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THE
BEHAVIORAL
AND
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Achievements and Opportunities
DEAN R. GERSTEIN, R. DUNCAN LUCK,
NEIL I. SMELSER, and SONTA SPERLICH, Editors
COMMITTEE ON BASIC RESEARCH IN
THE BEHAVIORAT AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
COMMISSION ON BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES AND EDUCATION
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
with the cooperation of the
CENTER FOR ADVANCED STUDY IN THE BEHAVIORAT SCIENCES
and the
SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL
NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
Washington, D.C. 1988
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NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20418
NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of
the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National
Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The
members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences
and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures
approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of
Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distin-
guished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of
science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter
granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the
federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Frank Press is president of the National
Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National
Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its
administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences
the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also
sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and re-
search, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Robert M. White is president
of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure
the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters
pertaining lo the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the
National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government
and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Samuel
O. Thier is president of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to
associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of fur-
thering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general
policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of
both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing
services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The
Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Frank Press
and Dr. Robert M. White are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research
Council.
Photograph credits: (pages 6 and 238) (a) Kenneth Garrett/Woodfin Camp; (page 48 and 238) (a)
Rick Brady 1985/Uniphoto; (page 52) courtesy of Dr. Paul Ekman; (pages 84 and 238) (a) Bob
Daemmrich/Uniphoto; (pages 128 and 238) Tildon Easton Pottery Kiln, courtesy of Alexandria
Archaeology, City of Alexandria, Virginia; (pages 166 and 238) (a) Kenneth Garrett 1982/Woodfin
Camp; (pages 202 and 238) courtesy of Reed College.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 88-1618
ISBN 0-309-03749-2
Copyright ~ 1988 by the National Academy of Sciences
No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process,
or in the form of a phonographic recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted
or otherwise copied for public or private use, without written permission from the publisher,
except for the purposes of official use by the United States government.
Printed in the United States of America
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Committee on Basic Research in the
Behavioral and Social Sciences
R. DUNCAN LUCK (Cochair), Department of Psychology and Social
Relations, Harvard University
NEIL]. SME~sER (Cochair), Department of Sociology, University of
California, Berkeley
MEINOLF DIERKES, Science Center Berlin, Fecleral Republic of Germany
JOHN A. FEREJoHN, Department of Political Science, Stanford University
LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMAN, School of Law, Stanford University
V~cToR~A FRoMK~N, Graduate Division and Department of Linguistics,
University of California, Los Angeles
RocHE~ GELMAN, Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
LEO A. GOODMAN, Department of Statistics and Department of Sociology,
University of Chicago, ancT University of California, Berkeley
TAMES G. GREENO, School of Education, Stanford University
EUGENE A. HAMMEL, Graduate Group in Demography and Department of
Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
LEoN~D HURWICZ, Department of Economics, University of Minnesota
EDWARD E. TONES, Department of Psychology, Princeton University
GARDNER LINDZEY, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences,
Stanford, California
DANIEL L. McFADDEN, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology
. . .
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iv / Committee
*JAMES McGAuGH, Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory,
University of California, Irvine
.JAMEs N. MORGAN, Institute for Social Research and Department of
Economics, University of Michigan
R~cHARD L. MoRR~, Department of Geography, University of
Washington
SHERRY B. ORTNER, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan
KENNETH PREWITT, Rockefeller Foundation, N ew York
BARBARA GUTMANN ROSENKRANTZ, Department of History of Science and
School of Public Health, Harvard University
LARRY R. SQu~RE, Department of the Psychology and Department of
Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, and Veterans
Administration Medical Center, San Diego
NANCY BRANDON TUMA, Department of Sociology, Stanford University
ALLAN R. WAGNER, Department of Psychology, Yale University
DEAN R. GERSTEIN, Stucly Director
SONJA SPERLICH, Senior Staff Associate
LINDA B. KEARNEY, Administrative Secretary
BEVERLY R. BLAKEY, Administrative Secretary
WILLIAM A. VAUGHN, Staff Assistant
*Resigned October 1985
"Appointed October 1985
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In Memoriam
Glynn Llewelyn Isaac
1937 198S
The committee was greatly aiclecT in its work by groups of colleagues
who prepared background papers for this volume. Glynn Isaac, profes-
sor of anthropology at Harvard University, chaired one such group.
After transmitting his group's manuscript, he became seriously ill while
working overseas, and he died in Yokosuka, Japan, en route home. We
honor here his contributions to this project ant! to the science of human
orlglns.
