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This paper examines the empirical evidence for Adams' theory of inequity. Studies testing propositions concerning the effects of inequity on performance and on allocation of rewards, and concerning the determinants and the psychological state of inequity are analyzed. There seems to be initial support for the theory. Some methodological and theoretical issues relevant for further validating the theory are reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Group marriage’, as used in this paper, refers to a family structure in which three or more adult members (including at least one male and female) live together on a communal basis and share labor, goods, services, money, and the bearing and raising of children, and have sexual access to each other. Larry L. Constantine and Joan M. Constantine, who have done considerable research on group marriage, estimate that the number of such marriages in the United States probably does not exceed one thousand. In this paper the question is raised and on the basis of personal interviews examined whether or not group marriage is a viable alternative to the existing family structure. The author weighs the problems that he observed against the valuable experiences claimed and comes to the conclusion that apparently the former are too great at the present time for the people involved to overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses about the behavior dimensions of gang delinquency. Discussion was largely limited to the measurement of individual behavior, rather than individual or group norms, values, or self concepts. First of all the setting of research and methods of gathering data were discussed, which was followed by discussion of the statistical model chosen for analysis of the data, its application in the present instance, and interpretations of the behavior patterns isolated by this procedure. Finally, individual gangs were described in terms of the patterns found among all gang boys studied, and an assessment undertaken of the implications of findings for subcultural theory. Empirically, problem was to determine the nature of behavioral patterns characterizing the boys and gangs studied. The dimensionality of delinquent and criminal behavior has been approached by a variety of clinical and statistical techniques, and occasionally by a combination of these. Several investigators have found self-reported delinquency to scale acceptably when unidimensional scaling methods are employed.

This paper examines some of the reasons for the paucity of vasectomy programs in Latin America and some considerations which should be taken into account before such programs are implemented. Social constraints, the structure of the Latin American family, and the ‘machismo’ cult are discussed. The authors conclude that if the processes of self-selection, screening and counseling are employed, vasectomy programs can be just as successful in Latin America as in other parts of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper considers the self-concept variable in delinquency research. The seminal work with this variable, done by Reckless and his colleagues, is the subject of analysis. The various papers published by the Reckless group are viewed as a series of interim reports of an on-going research process. The authors note that while the research has been of crucial importance to the delinquency literature, there are problems of sampling, measurement, and interpretation as well as a lack of theoretical orientation which place very severe restrictions on the predictive utility of the self-concept variable. They observe that although there is a high probability of the utility of the variable, more refined and sophisticated studies are necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on family integration, achievement values, academic self-concept and dropping out of high schools. For more than a decade now the high school dropout problem has been one of major concern to education, government, minority groups, and social scientists. It has been estimated that in the 1960's about one-third of American high school students have failed, or will fail, to graduate. If pressed, the layman often resorts to poverty and low intelligence as explanations of this phenomenon. The accumulated social science research does bear out his notions, but with certain important qualifications. There is, for example, considerable variability among the dropouts. Some middle class and some high I.Q. students do leave school early, and the majority of lower class and low I.Q. youth do in fact graduate. In an effort to go beyond simple description and to provide a more global explanation of premature school withdrawal a number of theoretical approaches have been advanced, each having its own merits. This paper attempts an appraisal and synthesis of two such approaches.

