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Decision-making and strategic social planning
Acta Psychologica 45 (1980) 265-271 0 North-Holland Publishing Company
DECISION-MAKING
AND STRATEGIC
SOCIAL PLANNING
Lars INGELSTAM Secretariat for Futures Studies, S-I 0392 Stockholm,
Sweden
As a background for research on decision-making some characteristics of planning in broad social sectors are discussed. Special emphasis is put on the systemic nature of modern technology, and its companion the multi-organization. Little hope is held for ‘central-rule’ planning for control. The first step and challenge is to understand the social psychology of the seemingly well-coordinated techno-industrial complexes.
This is not a paper on the psychology of decision-making. It is a contribution by a practitioner (and to some extent ‘systems’ scientist), olt decision-making but written for psychologists. It might seem natural, then, to try to elaborate on the problems central to that scientific tradition. They are, as I understand them, mostly concerned with the way a decision-maker, facing a reasonably well-defined decision situation, deals with his dilemma (or ought to deal with it). It may sound distressing, but when I look at the character of decisions about broad societal issues I find that they rarely present themselves in this way. Very often there seems to be no distinct decision-maker present, no specific decision to be taken and no particular form of planning at work. But social change still takes place. The fact that broad societal decisions in fields like social care, medicine, energy, industrial policy and education tend to be more faceless and dispersed than before is well documented. There are, however, very many different theories and approaches which claim to provide understanding of this phenomenon. I will expand on one such approach here, partly because I think it has high explanatory value, partly because it lies close to my own research interests. I refer to the systemic nature of modern technology, and its institutional companion, the modern multi-organization. The latter is well known (Friend and Jessop 1969). Sometimes it is called the ‘bureau-
266
L. Ingelstam /Decision-making
and planning
cracy ‘, sometimes even the ‘establishment’, and phrases such as the ‘cybernetic nature of advanced industrial societies’ abound. However, I think this factor, so determinant for social planning, can best be understood through the technological realities that brought it into existence. I will first discuss briefly the technological roots, and then go on to the changing nature of decision-making. But first, a few examples of multiorganizations. Dwight D. Eisenhower, when resigning in January 1961 as President of the USA, warned against the emergence of a “military-industrial complex”. The ex-general claimed that the military’s interest in more expensive equipment, and industry’s urge for profit, employment and expansion will form such a strong coalition that any attempt by the politicians, or people in general, to steer its course will become futile. Later development has shown Eisenhower to be largely right. It is relatively easy to identify in all countries similar complexes, above all a closely-knit energy-industrial complex (Lonnroth et al. 1980). Utilities, oil companies, producers of equipment, supervisory agencies and financial institutions, just to mention a few, have in thousands of ways adjusted and accommodated. to each other. The result is a multi-organization, at best very efficient, but at any rate highly interdependent. A third example, in which any one can easily fill in the details, is the roadtraffic-automobile industrial complex. Of course there is nothing new in the fact that the state and technology-based industry join forces. This is an essential element in the history of industrialism. But what is new, I believe, is the result. The careful and sophisticated coordination of technologies corresponds to a closely knit complex of organizations with qualitatively new properties. This must lead us, I think, to a broader and more complex view of what decision-making is all about. To sum up: important societal decisions no longer present themselves in a clear-cut way. Nor do they, as Simon and others once discovered for organizations proper, present themselves only in a random, sequential or marginal fashion. They do not present themselves at all. There seems to be no such thing as a decision any more. This wild generalization must of course be modified and explained. Above all one has to modulate the picture somewhat. This requires a closer look at technology. I find it illuminating to view today’s technology as developing along two trends: the super-technological and the mass-technological.
