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7
Raising the ScientiLc Yield
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7
Raising the Scientific Yield
The behavioral and social sciences have made many notable advances in the
nearly two decades since the completion of The Behavioral and Social Sciences:
Outlook and Needs (1969), the last survey similar to this one. Looking forward,
the scientific opportunities are diverse, intellectually inviting, and profound in
their implications for the further understanding of individual and social be-
havior. In this summary chapter we review the thematic highlights and salient
research advances covered in previous chapters and the new investments and
modifications in research infrastructures that are needed for further progress.
We recommend that the initiatives and resources we call for be implemented
within 3 to 4 years.
RESEARCH FRONTIERS
Behavior, Mind, and Brain
Three major developments have propelled new inquiries into the connec-
tions among behavior, mind, and brain: improved observations on the course
of individual human growth, exploration of the relationship between the in-
formation-processing capabilities of humans and machines, and further dis-
coveries of biological and behavioral commonalities between humans and other
animals.
239
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Several major research questions have begun to be answered, and further
wor < IS prOmlSlng:
· By what process do humans and some animals achieve their advanced and
complex powers of visual and auditory discrimination, far greater and more
subtle than can yet be attained by technology? Neurophysiological and
behavioral experiments and computer simulations have substantially ad-
vanced understanding of how the brain analyzes visual data, recognizes
color constancy, infers depth and motion, and organizes auditory stimuli
over time.
· How are memories coded, organized, stored, and retrieved? Scientists working
in a variety of disciplines have identified distinctive types of memories and
genetic limitations on memory and isolated cellular and rr~olecular mech-
anisms in the brain's transmitting systems.
· How do human beings acquire knowledge, organize it, use it in reasoning,
and implement it in behavior? Experimental studies have uncovered de-
velopment of complex cognitive capacities in infants. New theoretical prin-
ciples are being explored that govern how people categorize information,
use visual imagery, make decisions, and deal with uncertain situations.
· How do humans acquire and use that most distinctive of human endow-
ments, language? Neurophysiological studies of the brain, investigations of
sign language, and comparative studies of grammatical structures have
yielded rich findings on the genetic foundations of language, the association
of language functions with particular brain areas, and the formal properties
of language. New advances are also evident in the computer recognition
and production of language.
Research in some of these areas has come to demand very complex instru-
mentation for simulating, modeling, recording, and analyzing data in laboratory
experimentation. We regard it as critically important to augment the compu-
tational and laboratory infrastructure underlying this research. Another dis-
tinctive characteristic is the multidisciplinary character of advanced work in
these areas, which can involve neuroscience, physiology, psychology, child
development, biophysics, biochemistry, ethology, linguistics, statistics, eco-
nomics, and computer science. Opportunities to build on this call for various
support mechanisms, such as new centers of research, interdisciplinary grad-
uate and postdoctoral training, advanced study workshops, and longitudinal
studies of cognitive and educational development. In addition, the base of
investigator-initiated grant support must be increased to continue this research.
Motivational and Social Contexts of Behavior
Social challenges and practical urgency have reinforced the already substan-
tial scientific interest in affective and motivational states and processes, violent
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Raising the Scientific Yield / 241
crime, linkages among physical health, behavior, and social contexts, and the
nature of social interaction. There are now improved research capabilities to
respond to these interests, particularly in the form of better longitudinal study
designs and analytic techniques, new observational and assessment technolo-
gies, and theoretical innovations.
We note several areas of particular interest, ferment, and advance concerning
affective and social contexts of behavior:
· How have emotional and motivational processes driven human develop-
ment, human behavior, and human evolution? Advances have been made
in pinpointing the neural bases of such motivations as hunger and sex, as
well as predatory and defensive fighting. New measures of facial expressions
have improved understanding of emotions. The subtle interplay among
physiological, neural, psychological, and sociocultural forces that deter-
mine the dynamics of eating behavior is beginning to be grasped.
How do behavioral and social forces affect the health of individuals and
groups? In a knowledge shift as revolutionary as it is by now commonplace,
the conventional stress on the biological aspects of human health has been
balanced by understanding that behavioral and social forces are major
etiological factors in health and disease. For substance abuse in particular,
the influence of peer groups, life-cycle changes, media, and market factors
has been more fully detailed. The role of stress and risky behavior in the
genesis of health disorders has been verified and some of its dimensions
pinpointed.
