SEX ROLE IDENTITY and THE FISHER MODEL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION ©™

SEX ROLE IDENTITY AND THE FISHER MODEL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION©™

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© February 23, 2014

Michael Sam, an outstanding college football player, announced to the world that he was gay before the National Football League went into the draft phase of selecting college players for the next season.  It has been a controversial and courageous act for this young man, but it does not compare with American Olympic Gold Medalist, Greg Louganis, who won two Gold Medals for diving in both the 1984 and 1988 Olympics.  He received death threats, ostracism, and contemplated suicide.  It moved the late Murray Kempton to write, “Why, America, did you, in your arrogance, teach so many of your children to hate themselves?” 

For this reason, alone, Michael Sam’s coming out in this most macho sport is a sign America is a little less arrogant and a little more tolerant of differences.   

We spend a lifetime figuring out who and what we are, never certain to the end.  This includes our sexuality.  Sex role identity is learned behavior.  The gender of male and female is not in our DNA.  Yet religious taboo puts something of a stranglehold on gender roles and what it is to be male and female, or not.  The cosmic irony is that God put DNA of both sexes in our genes to complicate these gender roles and those identities. 

I am not an advocate of hetero or homogeneity.  Perhaps that is because I have never had to struggle with gender role identity or physical attraction, as I sense many do and have.  Can you imagine the courage it must take to find yourself more attracted to what society construes is “the wrong gender,” and then have to build a life around that?   Well, I can’t. 

What I can understand, and I have spent a good bit of my life dealing with this is the “self” and “role demands” on that self.  I have attempted to capture this in a paradigm.    

What follows has been taken from CONFIDENT THINKING (TATE Publishing 2014).  It is offered here to suggest the struggle in daily life is within ourselves and between ourselves and others.  Sex role identity is but one issue, and is unlikely to be the most pressing one. 

THE FISHER MODEL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION © ™

PSYCHOLOGICAL FORCES WITHIN INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

When you deal with others, you must ask yourself, “Who is speaking?” That is what I asked myself with author Richard Dawkins’ declaration that God is a delusion. He has every right to say that and I have every right to differ with him.  Now, “who is speaking,” not only applies to the person sharing his views, but also to “who is listening” in terms of his reaction to such views.  This brings us to the nature of what I call “the ideal self“ and “the real self.”

How we interpret and react to what we hear is predetermined largely by how we define the information in terms of our “ideal self“ and “real self” to a specific situation. They are both valid parts of each of us and influence greatly whether we define the situation well or poorly.

Taking this one step further, acting on our minds will be two further dimensions of this process, and that is “self-demands” and “role demands.” Once it is clear that our reaction to a given situation is either in terms of our “ideal self“ or “real self,” then it follows that either our “self-demands” or “role demands“ will surface and come into play.

There are two pressures acting on us at all times, the “real self” and the “ideal self.” The “real self” is how we actually are, a side we show when we think nobody is watching.  If we accept our “real self,” chances are we won’t get all bent out of shape when someone penetrates our facade. Given this, there is a good chance we will define our situation clearly and act on it appropriately.

Once we start to think on our own, once we get beyond the support system of our family, and process information in the light of experience, that voice in the back of our head that was our parents is now quiet. It is still there.  But we have grown beyond that voice and have developed our own. We have discovered our authentic self. We cannot have an authentic identity or self until we are acquainted with and comfortable being that “real self” as our friend.

Only we can establish identity consistent with our nature. No one else can do that for us. This gives birth to the “adult ego state,” which is another expression for the “real self.” Thus we have the emotional maturity to see the situation as it is, not as it should be. We are ready to deal with each situation as it arises in terms of its real demands, which might be labeled “role demands.”

The “ideal self“ is how we have been programmed or think we should behave. It is a combination of the “critical parent” (judgmental parent) and “nurturing parent” (parent as apologist).  The irony is once our parents are out of the picture, or remotely associated with us, those two parents wage constant war on our psyches.  Our children are very familiar with these two “parents” as they confuse creating mixed messages.  Why?  Because often when parents should be critical, they aren’t, and when they should be understanding and solicitous, they are critical. 

The “ideal self“ is the “superego state” or “moral self.” It is the judgmental self that owns everyone’s problems seeing every situation in terms of black and white, expecting the situation to behave as it should, not as it is does. Complicating matters further, guilt and self-loathing can take residence in a parent for not having been a perfect child.  Fearing somehow this might be revealed, the parent projects an "ideal self" that has never existed.  For that reason, the parent fears honesty is not only a bad policy but may result in the child stumbling into the same treacherous messes.

The perfectionist mania of Leonardo da Vinci may have contributed to his failure to often complete tasks (see Sigmund Freud’s “Leonardo da Vinci,” 1916). It was a way to presage his brilliance “as if only” the work had been completed.  Take the incomplete masterpiece Mona Lisa for example.

The “ideal self” denies its shortcomings and therefore is crippled by them. It is common with passive-receptive personalities to be emotionally dependent on others to make choices for them, to give them advice, and take control. They want someone to blame should things go wrong. By abdicating responsibility, they see themselves as blameless when they misstep.

“Self-demands“ are prominent if we are needy. Needy persons need attention, approval, to appear to be somebody, to have others available to protect their fragile egos, and act as a sounding board for all their woes. Such persons need to make a good impression, need people to know how important they are, need to be associated with people of prominence, need to name drop, need to attend a prestigious university, need to be included in everything, and need constant reassurance.

