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As Riesman puts it: "What is common to all other-directeds is that their contemporaries are the source of direction for the individual—either those known to him or those with whom he is indirectly acquainted, through friends and through the mass media. This source is, of course, 'internalized' in the sense that dependence on it for guidance in life is implanted early. The goals toward which the other-directed person strives shift with that guidance: it is only the process of striving itself and the process of paying close attention to signals from others that remain unaltered through life."
Who Is What. Riesman says that in the U.S. only a few tradition-directed islands survive: some Southern Negroes, some unassimilated immigrant groups. Most Americans are still inner-directed.
The working class, largely tradition-directed in the late 19th century, has passed into the inner-directed phase, and the middle class, whose 19th century mode was inner-direction, is now split. The old middle class—farmers, small businessmen, bankers, technically minded engineers—is still largely inner-directed. The new middle class—bureaucrats, salaried business employees—is largely other-directed.
Other-directeds are spreading in numbers and influence. "They are more prominent in New York than in Boston, in Los Angeles than in Spokane, in Cincinnati than in Chillicothe." And there are, of course, more other-directeds among the young than the old.
"Mirror, Mirror . . ." Many middle-class parents, aware that they can show a child neither a clear tradition-worn path nor a clear work-shaped goal, ask him merely to "do his best" in any of the unpredictable situations that will face him. What is his best? That which wins the approval of his contemporaries.
Other-directed children go to school earlier to acquire the arts of sociability. They are graded and even seated not by what they know or can do or by temperament—but in accordance with their ability to cooperate. At what? At cooperating. "The children are supposed to learn democracy by underplaying the skills of intellect and overplaying the skills of gregariousness and amiability—skill democracy, in fact, based on ability to do something, tends to survive only in athletics." The six-year-old group helps form its own other-directed character with the harsh judgment "He thinks he's big!" Everyone is cut down to size.