One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

This is a movie about assylums, insanity, stupidity and humor. Jack Nicholson plays a character that has
been sentenced to a term of confinement (until he his deemd better) to a psychiatric ward. It was either
this or prison, so the former was chosen naturally. The patients of the mental institute primarily
volunteered to be there. This seemed extremely odd at first. But as the film progresses one sees the
effects that conditioning over a period of time can have on people.
In one particulary memorable scene Nicholson's character says "I'll show them just how easy it is." Then he
proceeds to have a larger man boost him over the walls of "his prison." Everyone else was boosted over as
well. A regular old night on the town for a bunch of loonies as lead by the film's hero followed. Ultimately
they are caught while on a fishing boat and forced back to their loveable home.

Nothing that Nicholson can do is enough for the staff on the mental institutue. He is even administered
electro shock therapy to try and help his "attitude." He comes back into a patient meeting after this with a
slow dull witted look and walk, and twitches all over. Everyone thought this would be the end of the man as
they know him. But then he jumps up and smiles. The whole thing was quite a hoot to him.

Nicholson in one scene wanted to watch the world series, but was denied the privaledge. In response he
pretends to be watching in front of a blank tv screen. In the end another electro shock therapy session is
given to ole "Jack" He does not fare so well after this. A larger friend from the institute kills him out of
mercy and then lifts up a sink and hurls it at a window. Then he dashes for freedom as Jack had planned to
earlier before getting caught and punished. The film is filled with humor until the tragic demise of the film's
star at the end.

Nicholson went nuts in The Shining, but he did the time in Cuckoo's Nest as a rough-and-tumble
felon looking to escape hard prison by spending a little quality time in a psychiatric institution. Little does
he realize his phony illness is about to get him into all kinds of trouble. Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched,
however, is the character who has since entered into the American lexicon, as have a host of other
characters and scenes (most memorably: Nicholson's narration of a World Series game that's not on TV).
Faithfully adapted from Ken Kesey's stirring novel.

If ever an actor and a role were tailor-made for one another, it was Jack Nicholson playing Randle Patrick
McMurphy in 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Nicholson won his first Best Actor Oscar after four
nominations (and one Best Supporting Actor nod for Easy Rider), and it's no wonder. One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest, available on a Warner Bros. DVD, showcased Nicholson's rebellious antihero persona at the
apex of the actor's powers.
In this anti-authoritarian parable, based on Ken Kesey's acclaimed novel, Randle Patrick McMurphy is a
small-time con with a silver tongue and a taste for boozing and brawling. Rather than serve a short jail
term, McMurphy fakes insanity, figuring that an easier life awaits in a mental hospital. What he finds,
though, is a ward full of drugged patients whose every move is monitored and directed by the gimlet-eyed,
soul-sucking Nurse Ratched (fellow Oscar winner Louise Fletcher). McMurphy's rambunctious, noisy charm
and habitual insubordination soon infect his fellow inmates, empowering them to challenge Nurse Ratched.
In retaliation, though the hospital could simply send him back to jail, they instead elect to "treat"
McMurphy with shock treatments and worse, with tragic consequences.

In addition to Nicholson and Fletcher's Oscars, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest also garnered Best
Adapted Screenplay, Best Director (for Milos Forman), and Best Picture awards. Twenty-five years later the
film has lost none of its power. It's a harrowing, blackly comic ride with a cynical attitude toward authority
— so emblematic of its post-Vietnam War, post-Watergate era — that remains fresh today. And while
Nicholson and Fletcher received most of the praise, you will find few better ensembles than the one
gathered here. In a cast that included William Redfield, a young Danny DeVito, and Christopher Lloyd in his
film debut, the performances are uniformly excellent, imbuing these damaged souls with wounded
humanity. Standing out are Will Sampson, a non-actor recruited to play the "deaf-mute" Chief Bromden, in
a performance full of empathy and humo;, and Brad Dourif in an Oscar nominated, achingly vulnerable
turn as Billy Bibbit, a troubled patient McMurphy takes under his wing.

Warners presents One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in both full-frame and non-anamorphic widescreen with
Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround Sound. The disc features a gorgeous transfer that perfectly preserves the muted
tones of Haskell Wexler's evocative cinematography. The disc's only special features are production notes
and a memorial to co-star Scatman Crothers.
The Dance of Plants
A researcher named Dorothy Retallack did some
pioneering studies into the effects of different
kinds of music on plants. Using strictly controlled
conditions, she kept her plants in large closed
cabinets where light, temperature and air were
automatically regulated. She found that in under
four weeks, three hours a day of acid rock,
playing through a speaker in the side of the
cabinet was found to stunt the growth of and
damage philodendrons, squash, and corn plants.
Retallack also studied groups of petunias exposed
to two radio stations. One station was a semi-
classical station and one was a rock station. At
the end of the second week, the petunias
exposed to the rock music were leaning away
from the speaker and growing erratically while
the petunias listening to the classical station were
all leaning toward the speaker. All the plants
exposed to the rock station died within a month.
A third experiment was conducted with some
fascinating results. Retallack used groups of
beans, squash, corn, morning glory and coleus
plants. These plants were divided up into groups
that had the music of Led Zeppelin and Vanilla
Fudge played to them; another group had
contemporary avant-garde atonal music played
to it; another group was kept in silence and an
additional group had peaceful devotional music
played to it.
Retallack found that after ten days, the group
exposed to Led Zeppelin and Vanilla Fudge (hard
rock music for those not aware of these musical
groups) were all leaning away from the speaker
and after three weeks these plants were all
stunted and dying. The plants exposed to the
avant-garde atonal music were leaning 15
degrees away from the speaker but they had
medium sized roots. The plants left in silence had
the longest roots of these three groups and grew
the highest. However, the last group that had the
devotional music played to it produced plants
that not only grew two inches taller than the
plants left in silence, but they grew toward the
speaker! I think nature was making a statement
here.1
Some other fascinating research was done by Dr.
T. C. Singh, the head of the Department of Botany
at Anamalia University in India. Dr. Singh
discovered that classical music caused plants to
grow twice as fast as plants not exposed to
classical music. He then went a step further and
found that a music instrument creating sound
waves will cause the protoplasm of cells (the fluid
medium inside all cells - plant, animal, human) to
increase its motion. Dr. Singh found that violins
produced the most movement of the protoplasm.
Another discovery of Dr. Singh has far-reaching
implications. When he tracked the plants that
showed vigorous growth in response to the music,
he found that later generations of their seeds
produced plants that also showed increased
growth. Think of the implications! This means
that the music somehow altered the
chromosomes of the plants! What could this
mean for music that is harmful for the plant - or
for our bodies? Some of the animal studies shed
even more light on this subject.2
The Plant Experiments
In 1973, a woman named Dorothy Retallack
published a small book called The Sound of Music
and Plants. Her book detailed experiments that
she had been conducting at the Colorado
Woman’s College in Denver using the school’s
three Biotronic Control Chambers. Mrs. Retallack
placed plants in each chamber and speakers
through which she played sounds and particular
styles of music. She watched the plants and
recorded their progress daily. She was astounded
at what she discovered.
Her first experiment was to simply play a
constant tone. In the first of the three chambers,
she played a steady tone continuously for eight
hours. In the second, she played the tone for
three hours intermittently, and in the third
chamber, she played no tone at all. The plants in
the first chamber, with the constant tone, died
within fourteen days. The plants in the second
chamber grew abundantly and were extremely
healthy, even more so than the plants in the third
chamber. This was a very interesting outcome,
very similar to the results that were obtained
from experiments performed by the Muzak
Corporation in the early 1940s to determine the
effect of "background music" on factory workers.
