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The subject of Sociology emerged in the 18th and 19th century a period known as The Age of Enlightenment. Since then, the study of Sociology has contributed profoundly and vastly to the world of history by fostering the formation, development, and shaping of societies. The fathers of Sociology, like Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, have had a weighty contribution in studying the development of societies and the evolution of social thinking. During 1789, the changes in French Society encouraged Durkheim to give Sociology its academic credibility and influence, as he saw Sociology as a distinctive study. His study was methodological, which he made evident in his study of the suicides. Weber formed a new form of conflict theory using Marx’s work as his base. His research discussed the search for adequacy at the level of both subjective understanding and structural causality. In this essay, I will be focusing on the works of Durkheim and Weber, and will be explaining how the studied the evolution of society focusing on different aspects.

In Durkheim’s work, The Division of Labour (1997), he studied the changes in social cohesion amongst societies that evolved from traditional to modern, mainly focusing on individualism (Durkheim, 1997). He believed that the division of labour and economic dependence was the main force for binding people together in modern societies, unlike in traditional societies, where the shared belief would hold the society together (Durkheim, 1997). He explained this by mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity. Nonetheless, he did agree that a shared moral basis was an essential factor in social order, because organic solidarity emphasizes more on individual distinction, rather than common identities (Durkheim, 1997). Therefore, he noticed that, in traditional communities, religion was being replaced by individualism and philosophy.

Mechanical solidarity exists in pre-industrial, small-scale societies and individuals are alike because they share the same emotions and same sacred values, hence their properties are communally owned, making the community smaller and traditional (Durkheim, 1997). Therefore, they do not differentiate, which limits job specification in the society. Over time, societies get more complex, this led to an increase in the division of labour and cause mechanical solidarity to be less evident. As a result, organic solidarity is created, forming more modern and large-scaled societies (Durkheim, 1997). In these societies, consensus is created, which means that there is differentiation between individuals, so there was a range of activity and tasks that came across, which strengthens the interdependence amongst them (Durkheim, 1997). In spite of individuals being unlike one another, they need to get on together in order for social life to work. This dependence develops a network of solidarity. Therefore, social order does not rest on uniformity but rather on individual pursuing different, but complementary functions, which encourages individualism and individual talent (Durkheim, 1997). The moral force and consensus amongst others hold the society together and ensures that interdependence remains.

It should be considered that Durkheim’s distinction of these societies was not a simplistic and rigid division, because societies don’t exhibit one and not the other. As organic solidarity increasing, societies will still need to have common beliefs because all societies have to have some common set of assumption about the world (Durkheim, 1997). Thus, collective consciousness is vital in a society, because without it, there is a collection of mutually antagonistic individuals (Durkheim, 1997). However, collective consciousness varies in extent and force from one society to another. Mechanical solidarity on one hand embraces individual conscience, and on the other hand, organic solidarity individual scope is higher, because people have greater freedom to follow their own preferences (Durkheim, 1997).

Although the division of labour was important to Durkheim, it was not at the basis of his social theory. Unlike Marx, he did not see the economic level of social organization as providing the basis for all others, and he was much more concerned with shared beliefs and norms. He thought that class conflict was a temporary obstacle in social development believing that it acted as a mediator to ensure that modernisation occurred smoothly.

Unlike Durkheim, who focused on the society and how that forms the actions, Weber discusses how individual action causes the changes in society. Weber argued that bureaucracies were becoming the organizational model of the 19th Century (Ritzer, 2000 and Weber in Lemert, 1999), which is a ‘large hierarchical organization governed by formal rules and regulations and having clearly specified work tasks’ (Newman, 2008). This was seen as a leading example of rationalisation, as decisions were based on efficiency and not on tradition; it was an important social development to modernity. George Ritzer (1993) argues that McDonalds is becoming the model for organizations in the 21st Century; ‘the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world’ (Ritzer, 1993).

Weber’s rationalisation discussed regularities and patterns of action within civilisations, institutions, organisations, strata, classes, and groups (Ritzer, 2000). His interest lies on the ‘objectified’ rationality, which is the action that is in accord with some process of external systematization. Weber argues 4 types of rationality – practical, theoretical, substantive, and formal – to ‘scrutinize the historical fates of rationalization as sociocultural processes’ (Kalbery, 1980). Practical rationality is ‘every way of life that views and judges worldly activity in relation to the individual’s purely pragmatic and egoistic interests’ (Kalbery, 1980). Individuals that practice this rationality, merely accept realities, and deal with difficulties in the most expedient way. This rationality opposes anything that threatens to transcend everyday routine. Individuals tend to distrust all impractical values, as well as theoretical rationality. Theoretical rationality understands reality through the abstract concepts, rather than through action (Ritzer, 2000). Unlike practical rationalists, individuals deal with difficulties as a quest to understand the world as a meaningful cosmos. Substantive rationality discusses how individuals accept the various possible values and attempt to make them consistent (Ritzer, 2000). However, this does become an issue in modern societies as it acts as an obstacle to pursue certain values. For example, being grounded to family values may be difficult for an individual to tolerate the economic pressure and dominance from bureaucratic organisations. Lastly, formal rationality characterises bureaucratic, which leads to ‘universally applied rules, laws and regulations that characterize formal rationality in the West … particularly in the economic, legal, and scientific institutions, as well as in the bureaucratic form of domination’ (Ritzer, 2000), such as the contemporary legal and judicial systems.

As society was become more rationalised, Weber noticed that in modern societies, formal rationality played a greater role, thus substantive rationality lead to a decline (Ritzer, 2000). This is because; formal rationality emerged consequently during the time when capitalistic organisations were being developed. Due to the increase in formal rationality, the other forms of rationality are crowded out, limiting the possibility of creative social action (Ritzer, 2000).

Durkheim believed that individual’s actions are not independently chosen by them but in fact is the choices are planned by society. Using religion as an example, we possess certain values, beliefs and practices which have been learnt over time, because of their existence before. As a result, Durkheim believes that we perform our roles in society as a duty, ‘even though they conform to my own sentiments and I feel their reality subjectivelyaˆ¦I merely inherited them through my education’ (Appelrouth, S. & Laura D.E in 2008). For example, the roles we perform as being a sister, or wife, or even mother is more like a duty, and how society expects us to behave and act towards the other. Therefore, the achievement of social life among people, the existence of social order and social solidarity is established by collective standards of behaviour and values (Durkheim, 1964). However, social solidarity is crucial for the existence of society; the specific type or form social solidarity which resides within a society is not fixed and changes the changing form of society.

The members of the society adopt common values, beliefs and tradition, which is created as products of collective interaction. This means that individuals are constrained to adopt their culture in a certain way, because they belong to that culture (Durkheim, 1964). For example, as a member of the audience, individuals feel obliged to applaud at the ‘right time’ to conform the feeling of collectively. Therefore, the social group is a social phenomenon, as it constrains individual behaviour, which is known as ‘social facts’. It is ‘every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the individual an external constraint; or gain, every way of acting which is general throughout a given society, while at the same time existing in its own right independent of its individual manifestations’ (Durkheim, 1964: 13). For example, many people say that society is the reason for their actions, beliefs and knowledge; like society expects one to get married and have children, however not everyone fulfils these expectations, and they still do continue living in society. Nevertheless, the degree of constraint and freedom vary and there is always a degree of choice, but the there is also a degree of constraint, which are social facts. Durkheim (1964) argues that social facts must be regarded as things which can be observed at the level of collectively and not at the level of individual behaviour. He also suggests that one can identify social phenomena by identifying situations of social constraint. Using suicide as an example, we all believe that it is the most individualistic action of all actions (Poilton et al, 1987). However, Durkheim uses his work on Suicide to prove that even in its most solitary and individual of acts, something external to the individual, namely ‘society’, has not only been a ‘witness’ to but also the ‘director’ of the tragic drama.

Weber’s social action theory explains how individuals in society have the ability to exert control over their own actions, which makes them the active creator of social behaviour, hence opposing Durkheim’s view about society constructing their action. Hence, according to Weber, society is created by individuals and not the other way around (Weber, 1978 and Whimster, 2000). Individuals in society use their conscious thought to be aware of themselves and others as social beings; they possess their own motives, belief, and reasons, and they control their own actions. Weber discusses 4 types of social action according to the degree of rationality vs. meaningfulness – traditional action, affectual action, value-rational action, and instrumental action (Weber, 1978 and Whimster, 2000). Traditional action is an unthinking habitual behaviour. It has low rationality and low meaningfulness (Weber, 1978). For example, the way people eat in different cultures and families vary. Thus, eating with your hands is not considered rude in an Indian family, whereas it would be in a European family. Affectual action is governed by emotions, and thus makes it uncontrollable, similarly to traditional action; it is low on rationality and meaningfulness (Weber, 1978). For example, emotions such as laughing, burping, and anger are controllable, and as a result, the individuals have the ability to exert control. Value-rational action is the characteristic of modern societies and civilisations that have not made the transition to high modernity (Weber, 1978). These actions are high on rationality, but low on meaning, as one is unable to reflect upon the value of actions. For example, in religion, the belief in God is rational as there is blind faith, and people follow certain practices in order to go to heaven. Lastly, instrumental action represents the completion of an individual’s ability to reflect upon the ways and purposes of his actions (Weber, 1978). It exists in all societies, but predominantly in advanced capitalist societies. For example, in society, in order to earn a PhD degree, one has certain rational acts to achieve that certain rational goal, such as funds and grades. Therefore, Weber argued that the actions of the individuals are not influenced by society, but in fact they have the capability to exert control over their actions, thus they are independent of their own behaviour.

In Division of Labour (1997), Durkheim further discusses the reinforcement of suitably modernized societies. He saw that only certain groups would be permitted to regulate economic life by generating the moral standards (Turner, 1993). According to Durkheim, these standards ‘can be established neither by the scientist in his study nor by the statesman; it has to the task of the groups concerned’. (Turner, 1993); in other words, it cannot come from outside. However, these groups were non-existent in society (Turner, 1993). Although Durkheim was vague about the groups, he does implicitly argue that the groups would have initially been formed by legislation; ‘once the group is formed, nothing can hinder an appropriate moral life from evolving out of it’ (Turner, 1993).

Nevertheless, Durkheim’s vague idea about the groups was correct. The governmental regulation of economic life, such as the regulation on the notions of morality and equity, has enormously developed in modern industrialised societies, and the agent is known as the State, not occupational groups (Turner, 1993). As Durkheim failed to realise the ability the State possesses to regulate economic life, he also underestimated the moral power of traditional intermediate groups, which were based upon their religion and ethics (Turner, 1993). He believed that only modern groups could counterbalance the actions of the State. However, Durkheim viewed central State and intermediate groups are the key factors to individual rights (Turner, 1993). Therefore, Durkheim perceives the State as the organ of the society, it is the social brain; the State acts as a regulator.

Weber did not see State as the regulator, but in fact, he saw the State as dominator. As we are aware that bureaucracy organisation were being more popular, societies transferred from traditional to modern over a period of time, especially in capitalist societies. Weber saw that there was a new emphasis on materialism and consequently the rise in Protestantism resulted in the formation of ‘The Iron Cage’ as human society was imprisoned with depersonalisation and increased rationalisation (Weber, 1958).

According to Calvinism, known as a rational religious system, people should engage in a disciplined and methodical way of life which would facilitate their path to become richer and work harder (Weber, 1958). This was because they believed that it was the right way to glorify God, as it would be a sign that they are chosen to be saved. Contrary, Catholic doctrine followed the idea that one would obtain salvation by the means of avoiding salvation and adopting an isolated and mainly spiritual life (Weber, 1958). Therefore, the attitude of material wealth to serve God, and wasting time and money being an obstacle for salvation, led to development of the Capitalist system, as it permitted Christians to live luxuriously, thus rational economy was formed in which everything was calculated and designed to maintain the system.

However, soon, the reasons for material wealth had been substituted for other reasons, and maintaining the social system was a key priority (Weber, 1958). These meant that people worked and earn more, just so they could spend more. As a results, science replaced religion in order to keep the system working, thus the Capitalist system got out of hand, which linked to secularisation (Weber, 1958). Unconsciously, people were trapped in the system, like a cage, without ways to leave, which subsequently made them slaves of the system, transferring people into money machines (Weber, 1958). According to Weber, people’s ability to control their life was diminishing as they no longer had the option of to be or not to be part of the system; their freedom is limited. Ironically, the bureaucracy aimed to ensure people’s civil liberty, but unfortunately, it resulted in people enslaving them, and indirectly forcing them to support the system.

To conclude, it is evident that Weber and Durkheim both focused on different aspects when studying social evolution. Weber focused on the economical aspect, such as capitalism and bureaucracy, and Durkheim on the social, like the workings of society; Weber supported the idea that actions of individuals caused a change in society, but Durkheim disagreed and said that it was the change in society that led to a change in people’s actions. However, they are similar in the way that they both believed that society needed to evolve, and break through the traditional way of life.

The issue of crime and delinquency is one of critical issues in most societies and of great concern for decision makers. There is a rapid response by politicians for changes in rates and types of crimes for adults or juveniles to treat the same with temporary solutions such as imprisonment, increasing financial support to solve such problems and creating plans to reduce crimes (Kumpfer, 1999). Governments often look at crime issue from economical and financing perspective – how much does crime cost the state? Crimes costs Britain 4 million pound per day in addition to psychological cost of crime and society terror, particularly aged people (Holdway, 1996). (Kumpfer, 1999) sees that delinquency in American society such as youth crimes, early sexual deviations and drug abuse, are behavioral problems in American society, which cause serious concern in the country.

If crime is a normal phenomenon, then why does it increase in certain cultures as compared to others? Durkheim sees that crime is inevitable and shown by social change. Communities are different from each other as some communities have high rate of crime while others have lower rates. Industrial societies often have high crime rate, as there is a relationship between industrialization and crime. Crime doesn’t only increases in an industrial society but also changes the type of crimes (Curran & Renzetti, 1994). Durkheim deems that rapid social change in industrial societies and town drives increase in crime rate. This is one of effects resulting from industrialization (Curran & Renzetti, 1994).

Juvenile delinquency, as social phenomenon, has been a material for theoretical theories and experimental studies in sociology, particularly since the second half of nineteenth century. Majority of traditional sociologists regarded delinquency as a phenomenon resulting from external factors. Theoretical development in “Anomie” concept and social irregularity through(Durkheim)(1968) and(Park et al., 1967) and alienation concept through Marx (1963) have contributed to European social interpretation of incrimination and delinquency such as the studies that found a relationship between delinquent behavior and factors such work conditions and poverty (Marx), age, sex and religion (Durkheim), urban development (Park & Burgess).

Modern criminology has been affected by Marx’s interpretations of delinquent behavior with respect to crime and delinquency as political activities on one hand, and on the other hand, they believe that the delinquency is a reaction against repression (Taylor et al., 1973). They indicate that delinquent behavior is the outcome of repression and control of the class predominating the lower class. New criminology started from the perspective of social control system rather than delinquent behavior patterns. (Berlins et al., 1974), look at delinquency in society from perspective that children delinquency doesn’t mean that the problem is just deviation of children; rather the problem is significantly related to juvenile’s family, school, friends and social setting.

