Finding Oneself Among the Saints: Thomas F. O'Dea,Mormon Intellectuals,and the Future of Mormon Orthodoxy

Thomas F. O'Dea's classic The Mormons identified “Mormonism's encounter with modern secular thought” as perhaps the church's greatest problem. In line with secularization theory, O'Dea predicted an attenuation of traditional Mormonism, and an adaptation and gradual liberalization of Mormon theology as the literal interpretation of Mormon origins “dissolved” in the solvent of modernity. O'Dea's views on the crisis facing Mormonism were based, in part, on ethnographic field work in Salt Lake City in the summer of 1950, as interpreted by a modernist Catholic sociologist. A review of his field notes suggests that key informants who “hosted” much of O'Dea's research activity were liberal Mormon academics who defined the church's traditional theology as a problem. This viewpoint agreed with O'Dea's preconceptions about the “education and apostasy” dilemma. A comparison of O'Dea's published “reading” of his field notes with the notes themselves suggests the plausibility of alternative readings. One such alternative is offered here, an interpretation of the interplay of education, Mormon theology, and Mormon intellectualism drawn from O'Dea's field notes, but with a different emphasis from that of his essay. Finally, reverting to a modernist perspective, I offer some hints from survey research suggesting that the predicted liberalization of Mormon theology has yet to occur.     

Blackburn's Problem: On Its Not Insignificant Residue

Moral properties would supervene upon non‐moral properties and be conceptually autonomous. That, according to Simon Blackburn, would make them if not impossible at least mysterious, and evidence for them best explained by theorists who say they are not real. In fact moral properties would not challenge in ways Blackburn has contended. There is, however, something new that can be gathered from his arguments. What would the supervenience of moral properties and their conceptual autonomy from at least total non‐moral properties entail not only for Intuitionists, who ‘knew this all along,’ but for all moral realists, that there are synthetic necessary moral principles? There is for all moral realists the problem of explaining ‘what in the world’makes possible these necessities.     

Assessing the Development of Relationships: A New Measure

This paper describes the development and application of a procedure (The Relationship World Index) to measure the development of intimate relationships. Grounded in symbolic interaction theory, the Relationship World Index is a measure of agreement on important aspects of relationships between members of intimate dyads. The development of the measure was guided by assumptions inherent in symbolic interactionism that predict the emergence of a shared construction of reality that bonds relationship members. Research results are presented providing evidence for the reliability and validity of the measure.     

REINFORCEMENT OF DISTRESS VOCALIZATION BY PRESENTATION OF AN IMPRINTED STIMULUS

For one group of ducklings distress calls were reinforced using brief presentation of an imprinted stimulus as the response contingent (reinforcing) event. For a second group of ducklings presentation of an imprinted stimulus was contingent upon a more traditional operant (the pecking response). Regardless of which response was being reinforced, the same pattern ensued. Bursts of responding were separated by periods of little or no responding. When subsequently subjected to repeated presentation and withdrawal of the imprinted stimulus under conditions in which neither response was being reinforced, ducklings with a history of reinforcement for distress calls emitted many more calls than ducklings with a history of reinforcement for pole pecks.     

Some Sociopsychological Characteristics of Student Political Activists

A variety of hypotheses regarding the motives, values, attitudes, intelligence, and sociological backgrounds of leftist student activists were tested by comparing Yale undergraduate signers of a pledge to resist induction into the Armed Services, with a representative sample of nonsigners. Contrary to previous findings, the signers neither were better students nor more sociologically privileged than their nonsigning peers. The decision to sign the pledge appeared to be a single manifestation of an anti-institutional, yet nonfatalistic and nonauthoritarian life style which is highlighted by a marked concern with developing helpful, protective, intimate relationships and a devaluation of achievement, deference to authority, and self-restraint. The implications of these and other findings for the student protest movement are discussed.     

On the Problems of Eclecticism: A Call for Epistemologic Clarification and Human-Scale Theories

This paper addresses several contemporary theoretical issues in the family therapy field: clinicians' and students' selection of a theoretical orientation in light of the political struggles of competing schools of thought; problems of eclecticism for the practicing family therapist; the role of theory in clinical practice; and size and scope issues in theory-building. Finally, the paper suggests a periodic activity, termed an Epistemologic Declaration, designed to help therapists clarify and refine their basic therapeutic beliefs.