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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1988. The Behavioral and Social Sciences: Achievements and Opportunities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/992.
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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

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

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 . . .

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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-

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

THE BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

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This volume explores the scientific frontiers and leading edges of research across the fields of anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, sociology, history, business, education, geography, law, and psychiatry, as well as the newer, more specialized areas of artificial intelligence, child development, cognitive science, communications, demography, linguistics, and management and decision science. It includes recommendations concerning new resources, facilities, and programs that may be needed over the next several years to ensure rapid progress and provide a high level of returns to basic research.

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