Bird Stories (1) by Leon James

Birds and I have had a close relationship since I was a child in Rumania, in the late 1930's. I grew up with pigeons--for whom my father has had a compulsive interest since his childhood. We have a family photograph showing him, as a youth of 13, holding a pigeon amidst the formally dressed people. That photograph stuck in my mind and I would often "see" it in my daydreams.

My first personal relationship with a bird did not happen until I myself was 13. We were living in Antwerp, Belgium at the time--we were political refugees on "eventual route" to Canada--and a bitter winter was making casualties among our roof-top pigeon population, which numbered about 30 birds, as I recall. To make matters worse, the landlord had two cats. They lived on the first floor, and the main floor area was their family grocery store--as neat and impeccable as any of the stores you can find run by a Flemish family (I recall the name my father used to call them, "The Franske Family"). We would lose about two or three birds a month, to those two animals. Either the cat(s), or the cold, killed the mother of a family of four living in that nestbox. Then I came home from school one day, and Shamu was there, lying on a rag ("because it's more comfortable than paper") behind the coal-burning stove in the kitchen. He apparently was the lone survivor of the family in the box near my balcony, and my mother had taken him in, "to warm him up a little" she insisted, which immediately gave me a terrible fright.

You see, I am sorry to have to admit that we were also pigeon eaters! Not just the cats. A frequent Sunday-lunch meal consisted of pigeon paprikas, which is what my mother called the stew we were eating. Perhaps because of the guilt I feel towards them, I refrain today from eating animals. So you can see why I became afraid when I noted my mother's insistence that it was only for a little-while. Shamu was just the right age--not too old, not too young, big enough!

I won the battle for the life of Shamu only because there were no other birds ready that Sunday, and Shamu by himself was not worth the trouble of making a paprikas.

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3. THE CLASSIFICATION OF INTERPERSONAL ATTITUDES

The attribution of reward value to an attitude object (thing or person) is expressed in a very large number of ways, and it helps to have a system for classifying them. One method consists of pairing particular interaction moves with their effects on others. Leary (1957; reported in Newcomb et. al., 1965) attempted to classify such antecedent-consequents pairs into major subdivisions. For example,

Category 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Antecedent Move--------------- leads, advises gives support, sympathizes agrees,- acts in a friendly manner trusts, seeks help acts shyly, obediently rebels, is unconventional attacks, is unkind rejects, exploits

-->Consequent Reaction invites respect or obedience invites trust and acceptance invites help or tenderness invites advice or help invites arrogance or leadership invites punishment or rejection invites hostility or resistance invites distrust or inferiority

You may evaluate the generality of this classification scheme by asking your- self two types of questions: (i) Does the functional relation between an antecedent move and the indicated consequence make sense to you, relative to your experience? For example, when you act shyly in a group (category 5), do the others respond by being arrogant or by acting as a leader? (ii) Do the eight categories of antecedent moves cover adequately the various ways you can interact with others? For example, when you disagree with someone, are you giving advice (category 1) or being unconventional (category 6)? And is it followed by obedience (1), rejection (6), hostility (-7), or all of these? What about laughing or making jokes: can they not be taken differently at different times or by different group members?

Another method of approach to classifying functional relations in inter- action processes, is to identify the group conditions that visibly affect attraction among members. Thus, reciprocation is often found as a condition for expressing and feeling attraction; that is, if you ask people in a group to rank each other on attractiveness, you find that the choices tend to be, on the whole, reciprocal. If A feels an attraction towards B, B will be more probable to pick A as one of his attractive choices. Another condition that affects attractiveness of another is perceived attitudinal support. For example, if you perceive similarities of interests and values with person B, it is likely that you feel attracted to that person; you expect support, worthwhile collaboration, and sharing of activities. Reciprocated attraction and perceived attitudinal support are group dynamic conditions that create attraction forces; these forces are calculated as resultants of motivational needs and rewards. That is, in terms of "cognitive dynamics," a person will feel attracted to an attitude object if he attributes to that object (or person) sources of rewards, as in reciprocation of interests and support.

Field theory notation can conveniently be used to chart the course of relationship formation in groups. The simplest group is the dyad, or two- person group. The relationship between A and B in a dyad can be represented by indicating the attraction values Possible in such a situation. thus:

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Week 1--------------- (a) ++ (b) ++ (c) ++ (d) -- (e) -- (f) -- (9) +- (h) +- (i) +-

-->Week 5 ++ +- -- -- +- ++ +- ++ --

In this diagram (based on the notation system presented in Newcomb et al, 1965 we can see the various attraction structures that are possible initially in the formation of a dyad (Week l) and the changes in group structure that may occur over time in the group's life space. The three initial structures that are possible are indicated by ++ (a-c), -- (d-f), and +- (g-i). This means that A and B can both feel positive towards each other (++ type structure); they can both feel negative towards each other (-- type); or A may feel positive towards B, while B feels negative towards A (+- type structure). With time, and continued opportunity for further interactions ("Week 5"), the attraction structure can change as plotted in the above matrix. For example, an initially ++ type structure may change into a +- (b) or -- type (c), or it may remain the same (a) and so on. In terms of field theory predictions, we would expect the ++ type structure to be most stable since A and B both feel advantages to the relationship and are likely to continue to reward each other. With the -- structure, A and B are likely to break up their relationship because of the aversive or negative consequences experienced by both. The +- structure is unstable and is likely to turn into a -- type (i) or a ++ type (h).

When we consider the case of a triad, the attraction structure becomes more complex. In the triadic arrangement, three dyadic pairs exist, thus:

Here you can see that the AB dyad has a ++ type attraction structure; AC have a +- relationship; and BC have a -- relationship. The most stable triadic group structure is that of a fully reciprocated attraction pattern where each of the three pairs relate to each other-through the ++ type structure. Thus, balanced structures are those in which group members reciprocate attraction

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and tend to be stable over time. Imbalanced structures on the other hand, are divisive and will tend to break up over time.

Larger groups create more complex relationship structures which can be diagrammed by the technique called sociograms. Let us take an example using a "pentad", i.e. a five-person group:

In this illustration, we can note three sub-groups in terms of their attraction structures. There is a triadic clique composed of A, B, and C; there is a dyadic coalition between B and C; finally, there is a monad, E, who is an isolate and does not enter into a relationship with the other four individuals. Clique structure (or the formation of coalitions), is formed as a result of several identifiable factors ("variables" or "parameters"), the most important of which are, (i) frequency of interaction; (ii) propinquity; (iii) demographic variables; (iv) distribution of members' attitudes; and (v) personal characteristics.

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Synopsis 3: The Classification of Interpersonal Attitudes.

Since there are many expressions people use for describing others, it is useful to have techniques for classifying these. One method (described by Leary, 1957) is to classify attitudinal expressions by pairs of antecedent moves and their consequent reactions (e.g. acts shyly--->invites leadership). A second method is to map "attraction structures", i.e. making a graph that shows who is attracted to whom, the attraction clusters found then serve as classification types. As well, attraction structures affect group dynamics since some structures are less stable than others. Clique structure in groups is affected by the on-going cognitive dynamics of its members (e.g. their attitudes and personalities), as well as by the conditions of the members' interactions (e.g. frequency, propinquity).

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Bird Stories (2) by Leon James

In my childhood and teens, a favorite fantasy would be to write "the autobiography of a pigeon"--not, biography, mind you! I would imagine that I was a wise, old pigeon who looks onto the world of people and makes commentaries about social events. However, Richard Bach beat me to it, though I must admit I have not finished a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull which I have owned for years, it seems to me.

Now that I am a grown-up and have my own place, I am the Master of 30 birds, smaller than pigeons, but still birds. Today, I no longer hope to be able to write Shamu's autobiography [see Story (1)], but perhaps these stories about the community life of domesticated birds might encourage someone to attempt that feat. I've found that there are many intense bird lovers on this still paradisic Island.

Diane Nahl's grandmother, Mrs. Dixie Coke Nahl Allen, reports that in her memory, there was a time when Kapiolani Park was the home of a large population of free-living parakeets. Perhaps one day, they will be back! The Bird Colony Task Group in this course is charged with the duty of getting our own aviary on campus. Professor Robert Blanchard has informed me that space is available in the Psychology Department's Animal Colony facilities at Snyder Hall. It costs 17¢/per bird/day to keep the aviary going, at 1978 inflation prices.

Last semester, Dr. Gordon and I (we share backyards) gave away 28 birds to students of Psychology 222 and 397 who became interested in raising birds. We did it on the condition that they would give us a few of their offspring to populate our campus aviary, when it becomes a reality. As well, they promised to keep us informed of their birds' biographical histories.

I didn't like Hitchcock's movie, The Birds. The impression was given that birds can be really evil. Such hogwash superstition! But I did admire the actors: those birds were superb in performing their idiotic mission in the story. I have found my relationship to birds to be as intimate as with the many dogs I've "owned" over the years, since childhood. But with birds, there is an additional bonus, especially far those interested in social psychology. This is because the dog lives inside of the house with you, while the community of birds lives outside, in the backyard aviary or roof-top coop. And that makes an important difference of perspective.

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4. BEHAVIOR INFLUENCE AND PERSONALITY

The word personality derives from the Greek "personna" meaning "mask'' - i.e. as worn by actors in Greek drama. Thus, implicit in the concept of personality is the idea that a "person" wears a 'social mask' during interactions with others and that this public face is worn or 'put on' for the benefit of others. Sociologist Erving Goffman has written extensively (e.g. Goffman, 1959; 1 963) about this put on and calls it "face work", i.e. the 'work' a person does in interaction with others in "presenting" the self as an entity possessing a "face" and needing protection, respect, and legitimization by others.

The psychological conception of personality always implies learning; that is, personality is viewed in terms of its etiology - the issue of how a person comes to develop habits, attitudes, beliefs, style, and so on, which are viewed as its structural components. "Learning" refers to behavioral changes a person exhibits as a result of experience, or interaction with the environment. The psychologist's interest in the study of personality revolves around the idea that behavior is predictable if we know things about the individual's personality. This possibility exists because a person's behavior in one setting or in one set of circumstances is usable to predict his behavior in another set of circumstances. Personality thus serves as a unifying concept for understanding behavior, and hence predicting or controlling it.

