some theoretical approaches to the sociology of aging

Some Theoretical Approaches to the Sociology of AgingAuthor(s): Raymond PayneSource: Social Forces, Vol. 38, No. 4 (May, 1960), pp. 359-362Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2573047 .

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BUREA UCRACY AND REHABILITATION 359

SUMMARY

This paper has considered the impact of bureaucratization on the resocialization programs of the rehabilitation institution. This trend has given additional importance to the conscious utilization of informal groups by the top administrator. The possible use of informal relationships in the rehabilitation institution long has been recognized.'4 However, as Cressey already has noted, their utilization in group therapy tends to be based more on individualistic theory than on a thoroughgoing attempt to modify group rela- tions.15 This has been explained, in part, by the ambiguous definition of function, lack of treat- ment rationale, and incomplete acceptance given

the professional staff members responsible for rehabilitation programs.'6 The lack of properly trained staff personnel also has been cited.'7

Obvious solutions are to recruit new staff people trained and motivated to emphasize rehabilitation objectives over pure cutody, to restrict the size of inmate populations in order to minimize conditions conducive to formalistic im- personality, and to design physical facilities afford- ing a social environment favorable to rehabilitation. However, this paper addresses itself to the top administrator unable to adopt these solutions. It is suggested that a conscious attempt to utilize informal groups be integrated with a restructuring of formal relationships and a program for re- motivating the lower level staff. The "humane enthusiast" role describes the end result of such efforts.

14 Lloyd W. McCorkle and Richard Korn, "Reso- cializing Within Walls," Annals of theAmericanAcademy of Political and Social Science, 239 (May 1954), pp. 88-98.

15 Donald R. Cressey, "Contradictory Theories in Correctional Group Therapy Programs," Federal Probation, 18 (June 1954), pp. 20-26.

is Ohlin, op. cit. 17Marshall B. Clinard, Sociology of Deviant Behavior

(New York: Rinehart, 1957), p. 548.

SOME THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF AGING*

RAYMOND PAYNE University of Georgia

HIS paper considers some sociological aspects of aging within contemporary society and is concerned most specifically

with the process by which the aging male assumes and maintains (or fails to assume and maintain) appropriate statuses and roles in his social world.' The task is, then, one of theoretical formulation, however tentative the result must be.

Before proceeding, two asumptions must be stated.2 First, a person, as a member of society, must progress during his life through a series of

more or less sequentially compatible and har- monious social statuses. For example, a person must move, socially as well as physically, from the status of infanthood, through those of childhood, young-adulthood, maturity, into that of the aged, and, further, the society must provide the means by which a person not only learns what statuses he will be expected to assume, but it must also provide the motivations for the assump- tions of those statuses by the person at the appropriate times and in the appropriate manner.

The second assumption which must be stated is that in a rapidly changing society such as ours, the role requirements of the status series are changing, not static, so that much, if not all, that is learned concerning a particular status prior to the assumption of that status, would be considered inappropriate when the person finally finds himself in the status. Thus, it must be recognized that not only must children learn how to be adults, but adults must learn how to be adults.

* Paper presented at the Southern Sociological Society meeting in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, April 18, 1959.

1 The concepts social status and social role are applied here as they were conceived by Ralph Linton. See Ralph Linton, The Study of Man (New York: D. Appleton- Century Company, 1936), pp. 113-131.

2 Cf. Alfred R. Lindesmith and Anselm L. Strauss, Social Psychology (rev. ed.; New York: The Dryden Press, 1956), p. 579 if.



360 SOCIAL FORCES

Therefore, an adequate theory of aging would be a dynamic theory, because it must take into account (1) changes in the individual as he moves from status to status within the social organization, and (2) changes in the social organization itself.

The present effort to outline an adequate dynamic sociological theory of aging is based upon empirical findings from several newer researches, including the author's study now in progress, and integrates some convergent theories of (1) socialization,3 (2) prestige age groups,4 (3) decision- making,5 and (4) social roles.6 The product, while perhaps not radically new, is certainly an exten- sion of existing systems.

In this case application is made to the male situation only because it was supposed that the contrast between active and retired statuses of the male would be more clear-cut than changes in female statuses with aging, and would provide for greater ease at the beginning stages; work will continue, however, which will allow for hypotheses concerning the female and combined situations.

