Identity and Interpersonal Competence: A New Direction in Family Research. by Nelson N.Foote; Leonard S. Cottrell,Review by: Gerald R. LeslieSocial Forces, Vol. 34, No. 4 (May, 1956), pp. 389-390Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2573691 .

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LIBRARY AND WORKSHOP 389

and favorable attitudes toward change were created continuously in these bureaucratic groups, and (2) the "maximally rational" official will seek to establish in- formal relations and unofficial practices that will elimi- nate operational difficulties as they occur. In the latter connection Blau underlines the importance of socio- emotional security as a precondition of flexibility and a check to overconformity and ritualism. His analysis of competitive and cooperative structures as factors in group productivity is reminiscent of some experi- mental work, especially that of Morton Deutsch and his concept of "promotive interdependence."

Students of administrative behavior will find this book an excellent "close-up" study of various personnel, statistical control, and supervisory practices as these affect the attitudes, emotions, and motives of "the operatives" in white collar establishments, and group cohesion and task performance. Blau's account of the office party, songs, gifts, ridicule, and complaints, as mechanisms of tension reduction and group cohesion point to some highly important but previously neglected aspects of administrative behavior. Teachers and stu- dents of scientific method will also find here a highly lucid, skilled, and sophisticated application of function- alism wherein the functionality and dysfunctionality of patterns are distinguished in terms of their significance as evaluated by group members themselves, and also in relation to the stipulated organizational goals. The reader may wish for more rigorous comparison and approximate experimentation in the treatment of the two cases. However, anyone who has tried this with "live organizations" outside the laboratory, will recog- nize that Blau has probably exploited his actual oppor- tunities to the fullest.

N. J. DEMERATH University of North Carolina

IDENTITY AND INTERPERSONAL COMPETENCE: A NEW

DIRECTION IN FAMILY RESEARCH. By Nelson N. Foote and Leonard S. Cottrell, Jr. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1955. 305 pp. $5.00.

Due to its normative character, the concept of "ad- justment" is falling into disrepute among behavior scientists. The whole direction of family research which revolves around the prediction of marital adjustment or success is seriously threatened by this trend. With the publication of the book under review, the Family Study Center at the University of Chicago makes its bid to provide the organizing concepts around which a new research orientation may be developed.

"Interpersonal competence" is the key concept. A more dynamic concept than older notions of compati- bility, adjustment, or maturity, interpersonal com- petence denotes the continual development of capacities to formulate ends and means in dealing with a changing world. It attempts to deal with the value problem by making the achievement of competent personalities via a democratic planning process an explicit value accord- ing to which all other values are judged. Competence is separated into its component parts which are: health, intelligence, empathy, autonomy, judgment, and cre- ativity. It appears to the present reviewer that these six components are not of the same order; particularly

that health and intelligence do not offer the same possi- bilities of continual improvement as are afforded by the other four components. However, it is not difficult to see the importance of health and intelligence to inter- personal competence, and the authors acknowledge that their list "proceeds from the most given to the least given features of any interpersonal performance." (p. 59) Their research efforts to date appear to have been concentrated upon empathy and autonomy through the use of role playing and discussion tech- niques. The components judgment and creativity ap- parently have not yet been adequately defined oper- ationally, but Foote and Cottrell make no claim to having done so and seek to enlist the aid of others in an ongoing research program which even to approach completion would require the efforts of many persons over a period of many years.

The opening chapter of Identity and Interpersonal Competence introduces the reader to the possibility of alerting experimentally individuals and groups to in- creased self-awareness and to increasing their capacities for effective interaction through the reflexive effects of other people's evaluations of them. This would be achieved through families and through quasi-family groups.

Since families as intimate groupings resist investi- gation, the authors conclude that the way for research to be maximally productive is for it to be productive of generalizations that respondents themselves can use to increase their own competence. They deny the feasi- bility of a social science modeled along the lines of natural science and insist that the most valid generali- zations of social science are apt to be procedural rather than substantive ones. To achieve even these requires that the respondents become actively involved in the research process and vitally interested in its out- comes. Thus research would not be "basic" or "applied" but directed toward the one goal of increasing inter- personal competence. Such research should be carried out by all family-serving agencies so that a complete marriage of social research and social action would result.

Following analysis of the concept of interpersonal competence in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 presents a lengthy series of hypotheses relating to the various components of competence; all of these hypotheses are intended to be experimentally reproducible by family-serving agencies. The hypotheses are rough but each involves the accomplishment of changes in behavior over time. Most of the analysis here relates to the components of empathy and autonomy, stressing that health and intelligence are indeed of a different order and that judgment and creativity have not yet been adequately analyzed.

