Alienation and Marital Adjustment

Abstract

IN 1953 NISBET stated: At the present time, in all the sciences, the various synonyms of alienation have a foremost place in studies of human relations. Investigations of the 'unattached,' the 'marginal,' the 'obsessive,' the 'normless,' and the 'isolated individual' all testify to the central place occupied by the hypothesis of alienation in contemporary science .... It has become nearly as prevalent as the doctrine of enlightened self-interest was two generations ago. It is more than a hypothesis; it is a perspective.1 There has, since that date, been a slowly growing body of literature and empirical research. Theorists have suggested numerous possible correlates or results of Alienation, such as Apathy, Authoritarianism, Conformity, Cynicism, Hoboism, Political Apathy, Political Hyperactivity, Personalization of Politics, Prejudice, Privatization, Psychosis, Regression, and Suicide.2 However, as Aiken and Hage have noted, social scientists have become enamored, perhaps inebriated, with the idea of alienation in modern society and have attempted to forge indices of man's sense of malaise. One major fault of most of these discussions is that alienation has been defined, measured, and discussed as if it represents some 'free floating' human condition irrespective of specific contexts which produce such mental states.3 But recently there has been a focusing of interest on the relationship of alienation in regard to a specific institution, rather than society at large. Lefcourt and Ladwig, for example, compared the Powerlessness and Normlessness scores of Negro and white prisoners and both of these