Suchergebnisse

Survey methodology in 1948 was practically unknown and by 1953 due to the influence of the Reactions Analysis Staff of the US High Commissioner in Germany has been growing to a point where a number of institutes such as Institute fuer Sozialforschung (Frankfurt/Main), Institute fuer Demoskopie (Allensbach/Bodensee) and Institute fur Sozialwissenschaften have been organized and doing research. It is suggested that better methodology could be used by German organizations, and that a greater effort be expended into micro-economic studies to better understand German economic revival; economic attitudes, toward saving, distribution of income, and income increase and/or decrease by types of families. L. P. Chall.

Methodological advances in PO over the past 20 yrs have been sparked by the development of opinion res centers (Princeton, Columbia, Denver, etc), by the expansion of gov-sponsored res during WWII, by the professional associations, & by the failure of the pollsters in the 1948 election. These advances have been reflected in a series of outstanding, & increasingly sophisticated studies. Res methodology has been adapted to a wider field of subject matter, rapid strides have been made in attitude measurement techniques, & principal sampling problems have been partially solved. S. F. Fava.

A report of a survey to determine the extent to which the survey method may be valid in other cultures. A survey questionnaire was administered to 984 M R's in a geographically stratified sample. Specific reference was made to the reliability & validity of the data & to the influence of interviewer affiliation on responses. The reliability check asked R's to say whether or not they had ever participated (a) in any kind of voluntary work & (b) in a Shramdan (a voluntary contribution to public labor). 95% of R's who reported participation in Shramdan also reported participation in voluntary work while 95 of those who never participated in Shramdan deny participation in any kind of voluntary work. Internal consistency,was shown by the fact that 50% of R's who participated in Shramdan recognized the term whereas only 20% of nonparticipants recognized it, early in the interview. 5 checks of interviewer bias who were both gov related &/or Cornell U affiliates were made: (1) little effect of the affiliation of interviewers on their rating of R's capacities & comprehensions, such as intelligence, outspokenness, precision of responses to questions, friendliness, & sincerity, were observed. (2) Since it is difficult for a stranger to remain inconspicuous in Indian villages, PRAI have a greater tendency than Cornell interviewers to report the more desirable kind of interview situation without bystanders & uninvited participants. (3) The distribution of interviewer ratings of R's age, educ, occup & caste by PRAI interviewers differed signif'ly from the equivalent distribution by Cornell interviewers. PRAI interviewers tended to rate R's as better educated, younger, more likely to be small landowners in the intermediate caste group. The sampling technique leaves little reason to assume that distribution of these traits differed in R's reached by both crews. (4) 3 factors are given as possibly important in the finding that PRAI interviewers were most likely to leave blank the question 'What are your greatest worries & difficulties?' or to report R's as saying 'I have no cares or worries:' (a) PRAI interviewers may have been less skilled in their ability to elicit replies; however, the incidence of `no answers' did not differ for the 2 groups of interviewers on all other questions. (b) Some tendency was noted in the responses to conceal worries about the gov - repayment of loans - from the gov affiliated PRAI interviewers but not from the Cornell interviewers. (c) PRAI interviewers expressed misgivings about the question during the training seminar & expectations of failure may have influenced the kind of replies obtained. (5) Villagers appeared to be reluctant to tell gov representatives that the gov rather than the villages should build roads. A test showed that the r between educ & occup held for both sets of interviews so that analytic conclusions reached by the survey's r analysis & statements of co-variation are affected only slightly by affiliation bias. J. D. Twight.

A critical examination of a set of reciprocally related unstated assumptions that appear to be antecedent to & distinct from the statistical operations which follow from their adoption & use in contemporary soc sci questionnaire or schedule survey res: (1) the assumption of the validity of a survey response as a soc datum, & (2) the assumption of dynamic equivalence among survey responses, or between such responses & actual soc behavior. These assumptions are subjected to scrutiny on the basis of their congruence with empirically derived generalizations in the various soc sci disciplines. It is concluded that soc sci'ts who utilize the questionnaire survey technique would further their sci'fic aims if they would critically examine the assumptions which underlie & shape the character of their res. Modified AA-IPSA.

The vitality of the social sciences in the United States has not prevented some of its most influential pioneers from becoming unread classics. A widespread preference for textbook treatment and up-to-theminute analysis plays its part; but if the reader does want to turn to the originals, he often finds that they are not readily available. Complete and scholarly editions of writers who pursued new directions of inquiry are rarer than might be supposed—even in their native language. The situation is particularly bad when it comes to foreign authors. A writer's theories and insights may be transmitted through one or two major works, while the rest of his output is ignored, so that his thoughts are analyzed in isolation, without benefit of the preliminary sketches, correspondence, and marginal studies that would give depth and suppleness to the interpretation. Until recently Rousseau and Tocqueville have been in this position; another case in point is Max Weber, ignorance of whose fertile theorizing has misled more than one commentator. Still another, and extreme, example of intellectual discontinuity is provided by Clausewitz. Much of his work has never been published; even in German most of it is out of print; little of it has ever been translated. The result has been the partial loss of a remarkable historical and theoretical achievement. To the American reader, in particular, Clausewitz rarely means more than the "philosopher of war," a famous name associated with one or two clichés backed up by little of substance. Repeated attempts to outline Clausewitz's thought, or to present the "essential Clausewitz" in the form of excerpts, have never been of more than doubtful value, if only because his methodology and dialectic are scarcely less interesting than the conclusions they reach. It would be pointless to attempt the impossible once again. On the other hand, a brief survey of Clausewitz's writings and of the literature concerning him may provide a useful introduction to his theories and to the manner in which for the past 150 years they have influenced the study and the waging of war.

A shortened version of publication No. A-54 of the Survey Res Center, U of California, Berkeley, on the collection, methodological evaluation, & distribution of existing survey materials collected in developing countries, for comparison purposes. The major problems for the comparative res'er are classified as (A) Sampling errors: (1) poor workmanship, (2) incompleteness of coverage & lack of comparability of sampling frames, (3) problems of relevancy of cluster & quota sampling, (4) obstacles to soc & cultural accessibility (noncompletion rates); (B) Measurement errors: (i) over-sophistication of questions asked by res'ers leading to meaningless evidence, (ii) difficulties of conceptual & linguistic equivalence; (C) Interview bias: (a) biased data because of presence of clinical witnesses, (b) courtesy bias, (c) interviewer-R status congruency. These problems are examined & brought to the attention of comparative res'ers. Some suggestions as to how they can be overcome are made. M. Maxfield.

This section presents two articles on methodology. The first article, written by Raoul NAROLL, questions the possibility of relying on anthropological obser vations to obtain a reliable measure of mental health in a community. A new method is proposed along with a critical view of the frustration-agression theory in relation to suicide. The so-called 'thwarting disorientation' hypothesis is advanced as being more adequate and seems to be supported by an ingenious method of analysis. The second article, by G. BENOIT, is interesting as an indication of French psychiatrists' growing interest in social and transcultural psychiatry. Two major trends of transcultural psychiatry are briefly analyzed, one focusing upon Western nosology, the other emphasizing the cultural diversity of mental health. Transcultural psychiatry is conceived as a means to broaden the frontiers of psychiatry as well as to reconsider classical symp tomatology.