Neurosemantics. The behavior of all organisms is based on the same based on the same basic principles, of which the first, is Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov's "dog reflex paradigm":

You see in this famous diagram, the most basic of learning processes called, conditioning. You hold a dog in straps; you place some food in his mouth and you collect the saliva in a tube; you also sound a bell. Now you have to do this in precise time relations so that the clang of the bell, or buzz of the buzzer, sounds off not later, nor earlier-, than approximately half-a- second (we're being very imprecise) after food is squirted (perhaps) in the dog's mouth. At any rate, those who have spent a lifetime doing this have uncovered an amazing set of facts dealing with the conditionability of our organs: salivary glands, eye blink, galvanic skin response, knee jerk, pupflary dilation, eye movement, hand removal jerk, head orienting response, startle response syndrome, muscle tension, heart rate, electroencephalogram (EEG), penile erection, vasilary dilation, to name but a few off the top of our heads.

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When one realizes that the above short list is intimately involved with our sympathetic, parasympathetic, and voluntary activities, one gets the idea of the full importance of Pavlov's discovery. Indeed, this relatively simple mechanism of contiguity (or timing) is at the very base of our social existence: our movements, our breathing, our bladders and intestines, our blood pressure and muscle tensions, our digestive processes, in short, our well- being in health, body. and therefore mind, is entirely at the mercy of contiguity or contingency!

Of course, it works both ways. If noise makes your muscles tense, music (or some thing) will make them relax. If criticism squirts acid in your stomach, praise strums tingles on your nerves. If, today, you buy brand X because your hand automatically reaches towards the conditioned picture from T.V., tomorrow, you reach toward Y, (away from X) because last night's commercial unconditioned you first ("extinction"), then, reconditioned you (still "conditioning"!). Thus it is that we have counter-propaganda to undo what propaganda has wrought, and we have "diet programs" (or clinics) to dishabituate ourselves from earlier habits. The criminal is a recidivist, which means that he recedes or regresses towards his former anti-social habits because the stimuli in his local environment prompt him back to his old ways. Hence the idea of rehabilitating, which means tooling the person up with new and better habits (for the criminals, drug addicts, psychotics, maladjusted, etc.).

Here we can see the relationship between the stimulus-response (S-R) paradigm and behaviorism: behavior is a function of the environment, and, manipulating the environment influences behavior.

"If the individual responds in a way that produces a stimulus that has reinforcement value, he has provided himself with a reinforcing state of affairs" (*Staats, 1975, p. 60). This idea is called "self-reinforcement" and the stimuli that hang together as "little responses" in the brain are called self-concepts. Thus, if you are asked to give a set of descriptive terms for yourself, you may come up with conditioned labels such as "a nice girl," "a man of integrity," "a lazy student," "a good worker," "devoted mother," "gullible consumer," and so on. These conditioned self-concepts hang together in conditioned clusters called complex processes, which form the basis of your personality structure, Ego-strength, and emotional adjustment.

Complex processes of conditioning are still responsive to the same basic laws as the simple salivary reflex of the rat shortly before it enters the goal box where the pellet of food will be found and eaten--whereupon the reinforcement catastrophe precipitates the rat's nervous system into re-hook- ing-connections. The proof: on the next run, the rat runs the maze faster and with less errors. A few more reinforced runs and the animal's score is perfect. The re-hooking of its brain is complete: it now has acquired a fairly-complex skill thanks to the contiguity between the reinforcement and the behavior. Now the rat begins to salivate long before the goal box: these are preparatory or anticipatory goal responses (the term was coined by Clark Hull, famed Yale psychologist, during the 1930's and 1940's).

These little "rG's," as they were known when we were in graduate school, became smaller and smaller (with age), until they could no longer be detected by gross instruments. However, when the instruments were improved, they could

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still be detected. Even if the goal box was removed, these little rG's kept firing in the brain for a long, long time. There was almost no forgetting-- or, as learning theorists would say, resistance to extinction.

Charles E. Osgood, one of the world's best known scientific psychologists, and former President of the American Psychological Association, made a valiant attempt to map the action of these little rG's. He contended that thinking is really the firing of rG's in the brain. These rG's are tiny remnants of the original motor and sensory responses that conditioning has established. The sight of an apple gets conditioned to salivary and other goal anticipatory responses including chewing, swallowing, holding, licking, and enjoying yourself all over. As you get older, the mere sound that spells apples in your ear can elicit consumatory responses. As a result, the pleasantness of the experience of eating the apply gets transferred to the word itself, and maybe even to the giver of the apple, and perhaps apple stories. This is called stimulus generalization.

When LAJ was in college at McGill University during the 1950's, famed neurophysiologist, Donald 0. Hebb, taught the introductory course in psycho- logy. How one did in that course determined whether one could go on to major. The competition was keen, the lessons learned well. LAJ made it and went on to write an honor's thesis that traced the hypothetical network of the neurophysiological basis of the mind. He took the matter quite literally and reasoned as follows: if the little rG's are tiny neurophysiological responses associated with reinforcement of overt responses, then those rG's were actually an archaeological record of prior reinforcement history! One could map a person's habits, attitudes, predispositions, meanings by measuring the little rG's the person has firing in the brain (these were called cell assemblies by Hebb who was interested in studying the phase sequences of their firings in the brain). If meanings are little rG's and rG's function in clusters and patterns, then we have a new field in psychology that we may call neurosemantics.

But how to measure the little rG's? Some psychologists (e.g. Hebb, Milner, Bindra, Olds--at McGill) went right in there and implanted electrodes into the rat's brain; these were attached to galvanometers and the electrical activity of the area could be measured. Of course this was too gross a technique to be used for the study of human symbolic processes and LAJ was delighted when his research director at McGill, Dr. Wallace E. Lambert, introduced him to Charles Osgood. Dr. Osgood had invented an instrument he called the semantic differential (SD). This marvelous tool was designed to measure the all important little rG's. It was- a simple tool. Have a subject look at an object, person, event, or word (stimulus) and have him respond to it in some agreed-upon manner: reaching, pushing, pulling, tightening, whatever. Give the subject two clear and incompatible choices: either pushing or pulling, lifting up or pressing down, reaching toward or away; then, suddenly show the stimulus. If you arrange things so you can measure and record the speed and strength of the agreed upon response, and you vary stimull systematically, you can then map a person s little rG s!

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That's because, Osgood argued, the overt responses you can see and measure are caused by the little rG's you can't measure. This one-to-one relation between the inside of the brain and the outside peripheral muscles became known as the neobehavioristic paradigm (see Steinberg and James, 1971).

LAJ's first publication (Lambert and James, 1960) was an application of Osgood's semantic differential technique to Hull's contention that little rG's in the brain behaved as gross motor responses. Hull had demonstrated that when a response is repeated its habit strength ("SHR") increases; however, there occurs also a smaller counter-force called reactive inhibition ("IR") which builds with each repetition of the response. Ordinarily, this causes no problems, because in between the responses, IR "dissipates with time." Reactive inhibition was thought of as a negative drive caused by the organism's resistance to repeat motor responses, IR "due to physiological fatigue, or to conditioned fatigue, called boredom or satiation. Lambert and James (1960) argued that if Osgood was right and (I) attitudes, emotions, feelings, and meanings were conditioned little rG's, and if Hull was right and (ii) repeating a response satiated it, then it could be predicted that repeating a word over and over again would satiate the tittle rG's that fired each time the stimulus was repeated. The satiation effect could be measured using Osgood's technique of response speed: if the little rG's decrease in strength, then the motor response should also slow down. In a series of studies prepared for his doctoral dissertation (James, 1962), LAJ proved Osgood's contention, and Hull's. A word repeated loses some or all of its meaning. Furthermore, the effect, which LAJ called semantic satiation, generalizes to other words that are related to it. He also showed that if a number is repeated prior to its use in a timed addition task, it takes relatively longer to add up the answer, presumably because the number's functional value was reduced as a result of the repetition of the little rG's. LAJ also showed that bilinguals repeating a word in one language satiate the meaning of its translation in the other language. LAJ proposed that semantic satiability may be a personality trait; that is, individuals differ in their susceptibility to being satiated. For example, some people avoid reading a book twice, while others like to read it over and over. Ditto with movies. LAJ suggested that children and the elderly appear to like repetition (James, 1967).

A test of this hypothesis was made by correlating subjects' scores on a foreign vocabulary learning test ("paired-associates task") and degree of semantic satiation shown on words after their repetition. The correlation was significant, indicating that a common trait of satiability could be responsible. LAJ proposed that repetition could be used as a tool for helping stutterers (James, 1966). If it was true that stuttering behavior was a disruption of articulation of certain words due to their extreme emotional significance, then by repetition, one could satiate the little rG's that are responsible for the extreme emotional response to the threatening word. (This hypothesis was later tested by a doctoral student in Speech Communciation at the University of Illinois, but LAJ no longer remembers the details.) How- ever, unbeknownst to LAJ until much later, a South African psychiatrist by

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the name of Wolpe (1954) had developed Hull's concept of reactive inhibition as a psychotherapeutic technique for the treatment of emotional problems. He used the terms reciprocal inhibition and systematic-desensitization. The subject imagined repeatedly the feared situation until the little rG's that mediated the fear response got satiated, i.e. desensitized. There was skill necessary in the process of discovering stimulit to imagine which would be gradated and not too overwhelming. By starting with "low fear stimuli," the subject could go up a hierarchical list in a systematic manner, until at last, he can imagine just about anything about the feared situation without anxiety. The moment of truth comes when the subject is back in the field, face to face with the elevator, airplane, cockroach, or sex object. The technique has been acclaimed for problems of impotence, acrophobia, claustrophobia, and general freefloating anxiety.

LAJ's work on semantic satiation landed him a job with Osgood at the University of Illinois in 1960. Five years later he assumed the co-directorship of an international project headed by Osgood. The project was known as "the generality of affective meaning systems" and its purpose was to show that the little rG's were basically the same in people all over the world (see results cited in Jakobovits, 1966; Osgood, May, and Miron, 1975). Osgood's life work culminated in the discovery that people everywhere shared the same basic types of little rG's, the three most important by far being, Evaluation, Potency, and Activity (EPA). Osgood viewed these three basic types of re- sponses as deriving from evolution and the necessity for the organism to adjust to environmental changes: is the stimulus dangerous or benign (Evaluation); is it strong or weak (Potency); is it fast or slow (Activity). If an animal or human being adapts to these three dimensions of stimulus variation, survival is assured. Words, labels, symbols, and their more complex derivatives--statements, slogans, ideologies--reflect this basic three- dimensional world of emotional differentiation. The world around us is but a complex expression of "Is it good or bad, strong or weak, fast or slow," and these are but functional complications of sucking the milk, chewing the apple, running from the bear, and caressing the loved one. Osgood's genius lies in inventing new graphic tools that can map cognitive dynamics. The field of neurosemantics, as we'd like to call this search for the little rG's, has a bright future ahead as many science fiction writers have anticipated (see e.g., brainwashing techniques in the Korean War; subliminal advertising; mass hypnosis; memory banks; biofeedback; learning languages in your sleep; lie-detectors; etc., etc.).