Social Control Theory

Social control theory has dominated on the deviance theory for decades, and it interested especially in mechanisms of social control for family and school (Hirschi ,1969). The main assumption in the theory is that youngsters deviance because some of some absent or not effective control powers, which means that deflector of youth aren’t under the psychology or social control. There is an assumption that there are two types of control systems which are personal and social, the main personal control is self-esteem. The social control is in the attachments of main social institutions like family and school, and such attachments are often measured through the quantity of interaction between parents and sons.

There are four types of social bonds, (A) attachment with others like parents and teachers, (B) Usual commitment for objectives and activities like educational expectations, (C) Involvement with usual activities like spending time with family, (D) Beliefs in usual criteria. If such bonds are weak, then persons shall behave deviance, and also if attachment with parents and teachers is weak, then the person shall be free to behave deviance. These four types of social bonds are connected each other, so any defect of any type shall expose to affect on other types. Attachment refers to describing youth ability to merge with others like teachers, friends’ groups, and to be affected with their beliefs, emotions and expectations especially their expectations concerning his behavior (Box, 1981). Involvement refers to participation in legal activities like when the student participates in school activities. Commitment is compliance with traditional rules of social controls.

Interesting with family factors and deviance has attached to family structure and the nature of relations inside the family (Geismar and Wood, 1986). The matters of family construction include broken families, which is that some of biologists is absent because of death, divorce or separation. The family relations relate to conflict of parents, relations of parents and sons, styles of inspection and education.

The familiar factors has an attachment with deviance in case of all youth regardless to age, racism, social category and sex, (Hirschi,1969). Consequently, the school has become from the important factors in social control theory, and through the focusing on importance of school and its relation with deviance has created future plans for academic success and creation of a positive relation with teachers. On the other side, failures at school or dismissed are exposure for deviance because their forwarding for future are frustrated with a certificate which is considered as hey of god income, (Box, 1981). The social control theory says that compliance relies on the bond between the person and social system. When such bond is weak, there will be a probability for deviance. There in important focus on the main and basic relations among parents, school and friends’ groups as main resources for criteria and laws. The relation between the familiar variations and the deviance behavior, which is referred to it in social control theory, could be experienced in the experimental researches.

Strain Theories

Strain theories concentrate on social factors that drive youth to delinquent behavior. (Durkheim, 1984) paid attention to social regulation and stated that it is necessary to prevent delinquency. Social strain theories, such as those of Merton, Cohen, Cloward & Ohlin, on the other hand, deem that chaos in social order increases delinquency.

The key to any interpretation of strain in juvenile delinquency (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960; Cohen, 1955; Merton, 1956) is that some young people are droven to conflict with law in response to social failure or frustration from an experience. Such individuals have goals in the society but means should be lawful in order to attain the same while such lawful means to success are closed.

(Merton, 1992) clarified that social structure has created inhomogeneous situations of responses and created correlation between cultural ambition and social structure means.

Cloward and Ohlin (1961) have assumption which included that the opportunity for different types of illegal activities is an important variable for the response of delinquents. Cloward and Ohlin indicated that strains between frustrations in economical success and failure of opportunities leading to success are more influential on youth category in lower class and hence encourage delinquent behavior (Cloward & Ohlin, 1961).

Merton (1956) modified Durkheim’s concept of anomie as he sees that conflict among cultural goals (e.g. wealth, power, prestige) and lawful institutional means for attaining such goals is a main source of anomie. Merton used anomie concept not only in interpretation of suicide but also in various types of delinquent behavior. He attempted to explore how social structure places strain on individuals in the society to enter into non-homogeneousness more than leading to homogeneousness. If we want to place a specific group under strains, then we should expect high rate of delinquent behavior in such group because they responded to such social situation in which they found themselves involved (Merton, 1969).

Through this perspective, social structure is active and effective in creating types and pattern of behavior. Therefore, focus on social system and impact of standards shall build individual’s behavior. Merton noticed that society encourages its members to be ambitious for wealth and prestige but allows a limited number of them to succeed in this pursuit.

Subculture Theories

Among important social schools in analysis of juvenile delinquency is that focused on characteristics of subcultures of groups that have their own values, beliefs and standards, language and lifestyle. Attempts to interpret juvenile delinquency and subcultures have rapidly developed in recent decades because modern societies encompass different subcultures and behaviors consistent with the standards of a particular sub-culture, which may be considered as delinquency outside such culture (Giddens, 1997). Subcultures theories attempt to explain delinquency through delinquent gangs that have certain conditions for their standards derived from internal social regulation, which constitute cultural pattern of behavior in class structure in the society.

The importance of theories on subcultures lies the fact that they are a key to convey beliefs in determining delinquent behavior. Focus is placed on such factors as inability of the working class children to compete to improve their situations and training in give them prestige in the society. Working class children have beliefs that opportunities will not wait for them until they graduate from school, and distinctions racism between ethnic groups, conflicts and marginalization experiences by the second generation of immigrants (Matza, 1964). Matza finds that delinquency is the result of conduct by some people in a particular manner, which is a response to acts. Consequently, what we call delinquent activity can be described social reaction.

Sutherland, argued that the criminal behavior is gained and learned from the main groups especially peers group. Sutherland sees in theory of differential association that compliance and deviance are from the types of the gained behavior, and both of them comes in the sage of social upbringing which happen to person during his interact with others. The main hypothesis in this theory is that the social context for learning deviance and compliance has increased in the capitalism industrial societies because people are growing in such countries, and the life in these complicated societies consists from groups have a conflict with values and criteria against law.

The theories of subculture has succeeded in using experimental researches in interpreting deviance behavior (e.g.(Gordon et al., 1963);(Rossi et al., 1974) has found an important different results through abilities of social categories for pushing them to general legal criteria through measuring main figures such as income and job.

To sum up, one of strength matters in social control theory is that researchers can merge its items with other theories of deviance such as strain and Sutherland. As well as the social control theory has resented a great ability in interpretation of deviance behavior, not illustrating of all variations related to deviance behavior, but it showed a high relation and attachment among deviance, family’s conditions and scholar experiences. The social control theory can’t explain which factor can destroy the social bonds and create deviance behavior. Answering such question needs other perspectives.

Conclusion

Te social studies in delinquency of young people have focused on development of different theories for understanding and explaining delinquent behavior. The assumptions of the main item of this research have developed three main theories orientation which are known as the theories of strain, subculture and social control. The two theories of strain and social control have focused on the socio-economic status, and they have shared tacitly that the delinquent behavior is association to the weakness of socio-economic status. Both of strain and subculture theories have focused that the main motivation for delinquent behavior is created by social conditions (Merton,1938;Cohen ,1966;Cloward&Ohlin,1960). The social control theory on the other hand, considers that there are some factors for preventing delinquency and they are called social bonds (Nye ,1958;Hirschi,1969).Where they consider that the things which control young people from delinquency are the bonds, relationships with parents and school.

The main matter in this research with the family factors is concentrated around the nature of relationships between parents- children and family stability. The social control theory predict that such attachment with the family can decrease the delinquent behavior, on the other hand, the young people who come from families with less stability may face a high percentage of delinquent behavior. The social control theory also focus on that the negative directions towards school (Hircshi,1969;(Hindelan.Mj, 1973), the positive feelings towards teachers may be an opportunity for decreasing committing the draft behavior. The kind of relationships inside home and school predicts the delinquent behavior. The young people who their relationship are good with their parents are less going for delinquent behavior, but the young youth have weak relationships with parents and teachers go for committing delinquent behavior. The amount of time spent by young youth with peers, and the peers are another theme can be known for explaining deliquent behavior. (Miller, 1981) considers that the subculture theory has referred that there is centrifugal relationship between going with friends and deliquency. The school is trying to test the theme taken from theories of strain, subculture and social control, for finding a comprehensive understanding for delinquent behavior inside state of Kuwait and this abstract approach shall be identify by interviews with delinquent juveniles.

I have chosen some themes from these three theories of strain, subculture and social control. The delinquency has many variables and they couldn’t be tested in one interview. Some experimental studies have assured that some items of these theories aren’t important “involvement” as an item of social control theory has been neglected because many experimental studies have referred that “it isn’t important” (Elliott et at.,1985;Agnew,1991). And I have determined in the research some themes which were very important and clear in some previous researched for the same theories. The delinquency of young people is often attached to the weakness of socio-economic status, poverty of parents and les attach to school, and the attachment with peers group.

Second Section ??

There are two theoretical approaches in analyzing delinquency reasons. The first approach focuses on background variables. In this connection, strain and subculture theories determine motivation for delinquency through accumulation of increasing frustrations due to unfair structure. The second approach includes situational effects. Social control theory focused on failure of family and school experiences to be social bonds.

This structural approach (strain and subculture theories) and social control theory provide difference in determining causes for delinquent behavior. In general, structural approach adopts the view that individual’s socio-economic status, as causative variable, leads to committing delinquency. This trend emphasizes diversified structural strains driving the individual to delinquency. On the other hand, social control theory indicates weak or loose bonds where an individual becomes ‘free’ to commit delinquent activities. According to this theory, presence of special motivation is not required for committing delinquent behavior.

Delinquency theories vary in their content, there is no single theory that interprets all kinds of delinquency. Each of different concentrations has strengths and weaknesses. In each theory, we find several themes that give strength to its interpretations. Some sociologists focused on integration of different theories in their works (e.g. Eve, 1978; Johnson , 1979;(Elliott et al., 1979) who employed their themes from several delinquency theories.

Strain and subculture theories don’t contradict social control theory because they interpret delinquency through individual’s social relationships. On the other hand, strain and subculture theories are distinguished from social control theory in terms of the type of social relationships that lead to delinquent behavior and motivation for delinquency.

The idea of integration of theories is useful in interpreting why young people engage in delinquent behavior. Key elements in these three theories are socioe-conomic status of the family and attitude towards parents, school and peers. This study is based on the assumption that there are situational and motivational factors that would drive young people to delinquent behavior. In the course of integration of theories, there is an assumption that delinquent behavior starts with assumption of social institutions such as family and school. Further, social control theory indicates how delinquent behavior develops and also through the individual’s position in social system,And also as indicate of Strain and subculture theories association with tendency to delinquent behavior.

There are two sets of themes that make interpretation strong in this assumption. The first set indicates motivational factors for delinquent behavior while the second set indicates restrain factors for delinquent behavior. Strain and subculture theories are motivational theories while social control theory is a restraint theory. Therefore, assumptions in this study are based on that delinquent behavior is expected to be the result of socio-economic status disadvantages and weak controls.

Methodology

In this section I will present the thesis methodology including the problem of this sudy ,research aims, research question, then I will focus on the interview with participants and ethical issues for research with children and data analysis.

Research Problem

The research is concerned with the background of juveniles lodged in Social Care House, Juveniles Care Department in Kuwait that is entrusted with delinquent juveniles and related factors that resulted in committing them to such House through their perspectives. Juveniles will explain their conditions, core problem and main reason for commitment to the House. Therefore, the study will explore the problems behind juveniles’ misbehavior in Kuwait’s culture and why Kuwaiti juveniles’ rate of delinquency is increasing (according statistics). Nowadays, juveniles’ problems are continuously presented through mass media such as runaway from school, fighting inside or outside the school, physical aggression against teachers and driving car without driving license. Social Care House has been selected as it the entity entrusted with juveniles against whom judgments were passed for the first time, i.e. it is their first delinquent behavior and have not been previously adjudged to be committed to the House. Researches indicate that individuals with previous experience in law are exposed to more stringent measures than those who had no experience with law.

This research attempts to consider the factors and conditions that will be stated by juveniles themselves that led to commitment to Juveniles’ Care House; are these are economical, social or environmental factors? Are family income and relationship between a juvenile and parents among the reasons? Or encouragement and association with peers? Researches based on individual experiences are good material for understanding nature of surrounding environment impact on individual’s behaviors.

Kuwait has entered into a socioeconomic change that affected the family role, nature of family structure and social control as well as youth behaviors, trends and social values that have changed in some manner leading some people to delinquency. Extended family was performing social control and supervision of young people but it became weak. Children’s behaviors changed and some of them rejected traditional values. Some researchers (e.gAlKandari,2010;AlRumaihi,1995) indicated that spread of new values generated from urbanaisation, modernization and western values has impacted Kuwaiti society through different mass media and technological communication means such as availability of satellite that brings many mass media from different countries and in different languages.

Research Aims/ Objectives:

Juveniles’ crimes and delinquencies are increasing in Kuwait, as according government statistics; however, the problem of young people has been ignored by researchers in Kuwait and received little attention from researchers. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to explore assumed reasons behind involvement in delinquent behavior by juveniles which resulted in commitment to Juveniles Care House. In addition, this research will examin the factors that assisted with or urged juvenile delinquency, particularly family factors such as the relationship between the parents-juveniles, punishment and reward within the family, parental supervision, the link between parents and the juvenile. The study also attempts to explore relations between the family socio-economic status and juvenile delinquency, and the impact of family income on attitudes and behaviors as well as the role of school and the relationship with peers.

The Study Questions:

What are the reasons that resulted in juvenile delinquency from their point of view?

What are the reasons behind involvement in their offend?

What is the relationship between the juvenile and his family with delinquency?

What is the relationship between socio-economic status of the family with juvenile delinquency?

What is the relationship between the juvenile’s educational level and relation to school with delinquency?

What is the relationship between the peers group and juvenile delinquency?

Research Process:

The use of semi-structured interview is considered more for this type of studies. Given difficult access to Juveniles Care House and employment of another method such as observation by participation, interview advantages include that the researchers can obtain in-depth information on in studies where it is difficult to access the study population (Verma and Mallick, 1999).

Child centered Research

This research adopted child centered research approach, which assumes that young people are an active agents in society and their perspectives and attitudes about their status in life should be heard, and that the research will be based on considering young people as subject not object. However, there is an increasing importance placed in “listening” whether to a consumer in the market, a patient in healthcare clinic or client in social service field. Although the same structural constraints exist, people will differently react allowing for a socially originated approach (Bryman , 1988);(Leibrich , 1993). The research will provide young people with opportunity to talk about their lives, experiences and reasons for delinquency from their point of view.

Interviewing

Participants will be young people aged 13-17 years, who are lodged in Social Care House, Juveniles Care Department in Kuwait pursuant to a competent court judgment to commit them to Social Welfare Care House for a specific period due to committing a delinquent behavior that is punishable under Kuwaiti Juveniles Law of 1983, who are classified as “Delinquent Juveniles”. The research will consist of qualitative interviews with about 25 participants. The interview will be based on the juvenile’s individual knowledge through his personal experience, viewpoint and interaction with his surroundings. This is an essential issue in this research where reasons are disclosed from the juvenile’s own perspective (Bryman, 2008).

The interview will take about one hour depending on the discussion nature and will be held at Juveniles Care Department where inmates are not allow to go out from the Department to make an interview according to rules in authority . Participants will be given a list of examples for some questions to be discussed in the interview to assimilate the subject matter and what is expected from them in the interview in order to create mutual trust between the researcher and participants, make them feel comfortable about the interview and ensure that there is no vagueness in the research for them .

I will also present the method for turning recorder on/off so that a participant can stop it at any time during the interview. The participants can withdraw at any of search stages at their sole discretion. Research aspects, extent of information confidentiality and maintaining the participants’ privacy will be discussed as well as answering all questions raised by participants regarding the research(Alderson et al., 2004).

