***
"The theory of equilibration asserts that a central tendency in interpersonal relations is toward a balanced system in which the interpersonal affinities, perceptions, ideas, and attitudes held by members of a system toward one another and toward impersonal objects are valued in consistent patterns. Take a simple dyad made up of Person and Other. A balanced system results when Person and Other feel and react to objects in ways that correspond to their attachment to each other." (p. 596)It is clear that if one of the parties in this "Person and Other" dyad is me and the other is the mission, there was a great lack of equilibration in our relationship. Here are some issues in which our views differed (views on the left represent the mission, and views on the right represent me):
- philosophy (pragmatism vs. Christian idealism)
- political persuasion (staunch conservative views vs. relative apolitical concerns)
- view of communism (probable red scare mentality vs. relatively unemotional disagreement with it)
- belief about security (virtually anything is admissible vs. security limited by Scriptural guidelines)
- emotional attachment to security (obsession vs. rational precautions)
- ministry boundaries (limited by organizational mission statement vs. limited by Scripture)
- Church and State relations (church-state entanglement admissible vs. church-state entanglement unscriptural)
- etc.
Also, some of these disagreements, as I've stated them here, indicate a different view of Scripture - either differing interpretations of it and/or differing understandings regarding the role it should play in these kinds of issues. This view of Scripture would have had to have been, I think, addressed for any satisfactory, unforced resolution of our differences to occur. The other major overriding issue was the place of emotions as guiding criterion.
***
This next lengthy discussion, in the same sub-section of the book chapter, describes the theory of social certitude in relation to group interactions. In a nutshell, what this theory says is that every individual has a social standing in the broader society based on that society's values. An organizational member has social certitude if his/her standing in the broader society is mirrored by his/her position in the organization. Thus, a person with relatively low social status but higher position in the organization will have less social certitude than would a person with a better matched social status and organizational position. A decrease in social certitude will result in increased role ambiguity within the organization. Then the author quotes Zaleznik, Christensen, & Roethlisberger (1958, pp. 355-361) regarding 4 implications for interpersional relations in organizations. I am just going to quote one of those implications here:
"The less status congruent an individual is (i.e., in a condition of ambiguity), the less certain and more anxious he will be of his standing and position in the eyes of others. This condition of anxiety may be relieved (a) by infrequent interactions, (b) by restricting activities to more structural social relationships in which the ambiguity is accepted, (c) by excelling in technical performance where skill, competence, and knowledge are important, (d) by the expression of more liberal social attitudes, and (e) by the assertion of the ideals over the norms of behavior as to what the determinants of behavior should be." (p. 599)There is a lot to say about this, so this might be a longish comment.
First of all, I think I need to start with figuring out where I was in terms of "social certitude." In the broader society (of the USA) I was approximately on par with other members of the organization, so I don't think there was any great issue there. However, I think that it is both helpful and relevant to narrow the field a bit to consider my standing in the conservative Evangelical community. The one thing I had going against me here was that I was raised in a church that differed somewhat theologically from the mainstream conservative Evangelical church or denomination, because not only was it dispensational, but it took a mid-Acts position (regarding when the Church started and the dispensation of Law ended). As such, my church background was rather on the fringes of conservative Evangelical Christianity, which affected my social standing in the broader context of conservative Evangelical Christianity (in the USA). I think it affected my standing in at least a couple of ways. First of all, it put me in a minority theological position. Secondly, it resulted in me being less socially connected among groups the mission commonly associated with, including its member missions. Generally speaking, the theological issue would only have come up if I mentioned it or if a direct conflict occurred regarding a doctrinal issue, such as water baptism. I don't remember this ever happening, so it should have been a non-issue. We're left, then, with the social interconnectedness factor, and I think this could well have impacted my standing in the mission. The possible countering factor would have been where I went to Bible school which was well within the mainstream of conservative Evangelical Christianity, but this wasn't enough to make up the difference, because it didn't result in me having a Th.M. (the Bible school didn't offer that degree yet when I was there). Because of the theological differences and the fact that my supporters were virtually all from the same church background as I was raised in, my supporters, including supporting churches, were not motivated to develop interactions with the mission apart from their support of me. So these things all pointed to my having somewhat less social status among conservative Evangelical Christianity and the mission, lacking information to the contrary, didn't consider my abilities and standing developed and used within my home church context.
The other issue, however, is my educational background, which would in some contexts provide me with a certain amount of professional credibility. But this background did not have that affect in the Vienna mission, despite my sense that my background was incredibly relevant to the mission's work.