In this formulation the concept of socialization is central and basic. Socialization is here conceived in its basic essentials, i. e., as the process by which a person acquires as a member of society the understandings, attitudes, and skills with which and upon which to construct his behavior in the situations (statuses) in which he finds himself or expects to find himself. When thinking of the socializing individual (the object of the socialization process) it must be recognized that he is performing two activities: (1) he is reaching out, so to speak, and taking on new knowledge, information, understandings, and the like; and (2) he is integrating the new material into his personality organization in the form of new or

altered responses. Most materials so acquired (learned) come to the person in experience situations involving other people, either directly or indirectly, and such other people serve as the sources of the materials, whether so perceived by the person or not. These "others," to use Mead's term, in the learning situation of the infant or small child are typically the parents or parent surrogates, and are spoken of as the "agents of the child's socialization".7

Note that it was stated that integration of new material by the person is an active process, involving an expenditure of energy; therefore, it is necessary to speak of integration and re-integration as achievements, since they do not emerge auto- matically as some psychological theories might imply. Instead, before a person will proceed with his own process of integration (that is, either create new structures or amend existing ones) he must have become convinced of the relatively greater value of the new over the old material in relation to his own self-system and its situation, either current or in the hypothetical future. For help in this evaluating process (support, reinforcement, etc.) the small child must look outward almost entirely, asking the "other" to provide the bases for deciding to accept or reject the new material. However, as the child grows older he can provide some of his own value support, because he will have internalized "the other," as Mead has pointed out. The person then achieves-theoretically, at least-a condition in which he can make decisions involving value judgment without requiring specific or immediate reinforcement or support from outside himself.

The condition just described-functional self- containment or self-sufficiency in decision-making-would be the person's greatest departure from the socially dependent state; if his most dependent state (socio-psychologically speaking, and not necessarily physically) be that of infanthood, then at what point in the life cycle is he the fartherest from that state? Does he progress

3 This formulation is based upon the concept of socialization as it was set forth by Bennett and Tumin over a decade ago. See, John W. Bennett and Melvin M. Tumin, Social Life: Structure and Function (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948), pp. 50-52.

4Paul H. Landis, Introductory Sociology (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1958), p. 324 if.

5 "Decision making" here refers to the process by which the individual mobilizes for action to satisfy his functional needs.

6 For a statement of the function of roles in social structure, see, Ronald Freedman, et al., Principles of Sociology (rev. ed.; New York: Henry Holt and Com- pany, 1956), p. 204-214.

7 George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934), Part III, "The Self," p. 135 ff. An excellent summary and interpretation of this portion of Mead's theory may be found in Francis E. Merrill and H. Wentworth Eldredge, Society and Culture: An Introduction to Sociology (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice- Hall, Inc., 1957), chap. 8, "Personality and the Group," p. 158 ff.



APPROACHES TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF AGING 361

from the fully dependent stage, in which he caln- not or does not trust his own decisions but must look to significant others for not only information but value support, also, through increasing degrees of independence, into the fully independent state at the last stage of the life cycle? Common ob- servation would indicate otherwise in our society, and the author suspects that this is not true to the extent we have been led to believe even in those societies which honor their aged much more than we.

Can it be posited, then, that independence of decision making is the characteristic antithesis of infant socio-physical dependence? If so, then the question becomes: When does man typically reach the stage in which he will place relatively the greatest amount of confidence in his own-vis-a-vis others'-value judgment?

To investigate this and to develop and refine hypotheses for additional phases of the study, certain research steps have been taken. Central to the procedure has been the development of 26 case studies of men over 70 years of age, each of whom is not an invalid and has at least as much available money as social security payments would provide. These two criteria were applied so as to yield subjects who are neither physically nor financially dependent, and who have, therefore, some decision-making latitude.

One tentative conclusion from the first phase of the study is that each of our subjects has experienced, since retirement, a decreasing confidence in his own decision-making ability. This decrease was reflected not only (or even primarily, in some cases) in the direct statements of subjects, but in the following manner: each subject was asked to examine two folios of eight pictures each. Each spread included four males and four females, the individuals of each sex differing in no major respect except age, according to the unanimous agreement of 15 sociologists and psychologists at the University of Georgia. There was one male and one female in each of the major age groups above childhood-teen-age, young adulthood, maturity, and the aged category. The subject was asked to select from each folio that person whom he considered best able to give him (the subject) the "best advice and the most help" in solving the kinds of problems he, the subject, has to face these days; then he was asked to make a second choice from each folio.

Choices were predominately of the mature males;

secondly, of the mature females. Only rarely would a subject select one of his own age-mates, and never did a subject select a teen-ager or young adult, while adhering strictly to our instructions.

When asked why mature persons had been chosen, rather than others, the following comments were made:

I chose him because he looks old enough to be in the know, but not too old to know what it's all about.

