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Liberal Studies in Knowledge Society
Lecture 4
Understanding the Curriculum Content of Liberal Studies I:
Self, identity and Interpersonal relationship in individualized society
A. Understanding the Structure of the Areas of Study: Self and Personal Development
The formal structure outlined by the CCD and HKEAA
Module 1: Personal development and interpersonal relationship
Theme1: Understanding oneself
Theme2: Interpersonal relationship
B. Theories of Personal Identity
1. Two paradigms of self and identity formations
a. Essentialism: Essentialism in identity studies refers to approaches which takes
social identity, such as gender, ethnicity, race, nationality, class, as objectively
exiting reality. Their formations are based on some essentially fixed traits such
as biological sex, skin color, place of birth, formal-legal status, level of income,
etc.
b. Constructionism: Constructionism in identity studies refers to perspective
which conceives identity as socially constructed reality. They are on one hand
collectively constituted in social processes or even political movements, and
on the other hand individually articulated in deliberate articulations.
2. Two levels of identity
Studies of identity have been a multidisciplinary area of inquiry. It could be
approached from psychologists, sociological or philosophical perspectives. Never
the less, identity has often be studied either at personal or collective levels.
a. Self identity: It refers to the self-description, self-image, or self-conception that
an individual assigned upon herself. One of its fundamental features is the
uniqueness of the selfhood.
b. Social Identity: It refers to social-role performance that individuals subscribe
themselves or expected by others and/or membership of social categories
that individuals applied to themselves or imposed upon by others. One of its
fundamental features is its similarities with others members of the social
categories concerned.
Though these two levels of identity can analytically be differentiated, in reality they
are closely interconnected or even coherently integrated. For example, Anthony
Giddens has coined the concept of self-identity to depict such a phenomenon.
3. Theory of the self in symbolic interactionsim
a. The “looking-glass” self: Charles Cooley coined the concept in 1902 to indicate
the developmental process of the self as an interpersonal process. It is a
reflexive and glass-looking process consisting of
i. “the image of out appearance to the other person;
ii. “the imagination of his judgment of that appearance; and
iii. “some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification.” (Cooley, 1902, p.
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184; quoted in Broom, 1981, p. 98)
Accordingly, to Cooley the self is not some inborn attributes but social products
generated from interactions with other fellow humans. Furthermore, the self is
not a passive receiver of others’ judgments on oneself. It will interpret and
react to these judgments.
Finally, Cooley specifies that the others or the looking glasses, from which one
takes reference are not assigned with equal importance by the self. As a result,
some others are characterized as “significant others” (i.e. parents) while others
are simply “referent others” (i.e. ordinary friends)
b. Symbolic interactionist’s conception of the self
i. Built on Charles Cooley’s concept of the “looking-glass” self, George H.
Mead and Herbet Blumer, two founding father of the symbolic
interactionsim (a prominent theoretical perspective in sociology) specify
that the self is not a static structure but a dynamic process through which
attributes, meanings, judgments that others passed onto oneself will be
interpret and reinterpret. That is they “saw the self as process not a
structure.” (Blumer, 1969, p.62)
ii. “The process of a self provides the human being with a mechanism of
self-interaction. …Such self-interaction takes the form of making indications
to himself and meeting these indications by making further indications. The
human being can designate things to himself – his wants, his pains, his
goals, object around him, the presence of others, their actions, their
expected actions, or whatnot.” (Blumer, p. 62)
iii. “With the mechanism of self-interaction the human being ceases to be a
responding organism whose behavior is a product of what plays upon him
from the outside, the inside, or both. Instead, he acts toward his world,
interpreting what confronts him and organizing his action on the basis of
the interpretation.” (Blumer, p.63)
iv. The negotiated self: In the perspective of symbolic interactionsim,
individuals are perceived as “an active agent in the construction of his or
her own self-concept. The self that emerges is a negotiated self. …An
important goal in this (negotiating) process is the enhancement of
self-esteem.” (Brinkerhoff et al. 1991, p. 144)
c. The situated self: Another group of interactionists has adopted a more
structural approach (structural school) to the conception of the self.
i. These sociologists, such as McCall and Simons (1978) and Stryker (1968,
1980), emphasize the importance of the institutional structure in which
individuals are situated. It is suggested that the self emerged from this
situation will be conditioned by social expectations or even obligations
prescribed to the positions, in which the individual is assigned into.
ii. The concepts of role and role-identity:
- The concept of role refers to the performances expected of the occupant
of a given position or social status, such as the roles of a daughter, a wife,
a teacher or a HKSAR citizens.