One of the major gaps in research in TST measured self-conception is data relevant to the assumption that self-conception is a stable structure of meanings attached to self. This paper indicates the inconsistency between current theoretical and empirical orientations in the area of self-conception and outlines three basic models of the processual characteristics of self-conception found in the literature. Using a ten wave panel design in which self-conception is measured repeatedly throughout the subjects' daily interactional routines, specific hypotheses derived from the models are tested. Results suggest which model is most appropriate for the description of the processual characteristics of various aspects of self-conception and the possible errors involved in the continued use of current self-conception research designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of symbolic interaction and ethnomethodology, assume that everyone undertakes a complex process of construction of reality, including self-identity, in interaction with significant others. Utilizing insights into variations in identity reformulation in marriage obtained from a study of American metropolitan women, this paper concentrates on variations of identity reformulation among widows. The major hypothesis guiding the discussion is that the higher the education of the woman, as measured by formal schooling, the more she is likely to experience and undertake identity reformulation in marriage and in widowhood. The less education a woman has, the less she will be consciously affected in her identity formulation by these events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it reports on the extent to which various commonly used open-ended self-concept instruments can be considered equivalent measures of self-evaluation. This should help to explain, or at least to clarify, the existence of unclear and seemingly contradictory results in self-concept research. Knowledge of the extent and direction of associations should also make it possible to generalize with more accuracy than heretofore possible from results based on one self-concept instrument to results based on other self-concept instruments. Second, this investigation directs attention to one particular self-concept instrument, the Twenty Statements Test (TST). The literature discloses the existence of no fewer than one hundred different techniques or instruments to assess aspects of the self. With the exception of the TST, which has been used in over 125 investigations, none has seen repeated and consistent usage. The tendency has been for each to be used occasionally and then abandoned. The TST is a sociological innovation, derived from and usually scored in accordance with symbolic interaction theory. It differs from the majority of other self-concept instruments in that it employs an open rather than a closed response format. The respondent uses his personal construct system for self description rather than a set of predetermined dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to report on the relationship found between a variety of content dimensions of the self and the expectations of each of four biographically significant others. The subjects whose self-conceptions are examined are 256 business executives and managers, and the four significant others whose expectations are perceived are wife, boss, a colleague, and father. Before turning to the findings it is necessary to discuss at least three methodological questions: (1) How do we know who is a significant other? (2) How do we measure the self? (8) What forms the link between others and the self? These issues are discussed in order below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we attempt to do the following with respect to the symbolic interactionist approach to social psychological phenomena: (1) to add to its relatively meager empirical base; (2) to develop a neglected aspect of the position, namely, the time dimension; and (3) to contribute to both the replication and the extension of the limited systematic research which has used this particular framework to focus on the key concept of self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most promising efforts to operationalize the concept of the "self" has been that of the late Professor Manford H. Kuhn and his students. This approach has employed the "Twenty-Statements Test," or TST, an open-ended instrument which is designed to elicit the respondent's "spontaneous" self-definitions in their order of salience. Since its first publication in 1954, the TST has been used in a variety of studies? However, previous studies of the "self" have been conducted on restricted population samples, and little is known about the self-definitions held by a general population. The present paper describes the TST responses of a representative sample of the general adult population of Iowa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conceptions individuals have of themselves as young, middle-aged, or old are, of course, related to their actual age. People in their sixties are certainly more likely than people in their thirties to think of themselves as old. But the variations in age identification between persons in the same age group and the similarities between those whose actual age differs indicate that chronological age is only a limiting condition and does not fully explain the changes in age identification that occur in the course of the individual's life span. In this paper, two topics will be discussed: first, the relative influence of chronological age and age identification on other aspects of the self-image of older persons, and second, some of the social factors that hasten or forestall changes in age identification among older people. Of course, the likelihood that people consider themselves old rather than middle-aged steadily increases as they grow older. Under 65, only 18 per cent define themselves as old, between 65 and 70, 37 per cent do so, but in the age group of 70 and over this proportion rises to 59 per cent.

The article discusses the author's perspective on the problems regarding the psychological characteristics on arms control and disarmament. He points that these psychological processes must be recognized and understood in the arms control context. He also presents three kinds of threats with regards to these psychological processes including the national annihilation in the face of nuclear war, threat to the image as being a man capable by rational means of overcoming, and threat of destruction of the self-image.