When music was played continuously, the
workers were more fatigued and less productive,
when played for several hours only, several times
a day, the workers were more productive, and
more alert and attentive than when no music was
played.
Dorothy Retallack and Professor Broman working
with the plants used in music experiments.
For her next experiment, Mrs. Retallack used two
chambers (and fresh plants). She placed radios in
each chamber. In one chamber, the radio was
tuned to a local rock station, and in the other the
radio played a station that featured soothing
"middle-of-the-road" music. Only three hours of
music was played in each chamber. On the fifth
day, she began noticing drastic changes. In the
chamber with the soothing music, the plants were
growing healthily and their stems were starting to
bend towards the radio! In the rock chamber, half
the plants had small leaves and had grown
gangly, while the others were stunted. After two
weeks, the plants in the soothing-music chamber
were uniform in size, lush and green, and were
leaning between 15 and 20 degrees toward the
radio. The plants in the rock chamber had grown
extremely tall and were drooping, the blooms had
faded and the stems were bending away from the
radio. On the sixteenth day, all but a few plants in
the rock chamber were in the last stages of
dying. In the other chamber, the plants were
alive, beautiful, and growing abundantly.
"Chaos, pure chaos": plants subjected to Led
Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix didn't survive
Mrs. Retallack’s next experiment was to create a
tape of rock music by Jimi Hendrix, Vanilla Fudge,
and Led Zeppelin. Again, the plants turned away
from the music. Thinking maybe it was the
percussion in the rock music that was causing the
plants to lean away from the speakers, she
performed an experiment playing a song that was
performed on steel drums. The plants in this
experiment leaned just slightly away from the
speaker; however not as extremely as did the
plants in the rock chambers. When she performed
the experiment again, this time with the same
song played by strings, the plants bent towards
the speaker.
Next Mrs. Retallack tried another experiment
again using the three chambers. In one chamber
she played North Indian classical music
performed by sitar and tabla, in another she
played Bach organ music, and in the third, no
music was played. The plants "liked" the North
Indian classical music the best. In both the Bach
and sitar chambers, the plants leaned toward the
speakers, but he plants in the Indian music
chamber leaned toward the speakers the most.
She went on to experiment with other types of
music. The plants showed no reaction at all to
country and western music, similarly to those in
silent chambers. However, the plants "liked" the
jazz that she played them. She tried an
experiment using rock in one chamber, and
"modern" (dischordant) classical music of
negative composers Arnold Schönberg and Anton
Webern in another. The plants in the rock
chamber leaned 30 to 70 degrees away from the
speakers and the plants in the modern classical
chamber leaned 10 to 15 degrees away.
I spoke with Mrs. Retallack about her experiments
a few years after her book was published, and at
that time I began performing my own
experiments with plants using a wood-frame and
clear-plastic-covered structure that I had built in
my back yard. For one month, I played three-
hours-a-day of music from Arnold Schönberg’s
negative opera Moses and Aaron, and for another
month I played three-hours-a-day of the positive
music of Palestrina. The effects were clear. The
plants subjected to Schönberg died. The plants
that listened to Palestrina flourished.
In these experiments, albeit basic and not fully
scientific, we have the genesis of a theory of
positive and negative music. What is it that
causes the plants to thrive or die, to grow
bending toward a source of sound or away from
it?
MUSIC ENHANCES LEARNING
In recent years many studies have been
conducted on the effects of classical music on
learning. The results of these studies are
interesting and varied: increased I.Q.'s,
accelerated learning, greater retention of
material learned, lowered blood pressure and
heart beat, to name a few.
Deep in the brain there is a band of white fibers
connecting the right and left halves of the
cerebrum called the corpus callosum. Very
recently researchers have discovered that the
corpus callosum increases in size when humans
are exposed to quiet, classical music. This
increase in size increases the communication
between the two hemispheres of the brain which,
in turn, increases learning efficiency. The
optimum ages for the increase of the corpus
callosum are from birth to ages 5 or 6, and during
puberty.
For a number of years I taught remedial English
at the Grades 8, 9, and 10 levels. The students
were not stupid, but they were disorganized and
hyperactive. While I worked on their
organizational skills, I also addressed their
hyperactivity. First, I encouraged them to reduce
their consumption of "junk" food by telling them
that sugar and processed carbohydrates "dumb
down" the brain; and second, I played tapes of
quiet, classical music. Of course they thought the
music was "dumb," but I ignored their remarks
and let the music continue. The results were
amazing. Ten to fifteen minutes into the class the
hyperactivity reduced and learning was able to
take place.
A few years ago I saw a television documentary
about the effects of music on plants. The
experimenters set up two terrariums, each
containing a variety of plants, and each
connected to an audio speaker. Into one terrarium
they played classical music, and into the other
they played hard rock music. After a time the
plants exposed to the classical music leaned
toward the speaker; but, the plants exposed to
hard rock music leaned away from the speaker.
Are we so different from plants?
Every generation has its own "fun" music and this
is as it should be. However, studies show that in a
learning environment classical, instrumental
music, played at a low level, enhances and
accelerates learning. The Cozy Classroom
Collection is a selection of piano compositions,
which have been performed and edited for quiet
background listening, to facilitate learning.
From an Animal's Perspective
I came across a very interesting magazine article
in the April 4th, 1988 issue of Insight Magazine
about a study done by physicist Dr. Harvey Bird
from Fairleigh Dickinson University and
neurobiologist Dr. Gervasia Schreckenberg from
Georgian Court College in Lakewood, NJ. Dr. Bird
is very interested in the effects of sound and
music on our bodies. I subsequently got a chance
to meet Dr. Bird and discuss his work and his
theories. He and Dr. Schreckenberg had teamed
up to study the effects of music on laboratory
mice. They subjected one group of mice to
incessant voodoo drum beats, one group to
Strauss waltzes and one group was kept in
silence. The experiment used music played at low
volume so that volume was not a cause for any
behavioral changes observed. Over the period of
the experiment, they tested the different groups
to see how well they could run through a maze to
get to their food. This was a measure of their
cognitive ability - their ability to remember the
maze over time.
Bird and Schreckenberg found that the group that
listened to the voodoo music had a very difficult
time with the maze that increased over time to
the point where they were totally disoriented and
unable to complete the maze. The other groups
had no problem learning the maze, with an edge
given to the mice listening to the waltz music.
Even when the mice were given a break from the
music for three weeks, the group that had
previously listened to the voodoo music "still
could not remember how to get to their food,
while the others found it quickly with no
problem," said Schreckenberg. This was pretty
compelling evidence of the effect of different
kinds of music on mental functioning. But the
best evidence was yet to come.
When the mice brains were later dissected at the
end of the experiment, it was found that the mice
that had been listening to the voodoo music had
abnormal structural changes in their brain cells!
The neurons in their brains were growing out
wildly in all directions without connecting to other
neurons. There was also abnormal amounts of
Messenger RNA, a chemical that the brain uses
for storing memories. Wow! Real physical
evidence of brain damage as a result of exposure
to harmful music! Finding abnormal changes to
brain tissue like this proved that music can affect
areas deep inside the brain, which other activities
don't affect. Schreckenberg further commented,
"We believe that the mice were trying to
compensate for this constant bombardment of
disharmonic noise.