- The concept of role identity signifies that a role occupant has internalized
the role expectations and performances prescribed by external social
institution to become part of her own self. It is exactly through this
process of internalization of the externalities of the social institution that
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an individual self is amalgamated with a social role and as a result
constituted a social identity.
iii. The concept of role set and role conflict:
- The concept of role set refers to the network of multiple roles that an
individual has to engage with at the same time or once at a time. For
example, a teacher may simultaneously be a daughter, a wife and a
mother.
- The expectations and performance of these multiple roles are most likely
to be in conflict. As a result, an individual may experience the inter-role
conflict. For example, in performing the role of a school teachers may in
conflict with the role of a mother and a wife. Furthermore, a role occupant
may also experience intra-role conflict as there may be discrepancies
among role expectations from different role partners of a role. For
example, a teacher may face conflicting expectations from her students,
fellow teachers and school head.
iv. Identity hierarchy: Confronted with inter-role conflict, an individual's
identities have to set priority with these competing role identities. Hence,
the concept of identity hierarchy refers to the resolution that an individual
has to sort out in situation of inter-role conflict.
4. Theory of categorization and social identity
a. Apart from interactionalist perspective of analyzing how an individuals
internalizes role expectations and performances into their selves and
constitutes her role-based identity, Henri Tajfel and his followers most notably
John C. Turner look at formation of group identity formation as a social process
of categorization.
b. This tradition of identity study begins with the concept of categorization. It
refers to “the cognitive process that allow human to streamline perception by
separately grouping like and unlike stimuli. Tajfel demonstrated that people
categorize social as well as nonsocial stimuli and that people use social
categories to identify themselves and others.” (Thoits and Virshup, 1997; p.
114) Tajfel illustrate the concept with research focusing on race, ethnicity, class,
and nationality and empirical examples of back and white, Jews, Pakistanis,
and French- and English speaking Canadian.
c. Accordingly, Tajfel defines social identity as “that part of an individual’s self
which derives from his knowledge of his members of a group (or groups)
together with the value and emotional significance attached to that
membership.” (Tajfel, 1981, quoted in Thoits and Virshup, 1997; p. 116)
d. Turner also defines “social identity as “self-categories that define the individual
in terms of his or her shared similarities with members of certain social
categories in contrast to other social categories.” (Turner et al, 1987, quoted in
Thoits and Virshup, 1997; p. 117)
e. For Turner, social identities are in-group versus out-group cateorizations. It
spawns out of the distinction between the we-group and the they-group.
f. This perspective has elevated the identity study from the individual level of role
identity to the collective level of identity based on ethnicity, nationality, social
class, and other social groupings. As a result, identity theory can apply to
analyze macroscopic phenomena such as racial prejudice and discrimination,
conflict between ethnic and national groupings, ethnocentrism, etc.
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B. Theories of Identity in Late-Modernity
1. Anthony Giddens’ conception of self-identity
a. Giddens defines “self as reflexively understood by the person in terms of her or
his biography.” (Giddens’ 1991, p. 53)
b. Identity, according to Giddens, indicates a person’s sense of “continuity across
time and space.” (ibid)
c. Self-identity, therefore, can be defined as a sense of “continuity as interpreted
reflexively by the agent.” (ibid) More specifically, a person with a reasonably
stable sense of self-identity is, therefore, the one with “the capacity to keep a
particular narrative going. The individual’s biography, if she is to maintain
regular interaction with others in the day-to-day world, cannot be wholly fictive.
