Small Group as Social Institution

to look elsewhere for self-fulfillment. But with the increase in shared activities, the family can play a new role in relation to the world of work. Family and work are no longer subject to a single overarching set of role prescriptions in an integrated cultural whole, nor are family functions as residual as they are when work is either overvalued or alienative, as it was in the era following the industrial revolution. Individuals now have a wider range of possibilities to consider in choosing both work and spouse, and greater freedom in organizing family life in relation to job requirements. Social prescriptions set broad limits of acceptability but family structure, both internally and in relation to work, is increasingly determined by the individuals' personality needs, their interpersonal fit and, as a derivative of these dimensions, their capacity to cope with the tasks specific to each phase of family life. Similarly, the career options open to individuals, particularly in the high-demand professions, are numerous enough to permit each person to develop a pattern of work participation according to his personality needs, his relations with others, and his capacity to cope with the tasks of career development at each phase. Fitting participation patterns in work and family together, like coping with the tasks posed within each sphere, is partly a matter of an individual style that emerges as the individuals meet each successive situation, rather than the outcome of conformity to or deviance from a preexisting normative pattern.