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Tins paper is intended as an effort at taking-stock of the reference group concept after nearly three decades of use, the latter two of which have been marked by its more than ample employment. Its popularity indeed has so frequently led to its serving as an all-purpose post hoc explanation of behavior that it has led to the wry definition, "Your reference group is a group that you behave like and you behave like them because they're your reference group" (Cohen, 1962: 104). The inconsistencies, lack of clarity, but also areas of agreement which have marked the varied formulations of the concept, will be apparent from the following review and commentary. The Final discussion indicates some of the matters still to be considered in the use of thin important but perhaps overworked concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tendency for neighborhood patterns of association to localize the exchange of farm information on a person-to-person basis is demonstrated in this paper by the analysis of two types of interpersonal relationships. Conditions which help to explain this relationship are examined and evaluated, and the relationship of neighborhood residence to the evaluation of sources of farm information is considered. Although consideration of the relative influence of neighborhood and clique patterns of association is beyond the scope of this study, the data show that clique members are more likely to live outside neighborhoods than inside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have given insufficient attention to the influence of structural properties on the process of socialization. This paper sets forth a set of typologies which is expected to place limits on, but not necessarily determine, the behavioral alternatives within socialization systems. The outline can be used as a heuristic device for comparative analysis of socialization research and for the design and evaluation of socialization programs. Three aspects of the structure of socialization systems are discussed--the novice-agent relationship, the setting, and the target roles. Novice-agent relationships are characterized by four dimensions: 1) specification, 2) relative anomie, 3) incumbency of the target role, and 4) role repetition. Variations in types of setting are: 1) formality of setting, 2) individual or group socialization, 3) serial and disjunctive socialization. Target roles may vary along six dimensions: 1) voluntary, involuntary or semi-voluntary entrance, 2) time boundaries of roles, 3) valuation of roles, 4) socialization into social group or social category, 5) degree of institutionalization of roles, and 6) relation of role to novice's identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to what might be regarded as a basic postulate in sociology, when a number of persons are in interaction over a period of time, mutual expectations and norms develop concerning the behavior of the persons involved, and the individual's actions are not independent of these norms and expectations. the postulate is the basis of the hypothesis that relationships among neighbors affect many of the individual operator's decisions concerning the farm business. The author of this paper seeks to test the hypothesis that the extent to which farm operators adopt recommended farm practices is, in part, a function of the operator's neighborhood of residence.

While causes underlying the current unrest on college and university campuses are multiple and complex, it is at least partially grounded in students' justified discontent with the irrelevance of much of their formal course work and the lack of concern and skill with which they are taught. The basic premise of this paper, and of the course to be described, is that sociologists are the members of the academic community best qualified to deal with these aspects of student discontent. Not only does the substantive content of sociology, in particular the analysis of social problems and their proposed solutions, encompass the kinds of things that students perceive as relevant, but sociological knowledge about the functioning of social groups could if intelligently applied to the classroom situation, raise the level of intellectual productivity among college students. This article describes the development of a course in urban sociology. The first objective in developing the course was to communicate some feeling for the operation of the city as a large social system and some tools for analyzing particular urban institutions and processes.

The reported experiment is based on a few assumptions. First that people perceive each other in the two dimensions of tower as the ability to satisfy needs, and acceptance defined as the willingness to do so. A new research tool, based on these assumptions, the statogram, has been introduced. The second assumption (tested in other experiments) is that human groups should be divided into Instrumental, Mutual Acceptance, and Vectorial ones according to the objectives of their members. The experimental group reported here was an Instrumental one. Leadership in an Instrumental group has been studied experimentally in the reported experiment. Leadership has been defined as a relationship between two parts of a group in which one part, the leader (s), initiates, stimulates, and sometimes even determines the activities of the other part called follower (s). This study emphasizes the situational factors in leadership. Leadership is a function of the specific situation in a group. Specific hypothesis has been brought forward that in an Instrumental group, leadership is rather a function of power than of acceptance. A group of six subjects was assembled, two of them especially instructed, one of them had to behave like a strong but unfriendly person while the other had to be very friendly and weak. The results of statogram and of observers, mutually highly correlated, did prove what has been anticipated. A series of experiments are being conducted to develop the new research tool applied in this study and to corroborate further and on larger samples the hypothesis proposed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces research papers included in the December 1954 issue of the journal "American Sociological Review." In this issue fourteen articles are published which place a central emphasis on the nature and consequences of lace-to-lace interaction. These articles, which might ordinarily have been spread through several issues, are collected into a special issue in order to direct attention of members of allied disciplines, like anthropology, and psychology, to the variety and extent of sociology's present commitment in the small group field. Within the ranks of sociology it is hoped that this issue may help to capture the minds and talents of members who have not previously concerned themselves with small group research. There is every prospect that authors of articles in the present issue, with their average age in the low thirties, will for many years be deeply involved in the development and clarification of small group thinking. The case for the study of small groups will be most satisfactorily resolved if their enthusiasm can be sustained, their work criticized, and their ranks increased.

