13

SOCIAL EXPERIMENTATION SELF-PROCESS OR SOCIAL ROLE

BROCK K. KILBOURNE
JAMES T. RICHARDSON
University of Nevada, Reno
.

The present article uses Lifton’s protean man concept to describe a pattern of
social experimentation with new religious, cultic and self-growth groups in con-
temporary American society. However, proteanism or social experimentation is
understood herein to signify a positive search by some for meaning, identity and
community, and to describe more aptly a new social role, rather than a new form
of self-process. We delineate the social experimenter role and its various support
systems within society (i.e., the cultic/self-growth subculture, the entrepreneurs of
experience, and the cominant culture itself). In conclusion, we discuss the popularity
of social experimentation in contemporary American society in relation to: 1) the
human need to explore and grow; 2) the opportunities afforded by modem
society; and 3) the conflicts between various interest groups in society.
INTRODUCTION

More than ten years ago, Robert Lifton (1969) introduced the concept of
&dquo;protean man&dquo; to explain a new style of self process emerging throughout the
world. Lifton’s protean self-process was based upon his observation that an increasing
number of individuals displayed self concepts structured around change and flux
instead of permanence and fixity. Lifton operationalized this self-process in behav-
ioural terms as involving a series of experiments and explorations with new groups,
roles, and identities - each of which may be abandoned in favour of new psycho-
logical guests - and argued that this new self-process derived from psycho-
biological, cultural and contemporary historical factors.
Lifton further suggested that the new protean man was characterized by both
positive and negative personality traits and behaviours. Lifton claimed, for example,
that the protean pattern of experimentation might facilitate our survival, and even
create new possibilities for human betterment. Proteanism was also thought to
possess certain negative characteristics: protean man was portrayed as symbolically
fatherless (without a clear sense of right or wrong), ideologically hungry and unable
to make lasting commitments, and continuously ambivalent and conflict-ridden.
Thus, although Lifton speculated on the positive social value of protean man’s
experimental attitude, he nonetheless maintained that protean man was torn by
conflict and ambivalence.
This pattern of social experimentation, so aptly described by Lifton’s concept
of protean man, has recently gained attention in the literature concerned with the
recruitment of young people to new religious and self-growth groups. In particular,
some social psychological discussions of recruitment and conversion to new religious
and self-growth groups have employed the protean man concept and similar concepts
14

to describe the apparent series of experiments and explorations of some individuals

with these groups (Balch and Taylor, 1978; Kilbourne and Richardson, 1980).
Concepts like &dquo;consolidation of identities&dquo; (Gordon, 1974), &dquo;identity sequences&dquo;
(Travisano, 1970), &dquo;seekerhood&dquo; (Straus, 1976, 1979), &dquo;conversion careers&dquo; and
&dquo;conversion trajectories&dquo; (Richardson, 1977, 1980a) have been subsequently
developed in research in this area and generally indicate a social pattern of &dquo;testing&dquo;
and &dquo;trying&dquo; out new groups for the different experiences and identities they provide.
For instance, Straus (1976) developed the term seekerhood to exemplify how some
people actively plan and strive to achieve quantum change in their lives. Conversion
is an accomplishment for such persons (Straus, 1979) in that they use the oppor-
tunities afforded to them by different groups and organizations to construct their
social and phenomenological realities. Richardson (1980a) has similarly developed
the idea of conversion careers as an application of the concept of protean man in
relation to new religions. From this perspective, certain converts to new religions
are thought to sample multiple conversion experiences and identity sequences in a
cumulative fashion.
Thus, these recently developed social psychological concepts have either directly
or indirectly made use of Lifton’s earlier concept of protean man in an attempt to
explain: 1) multiple conversions to new religious groups in a more or less sequential
and cumulative pattern (Richardson, 1980a); 2) the emergence of seekers and their
self-managed guests for self-growth, meaning and ecstatic experiences in contemporary
American society (Amitabh, 1982; Gerlach and Hine, 1970; Holloman, 1974;
Gordon, 1974; Straus, 1976; Lofland, 1978; Balch and Taylor, 1978; Robbins and
Anthony, 1979; and Balch, 1980); 3) the large proportion of members in new
religious groups who, prior to their membership, report having experimented with
counter-culture experiences and value systems (Nicholi, 1974; Galanter, 1980;
Richardson, Stewart and Simmonds, 1978; Austin, 1977; Pilarzyk, 1978); and 4)
the belief by some parents of new religious group members that the new religious
and self-growth experiments of their children are consistent with the family’s
general philosophy of life (Richardson, Stewart and Simmonds, 1978; Kilbourne
and Richardson, 1982; Heirich, 1977; Beckford, 1982).
Our purpose in this article is to make explicit an alternative social psychological
conception of Lifton’s self-process notion of protean man. A role-theory pers-
pective is proffered to explain the increasing occurrence of social experimentation
or proteanism in contemporary American society. The social role of the social

experimenter is defined, some of its central characteristics are delineated, and the
socio-cultural systems supportive of this emergent social role are identified.

