307. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 33 (Katz, pt. 4)

I messed up on the cake because I used the version of it I'd transcribed into the family heirloom database and I'd left out the baking soda... so I went back to the original 3x5 card and it looked like it ran into another ingredient, so I missed it, and when I was measuring out the dry ingredients I was tired, so I didn't think about there not being any leavening agent.  So I called pastor to explain the situation.  I hope they're able to fill in for the missing dessert.  I just don't feel up to trying to rush around making another one.  I thought about it, but I just can't do it.  I'm just on overload right now and can't take one more crisis.  And the thing is that these things also affect my fibromyalgia and migrain too.

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The idea was, however, to try to have a spiritual retreat today.  I think it'll end out being a half day, but I'm going to try to stick to my plan at least that much.  So I'll write another entry here and work a little more on my first macrame sugar snap pea runner (to hook over a small shelf on the wall on the balcony), then I'll start in on earnest on my little retreat. At least I have some spaces here conducive to that, which is nice.

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The next major section in this article is "MOTIVATIONAL PATTERNS: CONSEQUENCES AND CONDITIONS."

"... Max Weber pointed out that the acceptance of legal rules was the basis for much of organizational behavior (Weber, 1947).  Compliance is to some extent a function of sanctions but to a greater extent a function generalized habits and attitudes toward symbols of authority... Individuals often assume that they can control their participation with respect to organizational requirements when they enter an organization.  Before they are aware of it, however, they are acting like other organizational members and complying with the rules and the authorized decisions." (p.t 135)

The Vienna mission leadership seemed to understand very well the connection with compliance and attitudes towards authority and, as I have stated many, many times, they demanded a very high level of compliance.  The mission leadership was particularly concerned about the connection with authority because they felt they needed to maintain control for the maintenance of security, so that any disobedience (lack of respect for the authority that the disregarded norm represented) was also a security concern.

As to whether individuals thought they might maintain their individuality in the beginning, I'm not sure how many thought along these lines.  The fact that most members were highly educated might argue for some resistance to the kind of assimilation process that was so all inclusive, but on the other hand, many if not most of these people came from very similar background ideologically (theologically, politically, etc.) as the leadership, so it may have been an easier change for them.  I'd like to know if any of them knew beforehand of the types of changes that might be expected of them or what kinds of things were surprises.  Of course, my being a poor fit for my position if the position meant that my whole life - 24/7 - had to revolve around being a secretary, was a poor fit.  I've also said before that I made it clear before leaving North America that I wanted more people ministry and intended to be involved in local Austrian ministry while there and I was given the impression that this would not be a problem.  That was what the North American office of my sending mission told me at least.  So I did not expect that the secretary position was going to be a strait jacket identifying virtually my whole existence while I was in Vienna.  This made it a lot harder for me to accept the mission's rules, in addition to the other disagreements I had with them, and other missionaries didn't have that problem, I don't think.  That is, other missionaries arrived in Vienna doing what they really wanted to do and were fit to do.  So that was already right there less hurdles to accept the mission's norms.

I hope this makes sense.  Basically, what I'm trying to say is that if you come to the mission and feel like the mission is trying to change you to accept their norms, values, rules, etc. that's one thing, but in addition, if it's also trying to make you fit into a 24/7 job role that you don't feel comfortable in than that's a double whammy and they might as well try to remake you altogether.  That's pretty much how it felt.

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The author goes on to describe rules regarding quality of work, setting higher standards, and going beyond the call of duty and innovating.  I'm not sure if the first two were ever problems, but it's possible they might have been, but it was handled privately and not known to me.  However, the third thing - innovation - was important to the mission and it needed workers that were reliable, competent and able to do their work professionally without having someone constantly breathing down their neck, although there were always security checks of various sorts, I'm sure.  This was part of the trust factor that needed to be there.  There was a lot of cross-training and mentoring, such as when I took the women's ministry trip under the leadership of one of the full-time women's ministry missionaries.  So then trust would build up in that new area for the person being mentored in it, and if s/he did well (and didn't make any egregious security blunders!) s/he might be invited to participate again in that part of the ministry.  So that was part of the trust element involved.

