Toward Building New Work Relationships: An Action Design for a Critical Intervention

This study has two central themes, both relevant to application of the behavioral sciences in "real-life situations." First, considerable psychological trauma can be generated by events such as the demotions reported here. Second, substantial evidence suggests that a learning design based on the laboratory approach can significantly moderate such trauma. Methodological problems prevent our assigning all observed effects to the learning design, but there is strong presumptive evidence that this action design is one way to apply in organizations the forces often observed in the development of the miniature societies that are T Groups.