Visit the Places

economia-informacion.com

psicologia-informacion.com


WORKS OF THE AUTHOR:

Book:

The Theory of the Senergicons Psico-sociological aspects of the Economic Underdevelopment

Dedication, Foreword and Chapter 19 of The Theory of the Senergicons


Book:

The Theory of the Optimal Distribution of the Income


The Theory of the Optimal Distribution of the Income in Spanish can be download of this place starting from the following three documents:

1 The Theory of the Optimal Distribution of the Income Instructions (English)

2 The Theory of the Optimal Distribution of the Income (Chapters 9 to 16 and 20 Spanish)

3 The Theory of the Optimal Distribution of the Income (Complete book Spanish)


Document 3 requires key number to be open. See instructions in document 1.


The translation to the English language of The Theory of the Senergicons can be download of this place starting from the following three documents:

1 The Theory of the Senergicons Instructions

2 The Theory of the Senergicons Chapters 1 to 11

3 The Theory of the Senergicons Chapters 12 to 19


Document 3 requires key number to be open. See instructions in document 1.


The documents 1, 2 and 3 of The Neofisiocratic Theory, as well as the documents 1 and 2 and 3 of The Theory of the Senergicons open up with the program Adobe Acrobat, which is free. To acquire Acrobat Reader v4.05 you should go to the place of Adobe


TO SEND THE PAGE TO A FRIEND AND COMMENTS

To send the address of this page to a friend

Comments




FastCounter by LinkExchange
 

Section of this document:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
 

HOME
 

CHAPTER 19


RESEARCH PROJECTS TO BE DEVELOPED BASED ON THE INFORMATION PRESENTED BY THE THEORY OF SENERGICONS, AND SOME IDEAS ABOUT THE MEASUREMENT OF SENERGICONS



19.1 THE NEED FOR AN INDEX OF ACCULTURATION IN THE SYSTEM OF THE NATIONAL STATISTICS, AND THE MEASURING OF SENERGICONS

As we pointed out at the beginning of the first chapter, this last chapter of the book is the most important of all. The reasons why will soon become evident.
In light of the theory we have presented there remain three tasks or assignments that need to be carried out:


1. Develop a national database of statistics that highlights the degree to which individuals in a society come closer or they move away from the cultural values developed by that society and incorporate that information into the national registries or statistics

.
2. Measure a senergicon. Not only to register its presence when an individual faces a valued object, but also to register its magnitude or intensity-both parameters are important.


3. Research how values are installed and de-installed.








The First Assignment


If our theory is correct, and if it is true that a substantial part of the economic development of a people depends on the attitudes of those people, that is, on the constellation of learned values that the individuals that compose that society have installed, then, incorporating this variable not only into the economic analysis, but also into the field of economic research itself, would be of fundamental importance. Within that context the development of a national statistical database that will yield a measure or a quantitative index of the attachment of a people to their culture or, more specifically, to their values, is as essential and important as the very measure of the national gross product itself. This measure of attachment to values would serve not only to initiate a plan of economic development that contemplates an increase in the level of that statistic in the undeveloped countries, but also to frame and give annual follow-up to the level of progress reached by developed countries.

It is necessary to point out and to advise the reader that what is being attempted is not to measure the values that a people or a society have and that are expressed as part of the culture through its social norms, but rather the proportion to which those values are installed in the population and the intensity with which the individuals that have them installed respond to them (the importance of the value). All peoples develop the same, more or less, set of values that we could refer to as basic . This expression of a people's culture is very similar from one culture to the next due to the fact that the basic social values are the verbal expression of individual behaviors that lead to the welfare of the collective. Given that what defines the welfare of the collective tends to be similar in all societies, the expression of individual behaviors that generate that collective welfare, and that is what is represented in the values of a society that we have denominated as basic, more or less is the same in all societies, from the most underdeveloped to the most developed. In virtually all nations it is bad to lie, steal, be dishonest, be a spendthrift, be inefficient, etc.. The difference lies in the fact that, in developed countries the proportion of the population in which these values has been installed and the intensity (relative importance of the value) with which the people that have them installed respond to them, are greater than in developing countries. This has consequences on the collective welfare as well as on the level of productivity, efficiency, and economic development of the society as a whole.

In other words, all societies have developed and exhibit a set of cultural values that we can denominate as basic and that all have in common. It would seem that all societies discover, through experience, the same basic set of cultural norms of behavior that define the common good, the collective good, over and above the individual good. In all societies stealing and lying are bad, honesty is good, etc.. What differentiates one society from the next is not the basic pattern of cultural values each develops, but rather the proportion of the population that attaches to the values and faithfully follows them. In short, societies are differentiated according to the proportion of individuals that install in memory bank three of learned values, the values established by that society and that it consecrates as a venerable part of its culture.

