The Ford Foundation and the Rise of Behavioralism in Political Science

How did behavioralism, one of the most influential approaches to the academic study of politics in the twentieth century, become so prominent so quickly? I argue that many political scientists have either understated or ignored how the Ford Foundation's Behavioral Sciences Program gave form to behavioralism, accelerated its rise, and helped root it in political science. I then draw on archived documents from Ford as well as one of its major grantees, U. C. Berkeley, to present several examples of how Ford used its funds to encourage the behavioral approach at a time when it had few adherents among political scientists.     

“PROPAGANDISTS FOR THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES”: THE OVERLOOKED PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE CARNEGIE CORPORATION AND SSRC IN THE MID‐TWENTIETH CENTURY

The Carnegie Corporation's role as a patron of the behavioral sciences has been overlooked; its support for the behavioral sciences not only began earlier than the Ford Foundation's but was also at least equally important to their success. I show how the close postwar collaboration between the Carnegie Corporation and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to promote the behavioral sciences emerged after a strugglebetween Carnegie and the Rockefeller Foundation over the direction and leadership of the SSRC. I then focus on three postwar projects Carnegie helped conceive and fund that were publicized as the work of the SSRC: Chase's The Proper Study of Mankind (1948), Stouffer et al.'s The American Soldier ( 1949, 1950 ), and the Michigan's Survey Research Center 1952 election study. In each of these projects, Carnegie deliberately muted its own role and promoted the remade SSRC as a major advocate for the behavioral sciences.     

An alternative perspective on sex differences in organizational settings: The process of legitimation

This article takes a sociological approach to a problem that has usually been considered as a psychological phenomenon. It addresses the problem of male—female interactions in work situations utilizing the organizational concepts of division of labor and legitimacy. Traditional explanations evoking sex-role socialization are reviewed and rejected for purposes of experimentation and intervention. An alternative argument, focusing on the structural arrangements of organizational settings, is presented as an explanation for behavioral effects previously attributed to inherent sex differences. The results of a pilot study are briefly described, and directions for further experimentation and possible intervention strategies are suggested.The bibliographic search and initial conceptualization of this research was supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation under the auspices of the Center for Research on Women at Stanford University. We are grateful to Miriam Rosen for much of the bibliographic work. The pilot study was supported in part by funds from the Guggenheim Foundation and by a grant from the Spencer Foundation. We also wish to thank Richard Torres and Christie Timberlake for their invaluable assistance on this project.     

The relationship of computer self-efficacy expectations to computer interest and course enrollment in college

Gender differences in perceived self-efficacy for computer use may help account for differential computer interest and course enrollment at the college level. Three hundred sixty-eight students completed a two-page questionnaire assessing perceived computer self-efficacy, plans to take a computer science course, perceived importance of computing skills, and interest in learning about computers. Men rated themselves higher than did women for perceived self-efficacy. They were also more positive on the cognitive outcome measures, but with computer self-efficacy held constant, the magnitude of these differences was decreased, suggesting that perceived self-efficacy may be an important consideration when examining gender differences in computer interest and use.The author wishes to thank Dr. Martin Ford and Dr. Albert Bandura for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. This research was supported by a grant from the San Jose State University Foundation. Portions of this research were reported at the annual meetings of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco, April 1986.     

The information theoretic entropy function as a total expected participation index for communication network experiments

This paper shows how the concept of an incidence matrix of communications can be used to define the entropy of a finite scheme. The properties of the entropy function are examined and the function is found to be best interpreted as a total expected participation index. Data is presented showing the relationship between structural centrality and the new total expected participation index. In general, as the network becomes more centralized the smaller the value of the participation index and as the network becomes more structurally decentralized the greater the participation index.This research was supported in part by Ford Foundation Grant 1-40055 to the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie Institute of Technology for Research in Organizational Behavior.The author wishes to acknowledge the aid of Terry B. Marbach in the preparation of data.     

Social science research in the middle east: The American University in Cairo,Egypt

An examination of the history of the Social Research Center at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, reveals the kinds of changes which social research has undergone in responding to the social and political pressures of developing countries. Founded in 1952, the Center initially relied heavily on foreign researchers, made grants to individual investigators, and concentrated on subjects of academic interest. Through experience with land reclamation projects, an extensive ethnographic survey of Egyptian Nubia, and an analysis of the population problem in Egypt, the Center has come to focus on larger, interdisciplinary studies conducted by its personnel, to use local researchers to the virtual exclusion of foreigners, to select topics of immediate concern to Egypt, and to emphasize in-house reports or local seminars rather than scholarly publications. Support has come from U. S. government grants and the Ford Foundation, neither of which is entirely satisfactory. The experience of the Social Research Center may suggest a model which can be employed in other developing nations.     