The article presents a retrospective assessment of a pioneering line of research on the self-concept as an insulator against delinquency. Criminologists and sociologists are well aware of the simple fact that a large percentage of adolescents in high delinquency areas manage to keep around the street-corner gang and avoid its so-called subculture, stay in school rather than drop out, identify with the norms and values of the dominant society, and turn their backs on the availability of illegitimate means to ends in their neighborhood environment. The proposal of the article has been to explore the self-concept as one important self-factor which controls the direction of the person. There is certainly some preliminary evidence in the assessment to indicate that the self-concept might be one of the important self-factors in determining the drift toward or away from delinquency and crime. The paper do not presume that such a self-factor would operate in instances of deep character and emotional disturbances. But for the large majority of unofficial and official offenders as well as effective conformers to the dominant norms of a democratic, industrial, urban, mobile society, it is certainly feasible to operate on the hypothesis that self-factors determine direction of behavior toward or away from delinquency and deviance in general.

Presents the authors' response to an article related to self-perceptions of disadvantaged children that was published in the November 1969 issue of the "American Educational Research Journal." Discussion on the relationship between social class and self-esteem; Views on the role of social context in interpreting one's own success; Discussion on the difference between the academic achievement of disadvantaged and advantaged children; Information on reasons for the positive self-perceptions of disadvantaged children.

Presents the author's opinions on self-perceptions of disadvantaged children. Views on differences between good and poor school achievers from a lower-class, or disadvantaged, environment; Information on differences in self-perceptions of advantaged and dis-advantaged children; Views on ratings of poor school achievers; Discussion on measurements of self-perceptions.

The article discusses the employment of indigenous people in social service. As a result of chronic staff shortages for social welfare tasks, increasing attention is being given to the use of nonprofessional personnel in social work. There is wide agreement that auxiliary personnel ought to be used as assistants to relieve the heavy workload of the harassed social worker. There is also considerable, although less widespread, sentiment for the development a "social work associate" position, requiring independent functioning. The author states that the employment of low-income persons in social services has certain advantages as well. It serves, of course, to increase vocational opportunities for the undereducated slum-dweller. Since automation is eliminating more and more unskilled and semi-skilled positions, there is great need to accelerate the development of service occupations appropriate for untrained persons. Furthermore, helpers often gain more from the helping process than the person who ostensibly is being helped. Programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Synanon may be viewed in part as substituting for the addiction to alcohol and narcotics the addiction to helping. Engaging in a helping occupation enhances the self-image of low-income persons and it provides them with psychological support.

This paper deals with the generic process that underlies embarrassment in an attempt to understand its variable and invariable aspects. The theoretical framework is examined with data from nudist camps. The data show that the meaning of situations and the situational relevance of embarrassment are to specific social establishments. A similar type of analysis is indicated for other emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The occupational aspects of social work analyzed are (1) the type of occupation from the standpoint of authority and sanction, (2) the prestige of social work as a profession, and (3) work satisfactions derived from social work as a profession. The comparative analysis of responses from social workers and university students reveals that the self-image of social work has been transmitted to university students who represent an important element of the public image of social work. The "status dilemma" of social work implied in this analysis gives rise to some concern about the position of an important problem-solving profession in the social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

80 children of welfare mothers were administered a measure of self concept. The children were equally divided as to sex, race (Negro or white), and grade (first or fifth). The overall results show that girls are more negative in self concept than boys and fifth graders are more negative than first graders. No overall race difference was found. The results suggest that Negro children do not become increasingly more negative in their self concepts from first to fifth grade than do white children of equivalent social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological theory originates in the asking of general questions about man and society. The answers lose their meaning if they are elaborated without reference to the questions, as has been the case in much contemporary theory. An example is the Hobbesian question of how men become tractable to social controls. The two-fold answer of contemporary theory is that man "internalizes" social norms and seeks a favorable self-image by conforming to the "expectations" of others. Such a model of man denies the very possibility of his being anything but a thoroughly socialized being and thus denies the reality of the Hobbesian question. The Freudian view of man, on the other hand, which sociologists have misrepresented, sees man as a social though never a fully socialized creature. Sociologists need to develop a more complex, dialectical conception of human nature instead of relying on an implicit conception that is tailor-made for special sociological problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an analysis of the self component in potential delinquency and potential non-delinquency in city boys in the U.S. If appropriately good concepts of self and others, as manifested by young persons, might insulate against delinquency, adverse concepts of self and others might set the trend toward delinquency, in the sense that the young person has no internalized resistance to the confrontation of a bad neighborhood, bad home life, and bad companions. This article attempts to shed some light on the problem by comparing the so-called insulated boys with the potentially delinquent boys in the same adverse situations and aims to explore the components underlying potential insulation against legal and social misconduct, which occurs even in the most adverse social settings. It has been suggested as a result of many researches, in this regard, that "insulation" against juvenile delinquency appears to be a function of the acquisition and maintenance of a socially acceptable or appropriate self-concept. It has further been suggested that this "insulation" is both reflected in and a reflection of the definitions of significant others in the lives of the non-delinquents.