The importance of the concepts of role and consensus has been so well documented that it can now be treated as an assumption by sociologists. Still, however, the measurement of role consensus is not without difficulty since the concept itself imposes a number of methodological problems. This paper represents a suggestion of an alternative measurement combining a number of innovations from our present body of sociological knowledge. In brief, this involves the merger of the following: (1) the problem of comparing intraposition with interposition consensus; (2) the utilization of dyadic consensus; (3) the application of a correlational measure based on ordinal assumptions; and (4) the possibility of furthering the concerns of both macroscopic and microscopic analysis. Our approach will be direct and somewhat abbreviated in terms of (1) a brief rationale; (2) a working hypothesis; (3) a description of the instrument; (4) measurement; and (5) discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades limited research attention has been given to those smallest population centers, beyond the individual farmstead, commonly referred to as hamlets. Alluding to this fact, the following statement made in 1943 by the geographer, Glenn T. Trewartha, is still indicative of the situation: "… one of the most numerous and widespread settlement types in the United States, the unincorporated hamlet, does not deserve the near oblivion that has been accorded it by geographers and other workers in the social sciences." The lack of research interest may be attributed partially to the dimunition of the farm population and rural institutions and the increasing significance of industrialization and urban development. Because of these and other changes, students of society may share the opinion that hamlets are rapidly disappearing and consequently not worthy of study. Various studies, however, are not in agreement concerning whether or not hamlets have increased or decreased in size and numbers. According to Fuguitt, the contradictory findings stem from the fact that previous researchers have not made "a clear distinction between (1) changes in population size categories over time, and (2) changes in individual places over time." In a study based on Census data, Fuguitt examined Wisconsin's incorporated small towns for the period 1880-1960. He simultaneously analyzed the two analytical components indicated above through the use of the Markov model. His general conclusion was: "While fewer small towns are being 'born' these days, they aren't 'dying,' but are growing up to be big towns, in some cases." Although it is possible, as Fuguitt also suggests, that small unincorporated places are declining in size and number, there is little reported data to suggest they are rapidly diminishing as a rural collectivity or settlement center in contemporary society. In general, the purpose of this paper is to make a contribution to our descriptive knowledge of hamlets. Initially, an effort is made to determine the main activity pursued by the principal family supporters within or near the hamlet area. Secondly, based on the major activity pursued by each resident family's primary income recipient, a statistically derived typology of hamlets is described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The late 1960s saw the emergence of a few "super gangs" whose political and economic activities attracted much attention. More recently, gangs apparently similar to those of the 1950s have become newsworthy again in several major cities. This paper surveys these developments against the background of a variety of macro- and microsociological processes. Research conducted in Chicago and elsewhere during the late 1950s and early 60s suggests that delinquent gangs were rather "innocent" participants in the broad social trends of the times and that most gang members were relatively unaffected by the ideological currents associated with them. The primary effect on gangs was indirect, by changing the perceptions and attitudes of others toward gangs, and their behavior in relation to them. Gang life for most members of most gangs, individually and collectively, appears to have changed little in recent years. The prospects for channeling the energies of gangs into socially constructive programs seem bleak, because of the operation of group processes, and the limited experiences and social abilities of most gang members. Basic structural limitations on opportunities for the poor and the powerless to achieve economic and political power provide the framework within which these processes operate today as in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the idea of social networks, which have been becoming increasingly popular among both social anthropologists and sociologists as one way of understanding behavior, particularly in larger scale complex or less structured societies. It reviews several literature related to the topic including those that were regarded as the most effective treatment for the subject. Furthermore, it concentrates on the developments that have taken place after the discoveries made by these related literature. It discusses a range of topics that include the question of the network theory, structural and transactional perspectives, network concepts, data collection, and finally, it presents an analysis of the social networks.

