Personal and community sustainability

Many community members reduce their community involvements as they more through midlife. This may be true for community psychologists as well. Yet research evidence suggests that-intellectually, at least-we can function at or near peak levels through our 80s and 90s. How then might we best sustain ourselves and our work through our entire lives? Answers may lie in full exercise of all capacities, in strong support networks, and in actions that meet one's deeper needs, “the needs of the soul”. These same principles may sustain community life as well, for some key principles of personal and community sustainability may be similar. Applications of these ideas to communities and to community psychology are discussed.     

Family therapy research: What are the most important variables?

This report summarizes the results of a nearly day-long session of a group of experienced and distinguished family therapy practitioners and researchers. The task the group set for itself was to begin delineating the most important variables to attend to in understanding family therapy and evaluating its effectiveness. With full recognition that such a task could be only partially and tentatively accomplished in the time allotted, a great many such variables were outlined.     

Decreased helpfulness with increased group size through lessening the effects of the needy individual's dependency1

The present experiment attempted to integrate the research on helpfulness in which subjects work for someone else in an artificial laboratory setting (Berkowitz & Daniels, 1963; Berkowitz, 1972) with the bystander-intervention-in-emergencies studies often carried out under more realistic conditions (e.g., Latané & Darley, 1970; Schwartz & Clausen, 1970; Clark & Word, 1972). Fifty-six university women in a 2 × 2 factorial design were led to think they were working for a same-sex peer who could win a cash prize, although there was “nothing in it for them.” Half were told that the other's chance of getting the prize was greatly dependent upon their effort while the remaining participants were informed that the other did not need their-work very much. Moreover, half of the subjects thought they were the only ones working for the other whereas the remaining people believed there were two other co-workers and that the output from all three would be averaged. It was expected that the participants would feel the greatest personal responsibility to help the other and would work hardest for her when she was greatly dependent upon their productivity and they were the only worker, while the subjects would feel the lowest level of personal responsibility for their peer and would be least helpful to her when she was not particularly dependent upon them and there were two other co-workers. The findings are generally in accord with these expectations.     

In defence of a ratio model for movement detection at threshold

Sutherland (1961) proposed that the detection of motion might depend upon the ratios of firings in cells sensitive to movement in opposite directions. Sekuler and his collaborators have argued that the notion of a ratio mechanism at threshold is wrong. The findings and arguments upon which this conclusion was based are challenged, an explicit model is described which provides an account of data previously held to be inconsistent with a ratio model, and an experiment is reported which provides unequivocal support for the ratio model and whose findings are inconsistent with the predictions from Sekuler's “independence” model.     

Studies in social influence: V. Minority influence and conversion behavior in a perceptual task

The effects of influence attempts by a majority and by a minority were examined on both a manifest response level and a latent perceptual level. Female subjects were exposed to a series of blue slides that were consistently labeled as green by a female confederate. The confederate was presented as a member of either a majority or a minority. On each trial, subjects were required to indicate the color of the slide presented and the color of the afterimage perceived on a white screen following removal of the slide. It was predicted that (a) the subject's judgment of the chromatic afterimage would be modified when the influence agent represented a minority, and (b) this modification will be more pronounced when the source of influence is absent than when it is present. The results supported the prediction in both the main study and its replication.     

Some determinants of task preference and the desire for information about the self

This research examined the influence of task difficulty and diagnosticity (ability information) on task choice and preference. It was found that males preferred diagnostic over non-diagnostic tasks, but among females significant preferences along this variable were not exhibited. Furthermore, the desire to obtain ability-relevant information decreased as a function of prior knowledge about one's ability. Both high and low ability self-perceptions, induced through prior experiences of success and failure, decreased the attraction toward diagnostic in formation. There was no indication that individuals with high ability self-concepts are especially avoidant of further ability-relevant information, as recent literature has suggested. In addition, and contrary to prior findings, difficult tasks were most preferred rather than easy or intermediate tasks, given that diagnosticity is held constant.     

Field-dependence,extraversion, Eysenck and autarky

The research literature was examined with regard to relationships between Field-dependence and Extraversion. Eysenck's contention that the two variables are significantly related to an extent justifying the use of causal hypotheses based on extraversion theory to account for field-dependent behavior was not supported.