| Abstract: | Author comments that many of his fellow behavioral scientists respect or share Lirtzman's (American Psychologist, 1964, 19, 199) impassioned belief that psychologists, as individuals, and psychology, as a profession, should offer their skills and knowledge in the Negro civil rights battle threatening to puncture irreparably the arteries and veins of our country. But this adumbrates two additional issues or needs, at least paralleling in importance his exhortation that psychology commit some of its resources to an examination of the racial problem: (a) preventive solicitude, i.e., the need to become sensitized to a problem, not when it has reached maturity, but during its early childhood; and (b) total solicitude, i.e., the need to concern oneself, not only with dramatic and visible problems, but also with those of a more pedestrian and less perceptible complexion. The first, preventive solicitude, suggests that we belong at the vanguard of social problems, not at their rear when it may be too late for psychology to exert its influence. The second issue or need is total solicitude, referring to the wearisome but psychologically understandable tendency for individuals to attend, not to all the stimuli in their midst, but to the loudest. The author presents his views on psychology's role in these. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
