self—identities. The operational form is as follows: For each category Of the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale scores, the higher a person places his occu— pation on a ladder where the top is defined as ”more important than you as an individual," the more likely he will be to: 86 5a. assign high importance to an occupational identity made 5b. mention an occupational identity 5c. assign high importance to a work identity made 5d. mention a work identity 5e. assign high importance to an occupation—work identity made 5f. mention an occupation-work identity in response to a self-identification question. So, from the five hypotheses discussed at the be- ginning Of this chapter we have derived a total of 30 hy— potheses to be tested in this study. This number does not include the variety Of analyses which may be done to clarify any deviations within the empirical Observations. And, in line with this last thought, before concluding this chapter, the analysis plans will be discussed. A Preview of Analysis Plans At this point I briefly describe the analytical procedures of this study. The main concerns are: (l) the purposes of the analysis, (2) the use Of a computer program and statistical techniques, (3) the style and rationale for the way the results are presented. I begin with the purposes Of analysis. The main purpose of this analysis is to answer the major question or problem of this study. Within the style of this study, the Obvious way to accomplish this task is to use available statistical techniques to confirm or dis- confirm hypotheses. But, in this analysis there will be several additional purposes. The first of these will be 87 an attempt to discern patterns of observations in addition to statistical results. That is, an attempt will be made within the restrictions imposed by the data, to look at the way the Observations are clustered and to see if these patterns can be explained. An additional purpose, related to the first, is an attempt to reformulate and develOp the theoretical orien- tation. This can be done by.looking for new and unexpected patterns in the Observations. That is, after one describes a certain relationship he may think Of some other variable which could account for the anomilies. Investigating the effect of the other variables may clarify the original empirical relationship and provide insights for the theory. These are attempts to expand the theoretical orientation. Finally, another purpose will be to develop some in— sights into new ways of approaching the research problem and problems related to it. It may decide, for instance, that the means used to solve the present problem are faulty. In this case, other ways to solve it should be developed and explained. One could discover that the problem investigated is only a small part Of a more fundamental problem. If this is discovered, ways to solve the "fundamental problem" should be presented. It should be a central purpose Of any study to present new insights into the investigation of social phenomena. 88 To analyze the observations a contingency table of 39 It is designed for use with analysis will be employed. data whose level Of measurement does not exceed that Of ordinal. Contained in the program are a variety Of sta- tistical tests which will be used in this analysis. Those employed most Often are: Chi-square, Cramer's V, Kendall's Tau C and Z. A brief discussion Of these statistics is the topic of the next few paragraphs. Probably the most widely used statistical test in sociology is Chi—square.4O The purpose of this test is to determine the independence of observations as they are dis- tributed for the values Of two variables. This is done by calculating the discrepancy between the observed and ex- pected frequencies and adjusting for the size of the table. The prObability for any Chi»square value can be found in most statistics text books. Cramer's V is probably the most seldom used measure of association in sociology. The value of V is calculated from Chi—square. It can Obtain a value anywhere between zero and one and its significance is determined by the 39The program used in this study was developed at Indiana University by Grafton and Laura Trout, now staff members at Michigan State University. The Indiana Uni- versity program was converted for use on the CDC 3600 by Laura Trout. 540For a detailed presentation see: Sidney Siegel, Nonparametric Statistics (New York: McGrawsHill Book Company, Inc., 1956), pp. 175-179. 89 probability Of the Chi-square.41 But this measure has two advantages over other commonly used measures of association. First, it can be used to assess the association of table with unequal sizes. That is, the degrees of freedom are taken into account when calculating V. Secondly, its maxi- mum value is one so it does not have to be compared with the maximum possible association for the table as other statistics 42 This makes Cramer's V more intuitive- (i.e., Pearson's C). ly understandable and simpler to use. In the analysis, when variables are treated as ordinal, Tau C is used and the statistical significance de- termined by the probability of Z. For nominally measured variables Chi-square is used and Cramer's V is used to de- termine the comparative association of the tables. An important part Of the analysis plans is the presentation of results. In this study the results are pre- sented in two separate chapters. The first chapter (IV) presents the results for the hypotheses containing the prestige variable. The next chapter (V) includes the re- sults for both of the "subjective" measures of evaluation and the results of the control—type analysis using all three variables. 41H. Cramer, Mathematical Methods Of Statistics (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1946). It is also dis- cussed in H. M. Blalock, Jr. Social Statistics (New York: McGrawsHill Book Company, Inc., 1960), p. 230. 42Cramer's V reaches the value Of one when the fre- quency in the two diagonal cells is zero. 90 Summary This chapter discussed all of the methodological and technical aspects of this study. First, I described the sample and the rationale for selecting it from the original sample. The original study was done in the Fall, 1963 for Michigan State University by the Gallup Organization. It was an area probability sample Of U. 8. adult citizeps. For this secondary analysis a sub—sample is chosen that includes only the full-time employed men from the original sample. Using procedures provided by Gallup and 1960 Census infor— mation this sample was found to be representative of the full-time employed men in the U. S. The next section contained the major hypotheses of the study. They were presented in conceptual form and their relationship to the theoretical framework was discussed. All of the hypotheses were formulated to test the relationship between evaluation of occupational activities and occu- pational and work self-identification. One measure is con- cerned with the prestige Of occupation, while the two re— maining measures are concerned with the person's own evalu- ation of his occupation. These variables are combined in such a way that there are five major hypotheses in this study. The next section contained the Operational specifi- cations for each variable. Prestige status is measured using a Transformed NORC Prestige Scale devised by O. D. 91 Duncan. The person's evaluation of his occupation is measured by: (1) his own assignment of himself to a "social class," and (2) his comparative evaluation of himself with his occupation. Self-identification is operationalized by the self—asked question of "Who Am I?" Occupational self- identities are statements which contain occupational titles, while work self-identities are statements which contain general references to working. For each variable the fre— quency and percentage distribution Of its values was presented. Following the above was a section containing the hypotheses in their Operational form. For every major hypothesis, there are six sub—hypotheses. The types Of self-identification (Occupation, WOrk and Occupation-WOrk) and their two values (Importance and Mention-NOnmention) are responsible for there being this number of hypotheses. The final section reviews the plans Of analysis and the statistical tests for this study. A contingency table type of analysis will be performed using Chi-square, V, Tau C and Z as statistics. The results will be presented in the next two chapters. CHAPTER IV PRESTIGE AND SELF-IDENTIFICATION: RESULTS This is the first of two chapters which presents the results of this study. Here the concern is with the sub- hypotheses developed from the first major hypothesis: 1. The higher the prestige status of one's occu- pation the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occupational and work self—identities. ‘ For each pair of sub-hypotheses one table containing all the relevant information is presented. Each table pre— sents the data for the two values of the self-identification variable with an evaluation variable. The values for self- identification are: "degree Of importance" and "mention- nonmention." Within each table the percent and frequencies for each cell are given. The percentages follow the "causal 1 That is, they are arranged in the factor" rule of Zeisel. direction of the causal relationship implied in the hypothe— ses. In all hypotheses for this study the evaluation variable is treated as the "independent" or "causal" vari- able, while self—identification is the "dependent" or "ef— fect" variable. The following table is an example. lHans Zeisel, Say it with Figures (NGW’YOrk: Harper and Row, 1957), Revised Fourth edition, pp. 24—41. 92 93 Total Evaluation Importance Of Mention Total NOn- Variable Low High Mention Mention Totals Low Row % Row % Row % Row % l 00% (cell f) (cell f) (cell f) (cell f) (Row f) High Row % Row % Row % Row % 100% (cell f) (cell f) (cell f) (cell f) (Row f) All frequencies appear in parentheses. The percentages for "Importance of Mention" should equal the "Total Mention" percentage. By adding the "Total Mention" and "Total NOn- Mention" the sum should be that of the TOTALS. The same ad- dition procedures should result in the correct sums for the frequencies. In the "degree of importance" hypotheses, three values of self—identification are analyzed: "Total NOn— Mention," "Mention: low importance" and "Mention: high importance." The "Total Non—Mention" is always treated as the lowest value in this arrangement. There is "less value" assigned to no mention of an identity than to mention. This is important to remember when the ordinal measurement sta- tistic (Tau C) is used for analysis. Prestige and Occupational Self-Identification The sub-hypotheses relating prestige and occupation- al self-identification are: la. The higher persons' scores on the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale the more likely they will be to assign high importance to an occupation- al identity made in response to a self- identification question. 94 lb. The higher persons‘ scores on the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale the more likely they will be to mention an occupational identity in re- sponse to a self identification question.