找回“面子”：下岗失业工人的自尊维持

Getting Back "Face":Self-Esteem Maintenance among Laid-off Workers

当一个社会群体面临社会地位的骤然跌落时,其群体成员的自尊是否会随之受到影响,怎样做可以保持对自我的积极评价?文章通过阐述国有企业下岗失业工人——以前的"类中产阶级",现在的底层群体所使用的自尊维持策略,试图对这一问题做出解答。文章的经验资料来源于与14名下岗失业工人的深度访谈以及40名下岗工人的二手访谈资料。在此基础上,文章从3个层面揭示了工人们为维护自尊所使用的各种策略,包括群际层面上的社会比较和社会记忆,群体内层面的群内比较和个体记忆,以及人际层面上的信息控制、疏离、述说和职业修辞。文章认为,在下岗失业后的不同阶段,工人会侧重应用不同的策略来应对自尊面临威胁的状况;身处不同境遇的下岗失业工人对策略的使用也会存在着差别。文章最后提出了影响这些策略有效性的一些因素,包括家庭支持与性别差异。

How could a social group of people sustain their self-esteem when suffering a stark decline in status？ This paper attempts to answer this question by elaborating strategies of self-esteem maintenance devised by laid-off and unemployed workers employed by the state-owned enterprises in the past, the former quasi-middle class and the current underclass. The data were collected from field work with in-depth interviews with fourteen laid-off workers and second-hand inter- views with forty laid-off workers. A variety of strategies devised by these people to retain their dignity are articulated, involving social comparison and social memory at the intergroup level, intragroup comparison and personal memory at the intragroup level, as well as information control, distancing, accounts and occupational rhetorics at the interpersonal level. In the last chapter, this thesis indicates that in different phases of post-layoff period, the workers employ distinct techniques to cope with their threatened dignity; besides, it also points out diversity in strategy adoption among workers in different situations. Finally, the article put forward some factors affecting the strategy＇s effectiveness, like family support and gender.