Toward the Reformulation of a the Contemporary Psychology:
The Theory of the Senergicons
By Walter H. Bruckman
Department of Social Science
University of Puerto Rico
Cayey Campus
January 2000
Copyright © W. H. Bruckman
Dedication
Man's true measure is taken not by what he achieves but by what he yearns to achieve.
Anonymous text on a mural at the University of Zulia in Maracaibo, Venezuela
I want to dedicate this work to Ernesto (Che) Guevara and Karl Marx.
In the field of social change we can speak of two types of persons: those who interpret reality and make the theory
about it, and those who put the theory into practice. The task of the scientist and the task of the revolutionary
complement each other. The revolutionary is the man of action. Both tasks are extremely difficult, which is why
you will rarely see one person excelling in both to exactly the same degree.
Of the two kinds of life, the most exciting is that of the man of action who, in identifying himself with the pain
of others, gives himself to a cause that is noble. Both characters, however, travel together through history and
are almost inseparable. One complements the other. In the back of the mind of every man of action (governor, statesman,
politician, guerrilla fighter or revolutionary) there is usually a philosopher or social scientist (most often
an economist) whose theories are used to interpret reality and to put forward the objectives or goals for which
they will fight.
When the social reality interpreted by the philosopher or the social scientist changes too rapidly leaving the
theory lagging behind, or when these theories fail in their interpretation, the sacrifice which the man of action
has made in his effort to save some part of humanity becomes useless, for he can then only count on his good intentions
and love for his fellow man, but not with a correct analysis of reality, which is what truly allows him to bring
about change. So we see that the revolutionary is usually either the driving force behind the ideas of the philosopher
or the victim of these ideas. Che himself was no stranger to this situation:
...It should be said that the revolutionary theory, as an expression of a social truth, is over and above any public statement; that is to say, the revolution can be undertaken if the historical reality is interpreted correctly and if the strengths involved are correctly used, even when the theory is not known. It is clear that the adequate understanding of this simplifies the task and prevents falling into dangerous error, as long as the stated theory corresponds to the truth.
Hence the importance for the revolutionary to arm himself with a correct theory or at least to get as close as
reasonably possible to the description of reality. Otherwise, the sacrifice will have been in vain.
For me, Karl Marx was one of those theorists who served mankind by developing a theory that allowed the revolutionary
to interpret reality. We can agree or not on the applicability of the dialectic methodology to all situations in
general. However, we are in agreement with the necessity to analyze social realism based on a dynamic methodology
focus. Only when we employ the dialectic term in this sense, can we be in agreement about its general applicability.
The most valuable aspect of Marx's methodology is this dynamic focus on the analysis of social reality, a contribution
that has not received much correct use. His interpretation of the form in which capitalism functions based on this
dialectical methodology, in our judgement, was accurate. With the passage of time, the reality that he described
changed and his theories should have been revised by his successors to adapt them to the new realities. Unfortunately,
this did not happen. It is not easy to imitate his genius. Other scientists (not identified with the socialist
ideology with which Marx, as a man of his time, was identified and which he attempted to promulgate as solution
to the misery which the development of capitalism brought about) reinterpreted the great contributions of Marx
to adjust them to a changing capitalism. Such was the case of John Maynard Keynes. These theories, for corresponding
to the capitalist ideology that Marx struggled against, were converted into theoretical tools to interpret the
reality of the apologists for capitalism, which were adverse to Marx and his thinking. As a result, they served
to opaque Marx's great contributions and to detract from the just recognition that he deserved.
Marx as well as Keynes was talking about the two faces of the same coin. Marx's work, as he explained how capitalism
operated, also insinuated the way in which it could be saved, something he was not interested in propitiating.
Keynes picks up this insinuation, reinterpreting the Marxian contribution about the underconsumption in the capitalist
system. The Keynesian Theory (and above all his celebrated marginal propensity to consume) was no more than a different
way of presenting the problem of underconsumption in capitalism as the cause of economic depressions.
Notwithstanding, this is not the place to do a comparative analysis of both theories. I plan to accomplish that
task in a later work. For the present, it is enough to say that, although many aspects of the Marxist theory on
the workings of capitalism have ceased to be in effect before the reality of a changing capitalist system, in other
aspects it is still timely, even though many years have passed.
The followers of Marx made a poor and deficient use of the dynamic focus in the analysis of the capitalist system
after Marx. The theories of neocolonialism and imperialism are examples of this. These theories endeavor to explain
the causes of underdevelopment as a problem, not as low productivity in the underdeveloped countries, but as a
consequence of some commercial relations that were highly unfavorable for the underdeveloped countries. The developed
nations are rich because the underdeveloped ones are poor. One thing is the direct result of the other. As absurd
as a proposal so simple and trivial appears to be, it has had and continues to have great acceptance by the radical
left wing thinkers.
Why is this so? There are various reasons. One, important in our judgement, is the following: the theories of neocolonialism
and imperialism penetrate easily because they evoke strong ethnocentric emotions and, in addition, they make themselves
not responsible for their problems. It is a psychological phenomenon. Everything that evokes one's own country
and its struggle against the enemy, real or imagined, produces strong emotions and, as a consequence, impacts profoundly.
When the established analysis or theory accurately describe the realities, such exacerbated passions serve to produce
heroic feats, such as the independence of the American nations, or the resistance to the invasion of a country,
like the one staged by the British and the rest of Europe in the face of the German invasion. Notwithstanding this,
when the analysis or theory established to arouse ethnocentric emotions does not describe reality, these sentiments
and emotions become consumers of much energy and are responsible for a great loss of time in the struggle of the
countries to get out of their condition of poverty. They serve as traps that keep them on a treadmill that can
never lead them anywhere. Such is the case of Latin America and of all the Third World countries.
The loss of time and energy is a serious consequence of the absence of a correct theory of reality, but the greatest
loss is that of those exalted men who, because they did not have the guidance of a correct theory, sacrificed their
lives without seeing their ideals realized.
The revolutionaries, who employed the Marxist theory on the form in that the capitalism works (which with the passage
of time had lost force) as a tool to interpret the reality and to prescribe the solutions, saw their efforts lost.
Such is the case of the Cuban, Russian and Chinese revolutions and their dead converted into useless sacrifice,
as was the case with Che, among others.
It is because of this that I wish to dedicate this work to the two people who have had the greatest influence on
me: Che and Marx. The question will be asked about how two persons whose political and economic thinking differ
from mine could have influenced me. Che and Marx are men of their times and as such were subject to the horizon
marked off by the knowledge that prevailed in that time. Marx, for example, criticized the exploits of Simon Bolivar
in America, accusing him of representing the interests of the bourgeoisie, possibly with reason, but even so this
does not keep his analysis from being mistaken. No one is so perfect nor so inspired as to be right in everything.
In the case of Che, he believed that the causes of Latin American underdevelopment rested with North American imperialism.
He was wrong, but so were many important Americans who thought the same way. Said Che:
What is underdevelopment?
...Colonial, semicolonial or dependent countries. We are countries with economies distorted by imperialist action, which has abnormally developed the industrial and agricultural branches needed to complement its complex economy. The "underdevelopment" or the distorted development, involves dangerous specifications in raw materials, which they maintain with the threat of hunger to all our countries.
The figure of Che, like so many others, is not spoiled a whit for having erred in these matters, for, just as it
is implied in the words in the mural of the University of Zulia, and that it serves as epigraph to this dedication,
the greatness of men is to be measured by the nobleness of the ideals pursued and the purity of the soul. Che himself
knew this. With the intuition that great men have, he recognized that no matter how correct or inspired the work
of a man is, his human condition does not make him infallible in all he says or does. And yet, reasons Che, this
does not spoil his work, nor does it reduce its importance, nor should it be the reason for not studying it seriously:
Marx, as thinker, as investigator of social doctrines and of the capitalist system which he was born into, can evidently be criticized for certain errors. We Latin Americans can, for example, be in disagreement with his interpretation of Bolivar or with the analysis that he and Engels made of the Mexicans, taking for granted certain theories about races and nationalities which would not be admissible today. But great men, discoverers of luminous truths, live despite their small faults, and these only serve to show that they are human, that is to say, beings that can incur in error even with the clear conscience of the height reached by these giants of thought.
In the figure of Che we see the man of action, the politician, feel the pain and the injustice of the dispossessed,
look at his surroundings, arm himself with the ideological tools that he understood were the most advanced of his
time, and willing to give his life for humanity.
In the figure of Marx we see the scientific man, committed with the action, who sacrifices his life, and even his
family, in order to leave a better world to humanity, by means of a scientific analysis of reality.
In the most difficult moments of my life, I evoke the figure of Che in the middle of the jungle plagued by torturing
needs, mosquitoes, humidity (as it affects an asthmatic person), without food, water, etc., fleeing enemy bullets
in the middle of an asthma attack; and I am consoled by his image, thinking that my luck is not so bad, no matter
how serious my condition is. I see in him the figure of Christ. He who after two years that must have seemed a
thousand, of great sacrifices in the revolutionary war of Cuba, who had everything: fame, the recognition of his
contemporaries, a place in history, an important post in the government, a family, and he left it all to go to
a martyrdom in Bolivia for love of humanity.
The life of the theorizing scientist is very monotonous and boring. He does not have the emotion and the intensity
of the man of action, whose function it is to put theory into practice. More than Walter Bruckman, I had liked
to be the Che
Prologue
I. The Idea of Reformulating the Psychological Theory
Some time ago we became interested in studying the causes of underdevelopment. With this in mind, we undertook
a number of trips to Latin America and visited farms in each country whenever we could. We thought that if the
problem of underdevelopment was to be found in productivity, all we had to do was study the means of production
and change them to a more productive technology. From this we became interested in studying the means of agricultural
production in order to compare these means with those of developed countries with the idea of finding out which
was the best technology to be undertaken. Because on each trip we had so little time to dispose of (three months
of vacation in the summer) and no financial source at all outside of my salary as professor, we decided to concentrate
on the production of chicken and pork. To our surprise, even in such underdeveloped countries as Peru, advanced
production technology was in use to a significant degree. For example, the Ponce Frio family in Peru used very
advanced technologies in their production of chicken, and the Fucuda family also used the most advanced technologies
in their production of pork. Of course, these were not average farms, where the majority of them were using backward
production methods.
Logically, we estimated that one way of producing economic development was to use these farms as models for agriculture
and spread the information about these technologies throughout the country. We soon found out that this was not
feasible. The main obstacle was the attitude of the peasants, who didn't propitiate the diffusion of these techniques.
Moreover, it seemed to us almost intuitively that the prosperity of these farms depended, not on the technology
they used, but rather on their attitude toward life. That even with a technology not too advanced, the ones who
were prosperous were the ones who had good attitudes towards savings, thrift, efficiency, work, etc. From this
perspective, we considered that a substantial part of underdevelopment was a problem of attitudes.
