Anatomy of the Image of the Nurse :

All professions, incl uding nursing, rest on a cultural base. Berger and Luckman argue that the sociology of knowledge concerns itself more with common sense tha n with theoret ical abstractions.l Everyone must exist within some kind of structure, some kind of ordered world, and so people create a "reality" for themselves about nurses and nursing which is based on things they "know, " regardl ess of the ul timate validity or inaccurateness of their "knowledge." The cultural lag implicit in current public "knowledge" about nursing will exist un til, and unless. it is directly challenged by new "knowledge." For clI:ampie. the generally accepted "knowledge" of male / female interaction of the 1950s has become unacceptable to the culture of the 19805; a new "knowledge" has replaced the old, perhaps only substituting one set of stereotypes for another. but definitely altering the tone. Socialization, the process of learning: basic values and orienta tions tha t prepare individuals to fit into their cultural milieu , cont ributes to the cognitive system a co llection of interrela ted items of knowledge and beliefs about the profession of nursing. A predominant consistency between the knowledge, ideas. and beliefs about nu rses and the act ual role, work, and nature of nursing yield an idea l or consonant image. The absence of such consistency and the ensuing interna l contradictions provide a cogn itively dissonant image of nursing. When this theoretical model is applied to a perceiv('d incongruity bctw('Cn a person's atti tudes and his or her behavio r, there is evidence tha t people tend to reduce such dissonance by maki ng appropriate changes in their attitudes and beliefs.' The mass m('dia arc instrumen tal in the image formation process. Originall y, mass media research did not pu t much stress on the socialization function, because it was thought that this was primari ly performed by parents and the schools. Studies conducted in the 19705 fina lly put the spotlight on the med ia as a primary factor in socialization, show ing that a