Soc Relations Group Begins New 'Friendship' Survey

Social Relations Department last week began the first known scientific survey of that form of altruism called "friendship." Scheduled to be conducted among people of college age, the three-year research program will soon be carried out on a scale that will include universities both here and abroad.

Designed by Francis D. Smith '50, 1 GS, under the guidance of Pitirim A. Sorokin, professor of sociology, the survey seeks to discover whether or not "a set of critical selective factors" determine friendship development, and if so, what they are.

"We hope," says Smith, "that by discovering and reducing the variables involved in personal friendships, we can better understand the human being in terms of inter-group harmony; for inter-group harmony is a magnification of personality harmonies."

The necessary data sought by the Department is being obtained from these persons in College who, as undergraduates, found their closest friends among their freshman roommates.

"If we can discover that certain factors--environment, religion, interests--are responsible for better understandings, and if we can find out in what percentage these factors exist, then we will be making progress," says Smith.

Sorokin elaborated on this point and expressed the hope that at some date a survey of international harmonies and disharmonies could be conducted on the same principle. Sorokin stressed, however, that before inter-group studies could be carried out and understood, there must be a basic understanding of the people who make up the group.

"Achievement of world peace is of course the aim of every social scientist, and the sooner he can perpetrate an understanding among nations the sooner he will realize a harmony among the national groups. We must begin with the foundation now," Sorokin believes.

Lilly Endowment

Though the research involved in this study of altruism is under the auspices of the Social Relations Department, the financial backing is provided by the Harvard Research Center for Creative Altruism from the $100,000 fund set up by the Lilly Endowment, Inc.

Being the first and only research center of this kind, it is Sorokin's hope that the five year budget will be increased and perpetuated so that more research of this kind can be outlined.

The ultimate goal of the Center is to have a full time staff of a minimum of six scientists who are the leading authorities in their respective fields of physics, biology, psychology, sociology, history, and religious understanding. With these men and a suitable staff of assistant, Sorokin feels that the Center would be able to carry on such surveys as were begun last week with greater ease.

"We are in the fragmentary beginning," said Sorokin, "Once we have established a proved catalogue of basic data, we shall be able to go beyond this present point that seems so elementary."