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Considerable attention has been given recently to the perplexing problem of the relationship between attitudes and behavior (Ehrlich, 1969; Deutscher, 1969; Warner and DeFleur, 1969; Ajzen et al., 1970; Lastrucci, 1970; Tarter, 1970). Methodological issues have been debated, the lack of congruence between attitudes and behavior has been examined, and a variety of solutions have been offered. We are told, for example, that the continuing poor correlation between measured attitudes and overt behavior requires us to search for the intervening variable or variables which apparently obtain (Ehrlich, 1969); or to employ the "direct observation" of the phenomenon under investigation rather than try to extrapolate from paper-and-pencil tests to behavior (Deutscher, 1969); or to develop theories that, in turn, enable us to find indicators that are more valid than the paper-and-pencil type (Lastrueci, 1970); or to simply admit that attitudes as "presently conceptualized play no real role in behavior" (Tarter, 1970). A number of important aspects of attitude research, however, have been obscured or omitted in these discussions. For the surprising aspect of the situation is not, as has often been implied, the lack of congruence between attitudes and behavior, but the persistent use of research designs that are inappropriate for the complexity of the subject under investigation. Further, it is surprising that researchers have failed to draw out other important implications of their research. That is, the fact that an attitude does not lead directly to a behavior does not justify the assertion that attitudes play no role in behavior, or that attitude research lacks significant implications for social life. The basis for this latter statement will be shown below in a discussion of the values of attitude research. It may be that inadequate research designs, valued for their simplicity rather than their appropriateness, are a manifestation of the "publish or perish" syndrome. In any ease, this paper attempts to outline the problems and the values of attitude research, and to demonstrate thereby that such research is of great significance for the understanding of social phenomena. If that significance seems minimized by those studies that have found poor correlation between attitudes and behavior, the fault lies both in the failure to create research designs that reflect the complexity of the problem and in the tendency to exalt the importance of the proximate causes of overt behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we review recent efforts to examine attitude-behavior inconsistency as a multivariate research problem. Rather than either assuming a one to one relationship or documenting the contrary; recent researchers have reconceptualized the problem as identifying the conditions which affect the relationship. Although numerous variables have been examined in the recent literature, most of the multivariate research seems to be addressed to three underlying issues: one, the extent to which measurement invalidity may depress the observed attitude-behavior relationship; two, the extent to which other competing but unmeasured attitudes may depress the observed attitude-behavior relationship; and three, the extent to which attitude incongruent social norms depress the observed attitude-behavior relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the research interview and its measurement. Not only is it the most often used tool in social work practice, the interview is also an essential device in social work research. Information can be gathered by this means when no other method is either adequate or possible, yielding richer qualitative data than many other tools and techniques. However, in spite of its important qualities, the interview as a method for collecting original data in research has one major disadvantage: it fails to provide quantitative data for comparison and measurement of interviews. This paper reports attempts to measure a series of forty-eight recorded interviews together with the methods of question formulation and recording development in an attitude study undertaken by the writer in rehabilitation settings in the New York metropolitan area. The study dealt with two groups of individuals with visible and non-visible physical impairments. The primary purpose of the interviews was to collect data about the subjects' attitudes toward their disability. All forty-eight subjects were male adults of various socioeconomic levels, educational backgrounds, and occupations. Each subject had been interviewed by the same interviewer twice prior to the recorded interview to gather biographical data.

Recent attempts to develop symbolic interactionist methodologies have sought to treat the interview as an object of sociological enquiry as well as a research instrument. But their accounts in terms of interactional rules and presentation of selves are primarily concerned with reactions to interviews, and the display of the interview setting in talk is treated as a resource rather than as a topic for investigation. Since such a reliance on the availability of phenomena is also a feature of the `natural attitude', lay and sociological usages of the interview share striking similarities. More specifically, both employ the documentary method of interpretation and, in order to claim a correspondence between theft accounts and some external reality, use remedies to counter misunderstandings. On the basis of tapes of selection interviews, the paper examines the competences and policies routinely adopted to provide for the contexting of talk as interview talk. Given that talk serves to display its setting (this is its reflexive character), talk becomes interview talk as members' managed accomplishment of a knowable context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents views of author, an historian on sociology, social sciences, and scientific objectives specifically in context of Philippines. It also discusses Philippine society and scope and role of sociology in the country. Beginnings of sociology in the country are also described. Desiderata in studies of Philippine society are manifold; workers are few, and those attempting sociological work are hampered by (1) a general lack of understanding as to what sociology is and what its importance can be in Philippine academic life, and (2) by rather vague or contradictory views held by those persons interested in sociology, either as a career or as an additional tool in their own discipline. This paper is meant as an introduction to a solution of this problem. It is an compilation of views held by various authorities in the past thirty years. The development of Sociology in the Philippines is marked by four distinct stages of development, namely; 1. The stage where considerable effort was made in defining and determining the field of Sociology. 2. The period of considerable specialization in subject matter approach. Sociological principles were being employed as means of understanding local social conditions. 3. The stage when the problems of teaching Sociology were met with all available techniques, although greater emphasis was still needed in the discovery and analysis of social data; and on the developing, refining and perfecting of new methods of sociological investigation. Thus, the search for solutions to all these may give rise to the fourth phase of sociological development, namely; 4. The stage of research, experimental and dynamic Sociology. A fifth stage should be devoted to the formulation of sound social philosophical thinking which will serve as the basis of future planning, a condition quite necessary in nation-building.

