[1.2.1]

The Lectures. Kuykendall Auditorium was chosen because of its reputation as one of the very best rooms on the UHM campus. It seats slightly over 200 people, counting the chairs in the aisles. Enrollment was just under 200 (=192), which was down from the previous semester (241). There were rumors in the department that all enr6llments were down because people were confused or uncertain about the revamping of the numbering system introduced by the Psychology Undergraduate Studies Committee of Faculty (4) and Student Representatives (5). In that change, Psychology 322 became 222, and so on for the other courses.

Students purchased the first edition of this Workbook ($9. 00) which consisted of the Charts now in Chapter 10, along with other Charts that were not included in this second edition. However, no text was included! ! No text was included because it had not been written. Having spent all of the summer prior to the Fall semester preparing the Charts, the authors were caught short of time. The instructor considered using a commercial textbook, as in the past, but preferred, in the end, to rely on the lectures to supply the text. Students may examine the first edition which may be found at the Reserve Desk of Sinclair library. As well, students may listen to all the lectures arranged by date in the Listening Center of Sinclair Library.

A view of the content of these lectures may be gained by examining three types of records. Each presents a full view, yet each reflects its own reality. This is an important social psychological principle to grasp. At first, one might think that one view must somehow be more right or wrong than the other two, if the views are all purportedly 'full views’. Yet, as can be seen by the following, the three views are all complete in their own right, and yet appear to offer contrasting rather than complementary portraits.

The first view is given by the Syllabus of Charts and the schedule of their appearance in the lecture (see Table on next page). Note that this record belongs to the type we should refer to as anticipatory schedules to distinguish them from the second type given, namely descriptive schedules. The latter are records that identify what happened, while the former identify what is being planned. The first is theoretical; the second actual. Note however, that one cannot say the theoretical record is less right, or less representative of the truth, than the actual, since both may be true in any situation.

Of course, one can accumulate several records of a type and decide on the basis of majority or communality. For example, we might examine the notes of many students and attempt to summarize them. However, communality may indicate common interpretation of what happened rather than what happened.

LIST OF CHARTS

References and Further Readings on p. 267

CHARTS TO BE STUDIED BEFORE CLASS

The third category of views is given by a serial glossary prepared by the instructor to indicate the conceptual content of his lectures. It is worthwhile to consider in full as a handy overview of many of the, ideas that are presented in this course.

What, then, is there to conclude concerning the issue raised at the beginning of this Section, namely, how can the records we collect serve as social psychological data in the analysis and understanding of behavior in settings? We have been considering a particular case and a specific issue: what can we say about the content of the lectures in Psychology 222, Fall 1977? We have looked at three different types of records available: the instructors anticipatory schedule; a student's descriptive report of the actual schedule; and, the instructor's reconstructive report of what ideas he in fact was trying to get across in his lectures. The situation we have arrived at may be diagrammed as follows:

This analysis may be expanded to still more complex levels. One can add, for instance, a fourth type of account, say the analysis of transcriptions of the lecture tapes (available in Sinclair Library, Listening Center). Would this type of record yield information similar to A, B, C, or would it add a fourth category, also independent and indicative of still another reality related to the same event? These questions are amenable to empirical tests. We would argue that the dimensionality of any situation is a performative (presentational), and hence, productive (generative), set. Here we find some explication of the frustrating principle that there are as many views on something as there are individuals. That is true in the sense that views are visible through accounts (records) and accounts are individual presentations. However, formulated this way, the principle seems less intractable since it clearly shows that we are dealing with productive performances rather than unstable viewers of a steady object.