This is one of the ways in which our theory is different from that of Harrison, just as we pointed out on page two of the preface.
By the preceding proposition we do not mean to say that all cultures are alike in terms of their system of values or the social norms they develop. Instead, we mean that they all tend to be the same in terms of the set of values and basic norms that define the common good over and above the individual. In that sense, all societies, through experience, arrive at the same conclusion, the same point of discovery, and consecrate it by way of social values that form part of the general culture at large. For example, societies may differ about the values that define the roles of men and women in society, the way people dress, or their eating habits. They may differ in their concept of punctuality, the meaning of life, and even obscenity. In that way, Arab culture is different from the Latin ones and this latter one from Anglo Saxon cultures. But in all of them, stealing, lying, being dishonest, a spendthrift, inefficient, egotistical, not to be altruistic, etc., is bad. All of these are values that constitute the common good. These elements of the constellation of values that define the common good are the ones we call basic values and whose installation in the individual's psyche we are interested in measuring.

The measure of the degree or the proportion in which a society's basic values-ones that define the common good-are installed in the members that compose that society, would be an index of the degree of acculturation (attachment to the culture). It is to be expected that the more a people adhere to the values that define the common good, the more efficient that society will be and the greater the economic development it will attain.

Developing this statistical data implies giving rise to the necessary research in order to determine which values, among all of the basic learned values that societies have, are most correlated to the level of economic development. That subset of learned values that best correlates to the level of economic development will be the best predictor of this development and, consequently, the attachment to it, or degree of acculturation , will be the best index to measure attachment to the culture, from a utilitarian perspective of economics. Measuring the reliability and validity of such an approach will be another task that will need to be researched.

Intuitively, the learned values that best correlate to the economic development are those that tend to make the system work in an integrated manner, like an organism. Those that allow the predictability and reliability of the conduct or behavior of the members that compose a particular society. Consequently, the following social norms should be considered in the development of an index of acculturation:

1. No lying
2. No stealing
3. To be honest
4. To be thrifty
5. To be efficient









The first two values corresponding to the social norms "no lying" and "no stealing" provide reliability and predictability to individual behavior, which implies that the system will work better. That way corruption will be less and all costs related to it will decrease. Moreover, the system works effectively because money flows freely and individuals do not avoid their debts or they do not lie by acquiring debts that they are not going to pay. There is more business and a greater sales volume and, as a result, greater production. The acceptance of checks, credit cards, and other means of payment in developed countries, allows money to flow and foment a greater volume of business transactions. In countries where the acceptance of checks is not very great, due to the great quantity of checks written without funds, money does not flow and business is more restricted.

The third value, corresponding to the social norm "to be honest," is the one responsible for the fact that in developed countries institutions function more efficiently. In these countries the courts, police, government, etc., work; they function properly. On the contrary, in undeveloped countries the system of justice is far from being as efficacious as it is in, say, the European countries, for example. The government also does not work. The public employees that grant a construction permit, a license to operate a business, or an authorization to do something, do so based not on the public interest (welfare of the collective) as frequently happens in the developed countries, but rather based on their own individual convenience and welfare. On whether or not the person requesting the license or permit is or is not someone they know, a friend, family member, or relation. Or on whether or not granting the permit or license is something that would benefit them. For example, if the the person requesting the permit is an important person, it behooves the public employee to ingratiate himself to him, etc.. Such behavior is regulated by the value that is installed before the highly abstract object set down by the social norm "to be honest" and which is "to be honest is good." In those cases where there is no relationship or friendship with the public employee, but a payment of money is accepted for the "favor," the value "no stealing" is the one that regulates this behavior.

The problem just described with respect to public employees in the executive and judicial branches of the government is equally applicable to the legislative branch. The corruption, the lies, and the dishonesty among politicians is responsible for much of the lack of progress in developing countries.

A weak attachment on the part of individuals to the first two values is what causes governmental corruption to drain public funds. A large part of these funds never reach their destination because the public employees steal them directly or through contracts that are awarded at an onerous price to private businessmen who then go on to pay a commission to the corrupt public employee.

A weak attachment on the part of individuals to the third value is responsible for a justice system in developing countries that either does not work or works poorly.

