Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

98 P. F. Lazarsfeld
countries and they raise further questions. What are the individual and social
consequences of the discrepancies?45 Would a proper guidance system help ? -
a solution is now contemplated in France, the Western nation with the most
highly developed planning system. One of the leaders of the Novosibirsk study,
V. N. Shubkin, sees a problem in the fact that access to preferred jobs and higher
education are both still strongly determined by the social status of ~arents.4~
3. Small group research. Once political resistance was overcome, attitude and
behavior surveys were taken over quite rapidly without much questioning of
their utility or methodology. Regarding the study of small groups, the situation
is quite different. Such work still needs to be defended, and, in the few reported
cases, a shift of topic from Western tradition seems evident. In the West, goaldirected
problem-solving and task performance are the main schemes. A group
of social psychologists from Eastern Germany report small group experiments
with an emphasis on cooperation.47 One cannot cite concrete findings because
much of the report is devoted to a battle against Communist colleagues who do
not believe in the merits of this kind of work. From other Communist countries
we do not even have that much information, although there is an interesting
reference in a summary report by Ossipov on sociological research in the
USSR.48
He makes a distinction (well-known in Western literature) between formal
and informal organization (structure oficielle and non-oficielle). His example is
very interesting. The productivity of two work groups which perform technically
similar tasks is compared over a period of months. One team performs much
better than the other, and the difference increases from month to month. The
author gives the following explanation :
The fundamental reason for this divergence can be found in the social psychological
relations existing in the two teams. In the more productive one the formal and the
informal structures match each other well, while in the second they are quite different.
Improving the formal structure of work groups, matching the formal and informal struc-
tures, are factors of critical importance if one wants to make the worker more satisfied
with his work and improve his productivity.
But notice that this material is taken from the observation of natural situations
and not from laboratory experiments.
While no empirical data are available to us, I wish to point out some interest-
ing ideas which emerged from the confrontation of Marxist sociology and small
group research. My source is an East German sociologist, Erich Hahn, who is
quoted with respect on both sides of the border.49 In a monograph on Social
Reality and Sociological Knowledge,50 he discussed ‘The Group in the Light of
Historical Materialism’. His motivation is surprising:
Not without purpose we put the problem area of groups at the end of our analysis. In
our opinion it reflects in a concentrated form an essential aspect of all efforts to over-
come the dogmatism in the field of historical materialism.
After disapproving sufficiently of bourgeois sociology, he feels entitled to turn
to the enemy within, the Communist writers who still are not willing to accept
sociological research.