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While not focusing on any particular instances of terrorism, tyranny, or religious extremism, this paper examines these matters from an interactionist (Mead, 1934; Blumer, 1969; Strauss, 1993; Prus, 1996, 1997, 1999) viewpoint and indicates how these realms of human endeavor may be approached in more direct empirical (i.e., ethnographic) and instructive analytic terms. After (a) defining terrorism, tyranny, and religious extremism within the context of instances of collectively engaged activity, consideration is given to (b) three mystiques (deviant, psychological, power) that commonly obfuscate and distort analyses of human activity. The paper then (c) outlines a series of conceptual, methodological, and literary resources that would enable scholars to engage these and related subject matters in more direct research terms and develop more viable conceptualizations of instances of these collectively engaged activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an exploratory examination of the role of signs perceived along nature trails in parks and wooded settings and the ways in which they shape the nature experience for individuals. Literature was examined to define what it means to experience nature, the values and meanings people place on nature, hikers' expectations, and tourism and park management practices. Sign objects, their underlying meanings, and the interpretation of signs along the trail were examined in the context of the existing theory based on semiotics, particularly the work of Peirce. Through a series of hikes, we found that signs contribute to the satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and meaning making in outdoor environments. Areas for further investigation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many sociologists believe that behavioral sociology is alien to traditional sociological thought, and some have questioned its legitimacy as a sociological perspective. This paper takes the position that behavioral sociology is very much in accord with basic tenets of sociology. The belief that it is not results from misunderstanding and confusion about the foundations and practice of behavioral sociology. Three key concerns about behavioral sociology are addressed: (1) the subject matter of behavioral sociology and its distinction from behavioral psychology; (2) the unexplained "givens" of behavioral sociology (the origins of existing reward systems), and (3) the concern that behaviorists view human behavior as mechanistic and unfeeling. The paper concludes that many differences between behavioral sociology and other sociological perspectives have been exaggerated, that behavioral sociology does exhibit most traditional characteristics of the discipline, and that the concern with the legitimacy of behavioral theory in sociology has obscured the one significant difference that does exist disagreement over the goals and conduct of a science of human behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some years ago the author rejected out of hand a sociologist colleague's argument that the use of analogies or models is characteristic of insecure individuals operating in immature disciplines. This paper essays an explanation that justifies a reversal of judgment concerning the utility of analogies in sociology and social psychology. It is well to recognize, before continuing with the case against analogical analysis of sociological data, that only an extremist would argue that the very persistence of a conceptual scheme is an argument for its functional nature. The reality of these rewards makes it difficult for those employing an analogy to discern whether it has actual heuristic pedagogical value or its continued use is merely a function of rationalization designed to preserve these subjective rewards. Although not unknown in earlier periods of time, mechanistic models or analogies became much more prevalent in the seventeenth century in response to the remarkable gains of the period in mechanics, physics, and mathematics.

The relations between George Herbert Mead's pragmatism and Wilhelm Dilthey's hermeneutics have been examined in recent years in a new light: based on the former's close contact with the latter during the course of his studies in Germany in the 1880s–90s. These relations seem to vanish afterward, with Mead's return to the United States. Yet the common interests they share in the formation of a new social science keeps their respective developments in parallel; from psychology to history, they both share common interests in the reformulation of the concepts of Geist or Mind of the Hegelian legacy, through an interest in meaning and symbols as keys to the interpretation of the social world. Although there are important differences in their evaluation of the definition of the scientific enterprise that keeps natural sciences and Geisteswissenschaften apart for Dilthey, but are rather seen in their continuity for Mead, there are numerous points of intersection in their views. This article seeks to highlight those similarities, without neglecting the differences between Mead and Dilthey, in order to bring hermeneutics and pragmatism closer in their capacity to shed light on each other, and on the requirements of sociological analysis in contemporary society to be widened and deepened by adding the psychological and historical dimensions to its perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of the revanchist ideology that often passes under the rubric of sociobiology, a perspective that insists on the learned nature of social behavior is welcome. Undoubtedly, a search for the causes and careers of human behavior is a legitimate enterprise in sociology, but in the context of Molm's paper, a different question must be raised regarding behaviorist sociology. The root criticism of behavioral sociology, it seems to me, is the one she attributes to symbolic interactionism. The view that human emit behavior, Molm contends, is not a mechanistic theory at all because operant behaviors are not automatically elicited by any prior stimulus, they simply occur not elicited by a stimulus. If something that is yet to happen is the cause of the behavior that is about to be emitted, then surely it is the anticipation of receiving the reinforcement that is causing the behavior. I am sure Molm is correct that the argument about behavioral sociology is really about behavioral sociology is really about the goals and aims of science.

