Common Sense Judgment Research Articles

The Syntax of Action

(The Editors are pleased to have the opportunity of publishing this paper, which deals in general terms with the analysis of social interaction and its relation to the analysis of language, because they believe it has very significant implications for the study of classroom behaviour.) Social Psychology is a peculiar science. Its task is to describe what is already familiar, and to explain events whose genesis seems unproblematic. And yet it is not entirely pointless. Although we all know the basic facts of our everyday life, and we know that we know them, we are often at a loss when we try to relate them to a general structure. At the moment, for example, I know where I am and what I am doing. I even think I know why I am doing what I am doing, but when I consider the general question of how my activities are selected from moment to moment I can only think of vague generalisations. These generalisations are very often incorrect in that counter-examples exist, and they are certainly inadequate in that no amount of generalised introspection on my part will produce a set of principles capable of simulating my selection of activities from moment to moment. It is as if some systematic process were at work which can determine which courses of action are appropriate given a set of circumstances, but which cannot make its own procedures available for scrutiny. In short we can think of the orderliness of behaviour as the familiar product of an inaccessible process. In that case the central task of social psychology would be to accept the molecular insight we all share about those behavioural sequences and structures which are sensible, and to try to infer the kind of generative and interpretive processes which could give rise to such structure. Note that there is no question at this stage of discovering the actual process at work, but only of devising and classifying those icons (Harre, I975) which are generatively adequate. Clearly this is not an experimental issue. The point is not to discover the actions which follow from certain manipulable circumstances, but rather to create a system of generative operations or rules which will explicitly and formally reproduce our commonsense judgements about sensible combinations of circumstances and action. In that respect the problem is more akin to those of mathematics or generative linguistics than to those of the experimental natural sciences. We know as native social actors that a particular set of actions would be reasonable (or profitable or socially acceptable) in certain circumstances, just as a native speaker knows that certain strings of morphemes are well-formed (or semantically coherent) sentences. Similarly the native social actor and the native speaker share an ignorance of the general patterns to which their specific judgements conform. It is precisely this paradoxical derivation of specific judgement from tacit knowledge that generative linguistics seeks to explore. The counterpart in social psychology would be an attempt to produce a generative grammar of social action which would simulate a given

Giftedness, the Greeks and Common Sense Judgment

Giftedness, the Greeks and Common Sense Judgment

Studies on the epidemiology of neuropsychiatric disorders among the rural population of the province of Khuzestan, Iran

The authors undertook a census study of five small rural villages from the Dez Pilot Irrigation Area of the Province of Khuzestan in south-western Iran which had been hardly touched yet by the on-going development program. From the total population of 614 souls all children below the age of six years were eliminated, these being 129 in number, leaving 485 persons. Three could not be examined because of absence or illness, leaving 482 or 99.4% of the intended survey population. All were given two short intelligence tests (mental arithmetic and block design), the 2 Test of H.Zulliger and a brief questionnaire by Persian lay assistants whom the authors themselves trained. The examiners were required to give a commonsense judgment of their subjects' mental health. The authors observed and supervised all testing, interrogated the subjects and informants where this seemed required and evaluated the tests concurrently. All subjects who seemed suspicious of neuropsychiatric pathology were then given an individual clinical examination. Seventy-two cases were found with apparently significant psychiatric disturbances. Among them there were one functional psychosis, no acute symptomatic psychosis, 15 subchronic and chronic symptomatic psychoses or disorders, 42 psychoreactive disorders and 14 constitutional disorders. Of the 72 psychiatrically disturbed subjects, 37 were mildly, 30 moderately and 5 severely affected. Eleven subjects presented significant neurological or mixed neuropsychiatric disorders. Comparison of the results with those of a similar survey performed in the Marvdasht District of the Province of Fars, Iran, indicates that more prolonged, intensive and individual exploration of subjects showing any suspicion of psychopathology leads to an increase in the number of milder cases identified without changing significantly the number of moderate and severe cases.

