Psychotrends: What Kind of People Are We Becoming?

This is a work of pop sociology by a psychiatrist who has taught at Harvard and Columbia. Frazier considers trends in certain sociological arenas and offers his conclusions about them. He believes that our society will become less violent because of the prohibitive cost of violence; that the shedding of sexual inhibitions will increase and that the psychological family, or ``family of the mind,'' will replace the biological family. He foresees greater tolerance of minorities and expanded accommodation of disparate beliefs; a continuing respect for life with humanity standing on the threshold of ``participatory evolution'' and the flourishing of personal satisfaction. Although Frazier buttresses his views with statistical surveys, his vision seems like 19th-century meliorism rather than 20th-century realism. (Mar.)