These findings led us to focus on the study of underdevelopment from the psychological and the sociological rather
than from the economic perspective. It had been some time since we had observed that in underdeveloped countries
a great number of the institutions either did not function or they functioned very deficiently. The police did
not function; justice and the courts did not function; the means of transportation functioned very deficiently,
with no schedule, no departure time, no arrival time, without any responsibility for the service they offered the
client. Especially, we noted that while the level of development of one country was greater, greater also was the
level of discipline observed in its citizens. That is to say, there was a correlation between the attitudes toward
discipline and the level of economic development.
On this basis, we worked out our first draft of the causes of underdevelopment. When we had our ideas more or less
finished, we found a book, published by the Center for International Affairs of the Harvard University, on the
causes of underdevelopment, which caused us great pain and also great joy. The book was entitled "Underdevelopment
is a State of Mind", by Laurence E. Harrison. Although his theory was not exactly like ours, there was certainly
a great analogy. Moreover, in this book there was a bibliography on other persons who had already talked on the
subject in the past. Our disappointment was great, for we had thought that publication would take away the glory
of our being the first to express such ideas. On the other hand, to see that other people had arrived to conclusions
similar to ours, filled us with joy, for that meant our ramblings were not in error and that our observations were
confirmed by the observations of others.
The appearance of this book led us to an even greater surprise. We remained waiting for the world to bow before
so extraordinary discovery, but nobody paid any attention. At least that is the way it has been up to now. When
we noticed the publication date (1985) we realized that the book had been some time in circulation without the
academic and intellectual community haven given it any importance. We meditate. If this happened to a work that
received the support and the financial backing of a university with the prestige of Harvard, had it been our case,
no one would have been found to publish it, or even to pay any attention to it. We asked ourselves for what reason
would anyone pay attention to something so obvious. Even more, according to the bibliography quoted by Harrison
himself, this has been being repeated in similar form by different authors, without anyone noticing it. Such is
the case with Carlos Rangel in his book "From the Noble Savage to the Noble Revolutionary". We thought
it might be because the specific link or connection had not been made between the values, the attitudes, the culture
and the underdevelopment. That is to say, the causality, the cause and effect relation, had not been established
between these elements, which had always been considered in its implicit form in the analysis but not in the explicit
form, so that the relation had never been explained. In that respect, Harrison himself hurled a challenge in the
last paragraph of the introduction of his book:
...I want to repeat my belief that culture, more than any other factor, explains why some countries grow faster and more equitably than others.
...One of my principal hopes is that others will be stimulated by the book to undertake the research that will either verify, expand, or modify the thesis.
We decided to pick up the gauntlet and try to convert the belief into a scientific fact establishing the causality
relations.
Our next step consisted of examining psychological and sociological literature to determine what these disciplines
had to say about the formation of attitudes, values, motivation, etc. in individuals, and in this manner to formulate
a cause and effect relation between the formation of attitudes and the level of economic development. Although
it seems simple, this was a very difficult task, for as economists, we were not so familiar with the psychological
theory. After having revised the literature we found that this task could not be carried out given the present
development reached by the psychological and sociological theory. The most relevant to our interest was the first.
Much to our regret, we found deplorable the state of development of these sciences. The concepts developed about
values, attitudes, emotions, motivations, etc. seemed incorrect. Our personal experience and our intuition told
us that the true relations were not what the theory set forth. Furthermore, there did not appear to be integration
between the different aspects of the psychological theory. The themes or areas of psychology seemed to be islands
of knowledge that are not interrelated one with another, or are interrelated in a very weak way. In this way the
interrelation between attitudes, emotions, motivation, etc., do not appear to be clearly established and, in many
cases, simply are not established. Even more, in occasions it is affirmed that the relationship doesn't exist.
For example, in the case of emotion and motivation, according to the theory these are independent processes.
For us, all these things were intimately related. Especially, it seemed to us that the emotions played a fundamental
role in the motivation of the individual, which as we saw it, did not seem to be treated adequately in theory.
It also did not seem to us to adequately treat the relation between values and the attitudes with the emotions
and the motivation in the individual. For that reason, we soon arrived at the conclusion that if we wanted to work
out a theory about economic development, we should reformulate the whole psychological theory developed until the
present. The present work is the result of that task and it is on this base which we are going to have to continue
in the future our original work about the causes of the economic underdevelopment, which in the meantime has remained
in suspense.
What meaning does this theory have for psychologists and sociologists? Because of the importance improving the
standard of living of the society has for those who govern, economics has a greater prestige over the other sciences.
To the degree that in order to make decisions, for all practical purposes there are no governments that can do
without economic advisors. The principal advisors to the governments in this day are economists. Psychologists
and sociologists shine in their absence. If this theory is correct, and if our appreciation is correct that a substantial
part of economic development depends on attitudes, then in the future the principal advisors of the governing class
will be social psychologists or psychological sociologists instead of economists. That is to say, a model of psychological
and sociological theory would be being established with a functionality that would be converting it into the most
practical and efficient tool for forming public policy in the society.
II The Discovery of the Senergicon as a Key Element in Our Theory
It has taken us approximately one year and a half to produce this theory in its essence. The key element for its
development came about accidentally. We had dedicated long hours, for several months, to deciphering how attitudes
were formed. In a trip we made to Europe, our attention was attracted by a particular occurrence that took place
on a train that was going from Germany to Holland. As we had on more than one occasion the bitter experience of
missing the stop where we were to get off, we firmly resolved that this would never happen again. Our deficiency
in English made it often happen that we did not clearly understand the answer we received when we asked what the
next stop was. Our preventive measure consisted of asking as many times as seemed necessary, until we dispelled
all doubt.
We do not remember in which town it was where we had to get off, but we stopped a porter in the passageway and
asked him what the next stop was. He told us and we clearly understood what he said. Soon we recalled that on the
other occasions we thought we had correctly understood and yet it was not that way, so we decided to ask the porter
again. When he passed by, we felt a great shame to ask him the same silly question that he had already answered
with great clarity, and so we could not make it. We began to think about it, for after all it was related to what
we were studying about the formation of attitudes and the activation of emotions. Then, we said to ourselves: "It
shames us to ask the same person the same question twice because he is going to think we are foolish." So
we decided to wait until another porter passed by to ask the same question. Curiously, to our surprise, we could
not stop him either, for the emotion of shame invaded us again. We asked ourselves: How is it possible that we
are ashamed when this time we are asking a different person who has no reason for thinking we are foolish? After
a little reflection, we reached the conclusion that it was the person sitting behind us who made us feel ashamed
and not the porter at all. Our subconscious had realized that this person had seen us question the first porter.
Consequently, we felt shame because at a totally unconscious level our brain had registered the presence of an
object that was activating the emotion of shame.
We reflected upon our finding for a long time and we discovered the central idea upon which we began to structure
our new theory. This was the idea of an energized sensation of the conduct (senergicon) activated by the presence
of an object. We thought that in some part of our brain something had contrasted the action alternative that we
had worked out, with the constellation of values. To repeat the same question twice, we thought, was dissonant,
as action alternative, with the value "to act like a fool or like a dumb person is bad"; as a result
one senergicon is activated. This is what happened with the first bellboy/bellhop. Later, the experience with the
second boy suggested that certain aspects of this process could be unconscious. The speed with which this contrasting
process takes place is so great that, for the individual, things appear to be taking place instantaneously
We also discovered that the installation of one value was something rather stable and difficult to change. We conducted
various experiments in this regard in the cities we were visiting. For example, we had observed that when we asked
a passer-by for a direction and he would give us an incorrect one, indicating for us to go, in our judgement, in
the wrong direction, our tendency was to continue in the wrong direction so that the person who try to help us
would not feel bad. If we go in a direction contrary to the one we were given, we feel ashamed and sorry, for we
are calling the person who tried to help us silly. When we were in Paris, we resolved, as an experiment, to begin
to ask people for directions, and then to go in the direction contrary to the one they gave us. The idea was to
unlearn the value that activated the emotion of shame and to install a new one in its place. The value that produced
shame in us was "To call a person foolish or ignorant with gestures or actions is bad". The value, with
which we wanted to exchange this one, was "To have perfect control over what we wish to do is good."
We threw ourselves into the task, while we silently repeated this last value, and once the directions with the
explanations were given to us, we went in the opposite direction. After many repetitions of this experiment, it
continued to produce in us a great shame and pain at acting this way, above all, when the person was amiable and
anxious to help us. This led us to conclude that the formation of values, once installed, had great stability.
These experiments, product of the personal reflection, led us to a third finding. Introspection, as investigative
methodology, so discredited by contemporary psychology, should be the only available way to get out of the mire
that science has found itself in these days, and to be able to move somewhat ahead. Upon returning to Puerto Rico,
we employed this methodology in order to develop our theory.
III Corruption, Inefficiency and Low Productivity, and Their Relation
to Attitudes
Something that notably impressed us on our trips to European and Latin American countries was the dramatic differences
in attitudes. If in Latin America the police are easy to bribe, in Europe this is not so possible. At least it
is not commonplace. If in Latin America justice in the courts cannot be exercised because of the high degree of
vulnerability in the criminal justice system, in Europe and the United States it is the opposite. So much so, that
the greatest threat that can be made to a drug dealer is to tell him that he will be deported to the United States
to be prosecuted. They place bombs and declare an utterly ruthless terrorist war. Some have offered to pay their
country's national debt provided they will not deport them. All that because they know that in that country they
have few possibilities to influence, to bribe, to extort or to manipulate the system of criminal justice. In their
own country they feel secure in this sense.
Although in Europe there is government corruption, in Latin America this is so institutionalized that it has become
the norm and not the exception. When a politician is caught in the act of stealing, instead of resign, he refuses
to abandon his post and his bitter complaint seems to indicate the strange idea that his sacred right to rob his
part of what justly corresponds to him of the national sacking is being violated. That is to say, the attitude
is not one that produces shame for being caught stealing, but rather it is one that "denounces the persecution
of which he is the victim" of those who would not allow him to get what he wants and whom he identifies as
his enemies. Rob the member of the assembly, the legislator, the mayor, the governor, the minister of state, the
cabinet secretary, the president. In short, to rob is considered part of the norm not the exception.
