Gretel H.

Pelto
Adaptation to Economic Marginality: A Psychosocial Model

Under pressure from a number of sources American anthropologists are increasingly turning thl'Oirattention to the study of our own society. The crises of the cities and of interethnic conflict have, understandably, moved into the foreground of concern, particularly since the demands for a "relevant" social science are most likely to come from city voices. But the rural hinterlands are part of our cultural scene and have their problems too. Marginal rural areas such as northern Minnesota-the focus of this research-are beset with economic decline, out-migration and the resulting cultural and psychological depression in populations that feel they have been left out of the mainstream of action. A few years ago an extensive research project was initiated by the Upper Mississippi Mental Health Center in northern Minnesota. The research program was practical and applied in its origins, since the clinical staff wanted to find out more about the populations they serve, especially the factors associated with the types of problems they were confronted with in their daily routines. At the same time they recognized that the answers to the questions they were asking involved relatively broad range theoretical research. The research team, therefore, defined the problem as the generation of an empirically derived model of psychosocial adaptation in an economically depressed area. The Mental Health Center serves a five-county area in the "cut-over" region in the north-central part of Minnesota. The area has experienced a steadily worsening economic situation for several decades. In the mid-l960s it was characterized by low income (the median income in the research population was just over $3000 per year), high unemployment with significant seasonal fluctuations, and a declining population in which most young people leave as soon as they graduate from high school, if not before. A series of communities was selected for study, chosen to represent the range of variation in the area in terms of economic affluence, degree of tourism, ethnic-religious background, and several other characteristics. Fieldworkers took up residence in the selected research communities in order to gather ethnographic data through participant observation and informal inter'Viewingtechniques. . The smallest of the communities, Ashville, isin the most serious condition in terms of its economic position and future prospects. By Northern MinAn original paper published with the permission of the author.

lesota standards, the town is relatively heterogeneous in ethnic and religious ;omposition. Ashville has experienced a steady decline in population since :he Depression; its bank has long since closed, many businesses have failed md, recently, it has been threatened with the loss of its high school, which s recognized by the people as the last remaining focus of community or~anization. The town of Solberg, with a population of 350 people, is next in size. It s a predominantly Norwegian-Lutheran community, and it was initially ;elected for study as representative of the relatively prosperous communities n the area. Although many of its residents are faced with economic probems, the presence of a new sunflower seed processing plant is providing some lew wage labor opportunities, as well as increased incomes for farmers. Draketon is a community of approximately 800 people. The village has ;ommercial, educational, recreational and political facilities serving a large mrrounding area of farming and logging people. Although it has a large :"'utheran population, the town is relatively mixed in ethnic and religious :omposition. The economic situations of Draketon's families range from Joverty to affluence. In our sample the range is from a low of $700 dollars a lear income, to a high of $15,000. The largest of the four communities is a town of 1500 people. As is true }f Draketon, a few of James Lake's residents are well off, but the majority }f people have marginal or substandard incomes. Although the town is in;titutionally weil developed, with a village government, bank, newspaper, md many social clubs, it is also faced with many economic and social probems. Like all of the communities in the area, JamesLake has seen its popu.ation dwindle since the days of the "great boom" in the 19'20s. Sociocultural and psychological data were gathered from randomly selected ;amples of households in each of the four communities. The sociocultural nformation was obtained by means of a lengthy structured interview. The Jsychological data were gathered with the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory). The MMPI is fairly wen known as a standard clinical instrument. The 350 questions in the MMPI represent a distillation from a number of years }f empirical searching for items that discriminate particular, defined psychirtric populations as distinct from normal people. Although this instrument }as been used in a number of cross-cultural contexts, including Japan, Mexico, md Puerto Rico, anthropologists have been hesitant to use it since it is clear :hat the response norms, in terms of which the instrument is calibrated, are :elatively ethnocentrically loaded. However, we felt it to be appropriate in :he case of our research in No. Minnesota since the test was validated in \1innesota with a broad cross-section of respondents. We can also offer some :lirect contextual support for the validity of the instrument in No. Minnesota. [n a control group of persons who contacted the mental health center in the rrea, for psychiatric help, MMPI responses are abnormal. The difference Jetween these people and the ordinary, nonpatient local population is clearly

