Advances in Applied Social Psychology

Volume 2

R. F. Kidd, M. J. Saks

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134921973
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

First Published in 1983. This volume is the second in a series of volumes on applied social psychology. The contents of the contributions represent the richly diverse approaches and settings in which social psychology is being used. In preparing their chapters, the contributors were asked to focus on how social psychologists, ' as scientists and advocates, could contribute to the resolution of the debates that often surround important social problems. Each author was asked to place his or her attempts to use social psychological knowledge in the context of his or her own specific problem. If one consistent theme emerges from this collection, it is the emphasis on employing social psychology to enlighten and understand decisions at the level of public policy. This book is a vital display of how existing literature and methods in the field can work to illuminate and inform issues of national and even international importance.

1	Teenage Pregnancy: Science and Ideology in Applied Social Psychology

Kurt W. Back

Duke University

Statements from public officials, social scientists, and private welfare organizations agree with rare unanimity that teenage pregnancy has reached epidemic proportions. The Planned Parenthood Association's Alan Guttmacher Institute calls its most recent report (1981) Teen Age Pregnancy: The Problem That Hasn't Gone Away. Its previous report (1976) was called 11 Million Teenagers: What Can Be Done About the Epidemic of Adolescent Pregnancies in the U.S. Apparently not much has been done.

The 1981 report documents the problem and its ramifications. Teenage fertility has leveled off since 1976, whereas out-of-wedlock fertility in this group is still rising, though its rise is slowing down; this leveling off seems to be due mainly to abortion; in 1978 most pregnancies were unintended (86% among unmarried, 51% among married). The background of this epidemic evokes some paradoxes. One can say that this increase has coincided with the so-called “sexual revolution,” which includes changes in openness about sex, increased liberalization of outlook toward sexual activity outside marriage, availability of contraception and abortion, equality of the sexes (single standard), to name a few. Perhaps a good indication of this change is the switch from the term sexual delinquent to sexually active teenager.

Again the Guttmacher Institute Survey gives us some data on this social change. Sexual activity of teenagers has increased, but the marriage rate has dropped in this age group. Although the effectiveness of contraceptive use can be clearly demonstrated, its increase over the decade apparently could not offset the increase in sexual activity. These data corroborate the change in sexual mores over recent decades. Thus, changes in sexual mores, availability of contraceptives, and increase in adolescent, especially nonmarital fertility, have happened during the same period.

The rhetoric accompanying at least some of the changes promised help in the concerns of early, unplanned, and illegitimate pregnancy: If children could discuss sex openly, if they had sex education, if contraception were available to them, then—among other advantages—adolescents would be able to avoid pregnancy that they incur now because of ignorance, shame, or fear. As far as these conditions were quantified, we have had a steady improvement; expenditures for service agencies for teenagers have increased, amount of sex education has increased, adolescent sex is more open and more acceptable. During the same period we have had this epidemic, this crisis of adolescent pregnancy.

Early pregnancy is still recognized as a social problem, not as a kind of liberation. Although we accept freedom of early sexual activity, we do not accept early pregnancy as progress. Obviously, adolescent pregnancy leads to population increase, not only by itself, but also because women who are pregnant early in life are more likely to have more children than those who are not (Furstenberg, 1976; Trussell & Menken, 1981). Early pregnancy will also disrupt educational and occupational progress, create a larger welfare population, lead to disrupted marriages, and have negative effects on mother and child (Furstenberg, 1981). Experts in many fields, among them social psychologists, have worked to understand and alleviate this problem. The failures, as well as the successes, can throw light on some of the choices facing applied social psychology.

The Instrumental Model

The problem we are dealing with is the resultant of two components— increased sexual activity and insufficient contraception. Each of these factors can be analyzed in more detail, for instance, what is “insufficient,” and from whose point of view? But keeping only these major factors in mind we are struck by the preponderance of research and application on the second factor—the use of contraceptives, to the virtual exclusion of the first, the increase of teenage, nonmarital intercourse. Basic to this choice is an underlying model of human nature and intervention, which is not common to all applications of social psychology.

