Search

The article presents authors personal thoughts on the pursuit of sociological problems. The author intends to retrace his steps along one path of his intellectual career--the path that links two books, titled, "Social Change in the Industrial Revolution," and "Theory of Collective Behavior," and a number of recent articles and papers on sociological theory and psychological theory. The main emphasis in the article was on the need for a determinate synthesis of the several classes of variables that are essential for the explanation of collective behavior such as cultural, social, psychological, ecological and other variables. In attempting to sort out the major influences on his choice of sociological problems, he resorts to a device that he find congenial and helpful: to arrange these influences in a series extending from very general, predisposing influences which have steered his intellectual interests to the very specific, immediate influences that have determined a particular strategy of analysis in working on a sociological problem.

This paper constitutes an attempt to extend a style of theoretical activity in sociology which is quite new to their domain. It is theory which rests upon the central postulate of economic theory that of rational man attempting to pursue his selfish interests. Perhaps the central problem in sociological theory is that posed most succinctly by Thomas Hobbes. Why is there not a war of all against all? Hobbes took as problematic what most contemporary sociologists take as given: That a society can exist at all, despite the fact that individuals are born into it wholly self-concerned, and in fact remain largely self-concerned throughout their existence. Conflict within a communal group, which can occur in the process of collective decision-making, illustrates well the dilemma in which sociologists find themselves. Seeing conflict as a massive element in the functioning of society, but unable to say anything about it as social theorists, they split themselves as individuals off from themselves as sociologists: they form "Journals of Conflict Resolution," join disarmament and peace committees, yet continue to purvey sociological theory which has nothing to say about conflict.

The article presents information on family as a small group association. Sociologist Reuben Hill's review of family studies includes, as one approach, the conceptualization of the family as a small group association. Sociologist George Homans is mentioned in this connection, though, perhaps naturally, few words are devoted to his actual contribution. His contribution has been both direct in terms of writings on role-relations within the family and indirect in terms of generalizations about small groups which prove to be useful in its study. The present paper follows this indirect route. Interaction frequency and intensity of liking have proven to be two of the more useful variables in small group research. Homans' proposition that "persons who interact frequently with one another tend to like one another" is taken as the starting point for a discussion of some aspects of role-relationships in the English family, mainly that of the traditional working-class. Interaction normally varies with liking only if the interaction is freely chosen and can he broken off when desired. If a member of a group is forced to interact with someone he does not like, the chances are at least as great that he will dislike the other more, as that he will come to like him after all. It seems fair to take length of courtship as a measure of the variables with which people are here concerned and to predict a correlation between interaction, affection and understanding.

The fact is that the lower classes are not more likely than the middle class to have a disease or condition but they do react more violently to it and are more concerned about it. Nonetheless, neither sociologists nor public health researchers have for the most part taken proper note of the split between getting sick and reacting to it. For example in a recent general review of chronic illness the author does not even mentions his own study which shows no relationship between class and the prevalence of illness. Rather, he shows that some few chronic illnesses diagnosed in hospitals are related to living in lower class neighborhoods. Yet, he avoids making an overall statement about chronic illness and social class. There are obviously sonic problems here in the sociology of Sociology. First, there is a serious problem in the interpretation of tables which is caused by a lack of satisfactory non-parametric measures of association and analyses of variance. Second, there is a fallacy of forgetting why it is thought that social class was related to illness in the first place. The present paper concludes that social factors are important in the experience of ill health, although not in the gross fashion that had been imagined.

Processes of perception and thought are such that anyone who reads a book is necessarily selective in absorbing the author's meaning. What one reader thinks the author was saying may not coincide with what the author intended to say nor with another reader's perception of what the author meant. The first time the author read Robert M. Maclver's book "Social Causation" the parts which most caught his attention made the book seem at best a weak defense of the Verstehende approach in sociology or at worst a thoroughly animistic and anti-scientific treatise. This article, demonstrates the MacIver's book, like some of the works of other sociologists, explains a need of innovation in the basic concepts of sociology. Although Maclver will be cited more often than any other author. This paper is not intended as mere exegesis of one man's thoughts. Maclver is taken as a specimen, more or less representative of others. The interpretations offered in this article are intended to apply to sociology rather than to just this particular sociologist.

