A Plea for the Study of AutonomyAuthor(s): Maria RogersSource: Sociometry, Vol. 18, No. 4, Sociometry and the Science of Man (Nov., 1955), pp. 241-244Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2785858 .

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STUDY OF AUTONOMY 241

A PLEA FOR THE STUDY OF AUTONOMY MARIA ROGERS

Autonomy is one of the aspects of human groups which has received little systematic attention from social scientists. It seems appropriate to call attention to this neglected factor in this issue of SOCIOMETRY, which closes one era of that publication and looks forward to another. The increase in knowledge about interpersonal relationships since 1937, when the journal was founded by Dr. Moreno, has been tremendous, but even more significant is the increased appreciation of the definite role intimate group relationships play in all major social phenomena. Dr. Moreno's insistence that the macro- cosm is to be understood through study of the microcosm has been well justified. Not only has this point of view influenced the scientific disciplines, but the researches stimulated by this point of view are being applied in many fields of practical work: industrial management, social work, group work, applied anthropology, education, and others.

In the practical fields, knowledge of the importance of intimate group relationships has stimulated a trend towards a more "permissive" atmosphere in schools, institutions, business concerns, factories, and the like. The most enlightened administrators of such enterprises even envisage the possibility of such an interrelation between the formal and informal structures within institutions as will release the creative potentialities of individual participants to an extent hitherto considered unattainable in an industrial civilization. As illustrative of this trend can be cited the report by Jerome Scott and Rolf Lyntcn to UNESCO, entitled The Community Factor in Modern Tech- nology." Another report pointing to similar conclusions was that of Helen Jennings to the American Council on Education.2 Many other publications that mark this trend might be cited. The pioneer work in the field was, of course, Moreno's study at the Hudson Training School for Girls, from which much of the data for Who Shall Survive? was drawn, a study which showed how much administrative problems depended for solution upon knowledge of the informal structures of the community.

When the skills for a type of administration with this approach are sufficiently widespread, one can foresee the lifting of a great burden from

1 UNESCO, 1952, to be procured from International Documents Service, Columbia University Press, New York 27.

2 Jennings, Helen Hall, Sociometry in group relations; a work guide for teachers. Washington, D. C. American Council on Education, 1948, ix. 85 pp.

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242 SOCIOMETRY

humanity, that of unreasonable and excessive authoritarianism. That would be a blessing indeed. But let us face frankly the fact that hopes of exten- sion of the method rest almost entirely on discovering and developing ad- ministrators who can turn a deaf ear to the siren seductions of power: and history gives us little reason to believe that such individuals will ever be numerous enough for the need.

To counteract the persistent power-drive in human affairs, much more is needed than powerful individuals of good-will. The really effective coun- terforce is power dispersed throughout the groups of the community. Any number of political scientists, among them de Tocqueville, Bernard de Ju- venal, Charles Merriam, George Sabine, to mention only a few, have agreed that the centralized organizations of society, such as the State, derive their power from the lesser units in the society. Smaller units may delegate power, or may surrender it for supposed benefits or because they are perplexed by unfamiliar complications, or they may be forcibly deprived of power by cen- tralized organizations as these consolidate their positions.

The important fact is this: power is inherent in the small units of society, in even the smallest groups. (Whether these latter are groups of two or groups of three is still a matter of dispute between social scientists, but the point need not concern us here.) This is said with full awareness that the statement has been a bone of controversy for the past 2,000 years. Roman legal theory, which is influential to this day, insisted that groups de- rive their power from the State, which was conceived as a sovereign, single, irresistible authority, inalienable, indivisible and incapable of legal limitation. Thus the power of social groups was regarded as both derivative and condi- tional. As liberal theory developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the leading thinkers, like Burke, Maitland, Figgis, Acton, Gierke and Owen, recognized that the crucial question that required an answer was whether or not the social group possesses inherent power. If not, all forms of authori- tarianism (including totalitarianism) were justified and natural. If the an- swer was that the group does possess power sui generis, inherently, then this fact constituted the cornerstone of a free society and of the philosophy of liberty.

