The following experiments on group decision have been conducted during the last four years. They are not in a state that permits definite conclusions. But they show the nature of the problems and the main factors concerned. They also indicate the type of concepts to which the attempt to integrate cultural anthropology, psychology, and sociology into one social science may lead.Scientifically, the question of group decision lies at the intersection of many basic problems of group life and individual psychology. It concerns the relation of motivation to action and the effect of a group setting on the individual's readiness to change or to keep certain standards. It is related to one of the fundamental problems of action-research, namely, how to change group conduct so that it would not slide back to the old level within a short time. It is in this wider setting of social processes and social management that group decision should be viewed as one means of social change. Social Channels and Social PerceptionThe meaning and the over-all effect of a group decision depends upon the nature of the process itself, and upon the position of the group, within the total social field. In regard to these broader questions we will consider two aspects of social steering, namely, steering through gatekeepers and the function which reality perception should have. Channels, Gates, and Gatekeepers Food Habits and Food ChannelsThe first experiment on group decision was part of a larger study on food habits. Its main objective was a comparison of different ethnic and economic groups in a midwestern town. The favorite family food was studied,

who helped improve the manuscript.The article discusses an interview method designed to measure delinquent behavior directly from the confidential confessions of teen-agers. The method is described and results are presented from a validation study of 125 undetected delinquents. Application of the measure is illustrated with findings from a study of 522 randomly selected boys and girls, thirteen to sixteen years old, residing in Flint, Mich. Conclusions are drawn about the relationship between delinquency and social status and sex, and about the validity of official records. TUDENTS OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCYand practitioners who explore the research literature for help in treating delinquents have found that measurements of delinquency have been grievously inadequate. A youngster generally has been labeled &dquo;delinquent&dquo; either because he has been caught by the police or because his answers to questions about himself are similar to those of youngsters caught by the police.Social scientists alert to this problem have developed various methods to measure delinquency directly from youngsters themselves, including field observation, self-administered questionnaires, and interviews. Results have been discrepant, as, for example, in studies of the relationship between juvenile delinquency and social status, a relationship upon which many theories of delinquency have been built. This article introduces an interview method designed to find out from teenagers how many delinquent acts they have committed in the recent past and to discover other pertinent information about this behavior.t WHY COLLECT SUCH DATA?Almost all of the research on delinquency begins in the official records of police, courts, and institutions. A large number of delinquent acts and the identities of children who committed them are unrecorded in these sources.

This study examined the effects of parental monitoring in order to discover specific ways that their re1ationships with their parents affect ado1escents' delinquent behaviour. Data were taken from the National Survey of Youth 1972, a survey of a representative samp1e of 1395 Americans in the age range 11-18 years. Conditions such as the age and sex of the respondents, their affectiona1 re1ationships with their parents, the composition of their families and their estimates of the de1inquency of their friends all qua1ified the relationship between parental monitoring and their se1f-reported delinquency. In one condition, the generally negative relationship was reversed.

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