This paper presents the results of an intensive field investigation to determine the influence of informal social groups of a non-locality-group nature on the interpersonal exchange of farm information among farm operators in a northeast Missouri farming community. Analysis of the data clearly demonstrated the facilitating influence of informal groups on the interpersonal exchange of farm information among members of the same group. There was also considerable evidence that mechanisms of group exclusion were a factor in limiting the more selective types of information-seeking contacts. Informal social groups of a non-clique nature had much the same influence, in these respects, as social cliques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a text of a research paper about the elite and the social system presented at the Fifth Nordic Sociological Meeting in Stockholm in 1967. A social system will be defined as a set of interacting social units, where the units in general may be either organisms or set of organisms, or sets of sets of organisms, etc. The state variables used in the research to describe the social system are as follows: size, or number of members; energy, or the amount expended or controlled; differentiation, or the division of labor; and permeability, or the relative openness of a system or subsystem. At least eight major specific elites may be identified in industrial social systems. A ninth category called general elite may be added to refer to the top categories that result from formal or informal multidimensional status measurements. The following list of elites is suggested: charismatic elite, or the popular heroes, the saints, the gods; power elite, or those that excel in power or influence; wealth elite, or the very rich, the millionaires; ascriptive elite, or the old families, the aristocracy of birth; artistic elite, or the most recognized art producers; physical elite, or the top people in sport and beauty contests; prestige elite, or the holders of top positions; scholastic elite, or the holders of academic certificates or persons of similar standing; and the general elite, or the multidimensional top people, the who is who group.

In this Paper an attempt is made to evaluate three answers-normative, coercive and exchange-to the Hobbesian question: how can one establish a society in which force and fraud are not routinely used in satisfying wants? Of the three answers, the normative solution is found to be least acceptable because, unlike the two non-normative explanations, it (1) focuses on the problem of maintaining a system in which the participants have already internalized norms prohibiting the use of force and fraud rather than on explaining how the relevant norms emerged; (2) tends to confound the problem of establishing a relatively well ordered system with the problem of increasing the level of integration of systems in which order already prevails; and (3) seriously underestimates (a) the degree of conflict which may be generated by shared values and (b) the role of norms based on self-interest in the creation and maintenance of social systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a framework for the sociological study of formal education, with particular reference to the social history of the United States. After a brief discussion of American interpretations of the role of education in society, the paper focuses on how groups and individuals have shaped and used formal education as part of their efforts to achieve social mobility or maintain positions on the social scene. The social groups which sponsor educational programs, the professional groups which do the teaching, and the students who constitute their clienteles are explored in turn, with special attention to the educational consequences of conflicting social interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Man in his relationships with his fellows always divides the earth's surface up into areas of mutual aid, common living, and human association. In addition to the family, which is the smallest social grouping whose interests and activities converge in a definite locale, human societies are always segmented into neighborhood and community groups. Like the family, each of these occupies a definite part of the earth's surface, is an area of human association. The three together comprise the fundamental cells and tissues out of which the State and the Great Society are constituted. Even though the latter may disintegrate or fall into a state of anarchy, the smaller locality groups remain. This paper contains a brief analysis and description of Brazil's locality group structure. Because in the colonization of Brazil, as in the settlement of the United States, extensive use was made of single farmsteads for arranging the population on the land, there have arisen many similarities between the locality group structures of the two countries.

This paper describes an attempt to construct a scale to measure social insight by means of verbal response. We begin with the working hypothesis that social insight is the ability to recognize in principle in a given situation, the existence and operation of specific substitute responses such as projection, rationalization, regression, sublimation, transference, etc and the need of some specific stimulus to adjust group conflicts or tensions, such as a humorous remark to relax a dangerous intensity, a suggested compromise to attain temporary agreement, a face saving remark to avoid embarrassment and to preserve status or to discover the missing part required to complete a pattern of thought, the ability to recognize these mechanisms in principle and to apply these formulas in specific social situations like a conference between two or more persons, is not the same as "ability to get along with people," often used as a definition of social intelligence. It is possible that social insight may have other aspects than the two mentioned. However, we believe that an approach may be made to an operational definition of social insight by limiting the study to these aspects. In this connection, it is evident that we may use to advantage in the measurement of verbal response the distinction made in symbolic logic between, the expressive function of language and the representative function of language. Certain Freudian categories are available to describe the former and we find in semantical and in syntactical analysis useful categories to describe the latter.