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Contents
PREFACE / xi
INTRODUCTION / 1
1
BEHAVIOR, MIND, AND BRAIN / 7
SEEING AND HEARING, 8
Visual Analyzers / Temporal Auditory Patterns
MEMORY, 15
Types of Memory / Brain Structure and Neurotransmitters
COGNITION AND ACTION, 19
Early Cognitive Development and Learning / Categorical Knowledge
and Representation / Individual Decision Making / Reasoning,
Expertise, and Scientific Education / Complex Action
LANGUAGE, 31
Acquisition / Machines That Talk and Listen / Reading
OPPORTUNITIES AND NEEDS, 43
V11
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Viii / Contents
MOTIVATIONAL AND SOCIAL
CONTEXTS OF BEHAVIOR / 49
AFFECT AND MOTIVATION, 50
Emotional Expression, Perception, and Maturation / Emotive
Circuitry and Metabolism in the Brain / Biobehavioral Rhythms /
Patterns of Food Consumption
BEHAVIOR AND HEALTH, 58
Prevention of Drug, Alcohol, and Tobacco Abuse / Stress, Risk of
Illness, and Behavior / Behavior and Health Care Delivery Systems
CRIME AND VIOLENCE, 65
Criminal Careers and the Effects of the Criminal Justice System /
Antisocial and Prosocial Dispositions
ATTRIBUTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS IN
SOCIAL INTERACTION, 69
Expectancies, Self-Concepts, and Motives / Development of Close
Relationships / Small Groups and Behavior / The Social Construction
of Gender
OPPORTUNITIES AND NEEDS, 77
3
CHOICE AND ALLOCATION / 85
COLLECTIVE CHOICE AND ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, 86
Setting Agendas / Sequential and Simultaneous Votes / Electorates /
Founding Political Systems
ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN AND CHANGE, 91
Organizational Politics and Institutional Constraints / Organizational
Evolution
MARKETS AND ECONOMIC SYSTEMS, 95
Public Goods and Strategic Revelation / Information Asymmetry and
Transmission / Regulation and Deregulation / Rational Expectations
CONTRACTS, 103
Principal-Agent Models / Bargaining, Negotiation, and Repeated
Interaction
JOBS, WAGES, AND CAREERS, 108
Unemployment / Implicit Labor Contracts / Job Segregation and the
Gender Wage Gap / Technology, Migration, and Mobility / New
Sources of Data on Jobs and Careers
OPPORTUNITIES AND NEEDS, 121
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Contents / iX
4
INSTITUTIONS AND CULTURES / 129
THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SOCIETY, 130
Social Organization in Prehistoric Times / Food, Tools, and Home
Bases / Evolution of Language
DEMOGRAPHIC BEHAVIOR, 135
Fertility and Lactation / Population Change in Developing Countries /
Fertility and Migration in Developed Countries
MODERNIZATION: FAMILY AND RELIGION, 140
The Nuclear Family and Social Change / Religion, Social Change, and
Politics
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND PUBLIC POLICY, 144
The Shaping of Technology / The Development of Science /
Behavioral and Social Sciences Knowledge and Public Policy
INTERNATIONALIZATION, 149
International Finance and Domestic Policy / Cultural and Political
Diffusion / The International Division of Labor / Productivity
INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT, 155
Superpower Relations / Decision Making, Beliefs, and Cognitions /
Cooperation and Conflict
OPPORTUNITIES AND NEEDS, 160
s
METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION,
REPRESENTATION, AND ANALYSIS / 167
DESIGNS FOR DATA COLLECTION, 169
Experimental Designs / Survey Designs / Comparative Designs /
Ethnographic Designs
MODELS FOR REPRESENTING PHENOMENA, 181
Probability Models / Geometric and Algebraic Models
STATISTICAL INFERENCE AND ANALYSIS, 190
Casual Inference / New Statistical Techniques / Computing /
Combining Evidence
OPPORTUNITIES AND NEEDS, 197
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x / Contents
6
THE RESEARCH SUPPORT SYSTEM / 203
HUMAN RESOURCES, 20S
Colleges and Graduate Schools / Postdoctoral Training and
Collaboration
TECHNOLOGICAL RESOURCES, 214
Computers / Neuroimaging Devices / Animal Care
DATA RESOURCES, 218
Large-Scale Data Bases / Research Access to Government Data /
Corporate and Local Government Archives
FUNDING RESOURCES, 227
Modes of Support / Grant Size and Duration / The Disciplines and
Interdisciplinary Research / Interdisciplinary Research Centers
THE PROBLEM OF VOICE, 23S
7
RAISING THE SCIENTIFIC YIELD / 239
RESEARCH FRONTIERS, 239
Behavior, Mind, and Brain / Motivational and Social Contexts of
Behavior / Choice and Allocation / Institutions and Cultures /
Methods of Data Collection, Representation, and Analysis
RECOMMENDED NEW RESOURCES, 245
Human Resources / Technological Resources / Data Resources /
Interdisciplinary Research Centers / Investigator-Initiated Grants /
Research Agency Changes
CONCLUSION, 249
APPENDIX
A
TRENDS IN SUPPORT FOR RESEARCH IN THE
BEHAVIORALANDSOCIALSCIENCES / 251
APPENDIX
B
WORKING GROUP MEMBERS / 261
INDEX / 275
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Preface
This is a report on scientific frontiers in the behavioral and social sciences—
leading research questions and fundamental problems" and on the new re-
sources needed to work on them.