L. Ingelstam /Decision-making
and planning
261
A super-technology has two typical properties. First, it depends on advanced scientific research, on (or very close to) the frontier of knowledge. Second, it is composed of a large number of sub-systems, interrelated and interacting in various ways. Hence, a super-technology is almost always multi-technological, in the sense that it contains computer, chemical, materials, metrological and other technologies - in central or auxiliary roles. Some of the typical super-technologies of our age are the nuclear plant, the supersonic jet-liner, the petrochemical factory, and the hybrid-DNA-laboratory. One should perhaps point out that the symbiosis of science and technology which we today find absolutely essential and self-evident, is fairly new in history. Until late 19th century, science and technology were part of different historical traditions, were pursued by different motives and in different social settings. German industries, such as Krupp and I.G. Farben, were the first to work closely with university laboratories. Some authors maintain that for US industry the idea did not catch on until the late 1930s. Of course some of today’s super technologies will eventually develop into mass technologies, and some may instead end up in museums. In contrast to super technologies, FUSS technologies have always existed. Methods of food processing, clothes manufacture and agriculture have spread, more or less quickly, through whole populations. The new phenomenon of our time is that knowledge is disseminated much faster and comes to the individual mostly in the form of goods, rather than know-how. In this process, mass technologies tend to be increasingly uniform, even globally. Markets are international, and mass consumption technology becomes international too. But the globalization also tends to select one, ‘best’ technology that dominates all others, whether this concerns the manufacture of window-pane glass, the conversion of crude oil into plastics or the painting of furniture. One particular technology may very well possess the characteristics of both super and mass: electricity from nuclear power, plastics from the petrochemical industry, microelectronics from semiconductor metallurgy. The selection of perspective is crucial. Our perspective is that of societal decision-making and its difficulties. We can therefore leave, at least for the moment, the decision problems that concern the individual, as an individual, confronted with the technological society. (I am thinking about problems such as the ‘control-room situation’, and questions related to personal risk.) I will also leave aside the broad questions of social risk, as they have been so competently dealt with
268
L. Ingelstam /Decision-making
and planning
(cJ: Vlek and Stallen 1980; Sjiiberg 1980). The concern is with the intended or central effects of technology on society, rather than the unintended or side-effects: the internalities rather than the externalities. A technology has to mature in order to become super or mass or both. It is notoriously difficult to judge the impact of a mass technology, while it is still emerging and has only been tested as a prototype or in small scale experiments. The history of the automobile is telling (even tragic, many of us would say). About television, extremely naive and wrong things were forecast prior to its full-scale implementation (in the early 1950s). Now great hopes are pinned to small scale energy technology, as replacement for oil and nuclear power. I sincerely hope that their side-effects will not be disastrous (and in this case, we are of course not only sitting with our fingers crossed). But let us assume that a new technology, with appropriate help from the state and the profit motive, begins to emerge into a full, multiorganized social reality. There are always small decisions to be made at the beginning, but they are not,*at the time, considered crucial. We have seen it happen: with electricity (approx. 1900-l 925), oil (1945- 1965) and the automobile (1945-1965). From a social, and decision-making, standpoint, I would like to formulate a simple hypothesis about three phases in the emergence of ‘complexes’. In the first phase, the multi-organization-to-be loyally develops competence, and serves society according to expressed demand. In the second phase, it begins to claim that the specific method or technology that it commands, provides the best (and ultimately the only) way to till society’s needs of, say, energy or transportation. In the third and mature phase, the complex preaches and eventually dictates what society really should want in order to be happy (more energy, more military hard-ware, more automobiles). For two, very different, elaborations on this theme, see Braverman (1974) and Illich (1973). From a technical point of view, the multi-system resulting from coordination in the multi-organization is not necessarily good, efficient and reliable. People working in the energy field more and more often complain that their system has weak points and that it is badly coordinated. The numerous technical systems that overlap in a modern large city (electricity, transportation, telephone, etc.) do not necessarily form a well-balanced whole. Ola Svenson has run a whole project for the Secretariat for Futures Studies demonstrating the uncomfortably
L. Ingelstam /Decision-making
and planning
269
great vulnerability of our society (Svenson and Wentzel 1980). But the very same system, which from the inside may seem a bit haphazard, uneven and unplanned, may from a view-point on the outside look uncompromising, unshakeable and grim. Alva Myrdal, who was Swedish Minister for disarmament questions until 1973, said as far back as in 1969: It is vital that we wake up to the fact that we are governed by powers that we ourselves are not strong enough to harness, and hardly try to harness either. We let technological development determine everything. (My translation.)
