| Abstrakt: |
While sociologists have pointed to the socio-economic determinants of alienation, focusing on the plight of the individual living in a capitalistic society in terms of his estrangement both from his work and from himself, theorists of a more psychological persuasion suggest that alienation may be a life style which has its origins in the individual's early developmental history. More recently, social scientists have empirically investigated the psychological components of alienation, variously defined as encompassing a syndrome of attitudes and feelings reflecting a view of society marked by cynicism, pessimism, and distrust, and a view of people as manipulative, uncaring, and emotionally distant. A number of pencil-and-paper measures of socio-emotional difficulties associated with this syndrome have been obtained, inducing response acquiescence, social isolation, social introversion, and admission of pathology, as well as such behavioral and clinical correlates as lack of commitment and marked identity concerns. Prominent among the explanatory notions advanced by these psychologically oriented investigators has been the role of parental identification as a major etiological dimension of the alienation syndrome. |