They were struggling against the chaos. If more
connections among the neurons had been made,
it would have been a good thing. But instead
there were no more connections, just wild growth
of the neurons....Everything in life goes in a
rhythm, even the life of a single cell. All the
biochemical reactions are rhythmic. If that
harmony is disrupted by some kind of
disharmony, then it can cause detrimental
effects. And, regarding the extension of the
results with mice brains to human brains, Dr. Bird
added, "What we are seeing here is the effects of
disharmonious music on mammalian brains. And,
insofar as human beings have mammalian brains,
we cannot preclude the possibility that
disharmony may affect human brains as well."
As with the voodoo music used in Bird and
Schreckenberg's study, I have seen
documentaries about how people respond to this
music. With the voodoo rites, the participants
dance in a trance-like fervor. At the conclusion of
the dancing, the participants report that they feel
"clean". I would describe it as "cleaned out".
They've had their energy and proper nerve
functioning cleaned out. I suspect this same
phenomena could occur with some other forms of
tribal dancing where the rhythms are constantly
syncopated (some tribal music such as that of
Native Americans actually emphasizes the strong
beat and is not syncopated - I would expect that
Native American music might be strengthening to
the body, although I've never tested it.)
The concept that what we take into our bodies as
stimuli affects our brains is not a new concept to
neuroscientists. Their experience and
experiments have shown them, particularly for
children whose brains are still growing, that the
stimuli to which they are exposed to shapes their
brains. In addition to shaping the way the brain
uses its existing neural pathways (functional
change), these stimuli also cause physical
alterations in neural pathways (structural
change). Dr. Kenneth A. Klivington of the Salk
Institute in San Diego has said, "Structure and
function are inseparable. We know that
environments shape brains; all sorts of
experiments have demonstrated that it happens.
There are some studies currently being done that
show profound differences in the structure of the
brain depending on what is taken in by the
senses." 4
This discussion of brain damage from harmful
music ties right in with what had been reported at
some rock concerts. People have put eggs on the
foot of the stage and the eggs were hard boiled
midway through the concert. Think about what
that does to our brain! This phenomena was
confirmed scientifically by Dr. Earl Flosdorf and
Leslie A. Chambers who found that shrill sounds
projected into a protein based liquid would
coagulate the proteins (this is what happens to
eggs when they are hard boiled).5
I think about this phenomena every time I hear a
car going by with cement shaking bass notes
blasting from the speaker system. I wonder about
the passengers of that vehicle and how much of
their mental potential is being scrambled each
minute (or in this case hard boiled) by listening to
this kind of music. It is really a shame when you
think about it. A lot of the lyrics of songs that are
popular in the various rock and rap genres
complain about the lack of control and the lack of
opportunities that so many people face in this
world, particularly our youth. It is so ironic that
the very music that is conveying these
sentiments is part of the process of taking away
their control of their lives and their opportunities
for a better life and better health.
Animals seem to make a choice for better health
when allowed to choose between different kinds
of music. One experiment that demonstrates this
involved rats and their music preferences. Rats
were allowed to freely move between two boxes
that were connected by a passageway. In each of
the boxes a speaker was playing one kind of
music. Johann Sebastion Bach's music was played
into one box and rock music into the other. Even
though the boxes were identical in all respects
except for the type of music played through the
speakers, the rats spent all of their time in the
"Bach box". To further verify their results, the
scientists switched the music that was playing in
each box. The rats then all migrated away from
the rock music to the box where the Bach was
playing. Doesn't it seem as if nature is trying to
tell us something here? 6
Are we smarter than rats and plants when it
comes to our choices of the music we listen to?
Or, are we so out of touch with our bodies and
our health that we are numbed to the effects of
certain kinds of music on us? One possible
explanation comes from my previous discussion
of switching. It is likely that many people are
simply experiencing some confusion in their
nerve pathways as a result of the music they
been barraged with.
Isn't it striking that this is precisely the
description of what many addictive drugs do to
you? Your body ends up craving that which is
destroying you. The drug causes your body to
have an actual physical dependence on
continuing to get the drug. Have you ever known
anyone that always had to have the radio or the
TV on? Are your kids like this? Are they craving
that constant barrage of hyperactivity and
tension? Do they feel that they need certain kinds
of music (i.e. rock music) to get going with their
day? To lesser or greater degrees, many of us
suffer from this syndrome because of all the
sound pollution we are subjected to on a daily
basis. Like I said before, try the music fast and
feel the difference for yourself. See what kinds of
behavioral changes you notice in your children
(and your plants and pets).
Body, Mind and Spirit
There's all sorts of fascinating research and
wisdom available about the many ways that
music affects your kids (and yourself) but it can
be difficult to find.
* Certain kinds of music are energizing for your
children's minds and can help them learn much
faster, and even help them digest their food
better. Other types of music actually drain energy
from your children's brains and bodies and can
actually affect their hormone levels (this is
especially a problem with teens).
* Certain frequencies of sound are beneficial to
your children's bodies and are more often present
in certain instruments and in works by certain
composers.
* There are certain kinds of music from certain
composers that can help in your home with
everything from household chores to soothing a
crying baby, enhancing homework, creative
writing, math - you name it!
* Music affects cell protoplasm and even
chromosomes. Consider what you are passing on
to your children and their children.
* Listening to music by a certain composer has
been shown to temporarily increase students' IQ
scores.
* There is a moral component of music that is
totally separate and independent of any lyrics
and significantly impacts your children.
* Educators and researchers are finding direct
relationships between music and television habits
and the mental, verbal and behavioral
development of our children.
If you weren't aware of these points, don't worry -
you're in good company. Most people have never
been exposed to these concepts. Some
researchers have even commented on how this
subject almost appears to be a taboo subject. I
hope I've given you some food for thought (or at
least an appetizer). If you'd like the main course,
check out the information below.
The news stories sounded like, well, music to the
ears when researchers at the University of
California, Irvine reported in 1993 that college
students could raise their IQs by listening to a few
soaring bars of a Mozart sonata.
But there's a problem with the concept of
classical music as sort of a Gatorade for the
brain. According to two studies reported in this
week's issue of the journal Nature, classical music
has no ability to increase basic intelligence in
adults or children.
The 1993 finding set off many parents who
reasoned that if classical music could enhance
college students' intelligence, then babies might
benefit as well -- even if they didn't start
composing piano pieces by the age of 6 as Mozart
had, said Kenneth Steele, associate professor of
psychology at Appalachian State University in
Boone, North Carolina and the author of one of
the two new studies.
Suddenly compact discs with titles such as "The
Mozart Effect" and "Baroque for Baby" began
appearing in the nursery, he said. Former Georgia
Gov. Zell Miller was so impressed by the research
that, in 1998, he played "Ode to Joy" for
legislators and requested 105,000 dollars to give
classical-music compact discs to parents of all
newborns in the state.
"The Mozart effect is pretty much on the wallet of
the parents who are buying the CDs," Steele said.
"There's no special effect on baby."
The study: Double-time
Steele repeated the original study in which
college students listened to Mozart's "Sonata for
Two Pianos in D Major" for 10 minutes, then
performed complicated visual tasks that involved
cutting and folding paper. The students who
listened to the sonata did no better than control
groups who listened to other types of music or
simply relaxed before taking the test.
"The experiment is not very complicated," he
said. "If there is a Mozart effect, it should have
shown up."