So far I may have given the impression that the decision-making problem is ‘only’ a question of controlling overgrown technology. I think it is not. Complex-building of essentially the same type occurs in areas where the technological element is less clearly visible, such as the care of the elderly. But let us note that it may be important enough to find ways to break “the technological imperative” in those cases where it is visible. A British report, from the Council for Science and Society, called Superstar Technologies (1976), recognizes the lack of methods for coping with modem supertechnologies. It argues, in my view convincingly, for constructing decision points where none naturally exist. It also suggests the establishment of an independent commission, that should monitor modern large-scale technologies in the public interest, in particular those that fall in between areas covered by existing regulatory agencies. This suggests a new form of adversary process, similar to the idea of ‘science courts’ voiced in the US debate for instance. The psychology of such adversary processes: for or against supersonic aircraft, the fast breeder reactor or high risk genetic laboratories, must be fascinating indeed. It appears to pose challenging questions for social and behavioral research. In many cases, however, one must, recognize that no specific decision exists, nor will it be constructed. The ‘system’ or ‘complex’ drifts, seemingly immune to external forces, from one stage to another. The process that Donald Schon (197 1) has termed “dynamic conservatism” is at work. Afterwards, one can have fascinating and highly entertaining scientific disputes about when and why certain things happened. But for a politician, or a normative planner, it is not all that entertaining. My view, after having been involved with this kind of questions for at least 10 years, is that such processes have to be understood, at
270
L. Ingelstam /Decision-making
and planning
least partly, in psychological terms: somewhere in the intersection between social psychology and decision-making theory. The reasoning goes something like this. In a modern society, with the underlying technological structure that I have described, social change occurs as a result of a multitude, virtually thousands, of small and medium size decisions. They are in fact coordinated, and have to be, for technical reasons. But this coordination does not come from dictate, nor from manuals to any large extent. It occurs by a whole host of mutual adjustments, resulting in a largely shared perception of the present and the future. Every age has its own spirit which epitomizes and expresses its ambitions, fears and desires. The spirit of the age does not exist apart from the political conflicts; on the contrary it is shaped by the political manifestations of existing contradictions. It appears everywhere, in art, in educational policy, in social mores and so on. Everyone recognizes, at least in retrospect, the manifestations of his age. The spirit of the age defines what is regarded as possible and impossible. We believe that .organizations - Government agencies as well as multiorganizations - behave differently in periqds characterized by a different spirit. We have all experienced how ideas that were considered impossible at one stage, later became the height of fashion. Crises are occurrences that merit special attention since they seem to facilitate departures in new directions. The launching of the Soviet Sputnik in 1957 shook the US authorities so seriously that it was possible to change the American research and educational policies almost overnight. The oil crisis in 1973-74 similarly seems to have opened up new avenues for change and rethinking, although these opportunities do not seem to have been very well turned to account. Another hypothesis is that we can distinguish between periods of relative stability, when the spirit of the age is strong and unambiguous, and periods when doubts prevail and established patterns of action seem irrelevant. It may well be that hopes for strategic change should be pinned on periods when resources are scarce and minds confused, rather than on self-gratifying epochs of growth and reassurance. How then, does society react? Statesmen of all persuasions would have difficulty in accepting that large social systems simply drift out of reach. The solution is planning. Or, at least, so it seems. The Dutch political scientist Herman van Gunsteren (1976) has noted the increasing popularity of what he calls the central-rule
L. Ingelstam /Decision-making
and planning
271
approach. This is supposed to signify the propensity of central governments in modern capitalist countries to design ever more encompassing schemes of decision-making, scientifically supported by mathematical models and computers, centralizing the power of decision to a very small group of people. This endeavour, although it exists and is fairly effective in certain areas (such as transportation) is, in my view (and van Gunsteren’s), an inadequate response to the problems. Nor does it augur well for democracy. Certain planning theorists have coined the term ‘communicative planning’. This would mean that, rather than trying to dominate the techno-complexes from above, they should be handled on their own territory: the lines of communication be identified, the critical nodes pointed out. The strategy for breaking the technological imperative would be based on an understanding of how the dominating world-view comes into existence and how it is propagated, including what security, self-esteem and excitement needs are the most important.
References Braverman, H., 1974. Labor and monopoly capital. New York: Monthly Review Press. Friend, J.K. and W.N. Jessop, 1969. Local government and strategic choice. London. Gunsteren, H.R. van, 1976. The quest for control. London. Illich, Ivan, 1973. Tools for conviviality. London. Lonroth, M., T.B. Johansson and P. Steen, 1980. Solar versus nuclear; choosing energy futures. Secretariat for Futures Studies. Oxford: Pergamon. Schon, D.A., 1971. Beyond the stable state. London. Sjoberg, L., 1980. The risks of risk analysis. Acta Psychologica 45: 301-321. Svenson, 0. and A.K. Wentzel (eds.), 1980. The vulnerable society (in Swedish, with summary in English). Stockholm: Secretariat for Futures Studies. The Council for Science and Society, 1976. Superstar technologies. London: Bary Rose. Vlek, C. and P.-J. Stallen, 1980. Rational and personal aspects of risk. Acta Psychologica 45: 273-300.
