I'm continuing from the previous discussion...
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"The main note we should sound in concluding this consideration of equilibration theories in the understanding of interpersonal relations is that imbalances or ambiguities always exist and are of many kinds. There are cognitive imbalances (where two pieces of contradictory information are learned about the same object), affective imbalances (where two persons who like each other have different feelings toward an object relevant to their relationship), perceptual imbalances (where behavior is perceived in different ways to individuals in a close affective tie)." (p. 600; emphasis added)Before I begin in on this, I think it is appropriate to remind the reader that these interactions with the Vienna mission took place in a context in which deception was a valued skill, and there is a great likelihood that both the mission and I ended out deceiving each other in one way or another. Thus, in this type of situation, it will be difficult to determine true imbalances with any certainty, so it would probably be prudent to consider my discussion here as coming only from my perspective and perhaps being more limited in that way that in a lot of other circumstances where deception might not have played such a major role.
From my perspective, I think that there were cognitive imbalances in that my European Studies background was somewhat unique. That is, I had professional training explicitly in that field that others didn't have. Language skill would have played a part in that, but there were others who knew German, if not Russian or French, on staff. Also, while most of the other staff had more theological background, I had enough similar background that I think I understood what I needed to considering my position in the organization. So that difference was mainly a matter of my not having the academic degree; I did have 2 years of Bible school background and was also raised in a church where Bible study was highly regarded and practiced.
The affective imbalances came to play in such areas as attitudes about communism, where I took a more cognitive approach and the mission seemed to take more of an affective one towards communism. That is, I disagreed with it in principle, but they seemed to fear it more. I think that this was also affected by my attitude towards the Bible which leaned more towards being willing to suffer for sticking with what I believed it said, whereas the mission seemed more concerned with the avoidance of suffering over strict adherence to Scripture. I think this is affective in as much as it involves valuation of Scripture and attitude towards suffering.
There seemed to be perceptual differences also between me and the mission. For example, the mission viewed my lack of total submission to them as an act of deviance, whereas I viewed it as my biblical right and even duty to be able to determine for myself if something is Scriptural or not. This kind of thinking was anathema in the mission, however, and the mission would have responded to it, if it had known I was doing it, by correcting my understanding in a way that justified their own actions. Conversely, I viewed certain of the mission's demands on me and their norms as being unbiblical (as well as unjustified under the circumstances), whereas they would undoubtedly have seem them as necessary if not also biblical, or at least permissible within Scriptural mandates.
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"But we should also stress that equilibration as a motivational force - tending to produce behavior to secure a balanced state - does not act with equal strength on all individuals or in all interpersonal settings. Imbalances are stressful in varying degrees. Among groups of workers in which social conditioning is in the lower socio-economic classes, tolerance for ambiguity or imbalance is extremely low. Among groups whose setting resembles a closed system (primitive societies are clear examples, but there are numerous literature societies that could serve equally well), the need for balanced states is also strong. Any culture of an authoritarian kind produces individuals who have little capacity to deal with the anxiety attendant upon imbalanced states." (p. 600).As I've mentioned elsewhere, the Vienna mission functioned as an authoritarian, closed society. Or, as I said before, as an open society that wanted very much to be a closed one. That is, as a nondenominational Christian mission, it had to have a certain amount openness to garner support back home, but its security concerns because of the communist context of its work led them to desire to be more closed. The mission was authoritarian because its mandates were virtually nonnegotiable.
However, regarding the socio-economic class factor, I think the most relevant aspect of that variable would have been education. Since most of the workers were highly educated, they should have, therefore, had higher tolerance levels for ambiguity and imbalance. I think this probably worked in the mission's favor as a security strength as the educated workers should have been able to function better in the security system (which seemed to include a lot of ambiguity - especially to the unitiated) that the mission had developed. I had perhaps even more tolerance for ambiguity than most of the others because my background included language and area studies, including experience living in Europe, so that the European part of my experience was not as ambiguous as it would have been for many of the others, allowing me to tolerate more mission-based ambiguity.
The other notable thing here is that the mission seemed to lump me rather lock-stock-and-barrel in with the other secretaries, who would have had the least education of anyone on staff. If this is so, the mission probably didn't foresee my tolerance for ambiguity being as great as it was. They probably also didn't foresee that I might have such strongly held convictions, some of which were reasonably well thought out.
As the text indicates, in cases of poor social certitude there is motivation (however strong or weak) to rectify the imbalance. The mission probably, whether consciously or otherwise, took this into account in designing its socialization methods. That is, it wanted the imbalance seeking to be unilaterally on the part of the newcomer, not on the part of the mission. It then set up situations in which it calculated that the newcomer would become adequately motivated to rectify these imbalances and become open to the mission's leading. This would be the kind of thing that might happen in an authoritarian culture, for example. In my case, however, it is not clear if the mission's intentions were to socialize me or not, and if so what the end result was that they would have been happy with, if I had gone along with them, that is.
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This ends this section, and I think that it has been a particularly useful one for my purposes of trying to figure out what happened during my time with the Vienna mission.
