Field Theory and Experiment in Social Psychology: Autocratic and Democratic Group Atmospheres

Abstract

The author illustrates briefly the type of research projects which may be expected to emerge from the field-theoretical formulation of sociological and sociopsychological problems. A "total behavior" technique of observation of group and individual child behavior is briefly described which attempts to record all maningful social behavior in its proper relationship to other facts of the "total field" of coexisting phenomena influencing behavior. By the experimental manipulation of the social atmospheres of two children's clubs, using the variable of authoritarian versus democratic leadership methods, it is indicated that quantitative and qualitative data were secured which seem to clarity in a preliminary, empirical fashion, such dynamic concepts as group locomotion, group goal, degree of group unity, group stratification, group and member space of free movement, social powerfield, degree of belongingness, and membership status. A preliminary approach to the problem of analyzing tha same material (social-behavior data) from the sociological and psychological points of view, using the same realm of discourse is attempted.