This paper grew out of a larger study of ethnic minorities in the unions of Los Angeles County. It is an exploratory study, based upon a highly selected group of informants—chiefly leaders of local unions with high proportions of ethnic membership. The purpose of such a study is to call important problems to attention and to suggest leads for further inquiry. In this discussion the term "role" will be used in a somewhat vestigial sense. It should be made clear at the beginning that the concern here is less with the internal psychological field of the actor than with those gross regularities in the external situation wherein the actor must move. Such a framework places the burden of analysis, not upon the "self concept" of the individual leader, but rather upon the recurrent necessities of the organization. The sources of power for the leader are also sources of threats, and he must stabilize his relationships with some of them. So the union leader, surrounded by threats to his organization and his job, fights towards autonomy but he stops halfway with accommodation.

Analyzes person-centered evaluation which enables teachers to create a safe learning climate for children. Requirements of the evaluation; Freedom given to each child to face and find solutions to his own problems; Removal of any threat to a child's own personal self-concept.

This article discusses the educational opportunities of consensual sociological research. The trade of data for sociological education is only an accidental advantage of mutuality. However, the basic reason for striving for mutuality is mortal and depends upon one's conception of sociology. Shils has distinguished three distinct views of the use of sociological knowledge: manipulation, alienation, and consensuality. The consensual approach to research requires a sociologist to learn from the data-gathering process but also morally commits him to learn with the respondent. The assumption in consensual research is that the ultimate beneficiary of the research is not an elite, either established or revolutionary, but all society. Since the respondent is a member of society, what better place to start the self-awareness process than with him? Although there is little to disseminate in the data-gathering stage except the hypothesis under scrutiny, awareness of the hypothesis can be gained before data are collected, tabulated, and analyzed. Might such awareness doom research to biased responses, that is, to response from subjects eager to help the objectives of the investigation? Only if the desire to help or hinder is stronger than the desire to offer objective data bearing on the research problem.

The article examines the attitudes, practices, and investment results of small investors. Three-thousand questionnaires were mailed to a random sample of customers of a large national retail brokerage firm, out of which approximately one-thousand valid responses were received. Several findings emerged. Most small investors believe they hold well-balanced portfolios. About 25% rely on their brokers for investment advice. Most are predominantly concerned with long-term appreciation in their portfolios. On average, they believe an annual return of 6-10% is possible from common stocks.

This article presents an analytical approach to the study of images. The author developed a model which is a quantitative three-dimensional graphic of an individual's image set. The model employs three scales of entity characteristics which are tangibility-intangibility, significance-insignificance, and consonance-dissonance with the individual's self-image. Since these are image characteristics inherent to any entity, including product image, self-image, or a business image, they can be applied to the study of all images.

