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This article deals with some aspects of experience that influence the development of intellective functions in children. The social experiential variable is often treated in the psychological literature in a most macroscopic manner. It has been one of the purposes to break down the attributes of social experience along what might be called social environmental and developmental dimensions. It is concerned with the intellectual test differences between Negro and white first and fifth graders of different social classes. Two more specific independent variables of special significance are presence or absence of father in the home, and whether the child had an organized pre-school experience.

This article analyses comments made by various sociologists on the social psychology associated with school to college transition. The social and psychological variables applied to participation and success in college social class, sex, and personality and attitudinal factors are the same as those which have been found to be influential in school performance at the elementary and secondary levels. This is not to say that these variables operate at all levels in the same way, but, rather, that they reflect the continuity of broader social factors. The effects of those factors, if cumulative, would have the strongest expression at the point of decision as to college entrance and choice of college and career goals. The importance of sex differences in college participation is emphasized. It is possible that girls can be more accurate in their estimates about college-going because their perceptions are less colored by occupational needs. Whereas the occupational and need-achievement orientations of boys tend to result in their seeing college as a means of attaining status and economic security.

This article focuses on organizational and conceptual barriers to social change. In various ways, the society seeks to bring theory and practice into focus on human problems of the group, the community, and the nation as well as the increasingly important ones that have no national boundaries. In addition to that the author have attempted to explore the perennially relevant problem of the role of the social scientist in helping to bring about rational social change, with particular reference to the current concerns and changes in our society. Two areas of central concern in psychology that have great social relevance are: conceptions of the nature and evolution of intelligence, and the impact of race and class membership on the life experiences of individuals. Major emphasis in the social sciences has been placed on categorizing types of relationships hypothesized to exist between various psychological characteristics and demographic classifications. Among these psychological characteristics is intelligence, a concept of prime importance.

The article presents the significance of the study of courage as a concept in social psychology. The study of courage as a concept should yield considerable information about group pressures and about differences between those who succumb to them and those who do not. There is sometimes a reluctance to evaluate the relationship of social forces to personality, as though social organization, except in its most narrow institutional form, acts only as an unrelated extraneous variable that can tarnish one's scientific armor. In general, there would be an inverse correlation between conformity and independence, while this relationship would not necessarily obtain between conformity and courage. In periods of high conformity, both acts of courage and acts of independence will probably decline, but courage should be most likely to be expressed in conflict and crisis situations, because, while independence can remain cerebral, courage is frequently, but not always, an emotional, quickly-triggered stimulus response sequence. Apart from these generalizations it must be recognized that factors such as punishment potential are subjectively estimated and that objectively similar consequences are going to be differentially fear-provoking for different people.