But the people in the full-time positions would be the ones most likely innovating, thinking of new takes on a course, resolving an interpersonal issue in the field, etc.  But the other thing is that these innovations rarely happened in isolation; they almost always involved several people.  For example, the new take on a course might involve the other instructors, the textbook writers, the illustrators, or perhaps (depending on the nature of the concept and how involved it was), the mission administration, board members and even in-country church leaders.  If it was just something like using group discussion instead of brainstorming it would probably be a nonissue, but if it involved reconceptualizing something or adding or subtracting from what is already in the textbook or workbook, than that would be a whole other story.  The missionary-instructors might be able to add one exercise into the workbook via xerox copies they bring with them, but is that something they want to do often?  Or at all?  What is the policy on that kind of thing?

So the mission, I think, encouraged innovation, to a degree, but some things were very difficult to change after a certain point in the program development process.  They could be a bit of an unwieldy organization in some respects.

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The next sub-section in this article is "Conditions conducive to the activation of rule acceptance."  Maybe we'll find out more why I had such a problem in Vienna with rule acceptance...

"Appropriateness and relevance. The acceptance of communications and directives on the basis of legitimacy requires the use of symbols and procedures recognized as the proper and appropriate sources of authority in the system under consideration.... The particular directives which are accepted as legitimate will depend upon their matching the type of authority structure in the system." (p. 136)

This is very good... I mean good for thought provocation.  Let's start by parsing this a bit, starting with the last sentence:

1. directives
2. directives accepted as legitimate
3. directives not accepted as legitimate
4. directives matching the type of authority structure in the system
5. directives not matching the type of authority structure in the system
6. directives accepted as legitimate  IF the directives match  the type of authority structure in the system
7. directives not accepted as legitimate IFdirectives not match the type of authority structure in the system

I would really add to 4 & 5 (and hence also to the IF clauses in 6 & 7) "perceived as" so that 4, for example, would read:

directives perceived as matching the type of authority system

I would do this because I think that perception is the key, and this is true in Vienna, so I am going to take the liberties to re-write 6 & 7 as follows:

6.  directives accepted as legitimate  IF the directives perceived as matching  the type of authority structure in the system

7. directives not accepted as legitimate IFdirectives perceived as not matching the type of authority structure in the system

Okay, so now I'll comment on this version of these statements.  It is my hypothesis that the other workers in the Vienna mission believed that the directives (most of which were norms, implicit, in the informal organization, etc.) were legitimate and that they did match the authority structure in the system because the mission had the right under the circumstances and (evidently) based on their understanding of Scripture to make the demands on them that it did.

My problem here is the type of authority structure in the system.  There's not getting around it that in the end I had to point blank denounce the type of authority structure.  I never thought that ALL of their rules and norms were bad, but looking at this statement makes me realize that maybe my partial, pick-and-choose obedience wasn't really obedience at all, because I really was rejecting their basic authority structure, the leadership that presumably was ultimately behind any demands placed upon me by the mission.

I probably came to this conclusion when they sent me back to the USA 5 months into my time with them, so after that point I was really an alien in their midst, but I was so committed to ministry to that part of the world and I'd put so much into it already and I wasn't sure what other options I might have, so I (undoubtedly irrationally) held out hope against hope that they'd come to the table and we could talk things out and we'd come to some kind of a compromise because I thought I was a reasonably valuable worker.

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"The acceptance of legal rules also restricted to the relevant sphere of activity." (p. 136)

Since I'd told my sending mission before arriving in Vienna about my intent to work with Austrians while serving as a secratary, I thought the Vienna mission's pressure on me to run my off-hours life was out of line, as was their pressure to force me into certain social groups.  So I thought this kind of things wasn't relevant, and as such I never really accepted it as legitimate, although I cowed under it at the end, but only out of sheer exhaustion - I caved in to them.  That's not the same as accepting their legitimacy; it only means they wore me out.