* The previous chapter included the Operational procedures for each variable. The test results for these hypotheses are found in Table IV. The Transformed NORC Prestige Scale Scores are grouped from "low" to "high" in this way: 23-53: 54-60; 61- 69; 70-74; and 75-93. Each category contains between 22% (23-53) and 19% (75-93) of the respondents. Importance of mention has two values: "low" (i.e., identity on line three or below) and "high" (i.e., identity on lines one or two). The other two values in the table are "Total mention" and "Total Non-Mention." Below the table are the statistical results for both hypotheses. For hypothesis la the Kendall's Tau C is .09, while the Z is 2.78. The probability Of Obtaining a Z value this extreme is .0025 (one-tail test). The statistical re- sults for hypothesis 1a show a Chi—square of 23.4 (df=4) with a probability of .0005. For both of these hypotheses the null hypothesis is rejected using the probability Of less than .05 for determining the region of rejection.2 2In all hypotheses the direction of the identifi- cation variable is stated; hence, the use of a one-tail test. M. G. Kendall, Rank Correlation Methods (New York: Hafner Publishing Company, 1955) reports the formula for converting Tau C to Z. It is also discussed in M. M. Blalock, Social Statistics (New York: McGraWBHill Book Company, Inc., 1960), p. 324. The probability Of a one-tail test using the Chi—square statistic is one-half the probability found in the Chi-square table. See: Quinn McNemar, Psychological Table IV—l. The Relationship between Prestige of Occupation and 95 Occupational Self—Identification(N= 525) Prestige Importance of Mention Total Total Scores Low(3-9) High(1-2) Mention Non-Mention TOTALS 23-53 15 7 22 78 100% (17) ( 8) (25) (88) (113) 54-60 8 13 21 79 100% ,( 9) (15) (24) (88) (112) 61-69 12 ll 23 77 100% (12) (11) (23) (80) (103) 70-74 9 8 17 83 100% ( 9) ( 8) (17) (82) ( 99) 75-93 24 20 44 56 100% (23) (20) (43) (55) ( 98) Degree of Importance:(one-tai1 test) Mention-Nonmention:(one-tail test) Tau C= .09 Z= 2.78 p= .0027 x2: 23.4 (df=4) p'<.0005 v= .04 96 Although a strict linear assumption is not implied in these hypotheses, we expected a direction in the ob- served pattern. As the values for prestige increase, we expected an increase in the proportion of cases in the "high importance" mention of occupational self identities. On the other hand, we expected an inverse pattern for the "low im- portance" value; as the prestige increases there should be a reduction in the prOportion of cases in these cells. A similar pattern was expected for the mention— nonmention values of identification. As prestige increases we expect to find an increase in the prOportion of cases mentioning these identities and a decrease in the proportion not mentioning them. Again, we did not expect a strict linear pattern but a general trend in the predicted direction. In Table Ivel we find at least three instances where the results do not conform to these expectations. First, we find a tendency toward a "curvilinear" pattern for the "Importance Of Mention" results. The highest percent of cases in the "low importance" cells are found in both the highest and lowest values of the prestige variable. Second- ly, we notice that there is little difference in the percent Of "Total Mention" for the first three values of prestige. Thirdly, and related to the last point, we notice that the proportion of mention in the prestige category next to the highest values (scores 70—74) is the lowest of all those in Statistics, Third Edition (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1962), p. 244 for the rationale of this procedure. 97 the table. The question is: How can we account for these deviations? One of the ordinary ways tO account for deviations is by using "control" variables. That is, one finds other variables which are empirically related to the "independent variable" in a relationship, holds several of its values constant, and notes the consequences for the original re— lationship. In all instances, the investigator must have a theoretical rationale for using the "control" variable. If the "control" variable does not "make sense" in theoretical terms it should not be used, unless the investigator is doing an exploratory study. With this type of approach, the usable "control" variables are limited on both oper— ational and theoretical grounds for the relationship be- tween prestige and identification. The usual variables such as age, education, occu- pational position, and income cannot be used as "control" variables for the above relationship because they are not operationally independent from the measure of occupational prestige. To transform theNORC Prestige Scale, Duncan used all of these variables, hence any relationship found between them and prestige is spurious by Operation. Therefore, in lieu Of a "control" type of analysis other procedures will be used to account for these deviations. The last two deviations can be accounted for, in part, by a close examination of the transformation pro- cedures used by Duncan. If there are problems with these 98 procedures they would affect the outcome in the relation- ships using prestige. Two examples of such problems can be noted; one deals with farmers and the other with those occu- pations in the Prestige Score category of 70-74. The lowest value of prestige contains the scores from 23 through 53. Almost half of this category consti- tutes those who are known occupationally as "farmers." They all have the prestige scale score of 53. New, if the farmers are rated tOO low in the prestige scale and at the same time have a high percent mentioning occupational self- identities, then this would alter the expected pattern by disproportionately increasing the percent mentioning occu— pational identities in the lowest value of prestige. As it turns out, on close investigation, both of these occur with regard to farmers. In the discussion of the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale, Duncan mentions 16 occupations which were not used in the procedures because they were "poorly matched" with the Socio—economic Index scores.3 One of these occupations is "farmers." By "poorly matched" he meant that the relation- ship between the NORC Prestige Scale score and the Socio- economic Index score was low. The farmers' Transformed NORC Prestige Scale Score used by Duncan was "53," while the origi- nal NORC Prestige Scale score for farmers was "76" and the 1963 NORC study found a score Of "74" for this occupational 3A. J. Reiss, Jr., Occupations and Social Status (New York: Free Press, 1961), p. 126. 99 title.4 But, because the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale is used in the study, farmers were placed in the lowest cate— gory of prestige in Table Ivel. Adding to the problems of scoring, a high percent of the farmers mention occupational self-identities. In the lowest value of prestige for Table IV—l we found: Total Prestige Importance of Mention Total Non— Scores Low(3-9) High(l—2) Mention Mention Totals 23—53 15 7 22 78 100% (17) (8) (25) (88) (113) when the farmers are considered separately we find: Total Importance of Mention Total NOn- Low(3-9) High(le2) Mention Mention Totals Farmers 33 18 51 49 100% (14) (8) (22) (21) (43) Others 4 0 4 96 100% (3) (0) (3) (67) (70) Therefore, farmers account for a significant percent of the respondents mentioning occupational self-identities in this the lowest value of prestige.5 Thus, if farmers were 4Both figures are found in R. W. Hodge, P. M. Siegel and P. H. Rossi, "Occupational Prestige in the United States, 1925—1963," American Journal Of Sociology, LXX (NOvember, 1964), pp. 290-292. 5This finding is more or less consistent with Mulford and Salisbury who found that 89% of the farmers (all males) identified themselves with occupational and work statements. See Table 6 in H. A. Mulford and w. W. Salisbury, "Self-Conception in a General Population," Sociological Quarterly, 5 (Winter, 1964), p. 45. One should also note that the percent mentioning occupation self-identities for farmers, in both of these studies, is higher than the professionals. 100 excluded from the lowest category of prestige the observed pattern would better "fit" the expectations Of the hypothe— sis.6 But these observations regarding farmers do not ac— count for the lack of expected pattern in the middle of the scale. Again, much of the problem can be accounted for by the inability of the prestige scale to accurately measure evaluation of all occupations. To begin with, only forty— five of the original NORC study occupations were used in the transformation of the NORC Prestige Scale. Duncan used these because the discrepancy between the Socio-economic Index and the Prestige Scale Score was lowest. Several of the 16 "poorly matched" had discrepancies as high as thirty points. But even when the Transformed scores for these 45 occupations are related to the original Prestige Scale scores there are discrepancies. As one would expect the variability is greater in the "middle rank" occupations than in either the "high" or "low" ranked occupations (with the exception of farmers). Therefore, part of the lack Of clarity in the pattern of results with identification, given the overall statistically significant results, can be at- tributed to difficulties in assigning prestige scores to the "middle rank" occupations. 61f farmers were ranked according to the percent mentioning these identities they would be most like those in the highest prestige category. According to the score this occupational title received on the original NORC study this is where they should be classified. This discrepancy indi— cates one of the problems in the transformation procedures used by Duncan. 101 To further illustrate this issue, the occupations for those who identified themselves in terms Of occupation in the 70—74 prestige category were copied from the original schedules. Then a comparison was made between the Trans- formed NORC Prestige Scale score and the NORC Prestige Scale score (1963) for those occupations on both lists.7 They had only three occupational titles in common: undertaker, mail carrier and minister. The 1963 NORC Prestige Scale scores were: Mail carrier — 66 Undertaker - 72 Minister - 87 we find a 21 point variation within these scores. Noting the Transformed scores, we find: Mail carrier - 71 Undertaker — 74 Minister — 71 SO, by transformation the ministers' occupation was lowered 16 points, the mail carrier increased by 5 points, while the undertaker increased only 2 points. One also notices that if the original scores were used the minister would be in a higher category, the mail carrier lowered and the undertaker would be in the one used here. These observations suggest an interpretation for the lack of expected pattern in the results. It seems, as 7See R. w. Hodge, R. M. Siegel and P. H. Rossi, .American Journal of Sociology, LXX, pp. 290—292. 