· What are the determinants of criminal behavior? New and more compre-
hensive measures of crime rates have been devised. Theoretical shifts are
under way, such as moving from studying aggregate rates and their social
correlates to studying microdata on individual criminals and the life cycles
of persistent and other types of criminals. Longitudinal studies of sample
groups with different criminal histories are regarded as an especially effec-
tive way to sort out family patterns, peer influences, and law-enforcement
policies as determinants of criminal behavior.
· What is the interaction between personal characteristics and group effects
as influences of behavior? Some research has focused on the phenomenon
of the self-fulfilling prophecy: if others attribute certain characteristics to a
person or group, that attribution can play a substantial role in generating
those very characteristics. Other experiments have thrown new light on
the effect of group size on task performance and the effect of majority or
unanimity rules on the outcome of group decisions.
These lines of research now appear to call especially for new kinds of data
sets, particularly longitudinal ones, since many of the phenomena in question-
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criminal behavior, substance abuse, the development of affect and motiva-
tion require study over time. New kinds of laboratory and measurement
equipment, particularly in the study of motivational contexts, also require
substantial additional support. Increases in the amount of investigator-initiated
research are needed to sustain and advance quality research, as are additional
resources for doctoral and postdoctoral support, interdisciplinary programs of
research, and advanced technical workshops and seminars.
Choice and Allocation
Research on the mechanisms of choice and allocation ranges over politics,
organizational relations, and economic phenomena. Among the last, the study
of markets has played a dominant part, but attention has increasingly turned
to clarifying the operation of nonmarket phenomena in certain sectors of West-
ern economies (such as public goods and environmental protection), in the
mixed economies of many developing countries, and in Soviet-type economies
with central planning.
There are a number of exciting developments and promising strands of
research in these areas:
How much do voting procedures affect the outcomes of votes? At the
microlevel, research has demonstrated that an outcome is strongly deter-
mined by the order in which a decision-making agenda is arranged, es-
pecially if a committee or legislature faces complicated options. More gen-
erally, a mixture of theoretical, experimental, and historical analyses are
beginning to give powerful assessments of the outcomes and efficiency of
alternative voting arrangements.
· How useful are traditional economic assumptions about markets—com-
plete information, rationality of actors, negligible transaction costs? Much
recent empirical work has challenged these assumptions and is producing
a wider and more realistic range of models of market behavior.
Under what conditions will actors in fluid or in highly structured marketing
situations strike bargains and live up to them? Research on market contracts
and bargains has advanced dramatically, and the new methods and theories
are being applied to bargaining and its breakdowns in litigation, war, and
strike arbitration.
How well do job markets function, and what are the sources of continuing
unemployment in the rapidly changing context of the present U.S. and
world economies? New studies of cyclical unemployment are focusing on
the effects of implicit and explicit contracts and the resulting unrespon-
siveness of wages and prices to market conditions. Studies of frictional
unemployment are focusing on the processes of job search and job match-
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ing. Studies of structural unemployment are dissecting the effects of job
segregation (especially between men and women), internal labor markets,
and labor migration among firms and regions of the country.
In these areas of research, much valuable work is theoretical in character,
and its testing involves applications of models and statistical analyses to data
that are readily available in the form of recorded market transactions and
economic time series. Consequently, the investigator-initiated mode of research
should be given the highest priority for expansion in these areas, with a special
eye to the average size and duration of grants. At the same time, the use of
panel and longitudinal data, especially on work histories and organizational
strategies, is increasing in importance and value and therefore demands in-
creased support. There is also more extensive use of newly devised laboratory
experiments for studying the impact of contractual and market rules, behavior
under uncertainty, and other topics; this development calls for more appro-
priate laboratory facilities. While instrumentation needs are probably not as
extensive for these research areas as for others, there is great need for upgrading
computational hardware and for software development. And as more interdis-
ciplinary work among economists, political scientists, organizational scientists,
and psychologists develops, more central facilities and programs for interdis-
ciplinary work should be supported.
Institutions and Cultures
Comparative and historical (including prehistorical) study of the institu-
tional and cultural origins of entire societies has moved forward on a variety
of fronts. Researchers have been especially attuned to the interplay between
large-scale and local development, and, more generally, between the macro-
scopic and microscopic levels of social and cultural organization.