SELF-PROCESS OR SOCIAL ROLE

Familiarity with the traditions of symbolic interactionism (Mead, 1934; McCall

and Simmons, 1966; Stryker, 1968) and humanistic psychology (Goldstein, 1939;
Maslow, 1970, 1971; Rogers, 1959, 1977) are major factors contributing to the
tendency for some social psychologists to think of proteanism as involving some-
thing other than a new form of self-process. Contemporary symbolic interactionists
 15

contend, for instance, that the self-concept and its associated attributes result from
the negotiated social interactions of social actors in particular social roles, positions
and group contexts. The structure and processes of the self are always considered
both a product of the joint interaction of social actors and a reflection of the
structure of the social community, regardless of whether that interaction or
community is socially stable or in flux. Humanistic psychologists like Goldstein
and Maslow have similarly emphasized the importance of studying the interaction
of the organism with its environment, but primarily in relation to the inner
strivings of the person toward self-actualization. From this latter perspective, a
person’s self-concept may be structured around change and diversity simply be-
cause that may allow the person to satisfy their particular self-actualization needs.

When we consider the above in relation to the increasing social differentiation

of modern industrialized society, it should come as no surprise that the individual’s
self-concept is also becoming increasingly differentiated and dynamically structured.
The proliferation of roles, identities, relationships and activities in modern in-
dustrialized society tends to result in a corresponding change in the structure
of the person’s self (Berger, 1963) and to even provide a ’new challenge’ to the
self-actualizing needs of some people. This probably reflects the interactional
nature of the self and not a new self-process. Consequently, we should not mis-
takenly think of new interaction patterns as evidence of a new self-process.
Alternatively, we propose a role-theory to explain Lifton’s ( 1969) belief that a
new self-process is manifested in those people who elect to experiment with and
explore different commitments, groups, and identities. The role of the social
experimenter, like other social roles (Secord and Backman, 1974), refers to a
person’s place in a social relation (i.e., the novitiate, student, follower, or seeker of
novel experiences) and to a particular set of expectations concerning what the
person should do (i.e., experiment with new things, work of self-improvement,
study or meditate diligently). It refers to a learned sequence of behaviours and to
particular goals, enactments, skills, role-partners, and social audiences.
For instance, social experimenters are explicitly and/or implicitly expected to
take themselves and others in the role seriously, to make an honest attempt to
learn and grow from their experiences, to give each new experience a fair chance
to produce its intended effect, and to work at self-growth and self-exploration with
the same diligence as others work at their jobs. (These are, interestingly enough, some
of the same characteristics or traits that psychotherapists attempt to inculcate in
their clients.) Expectations of toleration, flexibility, and change are characteristic.
In other words, there are social norms which require social experimenters to be
’cool’ in their new role and to make a concerted effort to ’flow’ with their new

experiences, unshackled by their preconceptions and prior conditioning.

Similar to other social roles, there are many kinds of role enactments or social
performances which avail themselves to the social experimenter. Secord and
Backman (1974) maintain that the actual direction of role enactments or social
performances, for any given social role, depends upon situational demands, the
cognitive and social skills of the actor, intruding roles, role negotiation between
partners, and the availability of cultural and societal supports. Given the general
16

diversity of contemporary American society and the multiplicity of factors affect-

ing role enactments, it is not surprising that the social experimenter role tends to
manifest itself in a wide variety of ways. This social role may be enacted by
expe~i~ree~ati~tg with different religious, political, self-growth, psychotherapeutic,
social, recreational, vocational, avocational, and/or educational gf°oups. The role
may also be enacted in terms of different relationships or even in terms of mul-
tiple interests and responsibilities. In sum, the role enactments of the social
experimenter role may vary according to the type of activity, the amount of time
involvement, the degree of effort, and in the range of relevant social situations
(see Sarbin and Allen, 1968).
Additionally, certain social skills (Trower, Bryant, and Argyle, 1978) are a
requisite part of the social experimenter role. For instance, social experimenters
should be generally capable of deciphering social situations (i.e., recognizing the
norms and the powers that be) if they hope to master them effectively. They
should recognize their specific role obligations in each new situation or relation-
ship (i.e., demeanor and deference rituals) and adjust their behaviour accordingly.
They should have &dquo;learned how to learn&dquo; so that each new situation is entered
into smoothly. Thus, they should have at their command certain interpersonal skills
which can facilitate their entry, passage, and exit from various experiences, relation-
ships, and activities. Such skills as role-taking, impression-management, alter-casting,
effective social comparison, listening, and reflecting, etc., should be invaluable
assets in the repertoire of the social experimenter.