In the second study, Christopher F. Chabris, a
research fellow at Massachusetts General
Hospital and Harvard Medical School, reviewed 16
previous studies involving 714 subjects that
compared the IQ-boosting effects of the Mozart
recording. The result: Statistically insignificant
increases in the ability to complete tasks
requiring spatial visualization skills and abstract
reasoning, Chabris said.
"If listening to Mozart improves cognitive
performance at all, it's by improving overall
cognitive arousal and concentration," he said. "It
shouldn't be viewed as an intellectual miracle
drug."
Holding the note
Frances Rauscher, co-author of the original study,
said that many researchers who tried to repeat
the experiment failed because they measured the
effect on general intelligence instead of on
spatial-temporal abilities, or the ability to identify
various shapes. She added that she was
unfamiliar with Steele's research.
But Rauscher, now assistant professor of
cognitive development at the University of
Wisconsin, Oshkosh, agrees with her critics on
one point: There is no evidence that playing
Mozart in the nursery is going to raise an infant's
IQ. The researchers who did the original study in
1993 never claimed it would.
"I'm horrified -- and very surprised -- over what
has happened," she said. "It's a very giant leap to
think that if music has a short-term effect on
college students that it will produce smarter
children. When we published the study results,
we didn't think anyone would care. The whole
thing has really gotten out of hand."
Ad libitum: Individual style
Mozart won't work because there's no one way --
and certainly no one right way--to increase a
child's intelligence, experts say.
Claire Lerner, a child-development specialist at
ZERO TO THREE, a nonprofit organization
devoted to providing information on childhood
development, said that children react to different
types of stimulation. The important thing is for
parents to relax, get to know their babies and see
what stimulus produces a favorable response.
"The major message is there is not one right kind
of stimulation. There are individual differences in
children. They learn in different ways," she said.
"If someone says, this is it -- whether it's Mozart
or a mobile -- alarm bells should go off."
THE MOZART EFFECT DOESN’T INCREASE
GENERAL INTELLIGENCE!
BEST WAY TO ACHIEVE LONG-TERM
BENEFITS IS BY MUSIC STUDY AND MUSIC-
MAKING
The “Mozart Effect”, reported as an increase of
intelligence after briefly listening to Mozart, is by
far the most well-known and sensational finding
in music research in the public mind. At the same
time, it is the most misunderstood. Trumpeted in
the mass media as a way to increase general
intelligence, it does no such thing, as shown in a
detailed article in this issue of MRN.
Francis Rauscher and Gordon Shaw first reported
in 1993 that 10 minutes of listening to a Mozart
sonata for two pianos increased the ability of
college students to solve spatial-temporal
problems. For example, subjects had to imagine
that a single sheet of paper had been folded
several times in certain ways and then various
cuts made with a scissors. They had to then
predict what the pattern of cut-outs would look
like when the paper was unfolded. This test
requires mentally keeping track of the sequence
of events in space. Rauscher and Shaw
specifically pointed out that the effect lasted only
10-15 minutes and worked only for spatial-
temporal problems, not for other aspects of
intelligence.
The public’s belief of long term effects in general
intelligence was fed by simplistic reports in the
media combined with its tendency to believed in
“cognitive bargains”, i.e., getting a big boost in
mental processes without expending much effort.
The Mozart Effect is more important for
researchers than for any practical applications.
Long term benefits from music are best achieved
by intensive study and music-making.
“The Mozart Effect”: A Small Part of the Big
Picture
Copyright © 2000 Norman M. Weinberger
and the Regents of the University of California. All
Rights Reserved.
Studies have shown that music learning and
practice also benefit many mental and behavioral
processes, including cognitive development,
language learning, reading ability, creativity,
motor skills, and personal and social adjustment.
In contrast to these effects of continual
involvement in music, merely brief exposure to
some music of Mozart is thought by the public to
increase intelligence. Although this “Mozart
Effect” has generated a lot of excitement, it is
also the most misunderstood aspect of music
research. This article reviews the Mozart Effect
and explains why it is only a very small part of
the very large field of music research. As the
Mozart Effect actually does not increase general
intelligence and lasts only a few minutes, it does
not provide a substitute for music study and
practice. Substantial, long lasting effects require
deeper and more sustained involvement in music
study and music-making.
Studies have shown that music education and
music-making have positive effects on many
mental and behavioral factors that are
themselves not part of music. We have reviewed
many of the findings in previous issues of MRN.
Reported benefits include the enhancement of
general cognitive development (see issues of
Spring, ’95; Fall, ’96), language development,
reading-readiness and reading (Fall, ’94; Fall, ’95),
verbal abilities (Fall, ’96), abstract conceptual
thinking and reasoning (Fall, ’94, Fall, ’96),
creativity and originality (Fall, ’94; Fall, ’95; Fall,
’96; Spring, ’98; Fall, ’98), memory (Fall, ’96), play
improvisation (Fall, ’96), motor development and
coordination (Fall, ’96), positive attitudes toward
school, improved personal and social adjustment
(Fall, ’95) as well as stress reduction (Fall, ’97),
and increased quality of life including advanced
age (Spring, ’96). [The relevant articles can be
found directly at the MuSICA web site
(http://www.musica.uci.edu) by going to the MRN
cumulative Subject Index and selecting “Benefits
of Music”.] These effects appear to result from a
considerable investment of time and guided
study of music. Such exciting findings show that
we are now on the brink of beginning to
understand the full importance of music for
mental processes and behavior.
In contrast to these findings, public knowledge
about music research is currently dominated by
the “Mozart Effect”. As widely understood in the
public mind, the Mozart Effect is that a few
minutes of listening to Mozart increases
intelligence. This article describes the Mozart
Effect, summarizes the current state of research
and places it within the larger context of music
research. It also suggests why the Mozart Effect
commands an excessive amount of interest. We’ll
begin with the last topic first.
Cognitive Bargain Hunting
The mass media have played a major role in
starting and maintaining public excitement about
the Mozart Effect. Reports have been
sensationalized and oversimplified. However, the
continued and even growing belief that a few
minutes of Mozart improves intelligence also
requires a public that is too ready to accept
simplistic solutions to complex problems. A
couple of examples are relevant.
In 1513, Ponce de Leon “discovered” Florida,
trying to find the legendary “Fountain of Youth”, a
drink from which was reputed to reverse the
aging process. In a 1989 movie, “Indiana Jones
and the Last Crusade”, Harrison Ford sought the
Holy Grail; one sip from this Chalice of Jesus
would confer immortality. Both stories, fact and
fiction, reflect a deeply-rooted but generally
unspoken human impulse, to “get something for
nothing”, or in its more common form, to “get a
lot for a little”. In a helpful form, this is seen in
shopping as bargain hunting. Unfortunately,
people also use this approach for “cognitive”
bargain hunting. This is nowhere more obvious
than in the public’s fascination with the Mozart
Effect, for which the chance to “buy” increased
intelligence at bargain prices, the cost of a CD
and a bit of listening time, has proven irresistible.
The Mozart Effect — Background
The First Study — This story began in 1993
when Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw and
Katherine Ky published a brief paper in the
prestigious journal Nature, launching an
innovative line of research. They asked whether
brief exposure to certain music could increase a
cognitive ability. Thirty-six college students were
divided into three groups which spent ten
minutes in one of three conditions: listening to (1)
a piano sonata by Mozart (sonata for two pianos
in D, K 448), (2) a tape of relaxation instructions
or (3) silence. Immediately after, they were
tested on spatial/temporal reasoning. The
measurements of spatial/temporal (S/T)
reasoning were obtained using subtests from a
standard intelligence battery (group) of tests, the
Stanford-Binet Test. The important subtest was a
paper folding and cutting task (PF/C). The subject
has to imagine that a single sheet of paper has
been folded several times and then various cut-
outs are made with a scissors. The task is to
correctly predict the pattern of cut-outs when the
paper is unfolded.