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significant, and in the manner in which the constructors of the MMPI instrument say it should be. In our analysis we used the standard. MMPI scales which measure the relative strengths of such characteristics as "depression," "paranoid tendencies," and "hysteria." We must emphasize that while the terminology is psychiatric, we do not intend that these terms be interpreted as referring to mental illness. Rather, the characteristics described should be regarded as psychological tendencies within the range of normal populations. The staff of the mental health center had formed the opinion that depression was a major psychological problem in the population. The results of the MMPI strongly support this impression. With minor exceptions, both men and women, in all four of the communities, have depression scores that deviate markedly from the Minnesota norms. By the standards established for the MMPI, we would expect that three or four people in the research sample to have depression scores above two standard deviations from the mean. We find, in~tead, that eleven people in the sample have scores in this range. A second distinctive characteristic that appears in the No. Minnesota population is what clinicians refer to as "hysteria." In the psychiatric handbooks, this psychological trait is described as including characteristics of "using physical symptoms as a means of solving difficult conflicts." TI1is resort to physical disorder may appear only under stress. In addition, there is a tendency to deny troubles of any kind; there may also be denials of personal inadequacies and base impulses. In another portion of research in the same area Stephen Schensul has found that, despite their cataloging of the economic and other deficiencies of life in No. Minnesota, respondents rate their own self image as remarkably dose to their conceptualizations of the "ideal life." Perhaps the classic expression of this mode of psychic adaptation was heard the morning after the 1968 presidential election when the losing candidate said, with tears in his eyes, "I don't feel bad, really.... " In these No. Minnesota respondents the hysteria scale shows a statistically significant elevation for both males and females. This response is particularly important among males (see Table 1). A basic hypothesis of our research was that a history of economic problems would be associated with evidence of psychological problems, but we also felt that ethnic and religious affiliation as well as other factors would have important effects on individuals' psychological states. Following the ideas of other researchers concerning the importance, for mental health, of community "health," we felt that some of these northern communities would be more conducive to psychiatric problems than others. As a first step in the data analysis, the interview materials-social, economic, and cultural variables-were factor-analyzed by means of a standard computerized procedure.

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Individuals in Adaptation

DRAKETON Male SOLBERG 55 49 59 46 JAMES LAKE by Community and Sex * 58 52 60 48 45 50 Male Scale 58 49 42 49 48 47 44 47 55 46 51 50 53 56 52 57 51 55 54 53 59 1:Female MMPI Means Table scales. # The mean for the Minnesota population used to validate the test is set at 50 for all ASHVILLE

The second, more important, step consisted of a stepwise multiple regression analysis, by means of which we would examine the relative predictive efficacy of our battery of predictor variables as they affected individuals' MMPI depression scores. (See Tables 2 and 3.) The computer continued to calculate the equation, adding articulation (low); organizational participation (low); unemployed; and occupation (farmer), so that the final multiple R was .66. However, these additional variables each accounted for less than one percent of the total variance and are not at a statistically reliable level. The computer continued to add several variables to the equation: income (low), occupation (farmer), religiosity (low), and M.S.L. (low), education (low), to bring the final multiple R to .82. In the factor analysis, the first major factor reflects the dimension of "socio-

Table 2: Sociocultural Predictors of Depression in Women Direction of Association

Low Yes

(N

41)

Variable Religiosity Lutheran Number of siblings in the area M.S.L. Income Family cycle Education Scandinavian Household size

Cumulative Multiple Correlation (R) .38 .43

.49

None/few High Low Late Low

Yes

.52
.55

.61 .62 .63

.64

Small

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Table 3: Sociocultural Predictors of Depression in Men (N

Direction of Association

= 31)
Cumulative Multiple Correlation (R)
.33

Variable

Articulation Place of residence Employment history-self-rating Birthplace Siblings in area Lutheran Household size
Age

Low In town center Much unemployment In the area None/few

Yes

.49 .56
.61

Organizational participation Present employment status Family cycle Scandinavian

Small Older Low Unemployed Late

Yes

.66 .68 .70

.72

.74 .76 .77 .78

economic success-failure," " including the variables of income, employment, material style of life, and apparently closely related variables of education and articulation to the wider society. The multiple regression analysis shows that, on the whole, there is a greater incidence of depressive responses from those people who are toward the low end of the range of variation of socioeconomic success. This association between poverty and psychological stress is congruent with the findings of a number of other studies, both urban and rural. Although people who are poor, unemployed, and without many material comforts tend to be morecIepressed-than--theirbetter-off neighbors, there are many other factors operating to produce psychological stress and the magnitude of the statistical association between depression scores and the economic variables is not extremely high. The correlations are on the order of .30~.35. In the multiple regression analysis a second set of variables that are important in the prediction of depression involves aspects of "social marginality." People who live alone, who do not participate in community organizations, who have few or no relatives living nearby, and who apparently take less interest either in the events in their own community or in the outside world, are more likely to be depressed than those who are active community participants, and have frequent social contacts, including contact with children and relatives. We should note that social marginality and socioeconomic success are not independent of each other. In fact, there is a fairly strong association
* In using the term "socioeconomic success-failure" we are following the usage of people in the area who conceptualize economic concerns in terms of "success" or "failure." The expression does not imply anything about the "success:' of an individual in other aspects of life, e.g., his/her "success" as a friend, neighbor, parent, etc.