Ethical Issues

To make sure that all participants have understood the research process will help in the research management. Consideration should be given to what could happen throughout research process in addition to the importance of ethical issues in this research where the participants are considered as ‘vulnerable group’. Attention will be paid to ensure to psychological, emotional and physical well-being of participants (Alderson et al., 2004). I will start the research after ensuring that the participants have a comprehensive understanding of the research. I will give a ‘consent form’ to the participants before commencing the interview.

Ethical guidelines manual of British Society of Criminology (BSC) will be the main reference of ethical issues in this research, in addition to using the Durham universitiy’s school of Applied Social Sciences for any advice in vague matters or matters requiring further consideration due to lack of official reference for research ethics in Kuwait.

Data Analysis

Analysis of final data will utilize thematic analysis approach for digital recording, i.e. topics selected in the research. I will make transcription of digital recording so that it becomes legible and divided by topics affecting delinquency for easy analysis. Aspects of data confidentiality will be determined and converted into anonyms to protect participants in research. Themes and the relationship between topics and delinquency will be explained and then start writing-up stage.

Divorce is considered a major social problem in the United States of America (USA). Divorce impacts the lives of many people outside of the divorcing family including many aspects of society. Divorce is playing an active role in reshaping the culture of the USA by changing the definition of the family (Schaefer, 2008). Because divorce is a problem in the eyes of Americans it merits sociological analysis using the Sociological Imagination and the three sociological perspectives: Functionalism, Conflict Theory and Interactionism. The definition and concepts of Sociological Imagination will be outlined first. The social issue of divorce will be viewed from this set of concepts to see how divorce affects individuals and society as a group. A description of the major ideas and concepts in each of the three major sociological perspectives will be followed by an analysis of divorce by each perspective. Using each of the perspectives will uncover useful insights and information concerning this issue. Finally, concluding ideas will be presented and supported.

To be able to see the interaction between the person and their community, for example, is crucial to developing a Sociological Imagination. However, Sociological Imagination is much more complex than Mills’ definition. When a sociologist uses his or her “Sociological Imagination” it is the “imagination” part that is most interesting and enlightening. For example, you walk into a room filled with people talking and engaging in normal social behavior. Without intending to you begin to observe those people and their actions in a very biased way. You bring cultural, gender and economic biases with you as a normal part of your consciousness. Observing objectively, thus scientifically, would be out of the question in this situation. Now, imagine you are an alien observing the same group of people interacting in the room. Because you are not a human you do not have human biases such as viewing a male doing the dishes with disdain. It is easy for the alien observer to truly see interactions in a scientific manner. The alien observer would not think that any action or behavior is unusual or wrong, the action or behavior simply is. Sociological Imagination is an amazing way of observing human social behavior and human groups because it encourages the observer to see objectively and then ask the most important question in sociology: why?

Divorce must be considered using microsociology and macrosociology when using the Sociological Imagination. Divorce affects the family, a microsociological group, immediately and sometimes drastically. Divorce affects the entire country, a macrosociological group, sometimes long after the divorce and in many small ways that add up to bigger problems. It can be argued that divorce is only a personal problem. Take, for example, a young married woman without children. Divorce would impact her economic status and economic future. For a young woman going through a divorce negatively affects her ability to provide basic housing and nourishment needed to be a productive citizen.

She might even need to file bankruptcy to be able to move on with her life in a meaningful way. This can be seen as only her problem. She will have to deal with bad credit scores for years to come and may have to take lower paying jobs or live in undesirable apartments as a result. She may become depressed and perform poorly at her job as well. These personal hardships carry over into her family and workplace groups quickly and with detrimental effects. However, using the Sociological Imagination provides insight into how divorce influences much more than her and her family. Divorce impacts the society she lives in several ways. The bankruptcy she filed would negatively affect the already unhealthy economy. Because of her low credit scores she might not be able to earn as much as she is actually capable of thus, she will spend less on essentials than she might otherwise. As she is pushed deeper into a lower socioeconomic status her spending will also fall which slows economic growth. Because she has become poor she probably cannot afford private healthcare, so she relies on public healthcare to provide her with medication to combat her depression. Her divorce had become a public problem. The Sociological Imagination encourages observations such as this to better understand the implications of personal issues on a societal scale.

There is another way to look at the young divorcee’s personal problem when using the Sociological Imagination from a macrosociological view point. It can be argued that her divorce is rooted in a deeper social issue within the culture that she lives. For example, the social issue of poverty could have caused her divorce. Many marriages end because of financial hardships. If the divorcee and her then spouse were living on wages that placed them under the poverty level the stresses of providing adequate housing and nourishment would have been great. There are many other social issues that could contribute negatively to a marriage such as domestic violence causing divorce to occur.

The Functionalism perspective in sociology states that society is structured the way it is in order to maintain its stability thus, its survival (Schaefer, 2008). The key concepts are balance, harmony and evolutionary, not revolutionary, change within the current scheme. The way the society functions now is the way it should be because everything serves a purpose. This perspective sees society as a complex system that promotes stability by guiding individuals with a social structure that provides certain social functions. Anything that disrupts the current social structure or functions is seen as dysfunction. If some part of a society does not contribute to the current architecture of stability it will not remain. Manifest and latent functions of institutions are of particular interest to this perspective because they illuminate facets of society’s structure. The Functionalism perspective overlaps with conservative political views and deals with macrosociological groups such as an entire country.

Conflict Theory is a perspective that views society as groups that are struggling over power or resources (Schaefer, 2008). The key concepts are tension, inequality and revolutionary change. Society is the way it is because of inequality, and this inequality should be actively opposed. This perspective views society as an arena of disparity that generates conflict and change. Change is seen as a positive force for a society. Conflict theorists are interested in why some people have so many resources while others have so few and how this is either being maintained or changed. The Feminist view is closely related to the Conflict perspective because both deal with inequality (Schaefer, 2008). Feminist view looks at disparity between the genders in terms of women’s lower statuses in most societies. It asserts that gender inequity is the force that is at the center of behavior and the status quo. Both the Feminist view and the Conflict perspective overlap with liberal political views and focus on macrosociological groups such as American women.

The Interactionist perspective, also known as symbolic Interactionism, generalizes about individual social interactions as a way to see society as a whole (Schaefer, 2008). The key concepts are interactions, relations and symbolic meanings. This perspective views society as a product of everyday interactions. Humans are viewed as living in a world of meaningful objects with an emphasis on the importance of symbols. This perspective is closely related to social psychology. The dramaturgical approach and nonverbal communication are of particular interest to this perspective because they help to clarify how personal interactions are accomplished. The Interactionist perspective overlaps with libertarian political views and deals with microsociology such as a symbolic exchange between coworkers.

Divorce when viewed from the Functionalism perspective contributes to the stability of the society as a whole. Fewer divorces would actually be dysfunctional because divorce serves a purpose. For example, as a result of divorce many lawyers, judges and court officials are employed. The public system of healthcare employs doctors, nurses and social workers that treat and care for the poorer people in society including those that have lost so much because of divorce. Without the current rates of divorce many people would be unemployed. Unemployment would destabilize societal structure therefore divorce rates must remain where they are to ensure survival of the social scheme. The status quo must remain in place.

Divorce when viewed from the Conflict perspective must be analyzed as a microcosm of society. Conflict theorists would describe the divorce as the competition for resources and power within the marriage where both parties cannot come to an agreement.

The struggle over resources generates tension that results in a change in the marital status. Looking at divorce from the Feminist view can be seen as conflict between a woman that is addressing the inequality stemming from her gender role and a man that does not want to relinquish power or resources to her. For example, she may have wanted her own checking account with private access to funds while her husband saw this as an unacceptable amount of power for her to have. The resulting tension caused a revolutionary change in their social structure. Divorce is seen in this light as a positive force because it is changing an inequality.

Divorce when viewed from the Interactionist perspective examines the choices that each individual has made, the interactions between husband and wife, and the symbolic meaning of marriage and divorce. Nothing is right or wrong is it simply a way of looking at society from a very small scale while determining how these interactions shape the larger group. A symbolic Interactionist would ask the divorcee what she thought about the meaning of marriage and divorce. Her information taken with thousands of other interviews would form a picture of the current meaning of divorce. For example, the institution of marriage as a symbolic contract between a pair of people and the community has changed. Marriage was at once a status symbol and rite of passage. It used to mean you were on the right track in life and providing stability to your community. Conversely, divorce was seen as a great shame and something to be hidden if at all possible. Today multiple divorces are not uncommon. The stigma attached with divorce has declined just as the “necessity” of marriage has declined. Using the Interactionist perspective uncovers the changing meaning of divorce as a symbol in society.

Of the three sociological perspectives the Conflict perspective and Feminist view offers a more convincing and applicable view of divorce. It answers “why” divorce happens in the most logical way. Americans are the most self-centered and arrogant people in the world. American culture upholds money, beauty and power as the most important goals one should work towards attaining in life. These values do not promote long term relationships. They promote conflict. For example, tensions arise in a marriage because of the struggle over money, property and power in a relationship. When one person in the marriage becomes unable to handle the disproportion of resources a disagreement occurs. Women’s historical gender roles are still in effect. Because women are still expected to manage a household while working a full time job frustrations arise. These issues as well as countless others contribute to the current divorce rates. The Feminist view supports this idea by saying that the center of the problem is gender inequality while examining the ways in which it is still occurring. Conflict perspective explains how these problems arise and how they cause divorce by uncovering the perceptions, attitudes and values within the culture that give rise to the conflict.

Theories have been useful as a tool for creating explanations for patterns of behaviour in families (Doherty et al:, 1993). Functionalism gives an extremely optimistic view of family life. Lang’s evidence on child abuse, violence against women and divorce statistics indicates that functionalists neglect the dysfunctional aspects of the nuclear family. Functionalism focused excessively on the nuclear family form and insufficiently on other family forms.

Marxist and Functionalist theories of the family tend to assume that the nuclear family is the dominant family form and therefore neglect diversity. Both structural approaches to the family – Marxism and Functionalism – can be deterministic, and this can make their analyses inaccurate and maybe over-generalised. Feminists, interactionists and the radical psychiatrists of the 1960s (Laing, Leach and Cooper) have all helped to correct these weaknesses. Postmodernism has helpfully emphasised diversity, but it can be argued that it goes too far, ignoring the evidence of structural trends and dominant norms in our society(Doherty et al:, 1993). Functionalist approach presents the most positive view of theory.

Types of Family

The nuclear family is traditionally known to be made of the parents and their siblings and this is the most basic family arrangement. While the nuclear family is made- up father, mother and their offspring, extended family refers to aunts, grandparents, cousins and uncles.

I would like to think that most societies have a concept of extended family. The relative structure, functions and importance vary according to the particular culture. Traditionally, extended family is referred to as kinship network of economics and social ties made-up of the nuclear family plus other relatives.

The economic and social importance of extended family can most readily be seen when family members are living together. Even when extended families do not live together, nuclear families may rely on extended kin to help with basic day to day activities and may also co-dependent on extender family for economically and emotionally support.

Contemporary family is …..In any particular time and place, families have always been more varied than the prevailing image of what the ideal family should be. Although family types are even more diverse than in the past, most contemporary families are still variations on the traditional nuclear family pattern.

Family structure

Lone parent

Single parent can be caused by death of a spouse, divorce, and separation. This may lead to single parents being overwhelmed with their loss and the responsibilities. Most single parents are women, who may face somewhat lower income and will often rely on child support and government subsides. When parents divorce or are widowed children often experience loss and a disruption of routine. Children may also need a lot of attention, affection, and reassurance (Meyerhoff, 2010).

Reconstituted family

As we tend to think of families consists of a mother, father and their children, the reality is that there is a lot of divorces and remarriages occurring in our society such that a large number of families are actually stepfamilies. In remarried families, parenting is shared among different sets of parents and different household. Children will tend to visit in and out of households for visitations. Issues with children not accepting parenting from their stepparents can be an issue and this can be hard on children as well as the parents. Strong sense of loss can recur in remarried families due to the families not feeling intact, which may sometimes cause emotional scars, conflicting loyalties. Remarried families can be complex. Each additional member of the family system allows for another relationship or another with every other member of the family. The family is made up of biological parents, grandparents, siblings, stepparents, stepsiblings, half siblings and step-grandparents (Meyerhoff, 2010). With this many relationships between so many people there is potential for stress, but there is equally an increased potential for a large support network if everyone cooperates and communicates well. Hence reward can be tremendous.

Adoption family

Adoption family structure is complex but potentially rewarding ….

Changes in family structure

Family structure has changed significantly in recent years, with increasing divorce rates and single-parent households (Field, 2003). Evolving definitions of family include people who may not be kin, but who act as family for some individuals, Rothausen (1999). Bogan (1991) uses the term wider families to refer to the concept and opines that such families result from individuals’ lifestyles and may not involve the sharing of a household. This concept of family describes a group of people who are invested in one another due to bonds of dependence, obligation or duty, love caring or cooperation (Rothausen, 1999). In the same way Weeks, Heapy and Donovan (2001) refer to same -sex families which are founded on bonds of individual choice, as ‘families of choice’.

There is also a great deal of cultural variability in how the term family is defined. Changes to the family structure is also happening through ethnic difference which is also influenced by religion within the society In many Asian countries, a normal family may include three or more generations living in one household (Rothausen, Kanye, 2005). And as life expectancy continues to rise the number of multigenerational families may increase (Levade et al, 2000).

The dynamics of family have changed, with couples having children later on following economic stability and careers. A lot of women are pursuing careers thereby starting family in the late 30s. Families might only have one child, this could lead to the child being spoiled (through parents trying to over compensate) and lonely. With new legalisation allowing same-sex couples to adopt families in place, the traditional family structure has changed to contemporary.

Discussion

Family friendly government policies are helping families by providing childcare, pre and after school care benefits (tax credit), vouchers, extended maternity and paternity leave, flexible work / life balance, Finn (2010). This is allowing families to spend more time together there by forming strong bonds, which is essential for a better relationship between family members. The stronger the relationship the more family became a haven in this heartless world.

The family is a social institution. Due to diversity, different cultures have different concepts of family values. Same families can be oppressive (oppress individual development), restrictive, inhibitive and repressive. This can lead to families masking undercurrents and patterns of abuse, violence and potentially exploitation. Finn (2010) states that majority of abuse is within family unit and close relatives. Hence for the abused people family might not be a haven. An example of abuse by family is baby P incident (whereby a little boy lost his life through abuse by family members and extended family members). Baby P’s abuse occurrence and pattern was masked by the same family members who abused him, therefore family was not a haven for baby P. More often abused people sometimes become anti-social because of their lake of trust and also often became withdrawn such that they are un-productive. Abused people may often confide in people outside the family unit and are most like to become estranged to their biological family and they will forge relationship with people who they will consider as family. They often get support from outside the family unit. The will make family of choice based on friendship and this family of choice might be their haven in the heartless world, Lasch (1977).

Support from family members differ between same -sex and opposite sex couple. The research by Kurdeck (2001) found that gays and lesbians received very little support from their families of origin as compared to the heterosexual couples, Bravewoman et al (1998). For the gays and lesbians who do not have support from their family of origin family is not a haven of. They might face the pressure from society and family to conform to what is traditional. This can lead to unrest, but family is a haven for the gays and lesbians who have strong family ties.