Arthur F. Bentley and the foundations of behavioral science

Arthur F. Bentley's early work on the foundations of behavioral science has been neglected by students of the history and philosophy of social science. Bentley believed that the development of behavioral science required extensive reflection on and criticism of the categorial presuppositions of both everyday and scientific knowledge. This paper is concerned with Bentley's criticism of psychological explanation, his theory of observation, and the basic concepts of his behavioral science.     

Analysis of behavioral durations in observational studies of social interaction

Many social science disciplines investigate dyadic or triadic social interaction by recording the interactive behaviors as qualitative codes. This article introduces a method for analyzing and interpreting variation in the durations of coded behaviors obtained during such interactions. Using survival analysis and event history analysis as its basis, this article discusses the use of regression techniques that enable the researcher to assess how the distributions of behavioral durations depend on covariate observations. An analysis of conflicts between mothers and children illustrates the discussion, using the proportional hazards model. Behavioral and attitudinal differences among the mother-son dyad predicted variation in the durations of mothers' negative statements to their sons.     

Counseling and Human Resource Development: Response to “Career Development in Business and Industry”

The author responds to an article by Dorn (1986) on career development in business and industry. Clarification regarding definition, job titles, job roles, and points of entry for behavioral science professionals is provided. Emphasis is placed on human resource development rather than the more generic use of counseling or career development in business and industry.     

Recapturing a Context for Psychology: The Role of History

ABSTRACT— With the ever-increasing fragmentation of psychology into narrower subspecialties, the field devolves further and further into a focus on specialized knowledge, answering smaller questions and avoiding the larger and more meaningful ones. It is argued that specialized knowledge acquires its meaning only from an understanding of its place in a broader intellectual context. Psychology appears to have lost that context and perhaps the opportunity for a more significant role in modern science. An understanding of the history of psychological science offers a way to recapture that context and to prepare future psychologists to address the truly significant behavioral problems that face our world.     

Will psychoanalysis fulfill its promise?

Although Freud had aspirations of a university structure for psychoanalytic education the sociopolitical structure of the Austro-Hungarian empire precluded this, and psychoanalysis developed by default in the central European heartland within a part-time, private-practice educational structure. With its rapid spread in the post-World-War-II United States, and its ready penetration of American academic psychiatry, a counter educational structure arose in some quarters: the department-of-psychiatry-affiliated institute within the medical school. This article outlines beyond these other, more ambitious, academic vistas (the David Shakow model, the Anna Freud model, the Menninger Foundation, Emory University (USA), AP de BA (Argentina)); conceptions even closer to the ideal (idealized) goal of full-time placement within the university, with strong links to medicine, to the behavioral sciences and to the humanities. The putative advantages of such a structure are presented.     

Behavioral science in medical education: a 1987-1991 bibliography.

Holmes, et al. in 1988 compiled 61 studies in an updated bibliography of behavioral science in undergraduate and graduate medical education. Since then, 64 additional studies of behavioral science in medical education have been published and abstracted in Index Medicus and Psychological Abstracts, the sources for the bibliography.     

Creating an Interdisciplinary Business Ethics Program

Driven by recent accreditation mandates, a changing legal environment, and multiple high-visibility corporate ethics scandals, many business schools are responding to the growing movement within higher education to integrate ethics into the curricula. The literature suggests that the amount of attention given to ethics varies widely among institutions, and has not been coherently developed. Moreover, institutions have struggled to tie related projects and instruction to the overall concept of assurance of student learning. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for institutions interested in creating an interdisciplinary business ethics program that combines critical success factors, assurance of student learning and continuous quality improvement. Using a nationally recognized business school’s ethics program, we provide an example of how our model can be applied at other institutions based on their own unique vision, mission and goals.     