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Synopsis 4: Behavior Influence and Personality.

Personality is a unifying concept used to refer to a person's many social presences; it is an abstraction from the actual ways in which a person behaves in various social circumstances. "Personality" presupposes acquisition of habits, and implies social stimuli acting as triggers for a person's involvement in a situation.

"Neurosemantics" refers to the hook-up between social stimuli and physiological and neuronal reactions; the latter are called activation, affect, or emotion. The Hullian-system treats conditioning of physiological states in terms of reflexes; the Hebbian system treats the conditioning of neurons in terms of patterns of firings in the brain. Experiments by Osgood have shown that humans in all cultures investigated have an emotional/affective world made up of three main universal dimensions, thought to be related to people's evolutionary adjustment to survival techniques. These are Evaluation, Potency, and Activity.

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Bird Stories (3) by Leon James

When I was seven years old, I often took my father's 25 ducks to the river which ran by near the edge of his week-end country house, turned into a haven for the satisfaction of a compulsion he had for birds: besides the ducks, 49 chickens and roosters, 35 pigeons, and 6 geese. I used a long stick to drive ducks the few hundred years to the river, across the beautiful valleys of Transylvania--with the help of a magnificent German Shepard called Lordy, who undoubtedly could have done the job very well by himself.

Meanwhile, in my Kailua backyard, the aviary I own jointly with Dr. Barbara Gordon, co-author of this book, is currently underpopulated. Besides a pair of mated cockatiels (part pied) and a family of 4 Java Rice birds, there remain only five parakeets. I am referring to the inside residents only. There are another 5 or 6 birds who fly around in the neighborhood and come for regular visits to their former "home."

The visitors are members of the community who have emigrated to the neighborhood from a little hole in our backyard aviary!

I discovered the escape route not too long ago when I noticed the disappearance of my third bird. My first impulse was to mend the fence, but I found myself postponing it. Two more birds left. What kept me from repairing the tear in the thin wire mesh wall, was the escaped birds kept coming back for visits, sometimes hanging around the outside of the aviary all day.

Instead of plugging the hole, I decided to make it larger; large enough to allow the birds through, but not large enough to give the neighbor's cat any ideas, especially since her pure white furry mass can often be seen sprawled, or in a heap, on top of the wire-mesh aviary cage.

Two more birds left--an unmated, adult, male, a pied cockatiel, and one of the little Java birds. I witnessed the departure of the cockatiel, which was very moving. I was writing in my study, when all of a sudden I heard all three cockatiels calling out excitedly. It seemed however, that one of the birds was calling from above the roof! I couldn't be sure, but I rushed out in time to see him circle around the aviary and then take off in a white flash in the sky, pursued by the excited whistle calls of his two companions back in the cage. I could've given my pension plan away to be able to be that bird for just one minute.

To date, I have not seen him back, but that doesn't mean he doesn't come around when I'm out.

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5. CONFLICT: A FIELD-DYNAMIC CONCEPT

We shall now explore some contemporary ideas or-concepts which attempt to deal with and explain human behavior in terms of a field dynamic system. In trying to understand the basic issues involved in such an attempt at accounting for behavior, you should keep in mind the following background notion: an individual is defined as a system in itself surrounded by other systems. This gives rise to inherent factors (inside the individual as a system) and environmental factors (outside the individual as a system). The inherent aspect generates the concept of needs while the environmental factors generate the concept of goals. In simple terms, an individual moves and changes as a result of needs that push it into various directions. The direction that results in need reduction or need satisfaction is called goal-direction. Successful goal-direction (i.e. the attainment of goals that reduce drives or needs) is called adjustment. Today, the field of mental health organizes knowledge about what leads to or facilitates adjustment.

Adjustment is a concept closely associated with Darwin's idea of survival of the fittest in that lack of adjustment, is seen as producing pathology, abnormal behavior, and ultimately, reduced capacity to survive. As a result, the field of mental health is practically oriented: how do we teach people to adjust better in the face of lack of success, problems of survival, and resolution of conflicts. The field-dynamic concept-of conflict and conflict resolution is a very general theme we encounter in all discussions of personality and human interrelationships at the level of self, dyad, and society. We will review some of these ideas on conflict starting with the presentation given in *Arkoff (1968).

The following diagram depicts the basic nature of the concept of conflict.

The environmental influences are represented as "the field" within which the individual occupies a position (Person A). The inherent influences are shown as "needs" within the person. By definition, needs are drives to act. We say that needs produce a vector or directed force, called impulse or impulse to act. For example, your foot goes to sleep as you're sitting in class; you are aware of adjusting your position by moving; the need (sensory pain) produces the impulse to move your limb to relieve the stress. Now suppose you're in a situation where you cannot move or don't want to move: you experience frustration.

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We say that some barrier in the environment blocks or inhibits the act and leads to frustration of the need state. Conflict represents a state of predicament: several needs are aroused simultaneously and you cannot reduce them because they are mutually incompatible or conflicting: to move in one direction reduces one need while at the same time the action produces another need which requires an opposite direction. What happens in such situations and how does the individual resolve the conflict? To answer this question we need to look at the type of conflicts there are and see whether they fall into common patterns. *Arkoff (1968, pp. 95-97) summarizes the various conflictual situations that have been described by psychologists. The following diagram shows some types of conflict and their resolution pattern:

As you can observe, there are three basic types of conflict situations: approach-approach; avoidance-avoidance; and approach-avoidance. The approach- approach conflict situation (1) shows the person (P) caught between the impulse to act toward goal one (left of P) as well as toward goal two (right of P). Since the two goals are in opposite directions, the resolution of the conflict consists of first moving towards one goal, then towards the other. In both cases, the person experiences rewards; the conflict is one of an abundance of riches. In the second type (2), the person is being repelled simultaneously by two different and opposite goals: moving away from one pushes the person closer to the other, and vice versa. Whichever the person does, frustration is the result; the conflict is one of an abundance of problems. Finally, in the approach-avoidance type of conflict situation (3), the person is simultaneously attracted and repelled by the same goal: moving

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away arouses a conflict which makes the person move away-again. The resolution lies in restructuring of the field whereby the person changes involvement and new impulses begin to operate. In general, a social field is analyzable as a comple x composite of multiple combinations of the three types described here.

This kind of description presupposes that the amount of conflict experienced in a situation is directly proportional to the distance between the person and the goal: like electromagnetic forces, goals are centers of great energy, attracting and repelling at a distance. For example, you're lying in bed trying to wake up. The approach element operates in two opposite directions simultaneously (approach-approach): goal one, which is positive, attracts you by wanting to stay in bed a little longer; goal two, also positive, attracts you in the opposite direction: you want to get up to finish a project you started the day before. If you get up, you move away from one desired goal (lying around); if you stay in bed, you move away from another desired goal (getting on to your project). At the same time as this approach-approach conflict, there is in the situation an avoidance-avoidance conflict: to stay in bed is not desirable because it reinforces a tendency or habit you'd like to get rid of; but getting up is not favored because it means you will have to clean up your kitchen before you can eat breakfast and get on to your project. Thus, getting up is both desirable and undesirable. Caught in this web of conflicts, pulls, and pushes, your response is to do both at different times: yesterday you lingered in bed, today you jump up, tomorrow, who knows.

Psychodynamic theories of conflict make various inventories of them and describe the different responses people exhibit when they are seen as involved in a particular conflictual setting. The accompanying diagram lists some of the terms reported by *Arkoff (1968) that are often discussed in the psycho- logy of adjustment and mental health.

In the next diagram, we summarize some of the results from an experiment by (Geer, 1965, presented in *Arkoff, 1968, p. 113). A group of college men

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(N=161) and women (N=109) gave ratings of the degree of fear conflict or anxiety that-different objects and situations evoked when thinking about them.

Several propositions can be made based on the distribution of scores in the graph. Thus, some animals are more "scary" than others, and some situations are more fear producing than others, as imagined by the subjects in this experiment. In general, college men report less fear than women when thinking about animals and situations. In DRA data reported by students in this course (Spring 1978), women more often than men report "cockroaches" as a source of fear. Of course, a distinction ought to be made between reported fears (as a summative assessment of one's tendencies) and measured fears (as actual responses and behaviors recorded by the witness in particular situations). As we all know, early sex role behaviors standardize sex-typed claims about fear responses: boys are taught to inhibit expressions of fear while girls are reinforced for sensitivity and helplessness, i.e. the overt expression of fear.

If you ask people to complete sentences such as "What would happen if you (etc.)...", then ask others to answer, you'll find in both cases that people tend to imagine common results to common situations, especially if they're asked to be ''realistic" in their imaginings. We call these standardized imaginings to indicate that they form part of one's necessary social competence skills on the daily round. Standardized imaginings originate in socialization, in education, in the mass media, and in restricted fantasy ("realistic daydreams"). Standardized imaginings mediate common reactions to social stimuli: fears, interests, hobbies, and so on.

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Synopsis 5: Conflict: A Field-Dynamic Concept.

Human behavior seen as the outcome of social forces, is a perspective in social psychology, known as "field theory." An individual is a "system", surrounded by systems (other individuals) and embedded in systems (sociocultural environment). "Adjustment" is a Darwinian mental health idea that sees the individual's behavior in terms of the organism's eternal quest for stability, survival, or ascendency. A measure of adjustment success has been the person's management of his own inner (psychic) conflicts. Conflicts are negative "drives" that activate and energize the individual to seek their relief, reduction, or extinction. Need reduction acts to reinforce the behavior, i.e. it becomes habitual (habits, skills, styles). When need reduction is blocked by circumstances ("barriers in psychic space"), frustration ensues. Frustration acts as another negative drive.

According to one well-known model, all conflicts are divided into one of three types: approach/approach; avoidance/avoidance, approach/avoidance. The standardization of imaginings in a community (i.e. "What would happen if...") is fostered by socialization, education, and the mass media. This would account for the similarities in people's lists of their fears, interests, hobbies, fantasies, favorite things--i.e. biographic items.

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Bird Stories (4) by Leon James

The life of a parakeet in a backyard aviary is organized by the community daily round schedule. Parakeets are, above all, social animals. A parakeet can spend its life in jail, in solitary confinement inside the little bird cage, inside the house. But anyone who has observed the vibrant mood of a community of parakeets living in a backyard aviary, will testify that cooped-up solitary life for a parakeet destroys its life energy. It appears depressed, sleeps most of the time, and is constantly in need of medical and grooming attention by the owner. It is drugged, gassed, ventilated, bathed, trained on the finger, grabbed by children, pampered with junk food, and scared to death when being chased back into its little jail.

