A Study of Social Adjustment Using the Technique of Analysis by Selective Control

Abstract

known in the United States as human ecology has been closely associated with the development of sociology, particularly as the latter subject has advanced in the last quarter of a century from one of broad philosophical generalizations to one more largely characterized by the empirical approach and more refined research techniques. Perhaps it has been unfortunate for human ecology that it has been thus intimately identified with sociology during a most critical period in the latter's history. If sociology as a discipline had not been suffering from a plurality of diverse theories, a confusion of concepts, a multiplicity of techniques, and variant trends, but had, on the contrary, presented a more harmonious and unified approach and the unity of an integrated theoretical scheme, human ecology, as one of the youngest of the sociological systems, might have fared better. Perhaps it is too much to expect of human ecology that it achieve order and system within itself as long as its parental discipline remains in a state of relative chaos. If it were to develop into a logical and coherent theoretical system in its own right, it would of necessity-by reason of its limited scope and the selected nature of its data-have to be integrated into a larger and more inclusive theoretical framework or find its place as a borderline field among the social sciences. Since sociology, in its present disjointed and immature state, does not seem to be very rapidly approaching the stature of a clearly defined and definitely refined special social science, occupying a certain and secure position in the scientific world, and since the kind of social ecology projected in this paper will, if realized, constitute a rather specialized subsystem of a larger and more inclusive system of social theory, it is anticipated that social ecology will naturally take its place in the hierarchy of sciences as a borderline discipline somewhat akin to social psychology and social economics in the essentially social field and to physical chemistry and bio-chemistry in the fields of the physical and biological sciences.