This model is a peculiar kind of individualism. In the main, individual clients are seen as the targets for input of information and provision of contraceptive devices; the amount of this input is then related to efficient contraceptive use. Barriers to this input can be seen as ignorance, lack of knowledge of the sexual process, inconvenience in obtaining contraceptives, lack of funds in providing the service. Consistent with this model is a kind of hydraulic model of personality, apparently derived from the vulgar Freudianism of Margaret Sanger, the founder of the U.S. birth control movement (Kennedy, 1970). This would include a consistent amount of sexual constraints that may be substituted for by some tyrannical social and psychological constraints. Margaret Sanger (1920) felt that: “one of the great functions of contraceptives” was to achieve the “greatest possible expression of … desires upon the simplest possible plan [p. 117].” The model thus assumes individual action, a constant sexual instinct, the function of contraceptives as a means to its fullest experience, and the negative value of any constraints. In such a model, free sexual expression combined with free access to relevant information and devices will lead to optimally healthy sexual expression combined with prudent birth control.

But this has not happened. We can leave to the clinicians and to the burgeoning number of new-faddist therapists the question of whether mental health—especially in its connection with sex—has improved. We may also question in passing whether “unhealthy” expression of sex, such as prostitution and pornography, has declined in connection with the elimination of many restraints in damming the free flow of sexual instinct. This prophecy has not been fulfilled either, without damage to widespread applications of the model.

The Ideological Basis

Before turning to the evidence and to alternative models of intervention, let us consider some ideological considerations in the history of applied social science that make this model attractive to an influential, intellectual elite consisting of advocates of civil rights, acceptance of homosexuality, increase of government support for welfare and social science, sexual permissiveness, and cooperation with the Third World. These advocates form a coalition in which applied social psychologists feel congenial. The range of topics fits closely with that covered by successive issues of the Journal of Social Issues, the organ of the section of the American Psychological Association most concerned with these matters, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. This coalition has been helpful to its components in some ways, but the partnership brings about some restrictions. Cooperation narrows the alternatives in any particular field. In population control this mutual influence has made difficulties, for instance in the relation of population control and foreign aid, as it includes groups who—at the one extreme—would make any support contingent on the acceptance of birth control programs (Ehrlich, 1968; Hardin, 1968; Paddock & Paddock, 1967) or, on the other, could deny the importance of the population problem as compared to economic development, as shown in the Bucharest Declaration of the UN Population Conference. A broad compromise would accept the importance of population control but leave the program on a voluntaristic basis, even by avoiding programs for changing values toward fertility.

The domestic problem of adolescent pregnancy is subject to the same limitations. The values of self-expression, approval of a sexual revolution, and admiration of a new generation restricted the policies that could be advocated. These values determine a perceptual scheme that can organize the views of researchers: They define what is unchangeable and what is changeable and subject to policy. The wholehearted acceptance of adolescent freedom, the recognition of adolescent sexual needs, and the general philosophy of self-realization have set definite parameters of the work on adolescent pregnancy.

These parameters lead to a strategy that prefers instrumental influence by the state over open advocacy of values. The result has been that improved birth control education—perhaps with some warning about early intercourse thrown in—and increased availability of services is the only viable policy for reducing teenage fertility.

For some time, advocacy of population control and family planning have been subject to rules of the broad coalition. Even the presentation of statistics shows clearly the relation between effective contraception and fertility reduction, and the research and services leading to effective contraception. Taking as an example the Alan Guttmacher Institute Report, we see that practically all the data refer to “sexually active teenagers,” not to the conditions in which they become sexually active. We also find little research interest in the conditions of reduced intercourse, as a glance through recent studies of teenage pregnancy reveals (Furstenberg, Lincoln, & Menken, 1981, Zelnik, Kantner, & Ford, 1981).

Anecdotal observations as well as more systematic studies show easily that it would be extremely difficult to enforce prohibitions in teenage sexual activity, just as it would be difficult to do the same for drug taking and alcohol use. This does not mean, however, that any such program would be doomed to failure or may not have favorable effects, such as increased contraceptive use. In the same way one might argue that elimination of racism and sexism could not be effected by changes in social norms. After all, should one interfere in bigotry between consenting adults? The differences in these cases seem to be more a question of where one wants to interfere than where one could. They are not based on psychological theory, but on a set of values that have historically been connected with the practitioners of the science. If the problem of teenage pregnancy is serious, one should consider scientific evidence as well as values and acknowledge the justifications and consequences of self-imposed restraint.

We therefore review evidence from historical demography, general theory of psychology, and experience in the field of population.

Historical Demography

The history of demographic changes shows clearly that availability of effective contraception in birth control was neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for changes in fertility of particular populations. Evidence here comes from two kinds of sources, the largescale demographic study of population trends and the specialized investigation of early pregnancy and illegitimacy in noncontracepting societies.