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"Another prerequisite to the use of rules as the appropriate norms of the system is their impersonal character.  They are the rules of the system and are not the arbitrary, capricious decisions of a superior aimed at particular individuals." (p. 136)

They also didn't meet this prerequisite either.  One example, as I've shared before, is the written rule that we were supposed to have up to 2 days off when supporters were in town.  I had a couple supporters in town but they wouldn't let me have time off.  I was told there was too much work to do, but I didn't have much to do at all, so that was a plain lie (that was more of a lie than saying the mission is an international publisher!).  And that was one written rule that others actually did get to have, but not me.  And for years I always felt like wherever I went if mom and dad were there they got special treatment.  When mom came to help me pack up to leave Vienna for good they added an extra women's meeting at the last minute (the break for the summer and they'd already had their last one for the year) and mom and dad had recently been to Mexico.  No, the norms were very arbitrary and capricious, all the more to make one want to be on one's good behavior.

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"Clarity.  A related condition for the acceptance of legal norms is the clarity of authority symbols, of proper procedures, and the content of the legitimized decisions.  Lack of clarity can be done to the vagueness of the stimulus situation or to the conflict between opposed stimulus cues" (p. 136)

This was a huge problem for me.  I don't know what it was like for other people, but I think it got better once you were socialized and the more you were a trusted worker and the farther you got into the inner circle or higher up the echelons you got.  But for me that never totally got through the basic socialization process I thought the clarity was awful.  I often had a hard time figuring out what the heck they really wanted.  I sometimes experimented with different ways of responding to this ambiguity.  I tried taking them literally; I tried just not being phased by it, basically ignoring it; I tried earnestly trying to figure it out, etc., etc. But I think the only way it could really get resolved it so just concede, submit to the authorities and accept their ways of thinking and doing - which, if you've been reading this blog at all - you can imagine would be very difficult if possible at all for me to do.

The clarity issue was in that a lot of things weren't spoken directly, or if they were then you still might not know why something needed to be done or there could be cross signals from different sources, or actions and words didn't seem to quite match as you thought they should, etc.  So that's where clarity became an issue.  I think this is the only place, including other places I've lived overseas, where I've ever had such a problem with clarity, so this is very unusual for me, and this was with mostly other Americans, my fellow countrymen.

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"Reinforcement.  To maintain the internalized acceptance of legitimate authority there hast to be some reinforcement in the form of penalties for violation of the rules... Sometimes the penalties can come from the social disapproval of the group as well as from legal penalties." (p. 137)

My contention is that the mission sending me back to the USA was a form of penalty for not submitting to their authority and being a threat to their authority.  After that they used social disapproval, although moving me around from position to position was also a form of official penalty.

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I'll continue where I left off in my next post.

168. Socialization File, Pt. 51 (Robertson, pt. 5)

We're looking at control in groups, and this next control issue is group conformity. The author refers to a study a study by Theodore Newcomb in which students political attitudes are followed throughout their tenure at the college. The students mainly come from wealthy conservative families, but the faculty at the college are mainly liberal.

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"Newcomb drew upon the concept of 'reference group' in describing the change of attitude from conservative to liberal by the majority of his subjects. A reference group is defined as the source of standards to which one refers in choosing what to value. If you recall the concept of the 'social comparison process,' the point was that people tend to choose their reference levels for symbolic or abstract actions by seeing what others generally do in similar circumstances. A person's reference group is defined as the most relevant source for the social comparison, because one wants to act like those with whom one identifies, not just anyone." (p. 178)

As we've seen before the reference group the mission seemed to have chosen for me was not a good choice, since I didn't see myself as a secretary. That is, I was taken on by the mission to be a secretary, but that didn't fit my professional training nor how I viewed myself. But, according to this text, use of reference groups is is effective for creating group conformity, although the study does not deal with intentionally created conformity, as in socialization. Still, it does seem like the mission probably did intend for the reference group they'd selected for me to be useful in furthering group conformity - that is my conformity to the group.

However, the text also says that "A person's reference group is defined as the most relevant source for the social comparison, because one wants to act like those with whom one identifies, not just anyone." (p. 178) I quote this again because I think it is significant. The mission assumed, it would appear, that I would want to act like the other secretaries. In fact, as it turned out, I don't think there was anyone I really wanted to act like. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that if I'd been given a more appropriate reference group I might have succumbed and been fully socialized into the group. But it didn't take me too long to be sort of on my guard, trying to figure out what was going on that I hadn't expected by way of group norms and functioning. So once I entered that watch and see mode then the mission responded to my non-response to their efforts to socialize me (e.g., via their pre-selected reference group). Then when the mission responded like they did I was repelled further into a self-defense mode and it just spiraled down from there. Once I'd realized that there was something strange (unexpected) going on in the mission at that point I'm not sure it was very likely that anyone in the mission could have been a good reference for me. Even if there was someone (or some group) that I could possibly have looked up to, the thought would then come in that that person was also part of this mess, so that would have thrown out any possibility of anyone at the mission being a reference for me.

