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In trying to bridge the gap between the social sciences and the arts, an attempt was made to dwell on the aesthetic probings of contemporary man through the New Cinema and the Theatre of the Absurd. After writing to a large number of potential contributors to the topic, with intriguing responses and no-responses, we finally achieved an issue devoted to the Arts and Social Science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents views of several activists on the question of training in social psychology. The authors have earned the grateful applause of the discipline by posing a critical problem--the need for immediate training of "social clinicians" and "problem-centered generalists" in psychology departments--and a set of solutions to the problem--graduate-student recruitment, curriculum reform, and field work. The fundamental difficulty with the Sanford-Krech proposal is this: their conception of psychology's part in the diagnosis and remediation of social illness and irrelevancy involves the creation of a professional program of specialists to deal with problems which are partly the result of professionalization and specialization. Sanford and Krech propose criteria for graduate student selection which all psychology departments should endorse immediately--but for survival of the discipline, not for a missionary task. While psychology departments would be greatly enriched by this new breed of student, it is not clear that a graduate program is the optimal way of serving either the student or society.

The article presents the opinion of the author on the nature of the environment on the occasion of Kurt Lewin Memorial Award presentation for the year 1963. One theme was Lewin's vigorous presentation of psychology as a conceptually autonomous science. In his view, psychology is independent of biology, physics, and sociology; its constructs and theories are not reducible to those of any other science. F. Heider has reminded that this was a guiding conviction of Lewin from his earliest days, and that it is expressed in his theory of the life space. Kurt Lewin brought this view to Iowa, and under the impact of his brilliance and enthusiasm all who worked with him there operated within its framework. But his conception of the place of psychology among the sciences did not go unchallenged; in fact, it was an explicit and a lively issue. The philosophy of science had recently come to the University of Iowa directly from Vienna. Under these circumstances, Lewin, who would certainly have chosen to let history settle the argument, had to enter into discussions of what, for him, were the familiar issues of positivism, reductionism, and the unity of science.

The article analyzes the cold war mentality. The interesting point is that both the United States and Soviet Union have been making tentative unilateral gestures over the past few years. These gestures have been largely abortive because they were not graduated and continued as part of a consistent, carefully thought-out policy, rather they were used more as ammunition in the cold war; they were not publicly announced in advance of their commission; the possible forms of reciprocation were not spelled out. Graduated reciprocation in tension-reduction seeks its justification in social science considerations. It assumes that if carefully graduated unilateral actions were maintained over a sufficient period, pressures of public opinion both internal and external would force reciprocation.

This article presents several reflections related to the investigations of value systems. The author evaluates Professor George Geiger's arguments on ethical studies. Geiger attributes the reluctance of social scientists to undertake investigations of problems of value to cultural lag, to the failure of institutions to keep up with theoretical advances. Granting some reluctance of scientists to get involved in problems of value, the author of this article points out the possibility that the chief deterrents to scientific exploration of values are methodological in nature. Psychologists and sociologists exploring attitudes toward war, and capital punishment, have shown willingness to examine one aspect of problems of values. These efforts may not represent an impressive attack on all the encompassing problem of ethics in human behavior, but social scientists at least indicate their willingness to concern themselves with problems that are part of the fabric of ethics.