Alienation: Its Meaning and Measurement Author(s): Dwight G. Dean Reviewed work(s): Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 26, No. 5 (Oct., 1961), pp. 753-758 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2090204 . Accessed: 22/02/2013 05:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Fri, 22 Feb 2013 05:48:02 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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Alienation: Its Meaning and MeasurementAuthor(s): Dwight G. DeanReviewed work(s):Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 26, No. 5 (Oct., 1961), pp. 753-758Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2090204 .
Accessed: 22/02/2013 05:48
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
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Unlike murder rates, those for suicide are increasing. This trend is historically re- lated to increasing literacy, urbanization, and a larger middle class. Higher status and moral commitment for these persons pre- clude murder; suicide emerges as a mani- festation of increasing numbers of persons in an insecure achieved status.
Whether trends, rural-urban areas, or characteristics of individual cases are com-
pared, there is basis for concluding that in- creasing participation in an achievement as opposed to an ascribed status system is a necessary precondition for increasing rates of specified forms of deviance. The rela- tionships, however, depend on the propor- tion of persons in the various status posi- tions of the population and the stresses and strains that are subjectively experienced. Conceptually, it appears that stresses of a status position induce varying orientations to society (subcultural norms as intervening variables) which in turn facilitate or inhibit certain types of deviance. Differential rates of homicide and suicide are the direct effects of variations in these normative orientations.
disputes where assailant or victim own land 35 and neither own 13 per cent vs. 12 and 14 per cent (N=84, 38 vs. 51, 21, combining "own" and "neither own" for Kandyan and Ceylon Tamil, x2=l3.12, 2 d.f., P<.05).
ALIENATION: ITS MEANING AND MEASUREMENT *
DWIGHT G. DEAN
Denison University
The concept of Alienation is considered here as having three major components: Powerless- ness, Normlessness and Social Isolation. Scales constructed to measure these inter-correlated from .41 to .67 (N=384). There is a low but statistically significant negative correlation between the three components of Alienation and occupational prestige, education, income, and rural background. There is a small positive correlation between Alienation and advancing age.
DELINATION OF THE CONCEPT
T HE concept of Alienation, rooted deeply in sociological tradition, has recently enjoyed a new popularity. Theorists
have suggested numerous possible correlates of Alienation, such as Apathy,' Authoritar- ianism,2 Conformity,3 Cynicism,4 Hoboism,5
Political Apathy,6 Political Hyperactivity,7 or Personalization in Politics,8 Prejudice,9 Privatization ,10 Psychosis,1" Regression 12
* Grateful acknowledgment is made for the en- couragement and guidance of Melvin Seeman, University of California, Los Angeles and to Raymond Sletto and Christen Jonassen of The Ohio State University. This is a revised version of a paper read before The Ohio Academy of Science, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, April 22, 1960.
1 Kenneth Keniston, "Alienation and the Decline of Utopia," The American Scholar, 29 (Spring, 1960), p. 164; Eric Kahler, The Tower and the Abyss, New York: Braziller, 1957.
2Theodor W. Adorno, et. al., The Authoritarian Personality, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950, p. 618.
3 Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom, New
York: Harper and Brothers, 1958, p. 185; Keniston, op. cit., p. 169.
4 Robert Merton, Mass Persuasion, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947, p. 143.
5 Morton Grodzins, The Loyal' and the Disloyal, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956.
6 Morris Rosenberg, "The Meaning of Politics in Mass Society," Public Opinion Quarterly, 15 (Spring, 1951), pp. 5-15.
7 David Riesman and Nathan Glazer, "Criteria for Political Apathy," in Studies in Leadership, edited by Alvin Ward Gouldner, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950, pp. 505-559.
8Adorno, op. cit., p. 618. 9 Ibid. 10 Ernst Kris and Nathan Leites, "Trends in
Twentieth Century Propaganda," in Reader in Public Opinion and Communication, edited by Bernard Berelson and Morris Janowitz, Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1950, p. 283.
11 E. Gartly Jaco, "The Social Isolation Hypoth-
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and Suicide.'3 Only recently have scientists attempted to develop scales to measure this phenomenon.'4 Numerous references to Al- ienation (or to similar concepts variously labeled) are, frequently, implicit rather than explicit. Sometimes the same writer includes several nuances of meaning. Seeman 1' has brought order out of this chaos with his five- fold classification: Powerlessness, Meaning- lessness, Normlessness, Isolation and Self- Estrangement.