Organizational and individual changes resulting from severe environmental stress in three research and development organizations were studied at the beginning and the end of a 20-month period. The changes were examined with both longitudinal and independent sample data. The greatest changes occurred in the way researchers perceived their jobs and their organizations rather than their self-perceptions or attitudes toward their work. Despite the greatly decreased satisfactions experienced by the researchers, their job involvement and aspiration levels did not change greatly, and their intrinsic motivation decreased in one of the two samples studied. It was concluded that this lack of expected individual coping behavior must be associated with high levels of internal strain for the researchers, although some strain was probably reduced by becoming alienated from the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reports on a factor analytic study which distinguishes different dimensions of organizational commitment among the members of a voluntary association. Among the forms of organizational commitment studied were: cosmopolitan integration--the degree to which the individual is active in and feels himself a part of the varying levels of a particular organization, and is active, as well, in other organizations; and organizational introjection--the degree to which the individual's "ideal" self-image includes a number of organizationally approved qualities and values. In addition to the factors of organizational commitment, two other factors were identified as reflecting commitment to two specific values of the organization. The emergence of these lends support to a basic hypothesis of the study, namely, that commitment to the specific values of an organization is distinct from commitment to the organization as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of question order were tested by using alternate forms of an interview schedule in which significant sections were systematically rotated. The major conclusion drawn from the data was that responses to questions such as those tested--questions of self-report and self-evaluation--are relatively unaffected by order of presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The specific issue discussed in this article is the response bias produced by sell-concept and status perceptions during in-store interviews. The authors are also concerned with pitfalls in research development, implementation, and interpretation of data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The solution to many marketing problems lies in the application of pertinent knowledge from the social and behavioral sciences. In this study, self-other orientation, a social-psychological concept referring to an individual's perception of himself in relation to significant other persons and groups, was used to examine behavior of salesmen. This instrument for the measurement of personality traits provided a basis for the study of interpersonal interaction. Selling usually involves interaction [1, 6]; hence, the salesman cannot be meaningfully studied in isolation or through an identification of a few characteristics. Each individual has a distinctive, habitual pattern of interaction. Various methods of interaction analysis have been employed to identify the significant attitudes and behaviors critical to success in selling [3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 16]. However, the complexity of the individual and the difficulties in analyzing his total cognitive structure have caused the salesman's behavior to remain something of an enigma. Exploratory research has shown a relationship between perceived performance-satisfaction of industrial salesmen and certain components of self-other orientation [10, 11] and a difference between salesmen and nonsalesmen on one of these components [22]. In this study, an attempt was made to learn more about the salesman's behavior through an analysis of his self-other relations measured by a standardized instrument [17]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of conducting a study concerning interracial attitudes of Negro youth in Washington, D.C., the principal investigator, a white person, customarily absented herself from the room where a Negro research assistant to assembled groups of Negro youths was administering the questionnaires. This policy was based on the common-sense assumption that the presence of a white person might bias the subject's responses, and on the findings of several experiments involving both performance on cognitive tasks and racial issues where the "color" of the experimenter had proved to be an influential variable. The experiments alert to a complicating variable in research, particularly in interracial research; that is, the likelihood of incongruency between the researcher's self-perception and the subjects' perception of him. The two experiments also suggest incongruency between the researcher's conceptions and vocabulary and the respondents. For while the researcher instructed the subjects to use one of only two terms "white" or "Negro" many of the respondents did not confine themselves to these two discrete terms.

The image of society in the media both reflects and helps shape society's self-image. No person carries in his head the exact replica of such an image; nor does the media content, despite its public and published character, exactly mirror it. Like other shared experience, the image of society is a social construction, the cumulation of continuous communicative acts; thus, it tends forever to elude. Therefore, to understand how the media function as crucial links in this process requires us to look beyond what the audience perceives to what is there to be seen and how this content evolves from the activities of professional communicators and media organizations. None of these studies illuminate more than one aspect of the image of society, not as a collective representation but rather as an emergent reality. Nevertheless, they provide some basis on which to build an embracing and detailed theoretical structure. No such synthesis is attempted here, but readers are invited to form their own conclusions about new approaches that these studies suggest.

