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The paper presents some strong, though limited, empirical generalizations about the effects of cohesiveness on a wide variety of behaviors: cooperation, competition, conformity, productivity, and learning among group members. There is also a more descriptive literature from sociology and anthropology which deals with cohesion and the ethnic organization of current and historic groups. In the paper, findings from these disparate sources are examined. When combined, these diverse sources of research data offer some insights into the internal characteristics of groups which have emerged from poverty. From this perspective the literature permits the prediction of some of the antecedents and consequents of changes in group cohesiveness and ethnic organization among those who are presently poor. Recent changes in the ideology and cohesiveness of poor blacks is used as an illustrative case. The present account includes: a selective discussion of experimental findings on group cohesiveness, some experimental results of the effects of ethnic identity, examples of ethnic and religious organization among current and historic disadvantaged groups (with ethnic cohesiveness among poor blacks used as a current illustration), and some conclusions and predictions.

The article focuses on the factors associated with the development of cross-cultural social interaction. Contact between cultures leads, on the societal level, to cultural diffusion and change; on the individual level, to a process of learning and adjustment. The social scientist, seeking to arrive at generalizations about the nature of what is diffused and changed, and by what process this takes place, is constrained to analyze the events in each situation of culture contact in terms of trans-cultural variables. In seeking to understand the character and the process of social change resulting from the contact of cultures, the social scientist views all situations of culture contact as, so to speak, potential case studies in the search for such trans-cultural variables, and as further opportunities to test their manifestation and interrelationship in one more contact situation. It is from this point of view that the present study of the effect of contacts between American and foreign students at Cornell University are reported here. The total study is designed to investigate this reciprocal effect. The present paper, however, reports oh only one aspect of the research.

In this paper, the author proposes a social psychology research, which may increase understanding of inter-personal relations in the U.S. The methods which seek to take account of the individual as a dynamic process are the clinical ones. These approaches will be best used when coordinated with other techniques already developed in the field of social psychology. An example of such coordination in the investigation of social psychological problems is to be found in the University of California Public Opinion Study. For the study of anti-democratic trends, projective techniques have been found valuable. Whereas in the area of internal economic tensions, an assessment center is needed to incorporate principles such as: basing of research upon a fundamental theory of personality; assessment of persons as wholes and as members of natural groups; use of multiform clinical procedures with the techniques of attitude and opinion measurements.

This article examines the consequences of urban migration for suicide by analyzing the case histories of persons who committed suicide in New Orleans. The major independent variables under consideration are migration, sex, and race. Migration confronts the individual with a new milieu that may contrast sharply with the way of life in a small town. The South provides an exceptionally pointed region for such investigation because there the urban-rural contrast is generally greater than in the older urbanized regions of the country. The urban situation is different in all of the systems that comprise human social life. In the social realm, the in-migrant lacks the family and friends of his town of orientation. The urban and rural situations are, of course, not totally different even in the South, but they are dissimilar enough to be reflected by higher deviance rates reported in the migration studies reviewed. Moving to the factor of migration, several studies demonstrate the sometimes troubling impact of city ward movement. These studies reveal that deviance is associated with non-nativity, and with the more general factor of horizontal mobility.

This paper is a preliminary report on how the possibility of sending a man into space or engaging in other forms of interplanetary travel has been translated into jokes in actual circulation. Such relatively informal data may provide clues to the perception of an innovation which may supplement more formal procedures. There have been no studies which examined how the reaction to any innovation was translated into popular humor. A content analysis of space jokes appeared to be one clue to how the public was responding to space. Another interesting problem in the popular culture of jokes is the identification of the anonymous creators of these jokes, which constitute such a staple of social intercourse.

Distinctive theoretical features characterizing research in the area of the self-concept, with attention paid to the approaches of phenomenology, existentialism, behaviorism, and symbolic interaction, are related to investigations into the nature of the black self-concept. A modification of Mead's symbolic interactional approaches is developed. The grounding of research on the black self-concept in non-African epistemologies is considered sufficient reason to discard most, if not all, previously published research in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the cognitive aspects of prejudice. A psychological theory of intergroup relations must provide a two-way link between situations and behavior, and it can do this through an analysis of the motivational and the cognitive structures which intervene between the two. But it is in this analysis that man's search to understand his environment often seems to be forgotten, and a peculiar one-way causation is established. In this, ideas and beliefs seem to be considered as no more than projections and rationalizations of powerful motivational forces, and somehow or other it has implicitly been taken for granted that inferences can be made directly from motivation and the evolutionary past of the species to complex intergroup behavior without paying much attention to the flimsy cognitive byproducts thrown out as if at random by the subterranean springs of emotion and "instinct." Two intellectual traditions form the background from which arises this denial of the autonomy of cognitive functioning.