Outdoors, and with the support of the group, the parakeet lives out its life in an adjusted relationship to its fellows, and not needing any help from the outside, except a few supplies. This consists of fresh water, seeds, green vegetables, perching areas, nestboxes, and that's all. Many aviaries have a roof, but I feel that the birds prefer the sky, sun, and the rain. Knick-knacks, playthings, bells, mirrors- are also fine, but not essential. Most importantly, the parakeet spends its time in relationship with others of its kind.

In our Kailua backyard aviary, the birds all arise at the same time, at daybreak Lying on my bed and returning slowly from the unconsciousness of sleep, I am gradually awakened by the distinct sound of individual birds flooding into my awareness. The sounds come from all directions around the house, each window or wall bringing forth a melodious, and purely wonderful wave of emotion and life energy. Birds sing with singular feeling, glorying in the beauty and harmony of planetary life.

The neighborhood birds, wild and free, sound off first. Then, our birds in the aviary join the chorus of awakening life. Once in a while, the grey male cockatiel preempts everybody else. While still dark, the clear, unadulterated voice sounds out in a personal song that tells the sage of his race. I know few things in life as deeply moving as that life song, the voice of my own ancestors.

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6. THE GROUP AS A SOCIAL MILIEU

Lewin was interested in the mechanisms of individual change in behavior, attitudes, habits, and so forth. By knowing this mechanism it would be possible to influence individuals towards change in particular directions. Lewin was thus, first and foremost, a social engineer; he coined the term action research, by which he meant research that involves a direct outcome in community life - industry, freedom, democratic distribution of decision making, education as a means of fostering humanistic values, and the like. Partly as a result of these activities, American social psychologists since the Second World War have been officially involved in what Lewin called "cultural reconstruction" - anti-discrimination investigations such as the effect of ideology on personality, intelligence, and economic opportunity. In all of this work, reviewed throughout this book, the idea of field forces predominate. Lewin's general influence was great in terms of intellectual stimulation; however, the details of his topological methodology were not adopted to the same general extent and, in our opinion, still remains to be applied to its full potential. This book attempts to re-introduce into the mainstream of social psychological work this neglected feature of Kurt Lewin's field theory conceptions (see References for Lewin's work).

We have already discussed some of the features of Lewin's diagramming technique of representing a person as a field or region differentiated by layers of personality or sub-regions. Now let us see how this idea leads Lewin to derive group properties from the personality structure of its members. One such derivation concerns the homogeneity (vs. heterogeneity) of a group, that is, the distribution of personality types within the group. In the following diagram, group A is depicted as having a homogeneous composition of members with an "open" personality structure, while group B has members with a "closed" personality structure; in both cases, however, the homogeneity is equivalent:

As can be seen, group A is composed of three individuals whose personality structure is similar in that the outer, peripheral areas are accessible to interaction, whereas in group B, the three individuals share the similarity of being accessible to each other at the most peripheral region only, as shown by the shaded area. Lewin was particularly interested in how the group as a whole becomes itself a region ("group") containing sub-regions ("members"), and how the composition of sub-regions (personality of members) thus forms the character of the group region. For example, how does communication with-

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in a group vary as a result of homogeneity, size, and situation? Are there optimal arrangements possible which improve communication and task effectiveness? Manipulating group composition, size, and situation thus become major independent variables for action research. Here is a prediction: individua1s who exhibit a more open personality structure are more likely to be affected by a change in situational factors than individuals whose outer personality layers are less accessible. This can be diagrammed as follows:

The diagram depicts a greater movement in A than in B (longer arrow) as a result of a change in the situation (I to II). Lewin argues that A changes more than B because he is more open or accessible to outer influences; where- as B tends to carry within his internal personality characteristics, being more fixed, less influencible by situational changes or interventions.

Lewin noted that when a number of individuals get together as a group there emerges as a result of the group status, a new element of force or influence called group values and group standards. These are held together or unified into a system ("group region") through a psychological milieu called belongingness. By accepting belongingness to a group, the individual member at the same time accepts a new system of values, beliefs, and standards (norms of behavior, rules, expectations). This group identification is also referred to as a we-feeling - exploited in many group situations where belongingness becomes a force or pressure acting upon the individual to change in a particular direction (e.g. Alcoholic Anonymous, political conventions, religious revivals, organizational morale, etc.).

A prototype experiment based on the above-conceptions is that of R. Lippitt and R. K. White, at the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, and described by Lewin (1948, p. 73) as an example of "experiments in social space." Two groups of children, aged between ten and eleven, were assigned a task of constructing masks. The independent manipulation was set as the leadership style such that one group had a democratic leader, while the other had an autocratic leader. This meant that the two leaders followed opposite rules of interaction with members: the democratic leader initiated less actions than the autocratic leader, and as well, allowed group members to contribute to the decisions in the execution of the task. The interest of the investigators now focused on the dependent effects or consequences of type of leadership. It was found that the democratic group atmosphere produced less hostile domination, less demands for attention, less hostile criticism, more frequent co-operation, more praise, more constructive suggestions, and more

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"matter-of-fact submissive behavior of member to member." In the autocratic group, two clearly differentiated levels of status emerged: the leader vs. the rest of the group; greater tension was observed; stronger barriers existed separating the members from the leader; individuality of members was less apparent, as was the we-feeling; little spontaneous sub-grouping occurred; banding together to exclude a particular-individual also occurred.

Of central importance in this study is the idea that the group effects that were noted were not attributable so much to individual differences in membership composition (personalities) as to the group atmosphere created by the differing leadership styles. In other words, individual behavior in a group-setting was a function of group milieu. Change the milieu, and you change the character of individual behavior, no matter what the individual personalities may be. Personal style and productivity in planning are thus outcomes of social climate. This sociopsychological view or, cultural anthropology, became Lewin's main theme in his action research: how to affect individual behavior and style of living by manipulating the group.

Clique Structure in Groups. Frequency of interaction is a "group parameter." Think of several groups you belong to: home, classes, friends, work, T.V. audience, and so on. You can rank order them on the basis of parameters such as size, composition, types of activities, and so on. Frequency of interaction is another: in some groups it is very high (ball games, cocktail parties, etc.), in others it is low (large lecture class, waiting in line, etc.). A general law accepted by social psychologists states that frequency of interaction in a group increases the likelihood of reciprocal attraction ("++" structures). This appears to be a very general principle of field theory and may be viewed as the sociodynamic inverse of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As you no doubt know, the theory of universal dynamics requires that all isolated systems run down over time; that is, randomness increases and organization breaks down. Thus, it is necessary to import forces outside the system to keep it from running down. The opposite doctrine is posited in sociodynamics: individuals brought together by situational circumstances exhibit maximum disorganization in the initial phases of interaction. As time goes by and the frequency of interactions between them increases and cumulates, they begin to form group structures of the ++ type, thus increasing, not decreasing, degree of organization. In summary, physical systems tend to run down over time while social systems tend to run uphill, as it were.

Propinquity is a positional concept and expresses distance among the objects in a region. "Neighborhood" is one such instance of the field concept of propinquity. Whyte (1956, quoted in Newcomb et al, 1965) showed that residential layout in a suburban development is a major determiner of participation in social gatherings. Membership at various social events in a neighborhood--party, bridge, baby shower, gourmet society--tends very strongly to be composed of individuals who live next to each other, relatively speaking. Marriages in large cities tend to occur most frequently between men and women who live close together.

Demographic variables influence attraction structures, degree of inter- action, communication, and so on. Age, sex, nationality, ethnic background? neighborhood, schooling, major course of study, religion, family status, occupational prestige--these are some of the many population characteristics that help organize people's associations with each other, the probability or likelihood of interaction, and the type of attraction structure in interpersonal relationships (see Section 1).

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The distribution of members' attitudes, interests, and values exerts a definite influence on the coalition structure in larger groups. It is said that birds of a feather flock together, and this sociodynamic doctrine summarizes the overall effect on group structure that can be traced to similarity of attitudinal expressions. "Postacquaintance structuring" can be predicted on the basis of "preacquaintance attitudes" (Newcomb et al, 1965, p. 317).

Finally, personal characteristics exert a strong influence on group strucutre and interpersonal relationships, as indeed we already know. Some traits are considered attractive, desirable, or admirable, while others evoke disapproval, rejection, or censure. "Popularity" is a group dynamic concept that expresses an individual's high attractiveness position in a group, and is based on the extent to which the individual possesses personal characteristics that are judged by group standards (norms) as desirable or attractive. Popular individuals tend to be focal points or leaders of cliques and are thus highly influential in group life.

In summary, group structure reflects the character of interpersonal relationships. These in turn determine attraction structures, cliques, and coalitions. These are built up over time as a result of continued interactions These interactions are strengthened and made more stable by frequency, propinquity, demographic overlap, shared attitudinal similarity, and perceived favorableness of personal characteristics.

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Bird Stories (5) by Leon James

Birds of a feather flock together. That holds true, as well, in the backyard aviary, but, there, it is not the only truth. At one time, the aviary was populated by four species: lovebirds, cockatiels, Java birds, and parakeets. The lovebirds have, relatively speaking, quite an "aggressive" style of interaction. After witnessing several bloodying attacks by the lovebirds, perpetrated on young parakeets who were too slow in getting out of their way, I decided-to separate them from the larger colony. They got their own aviary a few yards away where they lived and multiplied until last semester, when r gave them all away (the pair had grown into a family of 11). The following chart summarizes some of the differences which can easily be observed by anyone who spends time merely watching their daily rounds.

