Peer group

“ But most researchers regard peer review as overwhelmingly more reliable than other forms of review; and the principle that research publications should be subject before publication to rigorous review by expert peers—whether simply to check the rigour of the research or to assess its significance and likely impact in the field—is of critical importance. It becomes even more important as wider access to research-based publications leads to wider use by non-experts, who must have confidence in the quality assurance of the publication process, if they are to rely on the findings. ”

“ In the majority of instances these declared purposes really serve merely or chiefly to exert a certain natural selection of persons, to bring together persons of similar tastes as voluntary associates, to enable, in short, birds of a feather to flock together. Even some of our enduring historical institutions owe their continuance chiefly to the advantages and satisfactions that proceed from group consciousness, for example, colleges, school-houses, and political parties, especially perhaps in America. ”

“ So long as the extreme parties are but a small portion, and the distribution of variation is normal, most in the middle course and thinning away to the upper and lower limits, the society is stable and benefits by its variations. But if the curve of variation is irregular, and shows two large groups with fewer in the middle course between them, the condition is dangerous. We had such a condition in England in the seventeenth century, and after a long struggle of each group to capture the middle party, the separation into two communities took place. ”

“ All that he says of relation implies that we must seek and bring into use those modes of association which will reveal true interests, actual interests, yet not particularist interests but the interests discovered through group relations—employer and employed, master and servant, landlord and tenant, etc. But, and this is of great importance, these groups must be made into genuine groups. If law is to be a group-product, we must see that our groups are real groups, we must find the true principle of association. ”

“ I propose now to discuss very briefly the peculiarities of groups of several types. Some classification of groups seems desirable as an aid to the discovery of the general principles of collective life and their application to the understanding of social life in general. It seems impossible to discover any single principle of classification. Almost every group that enjoys a greater continuity of existence than the simple crowd partakes in some degree of qualities common to all. ”

“ The conception of ' primitive society' which we ought to form is that of small groups scattered over a territory. The size of the groups is determined by the conditions of the struggle for existence. The internal organization of each group corresponds to its size. A group of groups may have some relation to each other (kin, neighborhood, alliance, connubium, and commercium) which draws them together and differentiates them from others. Thus a differentiation arises between ourselves, the we-group, or in-group, and everybody else, or the others-groups, out-groups. ”

“ In order to meet this criterion, arrangements must be in place to enable publishers (whether they are in the commercial or the not-for-profit sector) to meet the legitimate costs of peer review, production, and marketing, as well as high standards of presentation, discoverability and navigation, together with the kinds of linking and enrichment of texts (‘semantic publishing’) that researchers and other readers increasingly expect. Publishers also need to generate surpluses for investment in innovation and new services ”

“ Peer review is sometimes characterised an imperfect mechanism: it can take a long time and delay the publication of important results; it provides scant rewards for the efforts that researchers—hard-pressed for other purposes—devote to good reviewing; and since it depends on fallible human beings it cannot provide an absolute guarantee against the publication of faulty results. ”

“ It is critically important also to sustain an environment which promotes innovation from both established players and new entrants, especially in key areas we have identified, including linkages between publications and underlying data, the publication of monographs, and experimentation in the mechanisms of peer review. Achieving those goals depends on concerted action from universities, funders and publishers, as well as researchers themselves. ”

“ The most characteristic British group of the purposive type is the association formed for some public or quasi-public end and operating through a democratically elected committee or committees and sub-committees. Such groups are the cradle of the representative principle and the training ground of the democratic spirit, especially of its deliberative and executive faculties. ”

“ UK researchers are world-leading in the quality as well as the quantity of the work they produce. Their standing is underpinned by systems to ensure that they have effective and high-quality channels through which they can publish and disseminate their findings, and that they perform to the best standards by subjecting their published findings to rigorous peer review. Neither the quality and standing of the UK research community nor the underpinning of high-quality publishing channels must be put at risk. ”

“ There is, however, some difference between the manifestation of the activity of a group of men and that of the aggregate society. Between psychology which studies the individual, and sociology which studies the society, I think there is room for a collective psychology, to study more or less defined groups. ”

“ Coming now to close quarters with the doctrine, we may ask those who, like Schaeffle and Espinas, regard the ‘collective consciousness’ as a bond which unites the members of a society and makes of them one living individual,—Is this ‘collective consciousness’ merely epiphenomenal in character? Or are we to regard it as reacting upon the consciousnesses or minds of the individuals of the group, and, through such reaction, playing a part in determining the behaviour of the group, or rather of the individuals of which the group is composed? ”

“ Every man upon his mettle. As the MARKISS says, with that epigrammatic style that makes him so delightful, "The first duty of a Peer is to appear." Those Radicals been protesting that talk about necessity for prolonging Session over week all a flam. Simply meant to make it impossible for our delicate friend, the British Workman, to get to poll. Peers must show they mean business, by turning up with regularity and despatch. ”