In the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, the pastoral role of the Catholic priest has become the focus of rather extensive conflict as various individuals and groups come to hold varying, and often incompatible, expectations of incumbents. Earlier approaches to this sort of role conflict attempted to explain modes of conflict resolution mainly by refers awe to factors located either in the personality or the social system. Such studies have seldom been successfully replicated. In this paper, however, modes of conflict resolution among diocesan clergy are amined from the perspective of reference group theory-particularly in the context of the ongoing relationship between priest and bishop. Findings are reported concerning the rather complex structure of the self other systems of clergymen and how it functions in the resolution of role conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests a new way of applying "Proportional-Reductions-in-Error" related measures (i.e., Gamma, dyx, dxy, and Kendall's Tau's) to link logical forms of hypotheses to types of ordinal measures of association. First, the basic form of associations for ordinal data are examined. Second, the analytical properties of "P-R-E" related measures are investigated. Finally, it is proposed that "P-R-E" related measures be used in testing the logical form of the relationship between variables implied in a hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended as an effort at taking stock of the reference group concept after three decades of use in sociological research. The inconsistencies and some areas of agreement shared by social scientists are presented. Throughout its history, the phenomena of the reference group have been described by the idea of social groups, namely in-groups and out-groups, primary groups and significant others. The crucial problem in the reference group theory is stated as that of "ascertaining how a person defines such a situation, which perspective he uses in arriving in a definition, and who constitutes the audience whose responses provide the necessary confirmation and support for his position." The value of the reference group concept in specifying the types of others "represents a vast simplification and fairly sharp specification of the idea of the other" and the idea that groups other than one's own may serve to shape one's frame of reference is economically articulated by the concept.