Stable dominance hierarchy in colony Mother raises family even if father deserts or disappears Father helps defend nestbox Shares nestbox with another family Permissive weaning Husband to more than one mother Young birds play with each other Adult same-sex friendships Mother uses building materials in nestbox Husband or father helps prepare nestbox Father spends time in nestbox Mother feeds babies Father feeds babies Father feeds mother Mother feeds husband Both parents socialize children Children return to nestbox after exiting Eat fruits and wild flowers

LOVEBIRDS + ? + - + - + - + + + + + + - + + +

COCKATIALS ? ? ? + ? ? ? ? - + + + + - - ? ? +

JAVABIRDS ? ? + + + - + ? + + + + + - - + + -

PARAKEETS - + - - - + + + - + + + + + - + + -

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Mother sleeps inside nestbox Father sleeps inside nestbox Cross-species friendships Groom each other Allow others to perch on top of nestbox Sleep close to each other on perches Spontaneous contact with humans Trainable contact with humans Quiet, non-activity periods

LOVEBIRD + - - + - - - + +

COCKATIELS ? ? + + + + + + +

JAVA BIRDS + - + ? + + - ? +

PARAKEETS + - + + + + - + +

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In this chart, a "+" means that the behavior was definitely observed, while a "-" means it did not occur even after extensive observations. A "?" means that the answer is inconclusive, given insufficient opportunity for observation. By contrasting the pattern of behaviors across the four species one can construct a 'cross-cultura1' index of similarity. A possible formula might be:

S = (agreements - disagreements) x 100

(agreements + disagreements)
The resu1ts are expressed in the fo1lowing bar graph:

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7. FIELD DYNAMIC THEORY

A central theme that-runs throughout this course of study is the idea- that community creates social organization, and social organization is or acts like a force field. This is the idea that we have tried to capture in giving it the label of sociodynamics. The idea that a-social environment is a field force was not invented by the producers of Star Wars: it is an idea popularized by Kurt Lewin, starting in the 1930's. It has become customary in textbook surveys to elect Lewin to the prestigious position of "founder of group dynamics theory." Also mentioned is a mathematical system Lewin used, called topology, which attempts to deal in detail with the formal characteristics of the social field force. Lewin's writings include influential articles on "conflict resolution", "minority groups", "group morale", "social space", "cultural reconstruction", "acceptance of values", "action research", "conflict in industry." No doubt because Lewin was a refugee Jew fleeing Nazi Germany, his articles on "3ringing up the Jewish Child" (published in 1940) and "The Special ease of Germany" (published in 1943 shortly before his death) focus on the dangers to a society brought on by anti-democratic institutions. a result, much of the work of social psychologists since 1940 has been concerned with the issue of official authority and its manifestations in "blind" obedience, conformity, prejudice, propaganda, and class conflict.

Lewin is associated with two schools of thought in social psychology; one is cognitivism, the other gestalt psychology. The German word gestalt is usually rendered in English as configuration. This idea came from work done by German psychologist Max Wertheimer in perception. Wertheimer popularized the idea that we perceive wholistically first, and only later, realize the components as a result of analysis. This idea was considered radical because it went against the prevalent notion that "complex wholes" are built up from "simpler elements" - a position promulgated by the British associationists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (chiefly Hume and the Mills brothers). Lewin's theories reversed this trend and established through his- personal charisma and writings the wholistic or gestalt view, adopted subsequently by his many followers and admirers - Gordon Allport, Ronald Lippitt, Fritz Heider, Dorwin Cartwright, Stanley Schachter, Kurt Black, Roger Barker, L. K. Frank, John French, Leon Festinger, and many others whose names dot the textbook and professional literature (consult References in any Social Psychology textbook).

Lewin's wholistic method of analysis carries him to the view that a society is a sociological region, a whole that encloses institutions and settings. Within this region, there are sub-regions marked off by boundaries, and each boundary encloses its own particular state of force or field. Thus, a dynamic tension is created between the sub-regions. This dynamics is understandable only if the overall region is taken into account as a context; the latter was called the "general cultural atmosphere" (nation, ideology, philosophy of life, etc.).

By "dynamics", Lewin meant in particular the characteristics of totality (i.e., as a system) and predictability (i.e., what leads to what). In the dynamic system of a community, Lewin sees a space of free movement, by which he meant to indicate the availability to the individual of channels of locomotion in three dimensions: bodily, social, and mental. He isolated two factors which produce dynamic barriers to locomotion across social regions:

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lack of ability and social prohibition (taboos and rulesl. Barriers or re- strictions reduce mobility in space, across social groups, and in mental development. Boundary lines thus segregate individuals and affect their accessibility to available resources in the society.

These ideas are quite familiar to us through the social analyses we are exposed to in the mass media. We know, for instance, that the federal government, through its national legislation, is constantly attempting to democratize the boundary lines across social groups, to eliminate restrictions based on race, religion, sex, and age, and thus to make more resources available to more people. We have witnessed, in the experience of the current generation, federal legislation in education which attempts to remedy and compensate for the discrimination in employment against those whose "cultural- ly disadvantaged" environment has "robbed" them of the democratic right to opportunities for developing their skills and "intelligence" (or literacy). We can recognize in these attempts the ideas of Lewin: the dynamic nature of society; nationalism as a general cultural force; the elimination of barriers against locomotion; the importance of cultural background on abilities; and the function of counter-rules (new legislation) to combat and neutralize social prohibitions based on group affiliation. As well, it is easy to notice the interplay of forces ("dynamism") when groups or "political forces" are in opposition against each other. Several cases come to mind from the current "national scene" (region): the anti-abortion movement, the pro-feminist movement, the repeal of legislation giving equal opportunity to practitioners of the "gay lifestyle," the fight against federal restriction on natural health products, and many more. In all of these events, we recognize the dynamic and wholistic social psychology of Kurt Lewin.

Topological Features of Group Space. Lewin's terminology gives us the possibility of analyzing in schematic form, some of the important (predictive) elements of behavior in social settings. Interpersonal relations, group forces, and personality structures are translatable through Lewin's system into diagrams that schematize the forces acting in a region, whether geographic (country, neighborhood, office), social (member vs. non-member of a group), or "mental" (cognitive dynamics - attitudes, preferences, problem solving style, etc.). We may familiarize ourselves with Lewin's topological system (geometric diagrams) by looking at how he takes the notion of social distance and gives it a strict operational definition in terms of these topological diagrams. "Topological" is a word made up of "top" (= surface, e.g., the surface of the planet) and "-ology" (= study of). Topological psychology uses concepts from geometry and algebra, as does "field theory" in physics, geophysics, and astrophysics. In its non-mathematical version, Einsteinian Relativity Theory has been adapted for use in most sciences. Of close import to social psychology are the field theories of behavior in Lewin, Pike (Young, Becker & Pike, 1970), Barker ("ecological psychology", 1968), Ouspensky (1974), and Thom (1975).

The conceptual element that universally characterizes field theory is the relativity of basic forces acting upon physical bodies. This means (i) that physical bodies move as a result of forces, and (ii) that these physical forces are relative to time and space, i.e., sometimes they are felt "ON", sometimes "OFF". This relativity of the forces is therefore also a variability across time and place. Here lies the enormous utility of relativity theory, in that events in time and place as viewed by us, the participant-observers, are analyzable as influences coming from forces outside our region

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or sphere of perception and operation. These basic forces may be seen to operate at either the-macroscopic level (time zones; eras; regions ) or microscopic (organs; genes; nuclear particles). For example, your mood today may be seen as a consequence of what day it is (calendar = macroscopic level) or, what you've ingested (digestion = microscopic level); the calendrical influence dervies from community life (workday or not) and the ingestive influence comes from planetary life (biology). Both types of influences exert themselves through forces acting: in the field you are surrounded by, externally and internally. The notion that basic and universal field forces vary across regions (time/place "local" systems) and are therefore "relative" contains an apparent contradiction: on the one hand, the forces are universal (basic), on the other, they are also absent in some regions localized by time, place, and internal condition (or speed). We quite naturally wish to say, But if the forces are universal how can they vary with local conditions?? It is this very paradox that gives field theory its pragmatic power or utility because it leads us directly to the following, obviously useful, principle:

Movement and change within a system is

influenced by independent outside pressures. Some examples might help in understanding the enormous applicability of this principle.

In time keeping, the relativity principle showed why and how our clocks lost time so that, over the centuries, "leap years" were needed to keep the summer in June (northern hemisphere). Today, some crystal vibrations gives us a steady source of impulses that are "accurate" in millions of a second over centuries! The difference comes from the topological properties of clocks, the sun, and the motion of microstructural elements. In each of these three cases (regions; local conditions), the universal forces have been altered or made relative to the surface properties of the system: what appears to affect the clock and the sun's motion across the sky (gravity; speed; available lines of motion across the surface) does not appear to affect the pulsations of the crystal and its internal workings. The outside, independent, universal forces have been altered by the local conditions.

Now take an application in the reverse direction: local conditions have been altered by outside, independent, universal forces. Assume we are dealing with two independent systems, such as a central region, separated by means of a boundary from a peripheral region, thus.

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Instances of this arrangement are familiar in everyday life. For example, you put something in a box, now it can no longer-be seen. The central region, or inside the box, is independent of the outside as shown by the fact that you can "hide" something inside the box. Ditto for any covering or boundary separator: skin; balloon; umbrella; etc. To get away from physical barriers, we can think of psychological ones: you bang up the car but you don't tell anyone. Here you are isolating a piece of information, fact, or item of knowledge, by enclosing it within a protected region, one that covers up the information. The cover up is an act that is functionally equivalent to putting a thing in a box. Note that the boundary erected around a region (box; information) functions to alter the previous accessibility of the item. "I won't tell" and "Leave me alone" are psychological boundaries a person erects which function to reduce the person's accessibility. The opposite is true in "I like you" or "Oh, you went to Kailua Hi, too, what year?" where the speaker uncovers a boundary which makes him more accessible to the other person. Lewin's system capitalizes on the topological (= lines of accessibility of "configuration") properties of psychological space as observable in human interactions. The idea that the same principles of dynamics govern the stars, the atoms, and the mind, is both modern and ancient. Many believe that mathematics is the universal language (notation system) that is capable of rendering the facts as they are, whether we deal with functional systems of numbers, particles, or emotions and imaginings.

Boundaries in Field Theory. The concept of "field" in field theory entails two necessary and sufficient features: boundary and tension. It is easy to see the universal applicability of field theory in our contemporary world. Thus, we conceive the universe around us as a space separated into regions, where each region is defined by a boundary marker or contour. For instance, if we look around us, the surrounds are populated by objects, and each object is separated from its surround by a contour, i.e. each object is self-contained. If we examine photographic preparations made through a microscope device, we see that the surface of objects is actually a composite of separate smaller objects called crystals, cells, molecules, and particles. Each of these micro- structures behaves like an object in that it is self-contained, i.e. separated from the surround by a boundary or contour. Biological organisms are actually composites of smaller bio-chemical units such as cells, genes, and protein clusters. Cells are contained by a surrounding membrane, and objects within a cell are themselves contained by their own boundary membrane (e.g., nucleus, food particles, etc.).

There are several ways of demonstrating the field theory principle that a boundary sets up tension, and therefore, creates a field. One simple method is to consider the effect of semipermeable membranes. Cheese cloth and other separator devices provide common instances; if you force a liquid through such a device, the solid particles that are suspended in it (dissolved) separate out, letting some of them through, while keeping others on "the front side." The same principle is used when the fishermen make a net with holes of a particular size: the net sets up a boundary which separates relatively large objects (bigger fish) from small ones by entrapping the former and letting the latter "through." In general, any action of separation sets up a tension, i.e. a differential force which creates grouping, sub-grouping, selection, and interaction.

