Testing planets: Institutions tested in an era of uncertainty

Prior accounts of the experimenter’s regress in laboratory testing are set against the background of a relatively stable institutional context. Even if the tools are new or the object of investigation is unknown, participating entities are named, a certain degree of funding is presumed, and an organization exists to conduct the test. In this paper, I argue that this background assumption obscures the importance of institutional and organizational context to the sociology of testing. I analyze ethnographic data gathered among a NASA team whose funding is uncertain, whose mission organization is not yet established, and whose object of investigation is inaccessible. In what I characterize as “ontological flexibility,” I reveal how scientists shift their accounts of object agency in response to changes in their institutional environment. As they describe the moon as “uncooperative” or “multiple” while they make appeals to institutions at various stages of support in their exploration projects, this reveals the presence of an “institutional regress”: a previously overlooked aspect of the sociology of testing.     

Cognitive Neuroscience, Neurobiology and Affect Regulation: Implications for Clinical Social Work

The purpose of this article is to review and consider the ways in which recent advances in cognitive neuroscience and neurobiology inform a biopsychosocial perspective for understanding and intervening with at-risk families. Specifically, our focus is on the ways in which such work contributes to our understanding of affect regulation as an important determinant and consequence of early interactive experience. In turn, this knowledge can be employed both in primary prevention and in later intervention with families whose well being has been compromised by affect dysregulation.     

Quality of life and comparative risk in Houston

Houston Environmental Foresight, an urban region comparative risk assessment, demonstrated the importance of process as well as analytic methodology. These features are best illustrated in the work of its Socioeconomic Subpanel, which assessed environmental risks to economic well-being and quality of life. Several issues are raised by the process and methods used by the subpanel. Some of these issues could be addressed through national research on comparative risk methods; other issues are most likely to be addressed through the incremental improvements of future projects.     

The Laboratory Evaluation and Enrichment of Couples: Applications and Some Preliminary Results

Data relating to the effects of structured versus unstructured interventions with three couples are presented and compared. Arguments are presented for the standard use of: 1) routine, pre- post-intervention assessment, 2) laboratory procedures in the assessment and treatment of couples, and 3) paraprofessionals in intervention with couples. This report is part of a systematic program of research into the appropriate use of structured and unstructured intervention and into the optimal matching of client family and intervention approach.