Several major questions have yielded to answers, which in turn point to
more detailed work:
.
.
What are the evolutionary bases of human social bonding and the formation
of extensive human societies? The prehistoric development of families and
larger social groups has been highlighted with special attention to the roles
of food, foraging from home bases, and particular uses of tools. Hints are
also emerging as to the heretofore unknown evolutionary role of language.
What are the special social and cultural determinants that influence the
class of events births, population movements, marriage and divorce, ag-
ing, and death that comprise demography? There have been substantial
new research developments in measurement and theoretical models of
demographic change, especially of fertility and migration.
· What factor can best explain those institutional changes that have given
rise in the West to what is called the modern world changes that are now
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fermenting elsewhere? Research on the history and contemporary status of
the family and on the dynamics of religious institutions is providing im-
portant and unanticipated new insights into this broad and highly charged
topic.
· What complex of institutional and cultural factors encourages the rise of
science and its far-reaching technological applications in society? Historical,
sociological, and other research on these questions is moving rapidly as
global cases and comparative research opportunities multiply. A much
clearer picture of the place of science, including the behavioral and social
sciences, in the larger society is also emerging.
· What are the ramifications of the increasing internationalization of the
world? Two growing lines of research are receiving attention: increasing
economic, financial, political, and cultural interdependence; and efforts to
understand and untangle the analytic complexities and policy implications
of international conflict and security.
These areas call for special attention to collaborative group research, in part
because much of it is interdisciplinary, but more importantly because it is so
often international in character. There are currently very restraining limitations
on the conduct of international-collaborative research and very serious prob-
lems of sustaining research access to field situations in many parts of the world.
These areas also need new resource investments in developing new data bases
and in improving access to governmental, financial, and business data. There
is a need for major new international and collaborative research centers and a
significant expansion of investigator-initiated research grants to make use of
archival and other facilities. Expanded support is also needed for the techno-
logical base of research, especially computer equipment and software, as well
as for graduate and postdoctoral training and fellowships.
Methods of Data Collection, Representation, and Analysis
Methodological advances play a special role in the generation of behavioral
and social sciences knowledge. Sometimes these advances arise in the struggle
to solve difficult substantive research problems; sometimes they involve sep-
arate discoveries; sometimes they involve selective borrowing of techniques
from elsewhere; and sometimes they arise as new and better sources of data
permit new and more sophisticated techniques to be tried.
Several kinds of methodological innovation are the subject of intense current
work:
· Improvements are occurring in the sophistication and scope of application
of four basic empirical methods in the behavioral and social sciences: lab-
oratory experiments, field surveys, ethnographic investigations, and com-
.
paratlve stuc .les.
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· Refined techniques are emerging for the measurement of both large-scale
and small-scale behavioral and social phenomena, leading to the reduction
of many types of measurement error.
· Researchers and theorists are inventing new ways of representing empirical
phenomena in symbols and calculations, including log-linear models for
categorical variables, multi-item measurement, scaling, clustering, and net-
work models.
.
There are advances in statistical inference and analysis, including new tech-
niques of inferring causality, handling multiple parameters that are inter-
related with one another, and making estimates in cases of partial data.
Advances in computing techniques are closely related.
We recommend new support for purely methodological research, although
on a more modest scale than in the substantive areas identified. Several mech-
anisms are of central importance: investigator-initiated grants, which are the
locus of many methodological innovations; summer institutes, colloquia, sem-
inars, and postdoctoral study, where scientists can be exposed to methodolog-
ical developments in their specialties and to the methods appropriate to their
new lines of research; and more powerful computational resources, which are
key to further methodological advances.
RECOMMENDED NEW RESOURCES
The character of research covered in this report is varied, but all scientific
work retains much in common. In looking across the fields of research covered
in Chapters 1 through S behavior, mind, and brain; motivational and social
contexts of behavior; choice and allocation; institutions and cultures; methods
of data collection, representation, and analysis we find consistent need for
human, technological, data, and other resources. This section summarizes the
new funds and new procedures that we recommend to ensure the continued
growth of knowledge in the behavioral and social sciences. Our overall rec-
ommendations for new research initiatives in terms of the various categorical
expenditures are summarized in Table 7-1.
