fatalism in coal miners

Psychological Reports, 1979, 4 4 . 1175-1180. @ Psychological Reports 1979

FATALISM IN COAL MINERS

DAVID I. CHIAPPONE AND WILLIAM H. KROES

Sauier University Wilshire Crest Medical Grorrp, Los Angeles, California

Summary.-A study of the viability of the attitude labeled as "fatalism" in miners. who work in n life stressful situation, was undertaken. Subiects were 33 Caucasian male miners and 33 Caucasian male industrial workers from northern West Virginia. Each subject was administered the Valecha Internal- External Scale, the Berger Self-acceptance Scale, the Campbell Personal Compe- tence Scale, and a questionnaire designed to tap fatalistic attitudes. The questionnaire data indicate no difference between the two groups. Results suggest that miners are not fatalistic as that term is commonly used, but interpretation of the miner's work safety attitudes should be made i n terms of reinforcement principles.

The purpose of this study was a clearer understanding of the social contingencies operating on Appalachian coal miners, to learn more of how humans behave under extremely stressful circumstances. It has long been believed that miners react to stress by the mechanism of denial and thus evidence extreme attitudes of fatalism. English and English (1958, p. 203) define fatalism as "the doctrine chat the situation and acts of man are pre-determined by Deity (or some substitute therefor) and are not subject to change, either by individual volition or by act of anyone else."

Previous studies have long attributed such an attitude to the Appalachian population (Lantz, 1958; Lucas, 1969; Weller, 1963). Such studies, however, are largely anecdotal, utilizing interview methods rather than standardized personality measures. This view of the Appalachian coal miners' behavior gains credence in view of the socioeconomic environment of the region. Historically, this environment has been one of strict religious fundamentalism, poor roads, lack of radio and television, and agricultural difficulties.

However, ocher literature (Ford. 1962; Lewis, 1970; Ross, 1971 ) has challenged the interpretation of the miners' behavior as characteristically fatalistic. Unfortunately these studies have not provided viable alternatives or ex- planations of the behavior or used psychological terminology. Furthermore, these studies did not include standardized, personality measures. The present study compared miners and non-miners on variables associated with aspects of fatalism.

METHOD Subjects

A total of 66 Caucasian male subjects from the Appalachian area (Fair- mont and Morgantown, West Virginia) were utilized. Thirty-three subjects

1176 D. I. CHIAPPONE & W. H. KROES

were employed as miners at the time of this study. The remaining subjects were working in non-mining industries and served as the control comparison. The two groups were about equally varied in age; over-all the ages ranged from 18 to 66 yr. and mean ages for the miners and non-miners were 35.4 and 30.0 yr., respectively. The two groups were matched on years of experience on their respective job, work location, educational level, and living location. Mean income for the miners was $12,227, for the non-miners $9,772.

Measures

The first scale employed was Valecha's (1972) 11-item abbreviated scale of internal-external locus of control, which, by definition, taps a fatalistic attitude, i.e., one's belief in luck, etc. The scale reflects a person's attitude as to whether he or some external force determines his life situation. This scale was selected as the items are more general, adult-oriented, and work related than other such scales.

The second scale, Self-acceptance Scale (Berger, 1952), purports to tap a self-accepting characteristic of a person. Such a person's behavior is guided by internalized values, and a faith in his capacity to cope with life. It was hypothesized that an individual high on fatalism, i.e., an individual evidencing a high degree of external control, would tend to minimize the role of personal abilities in the determination of life consequences and would show low self- acceptance.

The third scale was the Personal Competence Scale (Campbell, et al., 1960). Personal competence can be seen in terms of mastery of the environment. A person who lacks this competence ". . . may be resigned in a fatalistic way to a succession of events with which he does not feel that he can cope ade- quately" (Campbell, et al., 1960, p. 5 17) .

Finally, a set of pooled questions, specifically related to fatalism, was used. The questions were designed to elicit information specifically related to the work situation. Thus, one could directly question the worker about work- safety attitudes and behavior, both toward himself and the company, about accidents and responsibility for safety, about use of safety procedures, about reasons for choice of the job, and finally about whether the worker felt workers are fatalistic.