This volume is a successor to two earlier studies by the Committee on Basic
Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences. In one, Behavioral and Social
Science: Fifty Years of Discovery (1986), we scanned the work of the past, iden-
tifying specific lines of accumulated knowledge and broad shifts in emphasis
since the 1933 report of the President's Research Committee on Social Trends.
In the other, Behavioral and Social Science Research: A National Resource (1982),
we considered particular cases and presented our judgments concerning the
present value, significance, and social utility of basic research in these disci-
plines.
Against this backdrop, the current volume looks to the future. When this
phase of the committee's work was first envisioned early in 1983, there was a
clear federal policy of steadily rising science budgets tailored to specific research
initiatives. Accordingly, we were asked by the National Science Foundation,
the committee's initial sponsor, to help define some discrete priorities for in-
creased investments in behavioral and social sciences research, which would
be comparable to the priorities recommended by groups representing other
fields of science, such as the National Research Council (NRC) "outlook" report,
Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1980's (19821. However, that report and
several more recent NRC reports of the same genre, including Renewing U.S.
Mathematics (1984), Opportunities in Chemistry (198S), and Physics Through the
X1
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xii / Preface
l990s (1986), have dealt with a single scientific discipline. We were asked to
represent all the behavioral and social sciences, a highly diverse congregation
of separate disciplines. The task was not an easy one, and we can imagine that
a different group of researchers might have taken a different approach to it
than the largely interdisciplinary one that we chose.
The sponsorship of our study has broadened to include seven additional
public and private agencies with differing missions and interests, reflecting the
diversity of concerns and sources of support for behavioral and social sciences
research: National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development, National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Army Research
Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, Russell Sage Foundation, Sys-
tem Development Foundation, and the National Research Council Fund.* As
a result of our multidisciplinary scope and breadth of sponsorship, the initial
charge of defining priorities for the investment of incremental funds was ex-
tended to include consideration of the general institutional conditions and
support system for behavioral and social sciences research.
From the outset the committee members recognized that we could not carry
out the task by ourselves. A very important part in enlarging participation was
played by two organizations that have formally cooperated with the NRC in
the study: the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the
Social Science Research Council. With their assistance, we identified some
2,400 scientists, including both established and young behavioral and social
sciences researchers, and asked them about their part of the research enterprise:
Where is it heading with respect to intellectual ferment, the generation of
empirical discoveries, and major theoretical and methodological develop-
ments? We also asked them to identify key researchers to help the committee
examine these areas of ferment. We further broadcast our appeal for assistance
to lSO journals.
We received detailed replies from about 600 researchers, who identified
more than 1,000 topics or lines of research, many of them overlapping, and
gave us more than 2,000 names to consider. The committee worked carefully
and critically through this mass of advice, rejecting some ideas that appeared
idiosyncratic or marginal and seeking common threads among the others.
While some suggestions found rather little reflection in the ultimate course of
*The National Research Council Fund is a pool of private, discretionary, nonfederal funds that
is used to support a program of Academy-initiated studies of national issues in which science and
technology figure significantly. The NRC Fund consists of contributions from a consortium of
private foundations including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Charles E. Culpeper
Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Alfred P.
Sloan Foundation; the Academy Industry Program, which seeks annual contributions from com-
panies that are concerned with the health of U.S. science and technology and with public policy
issues with technological content; and the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy
of Engineering endowments.
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Preface / xiii
the study and others were highly influential, the committee is indebted to and
appreciative of everyone who responded to our call for assistance.
Ultimately, we selected 31 topics as the basis for working groups. Early in
1985 we gave the groups (which had from S to 11 members) all of the infor-
mation and advice we had garnered with respect to the relevant topical areas.
Some 6 months later we received back 31 concise papers on research oppor-
tunities and needs. These working papers very much informed and influenced
this report. We take pleasure in acknowledging the generous assistance that
the members of the working groups especially their chairs—gave us in this
study, and we record their names, with our thanks, in Appendix B. For readers
interested in exploring more intensively the topics discussed in this report, the
Russell Sage Foundation is currently preparing for publication a volume of
those papers, which includes specific references to the large underlying sci-
entific literature.
