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The next portion of text is from the sub-section "Commitment Processes", still in the main section "A New Formulation of Identity and Commitment.""Commitment in our view, refers to the sum of the forces, pressures, or drives that influence people to maintain congruity between their identity setting and the input of reflected appraisals from the social setting. If the forces are weak, people will engage in behavior to change the reflected appraisals toward congruity with their identity setting 1) only some of the time, 2) only if the incongruity is extreme, 3) only if little effort is required, 4) only to a limited degree, 5) only in some situations, and 6) only if the cost is not high. Greater commitment , on the other hand, impoies a greater correspondence between inputs (reflected appraisals) and the identity setting. In cases of greater commitment, the reflected appraisals are more likely to contain shared meanings that affirm and are consistent with an identity." (p. 243)
This is interesting. I think number 2) is the real critical one for me. The incongruity between me and my identity with the mission (and how I interpreted it while with it) was pretty vast. The minor areas that allowed me to function on a basic level while with the mission were not enough to really change my commitment because these were not the major issues and the there were two many really huge, significant differences between me and the mission that my commitment to the mission was all but nil. I think my commitment was more as a person of integrity to fulfill my two year commitment, that I did believe in the general work of the mission (although my doubts were so large that even that was weakened). I didn't have any respect for the mission leadership, although I couldn't let it show. That's what the mission was all about, right? Deception? Only they usually used it to decieve the outside world and the Communist border guards. I had to use it with the mission. I didn't really lie, I just didn't let my inside thoughts show. So they didn't know what I thought of them. Including my comparison of them with Communists in how they treated me as a dissident and cults, etc. How could I let them know that?
I never did any wrong to them. I was to scared to death of them to try to expose them, although they needed it, heaven knows. But those were the Red scare days and the moral majority would have just had American Christianity laughing at me or making me out to be the bad guy for exposing them when they do such important work.
So I lived and worked among them but not really being one of them. The 2) was the roadblock because the incongruity was too extreme. The minor areas where I could concede were nothing really; it was the big issues that kept me from becoming one of them. But then the other thing is about my dad and whether I ever could have become one of them. Since I was the only one that ever had so many problems (that I know of), was it because of my dad? Was it that I never ever could have really become one of them? I'm not really sure about that. That might or might not be the case. After Vienna I had other very clearly political incidents, so it very possibly could have been, though.
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I'm skipping one irrelevant sub-section and we're now in "Consequences of Commitment.""One of the consquences of high levels of commitment to an identity is that people will work harder to maintain reflected appraisals (inputs) consistent with their identities. Individuals with low commitment to an identity will not work as hard to maintain congruency between inputs and identities, and there will be less correspondence between meanings of identity and meanings of role behaviors." (p. 244)
This is definitely me and was definitely and issue with me that might not have been such an issue with some other people. Even if my dad's work was involved in my treatment in Vienna, my high level of commitment to my identity still was a factor in my responses to what happened. In any case I don't think that was expected, nor completely understood even by the time I left. They evidently knew that there was something internal (I was "standing up in the inside"), but they didn't know what that entailed.
So the thing was that they came at me immediately when I arrived in Vienna with things that went right against things I disagreed with, and disagreed with strongly, and for someone who has a high level of commitment to an identity, I'm thinking right away that I'm full alert as far as commitment to identity is concerned because I don't trust them... not like that I don't. That's not the way to garner my trust. It's like how a dog or cat puts their hackles up ready for a fight if need be; I had my hackles up.
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"First, we view individuals as using their behavior to increase rewards and values received for having a particular identity, whereas Kanter sees organizations as using rewards and values to control the behavior of individuals. Second, we view individuals as using links to others to complete the feedback cycle of the identity process. In this way they obtain the reflected appraisals that further confirm and support the identity. in contrast, Kanter sees organizations as providing individuals with links to others to enmesh them in a network. Finally, our interpretation of commitment focuses on inputs (reflected appraisals) and their relationship to identity, and highlights the individual as an activy agent making choices. Kanter's interpretation of commitment, however, focuses on the outputs or behaviors of individuals, thus casting individuals as manipulated objectes of organizations." (p. 244)
Basically, it seems to me, that the difference in these two views is who is the primary active individual, the individual with the commitment or the entity acting on the individual to cause him/her to have commiement. The authors take the former stance and Kanter the latter. This is nice for me because I can use it for me vs. the mission. Sweet.
I don't think I ever did anything to "increase rewards and values" while at the mission. I was too busy either trying to figure things out or just surviving or both. I was never in a position where I could realistically think about getting ahead, although there was a time where rumors were bantered around about different opportunities, but I never knew what to believe, although I sort of acted on my own a bit (e.g., studied Russian), but then I felt stupid because I eventually just stopped believing any of the rumors.
The only things that I can think of that the mission might have done that could possibly have been looked at as kinds of rewards and values were either 1) praise - which is a rather lame, or 2) mission trips (it's not like we got money rewards or anything). The praise had to be for something real, and I think it was mostly something that was really simple, had been poorly managed or something like that, so the praise in context rand false. The mission trips were another thing and I felt like I was finally in my element. But the thing was that they came so late in my tenure with the mission and they couldn't undo all the horrible stuff that had already been done. It wasn't like I was all of a sudden going to change my mind about the mission and stay with them. You've got to be kidding.
As to the feedback cycle aspect of identity, I was stymied with that in the Vienna mission for the most part too. There were a few people, however that I could learn from a little. There was one couple that lived nearest me and I think they knew me best. I had taken them and another couple with young children on a picnick in the Viennese forest near us and I had also attended the midweek Bible study at their place much of the time I was there. I didn't tell them about my thoughts or past but I felt like they sort of caught my spirit. There were a few others that I could learn some from here and there. But for the most part I closed myself off from the feedback cycle as a kind of self defense. And even then I still came back to the States destroyed.
As an aside here I just got to thinking, my friend in Minneapolis, who I stayed with while I was researching all these articles (in the States visiting while I was living in Russia) she had been married to a man who destroyed her very kind and sweet spirity. She's a musician and just so sweet and he killed her spirit by criticizing her over every little thing. Well I came back to the US from Austria like that but people didn't understand. All my joy for the ministry for reaching people and even my friends, they just killed me, but I couldn't get a divorce paper and explain to people what my husband had done to me.
I didn't want a reflected appraisal from the mission because why would I want an appraisal from someone who was trying to get me to lie or someone who lied to me repeatedly the first couple months? But that didn't matter because they were going to make sure I got their appraisal and listened and they were going to shove it down my throat until, well, until I was a broken and destroyed shell. Is that what they wanted?
Kanter's view does, it seem pretty well describe the mission, in as much as the mission did want everyone to be linked together. The mission did want there to be a high level of trust among everyone and a lot of camaraderie.
I like the idea of "reflected appraisals" and the individual as an active agent making choices. While I was there I certainly did make reflected appraisals on my identity. While I was thinking about what was going on around me it would make me think, too, about what I believed and maybe why. As long as there wasn't any of the stuff going on that I felt very convinced I disagreed with, then I'd give it some thought. I ended out leaving because I disagreed with some basic aspects of the mission, so it's questionable whether it was completely ethical for me to stay the full two years, but I did.
The mission I think would see things Kanter's way, where individuals are manipulated objects of organizations. They wouldn't be that crass about it though. But they would want to be in the upper hand and really know what's going on and what's what. Everybody's values and and commitments have to be in sync. When I arrived in Vienna everything was all set up and ready to be orchestrated - by the mission. So they had the socialization all set up like that and I think that the mission would like this kind of thing to have also to have been mission-centric as far as who was in control. I was there 2 years and they failed with me, however.
