Diversity and Groups

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the way evolving models of human organization—from hunter-gatherer to megacities—have an impact on human psychology, human relations, and the development of alienation. The idyllic paradigm, according to some researchers, was the low-population-density hunter-gatherer societies based on mutual exchange and shared resources. The principal organizing mechanism in these societies was kinship, which offered a defined behavioral guide. Eventually, the discovery and development of agriculture led to the Agricultural Revolution, and village-based sedentary societies supplanted the small hunter-gatherer units. Human interaction became more complex and impersonal in the higher-density towns and villages, and the sharing society evolved into one based on private property, trade, and the development of elite social classes. The next critical turning point following the Agricultural Revolution was the Urban Revolution. Several classical and contemporary theorists developed the concept of “social alienation” to describe the impact of the rushed pace of city life and the ephemeral nature of relationships on mental attitudes and social relations. Indeed, the rise of globalization, megacities, and migration in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century revived interest in the alienation theories of the 1950s and 1960s. The chapter then describes the American developmental psychologist Erik Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial identity development.