Small group research has dealt at some length with the phenomena of competition and cooperation. Task performance and, to a lesser extent, group structure have been examined under different conditions of competition and cooperation. The two group-types most frequently encountered in the literature are the intra-competitive group in which the members of a group compete with each other for a reward which only one of them may obtain, and the intra-cooperative, inter-competitive group in which the members are competing as a unit against another group. In the course of a recent experiment, the behaviors and attitudes of two additional group-types have also been studied. One of these types, the Intra-Aud-Inter-Competitive Group shall be the focus of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proprietors of a society, in order to gain their ends, frequently resort to the use of force and violence. An important tool is the organization of violence. Massive violence is instituted by these organizations and at the behest of the societal proprietors as a means of goal attainment. One of the consequences of this massive violence is the disruption of the experience of everyday life and the imposition of another experience upon the actor. The organization, as a result of its own action, creates problems which must be solved in order that action may be continued. The organization must make combat action meaningful by making it relevant; it must devise strategies for successfully moving individuals from one reality to the other; it must define the parameters of the most relevant action, i.e., violence; it must socialize men into violence; it must devise strategies to constrain, channel, and direct the actions of men socialized into violence; it must, in short, construct a social reality designed to cope with the exigencies of the battle-moment. A discussion of some of the factors relevant to the success or failure of this project has been the subject of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a more systematic study of the relationship between fraternity membership and mobility aspirations. Controls for relevant social background variables (income, education, and religious identification) are added so that a better indication of the true relationship between aspirations and fraternity membership can be made. Based on the findings of Levine and Sussmann and those of Jackson and Winkler, it is hypothesized that the higher one's mobility aspirations, the more likely one is to join a fraternity. A caveat must be interjected here. It is not assumed that only social mobility aspirations determine whether or not one joins a fraternity. Related research by the author indicates that other variables, especially peer and familial pressures, are very important in determining membership in fraternities. What is attempted here is an analysis which focuses on one small part of the membership process so as to shed some light on a hitherto neglected research area, viz., the relationship between mobility aspirations and fraternity membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the ubiquitous trends in social behavior is the formation of comprehensive systems of interaction known as communities. Everywhere in the world and throughout man's existence on earth, the formation of communities has been evident, from the primitive tribe to the contemporary nation-state. Among the exciting developments within the more complex communities of mankind, such as cities and nations, is the emergence of subcommunity forms which both complement and contest the arrangements of the larger society. Status communities and ethnic communities of many sorts belong among the contemporary sub-communities. It is instructive to apply this concept of sub-community formation to areas of behavior such as the worlds of art and jazz, when that behavior can be shown to approach closure and completeness with respect to a distinctive way of life. This paper deals with two major tasks: (1) the development of a special theory of the jazz community as an unique form of status community, and (2) a judgment as to the validity of referring to the social world of the jazz musician as a community. It should be mentioned that while this formulation is conceived in terms of the jazz subculture, it also has widespread application elsewhere in the area of social deviance. Since the concept of status group has its roots in the general theory of community, we shall briefly outline that concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The instrumental-expressive differentiation, employed extensively by Talcott Parsons, has been applied to the field of voluntary associations by several writers. Thus, Lundberg, Komarovsky, and McInery wrote of instrumental, mixed, and leisure associations in an early study, and Rose concerned himself with two types of associations, the social influence group and the expressive group. This means of classifying voluntary associations has appeared recently in at least one introductory sociology textbook. A recent impetus to the use of the instrumental-expressive categorization in this field was the publication by Gordon and Babchuk of a typology of associations utilizing this concept. They define the ideal type of instrumental association as differing from the ideal type of expressive association in the following three ways. (1) The member of the expressive association achieves immediate and continuing gratification from taking part in the organization's activities. The instrumental association member may even find the group's activities distasteful, but he will get satisfaction from the knowledge that they help to accomplish certain long-range goals. In other words, personal gratification is more remote (in terms of time) from participation in the group's activities for the member of the instrumental group than the member of the expressive group. (2) The activities of the instrumental association tend to be externally oriented, whereas those of the expressive association are focused inward. Expressive organizations "perform a function primarily for the individual participants through activities confined and self-contained within the organization itself…. In contrast, the major function and orientation of the instrumental organization are related to activities which take place outside the organization." (3) The activities of members of expressive associations represent ends in themselves, while, for instrumental association members, participation in the group's activities is seen as a means of accomplishing external, long-range goals. The major questions raised in this paper are whether members of instrumental associations differ predictably from members of expressive associations regarding (1) the manner in which persons become members of associations and (2) their involvement in primary group situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unidimensional conceptions of socioeconomic status require that alternative indicators of one's position in the stratification system have similar elects upon the consequences of socioeconomic level. We show herein that different indicators of social participation and psychological well-being are in fact associated with different indicators of socioeconomic status. Thus, any attempt to combine these indicators—educational attainment, occupational pursuit, family income, or occupational origins—into a single index of socio- economic status will prove unsatisfactory because its component parts have different consequences for the same variable. We also show in this paper precisely how certain formulations of the effects of inconsistency and mobility are wholly redundant and only represent a logically possible way of interpreting the linearly additive effects of the variables used to define inconsistency and mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a synthesis of the necessary and sufficient restrictions that insure a transitive group preference if majority rule is the aggregation procedure. We show the equivalence between transitivity and an extension of the condition of Condorcet which states that if an alternative receives a majority over every other, then it should be the social choice. This extension is equivalent to finding a solution to a system of linear inequalities. We use these inequalities to demonstrate that the recent work on restrictions of voter preferences can be derived from this Extended Condorcet Condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with two questions: 1) under what conditions will people intervene to help someone else and 2) what community characteristics promote or hinder these conditions? Small group laboratory studies suggest that the presence of others hindered rather than promoted a willingness to intervene. Other research shows that factors which encourage communication are related to the willingness to help someone or respond to an act of deviance. This study attempts to apply some of these ideas to 12 areas in the city of Edmonton, Alberta. Generally, increased interaction within a community was related to a willingness to intervene and to other predicted variables. However, the pattern differed in "stable" and in "unstable" communities, While the predicted model may be appropriate for stable neighborhoods, the dynamics in communities with greater mobility may call for an alternate explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparisons of factor analytic results based on a matrix of total (individual) correlations and three matrices of between-groups (ecological) correlations revealed fundamental differences in factor patterns when the unit of analysis shifted from individuals to aggregates. The major difference involved the marked tendency for a highly individualistic General Ability Factor derived from the matrix of total correlations to become more and more sociological in content as individuals were aggregated. Results are discussed in terms of their bearing on the problem of determining the "appropriateness" of a given unit of analysis, individuals vs. aggregates, for certain levels of inquiry, i.e., psychological vs. sociological. It is concluded that whether the researcher should heed the traditional warning about the use of aggregate data relationships as a basis for making inferences concerning individuals ought to depend in part on whether his interest is in psychological or sociological propositions about individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reevaluates certain aspects of Dahrendorf's conflict theory in relation to social mobility. Specifically, the relationship between the degree of openness or closedness of the mobility opportunity structure of society and the degree of intergroup antagonism is examined. A game simulation is initiated whereby the researcher is able to create simulated situations of varying mobility opportunity and observe, by means of pre- and posttest questionnaires, the relative antagonism between groups within the situation and the participants' latent antagonism outside the simulated situation. The findings provide support for Dahrendorf's hypothesis, but also indicate that further dynamics are involved in the structure of mobility systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ten Sections for the next annual meeting of the American Sociological Society have been approved by the Administrative Committee, and the Chairmen for these Sections have been selected. Each Chairman will be responsible for organizing two session meetings for his Section. The total responsibility for all sectional meetings is, according to the custom, in the hands of sectional chairmen. If for any reason any chairman desires to have only one session meeting for his Section, such an arrangement will be possible. It is now contemplated that there will be three general sessions and therefore three general programs during the meeting. The names of the Sections and the names and addresses of the Chairmen are as follows: Social Theory, Louis Wirth, University of Chicago, Chicago. Research Methods And Methodology, Gordon W, Blackwell, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Population, T. J. Woofter, Federal Security Agency, Washington D.C. Educational Sociology, H.C. Brearley, Peabody College, Nashville, Tennyson. The Family, C.C. Zimmerman, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Social Psychology, Clyde W. Hart, Mozart, Washington D.C.