Human Resources
Under human resources, we note the critical need to increase the availability
of predoctoral and postdoctoral research fellowships in order to encourage the
retention of talented scientists in careers oriented to research. At the predoctoral
level, we recommend an additional $10 million annually in graduate support,
which would cover stipends and institutional costs for about 500 graduate
students. The purpose is not to increase the number of students enrolled in
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TABLE 7-1 New Research Initiatives Additional Resources Needed
($ million)
Resources Needed (by chapter)
Behavior,
Mind, Contexts Choice Institutions
and of and and
Type of Resources Brain Behavior Allocation Cultures Methods Total
Human resources
Predoctoral
support
Postdoctoral
fellowships 3
Advanced
training
institutes
Research
workshops
Technological
resources
Neuroimaging
devices
Animal care
I aboratory
technology
Computers and
software
Data resources
Access to federal
data
Access to other
data
New data
44
2 2 1 2 3 10
3
1 _
6 1 18
7
1 1 3 3 1 9
S1
2
2
4
12 5 2 1 - 20
7 ~ 4 ~ 4 22
SO
4 4 8
2
collections S 15 12 8 40
Research centers 4 9 4 7 1 2S
Investigator-
initiated grants 20 13 20
13 4 70
Total 61 56 56 51 16 240
degree programs, but to direct the best students' efforts much more intensively
toward research training.
At the postdoctoral level, we recommend an additional $18 million annually
in support to be directed to all levels, from new PhDs to senior career awards.
We estimate that this support would add approximately 400 full-time doctoral-
level scientists to the numbers working at the frontiers of behavioral and social
sciences research, which would be a major element in activating many of the
other resources recommended here. This recommendation applies particularly
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to research in the areas of Chapters 3 and 4, which were most heavily affected
by reductions in federal support after 1978. We also recommend that awards
to potential fellows be made early in the academic year to encourage viewing
them as prizes rather than substitutes for professional appointments.
The quality of research can be readily improved by added resources to
advanced training institutes for active investigators. Such institutes enable
methodological and technical innovations to diffuse rapidly across geographical
and disciplinary boundaries. In addition, the cultivation of new theoretical
ideas and the coordination of research efforts in rapidly moving specialties can
be greatly facilitated by a program of research workshops bringing together
core groups of researchers at least once a year for intensive exchange, review,
and collaboration. We recommend that $7 million and $9 million, respectively,
be allocated for these activities. Experience dictates the need for some or all of
these funds to be especially segregated for these purposes.
Technological Resources
Technological resources available to most researchers in the behavioral and
social sciences have lagged badly behind needs except at a few sites. The lag
has been particularly acute with respect to neuroimaging and the more diver-
sified and specialized laboratory equipment used in research on behavior, as
well as the recent upgrading of standards for animal care. We recommend that
a total of $29 million annually in new funds be allocated for these needs,
concentrated in the research areas discussed in Chapters 1 and 2. The overall
requirement for more capable computers and for the development of special-
ized software (as well as the acquisition of more sophisticated general-purpose
software systems) for research in the behavioral and social sciences calls for an
additional $22 million annually.
Data Resources
The role of extended data collections in advancing knowledge is a significant
feature of behavioral and social sciences research. Such collections are most
often acquired and maintained under research auspices and protocols, but a
large contribution has been made by researchers using public and private
statistical files and historical archives generated primarily or originally for ad-
ministrative or other nonscientific purposes. The potential benefit of such re-
sources to advance scientific knowledge is very large relative to the incremental
cost of converting them into usable research data. We recommend that new
funds of $8 million annually be devoted specifically to upgrading and expand-
ing the research utility of federal data and an additional $2 million be devoted
to expanding access to corporate and local government files.
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We have recommended six new initiatives for data collection in the United
States and a seventh initiative involving international efforts. Four of these
initiatives cover human development from childhood through middle and ma-
ture adulthood, particularly in the domains of cognition (Chapter 1), motiva-
tion, health behavior, and criminal activity (Chapter 21. Two initiatives cover
the domains of jobs and careers and of organizational change; in both cases
special attention should be given to developing samples and sites based not on
households but on firms, agencies, voluntary affiliations, and occupational
strata (Chapter 39. At the international level, new data collection initiatives are
recommended on international economic transactions, migration, shifts in re-
ligious participation, and other processes parallel to ones under intensive study
in the United States (Chapter 43.