The authors found significantly higher scores for
the Mozart group than for the relaxation or the
silence groups. The differences translated into
spatial IQ scores for the Mozart group that were
8-9 points higher than the other two groups.
However, the effect was very brief; it did not last
beyond 10-15 minutes.1
The authors did not claim that the effects would
be limited to Mozart’s music but did think that the
benefits to S/T reasoning would require complex
rather than repetitive music. However no further
definitions of complexity were presented. Also,
the authors did not claim that the effects would
be found for other aspects of intelligence, such as
verbal reasoning or short-term memory, but
suggested that these be tested.
The findings were widely reported in the mass
media. This was not the first report that music
and spatial reasoning were found to be related.
Marianne Hassler and her colleagues at the
University of Tubingen in Germany had previously
discovered a significant relationship between
spatial ability and music; students (9-24 years of
age) who scored higher on tests of musical ability
also scored higher on a test of spatial
visualization, i.e., the ability to mentally “see”
and “rotate” objects.2 Although this study had
revealed a relationship, it was a correlation and
not about whether music actually was the cause
of better spatial abilities. The report by Rauscher,
Shaw and Ky suggested that listening to music
actually caused the brain to perform better in
spatial reasoning, at least for a few minutes.
As is often the case with public reports of
scientific findings, emphasis was placed on the
most “sensational” aspects of the findings, i.e.,
the apparent 8-9 point “boost” in IQ. Two critical
and highly limiting factors were generally ignored
— first, that the effects were not on general
intelligence but only for a test of spatial abilities;
second, that the effects lasted only a few
minutes. As widely disseminated, the Mozart
Effect was born as the idea that listening to
Mozart increases intelligence. There was an
immediate run on recordings of Mozart’s sonata
for two pianos, K. 448, which are still in short
supply to this day.3
The Followup Study — The next stage of this
story was provided by a more extensive study by
Rauscher, Shaw and Ky, published in 1995.4 In
this experiment, 79 college students were tested
for their S/T abilities, using the PF/C test. The
experiment covered five days. On day 1 they
were tested for spatial ability and then divided
into three groups that had the same average
spatial ability. On days 2-5 they had one of three
listening experiences and then were immediately
tested again. The three groups received 10
minutes of (1) Mozart’s sonata for two pianos, (2)
something different every day; (minimalist music
by Phillip Glass one day, a story another day and
dance music a third day), or (3) silence every day.
The authors obtained the Mozart Effect. The
benefit was greatest for students who were the
worst at the PF/C task on Day 1, before the
listening treatments were started. However, the
effect was found only for the first day of listening;
there was no difference between the Mozart and
silence groups on days 3, 4 or 5.5 Importantly, the
effect was limited also to the PF/C task; the
Mozart group showed no superiority on a test of
short-term memory.
Once again, the findings were viewed by the
media as showing that listening to Mozart
increased intelligence. The restriction to the S/T
task and the lack of effect on memory were
generally ignored, as was the brief duration of the
Mozart Effect.
The Give and Take of Science — Naturally,
the Mozart Effect reports also stirred interest in
the scientific community. The first attempt to
replicate the Effect, published in 1994 by Stough
and colleagues in New Zealand, failed to find an
effect. However they used a different test than
did Rauscher and colleagues.6 This was quickly
followed by two more failures to find the Mozart
Effect.7 However, both of these studies also used
tests that were different from those used by
Rauscher and colleagues, who have argued that
the tests used don’t actually measure S/T
abilities. 8 Steele and colleagues also failed to find
a Mozart Effect but tested short-term memory
rather than S/T processes.9 As Rauscher et al had
specifically found no effect on memory in their
1995 paper, this failure was not surprising.10
Meanwhile, the Mozart Effect was found by some
other laboratories. In 1996, Rideout and Laubach
compared the effects of a relaxation tape to the
effects of listening to the Mozart sonata and
reported better performance for the Mozart group
on the PF/C task. The following year, Rideout and
Taylor obtained the Mozart Effect in a similar
study.11 In neither case were the effects very
large but they did not occur by chance,
suggesting a reliable, if small, positive effect.
Rideout, Dougherty and Wernert not only
replicated the Mozart Effect, comparing the
sonata to a relaxation tape, they extended it to a
composition by the contemporary composer
Yanni.12 The latter’s music, which is certainly
regarded as extremely different from that of
Mozart, was selected by a musician to be similar
to the Mozart sonata in “tempo, structure,
melodic and harmonic consonances, and
predictability”. This finding emphasizes the need
to have systematic studies to discover the special
features of music that may be effective. In 1997,
Wilson and Brown did find the Mozart Effect using
maze problems to test spatial abilities, compared
to relaxation and silence treatments. However,
they also found that the relaxation tape produced
more maze solutions than the silence condition.13
Very Recent Developments — The year
1999 saw several publications that have been
critical of the Mozart Effect. Steele and colleagues
attempted a faithful replication of the Rauscher et
al studies, using the PF/C task. They failed to find
the Effect in two experiments.14 A combined
report of similar studies from three universities
(Steele et al) also failed to obtain the Effect, using
the PF/C task.15 Chabris performed a quantitative
analysis of all Mozart studies and concluded there
was no reliable Mozart Effect.16 However,
Rauscher argued, once again, that many of the
studies used in Chabris’ analysis used tasks that
do not measure S/T abilities.17 There still exists
some dispute concerning which tests are best at
measuring these abilities but Rauscher and Shaw
had previously argued that replicated positive
Mozart Effect findings used the same or highly
similar tasks whereas negative findings used
different tests (see footnote # 8). However,
negative reports by Steele and colleagues did use
the same PF/C task as Rauscher, Shaw and Key
(see footnotes 14 and 15).
In trying to reconcile positive and negative results
from studies all of which used the same PF/C
task, it becomes obvious that apparently small
differences between experiments may have large
effects. Thus, although Steele and associates
used the same PF/C task, examination of their
data shows that their subjects were much better
at the task than the subjects of Rauscher et al
before the Mozart music was played. In fact, their
baseline performance was about as good as the
improved performance reported by Rauscher.
Therefore, the Steele studies may have failed to
find an effect because their subjects were already
doing as well as they could do with this task. This
possibility needs to be studied directly.18
A recent experiment did replicate the Mozart
Effect, but with an interesting twist. Nantais and
Schellenberg first replicated the Mozart Effect,
both with the Mozart sonata and also a piano
piece by Schubert, compared to a condition of
silence. Next, they ran an experiment comparing
Mozart or Schubert to listening to a story. The
Mozart Effect was found only for those students
who preferred Mozart to the story. The authors
argue that the Mozart Effect, while real, is caused
when any preferred experience is paired with a
less preferred experience. In short, they argue
that the Mozart Effect is caused by a more
pleasant mood.19 This is highly interesting but it
leaves one puzzled about why the Effect should
show up, when it does, on a spatial-temporal task
and not on other tasks, for which mood benefits
might be expected to help as well.