102 suggested above, that those occupations in the "middle ranks" are the ones most changed by the transformation process. Those occupations which include Older men with low income but with high prestige (according to the NORC (1963) study) are rated further down on the list (e.g., ministers). A younger occupation with comparatively high income increases in prestige score when transformed (e.g., mail carriers). But because the relationship between age, income and edu- cation is highly correlated with prestige score at the high and low prestige levels, these prestige scores are only slightly altered by the transforming process. Thus, a tentative conclusion is that the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale is adequate at the extremes, but its utility for the "middle ranks" is limited and predictions are hazardous. The other deviation in expected pattern concerned the percent of those in the highest prestige category Who placed their occupational self-identities on line three or below ("low importance") in answer to the self-identification question. This cannot be accounted for by technical diffi- culties in the transformation procedures. This deviation must be explained in theoretical terms. There are at least two related rationales for this finding using self—other theory and the evaluative principle. The first concerns the variability of roles which is possible for those in the higher prestige category. Whip a high prestigewoccupation is acquired it Opens up the possibility 103 for other role relationships which also receive high evalu— ation from others. If one is obtaining evaluative responses from others in a variety of relationships, then a single role (occupation) may not be considered as most important because the person views himself in a variety of relation— ships, all Of which result in positive evaluations from others. A second rationale concerns the prOblem of preStige. When one is moving up through the ranks Of prestige the evaluations of others appear problematic. The main concern is with the occupational role and continued positive evalu— ation. But when one achieves a high status work role where future advancement is not likely, then occupational prestige is no longer so problematic. When this occurs, attention is turned to other role relationships from which evaluative re— sponses are obtainable. The most available relationships are found in the family and kinship group and in community activities. Therefore, at the point of high occupational prestige one would find a greater concern for the self- identities and a lower "importance" placed on occupational _§§if7identities. Both of these rationales are consistent with self— Other theory and the evaluative principle central to this study. They are contrary to the notion of Berger who states that occupation is the primary identification for those in 104 high prestige occupations.8 Berger's notion is not supported by the data regarding the mention-nonmention of occupational self-identities since only 44% of the highest prestige group mentions occupation in response to the "Who Am I?" question. His ideas are also not supported by the data dealing with the degree of importance for such identities. In light Of this apparent contradiction, further empirical research is necessary. Prestige and WOrk Self—Identification This section presents the statistical results and a discussion of the following hypotheses: 1c. The higher persons' scores on the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale the more likely they will be to assign importance to a work identity made in response to a self—identification question. 1d. The higher persons' scores on the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale the more likely they will be tO mention a work identity in response to a self-identification question. As in the previous hypotheses we expect an increase in mention of these identities as prestige scale scores increase. For these hypotheses the values of the identifi- cation variable are altered. Of the total sample, 168 or 32% Of the respondents mentioned work identities. This 8P. L. Berger (ed.), The Human Shape Of WOrk (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964), p. 219. 105 makes it possible to categorize the "degree of importance" into three values, rather than two values. Thus, the values for this variable are: "high" — line one or two (13%), "medium" - line three or four (11%), and "low" — line five or below (8%). While there is a change in the values Of the identification variable, the values of prestige re- main the same. The data for the relationship between prestige and work self-identification are found in Table IV—2. Statistically, for hypothesis 1c, the Kendall's Tau C is .05 with a Z value of -l.68 with an accompanying prOba- bility Of .0465 in the negative direction. In this instance the null hypothesis Of no association can be rejected but the alternative (or statistical) hypothesis proposed for this relationship cannot be accepted. That is, the hypothesis is stated to expect a ppsitive relationship between the two variables but the results show a negative relationship which is statistically significant. For hypothesis 1d we find a chi-square of 6.14 (df=4) for the relationship between these variables. This Chi— square has the probability of chance occurrence which is less than .10. This prObability is below the established limit for this study, thus we fail to reject the null hy— pothesis. There is a clear pattern, however, which was not expected under this hypothesis. There is a greater percent of respondents mentioning these identities at the lower 106 Mention-Nonmention:(one-tail test) x2= 6.1 (df=4) ;.<.10 v= .01 Table IV-2. The Relationship between Prestige of Occupation. and Work Self-Identification(N= 525) Prestige Importance of Mention Total Total i Scores Low(5-9) Med.(3-4) High(l-Z) Mention Non-Mention TOTALS 23-53 5 12 15 33 67 ' 100% ( 6) (14) (17) (37) (76) (113) 54-60 13 10 14 37 63 100% (14) (11) (16) (41) (71) (112) 61-69 9 15 15 38 62 100% ( 9) (15) (15) (39) (64) (103) 70-74 7 9 10 26 74 100% ( 7) ( 9) (10) (26) (73) ( 99) 75-93 5 10 10 26 74 100% ( 5) (10) (10) (26) (74) ( 98) Degree of Importance:(one-tail test) Tau C= -.05 Z= -1.68 p= .0465 107 values Of prestige than at the higher values. This is con- sistent with the finding noted above that for "Importance Of Mention" we find larger percentages at the lower prestige value than at the higher values. These findings call for a theoretical as well as a technical explanation. First, we again note the effect that farmers have on these results. For prestige scores 23-53 in Table IVPZ we find: Total Prestige Importance of Mention Total NOn- Scores Low(5—9) Med.(3-4) High(l-2) Mention Mention Totals 23-53 5 12 15 33 67 100% (6) (l4) (17) (37) (76) (113) when farmers (score 53) are separated we find: Total Importance of Mention Total NOn- Low(5-9) Med.(3-4) High(l-Z) Mention Mention Totals Farmers 2 10 2 14 86 100% (l) (4) (l) (6) (37) (43) Others 7 14 24 45 55 100% (5) (10) (16) (31) (39) (70) Thus, when farmers are removed from analysis the percent mentioning work identities in the lowest prestige scale score category increases from 33% to 45%” The percent mention in "high" importance increases from 15%.tO 24%. Without the farmer the negative relationship for hypothesis 1c would be even greater and the observed pattern for 1d would be statistically significant. 108 The direction Of the relationship between prestige and work self—identities is difficult to explain. Within the research and theory related to the prOblem of this study there are no explicit references to such a finding. Part of the issue is that little of the research deals with specific types of self-identities. When a specific identity is cons sidered it is usually only one class (e.g., religion, marital, kinship).9 Two separate types of self—identities related to the same activity has never been reported in any self—other research. In this study, these identities were separated with the notion (always implicit) that there might be some differences. What the exact nature of these differences would be was not clearly known. The difference between work identities and occu— pational identities emerges when the findings of the hypothe- ses are compared. we found that occupational identities were directly related to prestige, while work identities .,_»..5.~"\«--. «V v“. .th ~-—~ _.. -1 were inversely related to prestige. One interpretation, ‘Lflvy using the evaluative principle, is that for those at the lower levels of prestige mentioning the fact of having work is more crucial than the naming of one's specific occupation. In fact, the_mentioning of occupational title~may invoke 9G. M. Vernon, "Religious Self-Identification," Pacific Sociological Revigy, 5 (Spring, 1962), pp. 40~43; H. A. .Mulford and W. W. Salisbury II, Sociological Quarterly, 5, pp. 35- 46; S. C. McPhail, "Self-Identification within a Specific Context of Experience and Behavior," Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, 1965. 109 from others negative evaluations. For those at the higher levels of prestige the fact Of work is taken for granted but positive evaluation most readily comes from the specific occupational title. 9 Another related interpretation involves the evalu— ation of work activities by the circle of co—workers. If a person in a higher prestige identifies himself as a figood" doctor,fl~a “good lawyer" or other specific occupational title outside Of the circle of those who can evaluate the quality_9f his work he is most apt to use hispccupational title without the intra-positional evaluative reference since the prestige comparisons, in this instance, are more likely to be inter-positional, i.e., between occupations. Thpse, at the lower levels of prestige, whose work iS‘“ highly evaluated by others say "I am a hard worker," or "I work hard," or "I am a good worker." The fact that you are a "gOOd worker" for those at this level of prestige is a source Of evaluation rather than the occupational title of ygur job. The prestige comparison, in this instance, is neither among people in a specific occupation nor among all occupations but among peOple who would be identified by others as and who would call themselves workers. As a partial support for the above interpretation, Appendix B includes all the General WOrk Statements for this sample given in answer to the "Who Am I?" question. Looking through the list one finds that more than 75% of the state- ments have an evaluative connotation. Such terms as "good," 110 "hard," "fairly good," "excellent" are found with the work self-identity terms. Theoretically, these statements are based on the evaluations of others. Empirically, they are mentioned most frequently by those in lower prestige occu- pations. Hence, for those in these occupations the fact that one is a good worker is a source of evaluation and self- identification. Prestige and Occupation-WOrk Self-Identification The hypotheses relating prestige with occupation- work self-identification are: 1e. The higher persons' scores on the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale the more likely they will be to assign high importance to an occupation— work identity made in response to a self— identification question. 