F

CHAPTER V

INFERENCES

ORMAL treatment of the processes of reasoning is not

within the scope of this book. The application of those proc

esses to social diagnosis, however, will appear in brief illustrations of ways in which a case worker's inferences (justifiable or not), his conscious or unconscious assumptions, and his predispositions help or hinder his diagnosis of a client's situation. An understanding of a client's difficulties, like any advance in knowledge, comes from the interplay of two methods; namely, that of direct testimony to facts in his life-treated in the two preceding chapters and that of inference from these facts to others that are unknown.

I. HOW INFERENCE IS MADE

Inference, then, a passing from known to unknown facts, is the reasoning process-most familiar when it takes the form of drawing a conclusion from the relation existing between a general truth and a particular instance. It may, however, proceed from many particular cases to a general rule, as well as from a rule to some new fact about a particular case. Reasoning from particular cases to the general rule is shown in the following brief passages taken from The Charity Visitor:1

A knowledge of the number of rooms occupied is necessary in order to determine whether the family is living under dangerously overcrowded conditions, either from a physical or from a moral standpoint.

The constantly shifting family is certainly in need of some kind of assistance. Also the fact of a change of residence suggests some reason for change, which is often a salient factor, particularly when the change is from one section of the city to another or from one city to another.

The membership of a man in a labor union is in itself an indication that he is a workman and associates with workmen; if his "card is clear," that is, if he is in good standing and his dues are paid up, there is further assurance of his reliability. 1 The Charity Visitor, Amelia Sears, pp. 23, 26–27, 35.

Here are three general rules familiar to the case worker which are inferences from a large number of instances (1) of the effect of an insufficient number of rooms, (2) of the significance of a family's constantly shifting, and (3) of a man's membership in a union. The validity of each of these rules depends upon the accuracy with which the particular instances from which the rule was inferred were noted, upon the number and essential similarity of these instances, and upon the absence of exceptions.

Reasoning from a rule to some new fact about a particular case is illustrated by this item taken from our case reading:

A man with a record of drink owed a bill to a hospital. Its social worker learned from the cashier at the patient's place of business that he had recently received a considerable sum of money for accident insurance. The inference drawn was that he could pay his hospital bill.

The implied general truth of which this case appeared to be an instance is that "People who have money enough on hand can pay their debts." It is obvious that without this general truth in the background of one's mind the above inference could not be drawn and the man's having or not having received money would bear no meaning for us. On the other hand, how did we get our dictum that people who have money can pay their debts? This rule is an inference drawn from innumerable particular cases to this effect that have occurred within everyone's experience.

It is evident, then, that in reasoning one must be prepared to support the conclusion by reassuring a doubter at either or both of two points. The doubter may challenge it by asking either, (1) Is the rule appealed to strictly true? or (2) Is the given instance really a particular case of that rule?

A critic of a case record writes, "I infer that there must be some resource not discovered, as a family of seven could hardly have subsisted for three months on those grocery orders from the city only, even if the milk mentioned May 7 continued. I conclude it did not, since there is a new application for it in August." The general rule implied in the first inference in this case is stated here, namely, that a family of seven cannot live on the usual public relief order. The rule implied in the second inference is that people do not apply for the same aid from the same source while they are already receiving it. As was true in the preceding case, both these rules are in turn inferences drawn from many

particular instances in the past (1) of the minimum diet which can sustain life, and (2) of the habits of rational beings.

A child had been returned to its home from a hospital, and it had become necessary to learn whether malnutrition was due to unwise diet in the home or to the straitened circumstances of the family. The record of the medical-social department making the inquiry reads: “Family have two extra rooms which they are not trying to rent to lodgers. If in straitened circumstances this would not be the case.” Is the general rule sound on which the inference in this case is based; namely, that families in straitened circumstances rent their extra rooms? That depends, as before stated, upon how many instances of this have been observed, and upon the accuracy of the observation.

In the process of our investigation of a case, an inference may pass through various stages of certainty. Its first stage is often tentative. It is a hypothesis, a possibility to be proved or disproved by further evidence. In a first interview, for instance, the skilful worker forms many hypotheses, holding some for the confirmation of further evidence, accepting a few as proven by the evidence before him, and discarding others as the interview proceeds.

To illustrate this a case worker recommends trying the experiment of removing the "face card" (sheet of information in tabular form at the beginning of a case record) from the unread history sheets and drawing from the card alone-see the one for the Ames family reproduced on the following page-a series of inferences. This worker regards such an exercise as good drill for a beginner, since it approximates the mental processes he should go through in making an investigation. From the fact given on the Ames face card that this family of five lived in six rooms at a rental equal to their highest weekly wage, the worker in question inferred that they had a fairly high home standard. Had she made this inference in the course of her interview with the family, she would have gone on to confirm it by inquiring whether they had had or expected to have lodgers or whether they had taken the house merely through inertia because it was the first decent one they had lighted. on, etc. If the family's statement barred out these other explanations and fell in with her inference, she would accept the latter as a fact. Again, the worker learned from the face card that four

years elapsed between the births of Mrs. Ames' two children. This may mean miscarriages or the death of infants, either of which may have been the cause or the result of low vitality in the mother. Putting such an inference together with the fact of the man's being tuberculous (experience with the reluctance of workingmen to yield to sickness warrants the hypothesis that this man's condition is fairly advanced) and of physicians' having been consulted for both the wife and the children, the investigator makes the hypothesis that the family health is poor. If she were interviewing these people she would at once try to get at a few simple medical facts, such as an intelligent layman can ascertain and such as would indicate whether she should ask medical advice. The use of the hypothesis to the social worker in the case is to stimulate his collection not only of the medical facts indicated but of relevant social evidence as well; namely, the ventilation and heating of the family's rooms, the warmth of their clothing, their exercise, their diet, including the wife's ability as a cook. In this instance, it would be the physician and not the social worker who would establish or disprove the hypothesis of delicate health in the family. Many other inferences occur to one from this face card; namely, that the man came to this country before marriage, that he was probably married in 1901 or 1902, that his work was unskilled although he must have been acceptable to his employer, and so on. His coming to this country before marriage might perhaps be considered a safe enough inference without more evidence; the two latter inferences call for confirmation.

II. HOW INFERENCE IS CORROBORATED

In the illustration on p. 83, the inference that the family is not in straitened circumstances because no effort is being made to rent extra rooms, resting as it does on a rule open to occasional exception, should in justice to the family in question be subjected to the test of further evidence. A woman whose husband was sick and away was found to have allowed a man lodger to give her a black eye without any resentment on her part. The inferenceor hypothesis-drawn from this fact as to the undue intimacy of their relations was confirmed by further evidence.

Confirming evidence may be gathered deliberately for the pur