The first element, Powerlessness, was sug- gested long ago by Hegel 16 and by Marx 17
in their discussions of the worker's "separa- tion" from effective control over his eco- nomic destiny; of his helplessness; of his being used for purposes other than his own. Weber 18 argued that the worker was only one case of the phenomena; for in the indus- trial society, the scientist, the civil servant, the professor is likewise "separated" from control over his work.
Parenthetically, the feeling of helplessness may have other sources besides the economic order of which Hegel, Marx, and Weber wrote. DeGrazia,19 for example, has argued that the child's gradual awakening to the limitations of his parents sends him in search
of a "ruler" who is "in charge of affairs," and who is favorably disposed toward the individual.
A succinct description of this element is provided by Kris and Leites: 20
Individuals in the mass societies of the twentieth century are to an ever-increasing extent involved in public affairs; it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore them. But "ordinary" individuals have ever less the feeling that they can understand or influence the very events upon which their life and happiness is known to depend.
What we consider the second component, Normlessness, is derived from Durkheim's concept of anomie. For, as Durkheim ob- served, sudden economic losses or gains re- sult in situations where previous scales can- not remain unchanged, the "calibration is turned . . . topsy-turvy . . . yet no new grad- uation can be quickly improvised." 21 De- Grazia,22 in searching for clues to Durk- heim's meaning, has noted:
The specific words and phrases in French that Durkheim repeatedly used-un per- petuel Jtat de mecontentement, tourments, deceptions repetees, inutilite, desorientee, in- quietude douloureuse, malaise, sterility, in- tolerable, desenchantement, douloureux-help us create the composite picture of anomie as it affects the individual. It becomes appar- ent that anomie as Durkheim conceived it in the subjective sense had three character- istics: a painful uneasiness or anxiety, a feeling of separation from group standards, a feeling of pointlessness or that no certain goals exist.
A perusal of the literature indicates that at least two rather distinct subtypes of Normlessness may be differentiated. The first subtype, Purposelessness, has been noted by MacIver,23 who has described anomy as "the absence of values that might give purpose or direction to life, the loss of intrinsic and so- cialized values, the insecurity of the hope- lessly disoriented."
An illustration of the obverse-i.e., a group whose activities bear striking testi-
esis and Schizophrenia," American Sociological Re- view, 19 (October, 1954), pp. 567-577.
12 Sebastian DeGrazia, The Political Community: A Study of Anomie, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948, esp. pp. 8-20 and 115-122.
13 See, for example, E. H. Powell, "Occupation, Status, and Suicide: Toward a Redefinition of Anomie," American Sociological Review, 23 (April, 1958), pp. 131-139.
14 See, for example, Allan H. Roberts and Milton Rokeach, "Anomie, Authoritarianism, and Prej- udice: A Replication," American Journal of Sociol- ogy, 61 (January, 1956), pp. 355-358; Gwynn Nettler, "A Measure of Alienation," American Sociological Review, 22 (December, 1957), pp. 670- 677; and Leo Srole, "Social Integration and Certain Corollaries: An Exploratory Study," American Sociological Review, 21 (December, 1956), pp. 709- 716.
15 Melvin Seeman, "On the Meaning of Aliena- tion," American Sociological Review, 24 (December, 1959), pp. 783-791.
16 Cited in Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolu- tion, New York: Oxford University Press, 1941, p. 34.
17 Marcuse, op. cit., p. 273. 18 Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From
Weber: Essays in Sociology, New York: Oxford University Press, 1946, p. 50.
19DeGrazia, op. cit., pp. 8-20 and pp. 115-122.
20 Ernst Kris and Nathan Leites, op. cit., p. 283. Italics are authors'.
21 Translation by DeGrazia, op. cit., p. 3. 22 Ibid. 23 Robert M. MacIver, The Ramparts We
Guard, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1950, pp. 84-87.
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mony to the efficacy of purpose-would be the physicians among the Polish Jews in the Ghetto during the uprising against the Nazis. When defeat became obvious, these men countered utter hopelessness and resignation by carrying on medical research on their starving compatriots until the very end.24 Bettelheim 25 has described his own reaction to the loss of standards that characterized the Nazi concentration camp in which he was imprisoned. He attributes his survival as a sane being to the fact that he had deter- mined ahead of time that he would preserve his personality by forcing his experiences to yield insights into behavior under extreme conditions. His orientation to research fur- nished a "norm" which held him steady while community and civil life all around him disintegrated. Wolff 26 has utilized some- what the same terms in explaining differen- tial morbidity and mortality among Amer- ican prisoners of war in Japan: "[man] is capable of enduring incredible burdens and taking cruel punishment when he has self- esteem, hope, purpose, and belief in his fellows."
