GROUP ORGANIZATION 20I 



birds, fish, mice, and monkeys; that is, among social 

 animals generally. 



Keeping this point of view, and with our back- 

 ground of studies of social organization, it is worth 

 while to turn for a short consideration of the actual 

 application of similarly objective studies in certain 

 human groups. I pass over the possibilities of study- 

 ing the peck-order in women's clubs, faculty groups, 

 families or churches, to call your attention to some 

 studies that have recently been published dealing 

 with the social interactions of the Dionne quin- 

 tuplets, since these will serve to throw light on a 

 number of interesting points. (25) 



In all questions of dominance in the group or of 

 other forms of social inequality, we come immedi- 

 ately and continually upon the question of the ex- 

 tent to which these observed social differences are a 

 matter of heredity and to what extent they follow 

 differences in training or other environmental im- 

 pacts. This is the old nature-nurture problem, other 

 aspects of which have been discussed for years. 



Driven by many different kinds of evidence, biolo- 

 gists have come to the conclusion that all men are 

 not born equal. Applying this to social affairs we 

 have the general assumption that many of the ob- 

 served differences in social position are a result of 

 the inherited differences depending on the vagaries 