It must continually integrate events which occur in the external world, and sort
them out into ongoing ‘story’ about the self.” (Giddens, 1991, p. 54) In short,
self-identity can be discerned as coherent and continuous narrative one
imputed to oneself.
d. Constituents of self-identity: A stable self-identity, i.e. coherent and continuous
self narrative, would compose the following attributes
i. Ontological security: “A stable sense of self-identity presupposes the …
elements of ontological security - an acceptance of the things and of
others.” (ibid) The sense of ontological security implies that a person has to
extend beyond self-reflexion and connects to her or his environments, both
physical and social. In turn, it will generate both sense of trust and bondage
with the physical and social environments.
ii. Trust: Trust can be construed as the confidences and expectations that a
person invested on particular relationships with social and physical
environments. It is generally evolved from the positive feedbacks obtained
by the person in the particular relationships.
iii. Bondage: As the positive feedback generated from a relationship with a
human aggregate accumulated, the person involved will develop strong
sense of belonging to it and in turn constitute a social bondage. As a result,
a “social identity” develops.
2. Ulrich Beck’s Theory of Individualization in Risk Society
a. The process of individualization
i. “Modernization does not just lead to the formation of a centalized state
power, to concentrations of capital and to an ever more tightly woven web of
division of labor and market relationship, to mobility and mass consumption,
and so on. It also leads …to a triple ‘individualization’: disembedding,
removal from historically prescribed social forms and commitments in the
sense of traditional contexts of dominance and support (the ‘liberating
dimension’); the loss of traditional security with respect to practical
knowledge, faith and guiding norms (the ‘disenchantment dimension’);
and …re-embedding, a new type of social commitment (the ‘control’ or
‘reintegration dimension’). (Beck, 1992, p. 128)
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Life
Situation
(objectivity)
Consciousness/
Identity
(subjectivity)
Liberation (Disembedment)
Loss of Stability
Reintegration (Re-embedment)
ii. Beck’s definition of individualization: “‘Individualization’ means, first, the
disembedding and, second, the ‘re-embedding’ of industrial society ways of
life by new ones, in which the individuals must produce, stage and cobble
together their biographies themselves. Thus the name ‘individualization’,
disembedding and re-embedding …do not occur by chance, nor individually,
nor voluntarily, nor through diverse types of historical conditions, but rather all
at once and under the general conditions of the welfare in developed
industrial labour society, as they have developed since the 1960s in many
Western industrial countries.” (Beck, 1994, p.13)
iii. Zygmunt Bauman’s definition of individualization: “’Individualization’ consists
of transforming human ‘identity’ from a ‘given’ into a task and changing the
actors with the responsibility for performing that task and for the
consequences (also the side-effects) of their performance. ….Human being
are no more ‘born into’ their identities. … Needing to become what one is is
the feature of modern living - and of this living alone. …Modernity replaces the
heteronomic determination of social standing with compulsive and obligatory
self-determination.” (Bauman, 2000, p. 31-2)
iv. Institutionalized ‘beds’ - identity bases - for the re-embedment of modern
individuals
- ‘Beds’ in capital market, e.g. occupations, professions, social-class
positions, etc.
- ‘Beds’ in institution of marriage and family, husband, wife, father, mother,
etc.
- ‘Beds’ in modern political arenas, e.g. citizens, members of new social
movements, such as environmentalists, feminist, anti-gloabizationists, etc.
b. Individualization in Information Age
i. “What distinguished the ‘individualization’ of yore from the form it has taken
in ‘risk society’ …. No ‘beds’ are furnished for ‘re-embedding’, and such beds
as might be postulated and pursued prove fragile and often vanish before
the work of ‘re-embeddment’ is complete. There are rather ‘musical chairs’ of
various size and style as well as of changing numbers and positions, which
prompt men and women to be constantly on the move and promise no
‘fulfilment’, no rest and no satisfaction of ‘arriving’, of rearching the final
destination, where one can disarm, relax and stop worrying.” (Bauman, 2000,
p. 33-34)
ii. The rise of networked individualism and cyber-balkanization
“Networked individualism is a social pattern, not a collection of isolated
individuals. Rather, individuals build their networks, on-line and off-line, on
the basis of their interests, values, affinities, and projects.” (Castells, 2001, p.