Gestalt psychologists Wertheimer, Kaffka, and Kohler have been influential

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in drawing attention to field theory concepts in perception. Their work, done during the first two decades of this century, is reported in most elementary textbooks in psychology. As you-may already know, they have explored in detail various phenomena of the perceptual field, such as "the laws of good gestalt": grouping, completion, figure/ground, phi-phenomenon, illusions, and the like. A simple demonstration of grouping is given by arranging dots in various patterns on the page, and observing the phenomenological effects that ensue:

In this diagram, six dots are placed in the box; there ensues a spontaneous perceptual phenomenon whereby we perceive the six dots as falling into two groups of three dots each. Note also that each sub-group organizes itself into a figure, in this case, a triangle. Though there is no actual contour for the triangle, the three points act as if they were joined by lines forming a geometric shape. To illustrate perceptual gestalt field principles, let us look at another illustration:

In this diagram (based on Kanizsa, 1976) you experience what has been called a subjective or virtual contour. Here, the dynamic properties ("tension") are apparently set up by the arrangement of lines: the S-shaped contour is the phenomenal resultant of the tension set up by the lines in the perceptual field. Another example of subjective contour is given by the "pressure" to complete the figure outlined incompletely:

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In this diagram (also based on Kanizsa, 1976), you can observe the phenomenon of experiencing a subjective surface, i.e. the white triangle that appears to be superimposed on top of the partially completed triangle.

The preceding illustrations demonstrate the powerful effects generated by arrangements of visual shapes. They show that line boundaries set up tensions that create a perceptual field in which surfaces, shapes, and con- tours appear to interact and affect each other through laws of perception.

The term social organization refers to an arrangement of social objects. As in the case of visual perceptual fields, particular arrangements occur which set up a tension as evidenced by noticeable consequences in interaction and reciprocal effects ("forces"). We can illustrate these social facts by considering several examples from everyday life. One common example showing the creation of a social field through lines of separation is the phenomenon of erecting a physical barrier in a setting. A ball game setting is created by dividing the field of action into two sides or camps, and further sub- dividing each camp into smaller regions (e.g. goal line, scrimmage line, etc.) By setting up regions ("surfaces") marked off visually by boundary lines, and allocating differential rules within them, the tension of a ball game is created; the interest in any match that plays itself out, lies in the players' adjustments to the forces created by the differential rules that apply to each zone of play.

Another common example is the tension of forces set up in a social setting when new boundaries are introduced or old ones removed. For example, you spend half an hour in a doctor's waiting room. At first, you're alone in the room. The surrounding field is empty of other persons. You look around, read, slouch in your chair, scratch, etc. Suddenly the door opens, the boundary line changes, and a new person enters the field, and occupies a spot (chair). You immediately experience a change in tension: new field forces are now impinging on you. You show this in your behavior: you sit up, you smile, you inhibit scratching yourself, you talk. Your involvement has undergone a change as a result of the introduction of a new barrier in the

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field. Now the-person leaves the waiting room. A barrier is removed and your involvement and your behavior change accordingly.

Consider another common instance. Students in a large class are instructed to form teams. They meet in small groups of five in front of the class. The arrangement has now switched from one large audience-group ("the class") to a number of small teams. You are a participant; as you switch your membership status, you alter the social tension you experience. Your perceptions are affected, your feelings, your topic focus. Now the teams are instructed to choose a leader. Good luck, bad luck, or your own maneuverings land you the job; as a result, your status has changed. Your role behaviors are now called into play: your perceptions are switching focus, your interactions take on new patterns. Now you might talk more and initiate more suggestions; as well, others' perceptions of you change as they view you in a more central position. Now your team is instructed to investigate the phenomena of social attitudes by expressing views, exchanging observations about each other, etc. The new task and topic introduce new tension; the forces show themselves in the group's behavior. For instance, individual A talks more and his interventions have an effect on others. Soon you observe a new social organization in the group: individual B openly supports A's actions while the others openly oppose him. Now your team structure has altered considerably: where there were four members and you, the leader, there is now a three-way split: you; coalition one (A & B); and coalition two (C & D). After a whi1e, the teams break up and students resume their customary seats. Again the social field has changed: you either return to previous conditions, or else, you may have permanent1y altered the field as you've formed new relationships in the audience.

Multiple Membership in Groups. In actuality, a person belongs to several groups simultaneously. This may be portrayed as follows:

This diagram shows a person (P) holding simultaneous memberships in three groups: family group, professional group, and political group. An example might be "a Republican Doctor, father of two." Now one can derive various predictions: the person's life style will be affected by his simultaneous, multiple membership to the extent that we can note phenomena of role conflict, role strain, and role variation. This means that P's behavior will vary in expected ways across situations: as a family member, i.e. as father, P will exhibit such role behaviors as economic provider and parental disciplinarian; as doctor, he will behave according to the rules and practices of the medical profession; and as a Republican, P will support some candidates and reject others.

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Within such a "life-space," P experiences forces and pressures that create tension towards particular goals. This may be represented as follows:

Here you can note P in a life-space (unshaded region) being subjected to various forces (arrows). The shaded areas a, b, c, d are inaccessible regions, thus, P is under tension because his needs are blocked and he is prevented from entering the regions where he would find satisfaction of his needs. The diagram depicts P in a situation where pressure, f, pushes him in the direction of shaded area + G, i.e. his "goal" (see larger arrow, f). Within this field-force, the person's successful adjustment to the situation depends on his ability to gain sufficient freedom of movement so as to satisfy his needs and reduce tension. This adjustment process will depend on the interdependence matrix of the group or groups P is a member of. In a marriage group, for instance, P's movement of freedom will be more constricted than in a political group, say:

Here,-the first diagram depicts two individuals who are very closely interdependent; they share peripheral (p), medial (m), and central (c) regions of intimacy, as in a marriage. The second diagram depicts a looser group of four in which the individuals share only peripheral (p) intimacies, as might be the case-in a political group. As a result, one would predict that tension in situation A, the marriage group, would be greater than in situation B, the political group, on account of the fact that freedom of movement for P is more restricted, hence providing less opportunity for adjustment. By the same token, certain other features of need satisfaction will be more easily met in situation A, precisely those which derive from interdependence, i.e. security, intimacy, affection, acceptance, trust, etc.

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Synopsis 7: Field Dynamic Theory.

Kurt Lewin popularized field dynamic theory in social psychology (1930's and 40's). His system was both "cognitivist" and "gestalt" oriented. Basic to this approach is the idea that social situations are perceptual "fields," and therefore a person's behavior is seen as an outcome of the sociopsychological "forces" acting on the person. Lewin's sociodynamics was three-dimensional, i.e. three kinds of forcPs act simultaneously on a person--bodily, social, and mental. Thus a person's behavior is defined as a movement or locomotion in these three dimensions. Barriers to locomotion are set up as a result of two causes:- lack of ability and social prohibition. These "barriers" are drawn graphically as boundary lines separating "regions" in space, and indicate restrictions to available resources in a society or group. This leads to the important principle that movement and change within a social system is influenced by independent outside pressures.

As well, movement in a region is affected by internal forces called "tension." Thus a boundary acts as a source of tension, i.e. creates a field of local forces. An illustration of perceptual field boundaries is given by the spontaneous organization of dots, lines, and contours ("laws of good gestalt"). Another illustration is the "action" created in a game region (e.g. football) when boundary lines are erected and appropriate rules of conduct are marked off for each sub-region (e.g. goal line). A third illustration is given by social interactions in a setting: as you interact with others, groupings occur; these groupings constitute new boundary lines that affect your subsequent interactions.

A person is typically a member of several groups: e.g. father, Republican, profession, etc. This state of "multiple membership"-creates role phenomena of conflict, strain, and variation. Thus, social situations are representable as regions in psychological space in which the sociodynamic forces of group membership and role create "needs" whose fulfillment depends on the resolution of tension and the re-drawing of boundaries.

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Bird Stories (6) by Leon James
In a previous section [see Bird . Stories (5)], I presented an Index of similarity between the four species of birds in our backyard aviary. The closest cross-species overlap was found to be that between cockatiels and parakeets (53% over- lap), and cockatiels and Java birds (47% overlap). This empirical finding corresponds to my overall, intuitive feeling. A number of episodes come to mind that confirm these groupings.

Alvin was a quiet green parakeet youngster who had just emerged from the parental nestbox. Our oldest male cockatiel, gray and white with a gorgeous yellow feathered top hat and bright red cheeks, was observed to approach the unsuspecting Alvin, and nibble at his feet. Alvin kept getting out of the way as best he could but the grey cockatiel kept pursuing him. At first I thought that he was molesting the youngster and became quite alarmed. Close observation over the next four days revealed that the exchange was obviously friendly. It became apparent that the cockatiel was training Alvin to scratch his head! With relentless pursuit and great patience he succeeded eventually, and from then on, the two were almost inseparable companions. The friendship ended when Alvin mated with a female parakeet and appeared totally involved in his new responsibilities as husband and father.

A few weeks later, there developed another friendship between this same cockatiel and one of the Java birds. At first, the relationship was restricted to sleeping arrangements. The male Java bird would always sleep right next to the cockatiel, almost touching him, while the other birds (parakeets) were kept away at some distance (in inches). Thereafter, the Java bird could be frequently seen during the day fishing for lice (no doubt) in the cockatiel's head region. Since the latter is much bigger than the former, he would assume a downward posture, lowering his head towards the Java bird; From time to time, the cockatiel would emit a raucous sound of protest and jerk his head up as the undaunted Java bird came up with a feather in his beak. However, the cockatiel would recover within a second or two and go right back in there for more cleaning. Later, when both birds mated with a female of their own kind, the two pairs regularly cleaned each other and even attempted to share the same nestbox. However, none of the eggs on either side hatched.

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8. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Natural impulses seek expression. This is the meaning of "organism". A living organism is animated by bio-chemical reactions inside its skin-boundary called body. These bio-chemical reactions summate (miraculously!) into a "coherent whole" at the next level of existence: emotional life. Though emotional reactions are grounded in bio-chemical processes, their organization is not bio-chemical, as indicated by the fact that bio-chemists do not attempt to predict or control the behavior of organisms, but only the latter's organs. Instead, to predict and understand the emotional conduct of an individual, it is required to take matters up for analysis at the next (discontinuous) level of organization in the world, and that is social organization.