Ten years ago the authors surveyed the problem of interviewer bias and concluded that it was one of the major sources of error in survey research. A recent survey of the subject confirms the continued existence of the problem. Some significant gains have been achieved in dealing with interviewer bias during the intervening decade, but the same problems still exist to a major degree and relatively little is being done to solve them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the study investigating the concept of illegitimacy among teenagers in the U.S. The study focuses on the developing capability to identify high risk individuals from characteristics to identify high risk individuals from characteristics other than their sexual and contraceptive knowledge or experience. Researchers explore strategic considerations in implementing a program designed to offer counseling and contraceptive services to teenagers. The study suggests that given the realities of public opinion, a logical first step is to concentrate on capabilities for screening the population in order to identify individuals at high risks.

Thirty-two research and development scientists working under high and low autonomy conditions were studied for differences in attitudes and behavior, and their (thirty-two) one-man projects were studied for differences in output levels. High autonomy development scientists were found to have higher levels of work gratification and interpersonal compatibility than their low autonomy counterparts. For research scientists, no such attitudinal and behavioral differences were found between high and low autonomy conditions. Development projects were found to have generally higher levels of outputs than research projects, where outputs were measured in terms of the percent technical problems solved and the project degree of achievement. However, for both research and development projects, the output levels did not vary with the degree of autonomy. Taken together, the detailed results indicate that the work orientation of a project, research or development, can have a significant influence on project outputs. By contrast, the degree of autonomy may only influence certain attitudinal and behavioral dimensions, which may be unrelated to output levels. These results are consistent with the conventional wisdoms, and their implications for management are largely in accord with modern management practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on two problems which formed the subject of research on the prestige of the law. The first problem was to find out what the Polish population in 1964 thought about the law in general and about the sanctions applied by the Iaw and to discover the general opinion about the present functioning of the law. The second main problem was to examine which connections, if any, occur between opinions about and attitudes to the law, and various psychosocial determinants of those opinions and attitudes. Particular attention was paid to socially objective factors such as age sex, education, occupation social background, place of residence and to certain psychological factors such as feeling of insecurity, social adjustment, rational or dogmatic attitudes, type of upbringing, attitude to religion, etc. An essential element of the research was that it included both types of factor, that is, both objective and subjective factors and that it tried to find out whether and to what extent, these factors affected people's opinions and attitudes towards the Law.

In spite of its wide use, the concept attitude is not defined uniformly by contemporary writers. While the great diversity of the past has diminished, there remain two distinct conceptions of the term. Probability conceptions emphasize the consistency shown by subjects in responding in defined ways toward attitudinal stimuli. Latent process conceptions assume that such response consistencies are manifestations of "underlying" variables, which also mediate or define the form of attitudinal behavior. A series of logical implications is associated with each of these views. The latent process conception appears inconsistent with the findings of recent attitude research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fast-year students in eleven Chicago seminaries indicated attitudes toward social scientific research in brief essays. Analysis revealed three major categories, later reduced to acceptance or rejection for the purpose of discovering possible relationships between certain factors in student academic and other socio-cultural background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the complex relationship between social theory and social action. It is noted that as individuals do not act solely based on biological motivations (e.g., hunger, fear, sex), but are instead guided by their underlying philosophies of economic, political, and social relations, it is important to consider the connections between contemporary social theory and contemporary social action. The article notes that the clarification of thought about the complexities of contemporary social action may be promoted by the simplifying device of a two-fold division. Indeed, it is possible to mark off two distinct but overlapping fields of social action. The first of these consists of planned social action directed toward goals. This area encompasses decisive leadership, legalistic political action in law-making and law enforcement, and impulsive social reform movements. These interrelated forms of social action are the source from which the more personal social forces emerge. The second of these fields of social action consists of the unintended consequences that follow from the interrelationships among the personal social forces. The article notes that several factors constitute a sound social theory. These include avoiding connotations of absolutistic categories, being relativistic, utilizing the tentative formulations of working hypotheses, and utilizing concepts that are defined as far as possible by the operational method. The article further notes that sound social theory may be applied as a guide to social action in two ways. The first - to critically evaluate all utopian ideologies underlying planned social action. The second - to forecast results arising from the unplanned combinations of independently planned social actions.

