Contributions of Sociological Analysis to the Understanding of Personality

Abstract

professional training is important and what it gives the worker that cannot be acquired through experience. We have pointed one way, namely, the sympathetic interest and understanding and the intelligent application which he brings to the solution of his problems from his study of groups and group relationships. At no time has the importance of this background been emphasized as it is in our present nation-wide effort to relieve suffering and perhaps rehabilitate through the administration of emergency relief. Today, when among the applicants and recipients of relief there are those belonging to social and economic groups that have always been, until recently, self-sustaining, there is an added incentive and need for a broader and deeper study of groups. Or take the farmer to whom heretofore organized relief was practically unknown. And what about the adequacy of relief? Are we going to try to level everyone down to a common minimum of subsistence or, what is equally unintelligent, bring everyone to what we may consider an adequate standard of living regardless of the standard he was able to maintain prior to i92.9? And now again comes the question of made which we thought had been permanently disposed of some time ago, with the present situation shedding new light upon it. Or what about applying relief or fixing wage differentials on the basis of geographical location rather than on the basis of needs? It might be said that these are individual, not group problems, but must not these individual differences be met and regulated on the basis of group normssome already established and others growing out of this crisis? Has there ever been a more timely or urgent circumstance to impress upon students and the public the value of close study of groups in preparation for social work? Has there ever been a more propitious opportunity to observe closely, collect, record, assemble, classify, compare, and interpret additional data concerning groups to fortify substantially the equipment of the pre-social work student? It has been asked many times, Is nothing socially constructive coming out of this administration of federal funds on a nation-wide scale? Here is a challenge to the public as well as to the social worker, the administrator of relief, and the student of social work, and at least one possible affirmative answer.