Stuart W. Cook

The field of action research.

The scientist who is engaged in action research necessarily adopts the conditional approach to his problems. He cannot be content just to describe the course of events since he wishes to influence their course. There are special difficulties in action research because the scientists problems are determined by society, their solutions are sought in society, and the solutions must be successfully applied in society. Action research may take 4 different forms: (1) diagnostic--the research agency studies the situation and makes recommendations as to remedial action; (2) participant--individuals of the community who will later implement the remedial measures participate in the original diagnosis; (3) empirical--discovering what happens in a given situation when certain measures are adopted to the end of developing generally valid principles; (4) experimental--various action techniques are compared under controlled conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

The effects of personal contact on intergroup relations

The authors point out that physical proximity in itself may not promote harmonious intergroup relations. Many other factors, such as social norms and similarity of goals, play a part. Miss Selltiz is a research scientist with the Research Center for Human Relations at New York University. Mr. Cook is head of the Department of Psychology at the same University.