Social Relations Dept. Will Study Its Program

Three years after its founding, the Social Relations Department, is stopping to analyze what it's teaching.

Professor Talcott Parsons, Chairman of the Department, announced yesterday that he is heading a group which is studying the inter-relation of the three divisions of Social Relations: sociology, psychology, and anthropology. This is the first such survey ever made.

Under the auspices of the Carnegie Corporation, the group will work "to improve the theory" which in 1946 led Harvard to form the Department of Social Relations.

"Codify Previous Study"

The Carnegie Project will seek "to codify previous study on the subject." Professor Parsons said, and "to bring out areas of agreement." At present, he reported, difficulties arise because experts in the different divisions of Social Relations see a subject from opposite perspectives.

"A psychologist," Professor Persons said, "tends to analyze a problem of society in terms of the individual, while a sociologist may view it as a group phenomenon." The program will seek to overcome this friction "resulting from the different intellectual backgrounds of the divisions of Social Relations."