Date of Award

1971

Degree Type

Thesis

Department

Psychology

Abstract

"Alienation, estrangement, disaffection, anomie, withdrawal, disengagement, separation, noninvolvement, apathy, indifference, and neutralism--all of these terms point to a sense of loss, a growing gap between men and their social world." but these terms, which Kenneth Keniston disparages as the current vocabulary of social commentary, are indeed a familiar description of today. The youth on college campuses are especially fluent in the use of the many synonyms of alienations to depict prevalent college attitudes and social values. Even the term "generation gap" seems to cry of separation, estrangement, and alienation between two factions of our society-- young and old. what is causing this sense of alienation in the new generation? Is the seeming obsession with breakdown, protest, destruction, and defiance against the "Establishment" causing deeper gulfs of separation between "them" and "us"; or are protest and violence only the climatic manifestations against the deeper, slowly evolving social attitude of estrangement and apathy? Which should be called alienation?

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Faculty Mentor

Kent E. Robson