“ The interests of the society or nation furnish an easy phrase, but such phrases are to be regarded with suspicion. Such interests are apt to be the interests of a ruling clique which the rest are to be compelled to serve. On the other hand, a really great and intelligent group purpose, founded on correct knowledge and really sound judgment, can infuse into the mores a vigor and consistent character which will reach every individual with educative effect. ”

“ Whenever 238 I can hear of a group system which like the old college has a place for the indistinct young man, and like the new elective college matures him annually by suggesting that he take part in shaping his own career, I will accept the group system. Then, too, the public will probably accept it. Until then, rigid groups will be thought by many to lay too great a strain on unseasoned powers of choice, to present too many practical difficulties of construction, and to show too doctrinaire a confidence that every youth will fit without pinching into a specialized class. ”

“ That estate at last got predominance which, through the equalizing of its members, demonstrated the most persistent power of group existence. This circumstance gives every group an advantage in competition with an individual. ”

“ It finds the ground already staked out and occupied by the representatives of another science, who are inclined to resent its intrusion as an encroachment on their rights. The science which claims to have occupied the field of Group Psychology is Sociology; and it is of some importance that the claims of these sciences should be reconciled, so that they may live and work harmoniously together. I have no desire to claim for Group Psychology the whole province of Sociology. ”

“ Two of the best sociological statements of primary contacts are to be found in Professor Cooley's analysis of primary groups in his book Social Organization and in Shaler's exposition of the sympathetic way of approach in his volume The Neighbor. A mass of descriptive material for the further study of the primary contacts is available from many sources. Studies of primitive peoples indicate that early social organizations were based upon ties of kinship and primary group contacts. ”

“ It is evident that, by introducing much more subdivision of employment and exclusive knowledge of experts, progress will tend to widen the area of mutual quizzing and chaffing, already dealt with. It is of more importance to point out that the advance of a community in knowledge and culture will lead to the formation of new groups involving certain differences of rank. The importance of this kind of group-division shows itself in classic comedy. ”

“ These are the motivations behind the growth of the world-wide open access movement. For it is clear that many benefits could result if we were to move world-wide to an open access regime, complete with peer review and with effective search, navigation and other value-added services currently provided by publishers, libraries and others. Moves towards open access have achieved a momentum that we believe will continue. ”

“ Any form of association, or social group, which may be studied, if studied from the point of view of origin and development, whether it be a family, a neighborhood group, a city, a state, a trade union, or a party, will serve to reveal many of the problems of sociology. ”

“ At the present time we see a strong tendency to the growth of occupational groups of the purely purposive type, which, lacking the guidance and conservative power of old traditions, and depending for their strength largely upon the identification of the material interests of each member with those of the group, show a narrowness of outlook, a lack of stability and internal cohesion, and a tendency to ignore the place and function of the group in the whole community. ”

“ Both in the formal organisation of the national mind, which is the parliamentary or other national assembly, and in the informal organisation which is public opinion, we see, then, that (in the nation of higher civilisation at least) organisation results in a raising of the collective mental process above the level of the average minds, because it gives a predominant influence to the best minds who form and maintain the traditions, especially the moral traditions ”

“ The unorganised crowd presents many of the fundamental phenomena of collective psychology in relative simplicity; whereas the higher the degree of organisation of a group, the more complicated is its psychology. We shall, therefore, study first the mental peculiarities of the unorganised crowd, and shall then go on to consider the modifications resulting from a simple and definite type of organisation.
Not every mass of human beings gathered together in one place within sight and sound of one another constitutes a crowd in the psychological sense of the word. ”

“ It will be maintained on a later page that we may properly speak not only of a collective will, but also of the collective mind of an organised group, for example, of the mind and will of a nation. We must, then, ask at this stage—Can we properly speak of the collective mind of an unorganised crowd? ”

“ But, on the other hand, the traditional prestige of the Peers, the tacit, time-honored, generally-conceded doctrine that a Peer has first right to everything—the mediæval superstition tolerated largely in our own time, which allows a sort of divinity to hedge a Peer—all this has an indirect, immense, pervading, almost universal influence in the practical working of English politics. The Peers have, in fact, a political droit du seigneur in England. They have first taste of every privilege, first choice of every appointment. ”

“ Questions of the Larger Group.—In any study of social life we have to find a place for larger groups than the family and the neighborhood or even the city. There are national units and even a certain amount of international unity in the world. How have they come to exist? What are the interests that hold them together? What are the forms of association that are practicable on such a large scale? Is there a tendency to stress the control of the group over its individual members, even its aristocracy 01 birth or wealth? ”

“ No permanent group, permanently organised for a durable object, can be regarded as a mere sum of persons, whose union, to have any rights or duties, must receive a legal confirmation. Permanent groups are themselves persons, group-persons, with a group-will of their own and a permanent character of their own; and they have become group-persons of themselves, without any creative act of the State. In a word, group-persons are real persons ”

“ Again, the group spirit plays an important part in raising the intellectual level of the group; for it leads each member deliberately to subordinate his own judgment and opinion to that of the whole; and, in any properly organised group, this collective opinion will be superior to that of the average individual, because in its formation the best minds, acting upon the fullest knowledge to the gathering of which all may contribute, will be of predominant influence. ”