Models, Inference, and Strategy

SUMMARY The nature of mathematical thinking, of scientific thinking, and the relation between them are reviewed and it is argued that many controversial issues affecting fundamental attitudes to probability, conceptual models, inference and explanation are obscured by the inadequacies of language. It is claimed that methodological principles are only a substitute for analysis in depth, and that biometrical science would benefit by a change of emphasis from logic to strategy. It is suggested that valuable information which affects common-sense judgments tends to be ignored when formal statistical tools are employed along conventional lines. 1. The Biometric Society exists to promote and encourage mathematical and statistical thinking in biology. It seems proper, therefore, for us to reflect occasionally on the nature of mathematical thinking, the nature of scientific thinking, and the relation between the two. Indeed, there can be very few of our members who have not already given a great deal of serious thought to such matters. That these subjects have already led to so much controversy is in itself an indication of their inherent difficulty; and the intense heat, that has frequently been generated in the process, testifies to the resolute firmness with which thinking people are sometimes inclined to assert their preconceptions, and in so doing, often utterly fail to communicate effectively with one another on fundamental issues. The flood of valuable books and papers on these subjects mounts higher each year, and the field is now so immense and crammed with technical detail and strange symbolism that it is difficult to sketch a single viewpoint, even in the barest of outlines, as I hope to do today.

Anxiety and Society

The theories about the origins of humanity contain, for the most part, a strange contradiction. For one thing, we acknowledge that the human mind is basically different from animal intelligence; indeed, there are few writers who question the revolutionary nature of the change that has occurred in the psychic makeup of living beings as a consequence of the advent of conceptual thought, of conscious reflection, and of objective knowledge of the world. “Human intelligence,” writes Le Roy, “presents a completely original, distinctive feature; there is something exceptional and unique about it that is not to be found anywhere else,” while Durkheim observes: “Man is not merely an animal with a few additional attributes, but quite another thing.” “Although the Infusoria are linked to the monkey by a whole series of intermediate stages, the monkey is separated from man by a hiatus,” insists Claparède, and, finally, a writer who is not a scholar expressed the following common-sense judgment on the subject: “We would know exactly what man is if we could accurately assess that insurmountable wall that separates the most ‘intelligent’ animal from the most primitive pygmy.”

Control-System Behavior Expressed as a Deviation Ratio

Abstract In order to bridge the gap between process-control practice and modern control theory, an attempt is made to reduce this theory to its bare essentials. A simple picture is drawn of what control does and how it does it, use being made of the familiar concepts of resonance and damping. Thus a theoretical background is provided for commonsense judgments on control quality and controller settings. The picture given is applicable to both feedback and feedforward control.

Guidance in Negro Secondary Schools in the Southeastern Region

This article is designed to report some of the principal findings of a study of guidance in Negro secondary schools of the Southeastern states which was conducted during the winter of 1946 and 1947. The study arose out of a former investigation carried out in North Carolina in which guidance was shown to be one major problem area in the Negro secondary school program. The present inquiry was extended to cover the Southeastern region in order to check the validity of the original findings of the North Carolina study, and to provide broader data for generalizations. Questionnaires were sent to a total of 267 secondary schools in eleven states of the Southeastern region. Of the schools, 107 are located in North Carolina, and 160 are situated in the ten other southeastern states. Sixteen questionnaires were distributed equally to urban and rural schools in each of the states other than North Carolina. However, in North Carolina questionnaires were sent to all secondary schools with five or more teachers on their faculties. Eighty-six, or 32.2 per cent, of the 267 schools returned the questionnaires. Of the 107 North Carolina schools, 37, or 34.5 per cent responded; and, of the 160 out-of-state schools 49, or' 29.1 per cent returned the questionnaires. Georgia is the only state from which no reply was received. To test reliability of data, each questionnaire, upon receipt, was carefully checked for inconsistencies and incompatibilities of replies. Where replies to related questions appeared inconsistent or incompatible, the statements were ommitted as being discernably untrustworthy. As a further test of reliability, the data were checked against both common-sense judgments of experienced school administrators, and widely accepted generalizations in the field. Analysis of the data involved three related steps. First, a summary statement of guidance standards was presented, and second, an analysis and interpretation of opinions and evaluations of current guidance practices. These data are compared with the summary statement of standards. Third, data on programs and problems in the 86 schools were analyzed and compared on the one hand, with opinions and evaluations and, on the other hand, with standards in the field. Because of space limitations, the summary statement of guidance standards is omitted in the present report. However, this material is available in the voluminous guidance literature. Of the 86 schools, 37, or 43.2 per cent are located in North Carolina; and 49, or 56.8 per cent are situated in the nine other states. Of the schools

