DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 066 856 EC 042 978

AUTHOR Kane, Terry J.; Rawls, Horace D.TITLE Use of a Self-Anchoring Technique in Assessing

Self-Conceptions of Visually Impaired Persons.PUB DATE [70jNOTE 12p.

EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29DESCRIPTORS Age Differences; *Exceptional Child Research; *Rating

Scales; *Self Concept; *Self Evaluation; *VisuallyHandicapped

ABSTRACTThe Cantril-Kilpatrick Self-Anchoring Technique

(1960) was used to assess self concepts of visually impaired personsby performing a numerical evaluation of visually impaired persons'self ratings and a content analysis specifying dimensions used by theindividuals in rating themselves. A total of 577 personsparticipated. Results showed that the majority of clients placedthemselves at the middle of the scale. It was also found that thenoncongenital group consistently rated themselves higher at thepositive end of the scale. Younger clients were reported to havebetter self concepts than those individuals 30 years of age and over.Analysis of data included descriptive comparisons between clientsinterviewed in the field and those in the clinic, comparisons betweenraces, age categories, sexes, degrees of residual vision, age atonset of visual impairment, the length of impairment, and educationcategories; some emphasis was placed on rural distinctions. (CB)

USE OF A SELF-P` NCHORING TECHNIQUE IN

ASSESSING SELF-CONCEPTIONS OF VISUALLYIMPAIRED PERSONS

Terry J. Kane, M. Sc.Department of Sociology

and AnthropologyN.C.. State University

Horace D. Rawls, Ph.D.Department of Sociology

and AnthropologyN.C. State University

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATION & WELFAREOFFICE OF EDUCATION

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO-DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROMTHE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPIN-IONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILYREPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY

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The sociological literature on persons with visual impairment is indeedscant (Goldberg and Swinton, 1969; Himes, 1958, 1960; Lowenfeld, 1964; Rawlsand Rawls, 1968; Scott, 1969). This does not mean, of course, that theliterature on the blind is small, because it is vast, with many agenciespublishing materials on this subject continuously. The emphasis that wewish to make here is that the study of visually impaired persons, from asociological standpoint, (particularly from a standpoint of residentialdifferentials), is scant. It is the belief of the authors that this is anarea holding much promise, not only for so-called applied sociologicalendeavors, but perhaps more imoortantly having implications of a theoreticalnature concerning person perception and self-other roles, a., these are to befound in communities of various sizes throughout the world.

The limited study discussed below is an attempt to break away from thestandardized attitudinal and interest scales, all of their urban biases,and to introduce a technique specifically adapted to the perceptually impairedperson. This is done emp41ring a well developed and well publicized technique:i.e., the Cantril-Kilpatrick Self-Anchoring Technique (1960), which, it ishoped,

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hoped, will lend that degree of flexibility which will make it possible toperform not only a numerical evaluation of visually impaired persons' self-ratings, but also a content analysis showing exactly what dimensions individ-uals are employing in rating themselves.

The sample utilized in the study was obtained as a part of a sizeable projectinvolving the Federal Vocational Rehabilitation idministratIon, the N.C. StateCommission for the Blind, and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology,N.C. State University at Raleigh.* In all, 577 cases were intensively inter-viewed either at the Raleigh Lions' Clinic for the Blind, a combinatiun clinicand work acclimatization center, or in the field where clients who had attendedthe Clinic are now located. One adaitional word about the Clinic is that itis partially funded by contributions from Lions' Clubs throughout the stateof North Carolina, and federal funds administered by the N.C. State Commissionfor the Blind.

P.ialysis of the data will involve descriptive comparisons between clients

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interviewed in the field and those in the Clinic, comparisons between races,age categories, sexes, degrees of residual vision, age at onset of visualimpairment, the length of impairment, and education categories; some emphasisis placed on rural distinctions.

Grant Number 25-P-65352/4-03 of the North Carolina State Commission forthe Bliud, and the Department of Sociology and /nthropology, N.C. StateUniversity, through the /gricultural Experiment Station, Raleigh, N.C.

SOME THEORETIC4L CONSIDERATIONS

Th. adult personality characteristics of an individual are to some extentproducts of interaction with his social environment, or the consequences ofhis life's roles anti his self-concepts. Roles are usually structured with°21a culture and much agreement exists as to what behaviors are expected frommembers of a specific group :Parsons, 1951). As Robert K. Merton (1957:198)points out, the individual in a group is under pressure, by his group, tobecome disciplined, rigid, and unable to adjust readily to new situations(1957:199). In this way, one's orientations toward a role become integralparts of one's personality, and, siftilarly, of one's sense of self. Thishappens with the visually impaired is that they are encouraged, by societyand it "helping" institutions, to believe that they should be dependent andobligingly accept their lot-- though it is an inferior one (S,lott, 1969).