DECISION-MAKING
AND STRATEGIC
SOCIAL PLANNING
Lars INGELSTAM Secretariat for Futures Studies, S-I 0392 Stockholm,
Sweden
As a background for research on decision-making some characteristics of planning in broad social sectors are discussed. Special emphasis is put on the systemic nature of modern technology, and its companion the multi-organization. Little hope is held for ‘central-rule’ planning for control. The first step and challenge is to understand the social psychology of the seemingly well-coordinated techno-industrial complexes.
This is not a paper on the psychology of decision-making. It is a contribution by a practitioner (and to some extent ‘systems’ scientist), olt decision-making but written for psychologists. It might seem natural, then, to try to elaborate on the problems central to that scientific tradition. They are, as I understand them, mostly concerned with the way a decision-maker, facing a reasonably well-defined decision situation, deals with his dilemma (or ought to deal with it). It may sound distressing, but when I look at the character of decisions about broad societal issues I find that they rarely present themselves in this way. Very often there seems to be no distinct decision-maker present, no specific decision to be taken and no particular form of planning at work. But social change still takes place. The fact that broad societal decisions in fields like social care, medicine, energy, industrial policy and education tend to be more faceless and dispersed than before is well documented. There are, however, very many different theories and approaches which claim to provide understanding of this phenomenon. I will expand on one such approach here, partly because I think it has high explanatory value, partly because it lies close to my own research interests. I refer to the systemic nature of modern technology, and its institutional companion, the modern multi-organization. The latter is well known (Friend and Jessop 1969). Sometimes it is called the ‘bureau-
266
L. Ingelstam /Decision-making
and planning
cracy ‘, sometimes even the ‘establishment’, and phrases such as the ‘cybernetic nature of advanced industrial societies’ abound. However, I think this factor, so determinant for social planning, can best be understood through the technological realities that brought it into existence. I will first discuss briefly the technological roots, and then go on to the changing nature of decision-making. But first, a few examples of multiorganizations. Dwight D. Eisenhower, when resigning in January 1961 as President of the USA, warned against the emergence of a “military-industrial complex”. The ex-general claimed that the military’s interest in more expensive equipment, and industry’s urge for profit, employment and expansion will form such a strong coalition that any attempt by the politicians, or people in general, to steer its course will become futile. Later development has shown Eisenhower to be largely right. It is relatively easy to identify in all countries similar complexes, above all a closely-knit energy-industrial complex (Lonnroth et al. 1980). Utilities, oil companies, producers of equipment, supervisory agencies and financial institutions, just to mention a few, have in thousands of ways adjusted and accommodated. to each other. The result is a multi-organization, at best very efficient, but at any rate highly interdependent. A third example, in which any one can easily fill in the details, is the roadtraffic-automobile industrial complex. Of course there is nothing new in the fact that the state and technology-based industry join forces. This is an essential element in the history of industrialism. But what is new, I believe, is the result. The careful and sophisticated coordination of technologies corresponds to a closely knit complex of organizations with qualitatively new properties. This must lead us, I think, to a broader and more complex view of what decision-making is all about. To sum up: important societal decisions no longer present themselves in a clear-cut way. Nor do they, as Simon and others once discovered for organizations proper, present themselves only in a random, sequential or marginal fashion. They do not present themselves at all. There seems to be no such thing as a decision any more. This wild generalization must of course be modified and explained. Above all one has to modulate the picture somewhat. This requires a closer look at technology. I find it illuminating to view today’s technology as developing along two trends: the super-technological and the mass-technological.