Behavioral sociology has developed unique features which have caused controversy and confusion in the discipline. In this paper, we briefly describe the history of behavioral sociology, and show how its major forms have been applied to behavioral analysts in complex organizations, laboratory experimental analysis of social exchange and social process, and behavioral macrosociology and theoretical extensions We also briefly examine criticisms of behavioral sociology on grounds of tautology, reduction, the omission of internal states as relevant data, and behavior control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The long-standing divide between sociology as an activist discipline vs. sociology as a science is examined in light of the current trend for American sociology focus on a limited set of justice issues resulting from inequalities and discrimination against certain categories of persons. Increasingly, this trend is pushing sociology toward become an activist discipline and, as a result, an ideologically-oriented discipline in its teaching and research activities. The outcome of this trend is the growing marginalization of those committed to sociology as a science in departments and academic meetings, resulting in demoralization of sociology's scientists and their escalating concern over their fate in a discipline increasingly mimicking a social movement organization. Even more damaging to sociology will be a loss of respect inside academia and a loss of relevance among publics not sharing American sociology's political biases. Furthermore, the chance for sociology to use its vast store of knowledge to help clients of all types solve their organizational problems will be lost if sociology is defined as a political rather than scientific enterprise. Sociology will thus willingly leave the vast resource niche for applications of social science knowledge to disciplines that know little about social organization (i.e., economics and psychology). Sociology will endure, of course, but it will not realize its enormous potential for reshaping societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most evaluators are not sociologists, Sociology is represented in the evaluation profession. To what extent does the presence of sociologists affect the content and emphases of evaluation projects? Reflecting on four projects on which I have served as an evaluator, I conclude that a background in Sociology has been important in the sense that it has led to an emphasis on structural arrangements that may provide a basis for a program's lasting impact. However, it is apparent that an evaluator's disciplinary background is only one of several influences on the content of an evaluation project. Stakeholder mandates and standard evaluation practices also have important influences on how an evaluation is conducted. The impact of discipline-based content on the thinking and decisions of program administrators will vary according to the willingness of evaluation researchers to maintain regular communications, to insure that the rationale for discipline-based content is understood, and to present results in terms that can be understood by people outside one's discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses theory of behaviorism. Like all theories of life, behaviorism makes a fundamental assumption as to the nature of life and that assumption is that the whole world, or universe, is one continuous mechanism, as it were; that everything in human life and civilization can be explained on this basis without introducing the separate agency of any force not obeying the same natural laws as those we know. In psycho-analysis we have a comparatively recent phase of the science of human behavior. The essence of the theory, after it has been stripped of Freud's strong emphasis on sex, which is not essential to our purpose and of some of its mentalistic traits, is that the behavior reactions of the individual are organized into interrelated groups of ideas, or complexes. These complexes are gradually built up by the association of more or less closely related ideas so that a reference to one idea will bring out a large number of those closely associated with it. The psycho-analysts then conceive that complexes are built up which are in more or less direct conflict at some point at which they come in contact. Since the complexes are built up around one central idea it is natural that they should not always be in complete harmony with all sides of a group of ideas built up around a totally different central idea. This conflict of complexes will cause a more or less complete dissociation of the personality of the individual which the individual attempts to overcome either by harmonizing the conflict, or by the repression of one complex or the other.