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131)
D. Interpersonal Relationship in Modern Society:
1. Institutional context of interpersonal relationship: We are now living in well
developed societies; hence most our relationships with other humans take place in
conventionally established or even institutionalized social contexts, such as school,
family, peer groups, market, government, etc.
2. Definition of situation: Even in situations where we encounter strangers in a
shopping mall, inside the elevators, in a bus or a carriage of the subway, or even
in a back alley. There are conventional patterns of interaction to be observed.
Hence, definition of situation is the initiating concept in the sociological analysis of
interpersonal relationship. That is, once the situation of the human encounter has
been defined in conventional terms, such as a lesson, a family gathering, a party
with peers, a date, a international convention, or a back-ally encounter with
stranger; the relationship at point and its entailed interactions can then be sorted
out in common-sense terms.
3. Typification, status and role:
a. The concept typification refers to the deliberate act of assigning typical way of
behaving or acting to our counterpart in a human interaction. This assignment
of types and categories to partners in a social interaction has to be reciprocal
acts, that is, it is a two-way typification initiated simultaneously from both side
of a relationship. Furthermore, there must be acceptable commonality between
the two typifications, otherwise the social interaction will be in disarray or can
never get started.
b. The concept of status and role:
- The concept of status refers to a socially defined position that a person
hold. such as teacher, students, father, son, Chinese citizens, shareholder,
etc.
- The concept of role refers to performance expected of occupant of a
particular status.
- Accordingly, both status and role can be understood as the outcomes of
typification in a social interaction. Once we have assigned a typical status
and role expectation to our partner in a social encounter, the subsequent
interactions can the be carried out in in socially well-defined manners.
4. Types of interpersonal relationships
In sociology, social relationships are commonly differentiated into two types
a. Primary relationship: It refers to the interpersonal relationship generated in
what Charles Cooley called groups, such as family, peer group, collegial group,
etc. It bears features as follows
i. It has face to face interaction.
ii. It involves unspecialized relationship, i.e. responding the whole person
rather than some categories or stereotype.
iii. It is relatively permanent.
v. It involves intimate and affective ties and invokes strong sense of
belonging.
b. Secondary relationship: It refers to social relationship established in formal
organization or what Max Weber call bureaucracy, such as university,
corporation, governmental department, etc. It has attributes as follows
i. It has formal interaction.
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ii. It involve segmented and impersonal relationship.
iii. It is relatively transient and short-lived.
vi. It involve instrumental ties and invoke formal membership defined in terms
contractual rights and obligations.
c. Pure relationship: Recently, Anthony Giddens coins the concept “pure
relationship” to signify the kind of human relationship permeating in the late
modern age
i. By pure relationship, according to Giddens, it is social relationship build
“purely” on the relationships itself. It differs from traditional relationships
which are based on institutional bondages, such as parent-child
relationships, or based on institutional restraints, such as marriage and
business contracts. Instead, pure relationship “is not anchored in external
conditions of social or economic life - it is …free-floating. ….The pure
relationship is sought only for what the relationship can bring to the
partners involved. …(It) is reflexively organized, in open fashion, and on a
continuous basis” (Giddens, 1991, p. 89-91)
ii. Pure relationships are by definition “double edged”.
- They provide reflexive or even emancipatory chances for reconstituting
traditional social relationship. They offer opportunity for the development
of trust based on voluntary commitments and an intensified intimacy.” (p.
186)
- Yet pure relationship …create enormous burdens for the integrity of the
self. In so far as a relationship lacks external referents, it is morally
mobilized only thorough ‘authenticity. …Shorn of external moral criteria,
the pure relationship is vulnerable as a source of security at fateful
moments and at other major life transitions.” (p. 186-7)
Living the context of pure relationship, the story of the self-identity can no
longer be told in a continuous and coherent manner. In other words, the
self-identity experiences sense of discontinuity and fragementation, i.e.
ontological insecurity and extistential anxiety in Giddens’ terms.