This article presents information regarding the role of social psychology in national development in developing countries in the light of Ibadan Conference. The first part of the Conference focused on substantive issues in the study of social change and in cross-cultural research, while the second part focused on the establishment of mechanisms of cooperation. These two parts were closely linked, however, since the conception of this Conference was based on the dual proposition that social-psychological research has a potentially important contribution to make in the area of social change and development and that this contribution must be built on international cooperative efforts. Research rooted in such explicit value commitments raises some important questions about the relationship between values and scientific objectivity. One cannot, in the interest of scientific objectivity, simply exclude value considerations from the formulation of the research problem, because it is impossible to work in the area of social change, or in other areas pregnant with value considerations, such as the area of mental health, as a purely disinterested observer, merely looking at whatever presents itself.

The article presents information on institutional totality and criteria of social adjustment in residences for the aged. Systematic differences in criteria of adjustment were found in reviewing the literature on settings for the aged. In homes for the aged, adjustment criteria were fairly explicit and participation in formal and informal activities emerged as a major adjustment criterion. In retirement housing, participation in informal social relationships seemed an important adjustment criterion. In mental hospitals, nursing homes and Veterans' Administration centers there were virtually no social adjustment criteria. Mainly, people were expected to receive medical and nursing care passively. Data collected by the authors in the course of participant observation indicated similar trends. These findings may shed some light on the fact that different studies measuring the impact of institutionalization on adjustment show contradictory results. It should be noted at the outset that the principles held to explain the adjustment criteria found in different settings take only environmental factors into account. They do not take into account differences in selection of resident populations.

The author discusses the psychosocial implications of space exploration in the United States. While companionship can reduce the effects of physical and psychological stress and makes these more endurable, crew members will be the chief source of stimuli for one another. Under those circumstances, one's companions can also become a major source of stress. Psychologists should be able to contribute to the improvement of the social environments that space crews will encounter. Assuming that psychologists contribute meaningfully to the problems of how to develop and maintain sustained group cohesiveness and effective social psychological performance; the stature and prestige of the discipline will climb, thus attracting able people (and even funds), and providing inspiration for tackling other difficult applied problems. The phenomenon of group living in space, attacked perhaps more vigorously and directly because it is remote, removed from day-to-day problems, has much relevance for a large class of social relationships involving either affect or conflict or both.

Research has dealt mainly with the end-products of social learning and their relation to various antecedent conditions. Only slowly have the process of learning and change been brought into focus. This article studies the adjustment of children to desegregation in a summer camp as a process of acquiring new behavior patterns, new attitudes and values, in a society that structured social relationships in an egalitarian way. It examines the individual's experience as he adapts to new requirements in interpersonal relationships, and with his changing psychological definition of the situation over time.

The article discusses the effects of situational factors on personal interaction between foreign students and Americans in the U.S. The research being described here is part of a larger study concerned with the influence of personal interaction between foreign students and Americans on the foreign students' attitudes toward various aspects of the U.S. and its people. This larger study fits into the general context of research on the relation between inter-group contact and attitude change. Within the last two or three decades there have been a number of studies of the effects of association between individuals from different ethnic groups. One difference between the two types of situation is likely to be the extent to which individuals have well-structured preconceptions of the group with whose members they are entering into contact. In situations of inter-group contact that have been studied within the U.S., members of at least one of the groups generally enter the situation with fairly well structured negative stereotypes about the other group.

The article focuses on the organizational aspects of cross-national social research. International cooperation in the planning, conduct and utilization of research in the social sciences has taken on increasing importance during the years since the end of World War II, but very little has yet been done to analyze the methodological and organizational problems of such research cooperation. More and more social scientists have begun to see their theories, their data and their findings in cross-cultural and cross-national perspectives, but few have given much thought to the problems of effective organization for comparative research across cultural and national boundaries. An attempt will be made to clarify some of the problems as they appear after three years' experience in the administration of a program of cross-national social research in Western Europe. Cross-national research is a relative newcomer in the vocabulary of social science. It is gaining acceptance as a convenient term for comparative inquiries taking nations, national populations, or equivalent sections of national populations as their units of comparison.

