Suchergebnisse

In spite of recurrent attempts to establish alternative family life-styles in America, most of the ventures have failed. The 19th century experiments tended to have a religious base, exemplified by Bethel, Amana, Oneida, and the Shakers. Twentieth century communes - which for the most part started to flourish in the late 1960's - may be either religious or secular. But irrespective of the century, and irrespective of the type, one of the characteristic features of American communes is their propensity for failure. The chief causes of failure appear to be economic fragility, defective leadership, inadequate social organization, lack of commitment, aberrant membership, failure to satisfy primary group needs, and difficulty in the realm of child-rearing. Supporting evidence - based on personal interviews - is presented. It is hypothesized that if a specific communal-organizational problem is found to exist in both 19th century and 20th century communes, and in both religious and non-religious communes, then the problem may be endemic to American communal culture.

Examination of the literature reveals that the "dysfunctional" theory of romantic love (the belief that romanticism is a sign of emotional immaturity) has had some measure of support since the 1920's. However, questionnaire responses from 1,079 college students in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area revealed a series of low correlations between reported romantic experiences and scores on the Bell Adjustment Inventory. It is theorized that recurring romantic experiences are a function of developmental personality and serve to activate a screening mechanism relative to marital selection. It is further theorized that specific understanding of the marital selection process, and any cross-cultural evaluation thereof, will depend in part on delineation of the screening activism.

A report of an experiment on the use of 10 diff postage stamp & money inducements to stimulate the return of questionnaires mailed to a sample of the nursing profession. The inducements offered were (1) regular 3-cent stamp, (2) air mail stamp, (3) special delivery stamp, (4) preview letter, (5) follow-up letter, (6) preview & follow-up, (7) penny, (8) nickel, (9) dime, & (10) quarter. Detailed methodological information on the sample, questionnaire mailing procedures & publicity is presented. Comparison of regular mailing with the (4), with (5), & with (6) showed that the (5) procedure was successful accounting for an increase in return of 16% over the regular mailing. When (5) was added to (4) group a similar return-increase was effected, though no such gain was obtained with the use of (4) alone. The wide use of (2) in commercial efforts indicates it is effective there. In this study, the stamps were affixed to the initial mailing & while both denominations produced a return-increase, the air mail stamp increase was not statist'ly signif at p = .05. The (3) was more effective than (1) but no more effective than the regular questionnaire & (5). The use of the (7), (8) & (9) had no inducement value when compared to the regular mail procedure. (10) was effective in producing a higher % of returns, but it was not signif'ly higher than the regular questionnaire + (5). It is concluded that cash inducements are not particularly effective in an academically oriented res design. Figures are given on the cost of each additional M return for the specified inducements & the comparative inducement & return costs per questionnaire. One of the low cost inducements: (5) yielded one of the highest rates of return. It is pointed out that because this was a highly motivated group 52% returned the questionnaire with no inducement. J. D. Twight.