Lawrence Stone (1977) argued that, the new family ideal prescribed domestic privacy and strong emotional attachments between spouses and between parents and children. Today’s life style has lead to longevity, meaning parent and child relationship can last fifty years or more. Family remains a central attachment in most people’s lives, thereby family acting as a haven in this heartless world.

Summary

The change in the perception of family in recent times is through people choosing a family life in whatever shape or form and that people still desire a family life and family is still a required lifestyle option for the majority of people, Finn (2010). Therefore there will always be a variation in family units. Families will come in different shape and sizes and such differentiation is expected. So family will vary from time to time and place to place. For the majority of people the family is a haven in this heartless world, for family is a source of great joy and warmth.

Whatever your particular family situation it will have tremendous influence upon your children’s happiness, development and future. A strong relationship with extended families can be just as rewarding as close ties inside the nuclear family. However building those bonds inside the extended family can be a little more difficult because, obviously everyone does not live under the same roof. For young children, living in a big family can be a lot of fun.

The traditional family will continue to exist along other alternative family and everyone has a right to choose which family they belong too and the one that suit their situation and circumstances. Hence family life in whatever chosen shape is still the desired and required lifestyle option for the majority of people.

For Valentine, social geographies is “The study of social relations and the spatial structures that underpin those relations”. Critically assess how such an approach may help to understand homelessness.

For Valentine, social geography is “the study of social relations and the spatial structures that underpin those relations” (Valentine, 2001). Social geography covers a vast range of ideas and subjects; it looks at the inequalities in society such as sex, class, ethnicity and disability which are missed in other fields of geography (Johnston, 2001). One of the most important topics is the study of how people interact and use the space around them. These classifications and social markings make’s us what we are and how we are seen by others (Jackson, 2005). The ideas which Valentine thought described social geography can be shown through the issue of homelessness. This essay will look at: what homelessness means, social relationships within homelessness and spatial structures within homelessness.

Homelessness is becoming an ever growing social problem. The obvious definition of homelessness would be simply a person without a home, but it could also be seen as a “condition” where someone is ejected from society because of a lack of relations within a social structure (Chaplow in Bahr, 1973). Valentine has outlined different categories of homelessness. There is official homeless, where people are recognised by the state and have applied for housing. Single homeless is people who have no legal rights to housing and live on the streets. Hidden homeless are people that are not officially recognised by the state and living with friends or in other precarious situations. Protohomeless are people who could become homeless in the future due to their current circumstances (Valentine, 2001). These definitions from Valentine already show there are more social issues behind the issue of homelessness than first appear. The growing number of homeless people can be shown through a 58% increase in people in Scotland (between 1989/90-1999/00) applying under the homelessness legislation (Scottish Gov’t, 2009). It is believed that every night in England up to 500 homeless people sleep rough on the streets (Crisis UK, 2006) and that 10,000 people will do this over the course of a year. The largest majority of people sleeping rough is made up of young males, up to 52,000 young people were found to be homeless by local authorities in England during 2003 (Crisis UK, 2006). There are a number of common factors seen as the cause or lifestyle choice of the homeless, which often comes as a stigma to some of the homeless population. The next section will look at how social relations can often be the cause of homelessness.

Valentine claimed that “social relations” are a fundamental concept of social geography (Valentine, 2001). Social relations are about how different people/groups interact with each other and the bonds/relationships they form. Relationships (small or large) in society can have big effects on people. This can be shown through the example of domestic violence (small scale) compared to Local Authority Tolerance towards the homeless (large scale), both issues can have equally important effects on individuals.

Domestic violence is seen as one of the route causes of homelessness. It is the second most common crime in the UK, one incident is reported every minute (Womens aid, 2009). On average 1-2 women are murdered each week at home by male partners and 63% of women aged 30-49 cite domestic violence as the key reason for their homelessness (Crisis, 1999). Although the vast majority of domestic violence is targeted at women, men are also at risk. Especially those who are: young, old, frail or have disabilities.

The home is often associated with the ideas of security, comfort and family, this has not been the same throughout history. It was only in the late 19th/early 20th century where the home was separated from the work place. This new lifestyle changed the role of the wife and gender relationships (Madigan, 1990). Behind the closed doors of private homes there are no prying eyes or means of protection, the home could alternatively be associated as a place of violence and secrecy. The breakdown in relationships within the house such as couples (through domestic violence) or between family members (especially young members) leads to people being forced or choosing to leave the home. Family conflict is a main cause of homelessness amongst two thirds of homeless young people and 86% of young homeless people are forced out of their home, rather than leave on their own will (Crisis, 2006). Once the social relations breakdown and people are on the street, they are consumed by the stereotypical image of the homeless.

The homeless are associated with drug and alcohol culture, mental illness, crime and violence, for example ? of those who sleep rough have been to prison (Crisis, 2006). These views are primarily meant for the street homeless, the visible homeless population which only make up a small proportion of all the homeless. However these images which are the face of homelessness often are unfair on a number of people and create a new problem in the way of tackling a much larger issue (Ravenhill, 2008).

The state and public can see the homeless as not worth helping, due to these stereotypical associations. One example of a state approach towards the issue of homelessness is the *anti-bum ordinances” in America where local authorities tried to rid homeless populations by displacing them to neighbouring cities. In other areas of America authorities were seen to be punishing the homeless. On a cold winters night (30th December 1987) in Miami, 41 homeless were arrested by police in order to uphold there policy of no sleeping on the streets. The state was seen to be cleaning the streets of “the unsightly presence of homeless individuals” (Baker, 1990). Both these examples show the poor social relationships between the homeless and the state, the issue was in most cases not treated fairly or just passed onto another person.

The idea of the state moving the homeless away from the city streets links into the idea of NIMBYISM (not in my back yard), creating a spatial structure where the homeless are not wanted or don’t fit in anywhere. This idea of NIMBYISM relates especially to residential and business areas, as the presence of homeless could reduce housing prices and create security concerns. The homeless don’t fit into the spatial pattern of the city, seen as a nuisance or an eye sore. It is however important that homelessness is not just seen as an urban issue.

Rural homelessness is an almost hidden issue from society and is often not even pictured when regarding the subject of homelessness. In rural England the number of homeless grew by 30% from 2002-2004 (Countryside Agency, 2004). It is an issue which is growing larger in the UK as people adopt new spatial structures of living. People are moving out of urban areas into rural areas, these are often wealthy families looking for the rural idyll (the more glamorous view of the countryside). In 2003 only half of those who purchased property in the countryside with land attached were farmers (Countryside Agency, 2004). There is a growing lack of affordable housing for rural locals, due to this structural switch and a lack of planning for the future in the countryside. This rural homeless population are normally forced to stay in cars or make shift camps/shelters, exposed to the elements. One of the most common outcomes of rural homelessness is known as “sofa surfing” where people move between staying with different friends. This group is often unrecognised by the state, therefore not creating the attention needed to spark help. Like the street homeless the make up and social associations of the rural homeless are the same. The majority of the rural homeless are also between the ages of 19-25 and there are large associations still with drugs, alcohol, crime, mental health and suicide. Where ever the homeless populations are they face much the same issues and stereotypical associations.

The issue of homelessness can be extensively examined by looking at the social relations and spatial structures within the topic. Through homelessness it can be seen that social relationships affect how people are treated and viewed in society. This concept can be applied to many social geography issues such as gender and ethnicity. For homelessness however these relationships are vital in understanding how some people have become homeless (through the breakdown in family relationships), how the public view the homeless (as drug addicts and thieves) and even in how the state approaches dealing with the issue. The study of the spatial structures of homelessness shows us how the homeless use space. This could be creating there own new homes, creating conflicts through NIMBYISM and it also lets us explore aspects like the rural homeless. Homelessness often does not fit into the social structure of cities; there is no room or will to accommodate the homeless. The issue of homelessness is a complicated one, but can be summarised as a complex structure of social relationships and issues of the use of space.

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A comparison of the social constructs of emotion in Asian and Western cultures shows that Asians are more prone to experience depression and suicidal behaviors than are Westerners. Studies highlighting the cultural similarities and differences in display rules, the emotion regulation norms, and the physical and emotional expression of depression in these two cultures are cited to support this claim. The Basic Emotion, Component, Appraisal, and Neo-Jamesian theories show that only elements from each provide a complete explanation of why Asians are predisposed to depression because of culture. The Social Constructionist Theory offers a thorough explanation of this phenomenon. The problems and possible remedies facing Asian cultures and the heightened risk of depression among its members are also addressed.

Culture and the Understanding of

the Concept of Depression

Through numerous studies on cultural relativism and cultural categorization of emotion, emotion is shown to be, to a degree, contingent on cultural factors such as display rules, social roles, and culturally determined appraisals. The interpretation of depression eliciting stimuli and situations and expression of depression, in particular, is also influenced by these cultural factors. Furthermore, the social constructionist view of depression makes it possible to compare the concept of depression in Western and Asian cultures. The contrast between the relatively individualistic nature of Western cultures and the collective nature of Asian cultures, and their associated norms for emotion regulation, may offer differing perspectives of depression and therefore help form a cultural observation of depression within the two cultures. The cultural display rules, socially learned performances, and emotion regulation norms that guide the interpretation of and behavioral responses to depression in these cultures reveal that Asians are more prone to depression and suicidal behaviors than are Westerners.

Cultural differences between Western and Asian cultures in individualism-collectivism (I-C), a dimension of cultural variability, show a strong possibility that Asians are predisposed to more negative emotions than are Westerners. Individualistic cultures, most of which are Western, promote individual needs, wishes, desires, and values over group and collective ones (Matsumoto, 1990). Consequently, hierarchical differences in status or power are minimized while equality is emphasized (Matsumoto, 1990). In contrast, collective cultures, many of which are Asian, promote the opposite; they stress the needs of a group, individuals identify themselves as members of a group, and one’s social role is defined by an entrenched system of hierarchical differences and vertical relationships (Matsumoto, 1990). The I-C difference is also related to the social distinction between ingroups and outgroups (Matsumoto, 190). Members of individualistic cultures tend to display more negative emotions to ingroup members and more positive emotions to outgroup members. Conversely, members of collective cultures tend to display more positive emotions to members of ingroups and more negative emotions to those of outgroups (Matsumoto, 1990). These display rules should predispose Asians to more negative emotions, which may result in depression, at least in the social interactions with outgroups.

Power distance, another dimension of cultural variability, which refers to cultural differences in status and power, is positively correlated to cultures that are more individualistic and negatively correlated to those that are more collective. This dimension may already show that Asian cultures foster more opportunities for the occurrence or passive harboring of negative emotions, while Western cultures seem to dissipate many of these potential risks. The importance of equality and the needs of the individual in Western cultures may make it less likely for people to experience depression on a large, societal scale. On the other hand, the vertical relationships encapsulated in collective cultures may make it more likely for people to acknowledge their differences from one another and any perceived inadequacies with those higher in power and status may contribute to the occurrence of depression.

A Japanese-American comparison study by Matsumoto (1990) explored the relationship between I-C and PD cultures and the display rules of the members of those cultures. The study was conducted in two sessions; the first measured display rules through the subjects’ judgment of the appropriateness of displaying emotions in different situations, and the second measured how they judged the intensity of the same emotions. The results of the experiment supported the views that Japanese display rules made it appropriate to show negative emotions to outgroups and lower-status others while American display rules allowed people to express negative emotions more openly in ingroups (Matsumoto, 1990). In addition, Americans rated happiness in public and to outgroups as more appropriate than did Japanese. The Japanese display rules, indicative to some degree of Asian cultural display rules at large, show that in order to foster ingroup harmony and maintain the hierarchical differences in power and status, people find negative emotions to be appropriate when interacting with outgroups and lower-status others but not with ingroups and higher-status others. These display rules may reveal that Asian cultures are less tolerant than Western cultures of negative emotions in ingroups, which discourages them to express and share their negative emotions with their ingroups. A further finding from Matsumoto’s study suggests that although Asians may be more likely to express negative emotions to outgroups, they mask their negative feelings in the presence of others (Matsumoto, 1990). Overall, Asian cultures seem to discourage any expression of negative emotions whether with ingroups, outgroups, or those of different status.

Emotion regulation norms for Asian and Western cultures also demonstrate a greater likelihood for depression among Asians than among Westerners. Since emotion regulation refers to the ability to manage and modify one’s emotional reactions in order to achieve a desirable outcome, it reflects the different ways that culture tries to achieve social order (Matsumoto, Yoo, & Nakagawa, 2005). Two aspects of emotion regulation, reappraisal-the way individuals appraise an emotion-eliciting situation to change its impact on the emotion-and suppression-the inhibition of emotional expressive behavior-can be used to compare Asian and Western cultures. Individualistic cultures are associated with more reappraisal and less suppression because these cultures value emotions and free expression more than collective cultures, which are associated with less reappraisal and more suppression in order to maintain ingroup cohesion and harmony (Matsumoto et al., 2005). Studies have linked emotion regulation to different types of adjustment. Individuals high in reappraisal and low in suppression experienced more positive and less negative emotions, were more open in sharing their emotions with others, had better social support, were less depressed, and reported higher self-esteem, optimism, and life satisfaction; in essence, reappraisal has been associated with positive outcomes and suppression with negative emotions (Matsumoto et al., 2005). These conclusions can also be applied to individuals from Asian and Western cultures at large-Asians may feel more negative emotions, have less social support, and be more depressed than Westerners.

Although suppression has been associated with negative consequences on the individual level, a study by Matsumoto et al. (2005) shows that it may have positive consequences on the social level. Suppression may play an important cultural function in organizing and maintaining cultural systems and groups. Thus, the social order is preserved at the expense of the emotional well-being of the individual. Part of their study, which held data about country-level emotion regulation, reveals that emotion regulation is positively correlated with both positive and negative indices of adjustment (Matsumoto et al., 2005). In other words, while individualism may promote high levels of both positive and negative adjustment because it values free, uninhibited emotional expression, collectivism may promote only either positive or negative adjustment. Despite the fact that suppression in collective cultures may lead to greater social harmony and a high level of positive adjustment, individuals may still experience negative consequences. Therefore, while Asian countries and cultures may report a relatively positive adjustment for society in general, individuals themselves may report negative adjustment. This phenomenon may very well show that Asians who suffer from depression are stifled by cultural emotion regulation norms from receiving psychological or emotional help and support.

The Social Constructionist Theory has helped define the social constructs of Asian cultures that make Asians more prone not only to negative emotions but also to social anxiety, a precursor to depression. Cultural display rules, social roles, and emotion regulation norms have effectively contributed to the predisposition of Asians to be more passive, non-assertive, and anxious in interpersonal situations than Westerners (Okazaki, Liu, & Minn, 2002). The results from a study that examined differences between Asian American and White American on a trait measure of social anxiety and self-reports of anxiety-related emotions during a 3-min social performance task indicated that Asian Americans reported more anxiety than White Americans (Okazaki et al., 2002). Their data also revealed that some differences among Asian Americans of various ethnicities in their levels of social anxiety are related to their levels of acculturation. If there are indeed significant differences among Asian Americans depending on their level of acculturation to American culture, they would be due to whether Asian Americans still prescribe to Asian social constructs of emotion. Although Asian Americans reported more social anxiety, they did not behave in an observably different manner than White Americans during the anxiety-provoking social task (Okazaki et al., 2002). In light of the emotion regulation norms that guide behavioral responses, both Asian Americans and Asians may be less willing to express any type of strong emotions, positive or negative, in front of people. This observation may support the view that Asians are exposed to social rules that increase the likelihood for anxiety, and subsequently depression, because those same rules prevent them sharing their emotional burdens with others.