The article presents some comments and reflections on the problem of group tensions in the New York dressmakers organization of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. the New York dressmakers union offers a good opportunity for such a study because of its composition and because of the notable shifts in group relations. The present numerical strength and power of these organizations came with the rebirth of the union in the NRA period. In a New York dress shop, entry into the trade typically has been achieved through personal contact, through being brought up by a friend or relative. Union officers have on occasion made some effort to prevail upon older members to help their newer sisters advance in the trade.

The article reports that architect and planner have traditionally concerned themselves with supplying physical convenience and satisfying physical needs. They have, been able to specify minimum standards for things like the number of square feet of floor space necessary for a given size family. New housing is more and more being built in planned developments. Basic research on social processes, the behavior of persons in groups, and the effects of group membership has proceeded far enough to show the great importance of these things in the lives of people. Social life, interpersonal relationships, and membership in groups are important aspects of person's lives because so many goals and satisfactions are attainable most easily in groups and in some cases, only through association with other people. Many groups form simply on the basis of a common activity which the members like to engage in, and the attraction to this activity may remain one of the major sources of attraction to the group.

The article discusses the social organisation of housebuilding in the United States. The article describes housebuilding in social terms and identify some of the more pressing problems of human relations, with particular reference to construction at the site. By housebuilding is meant the production of new non-farm housing for sale or rent as it involves business firms and other organizations both public and private. Thus defined for present purposes, housebuilding does not include the production of farm housing or the conversion of existing dwellings. By organization is meant the interrelated occupational roles and structures by means of which production activity is differentiated, allocated, and integrated at whatever place or stage this complete activity is viewed. The production of dwellings is no less a social matter than the production of anything else. The sociologists and psychologists who have studied housing, however, have limited their attention principally to problems of "livability," consumer needs, and the social costs of bad housing. With few exceptions the only social-scientific attention given housebuilding has come from the economists

This article presents techniques for collecting data on social interaction explored in the Human Dynamics Laboratory, a research group dedicated to the study of social aspects of human behavior. The methods are: time-lapse photography; sound recording of discussion; noise level and outbursts; physiological measures; non-verbal and verbal interaction; feeling introspection; content and process records kept by the observer; and perceptions of group members. These are approaches applicable to the notion that theory is actually the set of intellectual rules for translating and reconciling material simultaneously gathered from at least two different frames of reference, providing inferential bridge between behaviors at two different times.

In this article the author attempts to present the framework of broad concepts, which appear to be guiding experimentation and interpretation in the Human Dynamics Laboratory. The major problem for education is to train people for effective need-meeting through inter-group cooperation, action problem solving in groups, and personal-group interaction. Basically this includes the development in each individual of a frame reference adequate to deal with physical, social and psychological reality. In this framework, the basic notions are concerned with: the nature of experiencing; of personal-social-societal interdependence; and of societal and psychological conflict and need.

This article develops and discusses a technique of group psychotherapy with illustrating various phases of a so-called "group therapy session." It is emphasized that group interaction and group decision are an integral part of this type of therapeutic session and that these interrelationships, as well as those relationships between therapists and members, are influential in personality change. Three phases of psychotherapy process has been identified and discussed here, which are: the period of resistance, the period of confiding, and the period of integration. Modern theorists see the therapeutic process as a social exchange in which two or more people are interacting. Findings of the study on which this article is based, reportedly, corroborate the primary importance of the interpersonal relationships in therapy. It is argued that an explicit theory of therapy is necessary for two reasons. First, the therapist must be certain of his own direction and motivation in responding to the group. He must be aware of the direction of the group development. A second advantage, suggestively, is the experimental value accruing from a detailed theory of group therapy.

The article presents a restatement of the problems of inconsistency. The technical difficulties in designing appropriate research approaches towards the topic are considerable. And this is probably the reason why those concerned with the improvement of inter-group relations are, on the whole, more vocal about the problem of inconsistencies than the social scientists when they conduct a study. The practitioner who wishes to have his program evaluated is out for the whole answer; he does not really care for the intricacies of a "before-and-after" study, measuring the amount of change in one particular situation. What he wishes to know is whether he has made a constructive contribution to the intergroup relations in his community. As often as not he only gets a partial answer, relevant to a specific interview situation. The problem of what the answer means when cross-pressures are experienced or when the situation changes is passed over in silence. The first step toward improving the quality of research in intergroup relations is the awareness of consistency-inconsistency as a pertinent dimension.