Bringing radical behaviorism to revolutionary Brazil and back: Fred Keller's Personalized System of Instruction and Cold War engineering education

This article traces the shifting epistemic commitments of Fred S. Keller and his behaviorist colleagues during their application of Skinnerian radical behaviorism to higher education pedagogy. Building on prior work by Alexandra Rutherford and her focus on the successive adaptation of Skinnerian behaviorism during its successive applications, this study utilizes sociologist of science Karin Knorr Cetina's concept of epistemic cultures to more precisely trace the changes in the epistemic commitments of a group of radical behaviorists as they shifted their focus to applied behavioral analysis. The story revolves around a self‐paced system of instruction known as the Personalized System of Instruction, or PSI, which utilized behaviorist principles to accelerate learning within the classroom. Unlike Skinner's entry into education, and his focus on educational technologies, Keller developed a mastery‐based approach to instruction that utilized generalized reinforcers to cultivate higher‐order learning behaviors. As it happens, the story also unfolds across a rather fantastic political terrain: PSI originated in the context of Brazilian revolutionary history, but circulated widely in the U.S. amidst Cold War concerns about an engineering manpower(sic) crisis. This study also presents us with an opportunity to test Knorr Cetina's conjecture about the possible use of a focus on epistemic cultures in addressing a classic problem in the sociology of science, namely unpacking the relationship between knowledge and its social context. Ultimately, however, this study complements another historical case study in applied behavioral analysis, where a difference in outcome helps to lay out the range of possible shifts in the epistemic commitments of radical behaviorists who entered different domains of application. The case study also has some practical implications for those creating distance learning environments today, which are briefly explored in the conclusion.     

History,philosophy and science teaching what can be done in an undergraduate course?

This paper describes an attempt to introduce philosophy and history of science to pre-service science teachers. I argue briefly for the view that science in the schools cannot be taught without implicitly assuming a particular philosophy of science. Therefore, both philosophy and history of science are necessary components of undergraduate science education courses.     

Responsibility,Complexity Science and Education: Dilemmas and Uncertain Responses

While complexity science is gaining interest among educational theorists, its constructs do not speak to educational responsibility or related core issues in education of power and ethics. Yet certain themes of complexity, as taken up in educational theory, can help unsettle the more controlling and problematic discourses of educational responsibility such as the potential to limit learning and subjectivity or to prescribe social justice. The purpose of this article is to critically examine complexity science against notions of responsibility in terms of implications for education. First, themes of complexity science prominent in contemporary educational writing are explained. Then dilemmas of responsibility in complexity are explored, such as what forms and meanings responsibility can have in a ‘complexified’ perspective of education, how care for others is mobilised, and how desire can be understood. Analyses of ethical action grounded in complexity science are then examined, as well as theories of the ethical subject and participatory responsibility that are congruent with certain tenets of a complexity ontology. Finally, the possibility of an educational vision of responsibility animated by complexity theories is considered, drawing from related writings of Bai, Biesta, Derrida, Levinas and Varela.     

Engaged,Embedded, Enjoined: Science and Technology Studies in the National Science Foundation

Engaged scholarship is an intellectual movement sweeping across higher education, not only in the social and behavioral sciences but also in fields of natural science and engineering. It is predicated on the idea that major advances in knowledge will transpire when scholars, while pursuing their research interests, also consider addressing the core problems confronting society. For a workable engaged agenda in science and technology studies, one that informs scholarship as well as shapes practice and policy, the traditional terms of engagement must be renegotiated to be more open and mutual than has historically characterized the nature of inquiry in this field. At the same time, it is essential to protect individual privacy and preserve government confidentiality. Yet there is a scientific possibility for and benefit to introducing more collaborative and deliberative research approaches between scholar and subject in ways that will not violate these first-order ethics. To make the case, this article discusses the possibilities and perils of engaged science and technology scholarship by drawing on our own recent experiences to conduct and apply STS research while embedded in the National Science Foundation. Brief accounts of these experiences reveal the opportunities as well as the challenges of engaged scholarship. They also provide lessons for those fellow travelers who might follow the authors to this or other like host organizations with ambitions of increasing fundamental knowledge about and applying research to the policies, programs, and decisions of the scientific enterprise.     

The evolving vocabulary of the social sciences: the case of "socialization"

While the term "socialization" stands as a common and clearly understood term regularly used in social science and lay conversations alike, its history is complex. In the 19th century, socialization was introduced to refer to societal activities or projects, and only in the early 20th century did it gain usage as a term describing psychological processes transpiring within the individual. The architecture of the newer meaning harbored ambitions and problems of modern social science, including ideals of interdisciplinary theory and theoretic resolution of the individual/society dualism. Nevertheless, socialization became a central object of social scientific inquiry after World War II. This significant social scientific object was repeatedly altered: initially representing a vision of conforming citizens who were free from certain troubling characteristics depicted in psychoanalysis and well-suited to democracy, it later was engaged to create a vision of autonomous, resilient, and cognitively active actors able to negotiate a complex social world.