The regularity of theft takes in all the social spheres outside of government, which is in contrast to what is
observable in the developed countries. For example, although in Europe one can find isolated cases of pirated copyright,
nevertheless these practices are strongly pursued and punished by the government; on the other hand, in Latin America
the copies of cassettes of music of any singer or musical group are sold publicly, as much by street peddlers,
as by commercial establishments. Computer program piracy is the order of the day. Book piracy is practiced without
any restraint, with the indifference, and in some countries, even with the consent and participation of corrupt
government officials who benefit from it. Punctuality and responsibility are, like attitudes, markedly different
in developed and underdeveloped countries. If in Latin America the rule is that a bus that ought to leave at 8
on the dot leaves at 9, 10 or 11, in Europe if you arrive at the bus station at one minute past 8, the probability
that you miss the bus is almost certain. If in Latin America the public responsibility of businesses companies
is poor or non-existent, in Europe and the United States if an airline or a bus company leaves a passenger in the
terminal by the fault of the company, the passengers knows that far from lamenting the situation he can rejoice
because not only will the price of his fare be returned but the next day he will travel free. In the meantime,
for that night room and board will be paid by the company. I remember one of many experiences in this to this effect
while traveling through Latin America. One bus that traveled from Santiago to Antofagasta broke down in the middle
of the desert. The driver got us off the bus and then told us in the middle of a desert that was suffocatingly
hot that we had to arrange for our own transportation out of there. When I asked for my money back he put on the
face of a victim and asked me if I thought he had damaged the bus on purpose. He said that it was not his fault
that the bus had broken down and there was no way that he returned me the money. In other words, within his constellation
of attitudes he had charged me not for taking me to Antofagasta, but for his intention to take me there.
So we see that the social institutions, public as well as private, in the developed countries are efficient and
they work, unlike those in the underdeveloped countries. As a result, productivity is high in the former.
Leaving to one side the workings of the social institutions to examine the workings of the individuals in the society,
a high level of discipline is observable in the developed countries, contrary to the case in the underdeveloped
ones. Also observable is a high correlation between the level of economic development reached by a country and
the level of discipline that its citizens reveal in their attitudes. For example, Switzerland has the highest per
capita income in the world, after Kuwait. In the case of Kuwait this high income is due to the exploitation of
petroleum, but in the case of Switzerland it is a matter of enormous productivity. The per capita income for Switzerland
in 1989 was $29,880 wish is approximately $10,000 higher than that of the United States. But Switzerland, unlike
the United States, is a very small country. The level of observable discipline in Switzerland is impressive. Upon
arriving at Geneva we noticed that to take the bus one does not have to pay the conductor. The system is based
on the trust and the honesty of the citizen. At the stop there is a coin box with a list of the stops that the
bus makes, the exact time it gets to each stop and the money that should be deposited in the box to pay for the
stop you are getting off. The box gives you a receipt for the amount of money you deposited in it, but neither
the conductor of the bus nor anyone else asks you for that receipt to confirm your pay.
In our country a system like that, if it were established, would immediately go broke, since the percentage of
evaders would not allow it to function. As a matter of fact, we were so drawn by this example of self-discipline
that we decided to try an experiment to verify up to what point this system would be vulnerable if it had to function
with persons that did not respond to that constellation of attitudes. By asking passengers we found out that at
certain points in the center of the city it was likely that an inspector would get on a bus and verify the receipt
of payment of each passenger. Whoever did not have a receipt had to pay a fine equivalent to approximately fifty
American dollars. Swiftly we moved to that point and patiently waited for an inspector to get on the bus. The experiment,
we thought, would be worth the trouble of sacrificing fifty dollars. After several attempts we finally achieved
our purpose. A man of retirement age got on the bus and immediately began to ask for receipts. The first thing
we noted was how easy it is for the evader to determine at what point the inspectors were likely to be. In the
second place, it was easy to identify the inspectors so that the person could get off the bus the back way when
an inspector got on. For this alone this system could not function in our country. In consequence, the functioning
and the effectiveness of the system would depend on the self-discipline of the citizen, and therefore of their
attitudes. When the inspector reached me, I told him I did not have a receipt. We cannot describe the look of surprise
on that man's face. He seemed to say with that expression that he expected to retire without ever bumping into
an evader. His face become somewhat contorted and with a gesture that seemed to be more of joy and of nervousness
than of anger, he began to fill out a ticket while he gestured affirming with the head with his head, at the same
time that he told me the amount of the fine to pay. I told him that I did not have money to pay fines and then
he seemed to lose his bearings. It was as though he could not believe what he was seeing. This time, in a visibly
nervous way, he ordered the conductor to stop the bus while he told me to get off and using his radiocommunicator
sent a message to the central station requesting that a vehicle be sent to the site in order to pick him up and
an arrested person. As he got off the bus he began to walk in front ordering me to follow him. I turned around
and began to walk in the opposite direction. I expected that he would try to detain me, by grabbing me. But it
was not that way. With a face each time more contorted he went behind me saying that I could not do what I was
doing. Meanwhile, with great courtesy I indicated that I was not going in that direction and apologizing for my
lack of control of the language I walked faster and lost myself in the city. In other words, that man not only
expected in terms of his attitudes and expectations over mine, that I was honest and pay the bus, but that when
I was surprised in my lack, I was willing to pay a fine. Plus still, he waited, in terms of their attitudes and
their expectations on mine that in the event of not paying the fine, I would go and voluntarily shut myself up
in jail. It is this constellation of attitudes that generate the efficiency in the system so that the institutions
work. It is this constellation of attitudes that allows its income per capita to be $10,000 more than that of the
United States even though it is a much smaller country and with many less natural resources.
Another characteristic of the developed countries that can be observed in attitudes is that the people queue up
automatically for everything. For example, to get on the buses they stand in line without anyone asking them to
do so. In our country this would be a little less than impossible. Here when a bus approaches, people at the stops
prepare their elbows in anticipation of the struggle that is about to take place, to see who gets in first. If
it is at the time of heavy traffic, the struggle becomes really bloody. As a curious item, it is noteworthy that
in Latin American countries of greater economic development, such as, for example, Mexico and Argentina, people
tend to stand in line to get into buses and the level of self-discipline is greater. This corroborates the asseveration
made previously, in the sense that there is a high correlation between these two variables.
In the south of Germany, in the region of Bavaria, we could observe that in department stores, valuable objects
remained exposed, accessible to anyone who wanted to steal. For example, 10 to 15 dollars ballpoint pens could
be found on unprotected counters, so that it was easy to take one, put it in your shirt pocket and continue walking
without being noticed. We searched the place for concave mirrors or video cameras, and discovered there was no
protection of this kind. We investigated about this among the passers-by and found out that the police in this
region were very strict. When they got a hold of someone stealing, they gave him a hard time. We don't know if
this were true or not, but just in case we decided not to conduct any experiment in this respect in Germany.
A characteristic of European countries in terms of attitudes that attracted our attention was that of not throwing
paper on the floor. In our country, is frequently that a person will eat something and throw the wrapper on the
floor, or if he is in a car he will throw it out the window. In Europe, the typical conduct is not only different,
but everyone feels free to reprehend the person who does it. In our country, those who do not throw a paper on
the floor, do not feel, that they have the right to call the attention to the ones that do it. Nor do they dare.
Apparently another attitude exists that says that each person can do whatever he wants, and it is disapproved of
for someone to interfere. That person is called meddlesome, and is considered offensive and not minding his own
business.
In relation to this we undertook an experiment in London. We wanted to see if it were feasible to generate a statistic
that would permit us to estimate what proportion of the population had a determinable attitude. Later, we would
do the same in other European capitals, with the object of finding the correlation between this variable and the
level of economic development, measured in terms of income per capita. The experiment consisted of stopping at
the end of the sidewalk in front of Hyde Park with a McDonalds bag that had leftovers in it. When someone approached
I threw the bag to the ground and furtively looked to see the expression on the person's face. Later, I determined
the proportion of persons that reacted negatively as an estimate of the proportion of persons in the population
who had a strong attitude against that conduct. To my surprise I was arrested by a policeman who had been surreptitiously
watching my behavior, before the expressions of sheer joy shown on the faces of the people who had been observing
my investigation. It was hard work trying to convince the policeman that I was a professor at the University of
Puerto Rico and that I was working on a scientific experiment of a sociological nature. Finally, I managed to get
him to release me, but not without first warning me that he did not want to see me doing those supposed experiments
in any place in London.
The experiences in European and Latin American countries left me with the strong impression that the attitudes
in these countries were not merely secondary consequences of the economic development reached, but rather, conversely,
they played a fundamental role in the level of development reached. That is to say, the economic wellbeing does
not bring, are not the cause of the correct attitude, as some believe, but rather that these are the cause of the
economic wellbeing.
These were the impressions that led us, in the first place, to formulate ideas about the causes of underdevelopment
as a problem of attitudes and, in the second place, to reformulate the psychological theory about attitudes. Finally,
the reformulation of the theory of attitudes led us to reformulate all the rest of the psychological theory, which
is the material that we present in this work.
Once a theory is developed, the next step within that methodology consists of verifying--by means of laboratory
experimentation and field observation--to see if the theory is confirmed by reality. This is a task that requires
the concurrence of many people and many resources. We hope that at the universities they will be developing experiments
that will lead to confirmation or rejection.
It is worth pointing out that throughout our research, we found many terms and concepts that we developed and for
which there were no words in literature, nor in popular talk. As a result, we found ourselves, as in a Garcia Marquez
story, in a place like that of Macondo in which, in order to refer to certain things, they had to be marked out.
For this reason it became necessary to baptize them. The term "senergicon" is an example of this. There
are many more concepts like this one, which comes from having walked through territory never before stepped on.
We are grateful to Dr. Rosario Núñez de Ortega for having read the document in its entirety and having
made many corrections in style and orthography. The ones that still remain are the responsibility of the author.
We wish to end with a last observation. During the first revisions that we made about the theory of the emotions,
one of the best known persons in this field, Robert Plutchik--by chance also from the University of Harvard--in
the introduction to his book "Las Emociones", works out a list of questions which a theory about the
emotions should answer. We picked up the challenge and endeavored to answer it. Throughout the entire study it
has always been our intention to answer as many of the questions as were posed by Plutchik.
Plutchik emphasizes the function which, according to the philosophers of science, every theory must have:
1. The theories should act as integrators of the facts that are already known.
2. They show the connection between areas apparently separated.
3. They should be stimulating to new investigation.
4. They should forecast new relations.
Apart from the challenge that we picked up from Harrison, we have always been very resolved to satisfy these four
demands of Plutchik. We have specially tried to formulate a general theory that would be capable of integrating
the theories, not only within the field of emotions and motivation, but also of the different fields within psychology.
We believe we have obtained the first truly general and integral theory of psychology. Naturally, the reader will
judge the correctness of our claim.
W.H.B.
Cayey, Puerto Rico
February, 1991
CHAPTER 19
RESEARCH PROJECTS TO BE DEVELOPED BASED ON THE INFORMATION PRESENTED BY THE THEORY OF SENERGICONS, AND SOME IDEAS
ABOUT THE MEASUREMENT OF SENERGICONS
19.1 THE NEED FOR AN INDEX OF ACCULTURATION IN THE SYSTEM OF THE NATIONAL
STATISTICS, AND THE MEASURING OF SENERGICONS
As we pointed out at the beginning of the first chapter, this last chapter of the book is the most important of
all. The reasons why will soon become evident.
In light of the theory we have presented there remain three tasks or assignments that need to be carried out:
1. Develop a national database of statistics that highlights the degree to which individuals in a society come closer or they move away from the cultural values developed by that society and incorporate that information into the national registries or statistics
.