Social organization is an arrangement of relationships between members of a group. Among so called "solitary" animal species, social organization appears distant, such as some reptiles and insects whose members meet for restricted time periods (for parenting) but otherwise spend individual lives in solitary adventures. Social animal species, on the other hand, can always be found living together and forming relationships that endure over time. Therefore, social organization is functionally motivated by the existence of regularized relationships among members of a group. In other words, because relationships are formed by individuals, therefore social organization emerges as an environment or ecology.

Relationship activity thus gives rise to social organization. Action, reaction, interaction, transaction: these modalities of behavior are implicated in relationship activity. For instance, parenting is a form of relationship activity that produces protective, cooperative, and educative transactions between the members of the family unit. "Family unit" is a component of social organization, and you can see that it emerges out of the relationship activity of parenting.

Parenting, mating, playing and other role behaviors thus form the components of social organization. By examining the features of role behaviors in a group one can produce maps of its social organization. Such maps allow prediction of events in the history of the group. For instance, we sometimes find it impossible to recognize the adult individuals in an aviary since they appear to us identical in size, color, and appearance; but if we know some of their role behaviors, identification is instantaneously achieved by observing their transactions. Males mount and feed females among lovebirds and parakeets; mothers hang around the neighborhood. Mapping social organization in a group through identifying role behaviors allows us to predict events and relationship history: parakeet husbands and fathers in our aviary will not protect the nestbox against occupation by third parties, while mother parakeets will fight rigorous1y and persistently when another adult fema1e approaches the nestbox area. Male lovebirds, on the other hand, will vigorously attack any adult coming in the vicinity of the homebox. Again, if you know that banks are closed on Sunday, i.e., if you have a map of the social organization of your community involving time and schedules, you can predict some behaviors: a customer will not go to his bank on Sunday though you may find him going there on other days; on the other hand, knowing that a robbery took place at the bank on Saturday night, you might predict that the manager will be found there on Sunday morning.

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Role behaviors are recognizable when observing the behavior of a group on a regular, day-to-day basis. One keeps track of activity in the group over time, from morning to night, and from week to week. For instance, in our aviary, activity can be noticed to vary across several daily time zones as well as places in the birds' habitat. Mid-mornings, noontime, mid-afternoons, and night time are relatively quiet periods in noise levels and general movement. Within an active time zone, say early morning, the public places in the community support a great deal of mixing and interacting, as birds eat, exchange ritualized transactions, explore, fly around, play, chase, build, and so on. As you observe the on-going hustle and bustle, you note that some behaviors, such as fleeing, climbing, foraging for food, are engaged in by all the individuals, whereas some activities are never acted out by some individuals. You begin therefore the process of role differentiation by matching activity type with individual bird.

Again, as you enter an unfamiliar milieu, say an airport in a foreign country, your knowledge of social organization allows you to recognize role behaviors and thus, predict behavior: you see people in uniforms and other people; your baggage is lost; so, you approach a uniformed individual because you predict he'll be more likely to respond to your needs.

Role Behaviors. The concept of role has field dynamic properties that are familiar to all of us who live out our social existence in a community context that assigns to every individual all sorts of duties and responsibilities. Webster's tells us that "role" is either a part an actor plays in a performance or a function (office) assumed by someone. Tradition gives us in the concept of role, the idea that a person "rolls around" on the daily round: "role" comes from Indo-European *roto-, meaning running, rolling, and wheel, according to Webster's. Thus, a fellow who is a big wheel in the community can be expected not only to have big bank rolls stashed away, but as well, to play a central role in decision making.

In field dynamic terms, role is a functional feature of settings: role stands to behavior as force stands to movement. Social settings are demarcated regions where sociodynamic forces impart movement and change. The actors, participators, members, individuals form a population pool for fil1inq the positions (statuses): they are office holders in institutions and bureaucracies- the police officer, the teacher, the plumber, the father, the lover, the former president's neighbors' children's pet, and so on. For example, the institution of domestic pets creates positions that many individuals around us appear to fill so cheerfully: the role of neighbour to a pet family (What is your relationship to dog droppings on your lawn?); the role of loving parent to a cute puppy, the role of consumer of pet care services; and so on. Question: How does the social setting help organize appropriate behaviors? Answer: Through role prescriptions.

We are all familiar with role prescriptions. We learn them at home by watching parents and T.V. (imitation; modeling). We practice them with dolls, imaginary beings, and real playmates (role interactions). We are taught the rules, procedures appropriate manners, appearance, and decor, i.e., the rituals of the place (locale) when as children, we are taught to "behave": when as adults, we are shown the ropes and are expected to follow suit, i.e., to conform to our role; and when we get criticized for bungling the job by goofing off, doing the wrong things, failing to be efficient, in other wards, found wanting in our role behaviors.

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Social psychologists have examined role behaviors from the point of view of social relationships in groups. A role is a gestalt or whole that organizes many related as well as independent sequences of behaviors, acts, skills, and the like. Through social learning, imitation, modeling, training, conditioning, and other behavior influences, we acquire social competence, knowledge or rules, and habits of perception. From the moment you're awake in the morning to the moment you drift off in sleep, you are enmeshed with your various roles on the taily round. As the minutes of the day tick off, you move across physical regions, from boundary to boundary, and across psycho-social regions, from barrier to barrier, or access ritual to access ritual. Whatever you do is always in a place and connected to some function that you fill by being there. There is no way of being anywhere without filling some role. This evidences the binding nature of social setting (or place): our behaviors, both voluntary and involuntary, conscious and unaware, are never solely centered in our thoughts, emotions, or imaginings--we are literally rooted to the roles prescribed by the position we find ourselves in; and there is never a time when we are free from them, even in our dreams.

We use the expression situated behavior (James and Gordon, 1975-77) to indicate that behavior is always setting bound. Field theory is based on the idea that all movement and change in a dynamic region is calculated as being the resultant of general forces set up by tensions produced when boundaries are established. For instance, you walk into class and look for your customary seat. Someone you don't know is already occupying it. You sit in another seat. The human barrier covering your territory has pushed you into another's seat. All of a sudden, you get up, pulled by the sight of the student whom you know is the rightful owner of the territory you're blocking. You look around, you can't stand still because the eyes around you penetrate your life- space causing a storm in your emotions. Finally you're saved: a friendly familiar face waves at you and points to the empty seat beside him. You bolt in that direction, catapulated by the repulsion you feel against standing there with the eyes upon you.

All social settings are thus dynamic regions in socio-cultural space. rhe space varies in a number of dimensions; for instance, geographic (your bed vs. the class), sensory (all the private things we sense from our bodies), motor (stone-faced vs. stoned face, for example), interpersonal ("the eyes" vs. being alone), motivational (involved vs. depressed), presentational (authentic vs. fake), and many more. How many and which? That's the question that concerns social psychology: in field theory terms, the dimensionality of social space is indicated by the available lines of movement, i.e., given by the topology of the setting, its surface features, its accessibilities, its access ritual, its role prescriptions, its sanctions, rewards, and contingencies as set up by consensus, agreement, contract, common sense, law and order, tradition, customs, rules, prescriptions, expectations, and all the rest that turns a mere place into a community daily round of roles within relationships.

We've discussed the effects that a group setting has upon its members. Thus, irrespective of the particular characteristics of the individuals involved, we note general forces acting upon the "interactants" merely because they are in role positions. Thus, whether A is talkative or quiet, a student or a professor, a mother or a sister, the sociodynamic influences deriving from the group setting will be operative: like attracts like, negatives

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repulse each other; frequency builds attraction; unconventionality gets rejected; and so on. In field theory terms, we can say that in sociodynamic settings, ethnodynamics becomes a context for psychodynamics. This principle thus allocates a structural arrangement between setting features ("ethnodynamic forces") and the role behaviors that occur in them ("psycho-dynamic forces").

Role behaviors can thus be studied independently of psychodynamics. A good instance of this principle is to be found in the work of biologists, in particular, the newer emphases in sociobiology (Wilson, l975). We have a backyard aviary in which a community of two dozen birds live, and share a daily round (see Bird Stories). On many occasions, we've had the opportunity of observing highly differentiated role behaviors on the part of individual birds. For instance, the role behaviors associated with the activity of parenting the young (socialization) give a visible organizing pattern to the conduct of the mother, the father or husband, and the other adults in the community. If you saw a lovebird feeding another lovebird, you can say with certainty that the two are related either in the role of female mate or unweaned child. This is because feeding is a role behavior performed by parent and male mate only: husbands feed mates and children; mothers feed children. One never finds a female mate feeding a male. Similarly, if you see a parakeet vigorously defending its nestbox, you can say with almost certainty that the bird is female, possibly, but not necessarily, a mother as well. This is because the male parakeet, as husband, father, mate, does not defend the nestbox against intruders. And most commonly known, if you see two birds copulating, the one on top is the male.

Thus, the ethnodynamic forces acting upon individuals occupying role positions on the daily round are quite visibly influencing their behaviors though we know nothing about their internal psychodynamics. This is equally true whether the ethnodynamic context is that of general species related behavior (as in feeding, parenting, copulating) or that of specific group related behavior. For example, if you note a change in the behavior of A towards B, you can conclude with confidence that there has been a change in the role relationship between them. Thus, if parakeet A regularly feeds parakeet B, a youngster, and then one day, is observed to stop feeding it, you can infer that a change in their relationship has occurred. Indeed, as we have observed in-numerous instances, parakeet youngsters get weaned at one point in time, during which an unstable effect can be noted; that is, the frequency of feeding and approach behavior on the part of both parents gradually decreases; at some point, the likelihood of an approaching youngster being fed equals the likelihood of being pecked and chased away. This unstable pattern is naturally conflictual, but at the same time, instructive; very soon, the youngsters stop approaching their parents and start acting as adult members of the community. Thus, role behaviors can be investigated within the context of a daily round and a pattern of relationships with others. Note that the investigation of role behaviors is possible only within such a context; merely observing the interactions is not sufficient. Their meaning or function can be derived only through the backdrop (setting) of the daily community round.

This field dynamic principle is easily noted when you travel or move across boundaries into regions that are unfamiliar to you. As a "foreigner" your position in the setting contrasts with the position occupied by "regulars.''

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You can easily observe this effect in reverse when you consider the daily round of a tourist on Oahu: here, the other occupies the position of ''foreigner" and you are the "regular". Similarly, a new employee occupies a contrastive position to your own, as shown by the fact that you have to teach the person the setting rules (starting times, break time, work sequences, and above all, the distinction between what's required, permitted, and forbidden.) Inhuman groups, particularly in bureaucratic settings, this differentiation is mediated through language, oral and written. There are written rules and unwritten ones; there are official rules and unofficial ones. There are rules that apply to everyone-in the organization, and those that apply selectively (depending on status, relationships, seniority, etc.).