A number of different experimental methods have been evoked for following the pattern of verbal interaction towards consensus in small groups. Naturally enough all of these have their shortcomings, but U.S.-based sociologist R. F. Bales' Interaction Process Analysis remains the most popular. Briefly this analysis consists of a series of logically exhaustive classifications, twelve in number, into one of which each contribution may be placed. Bales has claimed that none of these categories are of residual nature and in support of this he quotes correlations between recording observers ranging from .75 to .95. While work on this particular paper suggested a clouding of boundaries between Categories 5 and 4 and between 4 and 3, there is little doubt that the reliability is quite high. The verbal interpretation of these results is daunting. While there are some obvious conclusions to be drawn, these are so self-evident that the reader might wonder why such complex analysis has been necessary. At the same time there are some equally obvious relationships which have not been proven and the explanation of these failures is not easy.

The article informs that an attempt was made during the period of September, 1936 to July, 1937, to devise a brief oral disguised questionnaire to be given to one hundred inmates entering prison that could be given during a psychometric testing program and that would yield results which would have significant relationships with several past social adjustment factors. All effort was made to keep the questionnaire disguised. Because of the known inadequacies of subjective paper and pencil questionnaires, it seemed necessary to attempt to keep the questionnaire disguised. Because of clear evidence that the disguise was not entirely successful in at least nine of the first fifty cases, the questionnaire was revised and this second form then was given to the remaining fifty cases of whom four appeared to penetrate the disguise. To estimate the-constructional reliability of the questionnaires, correlations were run between the results from the odd and even questions on each questionnaire.

This article studies the factors associated with the acceptance of health care practices among rural families. In this exploratory study, the general procedure consisted of constructing an index of adoption of recommended health care measures, which was considered to be the dependent variable. This index was then related to a series of social and economic independent variables. A random sample of households was drawn by the Department of Statistics at North Carolina State College. Data were obtained for 611 sample households by means of personal interviews conducted by graduate students in rural sociology. This study points up the applicability of the developing body of theory and method in one area of technological change to changes in human behavior associated with health care practices. The agreement of the findings in these two seemingly unrelated areas of human behavior point toward the application of this approach to other areas of social change. Explanation is needed as to why certain health care measures have been more highly accepted than others and why the acceptance of certain practices varies from one social group to the other and yet with others differs little from group to group.

Changing environmental attitudes from an economic to a moral orientation are discussed in terms of the activation of moral norms to guide and evaluate behavior. In controlled experimental situations, increasing levels of two variables (awareness of the negative interpersonal consequences and ascription of responsibility) increased the likelihood that moral norms influenced behavior. Changes in the social system are discussed which have increased both our awareness of, and the actual adverse consequences stemming from, a strict economic approach to the environment. Other modifications have made decision-makers responsible for these consequences. These changes have fostered the current moral fervor concerning the natural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During a prolonged study of small, elected decision-making groups, the observer introduced certain unintended strains in the groups. As a result the groups went through three distinctly different phases in defining their relationships with the observer. In the first phase the observer was regarded as an inspector and largely sealed off from communication and access to data. In the second phase the observer was treated as an adviser and consultant; this threatened the intended non-interference of the observer. Finally, in the third phase he was allotted a role of an autonomous observer. The phase development is seen as a general dynamic feature of such relationships. The definitions of the role of the observer had an impact on the content and amount of communication between the group members and the observer. If the results reported from the study are of a general nature, they must have implications for the validity of data reported from short-term observation in small groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article a mathematical model is constructed that appears to translate with tolerable accuracy certain propositions to hold for behavior in human groups. Assumptions the model requires and further propositions that can be deduced from it are examined. In particular, it is seen that it offers an explanation for some of the commonly observed phenomena relating to the stability and dissolution of groups. In the last section it is shown that models of this general class can be applied to a rather wide range of behavioral phenomena beyond those originally examined. It is not implied from this that the psychological mechanisms involved in all these situations are identical. The underlying similarity appears to be of a rather different character. In all of these situations there are present, an external motivational force toward some activity and a secondary "internal" motivational force induced by the activity itself. It is the combined effect of two such motivational forces that produces in each case phenomena of the sort observed in this article. And especially when the relations are not linear and the non-linear must be supposed to be the general case, "persistent" and "gregarious" patterns of behavior can result.