2. Measure a senergicon. Not only to register its presence when an individual faces a valued object, but also to register its magnitude or intensity-both parameters are important.
3. Research how values are installed and de-installed.
The First Assignment
If our theory is correct, and if it is true that a substantial part of the economic development of a people
depends on the attitudes of those people, that is, on the constellation of learned values that the individuals
that compose that society have installed, then, incorporating this variable not only into the economic analysis,
but also into the field of economic research itself, would be of fundamental importance. Within that context the
development of a national statistical database that will yield a measure or a quantitative index of the attachment
of a people to their culture or, more specifically, to their values, is as essential and important as the very
measure of the national gross product itself. This measure of attachment to values would serve not only to initiate
a plan of economic development that contemplates an increase in the level of that statistic in the undeveloped
countries, but also to frame and give annual follow-up to the level of progress reached by developed countries.
It is necessary to point out and to advise the reader that what is being attempted is not to measure the values that a people or a society have and that are expressed as part of the culture through its social norms, but rather the proportion to which those values are installed in the population and the intensity with which the individuals that have them installed respond to them (the importance of the value). All peoples develop the same, more or less, set of values that we could refer to as basic . This expression of a people's culture is very similar from one culture to the next due to the fact that the basic social values are the verbal expression of individual behaviors that lead to the welfare of the collective. Given that what defines the welfare of the collective tends to be similar in all societies, the expression of individual behaviors that generate that collective welfare, and that is what is represented in the values of a society that we have denominated as basic, more or less is the same in all societies, from the most underdeveloped to the most developed. In virtually all nations it is bad to lie, steal, be dishonest, be a spendthrift, be inefficient, etc.. The difference lies in the fact that, in developed countries the proportion of the population in which these values has been installed and the intensity (relative importance of the value) with which the people that have them installed respond to them, are greater than in developing countries. This has consequences on the collective welfare as well as on the level of productivity, efficiency, and economic development of the society as a whole.
In other words, all societies have developed and exhibit a set of cultural values that we can denominate as basic and that all have in common. It would seem that all societies discover, through experience, the same basic set of cultural norms of behavior that define the common good, the collective good, over and above the individual good. In all societies stealing and lying are bad, honesty is good, etc.. What differentiates one society from the next is not the basic pattern of cultural values each develops, but rather the proportion of the population that attaches to the values and faithfully follows them. In short, societies are differentiated according to the proportion of individuals that install in memory bank three of learned values, the values established by that society and that it consecrates as a venerable part of its culture.
This is one of the ways in which our theory is different from that of Harrison, just as we pointed out on page
two of the preface.
By the preceding proposition we do not mean to say that all cultures are alike in terms of their system of values
or the social norms they develop. Instead, we mean that they all tend to be the same in terms of the set of values
and basic norms that define the common good over and above the individual. In that sense, all societies, through
experience, arrive at the same conclusion, the same point of discovery, and consecrate it by way of social values
that form part of the general culture at large. For example, societies may differ about the values that define
the roles of men and women in society, the way people dress, or their eating habits. They may differ in their concept
of punctuality, the meaning of life, and even obscenity. In that way, Arab culture is different from the Latin
ones and this latter one from Anglo Saxon cultures. But in all of them, stealing, lying, being dishonest, a spendthrift,
inefficient, egotistical, not to be altruistic, etc., is bad. All of these are values that constitute the common
good. These elements of the constellation of values that define the common good are the ones we call basic values
and whose installation in the individual's psyche we are interested in measuring.
The measure of the degree or the proportion in which a society's basic values-ones that define the common good-are installed in the members that compose that society, would be an index of the degree of acculturation (attachment to the culture). It is to be expected that the more a people adhere to the values that define the common good, the more efficient that society will be and the greater the economic development it will attain.
Developing this statistical data implies giving rise to the necessary research in order to determine which values, among all of the basic learned values that societies have, are most correlated to the level of economic development. That subset of learned values that best correlates to the level of economic development will be the best predictor of this development and, consequently, the attachment to it, or degree of acculturation , will be the best index to measure attachment to the culture, from a utilitarian perspective of economics. Measuring the reliability and validity of such an approach will be another task that will need to be researched.
Intuitively, the learned values that best correlate to the economic development are those that tend to make the system work in an integrated manner, like an organism. Those that allow the predictability and reliability of the conduct or behavior of the members that compose a particular society. Consequently, the following social norms should be considered in the development of an index of acculturation:
1. No lying
2. No stealing
3. To be honest
4. To be thrifty
5. To be efficient
The first two values corresponding to the social norms "no lying" and "no stealing" provide reliability and predictability to individual behavior, which implies that the system will work better. That way corruption will be less and all costs related to it will decrease. Moreover, the system works effectively because money flows freely and individuals do not avoid their debts or they do not lie by acquiring debts that they are not going to pay. There is more business and a greater sales volume and, as a result, greater production. The acceptance of checks, credit cards, and other means of payment in developed countries, allows money to flow and foment a greater volume of business transactions. In countries where the acceptance of checks is not very great, due to the great quantity of checks written without funds, money does not flow and business is more restricted.
The third value, corresponding to the social norm "to be honest," is the one responsible for the fact that in developed countries institutions function more efficiently. In these countries the courts, police, government, etc., work; they function properly. On the contrary, in undeveloped countries the system of justice is far from being as efficacious as it is in, say, the European countries, for example. The government also does not work. The public employees that grant a construction permit, a license to operate a business, or an authorization to do something, do so based not on the public interest (welfare of the collective) as frequently happens in the developed countries, but rather based on their own individual convenience and welfare. On whether or not the person requesting the license or permit is or is not someone they know, a friend, family member, or relation. Or on whether or not granting the permit or license is something that would benefit them. For example, if the the person requesting the permit is an important person, it behooves the public employee to ingratiate himself to him, etc.. Such behavior is regulated by the value that is installed before the highly abstract object set down by the social norm "to be honest" and which is "to be honest is good." In those cases where there is no relationship or friendship with the public employee, but a payment of money is accepted for the "favor," the value "no stealing" is the one that regulates this behavior.
The problem just described with respect to public employees in the executive and judicial branches of the government is equally applicable to the legislative branch. The corruption, the lies, and the dishonesty among politicians is responsible for much of the lack of progress in developing countries.
A weak attachment on the part of individuals to the first two values is what causes governmental corruption to drain public funds. A large part of these funds never reach their destination because the public employees steal them directly or through contracts that are awarded at an onerous price to private businessmen who then go on to pay a commission to the corrupt public employee.
A weak attachment on the part of individuals to the third value is responsible for a justice system in developing countries that either does not work or works poorly.
Lastly, the values corresponding to the norms "to be thrifty" and "to be efficient" are essential for the correct operation of the economic system. The citizen that is economical and that always searches to get the most for his dollar helps the system to function effectively, just as the citizen that is efficient and always tries to achieve his goals employing a minimum of the available resources. Both values activate compulsive senergicons, that is, in both cases the abstract object that is faced is a goal or objective. Consequently, the more the individual distances himself from economy or efficiency as a goal or objective in different situations, to that extent will anxiety be activated in him. Only when he comes close to or achieves those objectives does anxiety disappear. For that reason, in developed countries, in spite of the superiority they exhibit in medical advancements, people suffer more from heart attacks and high blood pressure than in undeveloped countries, since, to the extent that they have these last two values installed, distancing or moving away from efficiency generates in them a strong feeling of anxiety.
In conclusion, an index of acculturation that is related to economic development should contain measurements
of the attachment of the members of the society in question to the values corresponding to the five norms discussed
here.
Second and Third Tasks
Developing an index of attachment to the cultural values will perhaps be the easiest of the three research tasks that should be implemented. Probably the most important and most difficult work will be that related to the second and third tasks, that is, achieving a precise measurement of the intensity of a senergicon and generating the research to determine how values are installed and de-installed in human beings, at what age is it easiest for this process to take place, how can national programs that install learned values in the population be developed, etc.
These are problems whose solutions may be better understood in light of the results of the research that will be carried out, instead of sitting down to think about what is the optimum way of doing it. Even though our own ideas about how to go about carrying out these tasks are still not sufficiently clear, further ahead we will suggests some ideas that will give the possible interested reader not only the idea of the way they can be carried out, but also the enormous magnitude of the difficulties with he will face in those areas.
The measurement of the presence and intensity of a senergicon that is activated when an individual encounters or faces an object, is of crucial importance. It will not only serve to corroborate our theory, but also to the extent that methods are developed to achieve more precise measurements as well as measurements that are easier to obtain, a whole new world of research possibilities will open up in the field of behavioral sciences. In addition to serving the field of behavioral research, finding a precise and easy way to measure a senergicon that is easy to implement, will allow greater indexes of acculturation to be developed. In other words, finding a way to measure a senergicon is an extraordinarily difficult task. To the extent that easier and more precise ways of measuring the presence of a senergicon are found, to that extent will we be able to obtain better indexes of acculturation.
Lastly, if these tasks that we are proposing are carried out successfully, social psychology and psychological
sociology will have entered a completely new phase in their development as sciences. Social psychologists and psychological
sociologists will begin to fill many of the positions as government consultants that are now filled by economists
and from which they have up to now been excluded. Psychology and Sociology will have left behind the plane of the
strictly theoretical and inapplicable and will have entered into the area of a science that is practical and utilitarian,
achieving a higher priority than the science of economy in the sphere of long run governmental decisions for improve
the economy and functioning of society.
19.2 OTHER USES THAT THE MEAUREMENT OF A SENERGICON MAY HAVE
In addition to creating an index of acculturation and serving to develop research on behavior, the measurement
of senergicons would have an immediate practical application in the field of micropsychology. These measurements
would be useful as much for private enterprise or business as it would for certain branch of government. For example,
honest behavior is a crucially important factor in the branches of government that manage confidential information,
as well as in the area of private enterprise where a great deal of money is involved.
To be able to predict which individuals have the greater probability of not acting dishonestly before the temptation of profit and which have the greatest probability of yielding to the temptation, would be a very useful factor when selecting the personnel for certain key positions.
Such a predictor would be extremely useful in those businesses that require personnel of great trust as, for example, a bank employee or an employee in a branch of government that, like the armed forces, is in a position to know national secrets or works with confidential information.
One of the emotional components of the attitude an individual has not to steal or lie is shame. Of the three dimensions of the tricotomic attitude discussed in chapter 14, this is the one that regulates an individual's behavior before others. It is to be expected that the greater the shame the action of stealing or lie produces in an individual, the greater the probability that he will not steal or lie.
The intensity of the emotion of shame in an individual depends on biological and genetic factors. Some people feel more shame than others, in the same way that some are faster, stronger, more resistant, or more intelligent than others (see the section entitled, "The Innate Aspect of Personality" in chapter 15). In addition to the innate factors, the intensity of the emotion shame also depends on having internalized the social values "to lie is bad" and "to steal is bad," and of having assigned them an order of importance in the hierarchy of values (see the section entitled, "The Learned Aspect of Personality" in chapter 15). The internalization of values and the importance these have on the individual come primarily from what he has learned from his parents and in second place, from school, church, and other institutions.
