John C. Glidewell

Social norms and helping in a community of limited liability

The social norms constraining interpersonal helping (formal and informal) were studied by the analysis of interviews of 348 persons in the Chicago area. The findings showed that only half the respondents who received help from family and friends believed that they had a right to such help. Three-fourths of those persons receiving help from professional practitioners believed they had a right to such help. There was a definite relationship between the kinds of rights and the kinds of duties reported by those who believed they had such rights and duties. The relationship was significantly different in personal helping among families and friends from what it was in professional helping processes with practitioners.

Dyadic Bargaining Outcomes Under Individualistic and Competitive Orientations

Using forty-eight manufacturing managers as subjects, this experiment tested the outcomes of bargaining sessions held under all the possible combinations of two subject orientations (individualistic and competitive) and four conditions of communication (oral and written in face-to-face and remote situations). The results failed to show any significant main effects of orientation or communication on outcomes or bargaining times, but did show a significant interaction between orientation and remote vs. face-to-face bargaining. Under remote conditions a competitive orientation yielded slightly greater joint outcomes, but, under face-to-face conditions, an individualistic orientation yielded markedly greater joint outcomes. There was a correlation between outcomes and some measures of communication, but the pattern of the experimental effects on communication was not congruent with the pattern of effects on outcome. The findings imply that some visual signals interfere with bargaining under competitive, face-to-face conditions, but the interfering signals were not isolated.

SELF AND SOCIETY

Brewer negates the role of generalized vascular spasm as the common denominator in the pathogenesis of toxemia of pregnancy, offering the thesis that malnutrition of the pregnant female results in significant liver dysfunction, especially the detoxification abilities of the liver, and that this is the primary pathogenesis of the MTLP. The regimen of therapy therefore is predicated on nutritional improvement via a high protein diet. Sodium restriction, saluretic drugs, antihypertensives, and bedrest are not used. Reducing the bacterial flora of the gastrointestinal tract by use of neomycin and sulfathalidine is employed. Current interest in high-risk pregnancies, especially in the lower socioeconomic population groups, makes this focus on good nutrition especially appealing as prophylaxis of MTLP. However, more careful clinical and laboratory research is needed to prove or disprove the authors thesis. EDWIN M. GoLD