“Self-demands“ find it impossible for the person to listen, as he is only interested in what is important to him and what he thinks. He can be easily offended with the slightest criticism, but thinks nothing of criticizing others. He is a rumormonger, a gossip, and tends to be passive aggressive, maliciously obedient, or obsessive compulsive.

“Role demands” focus on the situation. “Role demands” constantly change. They differ when listening to a friend, completing a work assignment, or providing emotional support to a loved one. The person who has a firm grip on “role demands“ shows an easy grace and self-confidence as he changes from one demand to another never confusing the demands or the situation. He is not the center of the focus, the demands of the situation are.  He is not judgmental as that is not in his repertoire.  And he doesn’t own other people’s problems.

He brings the best out in others because he pays attention. He actively listens. This does not mean he allows others to set up straw men to compromise him. For example, he would not let a problem drinker get off the hook by hiding in “his disease.” He is not a patsy for his or anyone else’s excesses.

To better understand the difference between these two demands in terms of confident thinking, there is a simple checklist:

With “self-demands,” it is evident that you need to protect your fragile ego when you need others to share your personal biases toward everybody and everything. If others don’t fall in line with your thinking, you are inclined to classify them in belittling stereotypes.

With “role demands,” you perceive the situation in light of its specific demands.  You demonstrate confidence and caring. For this, you earn group trust. You see a synergistic connection between individual and group needs. You have no inclination to compare and compete, to divide and conquer, or put one individual or group against another. You are kind, considerate, consistent, fair and respectful, but also firm. You treat everyone alike with dignity, while holding behavior to a high standard, according to the demands of the situation. You are no pushover. You display confident thinking without badgering others with it. Others feel better for being in your company. You know life is not fair, but that is not relevant. You are not an apologist. The idea of “feel good” applies to “self-demands,” not “role demands.”

You expect your life and work to be judged critically, but fairly, and you expect you won’t always see eye-to-eye with your bosses. So, it is no surprise that others don’t always see eye-to-eye with you. You know life is not divided into semesters where you can bone up for exams, but a series of daily pop quizzes. Success comes when preparation meets opportunity. There is no luck involved as everyone gets a report card every day. The key to “role demands” is readiness.

Consequently, if a person is obsessed with his “ideal self “and “self-demands,” the situation will be poorly defined, misperceived and misinterpreted. It is the blindness of old logic, a fraction that always seeks its integer.  Reason will not convince such a person to think otherwise. It is “the system” that is against him, and he will have it no other way.  He is the victim. It is not his fault. He did nothing wrong. That may be true, but even truer is that he most likely did nothing right. He is an emotional cripple heading toward self-defeat, and if not corrected, a victim of chronic disappointment.  Since the confident thinker is comfortable with the “real self” and “role demands,” he will define the situation accurately.

He will embrace the consequences of his actions, and nip problems in the bud before they explode out of control.  For this attention, his personal security will be enhanced, his professional influence solidified, and his aspirations on the road to self-realization.

This is not to imply that for every step forward there is not a step back, or that surprise and failure do not occur on occasion. It means he is ready for the most stressful situation.  Even when everything is not going well, adaptive tension gets him through the difficulty. He is not paralyzed by maladaptive tension.  This is because he embraces his fears rather than runs from them, accepts the challenges at hand and deals with them the best that he can. At the end of the day, he is satisfied he did his best. The body and mind are one and resolutely resilient. 

“Role demands” place the focus on the job at work and in life off the job.  In that sense, they are contagious, helping others to adjust to what they can do rather than what they can’t do and into accepting who they are rather than who they should be.

There is a natural dynamic in the “zone of conflict” where these forces compete for dominance. It is the tension between the “real self” and “ideal self,” and “self-demands” and “role demands.”  If the "ideal self" and "self-demands" are winning the struggle, it is in the direction of self-defeat.  If the "real self" and "role demands" is winning, it is in the direction of self-realization.

This determines whether the situation is clearly or poorly defined.  The drama of mounting anger is first rehearsed in our heads, often unbeknown to us, before it explodes between us and someone else.  If only we were more self-aware, when social pressure starts to build, we could take a deep breath, count to three, excuse ourselves, go somewhere private, take out a handkerchief and clean our glasses, or any number of other things to bring our pressure gauge down to where we could react without embarrassment.

Too often we “pop off.” This is a form of rage. This was the case with actor, Mel Gibson, a deeply religious zealot, director of the acclaimed film, “The Passion of the Christ“(2004), when he was stopped for erratic driving. He resisted arrest, and went into a hysterical tirade against Jews, police and society, inconsistent with what he professed to be his “real self.”  Gibson insisted this was an aberration, and simply the harangue of a “wild ass drunk.”

Freud would not agree. He would say he had real issues between his “ideal self“ and “real self,” as well as between his “self-demands“ and “role demands,” and that the persona he attempted to project of the devout Roman Catholic was loaded with conflict and inconsistency, and that all this repressed tension had to eventually surface. Unfortunately, when such rage finally surfaces, it is almost always ill timed.  Before you judge Mr. Gibson harshly know that part of us has little interest in our best interests; part of us has little regard whether our actions are destructive or constructive. The angels and demons of our nature are always active and likely to surface the more we confine ourselves to high stress situations with little down time. 

The Fisher Model of Conflict Resolution©™ is never static, never one-dimensional, and can be accelerated or retarded by the clash of emotional temperaments. While we are at war within ourselves, this same conflict goes on within others as well.  Consequently, a given situation can be perceived in multiple ways. This complexity can be mind-boggling but it need not be.  Be kind and accepting of yourself and you will inevitably find yourself kind and accepting of others, whatever your predilections.