I wouldn't go to any of those old foggies for help; they wouldn't know any more about what's going on than I do.

That [mature] man is still working; still going to meetings; keeping in touch. These old men haven't been able to keep in touch.

Their selections, together with their supporting statements, indicated that the oldsters recognized that the more responsible, significant, and "know- ing" social statuses are now occupied by mature, not aged persons, and that persons of the mature ages would be more capable of serving as sources of valuable information on the oldsters' problems than would be the oldsters, themselves. Also granted to the mature (rather than the aged) was the support or value reinforcement capacity.

This conclusion was supported by other parts of the ease studies. For example, each subject was asked to document the process by which he had solved some of his own problems in the weeks or months immediately preceding the interviews. One question asked in reference to each problem was, "To whom did you go for information, advise, or support for your tentative decision?" Almost without exception, if someone other than the wife had been consulted, the consulted person had been in the mature age category, regardless of the nature of the problem and regardless of whether he had been consulted for information or for value support or diecision reinforcement.

Next, we applied the picture selection to other age categories, with this general pattern of results: high school and college youngsters chose young adult and mature persons in about equal propor- tions, never choosing oldsters, and only rarely choosing members of their own age category. On the other hand, mature subjects chose mostly mature pictures, only rarely selecting young adults or aged persons, and never choosing teen-agers.

Thus, we found youngsters "looking up hill" toward persons whom they usually identified with



362 SOCIAL FORCES

older siblings or parents, their choices and comments reflecting a willingness to use these persons in preference to others as sources of information and value judgment. On the other hand, oldsters, while also "looking up hill," were looking upward along the age route they had already traveled; hence, they were looking backward to an age group from which they realized they had already de- parted. In the third place, mature persons were looking to their own age group members, and identifying with them as sources of information and value support. In terms of prestige age group theory it is possible to say, therefore, that our informants of all ages tended strongly to agree that a member of our society reaches maximum prestige levels during maturity, then loses prestige as he grows older. This is certainly not a new point emerging from our study, but the significance here lies in the facts that our oldsters recognize and can express this, and that they can admit that they would need to look to other than themselves or their age contemporaries for advice or support. Further, it would seem significant that the age category to which they would first turn is that of their own children.

Now, expressed in terms of socialization theory, youngsters accept as agents of socialization those persons who are older than themselves and who are presently occupying statuses they, themselves, expect eventually to occupy, and relatively soon. On the other hand, the oldsters were ac- cepting as agents of their own socialization, either their own children or their children's surrogates. To do so represents a direct aiid complete role reversal, carrying with it no doubt the necessity of drastic revisions of self-concepts and definitions.' Throughout the infanthood, childhood, and young adulthood of the person's children, the parent (now our aged subject) has been the agent of his children's socialization. Recently, however, as the person had moved into the aged status, he

had accepted the fact that his own child (or child's age mate) had become the agent of his (the oldster's) continuing socialization process.

The ease with which the infant or small child plays the dependent role inheres in his relative helplessness and lack of alternatives. The older child or young adult is motivated to continue in status because of eagerness to qualify for assumption of subsequent statuses, currently occupied by older sibling or parent. In contrast, certainly part of the difficulty with which the oldster accepts reversal of role inheres in the fact that to do so requires admission of decreased abilities and surrender of power and authority, as well as surrender of personal autonomy over achieved personality organization, as the admission that the specific other (the child) who was for so long his inferior- subordinate, has indeed become his superior. Further, the child accepts authority or super- ordination expecting it to be temporary, whereas the oldster can see nothing ahead but further sub- mergence of his own will to that of others. There is also this point: the child has no reason to defend his own decision-making ability, that ability being largely untried and unneeded by society; the aged man has ample reason to be concerned about his, however; now having a lifetime of successful performance behind him, it is humbling and demoralizing to be forced outside one's self and outside even one's own age category for information and value-support necessary to making one's day-to-day life decisions.

SUMMARY

This has been an attempt to approach the phenomenon of aging in contemporary society through theories of socialization, decision making, prestige age groups, and social roles. Expecially fruitful, it would appear, has been the application of the concept of socialization to later life stages, and the exploration of the significance of self-other role-reversal of socializing agent and object (parent and child) in terms of necessary revisions in the oldster's self-definitions, concepts, and evaluations of his status.

8It is assumed that Lindesmith and Strauss were indicating this conclusion by their statement, "Per- sonality is still in the making, even at advanced ages," although they did not develop their analysis to this point. See: Lindesmith and Strauss, op. cit., p. 585.



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