The case for group-power was ably argued by John Figgis in Churches in the Modern State, where he said:

"In the real world, the isolated individual does not exist; he begins al- ways as a member of something and . . . his personality can develop only in society, within one or more social unions.... What we actually see in the world is not on one hand the State, and on the other a mass of unrelated in-

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STUDY OF AUTONOMY 243

dividuals; but a vast complex of gathered unions, in which alone we find individuals.... The groups thus formed act by virtue of an inherent spon- taneity of life which is not imposed, but is self-generated and original. They possess a living power of self-development". Human energy flows into the web of relationships which constitutes the group and endows it with living force. As to this being a description of social reality, there is no question.

Figgis' insights have been validated by sociometrists, who have shown that the very moment in which two or more individuals meet face-to-face, with the opportunity for association, is a vital moment, or as Dr. Moreno calls it, "the living moment". Any such meeting between individuals is a stimulus which provokes spontaneous response on the part of each person towards the others. The feelings of attraction, repulsion, or even indifference, thus evoked play a dominant part in the choices people make of companions or associates in any activities they engage in to fulfill their desires. Such co- operative activity is group activity and is the very warp and woof of social life.

A living power of self-development, spontaneity, and creativity are ac- knowledged to be characteristics of intimate groups. To some extent, these factors have received scientific attention, particularly in the past two decades. But little attention has been focused on a fourth characteristic: self-direction. To borrow from David Reisman terms he applies to individuals, most groups studied by social scientists are "other directed". They are institutional groups easy to approach. Particularly is this true of laboratory groups, where the selection of members of the "groups" and the tasks to be per- formed are dictated by the researchers. Observance of groups in society, however, quickly reveals that there are multitudes of "self directed" groups. Furthermore, these self-directed (or autonomous) groups play an exceedingly important role in social innovations, social changes, personality development, social conflict, social stagnation, etc.3 The groups in society can be arranged on a continuum, ranging from completely "other-directed" to completely "self-directed". It is the former end of this continuum which has been most carefully studied.

Of self-directed groups, in one of the few instances in which a social scientist has commented upon them, Robert McIver wrote: ". . . The nature of the face-to-face group is revealed most adequately in the detached form where the members come together, not as representatives or delegates con-

3 For case-material on these various phases of the activity of self-directed groups, see Vols. I-X of Autonomous Groups Bulletin.

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244 SOCIOMETRY

stituted, defined and limited to allotted tasks by a predetermined interest, but spontaneously and apart from executive direction."4

There are thus any number of reasons why social scientists should in the coming decades undertake study specifically or self-directed groups: 1) as McIver notes, the nature of the social group is most clearly revealed in self- directed groups; 2) self-direction is closely linked with creativity; 3) self- directed groups make important contributions to societal phenomena, such as social change, social conflict and social innovation as well as social lag; 4) self-directed groups are the corner-stone, or key factor, in a free society.

The last point is especially important at the present time when every responsible thinker in Western society is endeavoring to build a rationale that is positive enough and strong enough to withstand, and counter, the propon- ents of totalitarianism. It is not too much to ask that social scientists be aware of this fact and add to our understanding of the factor of self-direction, or autonomy. The problem of method is, of course, that which impedes progress in this direction. But problems of method are not insuperable, given the will to obtain knowledge about any phenomenon. And many of the methods now used to study other-directed groups can, with patience and ingenuity, be adapted to the study of self-directed groups.

The free, autonomous individual was the ideal of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; centuries in which group-life was so stable that it was taken for granted.5 Now that the philosophical revolution of the eighteenth century has almost run its full course and we are beginning to recognize that the free, autonomous individual is politically and economically helpless; that the only counterpoise to centralized autocratic power is the dispersed power of social groups, it is incumbent upon social scientists who feel strongly about a free society to study the factor of autonomy. Let them bring together the many suggestions in the extant literature which indicate that autonomy is closely linked with creativity, with spontaneity, with self- realization of the individual. These should be amplified, correlated, and ex- panded by new studies.

4 Quoted from Society, Its Structure and Changes, p. 172, by Lee E. Deets in Autonomous Groups Bulletin, Vol. X, No. 3.

5 "The Two Democratic Traditions", George H. Sabine, in The Philosophical Re- view, Vol. LXI, No. 4, Oct. 1952.

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