Summary — Within the scientific community
there is no agreement about whether or not the
Mozart Effect is genuine. Moreover, the effective
features of music that has yielded the Effect are
not understood, so systematic analyses of
musical characteristics are needed. It is now
obvious that an apparently simple novel question,
i.e., whether being exposed briefly to certain
music can boost a cognitive ability, is not in fact
such a simple question. Meanwhile, as the
scientific controversy continues, the Mozart Effect
has been extended to clinical applications. Thus,
Johnson et al reported an improvement in spatial-
temporal reasoning in a case of Alzheimer’s
disease.20 Furthermore, the Mozart sonata
apparently can reduce brain seizures.21
It is important to distinguish the Mozart Effect
discussed above from other studies of the effects
of music, including Mozart, on behavior, both in
children and adults.22 Many people believe that
the Mozart Effect described here applies to
children but such studies have never been done
with young children. Also, the effects of long term
listening to music and long term involvement in
music lessons are quite another matter from the
Mozart Effect reviewed here.
In any event, the larger context and implications
of the Mozart Effect have been mainly ignored
within the scientific community and grossly
misrepresented and distorted within the public
domain. It is now time see how the Mozart Effect
fits into the “big picture”.
The Mozart Effect in the Big Picture of
Music and Behavior
Setting aside current controversies, which will
eventually be resolved, let us assume that the
Mozart Effect is genuine and that 10 minutes of
exposure to Mozart (and some other music) does
increase the ability to perform S/T tasks for a
period of 10-15 minutes. How important is this
finding? The importance of a finding depends on
the question being asked. If the question is
whether or not brief exposure to certain music
can be used to understand aspects of cognition
and brain function by linking music listening to
S/T reasoning, then the answer may be positive;
The Mozart Effect could provide an important
scientific tool in this research.
However, if the question is whether or not brief
exposure to certain music can produce long term
improvements in intelligence, either limited to
spatial/temporal abilities or to more general
intelligence, then the answer is no. As currently
understood, the most optimistic views of the
Mozart Effect are that it is very brief and also
largely restricted to certain S/T tasks. Thus, its
practical implications seem minimal. Whether or
not long term listening to music would have long
term effects remains to be studied.
In any event, the field of music research is very
extensive and has spanned the entire Twentieth
Century. So let’s consider the Mozart Effect within
the large domain of music research. The Table
below shows how two factors are related: the
“Duration of Some Effects of Music on Cognition
and Behavior” and the “Amount of Effort,
Involvement” with music. This Table is not
intended to be comprehensive, only illustrative.
 Duration of Some Effects of Music on Cognition and Behavior
Amount of Effort,
Involvement
Minutes
Passive Listening “Mozart Effect”
for 10 minutes (increases ST reasoning)
Educated Listening
in music classes for
none
one or more school
years
Instrumental or vocal
lessons and regular
none
practice for several
years
The Mozart Effect requires only 10 minutes of
exposure (not necessarily even attentive
listening) to music. This is certainly at the most
minimal levels of Involvement and Effort with
music. As for Duration of Effect, it is only a few
minutes. This is certainly at the briefest of
durations. So the Mozart Effect is placed in the
upper left box of the table. Are there any known
long lasting effects, that is years, of exposure to
10 minutes of music? Not to the best of my
knowledge — so the upper right box shows
“none”.
What about the effects of educated listening or
music lessons? Do these last only a few minutes?
Obviously not, hence “none” summarizes these
non-existent states of affairs.
Now consider the other parts of the Table that
concern effects that last over years. The
examples given, while not named as formal
“effects” are nonetheless very well-established.
Educated listening and study require a lot of
effort, so much more than ten minutes of
exposure to music that it might as well be
infinitely more. How long do the effects of
education about music last? Certainly years. It is
not the remembering of a particular fact from
music class that is important — do you really
remember Brahm’s birthdate, I don’t — but rather
the ability to hear and think about music in many
ways at different levels of understanding. How
can the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig
van Beethoven, Duke Ellington and John Lennon
Years
none
Understanding and appreciating
musical forms, genres, meanings
and performances in historical,
social and cultural context
Reading musical notation,
integrating sight, sound, touch
and movements to perform and
express self musically, solo, in
cooperative group or both
all sound so different and yet all be so sublime?
Does the educated listener “hear more” in a
composition than a naive listener? Certainly.
Finally, look at the duration of effects of
instrumental and vocal instruction and practice.
These activities within music itself require even
more effort over a longer period of time than
does learning about music. And commensurately,
the effects last years, even a lifetime. The issue
here is not how well one sings or performs over
ten, twenty or fifty years, but that one does them
at all.
Lessons for the Future
This is not the occasion to discuss how and why
hard work and concentrated effort in music over
months and years produce long lasting changes
in our brains, but they do. They literally change
us, for we are our brains. But it is the time to
revisit Ponce de Leon, the “immortality sip” from
the Holy Grail and other manifestations of our
desire to get something for nothing, i.e.,
increased intelligence from brief exposure to
music.
Given all else we know about the realities of life,
why would anyone believe in this mental “get rich
quick” scheme? It can’t be because of Rauscher,
Shaw and others who have reported positive
Mozart Effect findings, because none of them
claimed a meaningful (i.e., long lasting) effect on
intelligence.23 Well, as P.T. Barnum said “There’s a
sucker born every minute”. Yes, folks will
continue to seek not only monetary bargains but
also the Easy Street to cognitive benefits. But the
FUNCTIONALISM
Functionalism is the oldest, and still the
dominant, theoretical perspective in sociology
and many other social sciences. This perspective
is built upon twin emphases: application of the
scientific method to the objective social world
and use of an analogy between the individual
organism and society.
The emphasis on scientific method leads to the
assertion that one can study the social world in
the same ways as one studies the physical world.
Thus, Functionalists see the social world as
"objectively real," as observable with such
techniques as social surveys and interviews.
Furthermore, their positivistic view of social
science assumes that study of the social world
can be value-free, in that the investigator's
values will not necessarily interfere with the
disinterested search for social laws governing the
behavior of social systems. Many of these ideas
go back to Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), the
great French sociologist whose writings form the
basis for functionalist theory (see Durkheim 1915,
1964); Durkheim was himself one of the first
sociologists to make use of scientific and
statistical techniques in sociological research
(1951).
The second emphasis, on the organic unity of
society, leads functionalists to speculate about
needs which must be met for a social system to
exist, as well as the ways in which social
institutions satisfy those needs. A functionalist
might argue, for instance, that every society will
have a religion, because religious institutions
have certain functions which contribute to the
survival of the social system as a whole, just as
the organs of the body have functions which are
necessary for the body's survival.
This analogy between society and an organism
focuses attention on the homeostatic nature of
social systems: social systems work to maintain
equilibrium and to return to it after external
shocks disturb the balance among social
institutions. Such social equilibrium is
Mozart Effect “bus” doesn’t go there. I don’t
agree with P.T. Barnum. While a potential sucker
is born with every human birth, our “sucker
potential” doesn’t have to become real because a
rational human being also comes with every
birth. An informed public can certainly exercise
judgement and caution.
achieved, most importantly, through the
socialization of members of the society into the
basic values and norms of that society, so that
consensus is reached. Where socialization is
insufficient for some reason to create conformity
to culturally appropriate roles and socially
supported norms, various social control
mechanisms exist to restore conformity or to
segregate the nonconforming individuals from the
rest of society. These social control mechanisms
range from sanctions imposed informally--
sneering and gossip, for example--to the
activities of certain formal organizations, like
schools, prisons, and mental institutions.