The new data collections should be based principally on sample survey
methods, but the value of these core collections can be greatly enriched by
incorporation of research efforts using ethnographic, archival, and field exper-
imental methods. Proposals for large-scale data collections require a two-track
review process: one focusing on substantive scientific significance, in the same
context as smaller-scale proposals; the other on an evaluation in terms of the
distinct design criteria appropriate to large-scale studies. We recommend de-
voting an increment of $40 million annually to new, large-scale, multiuser data
collections, involving an array of methods, in these areas.
Interdisciplinary Research Centers
New interdisciplinary research centers and facilities are not uncommon en-
terprises in the behavioral and social sciences. While some past starts have
tended to segment along evolving disciplinary lines, other have maintained
vital interdisciplinary programs for many years. We recommend a number of
new initiatives for research centers, ranging from a major new international
center to house demographic and related studies on developing countries, to
a program of national research centers on motivational disorders and affective
processes. We strongly encourage facilitation of major new center proposals,
while sustaining existing centers of proven effectiveness. We recommend that
$25 million annually be newly committed to the support of behavioral and
social sciences research centers.
Investigator-Initiated Grants
In the recommendations for $170 million in new funds annually for research
initiatives, we have considered the cultivation and support of research talent,
the provision of technologically advanced instruments, and the building of new
programs and organizations to generate data and centrally house and coordi-
nate research activities. Still, the intellectual core and mainstay of behavioral
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and social sciences research and of most scientific research should be and
will undoubtedly continue to be the small research group, including single
investigators, who obtain support through discrete proposals evaluated by ex-
pert panels on their scientific merits. This reliance on investigator-initiated
grants applies even to most of the research that is explicitly dependent on
central data collections or technical facilities. We therefore recommend that
the initiatives undertaken in each of the five research frontier areas include
increments in investigator grant funds. The average size and duration of grants
for small-group investigator research in most areas must be increased, even if
the total number of grants awarded has to be constrained for a time in order
to do so. Our estimates of the respective area requirements are detailed in Table
7-1 and add to $70 million.
Research Agency Changes
We recommend some changes in the ways that funding agencies evaluate,
administer, and respond to their behavioral and social sciences research awar-
dees. We recommend that the National Institutes of Health and the Alcohol,
Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration extend and strengthen their
portfolios of research on behavioral and social factors (in the etiology, preven-
tion, and treatment of health problems) that are not specific to one disease.
We recommend that the National Science Foundation and other funding agen-
cies encourage the fusion rather than the separation of research on natural and
artificial intelligence. We recommend staff increases in grant programs com-
mensurate with the research initiatives proposed here, since the management
and facilitation of interdisciplinary research demand more internal staff work,
and such research is differentially threatened by staff reductions or individual
grant-load increases. We recommend that the overall place and role of the
behavioral and social sciences in the administrative arrangements of federal
agencies must be critically reappraised with the intention of ensuring contin-
uous high-level understanding of these fields' scientific needs and opportuni-
ties.
CONCLUSION
The total new funding recommended here is $240 million annually in cur-
rent (1987) dollars, which we believe should be achieved within three or four
years. In fiscal 1987, the total federal expenditure on behavioral and social
sciences research basic and applied, internal and external came to about
$780 million. About one-third of that was classified as basic research. Consid-
ering the small fraction of this increment that can come from the private sector
or state government, we are recommending roughly a 30 percent overall near-
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term increase in federal support for behavioral and social sciences research.
This increase would not be evenly distributed across all of the agencies that
have a stake in such research. It is clearly weighted heavily toward what is
usually classified as basic research, and the most favorable opportunities lie
more in some portfolios than in others. We estimate that the National Science
Foundation should account for about $60 million of the new funding, and the
National Institutes of Health and the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health
Administration should receive about $80 million, with the rest divided among
other departments and agencies and private sources.
We believe that the array of procedural innovations and the $240 million
program of new investments outlined here and detailed in earlier chapters will
ensure that the challenge of present research opportunities is vigorously met.
Moreover, we believe these initiatives will best prepare the national research
enterprise to explore new horizons of knowledge that cannot yet be seen, that
lie beyond the veil that divides the present from the future.
1
Representative terms from entire chapter:
scientific yield