Lastly, the values corresponding to the norms "to be thrifty" and "to be efficient" are essential for the correct operation of the economic system. The citizen that is economical and that always searches to get the most for his dollar helps the system to function effectively, just as the citizen that is efficient and always tries to achieve his goals employing a minimum of the available resources. Both values activate compulsive senergicons, that is, in both cases the abstract object that is faced is a goal or objective. Consequently, the more the individual distances himself from economy or efficiency as a goal or objective in different situations, to that extent will anxiety be activated in him. Only when he comes close to or achieves those objectives does anxiety disappear. For that reason, in developed countries, in spite of the superiority they exhibit in medical advancements, people suffer more from heart attacks and high blood pressure than in undeveloped countries, since, to the extent that they have these last two values installed, distancing or moving away from efficiency generates in them a strong feeling of anxiety.

In conclusion, an index of acculturation that is related to economic development should contain measurements of the attachment of the members of the society in question to the values corresponding to the five norms discussed here.

Second and Third Tasks

Developing an index of attachment to the cultural values will perhaps be the easiest of the three research tasks that should be implemented. Probably the most important and most difficult work will be that related to the second and third tasks, that is, achieving a precise measurement of the intensity of a senergicon and generating the research to determine how values are installed and de-installed in human beings, at what age is it easiest for this process to take place, how can national programs that install learned values in the population be developed, etc.

These are problems whose solutions may be better understood in light of the results of the research that will be carried out, instead of sitting down to think about what is the optimum way of doing it. Even though our own ideas about how to go about carrying out these tasks are still not sufficiently clear, further ahead we will suggests some ideas that will give the possible interested reader not only the idea of the way they can be carried out, but also the enormous magnitude of the difficulties with he will face in those areas.

The measurement of the presence and intensity of a senergicon that is activated when an individual encounters or faces an object, is of crucial importance. It will not only serve to corroborate our theory, but also to the extent that methods are developed to achieve more precise measurements as well as measurements that are easier to obtain, a whole new world of research possibilities will open up in the field of behavioral sciences. In addition to serving the field of behavioral research, finding a precise and easy way to measure a senergicon that is easy to implement, will allow greater indexes of acculturation to be developed. In other words, finding a way to measure a senergicon is an extraordinarily difficult task. To the extent that easier and more precise ways of measuring the presence of a senergicon are found, to that extent will we be able to obtain better indexes of acculturation.

Lastly, if these tasks that we are proposing are carried out successfully, social psychology and psychological sociology will have entered a completely new phase in their development as sciences. Social psychologists and psychological sociologists will begin to fill many of the positions as government consultants that are now filled by economists and from which they have up to now been excluded. Psychology and Sociology will have left behind the plane of the strictly theoretical and inapplicable and will have entered into the area of a science that is practical and utilitarian, achieving a higher priority than the science of economy in the sphere of long run governmental decisions for improve the economy and functioning of society.

19.2 OTHER USES THAT THE MEAUREMENT OF A SENERGICON MAY HAVE

In addition to creating an index of acculturation and serving to develop research on behavior, the measurement of senergicons would have an immediate practical application in the field of micropsychology. These measurements would be useful as much for private enterprise or business as it would for certain branch of government. For example, honest behavior is a crucially important factor in the branches of government that manage confidential information, as well as in the area of private enterprise where a great deal of money is involved.

To be able to predict which individuals have the greater probability of not acting dishonestly before the temptation of profit and which have the greatest probability of yielding to the temptation, would be a very useful factor when selecting the personnel for certain key positions.

Such a predictor would be extremely useful in those businesses that require personnel of great trust as, for example, a bank employee or an employee in a branch of government that, like the armed forces, is in a position to know national secrets or works with confidential information.

One of the emotional components of the attitude an individual has not to steal or lie is shame. Of the three dimensions of the tricotomic attitude discussed in chapter 14, this is the one that regulates an individual's behavior before others. It is to be expected that the greater the shame the action of stealing or lie produces in an individual, the greater the probability that he will not steal or lie.

The intensity of the emotion of shame in an individual depends on biological and genetic factors. Some people feel more shame than others, in the same way that some are faster, stronger, more resistant, or more intelligent than others (see the section entitled, "The Innate Aspect of Personality" in chapter 15). In addition to the innate factors, the intensity of the emotion shame also depends on having internalized the social values "to lie is bad" and "to steal is bad," and of having assigned them an order of importance in the hierarchy of values (see the section entitled, "The Learned Aspect of Personality" in chapter 15). The internalization of values and the importance these have on the individual come primarily from what he has learned from his parents and in second place, from school, church, and other institutions.

The level of shame felt by a person when violating a social norm, such as not stealing or not lying, will depend on that individual's sensitivity to shame, that is, to experience the emotion of shame, and on the negative subjective valorization installed in memory bank 3 of learned values, in addition to the importance he has given to the values "to steal is bad" and "to lie is bad," derived from the social norms that require one not to lie and not to steal.