The level of shame felt by a person when violating a social norm, such as not stealing or not lying, will depend on that individual's sensitivity to shame, that is, to experience the emotion of shame, and on the negative subjective valorization installed in memory bank 3 of learned values, in addition to the importance he has given to the values "to steal is bad" and "to lie is bad," derived from the social norms that require one not to lie and not to steal.
Measuring the intensity of the emotion of shame that these determinants produce in the individual, with respect
to the social norms "no lying" and "no stealing," allows us to use these measurements or variables
as predictors of the conduct of the individual when that individual is responsible for managing information and/or
materials that require him to be honest.
We are interested in knowing how to determine what would be the average intensity of the emotion of shame that
an individual should possess in order not to steal $10 dollars. What is the average intensity he should have in
order not to steal $30 dollars, $100 dollars, $1,000 dollars, etc.?
19.3 WHAT IS WHAT MEASURES AN ACCULTURATION INDEX?
In this section and the next we will discuss some ideas as to how we can achieve the first task put forth by our
theory at the beginning of this chapter.
As we have pointed out, an index of acculturation should be constituted by a measurement of a the degree of attachment of the members of a society to those values that are most strongly correlated to economic development. Intuitively, we believe that five values that are highly correlated with that development are those that correspond to the social norms: no lying, no stealing, to be honest, to be thrifty, and to be efficient. What follows are some suggestions of how to obtain a measure of the adherence of individuals to these values.
We are not considering the value "to be honest is good" because it is an abstract object that is difficult to reduce to conditions that permit experimentation. In addition, honesty is a concept whose perception varies greatly from one individual to another depending on the context, on the level of tolerance each subject has for distortions and of his capacity to analyze complex situations. Consequently, there are actions that an individual with a high tolerance to distortions and/or with a high capacity to analyze complex contexts could detect dishonesty and react in an affective way, while others who do not possess that ability perceive nothing and, consequently, even though they have the value installed they would not react in an affective state way. We hope that consideration of the four remaining values will be sufficient to develop an index of acculturation that can be highly correlated to the level of economic development.
The correlation that we may hope to find between the attachment of individuals to their cultural values that define the common good and the level of development, will depend on just how much of the underdevelopment is explained by factors that are strictly economical and just how much is explained by factors directly involving the lack of attachment to cultural values. With the existing knowledge it is not possible to determine what proportion of economic underdevelopment is the result of one or another factor. Intuitively we believe that at least from 30 to 40 percent of underdevelopment is explained by the poor attachment of individuals to their culture and from 70 to 60 percent to variables that are strictly economical. If this appreciation is correct, then the effective of the development of national programs to increase the index of acculturation should result in be able of improving the national economy by a factor of at least 30 percent.
Nevertheless, economic factors are frequently connected in an indirect manner with sociological factors so that changes that occur in the latter affect, in the long range, the changes that take place in the former. So that we may expect that the development of national programs to increase the acculturation index will produce, in the long range, improvements in the economy of more than 30 percent.
The index of acculturation should measure the attachment the individual has to the basic values that define
the common good, that is, the proportion of individuals that have the values installed and to what degree of importance.
This is equivalent to a proportion P of them in which senergicons are activated before the abstract objects given
by the social norms and which is the average intensity (importance of the value) with which the senergicons are
activated in the individuals who have them installed.
The proportion P of the population that has installed the value "to steal is bad" and the importance
that has been assigned to this installation constitute two indexes of the attachment of those individuals to that
value. If we wanted a general index of the attachment to a value (GIAVi), we could obtain it from the product of
these two particular indexes:
GIAVi=(Pi)( )
where Pi, being the proportion of individuals that have the value i, in particular, installed, and is the average
intensity with which the senergicon is activated before the presence of the abstract object given by the social
norm in those who have the value.
We could do the same with the remaining three values and we would have a set of indexes of the adherence of individuals
to each one of those values. In order to obtain a total index of attachment to the values (TIAV), these four subindexes
are added.
This is a pondered sum because it is to be expected that some basic values are going to be more related to economic
development than others. If the value "to be efficient is good" has double the importance of the value
"to lie is bad," the proportion of individuals that have the first value installed, as well as its intensity,
should be multiplied by two, and the proportion of individuals that have the second value installed should be multiplied
by one. This way the index of acculturation would be:
TIAV= W1P1 + W2P2 +W3P3 + W4P4
where the Wi are the ponderation factors, the Pi are the proportions in which the respective values are installed in the population and the are the corresponding intensities of the activated senergicons (importance of the value).
Since at the moment we do not know what values to assign to the ponderation factors Wi the only thing we can
think to do is estimate the four Pi and present them as four separate indexes. Nevertheless, because we do not
have a mensuration instrument capable of identifying and determining the presence of a senergicon, or of its intensity,
it is not easy to obtain these measurements. An indirect and easier way of obtaining measurements of Pi is the
one discussed in the following section.
19.4 AN INDEX OF ACCULTURATION THAT IS SIMPLE AND EASY TO ESTIMATE BASED ON MANIFEST BEHAVIOR
The manifest behavior of individuals constitutes a reflection of the senergicons that generated it and of the values
that activated those senergicons. As a result, behavior before a valorized object may be used as the indirect index
of the presence of an activated senergicon, as well as of its intensity. Consequently, it serves to determine who
has a certain value installed and who does not, as well as to infer the intensity with which a senergicon is activated
(importance assigned to the value).
In the elaboration of an index of acculturation that is correlated to economic development, we are interested in measuring the attachment of individuals to social norms that define the basic values of a society. The easiest way of achieving this measurement is by observing the frequency with which these values are violated. It is to be expected that this variable (frequency with which a social norm is violated-FSNV) be highly correlated with the proportion P of the installation of the corresponding value and with the intensity of the activated senergicon . Consequently, it is to be expected that it will be correlated with the presence or absence of the senergicon that controls that behavior, as well as its intensity.
As we are dealing with an indirect index, there may be a margin of error in this measurement. Just because an
individual violates a norm it does not mean that he does not have the value installed and that the senergicon shame
was not activated in him with some degree of intensity. That behavioral result may be the consequence of other
objects related to the original object and of other senergicons activated by these that act in reverse fashion.
In other words, it may be the result of the difference between a simple attitude and a complex attitude, as we
saw in chapter 13. The measurement or the direct registering of the emotional state activated before an object
(shame) will be the best index in order to determine if the valorization of the object is installed and with what
intensity (importance) and, consequently, will determine if the individual responds or not before the value or
social norm under question. Nevertheless, as long as the necessary sufficiently refined scientific methodology
has not been developed that can measure a senergicon unequivocally, precisely, and easily, we have no choice but
to adopt some practical solutions. As a result, in the absence of other alternatives, the manifest behavior related
to the frequency with which a social norm is violated may be the best index of acculturation that we may be able
to obtain in this historical context about that specific social norm.
19.5 A SIMPLE INDEX OF ACCULTURATION ABOUT THE NORM "DO NOT STEAL"
The calculus of the index of acculturation of the value "to steal is bad" could be carried out in the
following way: a random sample is taken of the population that is representative. Then, each individual is submitted
to a situation in which he is exposed to the temptation to steal a certain amount of money, for example $100. The
number of persons that gave in to the temptation is registered and it is determined what proportion of the sample
these people constitute. This will be a calculus of the proportion of individuals in the population that do not
have the value "to steal is bad" installed, or that, if they do have it installed, it does not generate
a sufficiently intense senergicon (importance of the value) to counteract the temptation produced by $100.
The experimental situation to which each individual will be submitted in the sample should be carefully established so that it will seem credible to the individual test subject and, consequently, the way he acts will be natural, that is, it will correspond to what he really would have chosen to do under similar conditions that were not experimental but real. The same can be done to other social values that are considered important in the construction to an index of acculturation.
The experimental model that is chosen in order to elaborate an index of acculturation like that one suggested with relation to the social norm "do not steal," should be one that can be applied under similar circumstances in different countries so that its results or the national statistic that is obtained can be compared from country to country. Along these lines, a simple and economical model to apply would be the following: By means of an adequate sampling technique, a sample of the individuals whose attitudes should be representative of the population should be taken. The sample should contain a proportion of people with the same economic level, so that the level of temptation to which they are all submitted will be the same for all. One hundred dollars is not the same to a poor person as it is to a rich person. Three samples can be taken, one from a high social strata, another from the middle class, and another from a poor class, and generate from these three indexes of acculturation--one for each social strata. After having determined the sample or samples, their addresses are located.
When the individual is not home or is not looking, someone dressed as a mailman will place in his mailbox a letter with the name and address of another person. It must look like a mistake on the part of the mailman. The letter should include $10 dollars, $15 dollars, or $20 dollars in cash with the following message:
Dear son,
I hope you are well. Enclosed are the ten dollars that you asked me to send you to buy the book for the chemistry class you are taking. I hope it is enough.
Love always,
Jane Doe
The letter should include the telephone number and address of the mother and this address should not be far,
so that it will not cost much to return the letter by mail or to telephone the person directly. The address and
telephone number will be, naturally, those chosen by the researcher in order to determine the proportion of those
who returned the money versus those who did not.
Observe that in this context, "mother that helps her son" and "student who struggles and makes sacrifices
to obtain an education" are objects that are valued in themselves and that activate senergicons opposed to
the act of stealing. If the valorization of these objects are the same in all countries, the proportion of individuals
who violated the norms in each country will be comparable.
A second experimental design that would correct this situation would be the following: a letter similar to the
previous one, but this time the sender would be a governmental agency or a non-profit private agency that supposedly
sends economic assistance to someone. This letter should also contain in the envelope a message that reads: "If
we have made a mistake, please return the contents of this letter in the addressed stamped envelope we have included.
Of course, the address would be that of the researcher. Please observe that using this second experimental model
we eliminate the two valorized objects "mother that helps her son," and "student that struggles
and makes sacrifices to obtain an education," as well as the counter effect that the senergicons activated
by these objects may produce on the behavior of the individual in terms of his decision to steal or not to steal.
In this way we have managed to arrange it so that there are only two senergicons determining the individual's
behavior: the senergicon that produces the temptation or the desire to steal the money, and the senergicon that
prevents him from stealing the money. In this case, the last senergicon is that of the anxiety caused by the compulsion;
that is, of the three dimensions of the tricotomic attitude before the abstract object or the social norm "do
not steal," the one that is related to the violation of the social norm before oneself, even though no-one
is watching, is regulated by the compulsion (see chapter 14 for a discussion about the tricotomic attitude). It
is to be expected, then, that those individuals that have that value installed and in which, consequently, the
compulsive senergicon will be activated, will return the money to the private or government agency that sent the
letter.