SOCIAL EXPERIMENTATION AND ITS CULTURAL SUPPORT-SYSTEMS

In contemporary American society, social experimentation has become a normal

activity for some and even a form of recreation for those whose life emphasis has
shifted from product consumption to experience consumption. In our &dquo;throw away&dquo;
society, experiences, like products, have become purchaseable in the marketplace,
can be enjoyed for a time, and then abandoned at will. Some people literally are
active consumers of disposable life experiences, both secular and non-secular.
Moreover, it would appear that some members of the affluent classes have
become satiated with simple product consumption. Product consumption may
have passed its peak for such people as continued consumption no longer provides
the same meaning it once did at lesser levels or when accessibility was limited. To
help compensate for the loss of meaning sometimes associated with an endless road
of product consumption, some people have become more oriented toward the
consumption of certain special experiences to satisfy their needs for self-growth,
meaning, identity, and community. Such experiences as est training, immersion in
a Moonie commune, in-depth psychotherapy, a spiritual adventure with a mystic,
or a day of expanding consciousness on a cliff at Esalen or in a hidden canyon
near Ojai are for some people more meaningful than the purchase of a new car or
a new television set. Such experiences are therefore quite marketable.

We are reminded of Veblen’s (1963) concept of conspicuous consumption

which can perhaps be extended in some cases to include the conspicuous con-
 17

sumption of experiences. Some people are literally involved in a continuous social

experiment with new relationships, commitments, identities, and self-growth
experiences. This role of social experimentation has become increasingly available
to all kinds of consumers as a positive alternative in a self-oriented and consumption-
prone society and has acquired its own kind of social prestige.
On the basis of the foregoing discussion, then, we might hypothesize an evolving
self-growth subculture (Campbell, 1972; Jorgensen, 1982) supportive of the social
experimenter role. In this self-growth subculture, which largely consists of loosely-
knit groups organized around therapy, worship, fellowship, ritual/study/discussion,
education, and business (Jorgensen, 1982), social experiences are treated as growth
experiences which tend to be characterized by change as well as by personal
significance. Each identity, relation and experience may be reduceable to a perishable
commodity - although they are nonetheless appreciated for the important, even if
fleeting, meanings they provide - and each can be purchased in the experiential
marketplace. Moreover, such experiences contribute, like their counterpart the
product, to the maintenance of the community which has developed around them.
The experimenter role also flourishes because a new type of entrepreneur has
arisen within this subculture to serve the needs for self-growth, meaning, identity
and community, and to provide a seemingly endless stream of experiences. We
speak here of the entrepreneur of experience. We typically find the entrepreneur of
experience providing packaged &dquo;trips&dquo; in the spiritual, occult, religious, psycho-
therapeutic and educational realms and to have developed elaborate settings,
rituals, ideologies and myths (Frank, 1974) to justify their expertise and special
experiences for sale. The entrepreneur of experience thus provides the &dquo;opportunity
structure&dquo; to help keep the social experimenter moving from group to group and
from experience to experience within the self-growth subculture.
In addition to the direct support from the subculture and from entrepreneurs of
experience, the dominant culture in some ways also encourages and supports both
the self-growth subculture and the social-experimenter role. We can think here of
the ’me’ generation of the 60’s and 70’s. The incessant search for self-fulfillment,
the ideology of intimacy, and the prevalence of personality cults are factors in
contemporary American society which provide the fertile soil for the self-growth
subculture and its social-experimenter role. Lasch (1979), however, takes a negative
view of this trend and argues that narcissistic self-absorption defines the moral
climate of contemporary American society and that many new movements contend
the self is the answer to all things. He believes that today’s self-absorption and
other-directedness are no more than a response to the boredom, helplessness, and
alienation running throughout American society.
But Yankelovich ( 1981 ) perceives contemporary American society differently
than Lasch. Yankelovich believes that we are presently in a state of transition and
are moving toward a society of greater connectedness, commitment and creative

expression. The ’me’ generation and the social experimenter, from this perspective,
do indeed share a common goal, but not one based on self-indulgence and neglect.
Rather, they share a common search for new meanings in their lives and in their
various attempts to create a positive identity and integrated community for them-
18

selves and others. The ’me’ generation and the social-experimenter role, at least from
Yankelovich’s perspective, offer us a new vision not beset with gloom and doom.
This view seems quite consistent with that of some social psychologists who have
studied conversion to new religious and self-growth groups.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