Measuring the intensity of the emotion of shame that these determinants produce in the individual, with respect to the social norms "no lying" and "no stealing," allows us to use these measurements or variables as predictors of the conduct of the individual when that individual is responsible for managing information and/or materials that require him to be honest.
We are interested in knowing how to determine what would be the average intensity of the emotion of shame that an individual should possess in order not to steal $10 dollars. What is the average intensity he should have in order not to steal $30 dollars, $100 dollars, $1,000 dollars, etc.?

19.3 WHAT IS WHAT MEASURES AN ACCULTURATION INDEX?

In this section and the next we will discuss some ideas as to how we can achieve the first task put forth by our theory at the beginning of this chapter.

As we have pointed out, an index of acculturation should be constituted by a measurement of a the degree of attachment of the members of a society to those values that are most strongly correlated to economic development. Intuitively, we believe that five values that are highly correlated with that development are those that correspond to the social norms: no lying, no stealing, to be honest, to be thrifty, and to be efficient. What follows are some suggestions of how to obtain a measure of the adherence of individuals to these values.

We are not considering the value "to be honest is good" because it is an abstract object that is difficult to reduce to conditions that permit experimentation. In addition, honesty is a concept whose perception varies greatly from one individual to another depending on the context, on the level of tolerance each subject has for distortions and of his capacity to analyze complex situations. Consequently, there are actions that an individual with a high tolerance to distortions and/or with a high capacity to analyze complex contexts could detect dishonesty and react in an affective way, while others who do not possess that ability perceive nothing and, consequently, even though they have the value installed they would not react in an affective state way. We hope that consideration of the four remaining values will be sufficient to develop an index of acculturation that can be highly correlated to the level of economic development.

The correlation that we may hope to find between the attachment of individuals to their cultural values that define the common good and the level of development, will depend on just how much of the underdevelopment is explained by factors that are strictly economical and just how much is explained by factors directly involving the lack of attachment to cultural values. With the existing knowledge it is not possible to determine what proportion of economic underdevelopment is the result of one or another factor. Intuitively we believe that at least from 30 to 40 percent of underdevelopment is explained by the poor attachment of individuals to their culture and from 70 to 60 percent to variables that are strictly economical. If this appreciation is correct, then the effective of the development of national programs to increase the index of acculturation should result in be able of improving the national economy by a factor of at least 30 percent.

Nevertheless, economic factors are frequently connected in an indirect manner with sociological factors so that changes that occur in the latter affect, in the long range, the changes that take place in the former. So that we may expect that the development of national programs to increase the acculturation index will produce, in the long range, improvements in the economy of more than 30 percent.

The index of acculturation should measure the attachment the individual has to the basic values that define the common good, that is, the proportion of individuals that have the values installed and to what degree of importance. This is equivalent to a proportion P of them in which senergicons are activated before the abstract objects given by the social norms and which is the average intensity (importance of the value) with which the senergicons are activated in the individuals who have them installed.
The proportion P of the population that has installed the value "to steal is bad" and the importance that has been assigned to this installation constitute two indexes of the attachment of those individuals to that value. If we wanted a general index of the attachment to a value (GIAVi), we could obtain it from the product of these two particular indexes:
GIAVi=(Pi)( )

where Pi, being the proportion of individuals that have the value i, in particular, installed, and is the average intensity with which the senergicon is activated before the presence of the abstract object given by the social norm in those who have the value.
We could do the same with the remaining three values and we would have a set of indexes of the adherence of individuals to each one of those values. In order to obtain a total index of attachment to the values (TIAV), these four subindexes are added.
This is a pondered sum because it is to be expected that some basic values are going to be more related to economic development than others. If the value "to be efficient is good" has double the importance of the value "to lie is bad," the proportion of individuals that have the first value installed, as well as its intensity, should be multiplied by two, and the proportion of individuals that have the second value installed should be multiplied by one. This way the index of acculturation would be:

TIAV= W1P1 + W2P2 +W3P3 + W4P4





where the Wi are the ponderation factors, the Pi are the proportions in which the respective values are installed in the population and the are the corresponding intensities of the activated senergicons (importance of the value).

Since at the moment we do not know what values to assign to the ponderation factors Wi the only thing we can think to do is estimate the four Pi and present them as four separate indexes. Nevertheless, because we do not have a mensuration instrument capable of identifying and determining the presence of a senergicon, or of its intensity, it is not easy to obtain these measurements. An indirect and easier way of obtaining measurements of Pi is the one discussed in the following section.




HOME




Section of this document:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9