The quantity of $10 dollars instead of $100 is due to how costly the experiment would be if we used the latter
amount. Another way to economize on the experiment would be to include a voucher for $100 of economic assistance
in the letter the government sends instead of cash. In this third model the voucher should indicate that it can
be changed to cash at a specific address. Of course the address will be that which the researcher chooses in order
to register the proportion of individuals who show up to cash the voucher. Given that these individuals would be
assuming a false identity the researcher should have no problem when he informs them he cannot change the voucher
because they are not the person to whom it was addressed. And, because the individual would be acting dishonestly,
it would be quite ethical on the part of the researcher if he told him that. This way he would be trying to inculcate
the value in a person who lacks it.
Please observe that in this third model the individual would react to two abstract objects or social norms at the same time: "do not steal" and "do not lie." By assuming a false identity he is lying. In this case, the activated senergicon is the sum of the effect of encountering or facing both objects. And, because both effects would be inseparably mixed, it would be impossible to determine what magnitude of the effect corresponds to which object. This would be an example of a complex attitude. The ideal scenario would be one in which we could develop an experimental model where the effect each senergicon has on that behavior is isolated. This way we can determine if the individual has one or two values installed. In the second experimental model (where we send the person some cash so that he return it if he has the value "to steal is bad" installed) we manage to isolate one effect from the other, but the required funds are necessary since it is very expensive.
As the reader may have noticed, each new experimental design that is created with the goal of isolating an effect or a variable, introduces at the same time a new problem.
In this third model the senergicon that controls behavior is not that of anxiety, but rather that of shame. In other words, of the three dimensions of the tricotomic attitude before the abstract objects or the social norms "do not steal" or "do not lie," the one that is associated with the violation of the social norm before the others, is regulated by the emotion of shame (see chapter 14). It is to be expected that people who have this value installed and in whom, consequently, the shame senergicon will be activated, will not claim the voucher for cash.
Please note, however, that the individual may have a value installed with respect to one dimension, for example, not to lie or steal in front of people (shame), and not have it installed with respect to another dimension, for example, not to lie or steal although there are no people looking (anxiety). As a result, he may not lie or steal in the first instance because he would have to do so in front of people that would see him, but he may lie and steal in the second instance if there are no people present to see him. That is why a good index of acculturation should determine the proportion of individuals that have the value installed in each dimension.
As we have pointed out, this third experimental design has two inconveniences: in the first place, one cannot measure separately the effects that the two senergicons activated by the two abstract objects "to lie" and "to steal" in front of people will have on the behavior of the individual and, secondly, we would only be considering the dimension of behavior controlled by the senergicon shame. Let us see how we can resolve this last inconvenience.
If we wanted the senergicon that controlled behavior to be the compulsive one, anxiety, the money would have to be mailed instead of having each person pick it up personally.
Please observe that given that in this fourth design the bonus would be sent by mail, the senergicon that controls this conduct would once again be the compulsive one brought about by the emotion of anxiety, precisely because we would be dealing here with the behavior or violation of the social norm before in the presence of one's self not in the presence of others. Be aware, then, how with a few slight changes in the experimental design one can isolate one dimension from another.
As far as the first inconvenience is concerned, we can isolate a simple attitude from a complex one if we change the experiment and send cash instead of a voucher, just as it was done in the second experimental model. That way the object or norm encountered would be that of stealing only and not stealing and laying at the same time.
As we already mentioned, when the financial funds needed to obtain these measurements are scarce, an experiment should be designed that employs a voucher instead of cash. This is the case of the third experimental model, in which it is necessary to present to the subject of the experiment a story that will seem real and convincing. For example, some type of help awarded to families with many children. In that case the experimental model would be the following:
Once the sample or samples are chosen and the addresses are determined, as well as the number of children for each family, then the fictitious agency will send a letter informing them that if the number of children in the family is greater than___, they will have the right to receive a financial aid bonus of $100. The number of children indicated should be greater than what that family really has. The letter should contain a blank space where the person will indicate the number of children it has. The family should then return the information to the address indicated in the letter. This will be the researcher's address.
The letter could indicate, for example, that if the number of children in the family is seven then the family has a right to receive a bonus of $80 dollars, if it is eight, $90 dollars, and if it is nine or more, $100.
This same experiment could be done using any other variable that is different from the number of children, for example, the individual's monthly income. If this monthly income is less than a certain established amount, then the family would qualify to receive a financial aid bonus, etc.. In this last case, the experiment could not be applied to individuals of a high economic strata since it would lose credibility.
The letter to be used in this last experimental model could read as follows:
Corporation for Social Assistance
Financial Aid Program for Families with many Children
Dear Sir or Madam:
The Corporation for Social Assistance (CSA) is a charitable, religious, non-profit organization. Its purpose is to provide financial aid to families that have seven or more children.
Families with seven children will receive a financial aid bonus of $80 dollars, families with eight children will receive a bonus of $90 dollars, and families with nine or more children will receive a bonus of $100. The bonus is not for families that have seven or more members, but specifically for families that have seven or more children per household. If in your family there are seven or more children you would qualify to receive this financial aid. In this case, you should fill out the enclosed form with your name, the number of children in your particular family, and the address to which the financial aid bonus should be sent. The form should be mailed to the address that appears on the back of the form. You may place the form in an envelope or fold it in the places indicated by the arrows, seal it, place a stamp on the corner, and deposit it in any mailbox.
The form for applying for the bonus could contain the following information:
Name: __________________________
(You will put the name to which the check will be made with the bonus.)
Address: _________________________
(The address where the check should be mailed)
The number of children the applicant has:
______
Please fold this form on the lines indicated by the arrows, seal it, place a stamp in the indicated corner, and deposit it in any mailbox.
To assure ourselves that the statistics obtained among different countries can be compared, we should make the level of temptation to which the subjects are subjected the same in each country. For example, $100 is not the same for a worker in The United States as it is for one in Peru. Consequently, a better criterion would be to select as the level of temptation for each country the equivalent of one week's worth of work. Even doing this, however, the real degree of need that individuals may have in different countries will still not be fully taken in to consideration. For example, once again, a day without work is not the same for a worker from the United States as it is for a Peruvian worker. For the former it could mean the loss of a day's wages, but for the latter it could mean going without food for one day.
All of this statistical noise or all of these variables would have a bearing on the level of temptation to which each subject in each country would be exposing himself. Trying to assure that the individuals that make up the sample in each country had the same power of acquisition, could improve the experimental model, but it would make it more difficult and expensive, in addition to introducing other noises or variables whose effects could have repercussions on the results. Statistical noise has the effect of hiding (reduce the correlation) the effect of the real relationships between the variables. In other words, even though the relationship between two variables is perfect, the estimated coefficient of correlation could be low due to the effect of the rest of the variables that have a bearing on the first ones. In these cases, the only thing that can improve the results is the perfectioning, in practice, of an experimental design that will manage to isolate the variables that interest us from the rest of the variables that affect them.
As may be seen, in spite of the fact that this index of acculturation, based on manifest behavior, is very simple to elaborate, it contains serious limitations due to the statistical noise we mentioned. In addition, we can expect the level of economic development to be related not only to the proportion of individuals that have installed a negative valuation/valorization towards stealing Pi, but also towards the average intensity with which the senergicon is activated before the presence of the abstract object "to steal," depending on the importance that has been given to the value "to steal is bad." Consequently, it is important to try to determine not only the presence of the senergicon (which reveals the installation of the value), but also the intensity with which this senergicon is activated before the presence of the object (importance that has been assigned to the value). In the acculturation index that we have described, based on the proportion of individuals in the population that violated that social norm for a pre-determined level of temptation, these two factors appear indistinguishably mixed. The ideal situation would allow us to be able to measure each factor separately: the proportion of individuals that have installed the value and the average intensity (importance) with which they respond to the value.
Another important factor is the following: what positions within the hierarchy of power in society occupy the persons that have values installed toward the abstract object "steal"? For example there may be a large proportion of individuals in the general population that have installed the value "to steal is bad," but if the small proportion of individuals that do not have installed that value occupies the positions of power and are the ones that make the important decisions in society, this will be reflected in the economic level of that society. In other words, it is important that the proportion of politicians with installed values be great. This acquires more importance as a determinant of economic development than the proportion of individuals in the population that have values installed. The same reasoning applies to any other positions of power in society, such as the individuals that direct businesses, institutions, the government agencies, etc.
We repeat once more, all of these variables or statistical noise will tend to hide the relationship that may
exist between the economic development of a society and the attachment to the values that society has established
and that it consecrates as norms of its culture. This attachment to cultural values is what we try to measure through
the index of acculturation.1
19.6 A SIMPLE INDEX OF ACCULTURATION BASED ON THE NORMS "TO BE THRIFTY" AND "TO BE EFFICIENT"
Let us now consider the last two values of the four we are taking into account as indexes of acculturation. In
order to obtain a measurement of the adherence of individuals to the value "to be thrifty is good" we
can proceed in the following way:
First the representative sample or samples of the population are selected. Their addresses are located and a letter
is sent to each with the following content:
Congratulations! You have won a $100 voucher from the Valentino sock company. There are 10 warehouses where you
can obtain Valentino socks. The price of the valentino socks is $2.95 each. Nevertheless, this price may vary between
$2.50 and $3.50 in some warehouses. We have included the addresses and telephone numbers of each warehouse where
you can change your voucher. If you wish we can change your voucher ourselves for the price of $3.50 per sock.
All you have to do is come by our offices. This will give you a right to 28 socks that at $3.50 per sock will be
the sum total of your $100 voucher. If you wish, you may also send us the voucher by mail and we will send you
the 28 socks in return.
Each one of these 10 warehouses should record the name of the person that calls asking for the price of the Valentino
socks. It is to be expected that the more savings-conscious or thrifty the citizens of a country are, the greater
will be the number of stores that they will call to ask the price. The average number of warehouses called by each
person will be an index of the attachment of the individuals to the value "to be thrifty is good."
The proportion of individuals in the sample that decides not to call any of the warehouses and that prefers to obtain the socks at the $3.50 at the offices of the Valentino company, will be an index of the proportion Pi of individuals in the population that do not have the value "to be thrifty is good" installed. On the other hand, the average number of warehouses called will be a measure of the intensity with which the compulsive senergicon is activated by the value "to be thrifty is good" in that proportion of the population 1-Pi that do have the value installed.
No warehouse should have the price of $2.50 because if during the first calls a warehouse with this price were to exist, the individual would stop calling because he would know it was the lowest price he could find.
In order to find a measure of the adherence of the individuals to the value "to be efficient is good" we can proceed in the following way:
First we select the sample or samples that are representative of the population. Their addresses are localized and a letter is sent to them which says the following:
The AMEX company will soon open up a new branch in this city. With the goal of getting to know the local community we will be interviewing people to fill the more than 2000 positions that will be available soon. There are positions for skilled workers, unskilled workers, and for professionals. In order to interview the people who are interested in filling out applications we will be giving appointments. Your appointed will be on ______ at 12:00 pm.