I don't think I was exactly aware of this because I wasn't thinking so much about reference groups, although I knew I was supposed to learn from the other secretaries, especially one of them. But it's not like I understood that I was supposed to have a reference group but no one in the mission could be that for me because everyone would be a part of this stuff going on that I couldn't agree with, even if I didn't completely understand it. So, if reference groups were supposed to be focal points of new recruit socialization, there wasn't a chance in a blue moon I was going to make it. Once that downward spiral started, which was maybe a couple months after I'd arrived, there was no hope that I'd be integrated into the mission. I think the only way to salvage my relationship with the mission, at least from the standpoint of reference groups being central to socialization, would be if something would have happened to show me that I was wrong about my concerns about the mission. That never happened.

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"For example, if we are both members of a group having an identity including (let's say) an image as 'enlightened liberals,' and I perceive you acting in an 'illiberal' way, it disturbs my perception, and I get an error signal. My perception of the attributes of the group image is distorted, and I automatically begin corrective action; I might scold, censure, or criticize you, trying to get my error signal reduced. If none of that works, I might go on to try to kick you out of my group." (p. 178)

I had 2 years of "corrective action" by the mission, possibly with a few exceptions thrown in the mix. Only this wasn't an informal response to me, but a top-down action with the full force of the administration (which everyone parrots in a total institution).

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"Since a system concept is such a high-level variable, there are many different corrective actions possible. It is not hard to identify the corrective actions as implementing different principles: 'Don't disgrace the group'; 'That's not what we stand for'; 'Remember who we are.' If none of these corrective actions succeeds in reducing the disturbance of the group image, other principles are called upon: 'You're a heretic, a traitor, a rebel. Return to right thinking, or be excommunicated.'" (p. 178-179)

In my experience with the mission, there are at least as many nonverbal "corrective actions" as verbal ones. The sky's the limit. When you consider that the mission was a total institution with virtually no constraints on it (I already discussed possible constraints and virtually eliminated ever single one of them as having any efficacy vis a vis the mission), and to top it off a mission with military contacts... really, the sky's the limits.

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"Another psychologist, Stanley Milgram (1977, 1965, 1964), is noted for his series of disturbing studies of conformity to authority. His description of the origin of this work places it within the context of the present discussion. It is interesting enough to deserve reporting the story in some detail.

I was working for Asch in... 1959-1960 [and] thinking about his group pressure experiment... Could a group, I asked myself, induce a person to act with severity against another person? ... I envisioned a situation very much like Asch's experiment in which there would be a number of confederates and one naive subject [but] but the question would be to what degree an individual would follow along with the group [but, in looking for an experimental control, I transformed it into a study of] Just how far will a person go when an experimenter tells him to give increasingly severe shocks [to another experimental volunteer] ... I would like to call what happens to Asch's subjects 'conformity,' and I would like to call what happens in my experiment 'obedience.' ... in Asch's experiment, you're dealing basically with a process of which the end product is the homogenization of behavior... Obedience arises out of differentiation of social structure ... on person [has] a higher status. (Milgram, 1977, pp. 94-96)" (p. 179)

I hope you see where we're heading here. How far do you think the people in Vienna would go to obey their leader(s)? To what extent would they join in the "corrective actions" against me? These two studies are well-known and often cited, and as such they're pretty reputable. In Vienna the missionaries are isolated from their familiar surroundings, they're made to accept all-pervasive security measures, and authority is pretty much absolute. The question then arises, why mightn't they go along with "corrective actions" against me? What's to hold them back from falling in line? And what's the risk to them if they don't fall in line? But they've already swallowed the mission's logic hook-line-and-sinker, which is why they're socialized and I'm not, so how could they do anything but follow the leadership?

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That's the end of this section.