This article reports that the neglect of the biological infrastructure of human action and social relations is just one of several deficiencies in contemporary sociology. The key text of the British sociology of health is the Black Report on health inequalities. This is admittedly an official, administrative report rather than sociological literature as such. However, it was largely authored by Peter Townsend, who is of course a key figure in the orthodox sociological pantheon, supported by Cyril Smith, another sociologist who was influential as Secretary of the Social Science Research Council during the 1970s in shaping and disseminating the orthodox, constructivist assumptions of social analysis. The report systematically exaggerates the extent of inequality. It alleges a class gradient in inequalities in instances where none is present. It relies on types of statistical analysis that should be regarded as inadequate in an undergraduate research project. Not least, it is misleading because of its naive sociological imperialism and its studied inattention to biology and psychology.

Social technology as a component of the sociological enterprise will have several distinguishing characteristics. The social technologist will focus heavily on developing more sophisticated measures of actual social behavior in relatively unstructured (natural) social situations. Social technologists will he trained in procedures for contingency management that will design interaction settings so that appropriate reinforeers are contingent upon desired behavior in social situations. Finally, social technologists will be required to become much more familiar with the human factors research on interactions between man, machines, and other dimensions of the physical environment. Skills such as these are not now readily available in the graduate training of sociologists. Engineering, architecture, systems sciences, and experimental psychology are now the disciplines that are producing behavior technologists. It will indeed be a mistake if the traditional discipline charged with the study of the social fabric of man abandons the race to design more adequately the dimensions of human existence. To avoid this, sociology graduate programs must. expand their search for students with training and skills in the aforementioned areas. Likewise, our graduate curricula must be enriched by the addition of studies originally thought to be far removed from the mainstream of sociological interest. Such a cross-fertilization of ideas and skills will bring a richness of perspective and technique hitherto unknown in sociology. In the final analysis both sociology and society should benefit greatly from the revitalization of our discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a permanent change in the graduate curriculum in the United States. Recently, for several reasons, discontent with curricula has increased. The rejection of deference and authority that characterizes the present age leads students; almost from the day they enter graduate school, to criticize their curriculum. Unlike their elders the new generation does not tolerate boredom easily. Related to both the increasing size of graduate student bodies and the student power movement, graduate student associations have emerged to serve as a channel to voice discontents. In this context, the author has given three generalizations: 1) No matter what the form of the graduate curriculum, a significant proportion of graduate students will be dissatisfied with it. 2) Only naive young faculty and chairmen will be optimistic about the possibilities of change in curriculum during periods of rapid change. 3) No matter what the change in graduate curriculum, if students are involved in formulating that change they will see it as an improvement. A major restructuring of graduate programs is required approximately every five years based upon observation of the recent past.

A vague but lingering ambition seems to stir many social scientists today: the formulation of a complete and general theory of human behavior. Talcott Parsons is undoubtedly the best known of those who are drawn irresistibly to the prospect of a finished theory of behavior. At the same time, as social scientists they are also counseled that generality depends upon completeness. Morris Raphael Cohen has urged that the ability of science to anticipate and explain nature depends in the last analysis upon the coherence of its theory. Since these disciplines are on different levels of analysis, i.e., sociology, economics and political science, on the one hand, and psychology and physiology, on the other, they must be organized in hierarchical fashion and the logical bridges between them must take the form of connecting statements between concepts that verge on similar issues or phenomena. Psychology might be linked logically with sociology, for example, by means of connecting statements relating the conclusions of psychological theory concerning the human personality with those concepts in sociology that also bear upon the person.

This article focuses on the areas which will be given major emphasis by the Behavioral Science Program of the Growth and Development Program, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Research of primary interest to the program includes the areas such as the study of cognitive style and cognitive structure. Many demonstration programs, particularly those dealing with the preschool child, assume the importance of teaching, which will improve cognitive development. The Institute recognizes the responsibility for support of further research in this area. Limits on the boundaries of our concern will be set by the support for applied work in cognition provided by the Office of Education and the Office of Economic Opportunity. The area of social growth is concerned primarily with those studies, which are necessary to an understanding of how children are socialized to be citizens of a rapidly changing, industrial or pre-industrial society. Growth and development take place in a series of social and cultural contexts, which have a great impact on the nature and outcome of the developmental processes.