1f. The higher persons' scores on the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale the more likely they will be to mention an occupation-work identity in response to a self—identification question. These hypotheses imply a positive relationship between prestige and occupational self-identities as well as a simi— lar type of relationship for prestige and work self- identities. But, in the analysis of hypotheses la - 1d we found a positive relationship for occupational identities and a negative relationship for work identities. Both were statistically significant in their respective direction. Given these empirical results and their interpretations, the hypotheses using the combination Of occupation and work 111 identities will not be analyzed in this study as originally planned. Prestige and Self—Identification: Summary This chapter included the analysis of several hy- potheses relating prestige to self—identification. First, it was found that prestige and occupational self- identification were positively and significantly related using several statistical tests. Also the Observed pattern for the hypotheses was as expected. Secondly, it was found that prestige and work self-identification were negatively and significantly related statistically. The Observed pattern was not as expected under the statistical hypotheses. In addition to these findings, several others were noted. First, the inclusion of farmers in the lowest prestige category seriously affected the expected pattern of results. Farmers have the highest percentage for mentioning of occupational identities and the lowest for work identi- ties. When they were excluded from the prestige scale, the pattern of results was closer to that expected under the hypotheses. Secondly, there are several problems in the transfor- mation procedures used to Obtain the NORC Prestige scores for this study. "Farmers" is one clear example where the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale score is in disagreement with the original NORC Prestige Scale score and has a low 112 relationship to the SociO-economic Index score. Several other occupations in the "middle ranks" were cited as ex- amples of the technical difficulties in the transformation procedures. It is asserted that the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale is most adequate at the extreme values but in the "middle ranks" prediction are problematic. Thirdly, we found that those with the highest prestige scale scores gave their occupational identities in the "low" value of importance. One interpretation Of this is that these persons derive evaluations from a wider range of self-other relationships; theoccupational role is one- amongflmany evaluation evoking roles. A second interpre- tation for those in these occupations, is that occupational prestige is no longer problematic and other self—other re- lationships become sources Of evaluative behavior. Both of these are Offered as tentative interpretations. Fourthly, and perhaps the most important finding, is the negative relationship between prestige and work self- identification. _This finding indicates a difference in the two types Of identities used in this study. An interpre- tation Offered for this difference asserts that those in the 1ower prestigeoccupations employ work self identities as a consequence of evaluation by others, while higher prestige occupation incumbents employ their occupational title. In the former case the title might be a source Of negative evaluation, while in the latter, worker identities might 113 evoke negative responses from others. To support this interpretation, the nature Of work identity statements was discussed. Again, these interpretations are tentative. Finally, due to the results reported in this chapter, the hypotheses for prestige and the combined identities were deleted from the analysis. These hypotheses will also be excluded from consideration in the final chapter of results. CHAPTER V SUBJECTIVE EVALUATION AND SELF- IDENTIFICATION: RESULTS This chapter is the final one which presents the re- sults of this study. It includes the analyses and dis- cussions for the hypotheses which deal with the "subjective" measures Of occupational evaluation. One of these measures is the actors' placement of themselves in one Of six "social classes." The other measure is the actors' comparison of themselves with their occupations. In addition, this chapter includes an analysis for each of the hypotheses using occu- pational prestige as a "control" variable. Subjective Social Class and identification The operations for obtaining "subjective social class" are intended to measure actors' own evaluations of their occupation. It is not intended as an objective measure of social class. As a measure it is based on the assumption that the full-time employed men in this sample take their occupation into account when choosing a "social class" label for themselves. In past studies, the relation- ship between the prestige Of occupation and "class" self- assignment resulted in high positive correlations. It is on 114 115 the basis of these findings that "subjective social class" is used here as an evaluation of occupation by the respondents. As an approach to "criterion validity," prestige is related with "social class" for this sample. The values for the prestige variable are two: lowest scale scores, ex- cluding farmers (23-52) and highest prestige scale scores (75—93). These values are chosen in light of the critique of the "middle" NORC Scale values and Farmer's scores given in the previous chapter. The values fOr "social class" are three: WOrking, which includes Lower, WOrking and Lower- Middle: Middle; and Upper—Middle, which includes Upper- Middle and Upper. The results are: The Relationship Between Selected Values of Prestige and Social Class (N = 168)* Subjective Social Class Lowest(23—52) Highest(75-93) Totals WOrking 48 8 56 Middle 17 49 66 Upper-Middle 5 41 46 Totals 70 98 168 *Numerals in table are frequencies X2 = 81.4 (df=2) p (.0005 (one—tail test) Tau C = .325 Z = 6.3 p = .00003 The statistical test results for these data are very high. If one was testing an explicit hypothesis, the null hypothe— sis would certainly be rejected. 116 A closer look at the above results shows that 86% of those in the WOrking Class are also in the lowest category of prestige, while 74% of those in the Middle Class are in the highest category. Related to that is the observation that 89% of those in the Upper-Middle Class are found in the highest prestige category. Looking at the table in an- other way, 69% of those in the lowest prestige category label themselves as WOrking Class, 24% as Middle Class and only 7% as Upper-Middle. In the highest prestige category, on the other hand, there is quite a different pattern. In this category 8% label themselves as WOrking Class, 40% as Middle Class and 42% as Upper-Middle Class. Hence, we notice that the pattern of "social class" differentiation is much clearer in the lowest prestige category than in the highest prestige category. In fact, there seems to be little if any distinction between the Middle and Upper—Middle Class for those in the highest prestige category. we would expect this lack Of differentiation to affect the relationships be— tween ”social class" and self-identification examined in this chapter. The nature of this effect will be discussed later. Social Class and Occupational Self-Identification This section includes the examination Of the follows ing sub—hypotheses: 2a. The higher a person's own assignment in terms of working, middle or upper—middle "social class" labels the more likely he will be tO assign high importance to an occupational 117 identity made in response to a self- identification question. 2b. The higher a person's own assignment in terms of working, middle or upper-middle "social class" labels the more likely he will be to mention an occupational identity in response to a self-identification question. Table V41 presents the data for these hypotheses. The degrees of importance for identification are divided into three values: "low" for line 5 or below, "medium" for lines three or four, and "high" for lines one or two. As mentioned above, the "social classes" are: WOrking (including Lower and Lower-Middle response labels), Middle, and Upper—Middle (including Upper response label). The frequencies and percentages are arranged in the manner discussed in the previous chapter. For hypothesis 2a, in statistical terms, it is found that the relationship between "social class" and degrees Of importance produces a Chi—square of 27.9 (df=6) which has a probability of occurring by chance of less than .0005. The Tau C is .12 with a Z of 3.91 which has the probability of occurrence Of .0005.1 Hypothesis 2b related "social class" and mention- nonmention of occupational self-identification. Statisti- cally, we find a Chi-square of 18.6 (df=2) that has the probability of occurrence by chance Of less than .0005. In lBoth Chi-square and Tau C are given for those who prefer not to treat "social class" as a variable reaching the ordinal level Of measurement. 118 Table V-l. The Relationship between Subjective Social Class and Occupational Self-Identification(N= 522) Social Importance of Mention Total Total Class Low(5-9) Med.(3-4) High(l-Z) Mention Non-Mention TOTALS Working l 7 8 16 84 100% ( 2) (14) (18) (34) (182) (216) Middle 3 12 15 30 70 . 100% ( 7) (26) (32) (65) (151) (216) Upper- 10 13 13 36 64 100% Middle ( 9) (12) (12) (33) ( 59) ( 92) Degree of Importance:(one-tail tests) Tau C= .12 2= 3.91 p= .0005 2 X = 27.9 (df=6) Mention-Nonmention:(one-tail test) x2= 18.6 (df=2) p (.0005 v= .03 ;><.0005 v= .03 119 this instance, as in the above, the null hypothesis is rejected. Looking at the patterns, we find that for "Total Mention" it is as expected with an increase in proportion of mention of occupational identities as "social class" in— creases. We also find that a lower percent of those who mention these identities in the Upper—Middle Class do so on line one or two ("high importance") as compared with the other classes. This pattern is contrary to the hypothesized direction of the relationship and similar to the one found for "Importance of Mention" at the highest values of occu- pational prestige in Table IVsl. One pattern not seen be— fore is the one in the values of importance for the WOrking Class. There we find that the majority who mention these identities assign them "high" importance. Of those who chOse the WOrking Class label almost half (48%) are in the Craftsmen and Operatives occupational categories. Some of them are skilled and are located in the "middle ranks" Of occupational prestige. I would suspect that a few may consider their occupation as an important means to future upward mobility. If this is the case, those few in the working class who g9 mention occupation as a self-identity would place it in "high importance" among their self-identities. Further analyses using prestige as a "control" variable may contribute to this tentative explanation. 120 In sum, it was found that the relationships between "social class" and occupational self—identification were statistically significant. The pattern of "importance" for those who mention occupation in the Upper-Middle Class was contrary to the hypothesis but similar to the one Obtained for the highest values of occupational prestige and occu- pational self-identification. The pattern for the WOrking Class was unexpected and further analyses with prestige as a "control" variable should contribute to an explanation of this pattern. Social Class, Occupational Self— Identification and Prestige There are two reasons for controlling for occupation— al prestige in the analysis of the relationship between "social class" and occupational self—identification. The first, a theoretical reason, deals with the use of two types of evaluation measures in this study. One is an "Objective" measure of the evaluations Of others in terms Of "general standing" and sociO-economic attributes. The other two are measures of evaluation which take the actors' perspectives into account. Therefore, the "control" analysis is done to discover the consequences that the "Objective" measure has upon the relationship between "subjective" evaluation and self—identification. The second reason is related to empirical findings. we have found that occupational prestige is highly related Wm‘aq'v.-. “1.4. ' 121 to occupational self—identification and also to "subjective social class." In light of these findings it may be of importance to discover what effect, if any, that prestige has upon the relationship between the "subjective" evalu- ation and self-identification. For the "control" type Of analysis the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale scores are grouped in this way: "Low" - scores 23-58, "Middle" — scores 59—70 and "High" - scores. 