Thus, by being encouraged and sometimes forced to play a dependent or compliantrole, the vim' gaily impaired person eventually sees himself as necessarily de-pendent upon almost everyone with whom he comes in contact. Because of thespecial kinds of interactions with their social environments, and because of theroles they are encouraged to play, the visually impaired learn to have a senseof self different from, and perhaps less psychologically mature than, normallysighted persons, as many authors suggest. The totally blind or the partiallyBighted individual views himself as he perceives others reacting to him, whetheror not his perception is accurate; this capacity to see oneself as an objectturns into a set of beliefs and attitude: about oneself- -the self-concept (Davis,1964; Bauman, 1959).

George Herbert Mead (1934), a social psychologist, believed that the mind hasto be explained in terms of the interaction of the organism Wth the environment.His thoughts on symbolic interactionism helped lead to the idea of the develop-ment of the self by making the assumption that one must be able to anticipatethe response one's act elicits from another person: one does this by taking therole of the other, and by viewing oneself from the points of view of otherpersons. Therefore, the self, for Mead, "...is not initially there, at birth,but arises in the process of social experience and activity" (1934:135).

Deutsch and Krauss (1965:188-189) elaborate on Mead's concept of the uniqueself, that which has "its own particular individuality, its own unique pattern"(Mead, 1934:202), and suggest that individuals develop different self-conceptsdepenting upon what happens to them in the course of their lives. Erik H.Erikson (1950; 1959) discusses the importance of psychosocial stages of egodevelopment for self-concept formation, and be reviews and amplifies Freud's(1938) concept of a psychosexual developmental sequence. Ego development andego-alienation are of concern to Robert Merton (1957) as well, who discusses boththe Durkheimian phenomenon anomie (Durkheim, 1912) and the social-psychologicalconcept "anomie" (Srole, 1956). J.S. Fames (1958; 1960) and John F. Scott (1968)also refer to anomie and consider it to be one aspect of the social-psychologicalreaction of the visually impaired to social relations taking place in their lives.They generally conclude that the perceptual disorder itself invariably producesmajor personality problems.

Howard Becker (1960) discusses anomie also, and sees efficient social function-ing as preserving, maintaining, and restoring the norms and normative systemsof a given-society. Pccording to Becker, anomie can result when a social systemdoes not successfully preserve its normative system. Other authors, as well asthose cited above, concern themselves with self-concept and anomie, and in what%ways these phenomena are related to social variables in the adjustment of thevisually impaired. Some of the pertinent variables to be looked at below, andothers that will be analyzed at a later time, are thought to be related to bothself-conceit and visual impairment. A considerable amount of space has beengiven to elementary concepts of the self, but our main purpose is constructinga social psychology of the impaired or disabled individual, and it is our feelingthat these notions in symbolic interactionism are given a particular acutenesswhen dpeling with people of impaired sensory modalities.

W.Ie think that all of the extensive problems of self and self-other relation-ships so elaborately developed by writers from William James to Howard Becker tothe transactionaliets are encapsulated in the problems of visually impairedpersons. It is our belief that the Cantril -Kilpatrick Self-Anchoring Technique(1960) makes it possible to expose to scientific scrutiny these processes. Thesection that follows departs from these theoretical considerations to simply

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describe various demographic and socio-cultural variables; these should be viewed,however, as reimphombeAdOleIbt real self-conceptual problems and the stressesthat accompany them, in some instances even to the point of anomie and medicaldisorders.. of a social psychiatric nature.

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As the so-called worst kind of person was described as being at

the lower end of the scale, and the beet kind of pc.,rson at the

higher numbered end, is seen in Table 1 that ,the large r.ajority

of clients placed themselves at the mia.,le at least, dth 16.8

per cent of the clinic interviewees placing themselves in the

10 category, as oposed to only 9 per cent of the field ones.

Table 2 (page 3) describes the sample in regard to the amount of

vision they have when attending the Clinic. Blininess is

legally defined, and it is often the case that persons with

quite a bit of residual vision are still categorized as legally

blind, while one aye might be perfect and the other very poor.

