sociometry's potential

[Adam Blatner]

About 1.4 pages: Wondering about research in sociometry: 

I have just been reading a passage on symbolism and mass psychology in the writings of Alfred North Whitehead (one of my favorite philosophers), and he makes the point that societies are stabilized to some degree not by reason, but by prejudice, tradition, unconscious and pervasive forces. Symbols (rather than dry signs, which have a specific meaning) have the power to evoke feelings of allegiance or antagonism without much intervening analysis, and used by demagogues, politicians, advertisers, preachers and even in schools, on the media, and in ordinary popular discourse, these generalities (e.g., the American Flag, God, apple pie, terrorist, hero, villain, winner, loser, strong, weak) have semantic power far beyond their actual technical meanings.

I thought of the efforts of those supporting Moreno's ideal of sociatry, and was reminded that most of sociometry as presently understood may be inadequate in tapping the power or bringing consciousness to the aforementioned memes or symbols in mass psychology. Yet I had a sense that sociometry did apply. Then I realized that there are two uses of sociometry as a psycho-social dynamic, or since more properly, sociometry is a method, what I'm really talking about here is tele-two meanings. One meaning is the interpersonal and group, contexts in which reciprocity is possible. (Within that category, I like to note that there are emergent qualities when tele is strongly positive or negative.) 

The other meaning of tele is just as important, and also more primal: It is the tele with some non-personal object. There are gradients of preference for all manner of things, including not only colors, food, or music, but also values, subject-matter, what is deemed relevant. One can have auto-tele for different roles within oneself, preferring, say, the emergent writer of poetry, becoming inpatient to leave, say, the parenting role.

I have come to think that tele is as much a part of depth-dynamic psychology as anything described by Freud, Adler, or Jung, or any of their followers. I think tele plays a significant part in how much we feel bonded more to one parent than another, to one or certain sibs over others, and even more for extended family members, friends, and so forth. Variations of preference are not mere temperament, though there may be some overlap, nor are they the product of relationships-I think that's a residue of the idea that young children are "tabula rasa"-empty surfaces-who adapt psycho-emotionally to family and environmental factors, bringing little to that equation.

I think research into what every parent observes isn't that easy, because preferences are often associated with temperament. Perhaps the problem is that there are few ways to assess this in a research way: Does anyone know about people who have done finer assessments of tele in child development about more than which kids in kindergarten or school are preferred over which other kids (there's lots of that kind)? These types of deeper dynamics are often pre-verbal as well as unconscious, so direct report is difficult, and explaining the criteria is ten times as difficult, even for most adults! That doesn't mean the phenomena aren't there, but rather that our current research methods are still too crude-that is, they only can detect more consciously accessible and rather strong responses.

(I'm thinking as an analogy to the history of the discovery of vitamins around a century ago. The evidence for their action were variably apparent for decades or in some cases, centuries, but the chemistry wasn't known; and that was because the quantities involved were at a level not of grams but micrograms or parts per million, amounts too small to be detected among the levels of contamination in and by the chemical apparatus available before that time. See my website discussion of the history of the discovery of nutritional deficiencies.)

So my question, as above, is if anyone knows of any research on the depth psychology of tele, the finer dynamics, especially as applied to mob psychology, propaganda, the psychology of young children, and so forth. Perhaps there were some articles that dealt with this, but this was not suggested by the titles as I skimmed (but didn't read Talmudically) the various articles in the major sociometry journals and books.

I'm not criticizing the field-indeed, I'm suggesting that it has great potential! I am criticizing anyone who thinks that those who have written books or articles regarding the field offer anywhere near definitive knowledge about these dynamics, rather than noting some general trends and for the most part speculating on implications. 

Comments? 

Adam Blatner, M.D.
   website: www.blatner.com/adam/   
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