Joseph E. Davis - Identity and Social Change

A concern to put identity into a context of social change is certainly not new; it has a long history in the social sciences. In addition to a persisting concern with the rise of the individual, for the postwar generation of scholars the conflict between individual needs and social demands, and the effects of this conflict and rapid social change for the adapting person, were central issues. Attention focused on the self-society nexus, along with concerns over the disruptions in self-concept and personality brought about by the significant social dislocations and transformations of mass societyurbanization, bureaucratization, the rise of a consumption ethic, technological advances, the decline of community, and so on. Further, many writers sought to trace the emergence of a new personality type or character, shaped by or adapted to changing social, cultural, and economic conditions. Other-directed (Riesman et al. 1950), an antinomian personality (Adler 1972), an untrammeled self (Bell 1976), and a narcissistic personality (Lasch 1979) are but a few of the influential ways in which the new character type was portrayed. Some writers in this tradition saw social changes leading to painful uneasiness and destructive alienation and instability. For others, however, the effects of change were believed to be more salutary, leading to experimentation with new and adaptive ways to meet social demands and efforts to break free from narrow and restrictive social roles.