RECENT LITERATURE NOTES AND ABSTRACTS The abstracts and the bibliography in this issue were prepared under the general direction of D. E. Proctor, by Mrs. E. R. Rich, P. T. Diefenderfer, P. E. Martin, and P. P. Boyer, of the Department of Sociology of the University of Chicago. Each abstract is numbered at the end according to the following classification. A TENTATIVE SCHEME FOR THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE LITERATURE OF SOCIOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES I. PERSONALITY: THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE PERSON 1. Biography 2. Original Nature: Instinct, Temperament, Racial Traits 3. Child Study 4. Social Psychology, Social Attitudes, and the Genesis of the Person II. THE FAMILY 1. The Natural History of the Family and the Psychology of Sex 2. The Historic Family and Family as an Institution 3. The Modern Family and Its Problems III. PEOPLES AND CULTURAL GROUPS 1. Social Origins and Primitive Society 2. Folklore, Myth, and Language 3. Histories of Cultural Groups (Kulturgeschichte) 4. Immigrants, Immigration, and Distribution of Population 5. Colonial Problems and Missions 6. Comparative Studies of Cultural Traits; Religion, Mores, Customs, and Traditions IV. CONFLICT AND ACCOMMODATION GROUPS 1. Classes and the Class Struggle; Labor and Capital 2. Nationalities and Races 3. Political Parties and Political Doctrines 4. Religious Denominations and Sects V. COMMUNITIES AND TERRITORIAL GROUPS 1. The Rural Community and Its Problems 3. Social and Communal Organization VI. SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS 1. Home and Housing 2. The Church and the Local Community 3. The School and the Social Center 4. Play, the Playhouse, and Playgrounds 5. Courts and Legislation 6. Social Agencies 7. Other Institutions VII. SOCIAL SCIENCE AND THE SOCIAL PROCESS 1. The Economic Process: Economic and Industrial Organization 2. The Cultural Process: Education and Religion 3. The Political Process: Politics and the Formation of Public Opinion 4. Collective Behavior. Social Change and Social Progress; Fashion, Reform, and Revolution VIII. SOCIAL PATHOLOGY: PERSONAL AND SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION 1. Poverty, Crime, and Deficiency 2. Eugenics, Dygenics, and Problems of Population 3. Problems of Public Health and Social Hygiene 5. Vice: Alcoholism, Prostitution, Gambling IX. METHODS OF INVESTIGATION 1. Statistics, Graphic Representation 2. Mental and Social Measurements 3. Social Surveys: Community Organization, Community Education, Health, Government, Mental Hygiene, etc. 4. Case Studies and Social Diagnosis 5. Life-Histories and Psychoanalysis X. GENERAL SOCIOLOGY AND METHODOLOGY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 1. History of Sociology 2. Logic of the Social Sciences 3. Social Philosophy and Social Science 4. Social Ethics and Social Politics 5. Sociology in Its Relation to Other Sciences 6. Methods of Teaching Sociology I. PERSONALITY: THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE PERSON On the Specificity of Emotional Reactions.-The current assumption that an individual's emotivity is a general tendency to react in an emotional way to all affective stimuli is open to question, just as is the concept of "general intelligence." The results of experiments with the psychogalvanic reflex indicate differential emotive responses to stimuli that arouse different affective states. These results coincide with the facts of common observation.-David Wechsler, American Journal of Psychology, XXXVI (July, 1925), 424–26. (I, 2.) E. R. R. A Review of Racial Psychology.—The experimental and statistical attack of the problem of racial differences is the method by which racial psychology has gone rapidly forward. On the other hand, theoretical studies, the popular presentations of the problem, have valiantly assisted in the development. A survey of the literature of the latter type, which is more or less theoretical-that is to say, this literature is not always based upon experimentation-brings to light the tendency of relying more and more upon the results of "mental anthropology."-T. R. Garth, Psychological Bulletin, XXII (June, 1925), 343–64. (I, 2.) E. R. R. The Resistant Behavior of Infants and Children. II.-The resistant behavior of very young children when subjected to mental testing is found, when analyzed, to consist of crying, clinging to the mother or pressing closely to her, pushing away toys, slapping, screaming, struggling, withdrawal reactions, passive movements, and head shaking. The most intensive resistant reactions, struggling and screaming, are centralized about the eighteenth month for girls, and the thirtieth month for boys. The earliest reactions noted were crying and clinging to the mother. Crying, the most frequent reaction in the first year, gradually diminished with increasing age.— D. M. Levy and S. H. Tulchin, Journal of Experimental Psychology, VIII (June, 1925), 209-24. (I, 2, 3.) E. R. R. The Function of the Special Class in the Public School.-Special classes for mentally retarded children can function properly only if the group is small and relatively homogeneous. Otherwise the individual child will have in the special class the same feeling of isolation from the rest of the group that so greatly hinders his prog ress in a regular class. One of the main possibilities of the special class is the training it can give in the way of establishing proper attitudes toward work and proper habits of industry, as well as proper personal habits.-Ethel L. Cornell, Mental Hygiene, IX (July, 1925), 556–60. (I, 3; VI, 2; VIII, 1.) E. R. R. Dispensary Contacts with Delinquent Trends in Children.-Abnormal sex trends in children seem to be largely determined by the contaminating influences that are responsible for the initial practices, rather than by any complexity of personal cravings on the part of the child. By applying principles of mental hygiene, satisfactory adjustments of sex misconduct have been effected by community welfare organizations. They have learned to inquire into the foci of behavior infection in the home and neighborhood, the opportunities for play and wholesome amusements, and all the other facts that contribute to childhood adaptation, instead of turning to correctional institutions.