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the language of Watson: "The sum of activities that can be discovered by actual observation of behavior over a long enough time to give reliable information. In other words, personality is but the end product of our habit systems." In the popular sense a noted professor whose researches have had far-reaching effect was described as having no personality, but as we understand personality for the purposes of this paper, he very definitely had it. In his social environment of the research laboratory he had achieved beyond the attainments of most men. Let me remind you of Miss Richmond's statement regarding personality:

Our physical heredity, our innate qualities transmitted and unalterable, are individual, but all that portion of our social heritage and our environment which we have been able in day by day living to add to individuality and make a part of ourselves is personal; and the whole becomes our personality. While a man's individuality does not change, his personality, which includes both his native and acquired qualities, is forever changing. If it does not expand and grow from day to day by full exercise of function, it contracts and even atrophies.

A committee on measurements in family social work from the 1926 Institute of the American Association for Organizing Family Social Work have, on the basis of the foregoing definitions, suggested a questionnaire method of studying personality growth. They chose for their illustration the non-supporting man, and framed a series of questions regarding his habits and attitudes. His habits were studied from such points of view as work, family relationship, leisure, and also in relation to his social environment. The latter was a recognition that certain habits would be considered unsatisfactory in one environment that might be satisfactory in another. The extent to which these questions could be answered favorably would be a measure of the man's personality. If there were more favorable answers regarding habits and attitudes at a later than at an earlier period, then his personality had been expanding and growing.

We shall now trace, from a social case record, the development of personality as revealed in a history of a family we are calling Morris. In December, 1922, the Morris family was reported to the family welfare society in X as in need of food and fuel. Mr. Morris had formerly been a miner, but since moving to X had done factory work. In the preceding spring, when not well, he had, with little success, tried canvassing. He was now sick and unable to work. He was described as a small, tired, discouraged-looking man who seemed to lack initiative. References add the information that he had been a heavy drinker, disagreeable, and had assumed little responsibility in the home. This is not a picture of successful personality. When the case worker on her first visit advised his going to the out-patient department he demurred. His wife explained his hesitancy on the ground that he feared the clinic would tell him that he had tuberculosis. The case worker did not herself press the point, but referred the matter to the tuberculosis society. Within twelve days Mr. Morris had been examined, diagnosed as tubercular, and admitted to the sanitarium. Unquestionably progress in personality development had been made. Mr. Morris, described as disagreeable, afraid of the truth, lacking in initiative, had cooperated

in having the examination, had accepted the diagnosis, and had acted on the advice given. In the case record these items appear, not as personality development, but as a health problem given treatment. Should they have been recorded from the point of view of personality?

Mrs. Morris appeared as a small, quiet person, worried and tired. She was friendly and expressed a willingness to work, although fearing she would be unable to do much, as she was five months pregnant. She kept a clean but unattractive home. Neighbors, relatives, friends, and landlady agreed that Mrs. Morris had worked hard, was a good woman; they liked her and thought her "very deserying." She was ambitious for her children, but had made "a doormat of herself" for them. Her poor management was illustrated by innumerable jelly and jam glasses on her kitchen table. Mrs. Morris's failure to give adequate attention to her children's health had resulted in many and long-continued colds.

In December, 1922, there were four children at home; three others had married, and one had died. Those at home were Robert, age fifteen years; Lois, twelve; Ethel, eleven; and Frances, three. Robert worked in a garage at $8.00 per week, attending part-time school. The preceding year he had violated this latter requirement of the state school law. We read that he was surly in the home, disrespectful to his mother, who received only $4.00 of his wages, and was rough and unkind with his sisters. He resented the very presence in the home of Ethel, whose sniffles were a special grievance. In order to avoid his quarreling with his sisters, Mrs. Morris served his meals separately. Although Robert was neat and took his bath, he expected his mother to get his water ready for him. The case worker consulted the counselor for boys and Robert's teachers at the part-time school. His two women teachers had found him sullen, never voluntarily speaking or responding to their greetings, although they had noticed some improvement during the few weeks since Mr. Morris had been out of the home. Robert's man teacher, who had known him in grade school, was surprised to learn that he was other than a normal boy, for he had not noticed any disagreeable attitude. The counselor and teachers offered to help in correcting Robert's actions and attitudes at home. When Mrs. Morris next saw the case worker she told with much joy that Robert, upon drawing his last week's pay, had invited the family to go with him to the movies; also that Robert had cleaned the yard and planted a garden. There were similar items which showed a changed family relationship. These may be taken as measurements of a development of personality.

More emphasis, which will automatically be reflected in our case records, upon the relationships and social contacts of our clients both within the home and outside will reveal changes of personality. These changes in personality at the present stage of our progress cannot be measured in terms of percentages, rates, and ratios, but they are nevertheless real.

Unfortunately, the record did not show the processes used by the worker in

changing Robert's home attitudes or in getting Mr. Morris into the sanitarium. A study of personality measurement should also include a study of processes, but the latter is not the subject of this paper. We know in the case of Mr. Morris that the worker secured the assistance of the representative of the tuberculosis society because she knew that Mr. Morris would look upon advice from that source as more authoritative. In the case of Robert she recognized that one more woman would not have the influence with him that the man counselor would probably have.