The challenge to the principle of causality in other disciplines has been taken over by some sociologists, who have criticized its utility for sociological inquiry and who suggest in some instances that the term should be dropped from the sociological lexicon. The critiques are grounded in four somewhat overlapping perspectives: the positivist, the statistical, the interactionist, and the conceptualist. A formulation of what constitutes causality is presented, which takes account of these critiques and which also attempts to preserve continuity with past definitions. The basic elements are ontological status, productivity, conditionality, uniformity, and asymmetry. The importance of this subject, why the notion should be retained by sociologists, and the difference that this formulation makes are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radical activism in sociology can be explained as reaction against developments in American society, university structure, social theory and the American Sociology Association. Beginning in 1967 with a controversy over a Vietnam resolution, it has grown to include organized opposition through the Sociology Liberation Movement and the separation of the Black Sociologists Association. The assumptions behind sociology as an academic field and an occupation, have been and are being tested and found erroneous by an increasing number of sociologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents Peter M. Blau's response to Michael A. Weinstein's and Deena Weinstein's criticisms on his theoretical orientation of sociology from one rooted in functionalism to an essentially dialectical perspective. In recent years, the idea of a dialectical sociology has become increasingly appealing to a number of European and American sociologists. Dialectical sociology is a distinctive type of general sociology. The defining marks of a general sociology are a view of the nature of social experience and a description of the important units of analysis within that experience. For the dialectical sociologist, the nature of social experience is dualistic. Human existence is interpreted as a series of situations characterized by polarities in decisional processes, relations and cultural objects. Basic to dialectical sociology is the view that human experience is dualistic, not any particular dualism like the Marxian model of class conflict or the classical Chinese description of active and passive principles. The important units of analysis for dialectical sociologists are social Structures such as institutions, formal organizations, stratification systems and modes of solidarity.

This article comments on some sociological concerns about radical sociology as proposed by sociologist Albert Szymanski. The focus of concern with Szymanski's proposals fell upon their propensity for what following sociologist Emile Durkheim, called idol worship, the tendency of undisciplined research to discover little aside from preconceptions associated with its substantive values. Idol-worship seems to be exemplified by Szymanski's use of sociology of knowledge. It conveniently offers him means of avoiding methodological problems and setting aside all matters of objectivity while also impugning the quality and integrity of broad ranges of natural and social science. Aside from some general remarks applying perhaps to all science, Szymanski analyzes specifically the cases of the physical sciences, the biological sciences, economics, conditioning psychology, and Parsonian sociology. For each discipline, he finds that there has been little, if anything, other than sophisticated social partisanship and pursuit of self-interest through the provision of general legitimation or narrowly practical knowledge.

As a means of increasing the theoretical relevance of sensitivity training for sociologists engaged in evaluative pursuits, the concept of role-based sensitivity is suggested for use in an evaluative research perspective. Results of the application of a role-based sensitivity scale, as a pre-training diagnostic device, in a training program for local human relations commissioners, suggest that the area of sensitivity training has potential as an arena for the refinement of sociological role theory and hence is deserving of the increased interest of sociologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents response to sociologist Amitai Etzioni about political power and the Great Society. Instead of analyzing power in the U.S., Etzioni merely reasserts the dubious assumptions he should be subjecting to critical observation. Strangely, he himself raises the basis for such a critique but then ignores it. Although he admits that a power differential is the deciding factor in the struggle between competing interest groups, although he admits that "important segments of the citizenry are more or less locked out of the political process," he still concludes that power functions pluralistically in the U.S. and that all people need now is a consensus-producing mechanism. In summary, the fundamental flaw in Etzioni's model of power in American society is that it fails to assess the nature of this power from the point of view of the social structure as a whole. Focusing only on the more privileged segments of that structure, his model describes a plurality of competing interests and uses this as evidence for the essential openness and flexibility of the political system.

