M. Brewster Smith

Social-Psychological Aspects of Student Activism

WHEN WE EMBARKED on our study of student activism, evidence was already in hand that the activist minority, whose strident protests first attracted worldwide attention on the Berkeley campus in the fall of 1964, bears little resemblance to the marginal types, the academic dregs, that popular journalism was wont to portray and in which respectable voters-at least in California-liked to believe. It was already becoming clear that they were drawn from among the best students on the best campuses (Block et al., 1968; Peterson, 1968; Sampson, 1967). We did not set out to provide further documentation of this fact. We were interested, rather, in shedding light on the psychological basis of activism and alternative patterns of student orientation to the sociopolitical order. We have reported elsewhere on two major foci of the