In August, 1923, after nine months of social treatment, there was recorded Mrs. Morris's expression of gratitude, both for the material assistance (food and clothing had been provided for the family during the entire period) and also for what she had learned regarding system and the managing of both money and home. The lack of these personality elements, system and management, have brought many a client to a social practitioner. We have an insight here into one process used by the worker when Mrs. Morris says that she has found the use of an expense account and budget helpful. Does the statement that Mrs. Morris wanted the visitor's approval before making any unusual purchases indicate the development or retardation of personality? At this time Mrs. Morris was paying her rent in advance instead of "in small amounts, as she can." The landlady, thus encouraged, fixed up the house, making it much more attractive with curtains and other homelike touches. Does not that physical environment which we make for ourselves help to measure personality? Furthermore, does it not reveal the personality of the family as a whole, as well as of its members? Perhaps the most enlightening of Mrs. Morris's remarks is that she has "never before been so comfortable and felt so encouraged about the future." Such an attitude goes a long way in enabling one to conquer life's battles, in other words, to be recognized as a successful personality.

Another measurement which should be noted is that Mrs. Morris talked over some of the difficulties that arose in the families of her married children in order that she might be more helpful as a mother. How we have feared, as social workers, that tendency to become dependent. Do we note with corresponding joy and cultivate with greatest care the indications of an outgiving spirit?

At this period the Morris family had become practically self-supporting. Mr. Morris had improved in the sanitarium and was about to be discharged. The case worker, fearing the recurrence of his drinking habits and an unhappy element in the home were he to return, secured for him a janitor's position at the sanitarium, where he would earn $50.00 per month and board. He did not turn over, at first, a reasonable share of his earnings to his family, but the worker appealed to him and his response was immediate and permanent. The case worker did this by explaining to him, with figures, what it cost to maintain his family, what the family welfare society had already done, what was now his own responsibility, what a splendid wife and children he had, and that he was

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not expected to turn over every last cent. With the assuming of responsibility there came a greater interest and joy in his family, whom he saw regularly twice a week.

In September, 1923, Robert secured a better paying position with the opportunity of learning a trade. He was later promoted and began saving. He contributed regularly toward the family expenses. In October, 1925, at the age of eighteen, he made the initial payment of $200.00 on a five-room cottage into which the family moved.

Only one more incident will be taken from the record of the Morris family. Early one February morning in 1926 as Mr. Morris was returning from a visit at home to his work at the sanitarium an automobile hit him, and he died the next day. The real test came at this time. The family was able to meet the crisis emotionally and in other ways. They have neither asked for outside assistance nor proposed giving up their plans for buying their home. They are having help in meeting the situation from one of the sons, married in the beginning, but now divorced. Although he has failed with his own family he is making a real contribution to the life of his mother's family.

This method of dealing with the subject of measures of growth in personality has been used because we must find personality growth measured at this stage of social case work in the recorded items of social history. Perhaps in the future the social scientist, the psychologist, and the social case worker will be able to develop more exact measurements. In the meantime our contribution as case workers will be to do a type of social work that is in reality the development of personality. Our further contribution will be to acquire a technique of recording that will reveal the personalities and, by implication, at least, the processes which were used.

In connection with the Morris record there is an annual statistical summary which lists services rendered. This statistical list of services is similar to that used by many family welfare societies for more than a decade. It mentions that the Morris family received such services as dental treatment, sanitarium care, employment obtained, children kept in school, recreation arranged, etc. How very inadequate such lists are. A few societies have prepared their list of services rendered from the point of view of personality growth. A medical examination is not nearly as important as a sound attitude toward a health difficulty. We speak of maladjustments, but our terminology is lacking when it comes to right adjustments. The opposite of mal is bene, as used in beneficial. Why not, therefore, analyze not only the mal-adjustments to be corrected, but the bene-adjustments which have been accomplished. A study of services by many thoughtful case workers from the point of view of social contacts of a client and from the point of view of attitudes and habits will surely produce some measurement of personality to be incorporated into statistics of services rendered.

When the Morris family had been under care four months there appeared as part of the record a diagnostic summary. The various members of the family

were individualized in this summary. We gain a picture of their personalities. This is the only diagnostic summary that was made during more than three years of active care. Successive diagnostic summaries would have been a means of personality measurement. This is assuming that each successive summary is not a repetition, but a further analysis of changes in personality since the preceding statement. Such an annual audit of character is a measurement that the case worker would find helpful to his own thinking.

Social case workers cannot indefinitely excuse their lack of accuracy when asked to state results by answering that they are dealing with the intangible. Personality is a reality. Its growth cannot be measured in terms of dollars, or pounds, or death-rates, or even complexes, but we should be able to answer yes or no as to whether or not we are going forward or backward in our work. Taken together, the social history, the questionnaire, the diagnostic summary, and the statistics of service enable us to answer in regard to each family whether our work has been worth while. We are able to determine, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, when the record is closed, whether the family should be able to meet its own needs, or whether we are closing because further effort under the circumstances is not justified, because we are no longer able to continue our contact, or because some other agency has taken over the responsibility. Such an estimate is sounder than an attempt to determine whether all problems of health, employment, education, recreation, etc., have been met. Under the latter procedure there can be no honest finis.

MEASURING OUR RESULTS IN SECURING THE ESSENTIALS OF FAMILY LIFE: SOME SUGGESTIONS BASED ON A REVIEW OF MOTHERS' ASSISTANCE

IN PENNSYLVANIA

Mrs. Helen Glenn Tyson, Pittsburgh

In the mothers' pension experiment, at the beginning, little attempt was made to discover any of the essential facts in relation to this new way of meeting one section of the problem of family dependency. Certainly in Pennsylvania, aside from the more obvious data as to the nature of the problem and the probable costs to the state and county treasury, we were surprised to learn that the distribution of fatherless families throughout the state was so uneven, and that the relief from public and private sources was so utterly inadequate.

Yet lack of foresight before the passage of the law has perhaps been atoned for by the devotion and singular wisdom of the boards of trustees throughout the state in administration of this new law. It is no exaggeration to say that today there is no more popular or better administered law on the statute books,

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