Re: Common House Use Proposal
From: Wayne Tyson (landrestcox.net)
Date: Wed, 11 May 2011 07:56:00 -0700 (PDT)
Naomi and CoHo:

Human behavior is subject to a lot of variables, and "correlation is not causation." Sure, getting a better handle on the group dynamics of communities and comparing them might produce some interesting results, but observer bias and interpretation, survey design, and the like all tend to affect the quality and reliability of conclusions. Such studies run the risk of being self-confirming. They also "measure" only the moment, what is, not potential or trends (even repeating surveys does not produce useful numbers, and does nothing to increase quality or reliability--the squishier the subject the squishier the results. That doesn't mean that trying to understand system dynamics is necessarily a waste of time, but the "researcher" must be careful to avoid conclusions based on a flurry of variables and their qualitative dimensions. Tossing out the outliers, a perhaps valid and almost enshrined practice, may deprive the researcher of the highest quality data, especially about change and adaptation to change. And no amount of sampling will necessarily come up with things like creative alternatives. Challenges to the status quo always run into trouble with dominant hierarchies; it goes with the territory. But challenge is at the core of both good sense and good science.

Please refer to my corrected text; the one you quote is in error.

Mead, Nader, and numerous other researchers have written whole books that delve into different community cultures. I haven't looked at the Wikipedia entry.

Yr. Ob't. Sv't.,
WT


----- Original Message ----- From: "Naomi Anderegg" <naomi_anderegg [at] yahoo.com>
To: "Cohousing-L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2011 10:44 PM
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Common House Use Proposal



I'm not a cohouser--just interested--like yourself. So please don't let me
disillusion you. But, I, for one, would feel much more comfortable joining a group where expectations are clearly defined. I'm just concerned that in your
first post you essentially stated a personal belief as fact, and that some
people might mistake your confidence for actually knowing what you are talking about. (Your statement that "most people in law-free situations tend to more, rather than less, and the exceptions often have a reason," has yet to be backed up by anything resembling evidence. My scanning of Margaret Mead & Laura Nader's wikipedia summaries indicate no studies with this implication, but if you have
something specific, please feel free to reference it.)


As far as data goes, no, I don't jest. Collecting and analyzing data is a way to
build up our (collective) knowledge base, and pretty much done in any real
science. It seems like it would be pretty easy to go about collecting data on something like this to me. You could even just case-study a couple of cohousing communities to see what reactions to various approaches people have a few years
in, and how much volunteer work they report doing. (Of course, this would
require requiring people to, say, fill out surveys every so often. And that would go against your "no-rules or requirements rule", so maybe you really can't
track data on people without imposing some sort of minimal expectations on
them..) I'm a numerically inclined kind of person, but to me it seems like the Cohousing Association spending time/energy collecting, analyzing, and publishing
data on various aspects of cohousing would be time well spent. It could
potentially give new cohousing groups objective insight into the effectiveness of various strategies as well as some information on what aspects of cohousing have greatest correlation to reported satisfaction from cohousing participants. In this way, appropriate data collection could help identify which aspects of cohousing are "the most important", at least in terms of correlation to the
level of success of a project.


Naomi



________________________________
From: Wayne Tyson <landrest [at] cox.net>
To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Tue, May 10, 2011 10:47:05 PM
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Common House Use Proposal


Hi Naomi and CoHo,

Ah, good question. Data? Surely you jest. Just how would one go about
gathering "data" on such a phenomenon? Laura Nader, Margaret Mead, and scads of anthropologists have studied communities rather thoroughly, but I have no idea how one reduces human behavior to numbers. I am, however, getting real nervous about the responses relating troubles, "troubles right here in CoHo City." There is a fair amount of work in psychology, and seven decades or so
of personal experience.

"True" might be an even bigger problem to "back up." "Sure?" Certainty is a realm of perfection that has (thank goodness!) thus far eluded me. I'm sorry to hear that your life has taught you to fear "anarchy," but both experience
and education has left me with the impression that we suffer far more from
the control of others than the freedom to adjust to changing environments.
Various psychopathologies surround us, and either case can be made from
these "data."

WT

"The [German] people followed Hitler because he was CERTAIN! --Jacob
Bronowski


Hi Wayne,

You state that "most people in law-free situations tend to do more, rather
than
less". Do you have any data, stats or studies to back this statement up?
This
hasn't been my personal experience (outside of cohousing), so I'm a bit
skeptical. Are you sure that this is true?

Naomi

Coho:

In the alternative, what about lightening up and just asking the
occasional
person who is not pulling his or her weight how life is going for them?
Most
people in law-free situations tend to more, rather than less, and the
exceptions often have a reason, like health for example, that they don't
want to talk about, but will if you try getting close to them first, you
might find that you have increased the community bond rather than bonded
the
community.

WT

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