What happens to people who are assuming a master status for which audiences have
discrepant expectations, when socializers also emphasize that recruits take the desires of
all audiences into account? A participant observation and in-depth interview study of
ministry students in a humanistically oriented seminary revealed that these students
received discrepant expectations for the professional identity from organizational
personnel (the humanistic role) and members of the wider community (the traditional
role). By advocating personal and egalitarian involvement with clients, socializers taught
recruits to care about outsiders' expectations. As a result, recruits called into question the
meaning of the professional identity, effected "double role distance," and took on an
"ambivalent" identity. Students in humanistic schools of the personal service professions
may experience a similar dilemma.
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