The Committee on Social Problems, chaired by Dr. Robert Dorn, has initiated a research project in collaboration with a leading political scientist, aimed at collecting data on the way in which individuals react to major political events and crises. The project was proposed by Dr. Arnold A. Rogow, Graduate Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York. Dr. Aaron Esman, a member of the Committee on Social Problems, has Professor Rogow in carrying out the study.
The aim of the study is to collect analytic data on how people react to events in the external world. Data will be collected from the actual analyses of a large number of patients, and studied with a view to throwing some light on the questions of the behavior of individuals in relation to political situations.
In setting up the project, two groups of practicing analysts, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, have been enlisted as collaborators. Each participating analyst will be asked to observe the reactions of his patients to specific political events and to unexpected crises that may occur. The assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy last spring would, for example, have been the kind of national crisis that would have been suitable for the study had it been under way at that time. The first actual situation which the study has approached was the reaction of individuals to the results of the national election on November 5th. Data reported from this event have already been collected and are being studied.
Dr. Esman, who is Director of Training at the Jewish Board of Guardians in New York and a Lecturer at the Columbia University School of Social Work, has had a long interest in the application of analytic knowledge to social problems. Professor Rogow is one of a small number of scholars in the field of political science who have been interested in the application of analytic concepts to the problems of politics. His book “Forrestal” was an attempt to carry out precisely such a study with regard to the life and activities of James Forrestal, the first Secretary of Defense.