The article focuses on delinquency, which refers to the failure of personal and social controls for producing behavior in conformity with the norms of the social system to which legal penalties are attached. Personal control is defined as the ability of an individual to abstain from meeting needs in ways which are in conflict with the norms and rules of the community. On the other hand, social control is defined as the ability of social groups to make norms or rules effective. It is stated that delinquency results when there is an absence of norms and rules governing behavior in conformity with the norms of the social system to which legal penalties are attached.

It is to be expected that groups of persons tend to interact more if they are large and near together than if they are small and far apart. The relative amounts of interaction between population concentrations would seem to depend on their size, their distance apart, the length of time they interact and the cultural level of their interacting. The above observation has been developed into the interactance hypothesis. In verbal terms the hypothesis states that the expected amount of any interactance for a given interval of time between two populations, that is, the number of interacts of one kind, such as telephoning or sending postal money orders between the members of two groups varies directly with the product of the two populations and inversely with some power of the intervening distance between the two populations with a constant to adjust units and interaction differences as needed. A number of studies have indicated a rough but definite relationship between the product of two populations divided by their intervening distance.

The primary aim of this article lies in discovering how some social structures exert a definite pressure upon certain persons in the society to engage in nonconformist rather than conformist conduct. The many ramifications of the scheme cannot all be discussed; the problems mentioned outnumber those explicitly treated. Among elements of social and cultural structure, two are important for the purposes of this article. These are analytically separable although they merge imperceptibly in concrete situations. The first consists of culturally defined goals, purposes, and interests. It comprises a frame of aspirational reference. These goals are more or less integrated and involve varying degrees of prestige and sentiment. Some of these cultural aspirations are related to the original drives of man, but they are not determined by them. The second phase of the social structure defines, regulates, and controls the acceptable modes of achieving these goals. Every social group invariably couples its scale of desired ends with moral or institutional regulation of permissible and required procedures for attaining these ends. These regulatory norms and moral imperatives do not necessarily coincide with technical or efficiency norms. To say that these two elements, culture goals and institutional norms, operate jointly is not to say that the ranges of alternative behaviors and aims bear some constant relation to one another.

In their pioneer work "Social Mobility in Britain" the authors describe as one of their main objects "an assessment of the amount and direction of social mobility in Great Britain since the end of the nineteenth century." The authors define three points on the scale of intensity of association: "Complete association," which occurs when all sons have the same social status as their fathers; "perfect association," existing when all sons, whatever the status of their parents, have equal chance of reaching a given status category; and "complete dissociation," which occurs when all sons have a status different from their fathers. Neither perfect nor complete association are likely to occur in practice. Consequently, the authors of the symposium propose to assess and interpret social mobility with the aid of the three indices and the tests of significance based upon them. The conclusions reached in the symposium may be correct. They are, however, given no support by the heavy statistical framework, unless the authors choose to define association in terms of the index.

An exploration of die applicability of principles of group dynamics to counseling groups. Principles developed out of research on conforming behavior in small groups are used to interpret some of the common phenomena occurring in counseling groups as illustrative of the significance of group dynamics for the counselor and psychotherapist. The need is stressed for greater coordination and communication between the two disciplines- counseling and group dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article demonstrates that physics can help the understanding of certain social phenomena even though sociological theories based on physical analogies have failed. The social groupings found in civilised human society are generally very complex. A person is usually a member of several interrelated groups and it is often difficult to define the membership or function of these groups with any precision. Different groups may have very different codes of behaviour, but one feature is common to their functioning. Other things being equal, the strength of the public opinion enforcing the code depends on the degree of unanimity of the group. For instance, buying on the black market is prohibited by the average member of the public only as long as a majority of the public deprecates it. Not all members have an equal say in forming the public opinion of a group and sometimes a vociferous minority succeeds in creating the impression that it is a majority. However in first approximation it is reasonable to assume that each member of a group is subject to a public opinion which he participates in creating, and that the strength of public opinion increases with its unanimity. These two conditions lead to co-operative mechanism.