Rainwater's assertion that blacks have low self-evaluations because they receive more negative evaluations from other blacks than whites receive from other whites is challenged here by reference to Heiss and Owens' evidence that negative self-evaluation among blacks is limited to work-related traits. Substantial support was found for our major hypotheses that, compared to whites, (1) blacks would report more negative evaluation of "most men" but not of "most women" (since the provider role is traditionally ascribed primarily to men), and (2) the more negative evaluation of "most men" by blacks would be limited to work-related traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interpretation of selected portions of Bernstein's sociolinguistics is presented. The interpretation suggests that linguistic performance intervenes between social structure and self-concept. The theory is specified through a research application. The specification holds that two views of social structure are implicit within the theory: one microcosmic and the other macrocosmic. For Bernstein these views are linked to Mead and Durkheim, respectively. However, the present analysis attempts to show that both are properly understood as Meadian. Linguistic performance is related to self-derogation within a strict Meadian interpretation. The contribution of the theory seems to lie in a specification of a Meadian view of self relative to selected aspects of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A frequent compaint among women is the failure of the breasts to develop to a fashionably desirable size. An experiment was designed to determine whether hypnotic suggestion could influence the physiological mechanisms associated with breast growth. The first phase compared hypnosis with and without suggestions for breast growth in six subjects. The second phase examined the effectiveness of hypnotic suggestions of breast growth in thirteen subjects acting as their own controls. Analysis of the data indicated that hypnosis per se had no direct effect on breast growth, but that hypnosis with suggestions for breast growth was effective in stimulating breast growth. Further investigation may show this to be a satisfactory alternate method to surgical breast augmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the psychological level the reasons for holding or for changing attitudes are found in the functions they perform for the individual, specifically the functions of adjustments, ego defense, value expression, and knowledge. The conditions necessary to arouse or modify an attitude vary according to the motivational basis of the attitude. Ego-defensive attitudes, for example, can be aroused by threats, appeals to hatred and repressed impulses, and authoritarian suggestion, and can be changed by removal of threat, catharsis, and self-insight. Expressive attitudes are aroused by cues associated with the individual's values and by the need to reassert his self-image and can be changed by showing the appropriateness of the new or modified beliefs to the self-concept. Brain washing is primarily directed at the value-expressive function and operates by controlling all environmental supports of old values. Changing attitudes may involve generalisation of change to related areas of belief and feeling. Minimal generalization seems to be the rule among adults; for example, in politics voting for an opposition candidate does not have much effect upon party identification.

The purpose of this article is to empirically test one of the "self-evident" truths in contemporary theorizing about consumer behavior that people go about purchasing one thing or another only if these things are consistent with, enhance, or in some other way fit well with the conception they have of themselves. Secondarily, the research seeks to distinguish the role of two different modes of self-concept as they relate to consumer behavior--"actual sell-concept," the way a person actually sees himself to be, and "ideal self-concept," the way a person would ideally like to be. The theoretical basis for these notions derives from the interpersonal attraction literature in social psychology. A great deal of research suggests that people tend to perceive others whom they like as being more similar to themselves than those whom they dislike. Transferring these findings to the consumer behavior context leads to the general prediction that people should prefer brands, which they perceive as being the sort of brands that would be consumed by a person who is "similar" to themselves.

The article focuses on college major, work commitment and female perceptions of self, ideal women, and men's ideal woman. A good deal has been written in the past thirty years on the topics of occupational choice, the female role, female self-concepts, and women's occupational plans. Some of the major efforts dealing with occupational plans. Some of the major efforts dealing with occupational choice have focused on the importance of the self-concept in determining this choice. An individual chooses an occupation, it is suggested, by matching his perceived needs, interests, values, and capabilities with the perceived requirements and rewards of various occupations. However, there are several broadly related studies whose results would seem to imply that what women think men think is more important than their self-concepts in determining their occupational behavior. For example, a number of studies suggest that women are less self-determining, and are more other-directed than men. It seems likely that women would accept men as significant others and act in accordance with their wishes, moreover, since women generally accept the idea that men are superior to them. Furthermore, women's self-concepts appear to be less well defined and independent than those of men.