This culturally embedded formula for Asians to experience more social anxiety than Westerners is reinforced by culturally relevant risk factors for suicidal behaviors among Asian American youths. Asian American youths are at greater risk for suicide than majority group youths (i.e. White Americans and African Americans) because they experience risk factors that every youth experiences such as antisocial behaviors, substance abuse, and lack of familial stability, and those related to acculturation to the majority culture such as discrimination, alienation, and identity confusion (Lau, Jernewall, Zane, & Myers, 2002). Asian American youths who fail to acculturate properly and develop an adaptive ethnic identity are prone to maladjustment, which entails life dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, pessimism, and depression. It is primarily the parents of Asian American youths that confound their efforts to acculturate and thus contribute to stress and frustration (Lau et al., 2002). Acculturation stress and intergenerational acculturation conflicts have been identified as factors that influence suicidal behaviors among Asian youths in Great Britain (Lau et al., 2002). A struggle between Western cultural norms and Asian cultural values can be seen in the parent-child conflicts of Asian American youths.

A medical record abstraction at a mental health outpatient clinic identified correlates of suicidal behaviors in a sample of 285 Asian American youths (Lau et al., 2002). The records pointed out that adolescents were at the greatest risk for suicidal behaviors and were more prone to depression than were younger children. Consequently, depression was a strong predictor of suicidality as well (Lau et al., 2002). The data showed that youths who were less acculturated and experienced high parent-child conflict were at significantly greater risk than youths who were more acculturated and had lower conflict. Interestingly, youths who were diagnosed as suicidal displayed a higher number of internalizing symptoms and fewer externalizing symptoms (Lau et al., 2002). Perhaps the cultural sanctions against expression of negative emotions and the Asian cultural tendency to portray mental disorders as shameful and the tendency to downplay such disorders as temporary emotional states that do not require treatment, medical or otherwise, contribute to the prevalence of suicidal behavior among Asian American youths (Lau et al., 2002).

Asian Americans as a whole, including both youths and adults, have had their mental health needs neglected by United States federal mental health policies (Nagayama Hall, & Yee, 2012). This neglect is perpetuated in part by the three myths about Asian Americans: they are a small group; they are a successful group and do not have any financial or cultural problems; and they do not experience mental health disparities (Nagayama Hall, & Yee, 2012). Although many, especially White Americans and the government, see Asian Americans as the model minority, they are not by any means exempt from problems surrounding their social and cultural position in the United States. The first myth is debunked by data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census showing that Asian Americans are proportionally the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. The second myth can be disproven by the sheer fact that not all Asian Americans receive the same education and opportunities to advance in society. Some groups have less education, greater unemployment, and higher poverty than others (Nagayama Hall, & Yee, 2012). Moreover, even Asian Americans who are successful by educational, employment, and income standards encounter problems associated with their ethnicity. The stress of acculturation contributes to the occurrence of mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety disorders. Their overall success in integrating with American culture belies the reality that many experience mental health disparities due to clashing cultural values and display rules; as a result, this conflict and the neglect of their mental health needs predispose them to an increased risk of depressive symptoms and behaviors and (Nagayama Hall, & Yee, 2012).

A specific look into the avoidance of mental therapy in South Korea further strengthens the argument that Asian cultures foster societies in which Asians are more likely to experience depression and less likely to seek help for it. Academic and corporate pressures contribute to an alarming rate of stress and suicide among South Koreans (Kim, Won, Liu, Liu, & Kitanishi, 1997). Many Koreans, however, largely resisted Western psychotherapy for their growing anxieties, depression, and stress. The Buddhist and Confucian values that dictate much of South Korean society emphasize stoicism and modesty while subordinating individual problems and concerns to the good of society. In line with these ethics is preservation of “face”, or dignity for the family (Kim et al., 1997). If they do seek help, Koreans are compromising the dignity of their families by indirectly stating that they need mental therapy because their families are at fault. Koreans decide not to seek professional psychotherapy or counseling because the culture considers open expression of emotional problems as taboo. Thus, many Koreans forgo mental help and cope with their problems on their own (Kim et al., 1997). However, the suicide rate has doubled in Korea between 1999 and 2009 and it may continue to grow if Koreans do not seek therapy or some form of counseling to cope with depression and stress (Kim et al., 1997). The problem of depression in Korea is mirrored in other East Asian cultures perhaps because they all share the same cultural prohibition of expressing negative emotions to both ingroups and outgroups and the view that depression is not a serious mental health problem.

A dangerous threat that can result from ignoring cases of depression and when individuals neglect or are incapable of seeking mental aid is a rising suicide rate. China, India, and Japan accounted for more than 40% of all world suicides in 2006 (Beautrais, 2006). Surprisingly then, although many Asian cultures believe that suicide is a source of personal and family shame, much of the world’s reported suicides occur in Asian countries. Problems of underreporting cases of suicides and suicide attempts such as inaccuracy of reports, prohibitions against the collection of suicide data, and the stigmatization of suicide make it difficult to assess the true numbers of suicides that occur in Asian countries. Nevertheless, limitations aside, there is still an alarming number of suicides that take place in Asian countries every year. As in Western countries, mental illness is strongly correlated with suicide in Asian countries (Beautrais, 2006). Indeed, many of the life stresses that cause depression-poverty and marital, family, and relationships problems-are equally shared by Asian and Western countries. However, some cultural, historical, and contextual features of suicidal behavior in Asia may show that life stresses may more often lead to suicide than in the West (Beautrais, 2006). The struggles of young rural families involving early marriage, low social status, and lack of personal autonomy; economic stresses for Asian businessmen who are pressured to work long hours and drink away their stress; and academic stresses for adolescents in Japan and Korea who compete for admission to prestigious schools may invariably lead to suicide. Not only do the societal conditions in which Asians live may engender more cases of depression and suicide, but also the social constructs of emotion particular to Asian cultures.

While the Social Constructionist Theory argues that social roles, emotion regulation norms, and cultural display rules explain why Asians may be more prone to depression than Westerners, appraisal theories help highlight the role of appraisal as interpretations of emotion-eliciting situations in this phenomenon. Appraisal, which is involved in reappraisal in emotion regulation, is defined as the evaluation of an event. Appraisal, therefore, plays a significant role in emotion regulation because it allows an individual to interpret a situation as positive or negative, thereby influencing the emotion felt. Whereas in Asian cultures, appraisal is framed by values that promote embeddedness, power distance, and hierarchy, in Western cultures, appraisal is perceived through values that promote individualism, egalitarianism, and affective autonomy (Matsumoto et al., 2005). Asian cultures assess appraisal through the collective mind, or through the socially desirable outcomes of ingroup harmony and maintenance of power distance. Therefore, Asians may tend to appraise situations as positive or negative depending on the goals of their societies. However, because Asians may appraise emotional situations under the context of social values, they may run the risk of both diminishing positive emotions and exaggerating the negative emotions for the individual. For example, if an Asian youth receives a relatively poor grade based on his parent’s standards, he may ignore the fact that although he did not please his parents, he scored the highest out of his class. Nonetheless, the youth appraises the situation negatively because he places the needs of the group (his family) ahead of his individual needs and concerns. In contrast, a Western youth may appraise the situation differently, seeing his performance as satisfactory and thereby feeling happier and less stressed. Appraisal theories are thus contingent on the social goals and values pertaining to culture.

Component theories further elaborate how components that lead to depression occur more often in Asian cultures than in Western cultures. In addition to appraisal, subjective feeling, action readiness, expression, and instrumental behavior are all emotion components that help construct an emotion. Through Ortony and Turner’s conclusion that emotion components are dissociable elements and the results of the study by Okazaki et al., (2002), we can see that depression is caused by various components that by their own may not be indicative of the emotion. Asian cultures define these components in relation to social order and harmony, once again subordinating the needs and desires of the individual to those of society. Naturally, appraisals and behaviors that reflect restraint and inhibition of expressing negative emotions are more prevalent and readily used in Asian cultures. However, even if one were to experience components of depression, the full manifestation of the emotion may not occur because depression and other mental health disorders are looked down upon in Asian cultures (Beautrais, 2006). The individual would likely associate an experience of depression, despite having all the components that form depression, with a general negative emotion that can be overcome by sheer willpower or other non-professional therapy; in addition, the individual can choose to ignore one or several components of depression to deny that they are depressed. Unfortunately, component theories, like appraisal theories, do not offer a full explanation of why Asians may be predisposed to depression because they do not ensure the full manifestation of depression.

The Basic Emotions Theory may support the universality of depression, but does not explain why or how Asians are more prone to experiencing it. The study on social-anxiety for Asian Americans and White Americans by Okazaki et al., (2002) showed that facial expression is not a primary or even reliable indicator of emotion. Likewise, another study exhibiting display rules in Japanese and American subjects showed that while the Japanese felt the same emotions as the Americans, they did not show negative emotions to strangers (Matsumoto, 1990). Facial expressions of emotion are but one part of socially defined components that generate an emotion. Depression is interpreted differently by Asian cultures than it is by Western cultures due to differing social values and roles (Beautrais, 2006). Moreover, the expression of depression is inevitably different for Asian cultures and Western cultures because of cultural display rules. In short, the Basic Emotions Theory merely states that depression exists, but not to what degree individuals in different cultures experience it.

There is a link between the Neo-Jamesian Psychophysiological Perspective and a study by Arnault & Kim (2008) that shows that Japanese and Korean women had higher somatic distress and depression than American women. The results of the study showed that there were certain somatic distress symptoms unique to depression among the Asian women: gastric and abdominal upset, weakness, dizziness, aches and pains, and palpitations (Arnault & Kim, 2008). Through a comparison with American women, Japanese and Korean women were found to experience culturally-specific somatic symptoms. This finding supports the psychophysiological perspective that each emotion has its own pattern or signature of bodily changes. Therefore, according to this perspective, depression should also have its own unique signature of bodily changes. Although the study may support the claim that emotions are equivalent to physiological changes or can be purely defined by them, it also showed that the somatic symptoms felt by the women were culturally-specific. American women would not be able to experience the same symptoms as the Asian women did, and they would probably not label their symptoms collectively as depression. Furthermore, the Japanese and Korean women used an “idiom of distress” used to describe their symptoms that highlighted the importance of cultural values and beliefs.

The Social Constructionist Theory is, therefore, the best theory illustrating how Asians are more prone to depression and suicidal behaviors than are Westerners. It encompasses elements from the Appraisal theory, Component theory, Basic Emotions theory, and Neo-Jamesian Psychophysiological Perspective. Emotion components that form the emotion of depression are all influenced by the social norms of a particular culture. Asian cultures, which value embeddedness, power distance, and hierarchy, evaluate emotion components and somatic symptoms according to these cultural orientations. On the other hand, Western cultures evaluate emotion components and physiological symptoms according to individualism, egalitarianism, and affective autonomy. The culturally specific evaluations of Asian cultures increase the likelihood of people experiencing depression than in Western cultures. The downplay of negative emotions may also reveal that in Asian cultures, negative emotions are relatively hypo-cognized concepts, emotion concepts that are not so thoroughly mapped out in a culture’s emotion lexicon. Nonetheless, the expression of negative emotions is confounded and inhibited by a cultural reluctance to acknowledge that people have mental health problems. Socially learned performances, syndromes, and language all contribute to create a high disposition for depression in Asian cultures.

While Asian and Western cultures seem to be the primary culture groups in the world, we can observe similar cultures such as that of the Utku if we focus on the more fundamental I-C dimension of cultural variability. The Utku society shares more values and traits with collective Asian cultures than with individualistic Western cultures. The Utku value ingroup harmony over individual needs and desires, which have the potential to disrupt society. Parents show affection to their children up until a certain age around 3 and 4 years old, in order to assimilate them into the larger social context of society (Briggs, 1970). Adults expect children to eventually abandon their childish, selfish ways and adopt a communal mindset of equal distribution of food and goods. In order to maintain their social harmony, the Utku try not to exhibit anger, which would be detrimental to the carefully monitored society by causing conflict and breaking relationship ties.

In their efforts to avoid anger, they have effectively made it a hypo-cognized concept, indirectly doing away with one of the precursors to depression. Because none of the Utku claim to be angry and no one can observe any signs of anger, the Utku may not even experience depression. By eliminating not only anger but also negative emotions in general, the Utku may only perceive positive emotions. Unlike other collective cultures like Asian cultures, the Utku have a relatively limited and simple emotion vocabulary and thus may not even consider depression to be an emotion concept, much less experience it. While studies on cultural display rules and emotion regulation norms suggest that individuals in collective cultures are more prone to negative emotions, this does not seem to be the case for individuals in Utku society. The only possible instances where depression may have occurred, in Raigili and Saarak’s sullen moods when their mother no longer carries them, do not guarantee that the children felt depression (Briggs, 1970). Even if they felt sadness, it would have been construed and interpreted through social values; they experience emotions through the context of their society. In essence, the Utku reveal one exception to the commonly held view that individuals in collective cultures are more prone to depression.

The comparison of Asian and Western cultures and their disposition for depression brings up a problem of the immutability of culture. If Asians are truly more prone to depression because of culture, then how do we rectify this problem, if there even is a solution save the complete upheaval of deeply entrenched social norms and values? Even with the evidence citing that Asians experience more depression and are at greater risk of suicidal behaviors than are Westerners in America and in their native countries, the global rates of suicide in Asia seem to increase every year. The medical findings can be a starting point to influence government health, economic, and educational policies to change or perhaps sway cultural values. While the thought of completely or irreversibly altering a culture’s values and beliefs is not only near impossible but controversial, government and public awareness of depression and suicide may help decline the rampant number of suicides that occur in Asia. There is an important distinction to be made between countries and cultures-countries may comprise of one or several cultures, and conversely, a culture is not indicative of any country’s beliefs or values (Matsumoto et al., 2005). Changes in other dimensions like international politics have translated into changes in public sentiment and even cultural values. There is a great possibility for governments of collective cultures to perhaps assuage the dangers of emotion suppression and allow for more open and free expression of emotion. They can also try to establish medical and mental health institutions that allow people to meet with psychiatrists privately to prevent the patient from any associated familial or individual shame for having depression.

The medical records of Asian American outpatient youths and U.S. mental health policies that neglect the special needs of Asian Americans can help direct attention to the increased likelihood among Asian Americans to feel depression. The transcultural study by Kim et al., (1997) showed that even Asian students have developed coping methods to deal with stressful events. Health reforms that pair Asian patients with those of same ethnicities may alleviate any barriers to full expression of emotion and provide a chance to better diagnose and remedy depressive symptoms among low acculturated Asian Americans or immigrants. An observation that American psychiatry should be more sensitive to the relationship between the mind/emotions and the body would also help assess and treat Asian patients who experience depression and stress (Arnault & Kim, 2008). Programs to help Asian immigrants to become acculturated with American or Western culture may dissipate any tension between Asian values and Western values. Understanding of emotion concepts across Asian and Western cultures could also be more easily facilitated through these acculturation programs. These civil policies and other measures may make it easier for Asian Americans to adopt American or Western culture while at the same time not relinquishing their native Asian cultures. This process of integration would ensure that they do not lose their cultural identities but rather focus on the values and emotion constructs that promote emotional well-being and health.

