INTERACTION OF RESEARCH AND SUBJECTS IN SOCIAL INTERVENTION STUDIES

Since the literature on studies of studies is not rich, it appeared that to achieve any attempt at a rounded viewpoint another base was necessary. For the last twenty years I have worked in a school of public health, an area practicing intervention long before I came on the scene. However, my entry as a psychologist and the hiring of many colleagues from the social sciences came about, seemingly, as a result of a shift in relationships between health professionals and their publics. Apparently as an aftermath of the Great Depression and the Roosevelt Revolution, members of the public were unwilling to accept commands from experts. At any rate, we were asked to give courses in how to reach the unreached, on the social bases of health behavior, and in general on how to entice people into health programs. This is an interesting sequel to the rise of organized public health activities associated with the social ferment around 1850. I mention this not only for whatever interest it may have, but also as a warning concerning the levels of certainty of much of what I have to say, which will be much like that above, to be taken with much salt. I am not operating on bedrock or with mathematical generalizations of well-founded data. Nonetheless, there is a rich body of experience and lore that can be useful as caution and hypothesis, and Thucydides’ statement about the utility of history may well apply. Many things that have happened may recur, but often they shouldn’t. What I am dealing with is the social process involved among practitioner, research worker, and a public in the course of studying intervention. It could be recast into the form of Holmes or Mead, discussing their perceptions of our perceptions of their perceptions because it does involve the peculiarities of looking over one’s own shoulder. I am sorry that I can’t give a page of structural equations involving these game theoretic feedback processes and I have not included a one-page systems diagram, although I don’t apologize too heartily. My favorite null model of cooperative unhelpful intervention is that of two people at both ends of a two-way switch system. As one is about to turn on the light, the other responds by also flipping his switch, and we have a vivid realization of the equation 1 + 1 = 0. I have not analyzed this in detail nor extended it to the three-party situations we are considering. This is a complex process involving a high degree of self-consciousness about others. Even theologians have trouble with this, and we are far from a theory of involvement. If I can intervene in your thinking and thus contribute to successful intervention, I would be happy in the conviction that you had contributed to their happiness. Much of what I say is personal experience, and I hope it isn’t overly hortatory. This, however, is another one of the dangers of intervention. If you are repelled by it, try to turn it to account by not getting caught doing it yourself. Recently, studies of medical practice, which is intervention of the first order, have indicated problems that are worthy of note. Many of these problems arose because the intervention was considered to be purely biological, and this may