You might notice some similarities between the
language used by functionalists and the jargon of
"systems theorists" in computer science or
biology. Society is viewed as a system of
interrelated parts, a change in any part affecting
all the others. Within the boundaries of the
system, feedback loops and exchanges among
the parts ordinarily lead to homeostasis. Most
changes are the result of natural growth or of
evolution, but other changes occur when outside
forces impinge upon the system. A thorough-
going functionalist, such as Talcott Parsons, the
best-known American sociologist of the 1950s
and 60s, conceptualizes society as a collection of
systems within systems: the personality system
within the small-group system within the
community system within society (Parsons 1951).
Parsons (1971) even viewed the whole world as a
system of societies.
Functionalist analyses often focus on the
individual, usually with the intent to show how
individual behavior is molded by broader social
forces. Functionalists tend to talk about individual
actors as decision-makers, although some critics
have suggested that functionalist theorists are, in
effect, treating individuals either as puppets,
whose decisions are a predictable result of their
location in the social structure and of the norms
and expectations they have internalized, or
sometimes as virtual prisoners of the explicit
social control techniques society imposes. In any
case, functionalists have tended to be less
concerned with the ways in which individuals can
control their own destiny than with the ways in
which the limits imposed by society make
individual behavior scientifically predictable.
Robert Merton, another prominent functionalist,
has proposed a number of important distinctions
to avoid potential weaknesses and clarify
ambiguities in the basic perspective (see Merton
1968). First, he distinguishes between manifest
and latent functions: respectively, those which
are recognized and intended by actors in the
social system and hence may represent motives
for their actions, and those which are
unrecognized and, thus, unintended by the
actors. Second, he distinguishes between
consequences which are positively functional for
a society, those which are dysfunctional for the
society, and those which are neither. Third, he
distinguishes between levels of society, that is,
the specific social units for which regularized
patterns of behavior are functional or
dysfunctional. Finally, he concedes that the
particular social structures which satisfy
functional needs of society are not indispensable,
but that structural alternatives may exist
which can also satisfy the same functional needs.
Functionalist theories have very often been
criticized as teleological, that is, reversing the
usual order of cause and effect by explaining
things in terms of what happens afterward, not
what went before. A strict functionalist might
explain certain religious practices, for instance,
as being functional by contributing to a society's
survival; however, such religious traditions will
usually have been firmly established long before
the question is finally settled of whether the
society as a whole will actually survive. Bowing to
this kind of criticism of the basic logic of
functionalist theory, most current sociologists
have stopped using any explicitly functionalistic
explanations of social phenomena, and the
extreme version of functionalism expounded by
Talcott Parsons has gone out of fashion.
Nevertheless, many sociologists continue to
expect that by careful, objective scrutiny of social
phenomena they will eventually be able to
discover the general laws of social behavior, and
this hope still serves as the motivation for a great
deal of sociological thinking and research.
CONFLICT THEORY
The several social theories that emphasize social
conflict have roots in the ideas of Karl Marx
(1818-1883), the great German theorist and
political activist. The Marxist, conflict approach
emphasizes a materialist interpretation of history,
a dialectical method of analysis, a critical stance
toward existing social arrangements, and a
political program of revolution or, at least, reform.
The materialist view of history starts from the
premise that the most important determinant of
social life is the work people are doing, especially
work that results in provision of the basic
necessities of life, food, clothing and shelter. Marx
thought that the way the work is socially
organized and the technology used in production
will have a strong impact on every other aspect
of society. He maintained that everything of value
in society results from human labor. Thus, Marx
saw working men and women as engaged in
making society, in creating the conditions for
their own existence.
Marx summarized the key elements of this
materialist view of history as follows:
In the social production of their existence, men
inevitably enter into definite relations, which are
independent of their will, namely relations of
production appropriate to a given stage in the
development of their material forces of
production. The totality of these relations of
production constitutes the economic structure of
society, the real foundation, on which arises a
legal and political superstructure and to which
correspond definite forms of social consciousness.
The mode of production of material life conditions
the general process of social, political and
intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men
that determines their existence, but their social
existence that determines their consciousness
(Marx 1971:20).
Marx divided history into several stages,
conforming to broad patterns in the economic
structure of society. The most important stages
for Marx's argument were feudalism, capitalism,
and socialism. The bulk of Marx's writing is
concerned with applying the materialist model of
society to capitalism, the stage of economic and
social development that Marx saw as dominant in
19th century Europe. For Marx, the central
institution of capitalist society is private property,
the system by which capital (that is, money,
machines, tools, factories, and other material
objects used in production) is controlled by a
small minority of the population. This
arrangement leads to two opposed classes, the
owners of capital (called the bourgeoisie) and the
workers (called the proletariat), whose only
property is their own labor time, which they have
to sell to the capitalists.
Owners are seen as making profits by paying
workers less than their work is worth and, thus,
exploiting them. (In Marxist terminology, material
forces of production or means of production
include capital, land, and labor, whereas social
relations of production refers to the division of
labor and implied class relationships.)
Economic exploitation leads directly to political
oppression, as owners make use of their
economic power to gain control of the state and
turn it into a servant of bourgeois economic
interests. Police power, for instance, is used to
enforce property rights and guarantee unfair
contracts between capitalist and worker.
Oppression also takes more subtle forms: religion
serves capitalist interests by pacifying the
population; intellectuals, paid directly or indirectly
by capitalists, spend their careers justifying and
rationalizing the existing social and economic
arrangements. In sum, the economic structure of
society molds the superstructure, including ideas
(e.g., morality, ideologies, art, and literature) and
the social institutions that support the class
structure of society (e.g., the state, the
educational system, the family, and religious
institutions). Because the dominant or ruling class
(the bourgeoisie) controls the social relations of
production, the dominant ideology in capitalist
society is that of the ruling class. Ideology and
social institutions, in turn, serve to reproduce and
perpetuate the economic class structure. Thus,
Marx viewed the exploitative economic
arrangements of capitalism as the real foundation
upon which the superstructure of social, political,
and intellectual consciousness is built. (Figure 1
depicts this model of historical materialism.)
Marx's view of history might seem
completely cynical or pessimistic, were it not for
the possibilities of change revealed by his
method of dialectical analysis. (The Marxist
dialectical method, based on Hegel's earlier
idealistic dialectic, focuses attention on how an
existing social arrangement, or thesis, generates
its social opposite, or antithesis, and on how a
qualitatively different social form, or synthesis,
emerges from the resulting struggle.) Marx was
an optimist. He believed that any stage of history
based on exploitative economic arrangements
generated within itself the seeds of its own
destruction. For instance, feudalism, in which
land owners exploited the peasantry, gave rise to
a class of town-dwelling merchants, whose
dedication to making profits eventually led to the
bourgeois revolution and the modern capitalist
era. Similarly, the class relations of capitalism will
lead inevitably to the next stage, socialism. The
class relations of capitalism embody a
contradiction: capitalists need workers, and vice
versa, but the economic interests of the two
groups are fundamentally at odds. Such
contradictions mean inherent conflict and
instability, the class struggle. Adding to the
instability of the capitalist system are the
inescapable needs for ever-wider markets and
ever-greater investments in capital to maintain
the profits of capitalists. Marx expected that the
resulting economic cycles of expansion and
contraction, together with tensions that will build
as the working class gains greater understanding
of its exploited position (and thus attains class
consciousness), will eventually culminate in a
socialist revolution.