Although Western cultures seems to be a better culture in terms of emotional expression and general individual well-being, it is far from perfect and may even be worse than Asian cultures in maintaining social order. Cultures all share the desire for social order (Matsumoto et al., 2005). Western cultures seem to promote this relatively well by emphasizing individualism, egalitarianism, and affective autonomy. Individualism ensures that the needs of the individual are met and attention and care is given to the individual who has problems. Egalitarianism promotes the idea that everyone, regardless of any actual differences in power or status, sho

Many of us believe that ‘research’ is always related to activities that are hidden and mostly strictly confidential from our knowledge and in our daily life (Altinay and Paraskevas, 2006). In addition, majority of us also believed that these activities are held in laboratories, in some aspect this is partly correct, in a sense that the research done by people in laboratories follows certain scientific strategies and methodologies. However, there are also a growing number of individuals such as business managers, marketers, academics and students who at the present time conduct a thorough research outside laboratories in order to develop and produce knowledge relevant to the business world or any particular interest. With this regard, the difference between the researchers are in their research approaches, strategies and philosophies. These differences are “their perception of how the knowledge can be created and constructed in a rigorous and meaningful way in order to answer a research problem.” (Altinay and Paraskevas 2008:69).

Research philosophy is defined as “the development of knowledge and the nature of knowledge” (Saunders, et al., 2009). The meaning might sound rather profound, however, the author further explained that the basic meaning of the definition is precisely the exact thing every researcher is doing when he or she is conducting a research and that is the will to develop knowledge in a particular field.

According to Crossan (2003) on paper about “Research Philosophy: Towards and Understanding,” (Crossan 2003), there are several reasons on why researchers needs to understand philosophical issues before embarking themselves in a particular field. Easterby-Smith, et al. (2002), identifies three reasons on why there is significance on understanding philosophies in reference to research methodology. The first reason the author added is that by understanding research philosophy the researcher may refine and clarify the research method to be used in their study and consequently help the researchers to gather their evidence and to answer their research questions. Secondly, the knowledge of

research philosophy will enable to assist the researchers with different types of methodologies and as such avoiding inappropriate and unrelated works. Lastly, by understanding the basic meaning of research philosophy and understanding its advantages and benefits, it helps the researcher to be more creative and exploratory in their method of research.

Saunders, et al. (2009) added, that in research philosophy each researcher follows important views on how they perceived the world. Furthermore, this views and assumptions will greatly affect the research strategy and methodology a researcher chooses as part of its approach.

Research methods can be described and classified into different levels (Clark, 1998). In addition, Saunders, et al. (2009) also pointed out that the levels of research methods a researcher should adopt will contain his or her views about the world. These views will actually support the researcher’s judgment on which research method the researcher should choose as a part of its strategy (Saunders, et al., 2009).

In the social science world however, there is an ongoing debate to which is the most appropriate standpoint from the views of positivism and the non-positivism/ interpretativism (Saunders, et al., 2009).

According to Saunders, et al. (2009), if a researcher reflects the philosophy or the views of positivism, then most probably the researcher will take on the philosophical instance of natural scientist. Positivism according to Veal (2006) is a framework of research similar to the views and assumptions adopted by natural scientist, in which the researchers view the people and its behaviour as phenomena to be studied, using facts and observations as its strategy to explain the phenomena.

Saunders, et al., (2009) also added that positivism views mostly prefer working in an observable social reality and will have an end product research similar to those produced by a natural scientist. Furthermore, researcher with positivism views will only observe a phenomenon which is observable and will end up producing credible

data. In addition, the author also argued that one of the essential elements of a positivist approach is that the views of the researcher are not influenced on value of judgements.

Interpretivism on the other hand, strongly believes that it is imperative for a researcher to understand the factors and “differences between humans in our role as social actors” (Saunders, et al., 2009). To clarify, the author further discussed that these belief is plainly to emphasise the difference between conducting research among people rather than materials or object.

Saunders, et al.( 2009) also argued that the complexity of the position of interpretivism comes from two intellectual traditions namely; phenomenology and symbolic interactionism. To explain, the author identifies phenomenology as referring to the way the human beings make sense to the world and the surrounding, while the symbolic interactionism, the human being are in the continual process of interpreting the surrounding social world.

In social world, Smith (1998) argued that positivism is most probably the most important attempt in order to have ‘authoritative knowledge.’ The author also added that the positive approach to social sciences is more of a scientific method because a researcher with positivism philosophy will always assume that everything and every phenomenon can be studied as hard facts and as such establish scientific laws.

Although, for some researchers they believe that it is imperative to use the traditional approach of research such as the naturalist or scientific method in order to explain phenomena or any occurrence in the physical and life science (Remenyi, et al., 1998). The author also argued that many scholars however, have proven a point that this is not entirely appropriate to study human beings or the organisations they have created. This point was clearly illustrated on Carr 1967 (cited in, Remenyi et al., 1998:94).

“I do not wish to suggest that the interference of the social scientist or of the historian can match that of physical scientist in precision, or that their inferiority in this respect is due merely to the greater backwardness of the

social sciences. The Human being is on any view the most complex entity known to us, and the study of his behaviour may well involve differences in kind from those confronting the physical scientists.”

With this regard, many would argue that the study of phenomenology or sometimes called non-positivism is more appropriate method or strategy in order to study people’s behaviour and their organisation (Remenyi, et al, 1998). The author further argued that researchers that has phenomenological views does not deny the importance and relevance of positivism in the study of physical life and sciences, after all, if not because of positivism there will be no enlightenment to the development material reality of the twentieth-century, such as heart transplant and space travels. However, despite the importance of the positivism views, they have poor insights when explaining, why people hate their jobs and most of the time complains about everything, why customer service is normally poor, or why is it that most of employees are motivated with achievement and some are not (Remenyi, et al., 1998).

Research Approach

According to Saunders, et al. (2009) research approaches are mainly based on the research philosophies, whereby the deductive approach is commonly used by researchers with traditional natural scientific views (positivism), while inductive approach is usually based on phenomenology (interpretivism). Sometimes these research paradigms or approaches are used together in research to explain better an occurrence or phenomena (Gilner, et al., 20000). Furthermore, a deductive approach is an extremely influential and intellectual approach, in which conceptual and theoretical framework is developed and tested using empirical observation (Hussey and Hussey, 1997). An inductive research on the other hand is an approach whereby, the theory is developed from observing an empirical reality, which is typically oppose the deductive method (Hussey and Hussey,1997).

Research Strategies

“Selecting an appropriate research strategy is key to ensuring that research questions are addressed in a way which has value and is congruent with the overall topic, questions and purpose of research” (Palliative Medicine 2004; 18:677-684).In relation to, Saunders, et al. (2009) added that most of the research strategies belongs to deductive approach. The author also argued that even it is imperative to allocate strategies, it is important to remember that there is no superior or inferior type of strategy, all strategies are important to every researcher; however, their use will entirely depend on the field of study the researcher will embark on.

According to Robson (1993) there are three traditional research strategies, namely; Experiment, Survey and Case Studies. However, Saunders, et al., (2009) added that research strategies should not be restricted on one strategy per study; it is also possible that survey strategy can be as part of case study.

Apart from the relation of experiment to natural and social sciences, Saunders, et al. (2009) also defines experiment as, the study of casual links between an independent and dependent variable. Therefore, experiments are commonly use as a basis of explanatory research in answering the questions ‘how’ and ‘why’.

Survey is a popular strategy in conducting a research, as it allows a large amount collection of data from a chosen sample (Saunders, et al., 2009). Additionally, the author also pointed out that survey is essential in the collection of quantitative data whereby the researcher can analyse the data quantitatively by using inferential statistics.

The last on the tradition research strategies according to Saunders, et al. (2009), is the case study; the author identifies this research method as commonly used in social sciences in order to have a more in-depth study of a particular individual or a group for that matter.

Approach for this Study

In the past, many scholars and researchers considered positivism as the correct scientific paradigm to the study of marketing (Carson, et al., 2001). This argument

has also been supported by European Journal of Marketing, 28 (3) 1994, whereby the author suggested that the researchers needs to rethink the marketing research methods and answer questions such as, “why do qualitative studies lack of acceptance in marketing?” (Hunt,1994:13-25).

According to (Carson, et al., 2001), after the aggressive and long time debate about the relevance of the approaches of scientific theories on the marketing study (see for example the European Journal of Marketing, 28 (3) 1994), the author considers the qualitative research method in the perspective of marketing as a suitable research approach for this study. In addition, Carson, et al. (2001) also discussed that interpretivsim is more suitable in the study of marketing as its approach to is in a more personal level in answering the problems in social field such as understanding the reality. Furthermore, the author also identified its position to marketing research as skewed toward interpretive end of the spectrum.

(See figure 1)

SPECTRUM.jpg

Figure 1. The authors position to marketing research

(Adapted from Carson, et al. (2009:14)

In terms or research strategy, Bonoma (1985) argued that case study is a popular method amongst many marketers. In addition, the author defines case study as a well-suited approach to marketing, moreover, the pattern of case study strategy in the field of marketing is highly recognise as means to generate exploratory insights.

Many of us believe that ‘research’ is always related to activities that are hidden and mostly strictly confidential from our knowledge and in our daily life (Altinay and Paraskevas, 2006). In addition, majority of us also believed that these activities are held in laboratories, in some aspect this is partly correct, in a sense that the research done by people in laboratories follows certain scientific strategies and methodologies. However, there are also a growing number of individuals such as business managers, marketers, academics and students who at the present time conduct a thorough research outside laboratories in order to develop and produce knowledge relevant to the business world or any particular interest. With this regard, the difference between the researchers are in their research approaches, strategies and philosophies. These differences are “their perception of how the knowledge can be created and constructed in a rigorous and meaningful way in order to answer a research problem.” (Altinay and Paraskevas 2008:69).

Research philosophy is defined as “the development of knowledge and the nature of knowledge” (Saunders, et al., 2009). The meaning might sound rather profound, however, the author further explained that the basic meaning of the definition is precisely the exact thing every researcher is doing when he or she is conducting a research and that is the will to develop knowledge in a particular field.

According to Crossan (2003) on paper about “Research Philosophy: Towards and Understanding,” (Crossan 2003), there are several reasons on why researchers needs to understand philosophical issues before embarking themselves in a particular field. Easterby-Smith, et al. (2002), identifies three reasons on why there is significance on understanding philosophies in reference to research methodology. The first reason the author added is that by understanding research philosophy the researcher may refine and clarify the research method to be used in their study and consequently help the researchers to gather their evidence and to answer their research questions. Secondly, the knowledge of

research philosophy will enable to assist the researchers with different types of methodologies and as such avoiding inappropriate and unrelated works. Lastly, by understanding the basic meaning of research philosophy and understanding its advantages and benefits, it helps the researcher to be more creative and exploratory in their method of research.

Saunders, et al. (2009) added, that in research philosophy each researcher follows important views on how they perceived the world. Furthermore, this views and assumptions will greatly affect the research strategy and methodology a researcher chooses as part of its approach.

Research methods can be described and classified into different levels (Clark, 1998). In addition, Saunders, et al. (2009) also pointed out that the levels of research methods a researcher should adopt will contain his or her views about the world. These views will actually support the researcher’s judgment on which research method the researcher should choose as a part of its strategy (Saunders, et al., 2009).

In the social science world however, there is an ongoing debate to which is the most appropriate standpoint from the views of positivism and the non-positivism/ interpretativism (Saunders, et al., 2009).

According to Saunders, et al. (2009), if a researcher reflects the philosophy or the views of positivism, then most probably the researcher will take on the philosophical instance of natural scientist. Positivism according to Veal (2006) is a framework of research similar to the views and assumptions adopted by natural scientist, in which the researchers view the people and its behaviour as phenomena to be studied, using facts and observations as its strategy to explain the phenomena.

Saunders, et al., (2009) also added that positivism views mostly prefer working in an observable social reality and will have an end product research similar to those produced by a natural scientist. Furthermore, researcher with positivism views will only observe a phenomenon which is observable and will end up producing credible

data. In addition, the author also argued that one of the essential elements of a positivist approach is that the views of the researcher are not influenced on value of judgements.

Interpretivism on the other hand, strongly believes that it is imperative for a researcher to understand the factors and “differences between humans in our role as social actors” (Saunders, et al., 2009). To clarify, the author further discussed that these belief is plainly to emphasise the difference between conducting research among people rather than materials or object.

Saunders, et al.( 2009) also argued that the complexity of the position of interpretivism comes from two intellectual traditions namely; phenomenology and symbolic interactionism. To explain, the author identifies phenomenology as referring to the way the human beings make sense to the world and the surrounding, while the symbolic interactionism, the human being are in the continual process of interpreting the surrounding social world.

In social world, Smith (1998) argued that positivism is most probably the most important attempt in order to have ‘authoritative knowledge.’ The author also added that the positive approach to social sciences is more of a scientific method because a researcher with positivism philosophy will always assume that everything and every phenomenon can be studied as hard facts and as such establish scientific laws.

Although, for some researchers they believe that it is imperative to use the traditional approach of research such as the naturalist or scientific method in order to explain phenomena or any occurrence in the physical and life science (Remenyi, et al., 1998). The author also argued that many scholars however, have proven a point that this is not entirely appropriate to study human beings or the organisations they have created. This point was clearly illustrated on Carr 1967 (cited in, Remenyi et al., 1998:94).

“I do not wish to suggest that the interference of the social scientist or of the historian can match that of physical scientist in precision, or that their inferiority in this respect is due merely to the greater backwardness of the

social sciences. The Human being is on any view the most complex entity known to us, and the study of his behaviour may well involve differences in kind from those confronting the physical scientists.”

With this regard, many would argue that the study of phenomenology or sometimes called non-positivism is more appropriate method or strategy in order to study people’s behaviour and their organisation (Remenyi, et al, 1998). The author further argued that researchers that has phenomenological views does not deny the importance and relevance of positivism in the study of physical life and sciences, after all, if not because of positivism there will be no enlightenment to the development material reality of the twentieth-century, such as heart transplant and space travels. However, despite the importance of the positivism views, they have poor insights when explaining, why people hate their jobs and most of the time complains about everything, why customer service is normally poor, or why is it that most of employees are motivated with achievement and some are not (Remenyi, et al., 1998).

Research Approach

According to Saunders, et al. (2009) research approaches are mainly based on the research philosophies, whereby the deductive approach is commonly used by researchers with traditional natural scientific views (positivism), while inductive approach is usually based on phenomenology (interpretivism). Sometimes these research paradigms or approaches are used together in research to explain better an occurrence or phenomena (Gilner, et al., 20000). Furthermore, a deductive approach is an extremely influential and intellectual approach, in which conceptual and theoretical framework is developed and tested using empirical observation (Hussey and Hussey, 1997). An inductive research on the other hand is an approach whereby, the theory is developed from observing an empirical reality, which is typically oppose the deductive method (Hussey and Hussey,1997).

Research Strategies

“Selecting an appropriate research strategy is key to ensuring that research questions are addressed in a way which has value and is congruent with the overall topic, questions and purpose of research” (Palliative Medicine 2004; 18:677-684).In relation to, Saunders, et al. (2009) added that most of the research strategies belongs to deductive approach. The author also argued that even it is imperative to allocate strategies, it is important to remember that there is no superior or inferior type of strategy, all strategies are important to every researcher; however, their use will entirely depend on the field of study the researcher will embark on.