The Measurement of Socioeconomic Status

HIS PAPER presents the results of an experiment to answer two questions: I. What is the degree of agreement in commonsense judgments of socioeconomic status of the population of a community by two persons who are themselves of radically different socioeconomic status, that is, how are informal ratings of socioeconomic status influenced by the socioeconomic status of the rater?; 2. What is the degree of correspondence of both of these judgments with the results secured for the same population by means of the Chapin Social Status Scale, I933.1 In addition to the answers to these questions, the results are evaluated from two points of view: I. is the conformity of the results of a standardized scale to commonsense judgments an important test of the validity or usefulness of the scale?; 2. is it necessary or possible to describe what a scale measures except in terms of the scale itself? A New England village of about 300 families was the field of the experiment. Two hundred nineteen homes were scored by means of the Chapin scale. A local banker of this community, a resident for forty years, and a local janitor, a resident for forty-five years, were asked to rate the same population on a six-point scale, with the following instructions.

Problem Solving in Arithmetic

It is not uncommon for supervisors to suggest to their teachers that the failure of a pupil in solving reasoning problems in arithmetic are due, in large measure, to deficiencies in reading abilities. There is no lack of logic in the belief that a pupil who is unable to understand the situation described in a problem will find himself unable to solve it. Ability to read a printed problem correctly is undoubtedly essential to its correct solution. But does it necessarily follow that high abilities in solving reasoning problems in arithmetic are accompanied more fre quently by high reading abilities than by high abilities in the fundamental operations in arithmetic? What are the relationships of the ability to solve reasoning problems? This study was undertaken for the purpose of obtaining further statistical evidence that might be used to supple ment the common sense judgments on which instruction in this field has commonly been based. The correlation method was employed in this study, using as data the scores obtained by standard tests of pupils in grades three to seven, in clusive. The four variables among which intercorrelations were calcu lated follow :

On the determination of the parameters in an empirical formula

The writer reviews the method of least squares and gives reasons for recalling some cautions regarding its use that were mentioned by Stewart and Uhler several years ago. Examples are worked out to illustrate the discussion. The method recently mentioned by Awbery is compared with those of least squares and zero sum, from the practical point of view. Judging from the few examples given, the method of zero sum appears to be the quickest and its results to be well in accord with common-sense judgment. The amount of computation involved in the application of the various methods must be viewed in the light of the short cuts and elaborate calculating machines now available, since these may lighten the labour for one method more than for another. Attention is called to the fact that the method recently expounded by Awbery is the one given by Cauchy in 1847.

Food In Health and Disease.

This book is a well-balanced and sensible discussion of the value of food in health and disease. While not unduly brief, it is as concise as is compatible with thoroughness, It is divided into two main parts; in Part I, general principles of diet and diet in health (thirteen chapters) are considered, and in Part II, diet in disease (twelve chapters). The views expressed are sound and based on the most modern conceptions of chemistry and physiology. In Part I, for instance, the author's familiarity with the most recent scientific investigations is shown by his use of the thorough and revolutionary work of Mattill and Hawk on water-drinking and metabolism, and by his discussion of beef extracts and bouillons, the real value of which, as he points out, may be lost by improper manufacture. His sound, common-sense judgment is shown in his treatment of such subjects as mineral waters, alcohol