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goals and behavioral reality made people uncomfortable with their traditional values and norms. Majority group members transcended their psychological inertia when they realized they would be more comfortable with accommodation than with continued resistance to social pressures.
When values become tarnished by the realization that they have ceased to be serviceable, and problems of the street overcome nostalgia, beliefs change. We saw this in the South in the mid-60's, and we see it in eastern Europe today. Norms and attitudes are recast into new molds as schemas are altered in response to problems which can no longer be ignored. A schema provides a set of beliefs (which pass for an understanding about the universe), a program for directing behavior and, most important of all, a sense of identity. As a guide for a person attempting to cope with an uncertain environment, the schema is adaptive until being oneself becomes too costly in terms of schematic values. Then the attitudes which define the self must change if the schema, in even a modified form, is to survive at all. Of course, to the extent that the schema inhibits effective adjustment to the environment, it is clearly maladaptive.
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