According to Robson (1993) there are three traditional research strategies, namely; Experiment, Survey and Case Studies. However, Saunders, et al., (2009) added that research strategies should not be restricted on one strategy per study; it is also possible that survey strategy can be as part of case study.

Apart from the relation of experiment to natural and social sciences, Saunders, et al. (2009) also defines experiment as, the study of casual links between an independent and dependent variable. Therefore, experiments are commonly use as a basis of explanatory research in answering the questions ‘how’ and ‘why’.

Survey is a popular strategy in conducting a research, as it allows a large amount collection of data from a chosen sample (Saunders, et al., 2009). Additionally, the author also pointed out that survey is essential in the collection of quantitative data whereby the researcher can analyse the data quantitatively by using inferential statistics.

The last on the tradition research strategies according to Saunders, et al. (2009), is the case study; the author identifies this research method as commonly used in social sciences in order to have a more in-depth study of a particular individual or a group for that matter.

Approach for this Study

In the past, many scholars and researchers considered positivism as the correct scientific paradigm to the study of marketing (Carson, et al., 2001). This argument

has also been supported by European Journal of Marketing, 28 (3) 1994, whereby the author suggested that the researchers needs to rethink the marketing research methods and answer questions such as, “why do qualitative studies lack of acceptance in marketing?” (Hunt,1994:13-25).

According to (Carson, et al., 2001), after the aggressive and long time debate about the relevance of the approaches of scientific theories on the marketing study (see for example the European Journal of Marketing, 28 (3) 1994), the author considers the qualitative research method in the perspective of marketing as a suitable research approach for this study. In addition, Carson, et al. (2001) also discussed that interpretivsim is more suitable in the study of marketing as its approach to is in a more personal level in answering the problems in social field such as understanding the reality. Furthermore, the author also identified its position to marketing research as skewed toward interpretive end of the spectrum.

(See figure 1)

Figure 1. The authors position to marketing research

(Adapted from Carson, et al. (2009:14)

In terms or research strategy, Bonoma (1985) argued that case study is a popular method amongst many marketers. In addition, the author defines case study as a well-suited approach to marketing, moreover, the pattern of case study strategy in the field of marketing is highly recognise as means to generate exploratory insights.

New Britain Oils is a Palm Oil manufacturer who specialises in fully sustainable Palm Oil. The organisation is a subsidiary of New Britain Palm Oil Limited which has been around since the 1980’s.

The organisation consists of a number of site across the globe with the main plantations growing in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands covering 82,000 hectares and employing over 10,000 workers. There are only two refinery, one in Papua New Guinea and the second is in Liverpool. Liverpool is the only site outside of Australasia and had an opening employment count of 26 in 2010, this number currently stands at 78 in 2016.

The Liverpool Refinery opened in 2010 starting with bulk oil supply into 28 tonne road tankers. In 2012 the Packing Facility was opened, this plant converts some of the bulk oil into industrial margarine and other bakery fats. Since opening in 2010 New Britain Oils is now the number one supplier of sustainable Palm Oil in the UK.

With the rapid growth of the Liverpool site came an increase in employees and inevitably the dynamic of the working environment changed with it. Some employees left the organisation, who have since been replaced, and new departments have been created to cope with the growth of the business. Consequently this instability has affected the productivity in some areas. This issue could’ve been exacerbated by the management teams’ failure to recognise this variation and react accordingly. Bringing in new workers will bring in differing psychological preferences and according to Jung (1971) preferences influence our choice of careers, ways of thinking, relationships, and work habits. Richard L. Hughes et al. (2015) stated that our preferences play a role in the characteristic and unique ways we behave from day to day. Consequently, could increasing the management awareness of their teams individual preferences promote better relationships, through improved communication, within the organisation?

Mary Uhl-Bien and George B. Graen (1995) discovered that higher quality Leader-Member Exchange relationships have very positive outcomes for leaders, followers, work units, and the organisation in general, the same research also found that the development of Leader-Member Exchange relationships is influenced by characteristics and behaviours of leaders and members.

This assignment will first outline what can affect the effectiveness of a leader and why increasing the value of relationships could increase the effectiveness of a leader. Using existing research it will look at why communication is a crucial tool for a leader and how an understanding of how differing personality types interact, prefer to receive information and what drives their decision making, can enable leaders to communicate more effectively. A recognised psychological test will be used to gather data about the psychological preferences of some of the employees across different areas of the business with the objective being to identify potential differences in preferences. The overall aim of the research is to increase the management teams’ awareness of some of the differing personality types within their department and understand the differences between these types. The intention is to educate the management team and give them the opportunity to adapt their leadership style to promote better quality relationships through a better understanding of the individuals within their team.

Literature Review

Leadership

Leadership has been the subject of research for a long time. Burns (1978) stated that due to its importance in human groups, the concept of leadership is one of the organisational topics that have most intrigues researchers for centuries. As a result, attempts to define leadership have proved to be an ambiguous. Leadership as simply a complex form of social problem solving (Miller and Ross 1975), leadership is directing and coordinating the work of group members (McCall Jnr et al. 1988), leadership is creating conditions for a team to be effective (Reason and Mycielska 1982). Powell and Pirsico (rev. ed. 2003) defined leadership as the process of influencing an organized group toward accomplishing its goals. All of the definitions stated have a connection which is the reference to a group or team. This implies that leadership would not exist without individuals to lead.

The definitions detailed show the variation in concepts of leadership and this is reflected in the research. Some leadership researchers have focused on the leader-follower relationship and Geoff Thomas et al. (2013) stated that the reason we focus on the leader-follower relationship is because research shows that the quality of this relationship is reliably linked to follower well-being and performance.

Other researchers, such as John Adair, looked at how the situation can affect the way leaders act. Adair identified that leadership is affected by three things. The task, the team and the individual and leaders need to balance their time equally between the three areas and at certain times one of the areas will dominate, but over the long run a balance would be achieved (John Adair 1982). Figure 1. shows John Adair’s concept of action centred leadership. In different situations the circles will be overlapping different amounts showing which the dominant factor is.

Figure 1. John Adair (1982)

Researchers have studied the behaviours of the leader and what behaviours are associated with an effective leader. Leadership is earned and it is not granted by role or rite of passage (Lloyd l. Sederer 2012) and through our interactions humans sustain the effect of leadership and we interpret it even though we may not be aware that we do so (Kempster and Parry 2011). This means that leaders could be established by displaying a distinct set of behaviours which followers associate with a leadership role.

Research shows that there are behaviours that can be attributed to an effective leader. These are known as The Six C’s of Leadership Credibility (Bamford, 2016)

Figure 2. David Bamford (2016)

Communication would fall under the ‘Character’ umbrella and plays a crucial fundamental role in every business. The quality of the communication can be affected by the relationship between two individuals and a key element of the quality of the relationship is the interaction between the personalities. Different personalities and give out information in different ways and how this information is interpreted can affect the quality of the communication. Leaders who have calm dispositions and do not attack or belittle others for bringing bad news are more likely to get complete and timely information from subordinates than are bosses who have explosive tempers and a reputation for killing the messenger (Hughes et al. 2015).

Personality

Many theories have been developed to explain what causes individuals to behave the way they behave and why they behave differently to other individuals. The term personality is among the most comprehensive of those in the psychologist’s vocabulary, clarification of its connotation to the satisfaction of a majority, even of psychologists, is difficult (John K. McCreary 1960). This view begins to explain the range of opinions as to what personality means to people. McCreary goes on to describe some the definitions as experimental, calling for criticism and inviting agreement. This belief is quite ambiguous as all definitions would fall under one of those three categories.

Robert Hogan (1991) had a different approach and he stated that the term personality is fairly ambiguous and has at least two quite different meanings rather than a definition. The first meaning implies that personality is the impression a person makes on others. The second meaning is less obvious and focusses more on the unseen processes within a person which explains why we behave the way we behave. These internal processes have been categorized as traits by some researchers. Personality traits as useful concepts for explaining why people act fairly consistently from one situation to the next (Hughes et al. 2015).

Traits are characteristics or habits which are specific to an individual. Traits can have one of two outcomes, such as extroversion and introversion however, individuals are not categorized into one these traits but rather they sit on a scale which may show a preference towards one of the two oppositions. If we attempt such scaling, we should remember that we are likely to constrain personalities unnaturally fitting them into one mould (Allport and Odbert 1936)

Gordon Allport and Henry Odbert were theorists the idea of traits and trait names. They explored two comprehensive dictionaries and identified 17,953 trait-names in the English language. They reduced the list down to 4500 adjectives. They reported that the unfamiliarity of a large proportion of the trait-names in our list proves that our practical vocabulary is inadequate to the task of representing the complex phenomena of human nature (Allport and Odbert 1936). They arrange the traits into a hierarchy of three:

Cardinal Traits – the dominant trait
Central Traits – general characteristics
Secondary Traits – not obvious, such as attitudes

Raymond Cattell further explored the work completed by Allport and Odbert by taking the list of 4500 adjectives and reducing it down to 171 by removing all the synonyms. Cattell was the first to collect data regarding personality traits. The outcome of the data he collected allowed him to come up with 16 personality factors which he used to come up with an assessment called the 16PF. This was one of the first attempts to measure personality.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Measuring personality is difficult because personality cannot be seen but some psychology researchers have devised tools that can be used to give results owing to an individuals’ psychological preferences. The most commonly used tool is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). This tool evolved over a period of 5 decades and was based on the work carried out by Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung who spent a lot of his career researching personalities within individuals.

Jung defined two opposing tendencies in personality: introversion and extroversion and while both tendencies are present in all individuals, one tends to dominate the other (Almerinda Forte 2005). Along with the two opposing tendencies for personality, Jung also identified four functions relating to personality which are thinking, feeling, sensing and intuiting.

Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers both had an interest in individual differences which they brought together, including the work done by Carl Jung, which resulted in the development of the MBTI. The MBTI is a very popular tool used worldwide mainly for psychiatric patients but also the MBTI has been in extensive use in personal and management development since the early 1970’s (Leary et al. 2009).

The MBTI is based on the principle that the differences in behaviour from one person to another can be expressed in terms of preferences between the polarities (Amel Behaz and Mahieddine 2012) and the MBTI focuses on two primary human activities: how people gather information and how they make decisions (Richard J. Daisley, 2011). However, note that measurement is only possible if we blindly insist that people are comparable in respect to each ‘common’ trait (Allport and Odbert 1936)

Allen et al. (2002) adapted the Four-Part Framework developed by Susan Brock to demonstrate the difference between each of the oppositions. This is shown below:

Figure 3. Allen et al. (2002)

In completing the MBTI each of the individuals will demonstrate a preference for one of the two oppositions. For example the introvert/extrovert scale is based how the individual get their energy whilst the sensing/intuitive scale considers how people interpret data. The thinking/feeling scale looks at the factors people take into account when making decisions and the judging/perceiving scale considers the amount of information an individual needs before making a decision.

Yuval Cohen et al. (2013) described each of the bipolar oppositions in their paper based on personality types of project managers.

Figure 4. Yuval Cohen (2013)

The first opposition is the most commonly associated when thinking about differing personalities: Introversion or Extroversion. There are three main differences between introversion and extroversion. Energy creation is noted as the most important difference, but the response to stimulation and the approach to knowledge are also different (Heidi Eve-Cahoon 2003). Introverts are energized by the internal world of ideas, impressions, and emotions, whereas extroverts focus outside of themselves and are energized by activities, people, and things of the outside world (Heidi Eve-Cahoon 2003). Extroverts are often seen as possessing the desirable set of personality traits for success in today’s fast-paced world, on the other hand, introverts bring a whole host of desirable personality traits to the table, which need to be equally valued, nurtured, and utilized (Shelley J. Schmidt 2016).

Samples for the United States suggest that 55 to 60 percent of all people are extroverts (Gardner and Martinko 1996). Fretwell et al. (2013) highlighted some data (Filbeck et al. 2005, Fox-Hines and Bowersoch 1995) relating to each of the four dimensions, which demonstrates the preferences of the U. S. population. This data agrees with other research that a greater percentage of individuals have an extroverted preference. Results of this study will demonstrate any direct correlation to the results of the U. S population.

Figure 5. Fretwell et al, (2013)

A similar study was documented in Training and Coaching Today (2007) which showed the findings from a recent MBTI study of 1634 individuals in the UK.

Figure 6. Training and Coaching Today (2007)

As New Britain Oils is situated in the UK, it is predictable that the results from this study will correlate to the results from the study of the UK individuals.

As there are four bipolar oppositions for MBTI, this means that there are sixteen possible results which could be given based on the responses to the questions and the scores obtained on the bipolar scale.

Figure 7.

One downside to having so many possible outcomes and factors involved is that it takes interest and effort to remember one’s type (William A. Lynagh 2006).

Psychology researchers and advocates of personality preferences maintain that no one type is better than the others because a team benefits from the presence of varied personality types (Cynthia Plonen 2015). The best way to think of it is that neither set of traits is better or more valuable than the other – rather, they are different, often complementary, and both are needed to make the world go round, so-to-speak (Shelly J. Schmidt, 2016), however many more leaders are ISTJs, ESTJs, and ENTJs than other types (Hughes et al. 2015). Gathering data from the management team will be able to demonstrate a positive or negative correlation to this statement.

Methodology

The data collection process involved 25 employees from a number of departments and all of the employees who completed the questionnaire did so voluntarily. Results were obtained from 100% of the employees in two departments along with 50% of employees from another department. Shift patterns limited one department but a representative sample of 65% was obtained to provide data. In addition, 57.14% of the management team were included in the study to determine the range of the personality preferences amongst the management team. Figure 7 shows the structure of the organisation.

Figure 7.

Despite there being question marks over the integrity of personality measurement instruments, they are still widely used in organisations. A Humanmetrics Jung Typology Test, based on the MBTI, will be used to gather the data for this study. The questionnaire consists of 64 multiple choice questions which will result in a four letter type based on the Myers-Briggs 16 types.

The Humanmetrics Jung Typology Test was selected because the results will correlate directly to the MBTI theory and also this method is more accessible for employees and allows for more data to be collected.

The purpose of the questionnaire is to begin to develop an understanding of the personality types that exist within some departments of the organisation because personality questionnaires are ideal for describing personality (Luke D. Smillie 2008).

The MBTI has been used widely across a number of business sectors for decades. The instrument has been extensively tested for reliability and validity (James C. Lampe 2004) and the extensive research on the instrument since its development supports its reliability and validity (Moore et al. 2004). Over 2 million copies of the instrument are sold each year (Pittenger 1993) and the MBTI is the most widely used instrument for non-psychiatric populations (A. J. DeVito 1985).

Despite its depth of validation there are still many sceptics of the MBTI itself as a viable instrument and future research must use more rigorous designs before greater confidence can be placed in the results (Gardner and Martinko 1996). It has been speculated that subjects of the instrument can falsify their responses in an attempt to achieve different results. This wary approach, when questioning the validity of the responses, could be considered when the instrument is used as part of an organisations recruitment process as subjects could change their responses in an attempt to become more appealing to an employer.