RESULTS A 3 X 2 analysis of variance (Winer, 1971, p. 437) was performed on

the responses to each of the first three scales, Valecha Internal-External, Berger Self-acceptance and Campbell Personal Competence. The factors were experience level, which was divided into three groups: &2, 3-9, 10 and above years of experience, and occupational grouping divided into miners and non- miners. It was hypothesized that these experience levels may involve differing

FATALISM IN COAL MINERS 1177

amounts of commitment to the job and work-related attitudes. The 0-2 level may be seen as an initiation period in which the worker "tries on" the job, its demands, its ramifications on family and social life to see whether to commit a significant portion of life to this particular job. In years 3-9, the worker may experience increased commitment to the job, as he strives to achieve competence and promotion within his chosen job area. After 10 years the worker may have obtained the promotion he sought or else resigned himself to his current position, limiting his striving and commitment.

Analysis of variance of these measures produced no significant main ef- fects or interactions for any of the three dependent measures. The mean scores obtained on these scales are presented in Table 1. Given this nonsignificance, all subjects were combined and correlations were computed between the three scales.

TABLE 1

MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS OF TWO OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS ON VALECHA INTERNAL-EX~RNAL SCALE, BERGER SELF-ACCEPTANCE

SCALE, AND CAMPBELL PERSONAL COMPETENCE SCALE

Scale N Miners Non-miners M SD M SD

Valecha 3 3 23.78 5.26 23.36 5.92 Berger 3 3 76.12 19.31 75.03 25.01 Campbell 3 3 4.42 1.27 4.GO 1.75

The significant negative correlation between the Valecha Internal-Exter- nal Scale and the Campbell Personal Competence Scale reflects the more one is internal the more he reports personal competence. Also, the significant negative correlation between the Berger Self-acceptance Scale and the Camp- bell Personal Competence Scale reflects the more one is self-accepting the more one reports personal competence.

Concerning the pooled questionnaire, most miners and non-miners re- sponded in a manner incompatible with a fatalistic attitude. For example, in answer to one question, 84% of the miners and 85% of the non-miners felt that accidents are caused, they do not just happen. Only 6% of the miners took

TABLE 2 INTERCORRELATIONS: VALECHA INTERNAL-EXTERNAL SCALE. BERGER

SELF-ACCEPTANCE SCALE, AND CAMPBELL PERSONAL COMPETENCE SCALE

Scale N Berger Campbell

Valecha 66 .lo9 -.406t Berger 66 -.235*

*P < .02. t p < .001.


the opposite view. Although this response does not indicate who or what is the cause, ocher responses indicate that the miners (as well as the non-miners) perceived themselves and safe-practice abilities or the work crew as crucial factors in establishing and maintaining safety on the job.

For example, 97% of the miners and 94% of the non-miners agreed that each worker himself makes the job safe. When safety procedures are not fol- lowed, 55% of the miners believe that they themselves are most responsible, while relatively few (0-3%) attributed cause to external factors such as safety committee or company engineers. Also, 18% of the miners felt the work crew was most responsible. While maintaining one's personal safety, 36% of the miners and 36% of the non-miners mention the worker's ability to notice dangers as being most important. At the same rime only 0 to 9% mention prayer, luck, or chance as most important.

DISCUSSION The absence of a significant difference between the mining and non-

mining population on the Valecha Internal-External Scale, the Berger Self- acceptance Scale, and the Campbell Personal Competence Scale implies that miners are not more fatalistic than non-miners. The correlations between the scales (see Table 2 ) would be theoretically expected since it is difficult to reconcile a fatalistic attitude with self-reports that reflect an internal orienta- tion, self-acceptance, and personal competence. Another interpretation, however, might be that an Appalachian attitude of fatalism was operative in both groups resulting in a "ceiling" effect which may have masked any actual dif- ferences between the two occupations sampled in this sntdy.