We have proffered a role-theory interpretation of social experimentation in

contemporary American society. Prior discussions, on the other hand, have too
often followed Lifton’s lead and have characterized emergent patterns of social
experimentation as reflective of a new form of self-process. They have generally
attributed such social experimentation to: 1) some kind of social breakdown
syndrome in society; and/or 2) the psychopathology of the individual. However,
a role-theory explanation of social experimentation is less value-laden-different

people have different motives/reasons for entering the role and the role may have
different effects (positive and/or negative) - and appreciates that new social inter-
action patterns do not constitute a new self-process. The self is interactional and
dynamic in both stable and changing societies.
More importantly, the present view suggests that contemporary social experi-
mentation may simply be a particular social/historical manifestation of the human
species’ social need to explore and grow. Previous historical periods have offered
only limited opportunities and have precluded the diversification of experience.
Limited economic opportunities, minimum education, inadequate health care,
stereotypic roles and relations (e.g., racism and sexism), and repressive political
institutions have often combined in some form or another to discourage people
from satisfying many of their inner-most needs. Nevertheless, most people have a
need to explore socially and to grow and change psychologically and spiritually.
Their fears of doing this are in large part socially engendered and imposed upon
them, and their aspirations for doing so are often directed into socially acceptable
but narrow outlets.
In contemporary American society, for example, the human motive to explore
and experiment is usually channeled into pursuits and endeavors which tend to
maintain and to perpetuate the dominant interests in society (i.e.~ industrial growth
and consumerism). However, the human desire to explore one’s self, to search for
God, or to experiment with new social forms and relationships, is no more patho-
logical or less worthy than the desire to explore outer space or to experiment with
the atom. American society, like other societies, seeks to channel the exploratory
impulses of its members into those activities which tend to maintain the status quo,
instead of encouraging social experimentation that might challenge the established
social order.
The most recent manifestation of such channeling is evident in the attempt in
the 80’s to down-play and sometimes suppress the successes of the self-growth
movement in the 60’s and 70’s. One common tactic is to dismiss self-growth
philosophies as a fad of a previous decade and to deny their pervasive appeal to
different groups of people (see Baum, 1970 and Wilson, 1976). Another example
 19

of channeling people away from the new groups can be seen in those attempts to
magnify the presumed violence and pathology in such groups at the expense of
ignoring the far greater amount of the same in American society and the world
around us. There is a common tendency among some writers to ignore the context
of violence engulfing new groups just by virtue of their threat to the established
social order (Richardson and Kilbourne, 1982) and/or to equate all new groups and
their activities with the bizarre and tragic actions of a few (Richardson, 1980b).
In a related paper (Kilbourne and Richardson, in press), we examined such
channeling activities in relation to the conflict between psychotherapies and new
religions and concluded that this conflict stems, in part, from the ongoing rivalry
between these two perspectives over adherents, status, power, and conceptual
territory. Conceptual weapons like &dquo;brainwashing&dquo; and &dquo;mind control&dquo; (Robbins
and Anthony, 1979; Richardson and Kilbourne, 1983) and &dquo;atrocity tales&dquo;
(Bromley, Shupe and Ventimiglia, 1979) have been used in some cases to frighten
young people away from the new groups because such groups challenge the status
and authority of our secular priests (i.e., psychologists and psychiatrists, London,
1964). In short, psychologists and psychiatrists have often functioned as social
control age>its and some have attempted more recently to &dquo;medicalize&dquo; (Robbins
and Anthony, 1982) and &dquo;psychiatrize&dquo; (Kecmanovic, 1983) the experiences and
goals of many adherents to the self-growth movement.
Yet, in spite of such channeling activities, American society continues to witness
the explosion of the self-growth movement and its subculture at a time characterized
by relative affluence and rising expectations, the information explosion, a sub-
stantial increase in leisure time (Stebbins, 1982), and social change. These factors
all tend to mitigate the person’s commitment to traditional activities and con-
ventional relationships. But the apparent social change, the diversities and the new
discoveries of our era, do not automatically translate into anxiety and breakdown
as many theorists have presumed. On the contrary, there are many of the present

generation who have only known social change, who have come to expect it, and
who have acquired a &dquo;taste&dquo; for it.
Social change, for some at least, is a constant source of stimulation and even
liberation from cumbersome social commitments and time-worn social forms. Such
persons are not demoralized by social change, diversity, the information explosion,
or the advent of serious leisure time. Rather, these persons are literally &dquo;enlivened&dquo;

by such events and often seek out their maximal attainment vis a vis the self-
growth subculture and its related social experimenter role. Oftentimes, what
conflict they do experience is social and political in origin.
In conclusion, for some to attempt to define arbitrarily what, when, why, and
where people should explore and how they should grow (i.e., socially, psycho-
logically, and spiritually) misses the important point: there are many ways to
believe in God, many ways to love and be loved, many ways to explore and grow,
many ways to heal, and many ways to create a meaningful and productive life. To
force people into a &dquo;one-dimensional&dquo; mold tends to cut them off from the
capacity for diversity which is a basic part of their human nature. Similarly, to
relegate social experimentation to a &dquo;try anything once&dquo; philosophy is to deny
20

the social experimenters’ hope for a new social responsibility for themselves, their
families and their communities.

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