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The article presents information related to the characteristics of the behavior of agents of law both administrative and judicial who in their work interact directly with members of the community. It is a basic assumption in this paper that agents of sanction exist in all relatively permanent social systems. These agents may either act as privates or a formal organization or not; some may act individually as interacting directly with ordinary members of the social system, either this is an entire community, an association, an industrial organization or a small, informal group. One shall be dealing with the behavior of these agents, bringing into focus the official behavior, which is part of the face-to face interaction between the agents and the other members of the social system concerned. Another basic assumption of the paper is that face-to face disapproving behavior of agents in all social systems have interesting common traits, which with profit may be analyzed comparatively by means of a fairly general theory of sanction behavior. Initially it is an open question whether such a theory can be considered identical to or deduced from a general theory of action.

Utilizing the 'Metropolitan' database, which provides unique longitudinal data on a cohort of 15,000 individuals born in Stockholm in 1953, the paper tests various hypotheses on how conditions in childhood and social upbringing influence sickness absence in adulthood. The hypotheses were derived from different perspectives within the social sciences. The findings suggest that the effects of social background are transmitted via several mechanisms, and that it is useful to see some of the competing hypotheses on social class and health-related phenomena as complementary rather than contradictory. However, the results also suggest that both 'the culture of poverty hypothesis' and the 'biological imprint hypothesis' should be rejected. Because effects of social background are mediated by career variables such as school performance, educational level and current socio-economic status, the results support the 'unfavourable life career hypothesis'. In addition to these effects, an influence of being brought up in a family with serious domestic problems is found. This is congruent with 'the social imprint hypothesis', that childhood conditions may have lasting effects on conditions and behaviours in adult life, irrespective of later exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our point of departure in this paper has been that an organization can fruit- fully be described as a system of organizational units rather than of individual roles. Whether or not two units in such a system can be described as connected can be determined, for example, by the frequency of communication between them. An account of the units in the system and the relations between them provides one aspect of a description of the organization's structure. Over and above this, the organization's way of functioning as a system can also be described; one of the relevant variables here is intraorganizational strain. Some writers have shown that there is a connection between intraorganizational strain and the organization's degree of goal satisfaction. In this paper we suggest some hypotheses on the origins of intraorganizational strain and have assumed that behavior in a system of organizational units can be explained by an analogy to theories concerning interindividual systems. In conclusion our argument is illustrated by some examples from an empirical study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the assumption that an organization is made up of a hierarchy of means and ends, which can be represented by a means-end structure. Three concepts may be used in analyzing this structure: incongruence, inconsistence and inconsonance. How these three characteristics are related to the effectiveness of an organization will be discussed in reference to examples from the study of a hospital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a list of articles published in the present issue of this periodical. Some of these are "Absenteeism and Job Turnover as a Consequence of Unfavorable Job Adjustment," by Agne Lundquist, "Absenteeism - A Social Fact in Need of Theory," by Dagfinn As, "Annoyance Reactions to External Environmental Factors in Different Sociological Groups," by Erland Jonsson, "Differential Assimilation and the Perpetuation of Sub-Cultural Goals: A Pilot Study of a Danish-American Village in California," by Henry P. Lundsgaarde, Generalised Behaviour Theory: Behaviour Under Conditions of Outcome Certainty," by Philip G. Herbst, "Official and Unofficial Expectation Concerning the Care of the Sick," by Elina Haavio-Mannila, "Celibacy in Belgium: A Preliminary Study," by Claire Leplae, "The Dannish National Institute of Social Research," by Henning Friis, "Deviance and Passivity in Radio Listener Groups," by Yrjo Littunen, "Rebellion Against the Family. A Discussion of Some Trends in Scandinavian Left-Wing Ideologies," by Harriet Hoiter, "Intelligentsia," by Theodor Geiger.

The paper presents a list of articles published in the present issue of this periodical. Some of these are "Radio Listening in Denmark," by Torben Agersnap, "Juvenile Delinquency in Sweden," by Bjorn O. Ahlander, "Internal and External Criteria of Behavior Regularities," by Erik Allardt, "Community Activity, Leisure Use and Social Structure," by Erik Allardt, "An Analysis of 777 Matrimonial Want Ads," by Helge Anderson, "Lifetime Inter-Occupational Mobility Patterns in Sweden," by C. Arnold Anderson, "Some Notes on Operationism and the Concept of Validity," by Bo Anderson, "Lazarsfeld's Two-Step Hypothesis: Data From Some Swedish Surveys," by Bo Anderson and C.O. Melen, "The Technique of Demography Applied in a Study of Retirement," by Ole Asmussen, "The Structure of the Judicial System and its Function in a Developing Society," by Agnete Weis Bentzon, "The System Approach to the Study of Organizations," by H.M. Blegen, "The Systematic Position of Sociology of Law in Current Scandinavian Research," by Britt-Mari Persson Blegvad, "Distance and Social Relations," by Gunnar Boalt and Cari-Gunnar Janson, "The Sociology of Research," by Gunnar Boalt, "The Passive Citizen," by Angus Campbell, "Reflections on Functionalism," by Gosta Carisson, "Response Intertia and Cycles: A Study

The article discusses the intricacies in conceptualization of sociology. The difficulty for sociology lies in the fact that it often employs everyday words to explain a number of relatively everyday phenomena, and that, in order to do so, it seeks to give the words of everyday language a definite, restricted, and precise meaning. As a matter of fact, not everything is well-ordered within sociology. Sociology has a good deal of knowledge summing up social facts, it has a well developed technique of measurement, but its shortcoming is the absence of coherence in sociological knowledge, a shortcoming which is due to the fact that sociology has not any comprehensive, basic sociological theory. The starting-point for sociological science is the social anthropological observations that people behave habitually in certain situations, and that this habitual behavior varies from community to community in such a way that it is hardly probable that the variations have biological causes. In addition, one might call attention to the common experience that people cooperate and influence each other mutually according to a fixed behavior pattern.