So it would seem that I experienced a great lack of social certitude at the mission, wherein my position never coincided with my knowledge, skills, education and experience, despite my education and social standing being otherwise similar to others' at the mission. That being said, however, I've already discussed elsewhere how my European Studies background did differ from others' educational background at the mission.
Since I had this lack of social certitude, then, it seems appropriate to consider my possible responses as provided in this text. The numbering corresponds to those in the above quoted text.
(a) I don't think I lessened my interactions with the group; to the contrary, I would say if anything the mission eventually limited its interactions with me.
(b) I also don't think I restricted my activities to more structured social relationships with mission members, which is evident by my social overtures, wherein I took initiative to invite people over, for example.
(c) It would have been difficult for me to excel in technical skill, because this was a moving target since I was moved around so much. And in any case, I don't remember making any concerted effort to excel any more than I would have with or without social certitude.
(d) It was only much later that I developed more social attitudes - about 5 years after leaving the mission when I started trying to make sense of my life such as what led to my having these articles I'm commenting on here. I think my friend in Minneapolis sort of got me started in thinking along these lines, but I gave it my own twists and we would disagree on some significant issues.
(e) I never was the "butt of jokes" that I can remember; I don't think the mission did that kind of thing in general, which does seem fitting for a Christian organization. Nevertheless, I think that this "mixture of respect and disdain" can be viewed as coping mechanisms and it's highly likely that I did use other coping mechanisms, if not this one in particular. I think this deserves more thought. I'll go through a list of coping mechanisms to see which ones I might or might not have used (and why or why not, how others might have viewed my actions, etc.)
- Acting out: not coping - giving in to the pressure to misbehave. I didn't do this, and if I had it would have been caught and dealt with right away.
- Aim inhibition: lowering sights to what seems more achievable. I might have done this, at least for the duration of my time with the mission, but not beyond that, which is part of why I couldn't have stayed with the mission and why I went on to get my Master's degree after leaving the mission.
- Altruism: Helping others to help self. I don't think I did this, that is, I didn't become any more altruistic than I otherwise normally was. This might have been something the mission would have wanted, though, as evidence of the individual putting the mission and its members above personal interest which would have been more of a security risk.
- Attack: trying to beat down that which is threatening you. I didn't do that at least partly because I was too scared to do so. It's possible that after I left the mission I had some of this. I don't think I'm doing it now, however, and I am trying to avoid things like this.
- Avoidance: mentally or physically avoiding something that causes distress. Eventually I did this in caving in to the mission's demands to have less contact with Austrians and attend the English-speaking church. But for about 18 months I was able to get by without resorting to this.
- Compartmentalization: separating conflicting thoughts into separated compartments. I think for the most part everything was so confusing that it was hard to do this, but this was probably part of my coping strategy for dealing with how the mission treated me starting about the 5th month of my tenure with it. That is, I think I was able to find enough I could agree to with the mission to allow me to function at a certain level within it, so I compartmentalized things that way - what I could agree with and what I couldn't go along with. Doing this helped with the horrendously stressful dissonance I was experiencing.
- Compensation: making up for a weakness in one area by gain [sic] strength in another. I don't think I did this. The main thing I would have been weak in is not having a Th.M., which couldn't have been compensated for as far as I know, other than actually getting the degree. In any case, my weakness was, as far as I know, noncompliance rather than skill or knowledge.
- Conversion: subconscious conversion of stress into physical symptoms. I didn't do this. (See "somatization.")
- Denial: refusing to acknowledge that an event has occurred. My denial was expressed in my irrational (I now believe) hope that the mission would ever want to hear me out as an equal. It was hard for me to believe that they didn't value my knowledge and skills and actually believed the things they seemed to believe (resulting in their means of operation).
- Displacement: shifting of intended action to a safer target. I don't know that I did this. At least I can't recall right now having done this.
- Dissociation: separating oneself from parts of your life. I don't think I did this, but I expect that the other missionaries had to have done this in order to accept the mission's normative structure and beliefs.
- Emotionality: Outbursts and extreme emotion. I didn't do this, although I think the mission would like for me to have done it, as it would have put me in a vulnerable position and provided a hook for them to catch me with.
- Fantasy: escaping reality into a world of possibility. I don't think I did this, although some might say that my belief structure was unrealistic and thus fantasy-like.
- Help-rejecting complaining: Ask for help then reject it. I don't ever remember rejecting help from the mission or complaining.
- Idealization: playing up the good points and ignoring limitations of things desired. I most likely did this in ignoring the risks involved in the type of ministry I wanted for myself.