This article examines the accuracy of the descriptions and explanations of various ethnic and racial personality types. According to Robert Park, the marginal man concept is a cultural hybrid who lives and shares intimately in the cultural life and traditions of two distinct people. An archetype of the marginal man is German-Jewish writer Heinrich Heine. The study collected data from self concept notions of sixty-three Jewish social scientists from the Boston, Massachusetts academic community. These subjects shares some common characteristics: ambivalence and uncertainty about ethnic considerations which are of high concern to him, defiant reluctance to deny his Jewishness in the face of anti-Semitism, rebelliousness, and perception of ethnic self-complexity.

This article proposes that the final court of rational appeal in questions of morals is never located within the confines of individual consciousnesses and that, consequently, any achievement of moral rationality or knowledge of how to live necessarily includes a public, cooperative enterprise, and argues that dialogue is essential to moral rationality. The contrast between this view and contemporary treatments of reason in ethics could hardly be sharper. Contemporary ethicists debate objectivistic and subjectivistic accounts of ethics, but they seem to agree that it is the individual thinker who must possess or generate knowledge and objectivity in ethics, if they are possible at all. Socrates' account of rationality is, strictly speaking, limited to what later philosophers call practical reason. A person cannot be ignorant from indifference to the answer, since everyone desires the good life. There may be a few people to whom the question has never occurred. And there are some, like Socrates, who realize that they do not have the answer about how to live and, consequently, spend large amounts of time trying to find the answer. However, it seems to me that the overwhelming majority of people are ignorant because they already believe that they have the correct answer to the problem of the good life.

Little research has explored the relationship between holding permissive sexual attitudes and self-evaluation. This study examines the relationship between attitudes favoring permissiveness for engaged couples and self-evaluation. Methodological issues relevant to this problem are raised and explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between marital satisfaction, perception of self and spouse, and number of years married was investigated by correlating the scores of 80 married couples on the Locke Marital Adjustment Scale and the Interpersonal Check List after approximately eight years of marriage. It was found that the longer couples were married, the less favorable personality qualities they saw in their mates. This was true for the couples who found their marriages satisfying as well as for those dissatisfied. Also, over-all marital satisfaction was related negatively to the number of years married and positively to the number of years of schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research exploring the organization of the adolescent personality has conceptualized personality as a self-other system which includes reference groups, role prescription, and self-conceptions among its components. Relationships within and among these and other components remain to be analyzed. An ultimate objective is a fully developed theory of adolescent personality which incorporates the sociological perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spouse similarity or complementarity has customarily been studied via spouses' perceptions of their males. Since perception of others is only a special instance of perception, characteristics of the measuring instrument and of the perceiver must be considered as well as the stimulus perceived. Spouse perceptions of 24 women revealed a wide range in the amount of similarity attributed to self and husband. Further analysis revealed that favorability of the self-perception was closely related to the perceived similarity of self and spouse, and suggested that differences in endorsement of social desirability have contaminated efforts to study similarity vs. complementarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the theory that one of the functions of social control is to protect the individual from potentially harmful acts and situations, it was hypothesized that the rejection of social constraints would result in a higher incidence of accidental injuries. This hypothesis was tested by analyzing the frequency of accidental injuries among representative samples of 1,067 high school and 495 college students in relation to a wide variety of measures of deviant behavior, attitudes, and self-image obtained through personal interviews and self-administered questionnaires. Statistically significant relationships were found between the frequency of accidental injuries and a wide range of social factors indicative of deviance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It was hypothesized that among subjects who perceive themselves to be in poor health those with fewer or less urgent symptoms, whose life situation makes it more difficult to seek care, and who lack faith in the medical care system would be most likely to fail to seek medical attention. The hypothesis was tested with a population of applicants for social security disability benefits. The hypothesis was only partially confirmed. Two life situational factors of income and welfare contact, and three measures of system orientation were found to be related to the seeking of medical care but urgency and number of symptoms were not. Subjects with low income, recent welfare contact, and negative system orientations were most likely to fail to seek medical attention. Moreover, negative system orientations proved to be associated with low income and welfare experience suggesting that negative orientations may be created by situational factors and serve as rationalizations for failure to seek care when situational factors make it difficult to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]