Since the introduction of scalogram analysis by Guttman, one of its more refractory problems has been that of counting errors. None of the techniques devised carries the sense of a best fit, and all are arbitrary. The purpose of this article is to present a solution to this problem and demonstrate its potential for improved scalogram analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the American Association for Public Opinion Research organization (AAPOR). One can easily understand and forgive a certain amount of confusion about the age of the organization when one considers that this is the twenty-third annual conference on "Public Opinion Research," held twenty-two years after the first one in Central City, Colorado. How then is AAPOR now 21? Because that first conference was not an AAPOR conference. It was a planning conference out of which evolved a committee which wrote a constitution for the incipient AAPOR which constitution was formally adopted and AAPOR established at Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1947, with Clyde W. Hart as its first president and Elmo C. Wilson as vice president. Thus in 1948 AAPOR was one year old, and today in 1968 it is 21 years old. The story of how the seeds of a public opinion research association were planted high in the Rockies at Central City and carried east to Williamstown where that association became AAPOR-much like the story of how jazz came up the river from New Orleans-has often been told.

This section of the Quarterly is reserved for brief reports of research in progress, discussions of unsolved problems, methodological studies, and public opinion data not extensively analyzed or interpreted. Succinct case histories are welcomed, as well as hypotheses and insights that may be useful to other students of public opinion. Usually, material in this section will be shorter, more informal, and more tentative than in the preceding pages of the Quarterly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blacks are more likely than whites to have unwanted births. A common explanation for that difference is that blacks use less effective contraceptive methods, use contraception less effectively, and use contraception less often than whites. Analysis of data from 17 cities in our family planning evaluation project suggested that, among women living in low-income neighborhoods, the black-white difference in unwanted births was not due to (1) blacks reaching desired completed parity at younger ages than whites, (2) differences in age or parity in our black and white samples, (3) black-white differences in current use of physician-administered contraception, or (4) blacks being more likely than whites to adopt physician-administered contraception after having an unwanted birth. Black-white differences which might have contributed to relatively more unwanted births among blacks were (1) blacks desired fewer children, (2) blacks were less likely than whites to use nonphysician-administered methods and more likely than whites to use no contraception, and (3) blacks had higher failure rates than whites subsequent to the adoption of physician-administered methods and when not using those methods. Comparisons are made with the 1965 and 1970 National Fertility Studies, and program implications of the findings discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There was an impressive increase between 1965 and 1970 in the prevalence of contraceptive sterilization, an increase that accelerated in the later years of the period and was shared in by virtually all subgroups considered, Among couples in 1970 for whom sterilization had been an option (recognizing that it is a terminal method), about one of every five had chosen this method of contraception. About half of all sterilizations were vasectomies, though vasectomies have outnumbered tubal ligations in recent years. Differentials in prevalence and in increases during 1965-1970 are reported for a number of life-cycle and social variables. In addition, a profile of the contraceptive sterile is presented for recent sterilizations. Significant proportions are relatively young and, of low parity at the time of sterilization. In the context of the continued diffusion of the pill and IUD and increases in legal abortion, the net demographic effect of increasing sterilization is regarded as low, though sterilization is an important component of an effective fertility control regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This survey makes quite explicit the willingness of the social sciences and demography to initiate or expand teaching, research, and training on population policy. The disciplines now differ greatly in these activities. Of the 117 suggestions for research on policy, 41 are related to policy content; 16 to policy initiative and implementation; 47 to policy evaluation; and 13 to policy philosophy. The social scientists identified thirteen barriers which obstruct them from undertaking the needed research. Nine of the same barriers were named by the demographers. Barriers associated with the academic profession itself include expertise or technical competence, data limitations, ideology, professional identification, intellectual priorities, and role strains. The remaining barriers are associated with the organization of the university or the larger society rather than the academic profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on aspects of self conceptions, motivations and interpersonal attitudes of early and late maturing girls. "The changing body and changing self," is a phrase associated with adolescent development. It suggests that the shaping into mature form of the childhood body pattern is accompanied by new self concepts. These altered attitudes toward the self reflect at least in part the youth's response to his physical metamorphosis. what growing up connotes for the individual adolescent depends upon a complex of psychological factors.

The article reports on individual researches which investigated and evaluated various aspects and outcomes of the child study program. It offers a summary of the details of each research and presents its major findings, including an interpretation of each study's findings and conclusions. The studies evaluated include George W. Hohl's research on the teachers' growth in knowledge, skills and attitude, Madelaine Mershon's study on teacher change according to their case records, and O. Lee Reaves' research on the content of the teachers' case records.

The article offers information on persistence and fluctuation of traits and attitudes. One of the main objectives of this study was to determine if traits persists relatively unchanged, or are revised throughout the life span of the individual. Different tables were used to clarify this position. The results stated that a hundred percent of the cases manifest both persistence and fluctuation of traits. The total number of traits per case checked at one, two, or three levels ranges from 70 to 147, and the standard deviation is 19.35. Table 19 showed that the number of traits which fluctuate through three levels ranges from 4 to 32, and the mean number per case is 14.84.