However, this ceiling effect may be assessed by a comparison of the present groups to non-Appalachian groups on the same scales. On a national probabil- ity sample ( N = 4,330; age 12 to 26 yr.), the median score for Caucasian males was 22.13 on the Valecha (1972) scale. A difference was nor reflected between this score and the median score of 25 for both occupational groups in the present study. For the Berger Self-acceptance Scale the mean scores of 76.15 for miners and 75.00 for non-miners were considerably lower than the mean score of 128 for an adult class at the YMCA ( N = 18) and prisoners ( N = 33) as reported by Robinson and Shaver (1969). The lower score reflects a more self-accepting attitude. High scores on this scale indicate a fatalistic attimde. Certainly this hypothesis needs to be addressed further, but the present evidence does not suggest chis ceiling effect did occur here.

Further, on the basis of responses to the pooled questions it appears that fatalism is a poor concepr to describe the response of miners to stress. With respect to personal safety, the source of control in the stressful work situation is definitely ascribed to human factors, especially to the worker himself. A fatalistic attitude would ascribe the control to an intangible source. Responses

FATALISM I N COAL MINERS 1179

on the other three scales tend to corroborate the miner's view of himself as competent to meet situational demands.

Over-all then, this research indicates that the general statement miners are - fatalistic, as the term is commonly used, cannot be made. Moreover, at this point, it seems that a redefinition of the miner's work situation is important to understand why the miner is able to keep working in such hazardous sur- roundings, and how he maintains safe behavior. It is not fatalism, however, which allows the miner to work under potentially stressful circumstances. In- stead, the miner is working at a job that is the "best job" or at least the best paying in the area, which also happens to be a potentially hazardous one. For the mining group 55% mentioned pay as a reason for choosing underground coal mining as their occupation. I t is interesting to note thac the miners in this study averaged $2,455 more in yearly income than the non-miners. In - fact, a frequent comment given by the Appalachian non-miners was thac they would prefer to work in the mines but there were no current openings. Some even stated that as soon as mining jobs became available they would leave their current positions. Thus, it seems the miners realistically see few alternatives to mining since they have personal and social respoi~sibilities that have to be fulfilled and mining offers a wage to do this. Within the mining situation certain reinforcements operate to maintain safe or unsafe work habits.

A new perspective of miners is called for which takes into account the unique characteristics of this life and work setting. A more positive and ac- curate picture of miners would be as employees working in and adapting to a hazardous situation. This adaptation is not with a fatalistic attitude but in- volves a realistic response to existing reinforcement contingencies in the environment.

REFERENCES

BERGER, E. M. The relation between expressed acceptance of self and expressed acceptance of others. Journal o f Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1952, 47, 778- 782.

CAMPBELL, A., CONVERSE, P. E., MILLER, W. E., & STOKES, D. E. The American voter. New York: Wiley, 1960.

ENGLISH, H. B., & ENGLISH, A. C. A comprehensive dictionary o f psychological and psychoanaly$ic terms. New York: David McKay, 1958.

FORD, T. (Ed.) The passing of provincialism. In T h e Southern Appalachian region: a survey. Lexington: Univer. of Kentucky Press, 1962. Pp. 9-34.

LANTZ, H. R. People o f coaltown. New York: Columbia Univer. Press, 1958. LEWIS, H. Fatalism or the coal industry. In Mountain l i f e and tuork. Berea, Ky.:

Council of the Southern Mountain. 1970. Pp. 4-15. LUcAs, R. Man in cri~is: a ~ h / d y o f a mine disas~er. New York: Basic Books, 1969. ROBINSON, J. P., & SHAVER, P. R. Measures o f social psychological attitudes. (Ap-

pendix B, Measures of political attitudes) Ann Arbor, Mich.: Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research. 1969.

Ross, M. H. The life style of the coal miner: myth and reality. The West Virginia University Magazine, Morganrown, 197 1 , 3 ( 1 ) , 26-32.


VALECHA, G. K. Construct validation of internal-external locus of reinforcement related to work-related variables. (1972 Kings College, unpublished paper) In A. I. Kohen & S. P. Parnes (Eds.), A longitudinal study of the educational and labor market experiences of male yotcrh. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State Univer. Center for Human Research, 1971.

WELLER, J. Yesterday's people. Lexington: Univer. of Kentucky Press, 1965. WINER. B. J. Statistical principles in experimental design. New York: McGraw-Hill,

197 1.

Accepted June 1 1 , 1979.

fatalism in coal miners

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