The second subtype of Normlessness may be considered as Conflict of Norms. De- Grazia 27 has described at some length the contemporary conflict between the "Cooper- ative" and the "Competitive" Directives, and between the "Activist" and the "Quiet- ist" Directives. Karen Horney,28 in similar vein, has described the difficulties of a person who incorporates in his personality conflict- ing norms such as the standards of Christi- anity versus the success imperative, the stimulation toward a constantly-higher ma-
terial standard of living versus the practical denial of a high standard for many people, and the alleged freedom of the individual versus the factual limitations on his be- havior. Ruesch 29 and Petersen 30 have de- scribed the same idea in their discussions of social mobility. The studies so far under- taken 31 have, it seems to us, not adequately considered the possibility that Normlessness may have several facets.
A third component, Social Isolation, may also be traced to Durkheim's conception of anomie, which included "a feeling of separa- tion from the group or of isolation from group standards." 32 Jaco,33 writing on "The Social Isolation Hypothesis," has shown that residential areas with the highest schizo- phrenic rates are those characterized by anonymity, spatial mobility, a smaller per- centage of voting, low social participation, greater unemployment, fewer memberships in lodges and fraternal organizations, more job turnover, fewer visits with friends, etc. Halmos 34 related social mobility to psycho- neurosis and schizophrenia. Kohn and Clau- sen 35 found a relationship between social isolation (rejection by one's peers) and men- tal disease.
24 Martin Gumpert, "The Physicians of Warsaw," The American Scholar, 18 (Summer, 1949), pp. 285- 290. Reprinted in Joseph B. Gittler, Social Dynamics, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Com- pany, 1952, pp. 15-21.
25 Bruno Bettelheim, "Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations," Journal of Ab- normal and Social Psychology, 38 (October, 1943), pp. 417-452.
26 Harold G. Wolff, "A Scientific Report on What Hope Does for Man," Saturday Review, 40 (January 5, 1957), p. 45.
27 DeGrazia, op. cit., Chapter III, "Conflict Between Belief Systems," pp. 47-72.
28 Karen Horney, "Culture and Neurosis," in Sociological Analysis, edited by Logan Wilson and William L. Kolb, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1949, pp. 248-251.
29 Jurgen Ruesch, "Social Technique, Social Status, and Social Change in Illness," in Personality in Nature, Society, and Culture, edited by Clyde Kluckhohn and Henry A. Murray, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950, p. 125.
30 William Petersen, "Is America Still the Land of Opportunity?" Commentary, 16 (November, 1953), pp. 477-486.
31 We did not use Srole's scale of anomie for two reasons: (a) one of his five items related to the political realm, which was the dependent vari- able in our study (see footnote 38, below) and (b) our conception of anomie seems to have a different meaning. See T. C. Keedy and M. J. Vincent, "Anomie and Religious Orthodoxy," Sociology and Social Research, 43 (September-October, 1958), pp. 34-37; Wendell Bell, "Anomie, Social Isolation and the Class Structure," Sociometry, 20 (June, 1957), pp. 105-116; Dorothy L. Meier and Wendell Bell, "Anomia and the Achievement of Life Goals," American Sociological Review, 24 (April, 1959), pp. 189-202.
32 DeGrazia, op. cit., p. 3. 33 Jaco, op. cit., pp. 567-577. 34 Paul Halmos, Solitude and Privacy, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951. 35 Melvin L. Kohn and John A. Clausen, "Social
Isolation and Schizophrenia," American Sociological Review, 20 (June, 1955), pp. 265-273.
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In order to determine what empirical rela- tionships, if any, existed between the several components of Alienation, it was necessary to construct scales to measure each. A total of 139 items presumably measuring Aliena- tion (which had been gleaned from the lit- erature, over 70 interviews, or specially con- structed) were typed on 3 x 5 cards. Seven experts (instructors and assistants in the De- partment of Sociology at The Ohio State University) were requested to judge each statement as to its applicability or nonappli- cability, first, to the component of Powerless- ness (using a one-page description as the criterion). When this part of the task was finished, each expert received a second set of cards to judge, again, each of the 139 items as to whether each item specifically and only referred to Normlessness; then, finally, a third set of cards was presented for judging of items as they might relate to So- cial Isolation.36 For retention of an item, agreement on the part of at least five of the seven judges was required, with no judge placing the item in more than one category. Finally, the usual "DP" tests were applied.