One major issue the committee faced was whether to organize this report
along conventional disciplinary lines- to prepare separate chapters about an-
thropology, economics, political science, psychology, sociology, and so forth-
or to adopt some other scheme of organization. Disciplines are, to be sure, the
basis on which academic departments in universities and colleges are usually
organized, the structure under which the bulk of fundamental behavioral and
social sciences research, training, and instruction is conducted, and the arena
in which most scientific careers are made. Major professional associations are
also organized by traditional disciplines, as is a large fraction of funding by
research agencies. There is also ample precedent for a disciplinary approach,
most prominently the "BASS" report, The Behavioral and Social Sciences: Outlook
and Needs (1969) and its companion volumes, prepared by the predecessor
committee most comparable to ours.
Notwithstanding these precedents and conventions, our committee from the
beginning favored another approach. We did so partly from a sense that many
of the opportunities currently visible in the behavioral and social sciences
spring from and support the development of methods, tools, and concepts
across disciplines. The topics and lines of research mentioned in our initial
survey confirmed very strong interdisciplinary themes, and when we formed
working groups, the great majority were interdisciplinary in composition. Fi-
nally, the recommendations regarding resource needs that emerged from the
working papers and our further deliberations were far more inclined to cross
the boundaries between disciplines than to be delineated by them. The inter-
disciplinary note is strong in all that follows.
All National Research Council reports are subject to review by an expert
group other than the authors. In this instance, the review process has been
more extensive than most. The boards of the Center for Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences and the Social Science Research Council participated fully
with the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education in the
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xiv / Preface
review process. In addition, the draft manuscript was reviewed by the chairs
of the 31 working groups, by scientists selected by the NRC Report Review
Committee, and by others at the request of our committee. We are grateful to
the many colleagues who read and formally commented on this report; their
insightful critiques enabled us to improve it substantially. We have striven to
use their advice, along with that of the many other colleagues who have written
and spoken informally to us in the course of the enterprise, to more faithfully
represent the full range of knowledge and perspectives bearing on our task.
We are indebted to all of the public and private agencies sponsoring this
project for their encouragement, cooperation, and support. Among the many
officials who have been important in our efforts, we wish especially to ac-
knowledge the energy and vision of the former senior associate for behavioral
and social sciences at the National Science Foundation, Otto N. Larsen, and
the assistant director for biological, behavioral, and social sciences, David A.
Kingsbury.
The former executive director of the Commission on Behavioral and Social
Sciences and Education, David A. Goslin, provided experienced advice, analytic
intelligence, and administrative backing. The Commission's associate director
for reports, Eugenia Grohman, read successive drafts, joined committee dis-
cussions, and gave us many useful suggestions for revising the report and
polishing the text. The behavioral and social sciences are fortunate to draw on
the unusual talents and exacting standards of these two individuals.
We would also like to acknowledge those researchers whose guidance, pub-
lished work, or other assistance enabled us to develop illustrations: Martin
Baily, Patricia Carpenter, Paul Ekman, Robert Hall, Reid Hastie, Marcel.Just,
William Labor, Ian Madieson, James McClelland, Charles Nelson, and Herbert
Pick.
Every committee member participated in the original drafting of the report,
but we would like to express particular appreciation to John Ferqohn, Rochel
Gelman, Leo Goodman, Eugene Hammel, and Barbara Rosenkrantz, who chaired
drafting subcommittees. The tasks of organizing and shaping these texts and
revising and completing the report were undertaken by the cochairs and the
committee's professional staff, study director Dean R. Gerstein and senior re-
search associate Sonja Sperlich. These two staff members, along with the com-
mittee's administrative secretary, Linda B. Kearney, her predecessor, Beverly
R. Blakey, and assistant William A. Vaughan, Ir., also managed the adminis-
trative and logistical requirements of the study, an organizational effort span-
ning 3 years, scores of meetings, hundreds of participants in committee, work-
ing group and review activities, and forests of correspondence.
The national community of behavioral and social scientists is far too large
and diverse with more than 100,000 PhD's in more than a dozen disci-
plines- for there to be complete concordance in a single document. This is
especially the case with regard to selecting for explicit mention a limited num-
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Preface / xv
ber of promising research opportunities. The issue here is not so much con-
troversy over any particular selection as the realization that others might also
have been singled out. The research opportunities discussed here are a pur-
posive sample from a larger universe of such opportunities. But to the degree
that it is a good sample, the resulting recommendations for strengthening the
research support system and raising the scientific yield can be considered to
speak for and serve the best interests of that larger universe.
R. DUNCAN LUCK AND NEW I. SMEESER, Cochairs
Committee on Basic Research in the
Behavioral and Social Sciences
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THE
BEHAVIORAL
AND
SOCIAL SCIENCES
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