This article reports a portion of an ongoing study of the social implications attributed by British architects to their work, and attempts to sketch some relevant aspects of the education of recruits to the profession. An analysis of this type presents two major problems: how is the vast body of professional literature to be sampled, and what method of analysis is suited to the material selected and the aims of the study? Although the analysis did not reveal explicitly bow architectural education could convey values to students, it did indicate a consensus about one feature of socialization for this purpose. Tuition in the social sciences-primarily sociology, social anthropology and social psychology-was thought the most likely means of clarifying the methods of reaching the profession's social responsibilities, and of delineating the extent to which this could be done. In addition to regarding social science instruction as a vehicle for formalizing student expectations about the profession's socially orientated goals, architectural educationists appear to consider it necessary to reinforce this process by informal measures.

The article presents a reply to Rudolf Heberle for his comment on a author's article related to rural sociology. According to the author, there are few basic points in professor Heberle's remarks with which any sociologist would disagree, and his point of view does not seem necessarily inconsistent with the author's work. The real point of difference probably lies in a misunderstanding, i.e., the inference that the author's article visualizes a type of society in which non-contractual relationships have no importance. Obviously even the most characteristically secular relationships necessitate non-contractual elements in or surrounding them. It should also be clear that primary groups have essential functions which cannot be performed by secondary associations. The recognition of these axioms would seem to go without saying, and their recognition does not preclude the possibility of a more secular rural social organization than that known in the past. The point is simply that in the society there are probably many functions, once performed by primary locality groups which can now be more effectively performed on a special interest group basis.

The role of differences in power resources between parties for manifest conflict between them is a neglected topic in conflict studies. Here a power balance model of conflict is outlined which takes the difference in power resources between two parties as the central independent variable and the probability of manifest conflict between them as the dependent variable. Utility of achieving the goal, expectancy of success in conflict initiation and in defense and relative deprivation are the main intervening variables. Predictions from the model challenge the widespread assumption that the probability of conflict is highest when parties have equal power resources. Instead a bi-modal distribution of the probability of manifest conflict is predicted. Empirical data are discussed and the relevance of the model for exchange theories is indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experimental model has severe limitations that often are ignored by experimenters. The limitations are likely to account for the low level of external validity of experiments. Placing the model in the context of requirements for measurement emphasizes the limitations and suggests alternatives for improvements in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information regarding the sociology of anti-institution. Most social groups or collectivities, other than those of a most impermanent kind, seek to perpetuate their existence and identity over time. The modern formal organization, for example, tends to adopt a rational, bureaucratic structure in order to ensure its survival, i.e., it sets rational goals, assesses the efficiency of performances in pursuit of those goals, specifies behaviour requirements in written rules or an understood code of conduct, replaces inefficient personnel, clearly demarcates lines of authority to minimize conflicting claims, plans for unforeseen contingencies, socializes personnel to play the required roles, and trains successors to take over the leadership when required. Face-to-face few individuals could match W.B. Curry, in set pieces he was almost irresistible to both adults and children. But just occasionally the collective illusion was pierced. A very real danger was that the pupil society which was vulnerable to his manipulation might also fall sway to an alternative leader, now and again, a boisterous boy with a kind of natural authority would magnetize a group and begin to define deviance as social so that it threatened to become a slavishly followed norm.

The article presents a review of literature on formal approaches to the analysis of the population genetics of small anthropological populations. It discusses a wide range of topics including genetic distances, genotypic disequilibrium, regional variation in gene frequencies, migration matrices, anthropometrics, population genetics and regional history. This literature concludes that the studies of the genetic structure of small populations have made particular and incidental contributions to formal genetics, to regional history and prehistory, to epidemiology and to several other fields to which they are peripheral, however, they have not advanced an understanding of human evolution in a global sense.

The article discusses the relationship of the chapters of Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) with sociology clubs. Some campuses consider the AKD chapter as a continuous stable organization, while sociology clubs lack status and manifest less unity and continuity. In other campuses, sociology clubs receive prominent space in college paper while AKD chapter is small and its meetings receive little attention outside the membership. The sociology club is open to all and is a feeder of select students for the AKD chapter. Election in the AKD means a student should hold himself ready to any direction whenever the sociology club call on for assistance.