The first prophet of birth limitation, Thomas Malthus (1798), assumed that population would always push toward the maximum that a country can support. His mechanisms for decreasing population growth included positive checks (wars, plagues, famines) and preventative checks (including late marriage, abstinence, or “vices”). He did not accept birth control techniques, except possibly as part of vices. Thus, the recognition of the need for fertility limitations led to emphasis on motivation as the only alternative to obnoxious kinds of conditions, the positive checks. This was realistic, as there were few fertility control methods available, but in part the conclusion was based on Malthus' values, which opposed contraception. The conclusion showed, however, that fertility control was thought possible even if no modern techniques were available. This conformed to the then current experience.

Strictly speaking, if availability of effective contraception were the only determinant of fertility, then fertility would have remained stable up to quite recent times and would have been close to the biological maximum. This claim is not absolute. But the fluctuations in fertility show the importance of other factors beside the ones preferred today.

We do find some variation of fertility in preindustrial societies paralleling economic conditions. These rational, intentional fluctuations indicate that fertility could be controlled in absence of modern techniques. Even more significant is the decline of fertility in the nineteenth century, a time when what we would call today effective birth control techniques were not developed. Most of the fall in the birth rate to the level that today characterizes the industrialized world occurred during this time. The nature of this decline has been investigated in detail in recent years by Ansley Coale and his associates at Princeton (Coale, 1973).

Before showing the evidence from these studies we must describe briefly analytic techniques used in fertility studies. Basically, fertility can be measured as a cohort effect or as a time effect. The first one refers to the number of children a woman has in her lifetime, the second to the ratio of children born to the number of women in the population. These numbers can be refined, depending on the purpose to be used; a gross fertility rate (using a number of women in childbearing age) will be sensitive to the age distribution of women; age distribution can be controlled by analyzing only specific age groups, the age specific fertility rate, and by adding up these rates to arrive at a total fertility rate that is independent of the age distribution. The total parity is important if we want to tell about the experience of a group of women during possibly changing times, the gross rate if we want to tell about the growth or decline of a population. The total fertility is important for analytic purposes if we want to talk about fertility or time, standardized or independent of age distribution.

Coale went further in his analysis to isolate the factor in fertility change. First he divided fertility into marital and nonmarital rates and then computed each of these parts as the factors of two rates: one in the nuptuality rate, defined as the norm of proportion married in each 5 year age group weighted by the possible fertility in each group. Non-nuptuality is then one minus this proportion. The second is fertility within marriage (or outside marriage for illegitimate births) that is a total fertility rate but weighted by the proposition of possible fecundity achieved. This fecundity (biologically possible fertility) is derived from the experience of the most fertile human population ever found, the American Hutterites. This system allows us to separate the influence of marriage rate, fertility within marriage, and illegitimacy, controlled for age distribution, in different populations.

The analysis could find a consistent trend in the decline of fertility during the industrial revolution. During the whole period, illegitimacy was very low and can be disregarded in computation; we may notice that it stayed low regardless of availability of contraception. By contrast, the decline of marital fertility followed two stages: The first decline of fertility, from the eighteenth century on, was due to nuptuality and, in fact, corresponded to Malthus' preventive checks; it can be called the Malthusian delcine. The rapid decline of fertility from the late nineteenth century onward occurred because of the decline of fertility within marriage and is based on contraception; this would be the neo-Malthusian decline. This decline occurred in all cultures as they modernized, but it has also been documented in at least one case study as following closely the prospects of the economy in England (Banks, 1954).

In the main, it can be shown that the decline followed social as well as cultural conditions. It followed community standards that function to determine family size even in the absence of effective contraceptives. Thus, fertility decli...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. Teenage Pregnancy: Science and Ideology in Applied Social Psychology
• 2. The Doctor-Patient Relationship: A Social Psychological Analysis
• 3. Social Psychology and International Negotiations: Processes and Influences
• 4. Emergency Evacuations During Fires: Psychological Considerations
• 5. Public Reaction to Nuclear Power: The Case of Offshore Nuclear Power Plants
• 6. People, Clinical Episodes, and Mental Hospitalization: A Multiple-Source Method of Estimation
• 7. Psychology and Public Policy
• 8. Involving Citizens in Research
• 9. Utilizing Social Science Information in the Policy Process: Can Psychologists Help?
• 10. The Perspective of Social Psychology: Toward a Viable Model for Application
• Author Index
• Subject Index