Prosocial activity of an independent self-help organization in Poland: some applications of behavioral science during the 1981-1984 socioeconomic crisis
Article Abstract:
This article discusses the formation of an independent self-help organization to provide aid to the scientific community of Cracow. Poland, during the 1981-1984 socioeconomic crisis. The author, a Polish research psychologist, was one of the creators of this aid group, which sought to apply behavioral science knowledge to the distribution and sharing of material aid. In doing so, principles and criteria for aid distribution were devised for distributing aid, developing an organizational structure for satisfying the recipients' basic needs, and creating and applying an organizational style that could meet psychological and social needs while protecting their self-concept. Nine academic help committees administered aid to as many as 4500 families. In discussing the practice and theory of the organization, activity, and aid-sharing style of this structure, the author presents a hypothetical aid model. The author encourages research on group helping behavior and the gradual creation of an interdisciplinary body of applied behavioral science knowledge on organized help. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
Subject: Social sciences
ISSN: 0021-8863
Year: 1987
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The impossibility of using random strategies to study the organization development process
Article Abstract:
The organization development (OD) process seeks collaborative, diagnosis-based organizational change. This article discusses how the use of random strategies of a traditional experimental design to study the OD process fundamentally changes that process to something other the OD. Following a literature search, the authors conclude that random processes and the OD process are fundamentally incompatible and thus cannot be used simultaneously. Researchers may use random strategies to study OD techniques, but not the OD process itself. It is never appropriate to attempt to use random selection or random assignment to study the OD process. The authors call for the development of alternative standards and methods that are both rigorous and relevant to OD research, for no true experiment studying the OD process can ever take place. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
Subject: Social sciences
ISSN: 0021-8863
Year: 1987
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Holism and reductionism within applied behavioral science: the problem of clinical medicine
Article Abstract:
This article addresses the debate within the applied behavioral sciences over two paradigms: holism versus reductionism. A review of the literature reveals substantial support for the holistic approach, but most of the applied perspectives employed by policy practitioners are reductionist in character. Through a "sociology of knowledge" evaluation of clinical medicine - one of the most successful applied behavioral sciences - the prevalence of reductionism is related to several social structural factors, including the organizational and normative structure of the practitioner group and the broader interest structure of society. The author presents evidence indicating that the same factors account for the predominance of reductionism in all applied behavioral sciences. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
Subject: Social sciences
ISSN: 0021-8863
Year: 1988
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