Chapter 4 presents a discussion of family-serving agencies under the headings (1) medical agencies, (2) economic agencies, (3) protective agencies, (4) counsel- ing agencies, (5) educational agencies, and (6) recre- ational agencies. The development of these agencies is schematized into three stages: charity, therapy, and planning, with the planning stage just beginning to emerge. According to the conception of family-serving agency used, almost all public and private agencies, whatever their stated purposes, would be included. This points up an important feature of the total analysis. It is

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390 SOCIAL FORCES

family research so broadly conceived as to be almost indistinguishable from all of social research. Just what kinds of and how much social research the authors envisage continuing outside the framework they propose is not clear from the book.

Chapter 5 presents a lengthy account of the demo- cratic planning process Foote and Cottrell advocate as a model for all agency practice. Agency personnel may find this discussion rewarding but social scientists will find it both familiar and tedious. The final chapter con- tains an account of "participant experimentation" with quasi-families generally within an agency framework. The discussion lacks specificity and adds little to the earlier analyses. A fairly comprehensive bibliography of family research published during the period 1945-1954 is included in an appendix.

What role this book will play in guiding the course of family research cannot, of course, be known at this time. Foote and Cottrell have made a bold and imagina- tive effort and have had the courage to publish at a time when they are bound to be criticized for the tenta- tive nature of many of their formulations. The notion of interpersonal competence is an intriguing one and is consistent with the democratic ethos of American society.

That which is most disturbing about the book is the tremendous gap between the tentative theoretical formulations and the virtual reconstruction of social research and of the entire society that Foote and Cottrell seem to regard as an essential part of the pro- gram for development of interpersonal competence. The argument about the nature of social science is an old one that will not be solved here, but its statement in this form does not seem to this writer to be essential to the authors' thesis and only weakens their case. They would seem to reduce social research to the role of action research alone and to ignore all problems that cannot be fitted into that framework.

There is reason to believe also that there is a good deal of wishful thinking in the plea that Foote and Cottrell make for the value of interpersonal competence through democratic planning to be actively espoused by society at large. Such an extension of primary group relations into the bureaucratic structures of a secondary group society hardly seems likely.

GERALD R. LESLIE

Purdue University

.SEXUAL BEHAVIOR IN AMERICAN SOCIETY: AN AP- PRAISAL OF THE FIRST Two KINSEY REPORTS. Edited by Jerome Himelhoch and Sylvia Fleis Fava. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1955. 446 pp. $4.00.

Jerome Himelhoch and Sylvia Fleis Fava, under the auspices of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, present this symposium of 38 articles appraising the first two reports of Kinsey and his associates for the inspection of social scientists, professionals who may be concerned with marital and sexual problems, and the lay public who may wish to know more about Kinsey's studies and sexual patterns in American society. With this audience in mind, the editors selected articles written by representatives of such fields as sociology,

psychology, anthropology, statistics and public opinion, and the professions of the ministry, law, psychiatry, and marriage counselling. The book is divided into three parts: Theories and Methods in the Study of Human Sexuality, Sexual Patterns and Social Institutions, and The Impact of the Kinsey Reports Upon Social Atti- tudes and Behavior.

Kinsey's work is discussed from essentially two points of view, the methodology of the study and the inter- pretation of the findings. The importance of differ- entiating between these two aspects of the studies is not always made clear by all of Kinsey's critics, which at times, results in what seems to be confused logic.

The methodology of the study is appraised in terms of sampling techniques, methods of interviewing, analysis of data, and the content chosen for study. There are wide variations in the criticism of the first two of these, but it is generally agreed that the difficulties involved in studying the sexual habits of the population of our culture were not easy to overcome. The analysis of data, after study of Kinsey's files, reveals more care- ful work than his books indicate, although errors were made. The last criterion presents at least two related problems; the appropriateness or the limitations of the use of orgasm as a measure of sexual behavior, and the indications that Kinsey's focus was more that of a biologist than of the social or psychological scientist.

This brings us to the discussions of the interpretation of the findings. Many of the discussants feel that a large number of Kinsey's statements are not based on any specified evidence, but are nevertheless presented as well-established conclusions. Findings based on data presented are made much too boldly and confidently. Each of the authors discusses the pertinence of the Kinsey material for their specialization. The differences in conceptual understanding of the material are some- times so wide between disciplines that we occasionally wondered how much agreement they would find among themselves.

The importance of the Kinsey reports for science, the professions, and the lay public is admitted by all. The long bibliography at the end of this book, and the at- tention that Kinsey and his reports received in the press (some of the press releases are reprinted in this sym- posium) are just two indications of this. The signifi- cance of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Huwnan Female will probably not be fully known until time will permit a great deal more research to take place.

Himelhoch reveals that Kinsey has far more accumu- lated data than were presented in the first two studies and which he has yet to report. Sexual Behavior in American Society will make interesting preparation for future Kinsey publications and the follow-up studies performed by the social scientists.

PAUL H. GLASSER University of North Carolina

MIDWEST AND ITS CHILDREN. By Roger G. Barker and Herbert F. Wright. Evanston, Illinois: Row, Peterson and Company, 1955. 532 pp. $7.50. Illustrated.

Emerson once said, "Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day." Substituting "doing" for "think-

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