E. Growing up in the Information Age
1. The Hurried Child (Elkind, 1981) and Child without Childhood (Winn, 1984)
a. By simplifying the access to information through TV and then PC and Internet,
it opens children to experiences that were once reserved for adults, e.g. sex
and violence
b. By blurring the boundary between adults and children and revealing the
secrecy of adults in electronic media, children are less deferential to adults’
authority and they become less likely to trust or respect simply because they
are adults
c. “Growing up too fast too soon.” (Elkind, 1981)
“Growing up too fast in the world of sex and drug.” (Winn, 1984)
2. Disappearance of Childhood:
a. From literacy of printed materials to literacy of TV and then IT, the closure of
adult world erodes and evaporates as the disclosure media of TV and then PC
rise to dominance
b. These result in the exposure of the “backstage” of adulthood in front of screens
of TV and then PC (Meyrowitz, 1985) and the disappearance of children
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(Postman, 1983)
c. Exposure of children to mass media (Sanders, 1995) and “unrestricted
knowledge about things once kept secret from nonadults” (Steinberg and
Kinchloe, 1997) have caused the death of childhood and the loss of the literal
selves of children
d. The screenagers embrace discontinuity, turbulence and complexity. They have
the natural adaptive skills that enable them to deal with the problem pf
postmodernity. (Rushkoff, 1996)
3. The consuming children (Kenway and Bullen, 2001)
a. Young consumers in late capitalism: Fetishism, hedonism, ephemerality,
immediate-gratification, and low threshold for boredom
b. From passive advertisement receivers from TV screen to active consumption
information seekers from PC screen
c. Great divide among consuming children in information age
3. The coming of the Net Generation (Tapscott, 1998) and the screenagers (Rushkoff,
1996)
a. The Net Generation “have new powerful tools for inquiry, analysis,
self-expression, influence, and play. They have unprecedented mobility. They
are shrinking the planet in ways their parent could never imagine. Unlike
television which was done to them, they are the actors in the digital world.”
(Tapscott, 1998, P.3)
b. The psychological complex of the N-Generation
i. Tolerance and acceptance of diversity: “On the Internet, nobody knows
you’re a dog.” (p. 86)
ii. A curious generation: The interactive world of the Internet elicits intensely
heightened curiosity.
iii. Assertiveness and self-reliance: “They begin to develop self-reliance at an
early age: they can find what they need quickly, easily, and honestly” (p.87)
in the Internet.
iv. A contrarian generation: “Because they have master the tools to question,
challenge, and disagree, these kids are becoming a generation of critical
thinkers” (p. 88) and not easily submitted to authority at face value.
v. A generation of high self-esteem: They acquire the capacities to act on the
environment and to mastery in the computer-mediated working
environment at early age. They enhance their self certainty. They also learn
to establish their identity through a much enlarged social world through the
Internet.
vi. Generation of multiple self and virtual self
v. A generation of intelligent / multi-intelligent: “Jean Piaget… argues that
intelligence develops in all children through the continually shifting balance
between the assimilation of new information into existing cognitive structure
and the changing accommodation of those structures themselves to
incorporate the new information.” Internet and other computer-mediated
environments provide ample opportunities of the kind.
vi. A generation of stronger spatial orientation
vii. A generation of divergent and multi-media thinking
c. The social complex of the N-generation:
i. The question of the social skills of the N-generation
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ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
The question of the attention span of the N-generation
The question of the predisposition to cruelty
A generation of vanity
The question of stressfulness of the N-generation
Dialectic Situations of the Modern Self
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Scientific-technological
Reasoning Being
Massive-Destructive
Reasoning Being
Liberal-Democratic
Reasoning Being
Totalitarian-Managerial
Reasoning Being
Creative-Expressive
Reasoning Being
Cultural Commodity
Producers of Salability
Psychoanalysis
Conception of Id
Psychoanalysis
Conception of Superego
Ascribed-heteronomous
Self
Achieved-autonomous
Self
Situated-conforming
Role Performers
Articulated-Constructive
Role Performers
Dependent-Submissive
Feminine Role in Traditional
Family Institution
Independent-Achieving
Feminine Role in Modern
Family Institution
Compliant Subject under
Authoritarian State
Autonomous Citizens in
Liberal-democratic State
Ascribed Tenant-Farmers &
Craftsmen in Feudal Society
Free Laborer in
Capitalist-industrial society
Locally-embedded Being in
Industrial-National society
Globally Mobil Being in
Informational-Global Society
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