THE MEASUREMENT OF DOMINATION AND OF SOCIALLY INTEGRATIVE BEHAVIOR IN TEACHERS' CONTACTS WITH CHILDREN

Abstract

This study reports the extension into adult-child relationships of measures of domination and of socially integrative behavior that were developed in previous studies of the interplay of preschool children.2 What is dominative behavior? And what behavior is socially integrative? The terms in the title of this paper are merely convenient labels for two techniques of behaving that have been experimentally demonstrated to be psychologically different. In the initial investigations it was assumed for example that there is a psychological difference between snatching a toy out of a companion's hands so as to play with it oneself and asking the companion if one may borrow the toy for awhile. It was assumed that there is a psychological difference between a cormand and a request, between tellin' 'em and eskin' 'em. The use of force, commands, threats, shame, blame, attacks against the personal status of an individual are called dominative techniques of responding to others. Domination is characterized by a rigidity or inflexibility of purpose, by an unwillingness to admit the contribution of another's experience, desires, purposes or judgment in the determining of goals which concern others. Domination is behavior that is based on a failure to admit the psychological inevitability of individual differences. Domination stiffles differences; domination attempts to make others behave according to one's own standards or purposes. Domination obstructs the natural growth processes of further differentiation through the interplay of existing differences. Domination is, therefore, antagonistic to a concept of growth. Domination is consistent with a concept of self-protection. But growth is self-abandoning; it is a giving up of the present structure or function, a yielding of present concepts, standards or values for new structures, functions, concepts, standards or values that are in process of emerging. Self-preserving, however necessary it may be under circumstances of extreme Insecurity, is something decidedly less than growth at its optimum. Domination may therefore be said to be the behavior of a person so insecure that he has to be self-protective rather than self-abandoning, that he has to maintain a status quo rather than voluntarily enter and participate in a changing situation. Domination involves force or threats of force or of some other form of the expenditure of energy against another. Domination is behavior of one who is so insecure that he is not free to utilize new data, new information, new experience. Domination is an attempt at atomistic living; the desires, purposes, standards, values, judgment, welfare of others do not count; it is rugged individualism of a highly ingrowing order. Domination is the antithesis of the scientific attitude; it is an expression of resistance against change; it is consistent with bigotry and with autocracy. It is the technique of a dictatorship. If, instead of compelling the companion to do as one says, one asks the companion and by explanation makes the request meaningful to the other so that the other can voluntarily cooperate, such behavior is said to be an expression not so much of pursuing one's own unique purposes as attemnpting to discover and get satisfactions through common purposes. For such expenditure of energy in common lFrom Department of Psichology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IllZZinois. The writer wishes to make grateful acknowledgment to the George Davis Rivin Poundation for financial aid and to express his appreciation for the help ltuen by Joseph F. Rrewer and Dorothy Walker Loeb, research assistants This paper was presented at the meetings of the American Educational Research Association, Cleveland. Ohio, February 27, 1939.