The article focuses on the problem of inconsistency in intergroup relations. The aim of the article is to relate briefly the topic at hand to these more familiar basic problems and to call attention to a few implications derived on this basis. The issue of consistency-inconsistency in intergroup relations is another current issue, which can be handled only as part and parcel of persistent major problems to which it is organically related. To start with the obvious fact, such inconsistencies in intergroup relations cannot be considered apart from the reality of the institution of social distance (prejudice)-the standardized scale of social distances at which one group is placed in relation to other groups. But when these same campers return to their own customary group setting, they may and do (as evidence indicates) return to their roles as good members of their own group. The out-groups, which were treated perhaps with fairness or even cordiality in the camp situation, are put back on the social distance scale in the positions standardized in the in-group.

The article provides a genetic approach to the problem of inconsistency in social attitudes. Social attitudes, in so far as they tend to produce action, are not the result wholly of logical thought or pure reason. The emotional elements in them furnish the motor drives, as the very word emotion implies. Whenever two or more human beings are in contact in living enterprises emotion comes into play and emotional attitudes develop. This may seem a self evident truism. Yet man, in the possession of the capacity for abstract thought with its great economizing function, often tends to overestimate pure logic and devaluate or deny the emotional elements in his nature and actions. He is not, he says proudly, like the lower animals he is above all a rational human being. This denial, in the interest of solidifying an image of himself as superior, occurs especially in those situations where he is concerned with general principles or ideals of action rather than with specific individual responses. Yet even in the application of principles, rules, or ideals of action, emotional contaminations become increasingly evident, bring illogic and contradictions with them and the idealist, if he is of the logically thoughtful type, is frustrated and sometimes puzzled.

The article presents a sociological discussion to theoretical approaches of consistency and inconsistency. Rulers, judges and moralists have long speculated about behavior labeled by these terms which ran counter to their interests. To minimize it, they have experimented through the ages with the sanctions of religion, of the scaffold, of the bayonet, of the ritualistic inculcation of "correct" principles in the young, and of the paycheck. They have thus attempted to make overtly accepted societal cultural patterns into more effective instruments of social control. But their writings and their experiments add little to our understanding of inconsistent behavior except to attest again and again to its frequency in the affairs of the world. It was not until cross-cultural studies began to shed light upon cultural relativity and until psychiatrists and psychologists began successfully to probe scientifically into human motivations that some progress was made in understanding hypocrisy, delinquency, and straining.

This discussion of social acceptance of the injured is limited to the problems as seen by them. Three general questions are considered: a) what charac- terizes social acceptance or non-acceptance, b) what, according to the injured, are some of the reasons which account for their non-acceptance, c) how may some of these difficulties be reduced or resolved? In considering these questions we have indicated the distinction between non-participation and non-acceptance, and between apparent and genuine acceptance. The reasons for non-acceptance of the injured are developed mainly in terms of the misconceptions of non-injured persons relative to the injury and its effects. The discrepancies between points of view of the injured and non-injured are pointed out. Particular reference is made to the non-injured's evaluation of the physical limitations of the injury, its appearance, and its affect on the personality of the injured person. Remedies aimed at correcting misconceptions and reducing the indicated discrepancies are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author discusses findings of social research in intergroup relations in the U.S. Problems with regards to certain aspects of conduct and sentiment of the minority group have emerged. There are many forces which tend to develop in the children, adolescents and adults of minorities deep-seated antagonism to their own group. Many whites in the South seem to realize that one requirement for progress is the enhancement of self-esteem of the southern Negro. On the other side, the idea of a positive program of increasing group loyalties seems to be paradoxical to many liberals. The author suggested that the development of intergroup relations is full of danger and the development of social science in this field faces many obstacles.

The article presents information about new section in this journal titled as "The Activists' Corner." When we opened "The Activists' Corner" for business some four issues ago, we made it clear that activity in this Corner was not a private affair but that we would welcome and print contributions from our readers. A number of our readers, having written to us, we turn over this number of "The Activists' Corner" to them. There is, of course, space here to print only a few excerpts--and even those, from only a few of the communications we have received. We are saying, in other words, that the response to our first few columns has been most gratifying. A goodly number of good people have written in to express their general enthusiasm and support, to indicate that they have been thinking along the same outrageous lines, and--best of all--to offer valuable statements of what social psychology should be about, or concrete examples of how inquiry and action can be joined, compounded and confounded.