The article focuses on the aspects of social stratification system in a changing community and analyzes sociological conceptions. It has been conducted in the community of Mo in Rana in North Norway. The study has what may be called a subjectivistic point of departure. That is, the focus of attention is the way in which the actor defines the situation, the way in which people themselves perceive the social stratification system. Now, a "pure" subjectivistic point of view has to be modified to some extent and in a sense "objectivized" in light of the demands of sociological techniques and theoretical interests. Keeping in mind the important structural changes that have taken place in Mo, the following two theoretical possibilities for Mo may be mentioned, on the one hand one may argue that with the rapidly increased differentiation of important social structures, it is reasonable to expect people to perceive the social stratification system as having become increasingly complex. On the other hand, with the increased differentiation of certain social structures, it is not reasonable to expect people to perceive the social stratification system as having become increasingly complex.

The article focuses on announcements about books and their authors. Some of the books are "Deviant Children Grown Up," by Robins, Lee N. The book is a longitudinal study that traces the social and psychiatric outcomes in adulthood of 524 child guidance clinic patients and compares them to those of a control group of 100 normal children. The childhood factors that appear to predict which disturbed children grow into adults with antisocial behavior diagnosed as the sociopathic personality are examined in detail. The next book is entitled "Auf der Suche nach Wirkllichkeit. Gesammelted ätze," by Helmut Schelsky. The book is a collection of Schelsky's most important papers and works with focus on the future and the development of society. The next book is entitled "The Forest of Symbols," by Victor Turner. The book is based on field work among the Ndembu of Zambia. It combines a very detailed description of the Ndembu with a theoretical analysis of the semantics of ritual symbolism. The Ndembu are a matrilineal, virilacal people with a high spatial mobility. Villages as well as individuals and families have a high rate of mobility.

The article presents information on system approach to the study of Organizations. The synthesis of the various aspects of the system approach into one organization theory is in the opinion of most scientists an impossibility. The human organization is far too complex to be fitted into a neat, inclusive model. It is at present fashionable to study organizations as open systems. It is fashionable in the sense that behavior theorists - whichever "school" they may belong to admit that the system approach to the study of behavior in organizations is promising and gives a picture of the "whole" not rendered by the more traditional approaches. The system approach implies that the organization is seen as a complete entity. The synthesis of the various aspects of the system approach into one organization System theory provides us with concepts from biology, physics, chemistry and from technical sciences such as communication engineering. Using these concepts to compare different systems the result will be a certain use of analogous considerations.

The study deals with the consequences of delayed response, or inertia, on the level of macro-sociological variables. In general the behavior subjected to analysis can be studied also on the level of individual variability and the question can be raised why some individuals react one way and others in another way, or not at all. This will be referred to as micro-analysis, while macro-analysis, as here understood, treats the average behaviour characteristic of the society, varying from one society to another, or in time. In the case of a response which is "quantal" on the individual level the macrovariable is a proportion and it is this situation many of the subsequent examples relate to. A simple model will be developed in which macro-response is regarded as occurring in time and as needing a certain span to time to run its full course. In the first part, the model will be assumed and its consequences demostrated, particularly the dampening of response variation and the creation of a seemingly cyclical pattern of change.

This article has two objectives: one, to find out if the Asch-effect of inducing perceptual and judgmental changes by means of group pressures could also be applied to attitude change, and two, to measure public compliance as well as private acceptance after having experimentally manipulated them. The researchers have presented an experimental approach which makes the distinction between public compliance and private acceptance in the study of attitude change. A subject, when changing his opinions, may do it on a verbal level without believing what he says simply because he perceives that the group to which he belongs wants him to react in this way. The subject will probably stop his compliance when he is no longer under the control of those considered as norm-senders. Control, here, means that the norm-senders can punish him for non-compliance and reward him for compliance. An enduring change has occurred only when the subject continues his behaviour without the controlling agent being present. One way of measuring that is by the creation of a stimulus situation, which is different from the attitude learning situation, but to which new attitudes have relevance.

There are quite generally two techniques which may be used to study an organization. The first approach assumes that people have access to the organization and are in a position to carry out some form of systematic behavior recording, together with the collection of data on the experienced situational characteristics which exist for individual members. These data can to begin with provide a qualitative model. At the next stage, the qualitative model may be translated into a quantitative form. Basic data in this case are qualitative and in the course of data analysis people may arrive at some form of quantitative formulation. The second approach goes in a sense in the reverse direction. Input-output data in the case of social and industrial organizations are for instance the number and type of entrants who come in and leave the organization, the amount and type of material coming in and the various goods and services produced. This type of data generally becomes available in a quantitative form. The transformation of inputs into outputs occurs within the organization itself.

The article focuses on the distinction between internal and external criteria of regularities in social behavior of an individual. Assertions of regularities presuppose criteria according to which things and events are called the same or different, regular or irregular. Social action and social phenomena are created by attitudes and expectations of the participating individuals. All regular behavior observable in social groups is not social action. It implies that the participating individuals have some concepts and some rules concerning the action. The rules of action are by no means absolute and fixed. A social action, the concepts and rules concerning the action, define an action system. If more than one person is involved we speak of a social system. When social action is being studied, the criteria for sameness and regularity are given in, or selected from, the social system to which the social action in question belongs. The criteria are what is called internal. The two distinctions, between social action and other kinds of behavior on the one hand and between internal and external criteria on the other hand, do not completely coincide.