Assessing the Consequences of Technological Development

Reviews the book, Social Impact Assessment: Experimental Methods and Approaches by Edward Jonathan Soderstrom (1981). The author has written a concise, timely book on social impact assessment--the process of identifying and analyzing the effects of public works projects and other major actions on the people who live and work near them. One of the chapters discusses National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the historical context for social impact assessment, primarily the heightened awareness of inequities in the distribution within society of the costs and benefits that accrue from "technological interventions." Another chapter presents a compelling argument for developing an information data base through the use of experimental models derived from evaluation research. In the final two chapters, the author discusses the value of social indicators for assessing impacts using time-series designs and then briefly discusses the policy implications of assessing social impacts in the manner he has suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)