The Adjustment of the Individual to his Age and Sex Roles

Abstract

I ' N DISCUSSING the adjustment of the individual to his age and sex roles, I shall be using the term role to refer to an internally consistent series of conditioned responses by one member of a social situation which represents the stimulus pattern for a similarly internally consistent series of conditioned responses of the other(s) in that situation. Dealing with human behavior in terms of roles, therefore, requires that any item of behavior must always be placed in some specified self-other context. By way of further clarification it is necessary to call attention to the distinction between the use of the term role to refer to a modal system of responses which constitutes the culturally expected behavior and the particular system of responses with which a specific individual operates. Thus, when we speak of the individual's ability to perform in his sex role, we refer to the relation which his behavior, in situations in which sex classification is relevant, bears to some modal pattern expected in a given cultural or subcultural group. On the other hand, even though he may deviate widely and may properly be said not to be acting in the proper role, his own particular self-other pattern is his role also. If a middle class husband is indifferent and irresponsible and expects his wife to support and stabilize the family, he is not manifesting the particular complex of behavior we expect from the role of the husband, but he nevertheless has a particular role in his marriage. We may refer then to cultural roles and unique roles. The distinction is most obvious when we have a person equipped with both a cultural and a deviant pattern. The present discussion is directed to the consideration of the problem of adjustment to the cultural role or roles assigned to a given age and sex classification. Adjustment is usually indicated negatively as the degree of maladjustment. We may assume that the amount of tension, anxiety and frustration generated by the attempt to discover and play a given role is an index of the individual's adjustment to such a role. It is not the purpose of this paper to discuss particular problems which individuals encounter in adjusting to culturally defined roles required of them because of membership in given age, sex, class, caste and other social