71-93. Approximately one-third of the respondents are found in each category of scores. The "degree of importance" for mention Of self-identification has two values: "low - lines three or below and "high" — lines one or two. "Social class" retains the same values as found in Table Val: WOrking, Middle and Upper-Middle. The percentages, frequencies and statistics are arranged as they were in previous tables. The results for this analysis are found in Table V;2. Statistical results for the "Degrees of Importance" are only significant at the "Middle" level of prestige. The results for mention-nonmention are statistically significant at the ”Low" and "Middle" levels of prestige but not at the "High" level. Therefore, the statistical results for the relation- ship between "social class" and occupational self— identification are altered mainly at the "High" level when controlling for prestige. The data do suggest, however, that there is some relationship between "social class" and occupational self-identification even when the effects of occupational prestige are removed. 122 Table V-2. The Relationship between Subjective Social Class and Occupational Self-Identification for levels of Prestige of Occupation. Prestige Scores 23-58(N= 185) Subjective Importance of Mention Total Total Social Class Low(3-9) High(l-Z) Mention Non-Mention TOTALS Working 8 6 15 85 100% ( 9) ( 7) (16) (93) (109) Middle 13 13 26 74 100% ( 8) ( 8) (16) (42) ( 62) Upper- 0 29 29 71 100% Middle ( 0) ( 4) ( 4) (10) ( 14) Degree of Importance:(one-tai1 tests) x2= 8.6 (df=4) 1.4.05 v= .02 Tau c= .08 2= 1.87 p= .0307 Mention-Nonmention:(one-tail test) x2= 3.9 (df=2) p<.10 v= .02 Prestige Scores 59-70(N= 170) Subjective Importance of Mention Total Total Social Class Low(3-9) High(l-Z) Mention Non-Mention TOTALS Working 6 8 14 86 100% ( 4) ( 6) (10) (63) ( 72) Middle 20 14 34 66 100% (14) (10) (24) (57) ( 71) Upper- 12 15 27 73 100% Middle ( 3) ( 4) ( 7) (19) ( 26) Degree of Importance:(0ne-tail tests) 2_ _ _ _ _ _ x - 9.3 (df—4) p<.05 v— .03 Tau c— .12 z— 2.25 p- .0054 Mention-Nonmention:(one-tail test) x2= 8.1 (df=2) p(.01 v= .05 (continued) 123 Table V-2. The Relationship between Subjective Social Class and Occupational Self-Identification for levels of Prestige of Occupation(concluded). Prestige Scores 7l-93(N= 169) Subjective Importance of Mention Total Total Social Class Low(3—9) High(l-Z) Mention Non—Mention TOTALS Working 9 15 24 76 100% ( 3) ( 5) ( 8) (22) ( 34) Middle 13 17 3O 70 100% (11) (14) (25) (58) ( 83) Upper- 27 15 42 58 100% Middle (14) ( 8) (22) (30) ( 52) Degree of Importance:(one-tai1 tests) x2= 6.5 (df=4) p<.10 v= .02 Tau 0= .09 2: 1.57 p= .0582 Mention-Nonmention:(one-tail test) x2= 3.7 (df=2) p(.lO v= .02 124 Several interesting patterns appear in these data when we control for occupational prestige. First we notice that the "Importance of Mention" for those in the WOrking Class is not changed from Table Vel on any level of prestige. About the same proportion place their occupational self- identities in the “high importance" value at each level. But, another pattern that we found in Tables IV¥1 and V41 appears in this table, especially at the 'High" level of prestige. This pattern is found in the "Importance of Mention" for those in the Upper-Middle Class and at the "High" level of prestige. At this level 27% of those in the Upper—Middle Class gave their occupational identity on line three or be- low, while only 15%.gave it on line one or two ("high im— portance"). This pattern of results, which only appeared slightly in Table Vel is clearly evident when, as in Table V-2, high occupational prestige is combined with Upper- Middle Class. Thus, at the high values on both types of evaluation measures there is a decrease in the "importance" of occupational self—identities as compared with the patterns at the other levels of evaluation. Whether this is the result of less concern with occupational prestige or an accumulation of additional self-other relationships which produce an evaluation of other roles cannot be clearly answered with these data. But, because of its reoccurrence it will be discussed further in the final chapter of this study. 125 Social Class and WOrk Self- Identification The sub-hypotheses for "social class" and work self- identification are: 2c. The higher a person's own assignment in terms of working, middle or upper-middle "social class" labels the more likely he will be to assign high importance to a work identity made in response to a self-identification question. 2d. The higher a person's own assignment in terms of working, middle or upper-middle "social class” labels the more likely he will be to mention a work identity in response to a self- identification question. Table V-3 reports the results for these hypotheses using three values for "Importance of Mention." Statistically, for hypothesis 2c, there is a Tau C of —.001 and a Z of —.52. A Z of this value has the proba- bility of occurrence by chance of .3051. The Chi—square for this hypothesis is 5.6 (df=6) with a probability of oc- currence by chance of less than .25. For hypothesis 2d there is a Chi-square of .11 (df=2) with a probability of occurrence by chance of less than .475. Thus, for both of these hypotheses we fail to reject the null hypothesis. These data, however, display a pattern similar to the one found with occupational prestige and work self- identities, i.e. an inverse relationship. The distinctions between the self-identification values for "social class" are not as "sharp" as those for prestige. But, these dis— tinctions for work identification and "social class" become 126 Table V-3. The Relationship between Subjective Social Class and Work Self-Identification(N= 524) Social Importance of Mention Total Total Class Low(5-9) Med.(3-4) High(l-Z) Mention Non—mention TOTALS Working 7 ll 14 32 68 100% (16) (24) (30) (70) (146) (216) Middle 7 10 15 32 68 100% (16) (21) (32) (69) (147) (216) Upper- 9 15 7 30 70 100% Middle ( 8) (14) ( 6) (28) ( 64) ( 92) Degree of Importance:(one-tail tests) Tau c= -.001 2: -.52 p= .3015 x2: 5.6 (df=6) p.< 25 v= .005 Mention-Nonmention:(one-tail test) x2: .11 (df=2) p)(.475 v= .005 127 "sharper" when the Lower-Middle Class is separated from the WOrking Class category. The results are as follows: Total Social Importance of Mention Total NOn- Class Low(5-9) Med.(3-4) High(l—Z) Mention Mention Totals Lower and 8 13 16 37 63 100% WOrking (14) (22) (25) (61) (108) (167) Lower- 4 4 10 18 82 100% Middle (2) (2) (5) (9) (40) (49) This pattern is quite similar to that found for the lowest. prestige scale scores examined in the previous chapter. Be— cause of the high relationship between "social class" and prestige one would expect these results. In sum, there is no statistically significant re- lationship between "social class" and work self-identification. The same percent of respondents mentioned work identities in the WOrking Class as in the Middle Class. When Lower-Middle class is separated from the WOrking Class category, there is an increase in the percent mentioning work identities for the Lower and WOrking Class. These results are consistent with previous findings regarding prestige and work self- identification. Social Class, WOrk Self- Identification and Prestige This section includes the analysis of the relation- ship between "social class" and work self-identification 128 with occupational prestige controlled. The original re- lationship (Table V-3) was not significant statistically. But, because there is a significant negative relationship between occupational prestige and work self-identification some interesting patterns may be found in the data when prestige is controlled. The statistical test results for Table V84 are not significant at any level of the prestige variable. This is the case for both the "Degrees of Importance" as well as "Mention—NOnmention." There are, however, several patterns in these data which are consistent with previous findings. On the "Low" and "Middle" levels of prestige there is a greater percent mentioning work-identities for those in the WOrking and Middle Class than in the Upper-Middle Class. Therefore, at the values of occupational prestige where the greatest nega- tive relationship with work self-identities was found, a similar pattern of relationships between work identities and "social class" is found. At the "High" level of occupational prestige there are two patterns in the data that can be related to previous discussions. The first is the increase in the percent of mention as "social class" increases. This same increase was seen in Table V82 for occupational self-identities at the "High" level of prestige. The second is found in the "Im— portance of Mention" for those who chose the Upper-Middle Class label. There we see that 25%.of those who mention 129 Table V-4. The Relationship between Subjective Social Class and Work Self-Identification for levels of Prestige of Occupation Prestige Scores 23-58(N= 185) Subjective Importance of Mention Total Total Social Class Low(3-9) High(l-Z) Mention Non-Mention TOTALS Working 18 15 33 67 100% (20) (16) (36) (73) (109) Middle 19 18 37 63 100% (12) (11) (23) (39) ( 62) Upper- 0 27 27 73 100% Middle ( 0) ( 4) ( 4) (10) ( 14) Degree of Importance:(one-tail tests) 2 X = 3.3 (df=4) p<.15 v= .02 Prestige Scores 59-70(E= 169) Importance Importance of Mention Total Total of: Low(3-9) High(l-Z) Mention Non-Mention TOTALS Self(0-5) 22 10 32 68 100% ( 9) ( 4) (13) (28) ( 41) Occupation 23 13 36 64 100% (6-8) (16) ( 9) (25) (44) ( 69) Occupation 20 15 36 64 100% (9-10) (12) ( 9) (21) (38) ( 59) Degree of Importance:(one-tail test) Tau c= .03 2: .49 p= .3121 Mention-Nonmention:(one-tail test) x2: .25 (df=2) ;><.45 v= .001 (continued) 148 Table V-8. The Relationship between Comparative Evaluation and Work Self-Identification for levels of Prestige of Occupation (concluded). Prestige Scores 71-93(N= 168) Importance Importanoeoof‘MentiOn. of: Low(3-9) High(l-Z) Self(0-5) 13 15 ( 7) ( 8) Occupation l4 9 (6-8) (10) ( 6) Occupation 21 12 (9-10) ( 9) ( 5) Degree of Importance:(one-tail test) Tau C= .02 Z= .32 p= Mention-Nonmention:(one-tail test) x2= 1.28 (df=2) Total Mention 27 (15) 23 (16) 33 (14) .3745 p< .35 v= .008 Total Non-Mention 73 (40) 77 (54) 67 (29) TOTALS 100% ( 55) 100% ( 70) 100% ( 43) 149 suggest that the positive relationship between comparative evaluation and work self-identification is not maintained when occupational prestige is introduced as a "control" variable. Subjective Evaluation and Self Identification: Summary This chapter included the final set of empirical re— sults for this study. Several analyses were considered. First, there were the relationships between "social class" and self-identification including several "control" analyses using occupational prestige. Next, the relationships be- tween comparative evaluation and self-identification were analyzed and discussed. Also included was an analysis of the relationships between the other evaluation measures and comparative evaluation. What follows is a brief summary of the major findings of this chapter. First, the relationships between "social class," comparative evaluation and occupational self-identification were statistically significant. The general pattern (with the exception noted for "Importance of Mention") for both re— lationships were consistent with the expectations of the