When the person shows up for the appointment, because it is the middle of the day, he is invited to lunch. First he is told to go to the restroom to wash his hands and after he finishes everyone proceeds to the cafeteria. In the bathroom there will be a machine with paper to dry one's hands. The individual that is not efficient will use a great deal of paper to dry his hands without caring about what he wastes. On the other hand, the individual who is efficient will use much less paper, since the compulsive senergicon anxiety towards the object or goal "to be efficient" incites him not to waste this particular resource.
Once the individual has washed his hands and goes to the cafeteria, he is given lunch, then he fills out the application and he is said good-bye. Then, the amount of paper he used to wash his hands while in the restroom is noted. We expect that the more efficient the citizens of a country are the less paper they will waste. The average amount of paper used by each person will be an index of the attachment of individuals to the value "to be efficient is good."
Another index of efficiency may be obtained this way: each subject in the experiment will be given the same
lunch, for example, a hamburger with french fries and a soft drink, so that the need for napkins will be the same
in all the subjects. The subject will be allowed to take as many napkins as he needs from a napkin holder placed
next to his seating position on the table.
The average number of napkins used by each individual will be an index of adherence to the value "to be efficient
is good."
The examples we have used to measure the attachment of individuals to the values "to be thrifty is good"
and "to be efficient is good" may not be the best. We have not had the time to study which would be the
best ones. We have only wanted to provide an idea of how such a measure can be carried out. However, we recognize
that the examples used may lead to great biases to the cultural differences that exist from one country to the
next.
Once again we have the problem that the statistical data from low in per capita income would not be easily compared
with the data acquired from countries with a high per capita income. Only a good experimental design can resolve
this problem.
For example, in the case of the socks, the access the subjects have to a telephone from which to call or an effective
and economic means of transportation that would transport them to the different warehouse addresses where the Valentino
socks are sold, may be dramatically different from one country to another. In developed countries the telephone
service and the means of public transportation tend to be quite good and easily accessible, which is not the case
in underdeveloped countries. In developed countries the majority of people have a telephone in their homes, while
in the underdeveloped they do not. In developed countries public telephones are accessible and effective. In some
underdeveloped countries making calls on a public telephone can be a truly frustrating experience. In the example
using the paper towels to dry one's hands or in the case of the napkins, there are great variations including within
underdeveloped countries themselves. In some countries paper products are scarce and expensive due to inefficient
internal production and to high import tariffs. In these countries a napkin can seem like a luxury, consequently,
its use more restricted. This would mean that the indexes obtained for each country would not be suitable for comparison
from one country to the next. However, they would be suitable in order to compare the differences among groups
within one and the same country as in, for example, The United States.
Therefore, the above information should be taken simple as some suggested ideas that need to be refined.
It is important to remember that the precision of these measurements will improve and with it the correlation of
this result with the economic development as better and better experimental designs are developed and better examples
to represent the different social values on whose installation in the individual psyches the measurements that
will be obtained in the indexes of attachment to cultural values will depend.
Lastly, we should point out that if we wanted elaborate an index of attachment that individuals have to the value "being punctual is good," which is so important for economic development, all we have to do is estimate in the previous experiment, where the subjects have an appointment at 12:00 pm, the average number of minutes the subjects are late. This will be an index of the adherence of those individuals to that particular value.
In conclusion, the experimental model or models that will be used to obtain the measurements that will help us to determine the index of acculturation that is best correlated to economic growth, is a problem that will have to be resolved little by little as the experience and information gleaned from the research throws some light on it. A way of improving this index of acculturation is to develop methods and/or instruments that will allow for the measurement of a senergicon in the most direct and unequivocal way possible.
In the following section we will concentrate on a way to measure, in the most direct way possible, not only
the presence of a senergicon in an individual that encounters a valued object, but also its intensity.
19.7 SOME IDEAS ABOUT HOW TO MEASURE A SENERGICON
We have just discussed some ideas on how to go about realizing or carrying out the first of the three research
tasks to develop as proposed by our theory which consist on producing an index of acculturation. In this and the
next five sections we will take into consideration the second task: measuring a senergicon. We will also analyze
the manner in which this measurement of a senergicon could serve to produce an index of acculturation that is more
precise than the one we can obtain through the manifest behavior of individuals. As we already pointed out, as
the techniques to obtain precise and easier measurements of a senergicon are developed, better indexes of acculturation
will also be created. It is important to point out that in these sections we are only presenting ideas as to how
to carry out this second task proposed by out theory. We hope that these ideas serve to inspire better strategies
and experimental models in the graduate students that decide to do research in this field.
An attitude is a predisposition to act or behave in a certain manner before an object. According to conventional psychological theory, an attitude has three components: cognitive, affective, and reactive. In chapter 13 we pointed out that the so called reactive component is nothing more than the behavioral result of the first two components: the cognitive and the affective. However, what really determines an attitude towards an object is the affective component or the senergicon. As soon as an object produces or activates an affective state, the general behavior component of the senergicon determines, orients, and conforms the cognitive component of the attitude. This is because conscious reason, who is the one that elaborates the cognitive component of an attitude, attempts to elaborate the action alternatives (thoughts, cognition's) that will satisfy the general behavior component of the senergicon (about this topic see chapter 11). Consequently, in the last instance, what determines an attitude toward an object is the nature of the affective state or senergicon that is activated by the object.
For example, if a person has an attitude against Jews, the senergicons that energize that attitude are to move away unpleasant (annoyance), and attacking exciting (anger). These, then, would be the affective components of the attitude. The cognitive component could be "Jews are loan sharks," "anti-Christians," "vile people," etc.. But these reasons elaborated by conscious reason or processor 1 are the ones that satisfy the general behavior components of the senergicons that consist of, as we have already mentioned, distance oneself from the object and attack it. Consequently, once an object has been valorized and the value installed, what really determines the attitude, that is, the behavioral predisposition towards the object, is the affective state or senergicon.
One can measure or register the presence of an attitude (affective state) towards an object in an indirect manner, through registering or measuring the manifest behavior of the individual before the object, or the cognitive component of the attitude toward the object (paper and pencil techniques). Nevertheless, the more indirect a measurement is, the more the number of mistakes that will be produced. In other words, when we use manifest behavior or the cognitive component to indirectly measure the presence of an attitude, we must keep in mind that both the manifest behavior as well as what the person says about an object could be interpreted as the result, not of his simple attitude toward an object, that could be, speaking in an affective state way, one of rejection (to move away unpleasant), but of a complex attitude that is the final product of its affective state reaction before other objects related to the original object.
For example, if you ask someone what they think about lying and stealing, he could respond that he condemns
stealing as something bad, but may not have an affective state response before these objects in front of people
(shame); this, as a result of not having that value installed. Therefore, when he has the opportunity to steal,
he will do so without any difficulty whatsoever. His response that stealing was bad was a behavioral result of
the senergicons activated by other objects related to the original object as, for example, project a good image
of himself before the person who asked him, which could be a positively valued abstract object and, consequently,
can activate a senergicon or affective state that energizes the behavior toward this object.
According to what we have presented above, we can conclude that indirect methods of measuring an attitude based
on the cognitive component, by means of paper and pencil techniques, may contain great inherent mistakes in measurement
as a result of the differences between a simple attitude and a complex attitude. As we mentioned in chapter 13,
the experimental model that techniques of paper and pencil imply make it impossible to isolate a simple attitude
from a complex one. Each question that is asked to the subject concerning what he thinks about the object in question,
is itself constituted into a new abstract object before which the subject reacts. This new abstract object is constituted
by the social experience that the response to each question implies. As we stated in chapter 13, what is said about
the object is considered behavior as well as what is done (action) before it.
The reasoning applies to the method that applies manifest behavior. An individual with a racist attitude towards Jews may behave very correctly in their presence as a result of his affective state reaction before the related objects "to be a racist," "to be unjust," "to be non-egalitarian" that compose the elements of his complex attitude before Jews.
It is important to keep in mind that this manifest behavior of the individual is not, in a strict sense, a component of the attitude, but rather the result of that attitude.
In chapter 13 we also saw how only when we consider a simple attitude can we expect the affective state and cognitive components to coincide. Nevertheless, what, in the last instance, determines the attitude towards an object is the affective state component. Consequently, the most direct way to register or measure an attitude towards an object consistent in measuring the component that determines it, that is, the affective state reaction before the object. However, because we have not yet invented a method that registers or measures emotions or affective states, for now it is impossible to register or measure in a direct fashion the presence of an affective state. For this reason we must, for the time being, continue measuring, indirectly, the affective state component of an attitude.
There are two ways in which the affective state component of an attitude may be measured: by asking the individual what he feels towards an object (paper and pencil techniques) and through the physiological changes in body. Please not we are saying the indirect measurement of the affective state component of the attitude and not the indirect measurement of the cognitive component, which is a reflection of the first. As far as the first method of measurement is concerned, the mistakes arise, as we have explained, from the differences between a simple and a complex attitude. With respect to the second, there are instruments that measure the galvanic response of the skin, pupil reaction, blood pressure, heartbeats, etc.. We know that these variables are strongly correlated with emotional states. Consequently, it is possible to measure or register the presence of an affective state in an indirect way by registering one of these variables. The margin of error in the measurement, which we can expect to be less, will depend on the degree of correlation between the chosen variable and the emotion.
In the development of techniques to measure attitudes we prefer those that imply measurements of physiological changes. For the reasons we have already alluded to, we propose to measure the affective state component of attitudes based on its correlation to physical changes. In order to do that we have developed the theory necessary that allows us to design experiments that attempt to isolate the affective state component of the attitude. We consider the senergicons that correspond to the values that most contribute to the economic development of a country and that are of most interest to private industry to be the ones that are most important to measure. These are: "to steal is bad" and "to lie is bad."
If a physiological measurement can be obtained that is highly correlated to the presence of the senergicon shame
when stealing or lying, a great contribution will have been made to the field of industrial psychology and social
psychology. In other words, if we are able to measure, even in an indirect way, the affective state component of
an attitude, for example, the attitude towards stealing and towards lying, we can predict on that basis what individual
has the greatest probability of being dishonest by lying or stealing (contribution to industrial psychology), as
well as developing better indexes of acculturation (contribution to the field of social psychology). In addition,
we will contribute to the development of research on how values are installed and de-installed.
19.8 METHODOLOGY
As we saw in the section, "What is What Measure an Acculturation Index?" of this chapter, in creation
of an index of acculturation there are two population parameters that we wish to estimate in terms of the attitudes
towards established social norms:
1. What proportion P of the individuals in the population has the value in question installed?
2. What is the average intensity with which the persons who have that value installed react before it?
In order to estimate the first parameter, a representative sample of the population is obtained and each subject is measure to see if he reacts in an affective state way before the three dimensions of the tricotomic attitude before the social norm. All of those individuals in whom an affective state reaction before the presence of the object "social norm in question" is registered, for each dimension, will be identified as persons who have installed that value in the corresponding dimension. Later we determine what proportion P of the individuals in the sample have the value installed in each dimension. That will be the average of the proportion of the population that has the value installed in each dimension.