L. Ingelstam /Decision-making
and planning
261
A super-technology has two typical properties. First, it depends on advanced scientific research, on (or very close to) the frontier of knowledge. Second, it is composed of a large number of sub-systems, interrelated and interacting in various ways. Hence, a super-technology is almost always multi-technological, in the sense that it contains computer, chemical, materials, metrological and other technologies - in central or auxiliary roles. Some of the typical super-technologies of our age are the nuclear plant, the supersonic jet-liner, the petrochemical factory, and the hybrid-DNA-laboratory. One should perhaps point out that the symbiosis of science and technology which we today find absolutely essential and self-evident, is fairly new in history. Until late 19th century, science and technology were part of different historical traditions, were pursued by different motives and in different social settings. German industries, such as Krupp and I.G. Farben, were the first to work closely with university laboratories. Some authors maintain that for US industry the idea did not catch on until the late 1930s. Of course some of today’s super technologies will eventually develop into mass technologies, and some may instead end up in museums. In contrast to super technologies, FUSS technologies have always existed. Methods of food processing, clothes manufacture and agriculture have spread, more or less quickly, through whole populations. The new phenomenon of our time is that knowledge is disseminated much faster and comes to the individual mostly in the form of goods, rather than know-how. In this process, mass technologies tend to be increasingly uniform, even globally. Markets are international, and mass consumption technology becomes international too. But the globalization also tends to select one, ‘best’ technology that dominates all others, whether this concerns the manufacture of window-pane glass, the conversion of crude oil into plastics or the painting of furniture. One particular technology may very well possess the characteristics of both super and mass: electricity from nuclear power, plastics from the petrochemical industry, microelectronics from semiconductor metallurgy. The selection of perspective is crucial. Our perspective is that of societal decision-making and its difficulties. We can therefore leave, at least for the moment, the decision problems that concern the individual, as an individual, confronted with the technological society. (I am thinking about problems such as the ‘control-room situation’, and questions related to personal risk.) I will also leave aside the broad questions of social risk, as they have been so competently dealt with
268
L. Ingelstam /Decision-making
and planning
(cJ: Vlek and Stallen 1980; Sjiiberg 1980). The concern is with the intended or central effects of technology on society, rather than the unintended or side-effects: the internalities rather than the externalities. A technology has to mature in order to become super or mass or both. It is notoriously difficult to judge the impact of a mass technology, while it is still emerging and has only been tested as a prototype or in small scale experiments. The history of the automobile is telling (even tragic, many of us would say). About television, extremely naive and wrong things were forecast prior to its full-scale implementation (in the early 1950s). Now great hopes are pinned to small scale energy technology, as replacement for oil and nuclear power. I sincerely hope that their side-effects will not be disastrous (and in this case, we are of course not only sitting with our fingers crossed). But let us assume that a new technology, with appropriate help from the state and the profit motive, begins to emerge into a full, multiorganized social reality. There are always small decisions to be made at the beginning, but they are not,*at the time, considered crucial. We have seen it happen: with electricity (approx. 1900-l 925), oil (1945- 1965) and the automobile (1945-1965). From a social, and decision-making, standpoint, I would like to formulate a simple hypothesis about three phases in the emergence of ‘complexes’. In the first phase, the multi-organization-to-be loyally develops competence, and serves society according to expressed demand. In the second phase, it begins to claim that the specific method or technology that it commands, provides the best (and ultimately the only) way to till society’s needs of, say, energy or transportation. In the third and mature phase, the complex preaches and eventually dictates what society really should want in order to be happy (more energy, more military hard-ware, more automobiles). For two, very different, elaborations on this theme, see Braverman (1974) and Illich (1973). From a technical point of view, the multi-system resulting from coordination in the multi-organization is not necessarily good, efficient and reliable. People working in the energy field more and more often complain that their system has weak points and that it is badly coordinated. The numerous technical systems that overlap in a modern large city (electricity, transportation, telephone, etc.) do not necessarily form a well-balanced whole. Ola Svenson has run a whole project for the Secretariat for Futures Studies demonstrating the uncomfortably
L. Ingelstam /Decision-making
and planning
269
great vulnerability of our society (Svenson and Wentzel 1980). But the very same system, which from the inside may seem a bit haphazard, uneven and unplanned, may from a view-point on the outside look uncompromising, unshakeable and grim. Alva Myrdal, who was Swedish Minister for disarmament questions until 1973, said as far back as in 1969: It is vital that we wake up to the fact that we are governed by powers that we ourselves are not strong enough to harness, and hardly try to harness either. We let technological development determine everything. (My translation.)