In Table 3, those born blind and those who became blind later

in life are looked at; it is interesting to note that the non-

congenital group consistently Late themsalves higher at the

positive end of the scale. Tables 4, 5, and 6 refer to the

percentages of clients in each of the steps of the scale for

sex, race, and education, respectively. The age factor, referred

to in Table 7 has emerged as an important one in past studies

on blindness (Rawls ana Rawls, 1968, for instance). This author

has found younger clients (less than 30) to have significantly

better self concepts than the ones 30 years of age and over.

Therefore, for the present set of data, the age factor may prove

to be a very inter,:sting one for future analyses.

Not a great deal has been looked at yet concerning how long

someone has been impaired, in relation to self-concept.. Table

8 shows how 546 clients in Ghe sample distributed themselves

along the 10 categories of the self-anchoring technique for

scaling. In Table 9, residence is broken down into several

categories with the thought that finer distinctions may yield

more interesting findings. The distinction between small town

less than 2500 and the small town farm could posdibly bring

forth conclusions concerning the life styles of the communities

in question, and the influences that community variables widely

understood to exist exert. It is the work for future analyses

of the data to bring out new findings anu support old ones, or

not support them, as the case may be, especially concerning

rural-urban differentials.

Summary and Conclusions

The authors of this paper contend that person perception and

self-other roles are especially pertinent phenomena to be con- IA

10

sidered when selL..ying blindness. It is hoped that insight into

th, self-concepts of the visually irTaired will yield inl'ormation

pertinent to the task of helping such persons aajust in the

com_unity. As a iaedical _Usability, blindness is of sreat inter-

est to aoctors as well as counselors, social workers, and oc.,er

helping persons. We that it is of sociological interest

to study how blind persons view themselves. It has often been

pointed out in the literacure that blind persons do not wish to

be separate from other societal groups, but they in fact are

quite separate. Knowledge about how they see themselves in

relation to others is needed in order to help them become a per-

manent 1,:,rt of the larger group.

In utilizing a self-anchoring technique, the authors have

attempted to allow a degree of flexibility t8 self-reporting

procedures, while at the same time keeping the procedure as

simple as po,sible. Such a technique proauces both quantitative

ana qualitative measures of how one views himself in relation to

his peers. It is expected that reports will be forthcoming short

ly fully analyzing such information. Finally, the kind of data

with which this report is concerned ought to be of interest to

the social psychologists and social psychiatrists among you

in that it reveals inforlation about pe-sons that only they can

provide--as trey perceive it. In future content analyses, the

dynamics of community aajustment will emerge, from the viewpoint

of the person doing the adjusting. It may be that from that vant-

age point visually impaired and other disabled persons may be

best understood.

REFERLNC-1S

Bauman, B.D.1564 "The initial psychological reaction to blindness." The

New Outlook for the Blind 53(5)165-169.

Becker, H.1960 "Normative reactions to normlessness." Am_rican Soc-

iological Review 25:803-810.

Davis, C.J.1964 "Development of the self-concept." The New Outlook for

the Blind 58(2).49-51.

Deut58.41 b.. and Krauss,Theories in Social Psychology. New York: Basic Books,Inc.

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1912 Suicide: A Study in Sociology. New York: Free Press.

;1ikson, L.h.1950 Chila.hoou and Society. New York: ,v.,i. Norton and Co., Inc.

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Freud, S.1938 The Basic .iritings of Sigmund Freud. New York: Lodern

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Goldberg, .H., and J..?. EAvinton (eds.)1969 B1Llaness Research: The liApanding Fro, tiers. The Pennsylvan

is State University Press, University Parr., feimsylvania.

Rimes, J.S.1958 "Changing attitudes toward blind. people - from the viewpoint

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Himes, J.S.1960 "The measurement od social distance in social relations

with the blind." The Ne*,, Outlook for the Blind 54:54-58.

Kilpajzrick, F.P., anu H. Cantril.1960 Self-Anchoring Scaling: A Measure of Individuals Unique

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Lowenfeld, B.1964 "The role and status of a blind person, an historical

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lead, G.H.1934 Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: The University of Chicago

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Ii :erton, R.K.1957 Social Theory and Social Structure. (Revised 2dition)

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Rawls, R.F., and H.D. Rawls.1968 A Study of the Visually Handicapped Graduates of the

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Scott, J.F.1968 "Psycho-social aspects of visual impairment." The Opto-

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Scott, R.A.1969 The Making of Blind linen. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Srole, L.1;56 "Social integration and certain corollaries: an exploratory

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