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

Sociology I 5 I
the average, these pupils performed much better than before. The interpretation
is that the teachers saw these students in a new light and paid special attention
to them. In a similar way clinical work seems to indicate that it makes quite a
difference how persons with psychiatric difficulties are ‘labelled’ by others, be it
their personal associates or professional people such as counsellors or doc-
t0rs.~43
The interactivist element is also apparent as a trend in research techniques.
Moreno’s sociometric procedures provided the earliest methods for describing
social relations in a group. Individuals were asked which members of a group
they liked, with which they would prefer to work, etc. This technique has been
greatly extended. The new version is now to add such questions as: do you
think your choice knows your preference? Does he reciprocate it? The ensuing
statistical problems have been explored by, among others, Maucorps and his
colleagues.z44
A group of British psychologists have developed this idea into quite a complex
~ystem.~45 They acquire this ‘table-tennis’ kind of information from both
husband and wife, which permits a practically unlimited combination of data.
According to them, such material is also useful in marriage counselling. Very
discrepant social perceptions between husband and wife are correlated with
marital difficulties; information about these discrepancies can be helpful to
marriage counsellers.
Concluding remarks
Group dynamics has aroused much interest in other Western countries and
is apparently often embedded in a particular local context. The Frenchman
Maisonneuve is especially interested in applications for job training and therapy.z46
The German Hofstatter refutes Le Bon’s theory of the helpless mass at
the mercy of a leader - an obvious concern with the recent Hitler e~perience.~47
The Briton Sprott discusses ‘experimental groups’ parallel to ‘permanent small
groups’ suc has the family, the village and the neighbourhood - an interest clearly
related to the British concern with regional ~lanning.24~ The content itself,
however, is stereotyped : communication in small groups, cohesion, leadership,
collective problem-solving, etc. The pertinent monographs of the three authors
just cited tend to refer to exactly the same body of studies. Furthermore, the
examples are overhelmingIy from the United States. To take a specific case,
Anzieu and Martin reporting on the principal notions concerning ‘groupes
restreints’ offer 80 references, of which 60 are American; moreover several of
the French ones refer to summaries which in turn are based on the same foreign
material.*+Q Stoetzel devotes 23 pages of his Pyschologie Sociale to ‘comporte-
ments dans les petits groupes’, and all but seven of his 44 references concern
American publications.250 Even Sprott who warns that American findings might
not be completely applicable to British experience cannot elude this trend; of his
70 references, only 20 % come from outside the United States - though he stress-
es that he has studied the situation in the USSR and China.
This disproportion is true for many other sectors of literature in social psy-
chology. The obvious danger is that the specific culture of the United States af-