Benefits to the Individual: Self-Image & Role

But what benefits do the followers receive?

Individuals usually benefit from being bonded together in a group to do something. Participation in a "cause" can change a person's life or outlook: instead of a meaningless life in a confusing, chaotic world, some people will gain a sense of meaning and purpose, a direction and a goal to achieve.

For some, it's a way to gain a sense of self-worth, value, dignity, and importance. For some, it's an opportunity to "do something worthwhile," or to get involved in a struggle of "good" against "evil."

For some, it's a way of belonging, getting a sense of community; often, in established groups, a feeling enhanced by a whole set of creeds to believe, codes to follow, and rituals to perform.

For some, it's a way to transform an "ordinary" life into an extraordinary one.

Getting involved in a conflict, battling evil for a good cause, certainly adds drama, adventure and excitement to life. Radicals in the '60s who joked about "revolution for the hell of it," suggesting that action was a good way to get rid of boredom, weren't too far wrong.

But most people are apt to be more solemn and serious in justifying their involvement: "doing one's duty . . . fulfilling one's destiny . . bearing witness . . . showing support . . . demonstrating solidarity."

People are usually not conscious of their need to function within a role, nor would they likely describe themselves as role-players, a phrasing which has overtones of superficiality or artificiality, trivial play-acting. If asked why they participate in a group, people are apt to respond: "I feel I ought to be here . . . it's my duty . . . we have an obligation to help out ... show our support . . . stand up for what's right."

Not only is there a genuine human need to belong, but also there's a deep desire people have that the world make sense, that there's some coherence and meaning in life.

Repetition has a cumulative effect on such belief. The more often people hear these same beliefs, repeat them, and reinforce each other, the more convinced they become.

Belonging to a group, and working for a cause, gives that kind of feeling, and a role to play.

Roles

A role exists within a wider context. To function well in a role implies a belief (a basic worldview), a purpose (goal, direction) and a plan (a process, a script, steps to be taken, a way) to get there with certain behaviors (specific acts; jobs, tasks, duties) to be done, and certain rules (a code of conduct, a list of "shoulds") to be followed.

Within roles, there's some leeway and optional behaviors; people aren't clones doing everything exactly the same. Change and movement within roles can be accomplished easier than a complete abandonment or loss of the roles.

When roles are criticized by outsiders, this threatens a person's whole worldview. Thus, people defend their own roles, their own actions as "doing the right thing" for the right purpose, as an affirmation of "natural order," of how things should be. (It's easier for outsiders to recognize this in others; it's difficult for us to see our own functioning in roles and in the possibility of living life in other ways.)

When roles are threatened, challenged, or when people are displaced from their roles, there's often an intense emotional response: fear of possible loss; grief, self-hatred, or anger at actual loss.

Roles can be imposed by others, or chosen by self. Some people who have "poor" roles in reality (as subordinates, unimportant, etc.) assigned to them in their everyday jobs, often compensate by choosing leadership roles in volunteer organizations (such as scouting, volunteer firefighters, sheriff's deputies, "cause" groups) in which they can "become important" and do "meaningful" things.

Role models are those ideal types, those people who set the standards of behavior for others to imitate or follow. Most people have a variety of role models for the many different roles we lead. Many of our domestic behaviors are modeled after our own parents, admired relatives, friends, and neighbors.

Heroes and heroines in books, movies, TV programs, and even 30-second-spots constantly function as role models of expected behavior. Viewer involvement is often very intense; audiences can have great empathy with well-drawn characters. Millions of American men, for example, have secretly spent time in front of their mirrors practicing the gestures of John Wayne, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Alan Alda, Al Pacino and countless other male movie stars. Millions of American women have imitated the mannerisms and dress, hairdos and styles after current celebrities or Hollywood stars.

Yet, such modeling behavior is not limited to such superficialities; the whole spectrum of social and political behaviors is learned by imitation.

"Pep talks" are not only delivered by people functioning in certain roles (prophet, liberator, reformer), but also are received by other people functioning in certain roles (defenders, crusaders, builders). Related to these "good causes" discussed here, there are many characters from both secular and religious literature on which we can base our self-images and role models.

Today, through books and movies we have access to so many competing myths and diverse stories that the specific images in our role models may be a bit confused, or at least curious and colorful.

We're apt to have some elements of the medieval romance (crusaders or knights in armor, doing their duty for a good cause, with apt reward and recognition, allegiance and a hierarchy, etc.); of the cowboy movies (with their ever-present themes of injustice being righted, of land disputes and invasions, of social orders being created and destroyed); of biblical figures (David, Samson, Moses, Abraham, Christ; of national heroes (Paul Revere, Nathan Hale, Washington, Lincoln); as well as a lode of imagery from Greek and Roman mythology and European history.

So the specific images and the mix may vary widely, but the underlying patterns are likely to be the same.