hypotheses. These findings support the general research hypothesis of this study. The relationships between "social class" and work self-identification were not significant but the pattern is quite similar to the one found for the relationship between 150 prestige and work self—identification in the previous chapter, i.e., an inverse relationship. Those in the work- ing Class have a greater percentage of work identification than those in the other "social classes." In the "control” analysis for "social class" there was an observation consistent with previous results. For those respondents who were both on the "High” level of occu— pational prestige and Upper-Middle Class the importance as— signed to occupational identities was "low." This same "low importance" pattern was found in the relationship between prestige and occupational self-identification. Further interpretations of this finding will be discussed in the next chapter. Contrary to previous findings there was a positive relationship between comparative evaluation and work self- identification. This implied a difference between the other evaluation measures and comparative evaluation. To find these differences "social class" and prestige were related to comparative evaluation and a curvilinear pattern was dis- covered. Those respondents at the extreme values of the other measures considered their "self" as more important than their "occupation." For those at the higher levels this finding is consistent with the Observation discussed in the preceeding paragraph; for those at the lower values this is consistent with the findings that identification in terms of $233 is more relevant than identification in terms of occupation. Therefore, comparative evaluation seems to 151 ”incorporate" characteristics of the other evaluation measures thus resulting in a positive relationship with both types of self—identification. But, because of the curvi— linear relationship with the other evaluation measures the interpretation of results with comparative evaluation is problematic. Finally, and perhaps most significant, is the pro- portion of mention for these identities at the highest values of the evaluation measures. There was not an in- stance in the Upper-Middle Class or for those who consider their occupation "more important than themselves," where a majority of respondents even mentioned these self—identities. This seems to question the "significance" of occupational and work identities that is assumed by many sociologists. This finding, as well as the others in this summary, will be the basis for further discussion in the final chapter of this study. CHAPTER VI SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS This chapter contains the summary and conclusions of this study. It begins with a summary overview including the central conclusions. The next section includes a dis- cussion of several findings and their implications for past and future research. It ends with a general conclusion re— garding the major findings of the study. An Overview This study began with this guiding question: "What are the social processes that produce, maintain and alter self—identification behavior?" In an attempt to answer this question several alterations and specifications of it were made. First, the question was set within Self-Other Theory. The central proposition of this theory is: The self and the activities of others are co—determining. Next, a principle of self—other activities was formulated from a variety of studies. It is known as the Evaluation Principle and it states: The higher the positive evaluation of a person's activity by himself or others the greater the likelihood a person will identify in terms of that activity. 152 153 These two statements served as the theoretical foundation for this study. Then the class of activities and identities was specified. The class of activities which served as the focus of attention was occupational. Self-identification was limited to occupational and work self-identities. Hence, the general research hypothesis of this study was: ‘x. The higher the degree of positive evaluation of a5 person's occupational activities by himself or others the greater the likelihood a person will ‘ identify himself in occupational and work terms..fl Three different measures of evaluation were used from an original research project. Both occupational and work self- identities were used in the hypotheses. The first measure of evaluation was the Transformed NORC Prestige Scale devised by O. D. Duncan. This was used to measure the evaluations of others with respect to occu- pation. The second variable was "subjective Social Class" using three classes: WOrking, Middle and Upper-Middle Class. The third variable was a question which asked the respondent to assign importance to his occupation relative to himself. These last two variables were measures of the respondents' own evaluation of their occupation. Two types of self—identities, considered originally to be in the same class, were used in analysis. "Occu- pational self-identities" were those terms found in the answers to a self-identification question ("Who Am 1?") which referred to occupational titles. Those terms found in 154 the answers to the same question which referred generally to work without a specification of occupation were called "WOrk-identities." Given the three measures of evaluation and the two types of self-identities the main hypotheses were: 1. The higher the prestige status of one's occu- pation the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occupational and work self-identities. 2. The higher the person's "subjective social class" the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occupational and work self-identities. 3. The higher the person's evaluation of his occu— pation as compared to himself the more likely he will be to mention and assign importance to occupational and work self-identities. The operational form of these hypotheses produced eighteen testable hypotheses and twelve of them were analyzed in this study.1 The data used to test these hypotheses came from research done in 1963 using an area probability sample of the United States. This study used a sub—sample composed of full-time employed men twenty—one years or older. This sample was assessed as representative within 95% limits of confidence (Appendix A) for such variables as: place of residence, age, ethnicity, income and occupation. All lThe hypotheses using a combination of occupational and work identities for self—identification were discarded from analysis. 155 generalizations made from these data are limited by the character of this sub-sample. Table VI-l presents the statistical test results for the three major hypotheses. After examining these re- sults two findings in support of the general research hy- pothesis are evident: 1. There is a positive relationship between the evaluations of others, as measured by prestige, and occupational self-identification. 2. There is a positive relationship between sub— jective evaluation of occupation and occu- pational self-identification. On further examination there are two findings which do not support this hypothesis: 1. There is a negative relationship between the evaluation of others, as measured by prestige, and work self-identification. ' 2. There is a tendency in the negative direction for the relationship between "social class" and work self-identification. Hence, three conclusions are apparent. First, occupational self-identification and work self—identification are not in the same class. Secondly, further research is necessary to adequately assess the relationships between evaluation and 2The relationship between comparative evaluation and work self-identification was not statistically signifi- cant but the pattern tended in the positive direction. This relationship was not consistent with those using the other evaluation measures. In addition, comparative evaluation was related to these evaluation measures in a curvilinear fashion. Although this relationship can be interpreted as consistent with other results, further research is necessary to adequately assess the apparent utility of this measure. 156 * A List of Statistical Test Results Table VI-l Table # Variables Tau Z p X2 p V Table IV-l P-Occupation(I) .09 2.78 .0027 ---- ------ -- Table IV-l P-Occupation(M) --- ---- ----- 23.4 140005 .04 Table V-l S-Occupation(I) .12 3.91 .0005 27.9 140005 .03 Table v-1 S-Occupation(M) --- ---- ----- 18.6 <.0005 .03 Table V-5 C-Occupation(I) .07 2.49 0064 ---- ------ -- Table v-5 C-Occupation(I) --- ---- ----- 7.1 (.05 .01 Table IV-Z P-Work(I) -.05 -1.68 0465 ---- ------ -- Table IV-2 P-Work(M) --- ---- ----- 6.1 <310 .01 Table V-3 S-Work(I) -.001-.52 .3015 5.6 (:25 .005 Table V-3 S-Work(M) --- ---- ----- .ll ‘Q475 .005 Table V-7 C-Work(I) 055 1 78 0384 ---- ------ -- Table V-7 C-Work(M) --- ---- ----- 3.7 (.15 .007 *Symbols in table refer to: P- Prestige of Occupation S- uSubjective Social Class" C- Comparative Evaluation (I)- Degree of Importance (M)- MentionrNonmention 157 work self—identification. And finally, the general research hypothesis of this study is only supported when occupational evaluation is related to occupational self-identification. Results and Implications In this section I discuss several problems and issues evident from the findings of this study. Some of these directly concern self-other evaluations while several relate to social stratification. Within the discussion I offer several suggestions for further research. The inverse relationship between prestige and work self—identification implies two central problems. The first concerns the use of self-identities. It is clear from the evidence that occupational and work identities are not in the same class although they appear to be conceptually. Occupational identities are given most frequently by those at the high prestige level while work identities are given by those at the lower level. This, it seems to me, illus— trates the importance of having at least some knowledge about the empirical relationships particular identities have with other variables before using these identities as variables. This is particularly necessary when combining different types of identities as is customary in studies of the self. Hence, in future studies, this issue should be clarified before self—identities are placed in the same class and treated as a single variable. 158 The second issue concerns the specification of a set of "others" when studying self—other relationships. Prestige was used in this study to indicate the evaluations of others. The "others" in this instance were those who evaluated the occupational titles on the basis of their "general standing." These evaluations are related to occu- pational identities but not to work identities. This im- plies, if the general research hypothesis is feasible, that a different set of "others" are evaluating work activities and hence the higher proportion of these identities among people in low prestige occupations. This set of "others" could be their co—workers or superiors who are located within the organization and who evaluate the person's work in com- parison to the other workers. Or, the "others" could be their friends, neighbors or relatives who regard the person as a "good steady worker" and a "good provider." This points out the importance of specifying which set of "others" are taken into account with regard to a particular activity. The importance of specifying the "others" is not a revelation of this study but a constant concern for self- other theories.3 Some questions used to elicit a set of "others" have incorporated the notion of importance or evaluation within them. One which does not is this question: 3M. H. Kuhn, "Reference Group Reconsidered," Socio— logical Quarterly, 5 (Winter, 1964), pp. 5—22. 