-Esther Loring Richards, Mental Hygiene, IX (April, 1925), 314-39. (I, 3; VIII, 1.) E. R. R. The Diagnostic Significance of Children's Wishes.-The question "Suppose that a fairy were to grant you three wishes, what would your wishes be?" was inserted in a questionnaire on interests designed for use with children who show behavior difficulties. The answers cannot be accepted at their literal value without further investigation, but they may throw additional light upon factors already known but imperfectly understood, or they may suggest further methods of approach to a study of the child's emotional attitudes and the causes that have operated to produce these attitudes. The question has little value with children whose mental ages are below nine years.-Florence L. Goodenough, Mental Hygiene, IX (April, 1925), 340–45. (I, 3.) E. R. R. The Twenty-Four-Hour Home School.-The twenty-four-hour home school is suggested for problem children, where they may be allowed to be a part of a household again and made to feel that they "belong." The idea is based on two fundamental social principles: (1) that the influence of the home is unique and essential to every child; (2) an adequate education is essential to the highest development of the child.-Fred C. Nelles, The Journal of Delinquency, IX (January-March, 1925), 51-55. (I, 3; VI, 1; VIII, 3.) E. R. R. Mutation of Personality. The reconstruction of the personality of Stephen S., a blind ex-service man, was accomplished by the manipulation of the social situation and molding the personality "from without." The problem of his social isolation was met by placing him in a wholesome environment and providing the proper channels for the discharge of pent-up energy.-Pauline V. Young and Erle Fiske Young, Journal of Applied Sociology, IX (July-August, 1925), 42–49. (I, 4.) P. E. M. The Concept of Social Attitudes.-Attitudes may be designated as gestures, incomplete acts, or tendencies to act, and may be divided into hereditary or acquired, conscious or unconscious, group or individual, latent or kinetic. The attitude and objective phenomena appear together, but the relationship is not causal; rather it denotes the double aspect of one phenomenon. An attitude is the result of organization coming at the end of the satisfaction of some wishes and remaining to initiate other wishes, but not related to wishes as wholes to parts.-Ellsworth Faris, Journal of Applied Sociology, IX (July-August, 1925), 404–9. (I, 4.) P. E. M. Die Pubertät. The period of puberty: By the expression puberty we do not mean a definitely delimited age group, for the phenomena which characterize the period of puberty appear at different ages, last for variable periods, and end at different ages in different individuals, cultures, population groups, and geographic areas; rather, by puberty we mean a set of processes and conditions which set in shortly before, during, and immediately after sexual maturation, and we are interested in the question as to what social processes are operative during this period, what groupings arise, if these conditions are characteristic for these age groups universally, or if they are merely characteristic of our time. Characteristics of puberty: The period of puberty is marked first of all by the presence of "the factor of negation," which is an attitude of separation from the closed adult group and a degree of resistance to its edicts. A positive factor is the element of sex. During the school age, however, this factor operates in a dissociating fashion, tending to separate the sexes rather than attract them. Early childhood is characterized further by what Max Weber has termed "charismatism" or personal allegiance, i.e., allegiance to an individual as such. This form of relationship is, of course, easily disturbed. The youth movement: The supposition that in the youth movement there is found a vertical grouping of the population on the basis of age alone, cutting across cultural, economic, religious, and political interests is erroneous. What we find, instead, is a series of groupings of adolescents according to class, culture, politics, and personal leadership. It is in its various sections, such as the nationalist, catholic, and communist leagues of youth that the youth movement of today exerts any vitality and any degree of permanent influence on the social movements of the present.— Paul Honigsheim, Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie, III (Heft 4, 1924), 264– 74. (I, 4; II, 1; IV; VII, 4.) L. W. Popular Answers to Some Psychological Questions. Several college classes were asked to indicate which of a list of thirty statements current in popular pseudopsychology (but not held by scientists) they believed to be true. On the average, the students believed in about one-third of the misconceptions. Positive replies were most frequent for ideas where the misconception was due to ignorance of the specific meaning of technical terms, and least frequent for those notions which were merely popular superstitions. Between these extremes lay a middle ground of popular psychological fallacies which are often exploited by various agencies, such as the newspapers, but which have been definitely discredited by men of science.-H. K. Nixon, American Journal of Psychology, XXXVI (July, 1925), 418-23. (I, 4; III, 2.) III. PEOPLES AND CULTURAL GROUPS E. R. R. Les Origines de l'Art.-There is positive proof that art existed during the Aurignacion period, but it is questionable whether it existed as far back as the old paleolithic period. Regularity and proportion of form is shown in some of the instruments of Chellean and Aschulean periods, but it is uncertain whether this was accomplished intentionally or accidentally. Various works of art are found among primitive peoples of today in the form of figures, skin decorations, ornaments, carvings, and paintings. As would be expected, some tribes are more advanced than others in their forms of presentation.