Typical of the nine items in the final scale for Powerlessness were: 37
There is little or nothing I can do towards preventing a major "shooting" war.
We are just so many cogs in the ma- chinery of life.
Reliability of this sub-scale, tested by the "split-half" technique, was .78 (N=384) when corrected by the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula.
Typical of the six items in the Normless- ness scale, constructed simultaneously by the same method, were:
The end often justifies the means. I often wonder what the meaning of life
really is.
The reliability on this sub-scale, when cor- rected, was .73.
Typical of the nine items of the Social Iso- lation sub-scale were:
Sometimes I feel all alone in the world. One can always find friends if he shows
himself friendly.
The Social Isolation sub-scale had a "split- half" reliability of .84 when corrected for attenuation.
The three sub-scales were combined to make up the Alienation scale, which thus consisted of 24 items. The items from each of the sub-scales were rotated in order to minimize the possibility of halo effect. The total Alienation scale had a reliability of .78 when corrected.
It seemed desirable to determine whether Alienation may be considered a general syn- drome or whether the various components are somewhat discrete. The correlation co- efficients between the sub-scales were, as shown in Table 1, considerably above the .01
TABLE 1. INTER-CORRELATIONS AMONG THE ALIENA-
TION SCALE COMPONENTS (N=384)
Normless- Social Alienation Components: ness Isolation (Total)
level of significance. This suggests that it is quite feasible to consider the sub-scales as belonging to the same general concept. How- ever, there appears to be enough independ- ence among the sub-scales to warrant treat- ing them as independent variables.
It seemed advisable to investigate the re- lationship of our scales measuring Alienation and Adorno's "Authoritarianism" scale. A low inter-correlation would lead one to be- lieve that the scales we have developed do measure something other than Authoritarian- ism, and are not simply another way of scal- ing the same variable.
The correlation coefficients between the various components of Alienation and Ador- no's "F" scale (for a college sample pretest of 73 respondents) were as follows:
Powerlessness and Authoritarianism .37 Normlessness and Authoritarianism .33 Social Isolation and Authoritarianism .23 Alienation and Authoritarianism .26
36 This method adapted from John K. Hemphill and Charles M. Westie, "The Measurement of Group Dimensions," in The Language of Social Re- search, edited by Paul Lazarsfeld, et. al., Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1955, pp. 325ff.
37 A mimeographed copy of the scales, with scor- ing instructions, may be obtained free of charge from the author.
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* Significant at the .05 level of confidence. ** Significant at the .01 level of confidence.
The first two correlation coefficients are sig- nificant at the .05 level of confidence; the latter two are significant at the .01 level of confidence.
Hypotheses. Our hypotheses were: (1) There is a negative correlation between so- cial status (as measured by a modified ver- sion of the North-Hatt Occupational Pres- tige Scale, the amount of education attained, and income) and Alienation and its several components; (2) There is a positive correla- tion between advancing age and Alienation and its components; and (3) There is a neg- ative correlation between rural background and Alienation and its components.
The Sample. The data were collected in Columbus, Ohio, as part of the writer's dis- sertation on Alienation and Political Apathy, a part of which is reported elsewhere.38 Four of the nineteen wards in Columbus, Ohio, were selected on criteria related to voting in- cidence and socioeconomic variables. Within these four wards, precincts were selected by random sampling; and, within the precincts, individuals were selected by random sam- pling. Of 1108 individuals who presumably received our questionnaire, 433 or 38.8 per cent responded. Of these 433, we were able to use 384 in our analysis.39
Findings. Table 2 indicates that while the hypotheses were in most instances sustained at statistically significant levels, the correla- tion coefficients are uniformly of such a low magnitude that it would not be feasible to
predict the degree of Alienation from the score on any of the five social correlates measured:
It is of interest to note that, in general, with increased status in society, there is less of a feeling of Alienation. If we assume that older people in our culture have decreased status, the positive correlation that we found between age and Alienation would be ex- pected. In this, our findings parallel Bell's work.40
Discussion. The generally low order of correlations raises a number of theoretical considerations. To the extent that we may assume the validity of the Powerlessness, Normlessness and Social Isolation sub-scales, we did not find Alienation correlated with social status, age or community background to any noticeable extent. If we reject the hypotheses of a negative correlation between these social background factors and Aliena- tion, we ought to investigate further, since each of the sub-scales exhibited a normal curve of score distribution, with scores ex- tending almost the entire possible range. This would seem to indicate that these com- ponents and scales are not merely artifacts.