159 Who are those persons or groups of persons to whom you refer yourself, either directly or in your thinking, when you are confronted with a problem or in order to support or justify your actions? One problem with this question is that it does not specify the type of "problem” or the class of "actions" which are to be considered. Therefore, I recommend that any question used to elicit a set of "others" contain a specification of the activity to which the ”others" are relevant and the notion that these "others" may be taken into account only within that activity. With this type of information the re— lationship between the behavior of others and identification can be clarified. After specifying the activity and the set of "others," additional information regarding the criteria used in evaluation is necessary.5 The observation regarding farmers seem to imply the necessity of this information. They do not fit the observed pattern of relationship between self identification and occupational evaluation. In addi- tion to the technical difficulties in transforming the NORC scores, it seems reasonable to state that criteria used in assessing the "general standing" of occupations are not 4C. A. Hickman and M. H. Kuhn, Individgals, Groups and Economic Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1956), p. 246. 5O. D. Duncan and J. W. Artis, Social Stratification in a Pennsylvania Rural,Community (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State College, 1951); W. A. Faunce and M. J. Smucker, "In- dustrialization and Community Status Structure," Paper read at A. S. A. meetings, Chicago, 1965. 160 applicable to farmers.6 This judgement is partly inferred from the high proportion of farmers who mention their occupational title as an identity in spite of their relatively low NORC score. This indicates that the evalu— ation directed towards farmers are not of the same character as the evaluation of the "general standing" of occupations.7 To be a farmer is more than an occupation, it is a total way of life. The activities and concerns of farming enter into every facet of one's existence. A farmer, within the context of the community, could be evaluated by a variety of criteria. Some of these might be: personal at- tributes, wealth, personal influence or involvement in com— munity affairs. He could be highly evaluated within the community but in terms of the "general standing" of his occupation be evaluated as average or below average. This case illustrates that it is quite important for the investi— gation of self-other evaluation to specify the criteria used by "others" in their evaluative behavior. In sum, there are at least four issues that should be faced in future studies of evaluation and identification 6The technical problems are discussed in Lawrence Thomas, The Occupational Structure and Education (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1956), pp. 116-117 and Appendix A. 7This could be the case for a number of other occu- pational categories. In this study there are only two coding categories for farmers (i.e., Managers and Laborers) which makes the number large enough to notice this pattern. 161 within Self-Other Theory. First, the researcher should clarify the empirical relationships between certain identi— ties and other variables before combining types of identi— ties. Second, a set of "others" should be specified. Third, the activity or activities which are the focus of evaluation should be clearly indicated. And finally, the criteria used by "others" for evaluation should be ob— tained by the researcher. If a study follows these sug- gestions it seems to me there will be a great improvement in the analysis of evaluation and identification. There are several other findings which concern issues involved in the study of social stratification. The first of these is the pattern found for those in the "middle ranks" of occupational prestige. The second is the degree of importance assigned to occupational identities by those at the higher levels of evaluation in comparison with those at the lower levels of evaluation. Other sociologists have mentioned the problem with the "middle rank" occupations.8 This study again demon— strated the problems involved in assuming a single hierarchy of status assignment. There seems to be consensus on 8T. Caplow, The Sociology of WOrk (New York: McGrawe Hill and Co., 1964); G. P. Stone and W. H. Form, "Insta- bilities in Status: The Problem of Hierarchy in the Com- munity Study of Status Arrangements," American Sociological Review, 18 (April, 1953), pp. 149-162; E. O. Laumann and L. Guttman, "The Relative Associational Continguity of Occu- pations in an Urban Setting," American Sociological Review, 31 (April, 1966), pp. 169-178. 162 evaluation only at the top and bottom of the prestige scale. Either the criteria of evaluation implicit in the NORC scale are not applicable at the "middle ranks" or there is a "status arrangement which is not discovered with a measure that assumes a single hierarchy."9 In fact, both of these could operate for "middle rank" occupations. To "solve" this problem of "status arrangements" it seems that the first requirement is to discard the assump- tion of a single hierarchy and a single set of criteria of evaluation. This would force the researcher to use a multi- faceted approach to obtain these arrangements. Such a study should be carried out within an urban setting where varia— bility is highest. The study should also be done with a variety of observational techniques including "undbtrusive" as well as the ordinary measures. This type of study should result in a systematic characterization of the stratifi- cation processes in an urban setting. Several "Importance of Mention" patterns were dis- cussed in this study. The first was found in the relation— ship between occupational prestige and occupational self- identification. For this relationship the pattern was curvilinear with the greatest proportion of "high importance" found in the middle range of occupational prestige. There 9The differences between occupational identities and work identities also suggest that more than one single hier- archy is operating for evaluation. 163 were several interpretations offered for this pattern. For those at the lower levels of prestige this pattern was expected. At the middle ranges of prestige these results were interpreted as an indication of upward mobility and a continued concern for evaluation in terms of occupational activities. The pattern that was unexpected ap- peared at the highest level of prestige where a greater proportion of respondents gave their occupational identi- ties on line three or below ("low importance"). The last pattern was interpreted as a consequence of multiple possi- bilities for evaluation in terms of other role relation— ships. When these possibilities increase the importance in terms of occupation and the evaluation derived from others thereof is less important and other identities become more salient. These interpretations were offered as tentative and meant to suggest further research regarding occupational self-identities and evaluation. For example, the interpre— tation given regarding the "Importance of Mention" pattern at the high level of prestige suggests several research questions. The most obvious are: What are the other role relationships for those at the high prestige level from which evaluation is derived? What, if any, is the relation- ship between their occupational role and these other role relationships? What are the criteria of evaluation in these role relationships? Other questions could be formulated 164 incorporating such notions as: career patterns, economic status and power relationships. A simple question is: How are these notions related to self-identification at this level of occupational prestige? All of these questions indicate that further research is necessary before this ob- served pattern can be explained. Another finding, related to the above, was evident in the relationship between "social class" and occupational self—identification. There it was found that those few who mentioned occupational self identities and choose the WOrk- ing Class label for themselves had a higher proportion of "high importance" identities than those in the other two "classes." This pattern was not obtained with prestige and was not expected in these results. The pattern is clearly deviant but it may imply something about the evaluation process that is important. If the WOrking Class label is a self-indication that one is employed in a lowly evaluated occupation, then self- identification in terms of occupation should not result. Yet, there may be a point in one's occupational career where he reCOgnizes that others have a lowly evaluation of this occupation, but he still considers it an important facet of his life. Or, it may be the only focus of his attention and concern. Whatever the case may be, it points to the importance of taking the context of activities into account when studying self-identification behavior. 165 The last important finding to be mentioned involves both types of self-identities and the three measures of evaluation. Specifically, in pp instance did a majority of the respondents, found at either the highest or lowest value of the evaluation measures, mention either occupational or work self-identities. This could be accounted for in terms of the "situationality" of the self-question used in this study to elicit self—identification behavior.10 But if these findings cannot be accounted for in this manner they have important implications for the theories in social stratification. In fact, if these theories are based on the assumption that occupation and work are the most essential facets of life, these findings seriously call into question this basic assumption. General Conclusion The results in this study indicate that there is a consistent relationship between evaluation and self- identification when limited to occupational behavior. There are findings which present a number of problems to be solved before the generality of the evaluation principle for self— other relationships can be firmly established. But, the re— sults in this study strongly indicate that further pursuit 10A discussion of this problem is found in: C. W. Tucker, Jr., "Some Methodological Problems of Kuhn's Self Theory," Sociologicalpgyarterly, Special Issue (Summer, 1966), forthcoming. 166 of these problems and issues could prove to be beneficial both theoretically and substantively for sociolOgy. APPENDIX A PROCEDURES AND ANALYSIS FOR ASSESSING REPRESENTATIVENESS OF THE SAMPLE The procedures for calculating the confidence limits of the sample were provided by the Gallup Organization. The following table is given in the Gallup Report: Recommended Allowances for Sampling Error of a Percentage In Percentage Points Sample (at 95 in 100 confidence level) Percentage ----- Sample Size ————— Near 1500 750 300 100 10 2 3 5 7 20 2 4 6 9 3O 3 4 7 10 4O 3 4 7 ll 50 3 4 8 ll 60 3 4 7 ll 70 3 4 7 10 80 2 4 6 9 9O 2 3 5 7 The percentage points in the table indicate the range a given sample percentage can vary and still maintain the specified level of confidence. For example, if in one value of a variable the percent is 33 and the sample size is 1500, then to be accurate the other percent used for comparison must be between 30% and 36%” If it is not, then the sample percentage is not representative on that value of the variable. 