Despite this sense of the unalterable logic of
history, Marxists see the need for social criticism
and for political activity to speed the arrival of
socialism, which, not being based on private
property, is not expected to involve as many
contradictions and conflicts as capitalism.
Marxists believe that social theory and political
practice are dialectically intertwined, with theory
enhanced by political involvement and with
political practice necessarily guided by theory.
Intellectuals ought, therefore, to engage in praxis,
to combine political criticism and political activity.
Theory itself is seen as necessarily critical and
value-laden, since the prevailing social relations
are based upon alienating and dehumanizing
exploitation of the labor of the working classes.
Marx's ideas have been applied and reinterpreted
by scholars for over a hundred years, starting
with Marx's close friend and collaborator,
Friedrich Engels (1825-95), who supported Marx
and his family for many years from the profits of
the textile factories founded by Engels' father,
while Marx shut himself away in the library of the
British Museum. Later, Vladimir I. Lenin (1870-
1924), leader of the Russian revolution, made
several influential contributions to Marxist theory.
In recent years Marxist theory has taken a great
variety of forms, notably the world-systems
theory proposed by Immanuel Wallerstein (1974,
1980) and the comparative theory of revolutions
put forward by Theda Skocpol (1980). Marxist
ideas have also served as a starting point for
many of the modern feminist theorists. Despite
these applications, Marxism of any variety is still
a minority position among American sociologists.
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
Symbolic interactionism, or interactionism for
short, is one of the major theoretical perspectives
in sociology. This perspective has a long
intellectual history, beginning with the German
sociologist and economist, Max Weber (1864-
1920) and the American philosopher, George H.
Mead (1863-1931), both of whom emphasized the
subjective meaning of human behavior, the
social process, and pragmatism. Although there
are a number of versions of interactionist
thought, some deriving from phenomenological
writings by philosophers, the following description
offers a simplified amalgamation of these ideas,
concentrating on points of convergence. Herbert
Blumer, who studied with Mead at the University
of Chicago, is responsible for coining the term,
"symbolic interactionism," as well as for
formulating the most prominent version of the
theory (Blumer 1969).
Interactionists focus on the subjective aspects of
social life, rather than on objective, macro-
structural aspects of social systems. One reason
for this focus is that interactionists base their
theoretical perspective on their image of humans,
rather than on their image of society (as the
functionalists do). For interactionists, humans are
pragmatic actors who continually must adjust
their behavior to the actions of other actors. We
can adjust to these actions only because we are
able to interpret them, i.e., to denote them
symbolically and treat the actions and those who
perform them as symbolic objects. This process of
adjustment is aided by our ability to
imaginatively rehearse alternative lines of
action before we act. The process is further aided
by our ability to think about and to react to our
own actions and even our selves as symbolic
objects. Thus, the interactionist theorist sees
humans as active, creative participants who
construct their social world, not as passive,
conforming objects of socialization.
For the interactionist, society consists of
organized and patterned interactions among
individuals. Thus, research by interactionists
focuses on easily observable face-to-face
interactions rather than on macro-level structural
relationships involving social institutions.
Furthermore, this focus on interaction and on the
meaning of events to the participants in those
events (the definition of the situation) shifts
the attention of interactionists away from stable
norms and values toward more changeable,
continually readjusting social processes.
Whereas for functionalists socialization creates
stability in the social system, for interactionists
negotiation among members of society creates
temporary, socially constructed relations which
remain in constant flux, despite relative stability
in the basic framework governing those relations.
These emphases on symbols, negotiated reality,
and the social construction of society lead to an
interest in the roles people play. Erving Goffman
(1958), a prominent social theorist in this
tradition, discusses roles dramaturgically, using
an analogy to the theater, with human social
behavior seen as more or less well scripted and
with humans as role-taking actors. Role-taking
is a key mechanism of interaction, for it permits
us to take the other's perspective, to see what
our actions might mean to the other actors with
whom we interact. At other times, interactionists
emphasize the improvisational quality of roles,
with human social behavior seen as poorly
scripted and with humans as role-making
improvisers. Role-making, too, is a key
mechanism of interaction, for all situations and
roles are inherently ambiguous, thus requiring us
to create those situations and roles to some
extent before we can act.
Ethnomethodology, an offshoot of symbolic
interactionism, raises the question of how people
who are interacting with each other can create
the illusion of a shared social order even when
they don't understand each other fully and in fact
have different points of view. Harold Garfinkel, a
pioneer in these investigations, demonstrated the
problem by sending his students out to perform
"experiments in trust," called breaching
experiments, in which they brought ordinary
conversations to an abrupt halt by refusing to
take for granted that they knew what the other
person was saying, and so demanded
explanations and then explanations of the
explanations (Garfinkel 1967). More recently,
ethnomethodologist researchers have performed
minutely detailed analyses of ordinary
conversations in order to reveal the methods by
which turn-taking and other conversational
maneuvers are managed.
Interactionists tend to study social interaction
through participant observation, rather than
surveys and interviews. They argue that close
contact and immersion in the everyday lives of
the participants is necessary for understanding
the meaning of actions, the definition of the
situation itself, and the process by which actors
construct the situation through their interaction.
Given this close contact, interactionists could
hardly remain free of value commitments, and, in
fact, interactionists make explicit use of their
values in choosing what to study but strive to be
objective in the conduct of their research.
Symbolic interactionists are often criticized by
other sociologists for being overly impressionistic
in their research methods and somewhat
unsystematic in their theories. These objections,
combined with the fairly narrow focus of
interactionist research on small-group
interactions and other social psychological issues,
have relegated the interactionist camp to a
minority position among sociologists, although a
fairly substantial minority.
PHENOMENOLOGY, ETHNOMETHODOLOGY,
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION THEORY AND FEMINIST
STANDPOINT THEORY
Yet another approach to sociological theory which
has been gaining in popularity is
Phenomenology. The approach is based on the
ideas of German philosopher Edmund Husserl,
who insisted that the phenomena we encounter
in sensory perceptions are the ultimate source of
all knowledge His perspective was brought to the
United States by sociologist Alfred Schutz and
then was developed further by Harold Garfinkel,
whose work on Ethnomethodology was
described in the section on Symbolic
Interactionism above. Another important
development in phenomenological thinking can
be found in the works of Peter Berger and
Thomas Luckmann, whose landmark book, The
Social Construction of Reality (1966), has been
widely influential, especially among
contemporary feminists. Prominent theorist
Dorothy Smith draws heavily on Social
Construction Theory, and also the ideas of
Garfinkel and others, in her presentation of
Feminist Standpoint Theory, arguing that
sociological theory as constructed by men gives a
distorted picture of women's experiences, and
that any theory which ignores the perspectives of
women (and of other excluded groups) is
necessarily incomplete.
Social exchange theory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Social exchange theory is a social
psychological and sociological perspective that
explains social change and stability as a process
of negotiated exchanges between parties. Social
exchange theory posits that all human
relationships are formed by the use of a
subjective cost-benefit analysis and the
comparison of alternatives. For example, when a
person perceives the costs of a relationship as
outweighing the perceived benefits, then the
theory predicts that the person will choose to
leave the relationship. The theory has roots in
economics, psychology and sociology.
For social exchange theorists, when the costs and
benefits are equal in a relationship, then that
relationship is defined as equitable. The notion of
equity is a core part of social exchange theory.
Social exchange theory is tied to rational choice
theory and on the other hand to structuralism,
and features many of their main assumptions.