In order to estimate the second parameter, that is, obtain an estimate of the degree of intensity that the people in society that have the value installed (in each dimension) react before it (importance of the value), we first obtain an average of the affective state reaction in sample (within each dimension) as an average reaction in the population.
Then, there are two parameters to estimate with the same sample in each one of the three dimensions of the tricotomic attitude before the social norms. The methodological problem consists in creating certain laboratory conditions where the subjects in the sample are exposed to the abstract object presented by the social norm in question, and be able to register his affective state through the physiological reaction. The situation has to be sufficiently real for the subject to believe it and, consequently, if he has values installed, react in an affective way before the object. In addition, such a situation should be elaborated for all three contexts in which the triconomic attitude before the social norms is produced.
1. Behavior in the presence of other people: activation of the senergicon shame.
2. Behavior in the presence of one's self: activation of the senergicon anxiety
3. The behavior of others before the individual: activation of the senergicon anger.
In all processes of measurement it is indispensable to:
1. Define what is being measured.
2. Have a theory that explains why that variable is important and what its relationship of cause and effect is with the phenomenon that is being studied.
Concerning the first aspect, we are interested in measuring the sensation of shame, anxiety, and anger that the violation of a social norm, in each one of the dimensions of the tricotomic attitude, may produce in the individual.
The procedure to follow would be to carefully design the conditions, be that in a laboratory or in a natural setting, that provoke in the individual the sensation that one wishes to register in the selected dimension of the tricotomic attitude, isolate it from any other one, so that the measurement that one manages to register will correspond to that sensation specifically. What we are trying to do here is isolate the stimulus or stimuli (abstract objects) that produce and activate that sensation and only that sensation. Suffice it to say that this task is extremely difficult to accomplish. We should be satisfied, then, if we can create the experimental design that most closely approximates those conditions that are ideal.
As far the second aspect is concerned, the theory we will use to explain why the variable that we are measuring is important and what its causal relationship is to the phenomenon that is being studied, will be the one we have elaborated in this book from chapters 1 through 16.
For example, in order to measure the attitude of an individual towards the abstract object consistent with his stealing something or lying, the procedure to follow, according to the relationships of cause and effect elaborated in our theory, would be the following:
1. There is a social norm that establishes one should not steal.
2. To that norm corresponds the value "to steal is bad."
3. The individual who has installed that value in his psyche will experience the sensation or emotion of shame when he is surprised violating this norm.
4. This occurs because his brain detects dissonances of concrete or abstract objects (such as considering the idea of stealing) with that value.
5. Based on the results of the experiments that have done on this subject, we can postulate that the emotions and the affective states in general produce physiological changes in the organism and that the magnitude of such changes is proportional to the magnitude of the affective state.2
6. Consequently, the intensity of the galvanic response of the skin (GRS), before the dissonances of the objects with installed values, will be a reflection of the intensity of the sensation or emotion of shame the individual will experience before that object and, as a result, of the intensity of his attitude before this object.
The problem is reduced, as we stated before, to how to create the laboratory conditions that can reproduce a situation for the individual where such a sensation is activated. Given that the sensation will not be activated unless the situation is believable, the difficulty in the measurement of attitudes would be reduced to the difficulties encountered in creating laboratory conditions that will be as close to real as possible for the individual, so that they are capable of activating the behavioral sensation towards the object that corresponds to the value that he may have installed.
As one may appreciate, the definition of attitude that we have elaborated in our theory will allow us to leave
the sphere of speculation in the measurement of attitudes, where what is measured as an index and cause of behavior
can never be used to predict behavior, in order to enter into the field of objective measurements of a cause and
of its corresponding effects. Behavior will be, at last, utilized as a confirmation of the measurement that will
have been made of the attitude towards an object.
With the above methodology we will be able to determine what degree of intensity of attitude (intensity of the
senergicon) toward an object should exist in order for the probability of an individual will refrain from committing
a particular act, in the case of dissonance, or will be disposed to commit a particular act, in the case of consonance,
be that X%; that is, what is the level or degree of intensity of the attitude so that a particular behavior, be
that refraining from or committing an act, has X% of probability that it will occur. In this way this methodology
allows to calculate the level of attitude that should exist for each level of utility of carrying out a particular
behavior. For example, what level of shame should exist in an individual so that he does not steal $10? What level
of shame should exist so that the individual does not steal $1000? Etc.
Observe that the presence and magnitude of the activated senergicon is measured indirectly, based on the correlation
of this senergicon with some physiological change in the individual. The GRS is one of these physiological changes
that is highly correlated but it is not the only one. The possibility should be explored that other physiological
changes are strongly related to the activation of an affective state. This way they can be used as an index of
that affective state. For example, considering the changes in the chemical composition of blood would imply taking
blood samples of individuals that find themselves under some intense emotional state and study if there are chemical
changes in the blood that are highly correlated with the emotional state. Another possibility is to use laboratory
animals, such as monkeys or chimpanzees, and investigate if there are changes in the chemical composition of the
blood. The samples should include the changes in the proportion of vitamin and mineral consumption in the blood.
Next, we present some suggestions as to how to measure a senergicon using GRS as an index of the presence of a
senergicon. Nevertheless, in the elaboration of an index of acculturation other alternatives could be used. Alternatives
based on the chemical changes in the blood, or the pupil's reaction before the presence of the object to steal
or to lie, etc.
19.9 FORMULATION OF THE MODEL
In this section we will present a psychometric model that will help us to measure the attitude towards the abstract
object "to steal." The model presented is only a proposition subject to discussion. In fact, its purpose
is not only to suggest the way or manner in which a senergicon could be measured, but to present a scheme that
will give rise to a discussion of this topic in the academic world. We will appreciate it if a copy of any suggestions
or investigation on this topic could be sent to us at the University of Puerto Rico, Cayey campus.
In all behavior where a social norm is violated there are at least two senergicons or affective states present: one that energizes behavior toward the violation of the social norm and one that energizes behavior against the violation of the social norm. That is, we are dealing with a complex attitude where there are at least two affective states or senergicons. There is one exception. If the individual has not valorized and installed the value provided by the social norm, then in the violation of the social norm there will only be present the senergicon that initiated the violation of the social norm. In such a case there is no conflict. Given that the individual has no force in him working to impede or prevent him from violating the norm, the violation will be automatic and without hesitation or impediments whatsoever. Nevertheless, conflict is the general rule.
Consequently, usually the rule is that during the violation of a social norm there will always be, at least, two senergicons activated, one that incites the violation and another that impedes it.
For example, in the case of the social norm "do not steal" the object that incites to the person to steal could be money, which could be valorized by the individual as an object and can directly activate a to come closer pleasant senergicon, or it could serve to buy objects that are valorized and activate indirectly, through the mechanism of incentives (see chapter 8), senergicons that are to come closer pleasant. This or these senergicons energize the behavior in favor of or towards the violation of the social norm. The object that incites not to steal is the "social norm," which may be valorized by the individual as an abstract object and activate a to move away unpleasant senergicon. More precisely, the mechanics of this process would be the following: the object "money" or the objects related to this, activate a to come closer pleasant senergicons that energize behavior towards the object "money." The action alternative elaborated by conscious reason in order to satisfy the general behavior component of the to come closer, pleasant senergicon activated directly or indirectly by the object "money," could be "steal the money." But this action alternative turns out to be an abstract object that is negatively valued (social norm) that activates a to move away, unpleasant senergicon (compulsion) that will incite the individual to not steal the money.
Through this example we see that, in the majority of cases, in the process of violating a social norm there are at least two senergicons or affective states as determinants of the behavior in a complex attitude. This means that there could be more than two. For example, the related abstract object "punishment or sentence that is imposed on one who steals" can activate the senergicon fear, as well as the related abstract object "expectation of being caught" can activate the senergicon shame, in addition to fear.
Consequently, in order to measure the attitude of an individual towards stealing, we should formulate the model that establishes the relationships of cause and effect among the independent variables and the dependent variable, that is, between the activated senergicons and the final behavior consistent with the violation or not violation of the social norm . Afterwards, we should measure the intensity of the sensational component of each one of the senergicons implicated and determine the relation to the occurrence or not of the behavior towards stealing. First, let us determine what are dependent variable will be.
Our dependent variable Y is the behavior we want to predict. How can we define this variable? As we know, each senergicon has a general behavior component and a sensational component. This latter one energizes the behavior given in the general behavior component, which is to come closer or to move away from the object that activates the senergicon or of attacking or celebrating the object that activates the senergicon (see section "How Does a Senergicon Work?" in chapter 1). But this general behavior component, if true that it has a relation to the behavior of the individual toward the object is not, strictly speaking, the dependent variable Y that denotes the behavior that we wish to predict.
The behavior established by the general behavior component is abstract, not specific. We know, as Freud warned,
that if the individual directly satisfied it he would end up dead or in prison (satisfaction of the instincts of
the "id" in Freud) because he would fail to take into account the rest of the abstract objects or concrete
objects related to it and that could have adverse consequences on the individual as, for example, the related abstract
object, "possibility of going to prison." As a result, this general behavior component cannot be our
dependent variable Y. Nevertheless, as we learned from our theory, from this instinctive behavior, not reflexive
and generalized towards the encountered object, a particular behavior, response, or a specific concrete action
alternative arises elaborated by conscious reasoning before that object. This is our dependent variable Y.
In other words, conscious reason (the "ego" in Freud's theory) has the goal of satisfying the general
behavior component. In order to do that it elaborates action alternatives (specific behavior) that satisfy this
general behavior component of the senergicon activated by the object encountered by the individual. In this manner
one passes from behavior that is general, non-reflexive, and automatic, to behavior that is specific and that we
finally observe and gives us the impression of being rational, that is, of not being affected by affective states.
But more specifically, our dependent variable Y is not the action alternative elaborated by conscious reason, but rather the decision of whether to carry out or execute this action alternative that is also made by conscious reason (see chapters 1 and 11). This decision made by conscious reason, as we already know from our model, is determined by the intensities of the activated senergicons that are related to this action alternative. That is, whether or not an action alternative is executed will depend on the result of the intensities of the sensational components of the senergicons implicated in this decision. In other words, the behavior before the objects encountered by the individual is determined by the execution or non execution (Y) of the action alternative or alternatives elaborated by conscious reasoning to satisfy the general behavior components of the senergicons activated by those objects. On the other hand, the execution or non execution of the action alternatives (behavior) is determined, in turn, by the set of senergicons activated (energizers of behavior before those objects) that are dominant.
In summary, the execution or non execution, occurrence or non occurrence, of the action alternative is our dependent variable Y and the independent variables X1, X2, …Xn that we intend to measure are the sensational components of the senergicons activated by the different objects under consideration by the individual: the original object and the objects related to it and/or with the action alternatives