Ronald Lippitt

The principal's role in facilitating innovation

This article maintains that the principal is an important influence in promoting classroom innovation. The authors are all at the University of Michigan: Mr. Chesler is a teaching fellow in sociology; Mr. Schmuck is an assistant professor of psychology; and Mr. Lippitt is a professor of sociology and psychology. All three are staff members of the Institute for Social Research.

Parental Coerciveness, Child Autonomy, and Child's Role at School 1

The present study is part of a larger research project dealing with the effects of the childs experiences in the home on his role at school. The independent variables dealt with here will be parental coerciveness and child autonomy, as perceived by the child. By parental coerciveness, we mean the extent to which the parents punish the child, physically or by deprivation. By child autonomy, we mean the extent to which the child is free to act without immediate adult supervision. The theory is essentially that boys who perceive their parents as being highly coercive and also report themselves as having high autonomy will be successfully assertive in the school situation. It is postulated that perceived parental coerciveness arouses hostility in the child. Also, because it often seems to the child to be arbitrary and to disregard his needs and interests, and because it heightens the power discrepancy between parent and child, the perception that parents are coercive should evoke in the child needs for self-assertion and for status as an important person. The role of autonomy in the present theory is that it provides the conditions for the childs learning skills which have relevance for peer group leadership, and for developing self-confidence in independent action-characteristics which should help the child satisfy the needs induced by parental coerciveness. Furthermore, experiencing autonomy may function to soften the hostility that coerciveness engenders, just as coerciveness may function to restrict somewhat the impulsivity that autonomy alone might produce. In sum, parental coerciveness is seen as a motivating force and child autonomy as a facilitating agent. This view led to the expectation that children whose parents are perceived as both coercive and autonomy-granting will be successfully assertive in the three major areas in school-academic performance, social influence, and friendship. It was expected that in each area they would assert themselves more, and would do so more successfully. The specific

Cross-cultural experience as a source of attitude change

twenty-three men, ranging in age from twenty-two to thirty-six. They took part in a program which was under the supervision of the Political Science Department of the University of Michigan, and their time in this country was divided between seminars, courses, and field trips at the university and travel and individual internships away from the university. The research program consisted primarily of a series of three interviews, administered in English shortly after the visitors arrived in Ann Arbor; shortly before they left the United States; and approximately six months after their return to Germany. These

Can we achieve a collaborative community? Issues, imperatives, potentials

We live in an increasingly interdependent world, in increasingly interdependent nations, and in increasingly interdependent communities. Our effectiveness in these societal contexts would in all probability be enhanced if we knew how to work together for the achievement of mutually-shared goals. But voluntary collaboration is an unfamiliar skill for most individuals and groups. Efforts to cooperate are often ineffective and half-hearted.

Perspective on development: From PG to GD to OD to HRD to TRU

Abstract Organization development as it is practiced today has emerged from the personal group and group development movement. It is still evolving and its latest form is human resources development, which is slowly but steadily replacing organization development. The futuristic form that will eventually emerge is total resource utilization, which as the term denotes is a humanistic use of all individuals where they are happiest and most productive in the organization.