167 168 One will notice that the above table does not have percentage points for a sample size of 500, which is the size in this study. Therefore, by interpolation the follow; ing figures were derived for use here: Estimated Allowance for Sampling Error of a Percentage: Sample Size 500 For Percentage Near: 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Percentage Points(95%) 4 5 6 6 7 6 6 5 4 So, if the percent on a value of a variable is 30, then the Census data would have to be between 24 and 36 percent to consider the sample variable value as representative. First, we will consider the place of residence and its representativeness in this sample. Table Arl. The Place of Residence for Full- time—Employed Men in the U.S. Census and Gallup Samples (percent) U.S. Census (1960)* Gallup,(l963) Urban 72.2 173.8 Rural, Non-farm 19.9 18.8 Rural, Farm 7.9 8.4 *Source: Table 194, U.S. Census of Population: 1960 Detailed Characterigpics PC (1) - lD (Washington, D.C.: U.S. printing Office, 1963), p. l-487. One can see, even without the tolerance limits provided by the table, that the sub-sample is quite representative of the U.S. Census data. we do notice, however, that the Gallup sample is slightly larger for Urban and Rural, Farm. \l/ 169 Next, we look at the age composition of the sample as compared with the Census data. Table Ar2. Age Composition for Fullétime Employed Men in the U.S. Census and Gallup Sample (percent) ,Age in years U.S. Census (1960)* Gallup Samp1e411963) 20 - 29 19.3 19.6 30 - 39 26.7 28.4 40 - 49 24.6 25.5 50 - 59 18.4 14.9 60 - 69 8.1 9.3 70 - 78 2.1 1.9 80+ .1 .4 *Source: Table 194: U.S. Census of Population: 1960 Detailed Characteristics PC (1) - lD (washington,D.C.: U.S. Printing Office, 1963), P. 1-487. The largest difference is found in the age categories of 30 — 39 and 50 - 59. In the first case, the Gallup sample is larger than the Census by 1.7%, while in the second case it is smaller by 3.5%” But in neither instance is the dis- crepency large enough to question its representativeness within a 95% level of confidence. Table Ar3, presents the comparison between the Census and the sample for the variable of ethnicity. Table Ar3. Ethnicity for Full-time Employed Men in the U.S. Census and Gallup Sample (percent) Ethnicity U.S. Census(l960)* Gallup Sampleg(l963) White 89.8 89.5 an-white 10.2 10.5 *Source: Table 204, U.S. Census of Population: 1960, Detailed Characteristics PC (1) — lD (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Printing Office, 1963), p. 543. 170 As one can see, this sample is representative in terms of ethnicity when compared with the 1960 Census. The next variable to be considered is family income. Table Ar4. The Total Family Income for Full-time Employed Men in the U.S. Census and Gallup Sample (percent) Annual Income in U.S. Census (1959)* Gallup Sample (1963) Dollars Under 1000 3 2 2.5 1000 — 1999 4.6 4.2 2000 - 2999 6.6 5.9 3000 - 3999 8.8 5.7 4000 - 4999 11.2 11.0 5000 - 6999 24.8 26.7 7000 - 9999 22.1 23.6 10,000 - 14,999 11.5 13.5 15,000 and above 5.1 4.2 *Source: Table 230 U.S. Census of Population: 1960L Detailed Characteristics PC (1) - lD (washington, D.C.: U.S. Printing Office, 1963), p. 610. Although none of the percentages are beyond range of the 95% level of confidence, there are discrepancies. In particular, all of the income categories below $5,000 are under- represented and conversely, those above $5,000 are over- represented. But one must remember that the Census figures are for 1959, while Gallup's are for 1963. During that period of time there was a decrease in the number of persons in the lower categories and an increase in the upper brackets. In other words, the total distribution shifted upwards. This shift is reflected in the Gallup sample. And finally, the occupational categories of both samples are compared. 171 Table Ar5. The Major Occupations for Full-time Em- ployed Men in U.S. Census and Gallup Sample (percent) Occupational Category U.S. Census (1960)* Gallpp Sample Professional, Technical 10.3 12.6 Farm, Farm Managers 5.5 8.2 Managers (all types) 10.7 14.4 Clerical 6.9 7.0 Sales 6.9 5.0 Craftsmen, Foremen 19.5 20.2 Operatives 19.9 16.0 Private Household .l .0 Service WOrkers 6.0 5.5 Farm Laborers 2.8 2.5 Non—Farm Laborers 6.9 5.0 Not Ascertainable 4.5 3.6 *Source: Table 87 U.S. Census of Popplation: 1960 PC (1) - 1C (washington, D.C.: U.S. Printing Office, 1962), p. 1—216. There are no instances where the differences in percentages are beyond the range for the 95% level of confidence. But there are several categories which approach that range. The largest discrepancies appear in the "Manager" category (Gallup over—representative) and "Operatives" (Gallup under- representative). It appears that the sample for this study is over-representative in the categories of Professionals, Farm Managers and Managers, while being under—representative in the categories at the bottom of the list. In sum, it appears that the sample for this study is representative on such factors as: place of residence, age, ethnicity, income and occupation. The representativeness was determined by comparing percentage distribution of these variables from the Gallup sample with the latest U.S. Census 172 data. A procedure provided by the Gallup Organization was used to assess the representativeness. All of the variables were assessed as representative, with caution being noted for certain values of several variables. Both income and occupation have several discrepancies which approach the limits of the range for 95% confidence. Income is under- representative in the lower categories. Occupation is over- representative in the top three occupational categories, but still within the acceptable limits of confidence. Therefore, caution should be maintained when generalizations are made using the variables of income and occupation. APPENDIX B GENERAL WORK STATEMENTS This appendix contains a list of the statements coded as "General WOrk." They are answers to the "Who Am I?" self-identification question for the sample of this study. Each one is taken from the interview schedule as it was recorded. With each statement is given: (1) the degree of importance for the statement, and (2) the Transformed NORC Prestige score. The statements are listed in the order of prestige starting with the lowest prestige score. General WOrk Statements 23 I have a job 26 I work hard; I'm a mill worker 33 My job 34 I consider my job important 36 I am a hard worker 36 Average working man; trying to make a living 39 Like my jOb and do it the best I can 41 I'm a good worker; I work 10 hours a day 42 A worker 43 I'm a worker 43 Just to make a living; I am hard working 43 I am a good working man 44 I am a wage earner and pay my bills 44 I'm a workman 44 I have pride in my work 45 a good worker 45 a good worker 46 I am a pretty good worker; I have worked all my life 47 I like my jOb alright 47 I am a hard working man NHWWNUWHfiNHHmNmNLflbWI-‘w 47 WOrking conditions 173 wawmbmwbml—‘mmmpwwhwwmmwwwwwwI—aewmh-hwwwwm N UIU'IUJ mwwNH 47 47 50 50 51 52 53 53 53 53 53 53 53 54 54 54 54 54 54 54 54 54 56 56 56 57 57 57 58 58 58 58 58 58 58 58 58 58 59 59 59 59 59 59 6O 60 6O 60 174 General WOrk Statements (Continued) I work part time I work hard I like to work in this country My work - foreman of estate hard worker am a working man work hard - that's all am an employer am dedicated to my work Hard working man I'm just a working man Jack of all trades I am a worker good worker WOrking 8 hours a day I have worked hard I am a good worker I work too hard good worker I'm a working man; I'm a hard worker I work as hard as I could and hard working secure job is important to me a worker I make a good living like to put in 8 hours work I'm employed I'm a good worker working worker I try to do my jOb right I am a hard working man Good work Happy to have Opportunity to work I am a hard working man I am just living and working Hard worker I know how to work I'm just a laboring man; Jack of all trades; hard working I work hard I try to be a good employee to the company An average job; I live by the sweat of my brow; I enjoy making a living I am a poor working man making a living for my family Hard working man wage earner I like my work Good furniture worker I'm a hard individual working man HHHHDJ NNwl-‘NDhHWtfiwu-PWNLDNDQH U1\IC\NO\l-'U'|I-'\IO‘ buboowrooxmlbnowcnnaw waleDJN 60 60 6O 6O 6O 61 61 61 61 61 62 62 62 62 62 63 63 65 65 65 65 65 65 66 66 66 66 67 67 67 67 68 68 68 68 69 69 69 69 69 69 70 70 7O 70 7O 70 175 General WOrk Statements,(Continued) working I'm a good worker Old everyday worker I am a worker who tried to make a living for family Happy soldier I like my work I go to work everyday A‘worker Have a living wage My work is essential toward pipe fabrication to all parts of U. S. A. An average worker Glad to have the ability to work I am ambitious and hard working I am dedicated to my work I am a good tradesman good job I like my work Making a living in my trade Just a guy who works to be able to make a living I'm a worker work do my work and don't wander off am an employed man am working hard to make a nice home and retirement hard working slob My work is of excellent quality; I have a good business; I make a good living for my family I'm a hard working man I am a hard worker I work in "this" farm program I'm a hard working man I have a good steady job I'm satisfied in the type of work I'm doing I am a hard working individual I am a honest, hard working person job I am a good workman I am a hard working man A good employee I have to work hard because I chose the wrong occupation I've kept my job WOrker Trying to make a livelihood I try to make a living at home I'm someone who works hard at his job to get ahead I am successful in my work I love to work plqrath co oamcunswlnuawoouubhahaNLAUTpL»Neraoaerauwwlunama>aawxoeawlnnamcpnamrotuw 71 71 71 71 71 71 71 71 72 72 72 72 72 73 74 74 74 74 74 74 75 75 76 76 76 77 78 78 78 78 78 79 80 80 80 81 81 81 81 83 84 84 85 85 89 176 General WOrk Statements (Continued) I feel I should have a better job than I have right now I've always worked hard am a fairly good working man am a man with a fairly good job am a fruitful worker-employee do my best at my job work regularly Good at work position to hold job to give me security I am an employee of the community I've had a steady job all my life wage earner I am very happy about my new jdb I am a hard worker I have to think of my business I serve grocers with produce I work hard when I work I A HHHHH endeavor to do a good job good worker in my field WOrk hard in business I work hard I work hard I'm a hard worker I'm an efficient worker Tried to be unselfish worker I do my jOb as well as I can I work hard at my job I have the ability to earn a living wage work for a nice organization My work affects others am a conscientious worker am one who enjoys work work for a living have steady employment love income tax work am a good worker If I do a job I do it to the very best of my ability Try to maintain high position in my present job responsible job I'm steadily employed Holding responsiblities in my company I like to believe that I am hard working Good worker Have a good steady job I'm a hard worker; I'm dedicated to my work; I love my work HHHHHH BIBLIOGRAPHY Becker, H. 8. 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