So far I may have given the impression that the decision-making problem is ‘only’ a question of controlling overgrown technology. I think it is not. Complex-building of essentially the same type occurs in areas where the technological element is less clearly visible, such as the care of the elderly. But let us note that it may be important enough to find ways to break “the technological imperative” in those cases where it is visible. A British report, from the Council for Science and Society, called Superstar Technologies (1976), recognizes the lack of methods for coping with modem supertechnologies. It argues, in my view convincingly, for constructing decision points where none naturally exist. It also suggests the establishment of an independent commission, that should monitor modern large-scale technologies in the public interest, in particular those that fall in between areas covered by existing regulatory agencies. This suggests a new form of adversary process, similar to the idea of ‘science courts’ voiced in the US debate for instance. The psychology of such adversary processes: for or against supersonic aircraft, the fast breeder reactor or high risk genetic laboratories, must be fascinating indeed. It appears to pose challenging questions for social and behavioral research. In many cases, however, one must, recognize that no specific decision exists, nor will it be constructed. The ‘system’ or ‘complex’ drifts, seemingly immune to external forces, from one stage to another. The process that Donald Schon (197 1) has termed “dynamic conservatism” is at work. Afterwards, one can have fascinating and highly entertaining scientific disputes about when and why certain things happened. But for a politician, or a normative planner, it is not all that entertaining. My view, after having been involved with this kind of questions for at least 10 years, is that such processes have to be understood, at
270
L. Ingelstam /Decision-making
and planning
least partly, in psychological terms: somewhere in the intersection between social psychology and decision-making theory. The reasoning goes something like this. In a modern society, with the underlying technological structure that I have described, social change occurs as a result of a multitude, virtually thousands, of small and medium size decisions. They are in fact coordinated, and have to be, for technical reasons. But this coordination does not come from dictate, nor from manuals to any large extent. It occurs by a whole host of mutual adjustments, resulting in a largely shared perception of the present and the future. Every age has its own spirit which epitomizes and expresses its ambitions, fears and desires. The spirit of the age does not exist apart from the political conflicts; on the contrary it is shaped by the political manifestations of existing contradictions. It appears everywhere, in art, in educational policy, in social mores and so on. Everyone recognizes, at least in retrospect, the manifestations of his age. The spirit of the age defines what is regarded as possible and impossible. We believe that .organizations - Government agencies as well as multiorganizations - behave differently in periqds characterized by a different spirit. We have all experienced how ideas that were considered impossible at one stage, later became the height of fashion. Crises are occurrences that merit special attention since they seem to facilitate departures in new directions. The launching of the Soviet Sputnik in 1957 shook the US authorities so seriously that it was possible to change the American research and educational policies almost overnight. The oil crisis in 1973-74 similarly seems to have opened up new avenues for change and rethinking, although these opportunities do not seem to have been very well turned to account. Another hypothesis is that we can distinguish between periods of relative stability, when the spirit of the age is strong and unambiguous, and periods when doubts prevail and established patterns of action seem irrelevant. It may well be that hopes for strategic change should be pinned on periods when resources are scarce and minds confused, rather than on self-gratifying epochs of growth and reassurance. How then, does society react? Statesmen of all persuasions would have difficulty in accepting that large social systems simply drift out of reach. The solution is planning. Or, at least, so it seems. The Dutch political scientist Herman van Gunsteren (1976) has noted the increasing popularity of what he calls the central-rule
L. Ingelstam /Decision-making
and planning
271
approach. This is supposed to signify the propensity of central governments in modern capitalist countries to design ever more encompassing schemes of decision-making, scientifically supported by mathematical models and computers, centralizing the power of decision to a very small group of people. This endeavour, although it exists and is fairly effective in certain areas (such as transportation) is, in my view (and van Gunsteren’s), an inadequate response to the problems. Nor does it augur well for democracy. Certain planning theorists have coined the term ‘communicative planning’. This would mean that, rather than trying to dominate the techno-complexes from above, they should be handled on their own territory: the lines of communication be identified, the critical nodes pointed out. The strategy for breaking the technological imperative would be based on an understanding of how the dominating world-view comes into existence and how it is propagated, including what security, self-esteem and excitement needs are the most important.
References Braverman, H., 1974. Labor and monopoly capital. New York: Monthly Review Press. Friend, J.K. and W.N. Jessop, 1969. Local government and strategic choice. London. Gunsteren, H.R. van, 1976. The quest for control. London. Illich, Ivan, 1973. Tools for conviviality. London. Lonroth, M., T.B. Johansson and P. Steen, 1980. Solar versus nuclear; choosing energy futures. Secretariat for Futures Studies. Oxford: Pergamon. Schon, D.A., 1971. Beyond the stable state. London. Sjoberg, L., 1980. The risks of risk analysis. Acta Psychologica 45: 301-321. Svenson, 0. and A.K. Wentzel (eds.), 1980. The vulnerable society (in Swedish, with summary in English). Stockholm: Secretariat for Futures Studies. The Council for Science and Society, 1976. Superstar technologies. London: Bary Rose. Vlek, C. and P.-J. Stallen, 1980. Rational and personal aspects of risk. Acta Psychologica 45: 273-300.