The organisation has 78 employees and a sample of 32% were included in the study but statistical generalisation is difficult owing to the low number of cases (Bamford et al. 2003). Some correlations can be made between the existing literature and the results of the MBTI used in the organisation but this cannot be reflective of the organisation as a whole.

Findings

Key Findings

The key findings from the research showed that there are a range of personality types present within the organisation and out of the 16 possible personality types the individuals from the organisation fell into 9 of those types. Over 50% of the results from the individuals who took part in the study fell into 3 of the possible 16 personality types. All 3 of the common personality types included a preference for thinking rather than feeling and judging rather than perceiving. This means that 68% of the individuals included in the study prefer to be analytical, critical and make decisions objectively but those individuals only require a minimal amount of information to make decisions and as a result they can make poor decisions.

ISTP

ISFP

ISTJ

ISFJ

7

ESTP

ESFP

ESTJ

ESFJ

1

5

3

INTP

INFP

INTJ

INFJ

1

ENTP

ENFP

ENTJ

ENFJ

1

1

4

2

Figure 8.

Introvert/Extrovert Preference

As mentioned previously, one of the dimensions that then MBTI specifically looks at is where individuals prefers to focus their energy. This dimension has two bipolar oppositions, introversion and extroversion. The data gathered shows that 68% of the individuals who took part in the research had a greater preference for extroversion.

This means that more than half of the employees at the organisation prefer to work in larger groups, get their energy from people and activities. The management team could use this data to adapt their leadership style to suit some of the personality preferences within their team and using a collective approach to problem solving may prove to be more effective.

Customer Service Team Personality Types

75% of the customer service team have a preference for extroversion and this would fit well with their role and responsibilities as they obtain their energy from interacting with people. Having this preference could help them to build better relationships with customers and suppliers. 100% of the customer service team had a preference for thinking which means they are more concerned with operational considerations and are able to detach themselves from the decisions they make which is a good characteristic to have relative to their role.

Engineering Team Personality Types

50% of the engineering department contributed to the research and 100% of the employees who contributed showed a preference to extroversion so using team meetings when tackling engineering issues would give the extroverts the forum to think out loud, share ideas with each other and has the potential to be very effective. The Engineering Manager showed a preference to introversion and so he would prefer to take the information gathered from the team meeting and spend some time thinking about in order to come up with the most effective solution. This approach to engineering issues has the potential to be very productive by considering the individuals preferences in order to maximise their input and provide the Engineering Manager with lots of information before making decisions.

Shift Workers Personality Types

The responses from the shift workers presented a large amount of variation, however, 69.23% of the shift workers, who completed the questionnaire, showed a preference for extroversion. This outcome is reasonably foreseeable in having a higher number of extroverts in this department as all of the individuals work on a shift consisting of four employees. Individuals with a preference for introversion would be less attracted to work which would include them working within shifts, although only having four employees on a shift would be more attractive than organisations with high numbers of employees on each shift.

92.3% of the shift workers showed a preference for judging rather than perceiving and individuals with this preference only require a minimal amount of information before making a decision. Shift workers operate on a 24 hour rotation system therefore they work outside of normal hours and so they are expected to make quick decisions independently. Individuals who have a preference for perceiving like to intake as much information as possible before making a decision and so too many perceivers on one shift could delay decisions and corrective action which could result in reduced output from that shift.

Management Team Personality Types

57.14% of the organisations management team took part on the study. The data shows that the management team fall into three different personality types: ISTJ, ESTJ and INTJ.

The results showed that 50% of the individuals who contributed had a personality type of ISTJ which displays characteristics which would typically be associated with someone who is in a senior position, such as being serious, practical and realistic. 75% of the management team, which would equate to 42.8% of the total management team, demonstrated a preference for introversion rather than extroversion and these members of the management team are responsible for technical, engineering and the safety department. All of these departments are smaller, in team size, than all of the other departments and each of these members of the management team have their own individual office and so it is foreseeable that they would have a preference for introversion. The extroverted individual from the management team is responsible for a large team consisting of 20 shift workers and their workspace is located in the production area and so having the extroverted preference is advantageous to their role. All of the members of the management team showed preferences for thinking and judging rather than feeling or perceiving respectively. This again is a predictable outcome given their position within the organisation as this indicates that they prefer to be analytical, approach decisions objectively and pay careful attention to any potential operational impacts.

Discussion

The first of the four dimensions provides data on the individuals’ preferences towards introversion or extroversion. Samples from the United States suggest that 55 to 60 percent of all people are extroverts (Gardner and Martinko, 1996). The data obtained from this study appear to validate this statement as 68% of the individuals showed a preference for extroversion. The data in the study by Fretwell et al. (2013) noted that 70 – 75% of individuals in the U. S. have a preference towards extroversion and that data would correlate more closely with the data obtained in this study. The study of the U. K. showed only 52.6% of the individuals have a preference towards extroversion which is contradictory to the results of this study.

Consequently more than half of the employees, involved at the organisation have a personality focused on the outside world, get motivation from interaction with other people and by doing things (Yuval Cohen, 2013). The data could be used by the management team in order to improve productivity by using groups sessions allowing the individuals share ideas.

Comparison to Existing Research

The data previously mentioned in the study by Fretwell et al. (2013) and the data shown in Training and Coaching Today (2007) showed results for individuals in U. S. and U. K respectively and some of those results are closely correlated to the results of this study.

Dimension

U.S.

U.K.

New Britain Oils

Extrovert

70-75%

52.6%

68%

Introvert

25-30%

47.4%

32%

Sensing

70-75%

76.5%

60%

Intuition

35-30%

23.5%

40%

Thinking

60% males

40% females

45.9%

68% males

36.6% females

Feeling

40% males

60% females

54.1%

32% males

33.3% females

Judging

55%

58.3%

88%

Perceiving

45%

41.7%

12%

The similarity of results for the extrovert and introvert dimension has already been discussed but there are similarities with results for the other dimensions. The sensing and intuition dimension results are similar to the results from the studies of the U. S and U. K. albeit closer to the results from the U. S study, as there is a greater preference towards sensing. This means that the individuals prefer concrete details of a situation and rely on the five senses to observe facts or happenings (Fretwell et al. 2013)This also means that they tend to be practical, orderly, and down-to-earth decision makers (Hughes et al. 2015).

When comparing the thinking and feeling dimension, the results are more closely correlated with the results for the study of the U. S. population. 72% of the individuals, in this organisation, showed a preference to thinking, however in the study of the U. K. the majority of the individuals showed a preference to feeling. This means that individual from this organisation prefer to assume a more objective approach to decisions and show more consideration to operational factors. Individuals who show a greater preference towards thinking are associated with careers such as consultants, lawyers, executives and engineers. (www.similarminds.com).

The results for the final dimension show that overall the individuals from the organisation have a much greater preference for judging rather than perceiving. These results compare with the studies from the U. S. and U. K., in terms of the majority of the individuals showing a greater preference towards judging, however nearly 90% of this organisation shares this preference as were the other studies show just over 50%. This could impact the organisation because individuals with this preference tend to make up their minds quickly and as a result can make poor decisions (Hughes et al. 2015).

The management team in the organisation presented results which partially correlated with the work done by Hughes et al. (2015), who stated that more leaders are ISTJs, ESTJs, and ENTJs than other types. In this organisation, the management team demonstrated personality types matching ISTJ and ESTJ however there were no ENTJ personality types from the results collected.

50% of the management team showed a personality type of ISTJ and this preference would be associated with behavioural characteristics such as being responsible, organised and punctu

The structural functionalist approach in sociology is a framework that sees society as an intricate system whose divisions work together to encourage unity and constancy. According to sociologists such as Parsons and Neil Smelser society is a complex system made up of various parts like a living organism, all the elements of society’s structure work together to keep society alive. (Newman, 2010)

A famous metaphor used to describe this approach is that by Herbert Spencer, he says “the interrelated parts of society are organs, which work towards the proper functioning of the body as a whole.” (Urry, 2000) Structural functionalism means that social organizations, that together form a social structure, function to preserve the harmony of the society (Macionis, 1989).

This approach focuses on the importance of social structure and their social functions.

The approach was based on the work of Emile Durkheim, who concentrated on the role that moral consensus plays in upholding social order and forming equilibrium. He proposed that societies tend to be divided, with the divisions held together by shared values. Durkheim claimed that complex societies are held together by organic solidarity. (McClelland, 2000) These views were supported by Radcliffe-Brown, who was influenced by Auguste Comte. (Edwards, Neutzling, & Murphy, 2001)

A structural functionalist approach to politics was devised in the 1970s by Powell and Almond. They argued that, in order to understand a political system, it is essential to understand its structures and in addition, their particular functions. This was a new idea, that opposed the approaches normally accepted those of dependency theory and the state-society theory. These theories saw all political systems as the same, and paid no attention to the unique features of each. The various functions of a political system include socialisation, recruitment and communication. (Rice, 1999)

Robert Merton (1957) distinguished between manifest functions, latent functions and dysfunctions of society. He described manifest functions as intended consequences of any social pattern, therefore relating to the function the social structure is meant to produce, such as in education, training school students for employment or in health the manifest function would be helping sick people. Latent functions illustrate the unintended consequences, things that happen as a result of the structure, but not the intended purpose. In the education structure this refers to things such as school trips and meeting new people, while in health this could include any volunteer work. Dysfunctions of society relate to the undesirable consequences such as not graduating, failing to get a good job, or not curing the sick (Merton, 1957).

Structuralism treats culture as the primary source of interaction. It is more concerned with how culture shapes us than in how culture is shaped. Scholars taking this approach have concentrated on how norms, values and language direct our behaviour. (Brinkerhoff, White, & Ortega, 2008) Structural functionalists are generally joint in the view that rules, both norms and laws, are needed to sort out an effective society and, that social institutions form the necessary elements of the social structure.

Some of the research concerns for structural functionalists include the role of the family in society and how it integrates with culture and neighbours and friends, the role of a societal deviate and how that effects how a society runs or the role of religion on a society’s well being and spirituality.

Social institutions play a key role in keeping society stable and able to function by goods and services produced and distributed provide ways of dealing with conflict. (Newman, 2010) Durkheim states that if an aspect of social life does not contribute to society it will eventually disappear. (Swedberg, 2003)

Contrasting the other key theoretical approaches, the structural functional model derives from a range of authors. Typically it is associated with Talcott Parsons, but also includes work from Comte, Merton, Durkheim and Weber. This approach became popular throughout the 1960s when Parsons studied the work of afore mentioned Weber and Durkheim, and translated this into English. He used their concepts and models to create his action theory, which he based on the theory of voluntary action, which opposed the Marxian view. (Gingrich, 2002)

Functionalism shares theoretical similarity with the empirical method. Parsons thought structural functionalism was just a description of a stage in the development of social science rather than a specific school of thought. (Parsons, 1975)

Parsons said that each person has expectations of how other people will act and react to his own behaviour, and that these expectations would come from the accepted norms and values of society. (Parsons, 1961) From this thought he created the idea of roles being collectives, which are bound into social structures. He said that these were functional due to the fact that they assist society in operating to create a smooth running culture. (Gingrich, 2002) He claims that the processes in reaching dynamic equilibrium are social control and socialisation. He believes these are important as they transfer the norms from society into individuals, and so become part of their personality. He described the equilibrium as when there is no conflict in society and where everyone reaches the expectations the culture has created. (Ritzer, 1983)

Structural functionalism was the leading theoretical belief throughout most of the 20th century. It has been criticised however, for accepting existing social arrangements without investigating how they might take advantage of some groups or individuals within society. (Newman, 2010)

A critique of structural functionalism is that it assumes regular interaction between a political system and its environment. This causes the approach to fail to notice the likelihood of change and so ignores the potential for political conflict. The approach supposes that the status quo is in effect. (Kamrava, 1996) Another critique in the area of politics is that of ethnocentrism. Structural functionalism does not account for authoritarian or dictatorial political systems. The system and environment interaction makes it only applicable to western democratic systems. Places where people in society have no input in the world of politics are often left out when describing structural functionalism. (Kamrava, 1996)

Functionalism has been criticized by scholars for being unable to explain social change. They say that the perspective is static. Parsons contradicts this by reiterating that the theory does account for this in his moving equilibrium idea. (Parsons, Theories of Society: foundations of modern sociological theory, 1961) The theory does stress on equilibrium and quick return to social order, but this is a sign of the time when the theory was developed, just after the 2nd world war. At this time social order was very important and could account for why Parsons concentrated on social order rather than social change. (Encyclopedia, n.d)

Structural functionalism has also been described as not being teleological. This is because they rely too much on the concept that social structures have goals. It tries to justify why structures exist without backing it up empirically. (Ritzer & Goodman, Chapter 7 summary, 2004) It attempts to describe social structures through their effects but doesn’t explain the cause. (Encyclopedia, n.d) However, Durkheim said that “the determination of function is necessary for the complete explanation of the phenomena” (Coser, 1977)and “when the explaination of a social phenomenon is undertaken, we must seek separately the efficient cause which produces it and the function it fulfils” (Coser, 1977) which means that he explains the cause of effects, and as Parsons was influenced by his ideas its likely he used this notion when creating his theory. Merton disregards this as he says that functional analysis doesn’t try to explain cause of effects so is not teleological. (Encyclopedia, n.d)

A further criticism is that society cannot have needs the same way a human does, and the ones it does have do not necessarily have to be met. Gidden’s thinks that functionalist explanations could be rewritten as historical accounts and not as a theory. Giddens perspective of structuration, aims to explain society by saying that although all human action is performed in and influenced by a pre existing social structure, and is slightly determined by the rules of that structure; the rules are not permanent but can change according to human action. (Giddens, 1986)

A further criticism is that it doesn’t explain why people choose to go with the norms or to go against them.

Theorists believing in other perspectives such as conflict theorists, Marxists and feminists, critique the functionalistic approach when arguing for their idea. Feminists argue that functionalism fails to address the suppression of women. (Hunter, n.d) Parsons realised that he had oversimplified in this respect, and instead focused on positive functions of the family for society as a whole and not the dysfunctions of women.

Conflict theorists thought the approach relied too much on integration and harmony within society and so forgot about conflict and peoples independence. (Holmwood, 2005) Lockwood thought that Parson’s didn’t account for organisations that didn’t work together. He said that this is what causes conflict. Parsons counteracted this issue by stating that issues of conflict and cooperation were accounted for in his model. (Holmwood, 2005) Parson’s created an ideal for society and by doing this he restricted his analysis. Merton corrected and aided the growth of this approach by introducing the idea of tension and conflict into structural functionalism. (Merton, 1957)

Overall the main assumptions of structuralist theory are that exterior social powers create boundaries in individual behaviour and that social order is based on shared values. The system of social structure and social order has needs that have to be met to survive and remain stable. This theory allows for social change but declares that it is slow and evolutionary, and so social structures do adapt to fit the needs of system. Parsons says that inequality is seen as functional for society. This approach is associated with the positivist thesis and quantitative methods. It explains predictable patterns of behaviour within social groups, and the influence of culture and society on individuals but cannot explain the cause of the effects. Conflict theorists disagree on the consensual view and feminists believe there isn’t enough emphasis on the dysfunctions in family of women.

Functionalism can be applied to nearly all the key topics in sociology, for example Durkheim used functionalism to explain suicide rates in particular groups and societies. (Gingrich, Social facts and suicide, 1999). Other themes include family, education, religion and deviance and are still used today to explain the way we live.