Status: Role Position and Role Setting. To illustrate the relationship between role behavior and role setting, we can contrast the behaviors of the members of a family (triad) at three different times of the day, thus:

This table represents a matrix of structural elements composing the gestalt of "family". Three role positions are evident; that of father, mother, and child. This universal theme plays itself out in contemporary America through unequal status on the daily round. Different role positions entail different role behaviors in the same setting. Here, time of the day is the setting parameter, though others could have been used (e.g., place, activity). Three time zones are sampled, and the activity engaging the three members are indicated. Box A in the table, contrasts roles between the two Parents in that particular household. Box B indicates overlap in type of activity, and box C shows a similarity in one dimension but suggesting differences in many others (i.e., differences in the manner in which they carry out the same activity).

Social psychologists use the term status differentiation to refer to the "hierarchical" relations one can observe among role positions in social settings. You no doubt have observed many types of hierarchical structures in settings where you are a regular: job, club, class, public places, and so on. For instance, you're on the phone with airlines reservations and you want a front row seat because your knee cast requires you to hold your leg as straight as possible. The airlines representative informs you that there are no front

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row seats available. You insist on talking to "the supervisor." He gets on the phone and assures you the seat you want will be held for you. You have witnessed a very common consequence of bureaucratic hierarchies: decision making power varies with status differentiation. "Always get to the top" is a good advice when you want something accomplished which does not fall in the routine category. This is because bureaucratic hierarchies approportion power, or the ability to act, according to status: the higher a person's position in the hierarchy, the greater is his latitude for action ("discretion'').

Note however that additional considerations enter into this relationship. Suppose that, in the story of the phone call to the airlines, the Supervisor regretfully informs you that all the front seats are gone. You hang up, and call your friend who knows a sales representative in that airlines and promises you to call him. He phones you back half-an-hour later and tells you the seat is in the bag! You've witnessed the consequences of informal lines of power in a bureaucratic organization.

It is clear, then, that social settings are ethnodynamic regions demarcated by lines of relationships. These connections function as access rituals making available or denying rights and privileges in accordance with one's position in a network of interrelationships. You can inventory your connections by making a table as follows:

NAME	AGE	SEX	ETHNICITY	OCCUPATION	RELATIONSHIP
Martin J. Rex J. Buzz R. Diane N. etc.	66 10 +68 +27	M M M F	Caucasian Caucasian Caucasian Caucasian	Store Owner Child Handyman & Contractor Graduate Student Assistant	Father Son Regular Repairman Work & Personal

Data of this sort map your community connections. By inspecting such data reported by members of a group, many ethnodynamic effects become visible. For instance, data in the DRA contributed by students of this course, clearly shows the effect of demographic parameters on a person's connections. Thus, ethnicity is a primary selection factor for family connections (as you'd expect), for job connections (as you'd expect in many settings here), and for connections reflecting professional services (not as strong a relationship as in the first two cases--again, as you might expect). Age is a primary selector in connections reflecting socializing with (the young associate with the young) as well as for the category people I would ask for a recommendation (in the 50's for the latter vs. in the 20 s for the former, given UH undergraduates). With this category (...recommendations) both age and sex play a primary role: men in their 40's, 5C's, and 60's are most often mentioned (doctors, bosses, etc.). These relationships can be mapped in a matrix of the following type:

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Category of Connections	Dependent Parameters
	Age	Sex	Ethnicity	Frequency
My Extended Family People I Socialize With People Influential on My Maturity People I Would Ask for a Recommendation etc.	o ++ ? ++	o o ? ++	++ + o +	++ ++ - --

You can note that the interaction effects between "category of connections" (the independent variable, here) and demographic variables appear in the intersections. A strong positive relation is indicated by "++", a weaker connection by "+" (reverse signs for negative relation). A zero indicates that no relation was observed ("mixed composition"), and the question mark stands for "insufficient data." The dependent variable of "Frequency" refers to the relative strength of the association as given by the Witness' summative assessment (i.e., a rating on "How well I know the person").

Communication Networks. Connectivity is a field dynamic concept; it measures the lines of accessibility in a region. A door or a bridge connect two geographic points and it is easy to see how it functions as a gate or boundary (barrier) for controlling access. Similarly, relationship connections reflect as well as maintain a person's access rights and privileges in a community or group. The way in which configuration of associations affects behaviors in a group can be made visible by mapping the lines of interactions in a group, i.e., its communication network (who speaks to whom when). For instance, Student Task Groups set up in this course during the Spring l978 semester varied in size and in acquaintance structure. Some task groups were small (N = 5 or 6) while others were more than twice that size; some groups had members who knew each other from outside class, others met only during infrequent meetings. The following diagrams depict three types of groups:

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Group pattern I shows a network that reminds one of ''a wheel": there is a central position occupied by Person l; all interactions get channeled through this "strong leader" and no interaction takes place between the other four persons. This meant that much of the group's work depended on this one person When this person dropped out of the group, the network disintegrated and each student worked independently, not knowing what the rest of the group members were doing.

In pattern II, no one occupies the leadership position, but individual 2 has a slightly more central role in that he communicates with three members. Participant 6 is an isolate, being officially a member, but not attending meetings. Pattern III is more complex as is to be expected in a larger group. Three sub-groups are evident: (1 + 2 + 3), (4 + 5 @ 6 + 7), and (8 + 9), in which members interact only within their own sub-group. You can infer that individual 4 occupies a central leadership ro1e in that he ho1ds the three sub-groups together. Members 10, 11, and 12 are non-participating isolates. This group arrangement reflected the division of labor arrived at through consensus early during the semester. Each sub-group ursued its own self- designated tasks and allowed one person the role of informing the chairman of the group (4) what had been accomplished.

Besides group size and connectivity structure, an important factor that affects group climate is attitudinal distribution. This refers to the systematic variations observable along a convenient index, such as favorableness or unfavorableness towards group goals and events. An example is provided by the distribution of scores obtained on Daily Feedback Forms f111ed out by students of this course after each class. The following graph illustrates this point:

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The four patterns displayed by four different students is evident upon inspection: Pl's attitudes are highly favorable through the semester, while P2 is consistently less favorable throughout. P3 begins the semester with highly favorable attitudes but gradually becomes more and more disenchanted; P4 exhibits the opposite pattern. As you would expect, the overall classroom climate will be a resultant of the distributions engendered and the number of students falling in each pattern.

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Synopsis 8: Social Organization.

From the point of view of field theory, systems are self-contained or "local" regions embedded in larger systems (called "surrounds"), which in turn are embedded in still larger, so-called universal (or "general") systems. The relation between systems can be either continuous or discontinuous. For example, at one level of systems, behavior is related to the biochemistry of organs, nerves, muscles; at another level, it is related to emotions. Thus, behavior is related to biochemical activity and to emotional reactivity, but the relation is discontinuous: emotions cannot be predicted on the basis of biochemical principles. On the other hand, the relation between emotional reactivity and the expression of values is continuous: one is predictable on the basis of the other. "Social organization" refers to a system whose components are interrelated in a continuous fashion. These components are out- comes of regularized interactions between individuals sharing a daily round. We can say that relationship activity creates social organization.

Relationship exchanges can be classified functionally on the basis of "role behaviors." For example, parenting (a role behavior) creates the unit of "family" (a social organization unit). Knowing role behaviors in a community setting allows us to predict individual behavior; as well, it allows us to identify individuals (e.g. "since A did x, he must be the husband of B"). This matching of activity type (= role behavior) and personal identity is called "role differentiation."

Role is a functional feature of social settings, i.e. social settings specify the type of activity (role) that is appropriate for particular individuals (= role prescriptions). These role behaviors are learned in socialization through modeling, imitation, conditioning, and training.

The principle that behavior is a function of the setting can be phrased by saying that ethnodynamic forces ("setting rules") generate psychodynamic outcomes (role behaviors). The relation between the setting and the individual is called "role position." Thus during one's daily round, an individual moves from one role position to another as he changes places over time (i.e. as he moves from setting to setting). Role positions are organized in a hierarchical structure. Differences in hierarchical positions in a setting are referred to as "status differentiation." In bureaucratic settings, status differentiation is related to power, decision making, and latitude for action (e.g., duties, responsibilities, rights, and privileges).

Status differentiation can be expressed by mapping lines of relationships. For example, by listing all the people you know and interact with--i.e. your "community connections"--you are thereby making a map of status differentiation or role relationship. "Connectivity" maps out the lines of interpersonal accessibility in a social region; these lines of connections are also called "communication networks." The shape of networks in a group indicate the group's interaction structure (who talks to whom, when). Size, connectivity structure, and attitudinal distribution are three major group factors that determine social climate (= status, role).

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Bird Stories (7) by Leon James

I will tell you one of the biggest secrets I've discovered about (or from) birds. Anyone who knows this about birds can tame them (or befriend them) within minutes. (The trick also works with other animals, including people.)

It used to be a funny adult thing to do around where I grew up (in a Hungarian-speaking part of Rumania), to say to a child that if he wants to catch a bird, all he needs to do is to throw salt on the birdie's tail. For many years I fantasized catching birds this way, trying to imagine it, but I couldn't figure out how to get the salt to the tail! Later, as an adolescent, I did catch a few pigeons another way, with an easy contraption I saw my father use. I'll sketch it for you.

A light, flat wire mesh, or box, acts as the trap that falls on the bird. One end is held up by balancing it on a stick which is conveniently connected to your hand by a string. You pull the string, the stick falls, and so does the box. Anything walking under it is trapped! Now all you've got to figure out is how to get birds to walk under it. And that's the secret I want to tell you. I'll call it the adaptation level secret.

First, let me tell you about where its name comes from, then I'll give some examples in the subsequent Bird Story. I learned about the scientific concept of "adaptation" first. Two names that I remember from my college days (I majored in Psychology at McGill University, in Montreal, B.A. '59), are those of Harry Helson and Jaspers, the former a psychologist (Texas University, as I recall), and the latter a neurophysiologist (Montreal Neurological Institute, if I'm not mistaken). Helson wrote a book having adaptation level in its title. He catalogued a large number of situations where a person's perceptions would be affected by whatever shapes, contours, and colors the person was used to seeing. Exaggerated effects could be produced if you knew the person's regular world by departing from the usual, and producing contrasts effects. The steady and habituated world of an organism is called its "adaptation level." (This might be analogous to "the key" a piece of music is written in.) Jaspers recorded EEG measures ("brain waves") from sleeping cats in the lab. When a brief noise is made, the cat's head jerks up. If the same noise is
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