The section provides information on the new computerized services developed by the American Psychological Association (APA) through the funding of the National Science Foundation in 1972. In addition to its own publication, Psychological Abstract, the APA now offers three search services tailored to the specific one-time needs of the individual scholar or project. These are known respectively as PASAR, PADAT, and PATELL. PASAR stands for Psychological Abstracts Search and Retrieval -- a service that permits a prompt computerized search of the abstracts contained in the printed volumes of Psychological Abstracts. PADAT is Psychological Abstracts Direct Access Terminal which makes the tape file of Psychological Abstracts directly accessible to institutions for a subscription charge of $25 per month and $1.00 per minute of terminal use with a minimum of one hour use per month. This enables the institutional search to query the tape directly in selecting the desired bibliography. PATELL is Psychological Abstracts Tape Edition Lease or Licensing. The tape edition for 1971 leases for $3,000. The APA system abstracts all articles in some 160 journals and searches regularly another 600 publications.

This article focuses on criticisms to the discipline of psychology. It is well known that recent statements from both B. F. Skinner and Kenneth B. Clark have elicited howls of protest from on high. Skinner's book Beyond Freedom and Dignity, flung a predictable gauntlet in challenging the country's traditional values and recommending dramatic changes in both authority and priority. Clark's September 1971 American Psychological Association presidential address increased hostilities by urging consideration of drugs which would ease world tensions by curbing the anxieties and power needs of world leaders. At a February 1972 conference on Examining Psychology's Roles and Contributions in Corrections, Judge David L. Bazelon faulted the psychologists' tendency to respond to social problems through programs of individual therapy rather than societal change. He scorned over-use of the sickness rubric. Such criticism is particularly stinging in coming from one who has long championed the role of psychology in criminal proceedings. Bazelon was pivotal in the famous 1954 Durham Rule under which criminals were judged irresponsible for their actions in the case of professionally discernible mental problems.

This article explores the question of how interdisciplinary the field of social psychology really is and to what extent is the flow of influence between the parent disciplines reciprocal. It is common to regard social psychology as the interface of sociology and psychology. Lindesmith suggest that the views of both sociology and psychology are correct to a certain extent but neither is complete in itself; social psychology seeks to bring these two rationales together in what might be called a situational approach. Sociologist clearly feel that social psychology is at least partly in their domain. Sociology departments in universities offer courses and special programs on social psychology. On the same note, psychologists take amore proprietary view of social psychology. To them, social psychology wishes to know how any given member of a society is affected by all the social stimuli that surround him. Hence, social psychology is above all else a branch of general psychology. To address the goal of this research, the researchers studied the distribution of citations in major social psychology journals published by each of the parent disciplines, i.e., Sociometry, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. Collected data indicates that there are not two insulated social psychologies, one within each parent discipline. It seems that sociological social psychology depends more heavily on psychological literature than psychological social psychology depends on sociological literature.

This article reports on the seminar on social science and social policy hosted by the American Sociological Association (ASA) from January 25-26, 1972. In response to suggestions from U.S. Representative Marvin Esch (R-Mich.) and Senator Walter Mondale (D-Minn.), the ASA hosted a seminar entitled Optimizing Relations Between Social Science and Social Policy in Washington. The conference was particularly concerned with what Congress and the social sciences need from and can do for each other, but discussion ranged across the entire field of public policy. In addition to Senator Mondale and Congressman Esch, other attendees from Capitol Hill included Congressman Bradford Morse (R-Mass.); Harley Dirks, counsel to the Senate Appropriations Committee; Herbert Jasper, staff specialist for the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare; George Stevens, administrative assistant to Congressman Esch; and Donald Tacheron, research director of the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations and former deputy director of the Congressional Research Service. The small group of social scientists represented eight different disciplines, including anthropology, geography, history, law, political science, psychology and statistics as well as sociology.