- Identification: copying others to take on their characteristics. I did this, identifying with the other secretaries, to the extent I could without giving up my values and interest.
- Intellectualization: avoiding emotion by focusing on facts and logic. I probably did this as a way to get a handle on what was happening to me and what I was seeing in the mission in general, and I expect that this exercise (this blog) is a good example of my doing this.
- Introjection: Bringing things from the outer world into the inner world. I don't think I did this.
- Passive aggression: avoiding refusal by passive avoidance. I definitely did this and I think this has been something I've tended to do since my Vienna mission experience as well. Part of the reason was my fear of the mission, but I was also afraid of how my career was going to be affected by my experiences with the mission. Taking a stance other than passive aggression would mean either having to unilaterally capitulate or leave the mission.
- Performing rituals: Patterns that delay. I don't think I did this. This might be what elsewhere has been called "overconformity" which, as I've said before, would have been seen as nonconformity, maybe as a kind of parody of true conformity.
- Post-traumatic growth: Using the energy of trauma for good. I think I did this to a certain degree after leaving the mission, but how successful or healthy the "growth" was may well have been a mixed bag (i.e., some aspects of the "growth" quite healthy and others less so). I think that the mission might have intended this in how they treated me the 5th month of my tenure with them, and if I did have growth from that traumatic experience it wasn't the kind of growth they would have wanted, because it didn't lead to my internalization of their normative structure and beliefs.
- Projection: seeing your own unwanted feelings in other people. I don't think I did this.
- Provocation: Get others to act so you can retaliate. I didn't do this.
- Rationalization: creating logical reasons for bad behavior. I may have done this in as much as I had to convince myself that I was on solid ground if I was going to risk my profession to withstand the mission's apparent efforts to change me. So, for example, if the real reason I didn't go along with the mission was that I resented someone forcing their views on me, then I might have rationalized my behavior on moral and scriptural grounds. It might be foolhardy of me to out-of-hand deny such rationalization, but I don't think I did use this coping mechanism, because I did actually have strongly held and though-out convictions, knowledge and experience that the mission offended.
- Reaction Formation: avoiding something by taking a polar opposite position. I might have to think about this one a bit, although I don't think I did it. However, there may be some particular issue or the other regarding which I did use this coping mechanism. If I think of something later along these lines I'll come back and note it here.
- Regression: returning to a child state to avoid problems. I don't think I'd ever thought of this before, but I might have done this when, during my temporary return to the USA I ended out focusing on complaints against my parents, rather than addressing the real issues which would have put me in an even worse position than I was (who would have believed my complaints about the mission?). However, I don't think I ever really believed that my childhood experiences were the main issue, although I think I did believe that they weren't completely irrelevant, either though.
- Repression: subconsciously hiding uncomfortable thoughts. I probably did this and pretty much had to do it to continue with the mission without accepting their ways (or at least the ways I had serious issue with). After I left the mission I almost immediately stopped the repression, as is evident from my journal from that year.
- Self-harming: physically damaging the body. I did not do this.
- Somatization: psychological problems turned into physical symptoms. I did experience this, as my asthma became worse with the stress. I also took up running, a physical stress reliever. Also, it was during my time with the Vienna mission that I first began getting occasional stress-related migraine headaches.
- Sublimation: channeling psychic energy into acceptable activities. I don't think I did this. The closest thing I can think of would be taking up jogging as a stress release. If this is considered sublimation, then I did do it.
- Substitution: Replacing one thing with another. The mission's not providing me an outlet for my desire for personal ministry resulted in me substituting such a ministry with it for a ministry on the side external to the mission.
- Suppression: consciously holding back unwanted urges. I undoubtedly suppressed my great anger at the mission and my great sense of injustice as to how I was treated as well as my conviction that they were wrong (in the sense of unscriptural) in some of their ways and apparent beliefs, values and norms.
- Symbolization: turning unwanted thoughts into metaphoric symbols. I don't think I did this, mainly because I don't remember having "unwanted thoughts".
- Trivializing: Making small what is really something big. I don't think I did this because my valuation of issues like how my experiences with the mission would affect my career. If I had trivialized some of these kinds of things I might not have experienced the level of dissonance I did.
- Undoing: actions that psychologically 'undo' wrongdoings for the wrongdoer. I didn't do this because I never thought I had done anything to wrong the mission in any way, other than just not conforming, which I felt I was justified in doing because the issues in which I didn't conform in I disagreed with, and my opinion about these things has never changed.
There are a couple more interesting quotes in this sub-section, but I need to get on with my day, so I'll just have to finish it in the next post.