-H. Breuil, Journal de Psychologie, XXII (April, 1925), 289–96. (III, 1.) P.T.D. Political Organization of the Plains Indians, with Special Reference to the Council.-The Plains Indians were not a unit in any respect, but differed in physical make-up, language, material life, social organization, and religious development. Everything centers around the buffalo, and in this animal we find the key to the description of the Plains culture-area. There is much diversity in their political organization, yet all centered on tribal government, all the aspects of which were interrelated with the council, whose members were composed of the elders or the greatest warriors, or both, and it was this body that regulated all the tribal affairs or advised the chief concerning them.-Maurice Greer Smith, University Studies (University of Nebraska), XXIV (January-April, 1924), 1–84. (III, 1.) P.T.D. The Immigrant Community and Immigrant Press. Outside New York and Chicago, immigrant populations fall into three or four large groups, which may be designated as settlers, colonists, migrant industrials, and exotics. The immigrant community is an institution for Americanization, and the awakening of interest in the immigrant in the reputation of his home country in America is the first step in Americanization.-Robert E. Park, American Review, III (March-April, 1925), 14352. (III, 4.) P.E. M. The Racial Problems Involved in Immigration from Latin America and the West Indies to the United States. In continental America south of the United States, and in islands adjacent thereto live some 90,000,000 people, two-thirds of whom belong to the colored races or represent crosses between colored and white stocks. The recent rapidly rising tide of immigration into the United States from these lands has forced upon the people of the United States a new problem. After a study of the countries south of the United States and an evaluation of the racial elements it is supposed that these immigrants would be a detriment rather than an asset to the United States.-Robert F. Foerster, United States Department of Labor Bulletin, 1925. (III, 4.) P.T.D. Zur Typologie der Kulturen (Types of Cultures).-Just as there are individual psychological types there are corresponding cultural types, differentiating one people from another, for which we must rely upon the findings of individual psychology, important among which are those of Kretschmer, Klages, Spranger, Jaspers, Müller-Freienfels, Jung, and Frobenius. Physiological differences in so-called racial groups have to be taken into account. Cultures may be studied from the standpoint of the presence or absence and the relative importance of certain basic human instincts and impulses, as are revealed in the works of McDougall and Oppenheimer. More important than anything else, however, for a study of cultures are the habits of peoples and, finally, the sets of values which appear as dominant directive forces in the cultural lives of peoples. The anthropogeographers have made available important facts about the essential differences in physical surroundings or settings as they occur in cultural types. The internal composition of a cultural type is significant as seen particularly from the standpoint of the occupational interests of its component social groups. The relationships existing between the elements composing a culture may reveal a typical culture pattern. The nature of the institutions and the technique and the attitude toward them may be revealing in the study of a typology of cultures. The type to which a given culture will conform will finally be determined by its creative ability, for cultural creations do not become a passive part of the stock of cultural traditions, but are vital elements in the life of a group.— Andreas Walther, Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie, IV (Heft 1-2, 1924), 1331. (III, 6, 3; IV, 2; V, 4; VII, 2, 4.) L. W. Zum gegenwärtigen Stande der Völkerpsychologie (The Present Status of Folk Psychology).-The term "folk-psychology" dates back to Alexander von Humboldt. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century it was taken over and developed by the philosopher Steinthal in association with the philologist Lazarus, who gave it world-wide currency through their journal, Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie. Steinthal and his predecessor Von Humboldt conceived of folk-psychology as a comparative psychology of older and newer, of exotic and familiar, peoples. Beside seeking to explore the peculiarities of peoples, Steinthal attempted to explore the general psychic phenomena in the life of peoples. Wilhelm Wundt was primarily interested in the genetic aspects of cultural life as a complementary part of the psychology of the individual. He sought to collect the objective facts of mental life in the language, myths, and customs of peoples living beyond the range of occidental culture and to use them in connection with the experimental data to be obtained in the psychological laboratory by objective and exact methods. Folk-psychology, anthropology, and sociology: The anthropology of the eighteenth century concerned itself with the mental life of peoples, and in that sense was synonymous with folkpsychology. With the nineteenth century the center of interest of anthropology shifted to the somatic aspect, and was transformed into physical anthropology as it is still being pursued in English-speaking countries. In Germany, however, the description of foreign folkways, especially in their material aspects, has become known as the field of ethnography, and the comparative and synthetic treatment of the social life of peoples of other than our own culture has become known as ethnology. While sociology is interested in the formal groupings, processes, and situations underlying social life, folk-psychology seeks to lay bare the psychic forces and mechanisms in different cultural groups.-Richard Thurnwald, Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie, IV (Heft 1-2, 1924), 32–43. (III, 6, 3; I, 4; V, 3; VII, 2; X, 2, 5.) L. W. |