336

Individuals in Adaptation

lmong many of these variables. In general, the people who have higher in~omes, steady jobs, a higher material life-style and more education are also .dive in community affairs and lead an active social life. A number of writers have commented on the depressive characteristics of Scandinavian-Lutheran culture, and we hypothesized that ethnic-religious background would be a factor in predicting differential depression scores, 5ince the area contains many people who have maintained some identity with their Scandinavian origins. Depressive tendencies did, in fact, appear more strongly among the Scandinavians in the research population than in other groups. People of Scandinavian-Lutheran background had higher depression scores. Also, the homogeneous Norwegian-Lutheran community of Solberg appears consistently in the analyses as a "variable" associated with higher depreSSIOn. There are many interesting differences in the four communities which were the focus of our research; but with the exception of Solberg, community of residence does not appear to be particularly significant in explaining variation in depression. However, there are intercommunity differences in rates of some of the other psychological measures, particularly in aggressiveness and "positiveness of outlook," Thus we feel that the factor-"community of residence"-must be included in the theoretical model. In all of the statistical analyses "religiosity" shows up persistently as an important item; the direction of association is consistent-people who are "less religious" are more depressed! As operationalized in this research, "religiosity" includes measures of social participation as well as belief, and the variable is also correlated with measures of socioeconomic success, but not with religious denomination. While part of the association can be accounted for in terms of these two major factors it would appear that "religiosity"in and of itself-acts as a buffer against psychological tension and helps to ease the stressful effects of living in an economically depressed area. From the statistical analyses we have built a tentative model of psycho~ social adaptation in the area which involves four main components that, in interaction, appear to have strong effects on "individual psychological wellbeing." These components are (1) socioeconomic success-failure, (2) social marginality-centrality, (3) cultural ideology, and (4) community of residence. In this research we conceptualized psychological state as a dependent variable and examined the effects of a number of independent variables. While we feel that "causal arrows" can be drawn-as in Diagram A-it is also clear that there is an interactive effect. People who suffer ham psychological problems are, no doubt, more likely to' experience economic failure and to withdraw from social contact, for example. The variables analyzed in our research account for only 35-45% of the total variance in depression. Clearly, a nurriber of other kinds of variables need to be incorporated into the model in order to enhance its predictive value. Some of the missing variables are well known. Tiley include experiences of childhood, cohesion of natal family, and situational mishaps. The

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addition of those variables would not, we feel, detract from the significance of the sociocultural elements that have been the focus of this research.

DOMAINS

OF FACTORS

AFFECTING

PSYCHOLOGICAL

WELL-BEING

Income

Ma terial-style-of-life

Employment Socio-economic Success-Failure

stability

Occupation Education

Articulation

Organizational

participation

Religiosity

Psychological well-being

Family Social CentralityMarginality

life cycle depression

Age

Household

size

Siblings

in area

Rural

YS.

town

residence

Birthplace Cultural Ideological

"Ethnic

identity

Religious

affiliation

Community

of residence

DIAGRAM A

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Individuals in Adaptation

In seeking to develop a model for predicting levels of psychosocial adaptation or "well-being" in marginal rural areas such as northern Minnesota we feel that many different kinds of economic, social and cultural factors need to be taken into consideration. There are many simple, one-variable models that concentrate on a single factor such as childhood experience, social integration of communities or class stratification. Each has "tapped" into a portion of the variation in psychological states; but each such single factor explanation, taken by itself, accounts for only a small proportion of the phenomena. To develop really effective predictive models, we must examine the interactions among an array of variables. In this research, we placed a heavy emphasis on the materialistic variables of socioeconomic success, but we did not neglect to consider relatively nonmaterialistic sociocultural elements. The theoretical implications of our findings are that a psychosocial model must include both material and nonmaterial factors. The relative weights of the significant predictive factors may vary from one behavioral setting or community to another, so that the shape of our multifactor model may take on quite different proportions under different circumstances, without changing its essential nature or its predictive power. The model we are working with has implications for social science theory, and we hope to develop these through further research. But it should be clear that a major aim of research of this type is to provide analyses which are useful for community mental health centers and other agencies concerned with the social and psychological well-being of people.

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