One explanation might be that Alienation is not a personality "trait," but a situation- relevant variable. It is plausible, for exam- ple, that an individual might have a high Alienation-Powerlessness score in regard to political activity, but a low one in regard to religion. For example, the "pre-millenni- alists" among Fundamentalists might be politically apathetic precisely because they believe that international crises cannot be solved by man, but that the world can only be "saved" by Divine intervention.
In regard to the Alienation-Normlessness component, it is interesting to note that Keedy,41 using Srole's scale, found anomie
38 Dwight G. Dean, "Alienation and Political Apathy," Social Forces, 38 (March, 1960), pp. 185- 189.
39 The merits of questionnaires versus inter- views cannot be discussed here. We decided, on the basis of preliminary interviews, to use the question- naire in the belief that respondents would more likely answer truthfully than when an interviewer was confronting them. See Claire Selltiz, et. al., Research Methods in Social Relations, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1959, pp. 240ff.
40 Bell, op. cit., pp. 105-116. 41 Keedy, op. cit., pp. 34-37.
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related to religious orthodoxy among Prot- estants. Bell,42 using the same scale but con- trolling for socio-economic status, found no correlation between anomie and being Prot- estant, Catholic, or Jewish; nor with fre- quency of attendance at church. It may be speculated that a Normlessness scale clearly differentiating the Purposelessness and Con- flict of Directives sub-types might prove more fruitful.
Further investigations should be made in regard to the syndrome of Alienation. In this connection, it may be noted that Srole's scale could not be retained in our Alienation scales because his items failed to meet our judging and item analysis criteria. His anomie scale, however, correlated .31 with our Normless- ness sub-scale on a college pretest sample of 73. The fact that Nettler's scale 43 also cor- related with Srole's scale at about the same magnitude seems to indicate that "estrange- ment from society" may be empirically sep- arable from the other components.
Finally, while most of the literature and our particular research have conceptualized Alienation as a phenomenon of Society, others,44 have made the local community or associational activities the referent. Perhaps the individual's identification with, or Alien- ation from, Society, is experienced with ref- erence to primary groups or voluntary associations.
It may very well be that Alienation is not a unitary phenomenon, but a syndrome. In this respect, Davids' conceptualization of eight components seems challenging.45 In any case, certainly much more research is required before the Alienation concept can be empirically validated.
42 Bell, op. cit., pp. 105-116. 43 Gwynn Nettler, "A Measure of Alienation,"
American Sociological Review, 22 (December, 1957), pp. 670-677.
44 John P. Clark, "Measuring Alienation Within A Social System," American Sociological Review, 24 (December, 1959), pp. 849-852; Wayne E. Thompson and John E. Horton, "Political Aliena- tion as a Force in Political Action," Social Forces, 38 (March, 1960), pp. 190-195.
45 Anthony Davids, "Alienation, Social Appercep- tion, and Ego Structure," Journal of Consulting Psychology, 19 (February, 1955), pp. 21-27 and "Generality and Consistency of Relations Between the Alienation Syndrome and Cognitive Processes," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51 (July, 1955), pp. 61-67.
ALIENATION AND INTEGRATION OF STUDENT INTELLECTUALS *
JAN HAJDA
The Johns Hopkins University
Alienation from and integration into the larger society are complementary phenomena stem- ming from many sources. Both of them are general aspects of social and cultural participation characterizing intellectuals as well as non-intellectuals. These contentions are examined in a study of American-born graduate students. Graduate students are classified into 'four cat- egories: alienated intellectuals, integrated intellectuals, Alienated non-intellectuals, and integrated non-intellectuals. Each category has a somewhat different social profile, different set of ties to non-academic collectivities and the academic community, different value orienta- tions. The analysis suggests that intellectuals' feeling of alienation is not inevitable and that the variation in the intensity of alienation can be explained by the kind of ties the student intellectual establishes with non-academic people and by their reaction to his endeavors.
SOURCES OF ALIENATION AND INTEGRATION
A LIENATION is an individual's feeling of uneasiness or discomfort which re- flects his exclusion or self-exclusion
from social and cultural participation. It
is an expression of non-belonging or non- sharing, an uneasy awareness or perception
* This article is the revised version of a paper read at the Fifty-fourth Annual Meeting of the
American Sociological Society, Chicago, September, 1959.
I would like to acknowledge my debt to Professor Edward A. Shils of the Committee on Social Thought and Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, and Professor James S. Coleman of the
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