Relationships Between Social Science and Child Guidance Practice

Abstract

not interfere with, modify, or handicap the securing of facts. In research interviews the interviewer, unaware of these matters, is, on occasion, likely to be deflected from factfinding to giving advice or to becoming the object of the subject's emotional displacement. There are many other important techniques of interviewing which the trained caseworker could contribute to social psychology, especially in collecting those types of data not easily secured by means of more formal questionnaires, measuring scales, and the like. In trying to secure intimate and often unconsciously derived material from an informant, one usually needs a more subtle approach than a paper and pencil questionnaire or a check list of items. In closing this paper we need but briefly restate the fundamental considerations. Social casework is concerned with social action which must of necessity involve moral judgments. The latter, in turn, are rooted in the cultural matrix of our society. In contrast, social psychology has to do with the collection and generalization of facts with a view to the systematic formulation of laws of social behavior. Yet both fields may and do contribute to each other. The contribution of casework. to social psychology would be greatly enhanced by further development of objective measures of their operations. On the other hand, social psychology may learn much from casework, not only of facts regarding behavior, but in many techniques of securing data.

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