The article focuses on changing conceptions of the new sociology. Until very recently most of the debate over the future course of sociology occurred, in sociologist Irving Horowitz's terms between the "occupationalists" and the "professionals," both within the "mainline" of the field. Now it is clear that a challenge is mounting from the "marginals," specifically from the anti-sociologists among students. The term "revolutionary movement" is apt in several respects. For one thing, it refers to an increasing demand to transform sociology from a discipline into an actual revolutionary movement in its own right. For another, the model of the revolutionary cadre is increasingly appropriate in understanding the nature and sources of the demand itself. And yet the term "revolution" is apt in another sense; namely, that suggested by Thomas Kuhn's work on "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." Ironically, Kuhn's work is sometimes cited as support for the revolutionary cause at issue here, although Kuhn's use of the term has little in common with that of the dissidents and, in fact, the two types of revolutions may be mutually incompatible.

The article presents author's replies and some reflections regarding criticism against his earlier essays on sociology. One of the main assertions the author developed in chapters one and two of Essays in Sociological Explanation is that sociology as a field both enjoys and suffers from a great diversity of approaches, outlooks, and schools of thought. The statements by the three reviewers lend strength to this assertion, since each selected such different ingredients from the body of ideas in the book and reacted in such different ways to these ingredients. He takes pleasure in the fact that my ideas have excited such a diversity of responses among the critics. He organizes his remarks under three general headings: the nature and scope of sociology; the character of sociological explanation; and the explanation of change. In chapter two he raised these questions formally and explicitly, and tried to lay out the kinds of norms that sociologists do--or should--observe as they do their own and assess others' work.

The article focuses on the career in the discipline of sociology. It is especially incumbent on the sociological profession to explain fully and honestly to young people just what it is they are thinking of getting themselves into. From time to time, sociologists have undertaken research that would ordinarily lie within the fields of psychology, anthropology, history, political science, and economics. These incursions are often resented by the other, more strictly defined, disciplines. Each of the social and humanistic branches of learning seems to have its distinctive subject matter. The most cursory glance at the easily identified major institutions, social products, and processes reveals that there are indeed such unassigned or unclaimed subjects. Sociology has, to a degree, become the great residual category of the social sciences. It has not one subject, but many. The general sociologist devotes himself to understanding universal social structures, such as groups and publics, and universal social processes, such as competition and cooperation.

The article focuses on a letter written by the author of this article in which he advices a young sociologist who was just about to begin his career as a sociologist. The author advices to resist temptations like advantageous job offers, contracts from publishers, etc. Men who engage in such alienated work for a few years succeed but rarely in escaping from it later. Such work has a momentum of its own, and what was once thought as merely a means for the furtherance of more distant goals turns out to have become an end in itself. All distinguished work in sociology was done by men who followed the lead of their own demon. There are hosts of problems the solution to which is brought considerably nearer by the utilization of a whole array of modern research technologies which are now available. Whether one decides to work on problems the solution to which can be brought nearer with the help of the newer research instruments, or whether he concentrates on purely theoretical work, whether he decides to join his efforts to those of collaborative teams of colleagues or to work alone, these are decisions that he must make for himself.

In this article, sociologist Charles Kadushin replies to sociologist Aaron Antonovsky, regarding issues raised by Antonovsky about Kadushin's review of some of the findings concerning the relation between illness and social class. The most important is the adequacy of the conceptual scheme. The next most important critique is on methodology, and the least telling is whether or not the tables are correctly interpreted. Since the editors of the periodical "Sociological Inquiry" could give Kadushin but very little time to compose this reply, his comments are limited to matters he has introduced, though he believe he and Antonovsky both agree that many more data need to be presented and many more issues explored; since the impact of illness on different classes of modern society is by no means a simple or straightforward matter. Kadushin believe that this was exactly what was stated and implied by original article. Antonovsky's conceptualization of the disease process is not radically different from Kadushin's own, though his terminology conceals some of the dimensions implied in his very useful scheme. Antonovsky introduces three concepts--"environmental presses," "resistance resources," and "modes of coping;" yet these terms actually imply an eight-fold attribute space, as a figure in this article indicates.

The article discusses sociologist Max Weber's missing authority type. "There are," according to sociologist Max Weber, "but three clearcut grounds on which to base the belief in legitimate authority." He presented these as three ideal types of authority: legal-rational, traditional and charismatic. His four types of action, however, three of which parallel his three authority types, seem to suggest the possibility of a missing fourth authority type. If Weber had carried his political studies to the same point of completion as his studies of religion, the fourth type would undoubtedly have been developed in an elaboration similar to the one to be presented here. Indeed, though particularly fragmentary, his political writings seem almost to contain the seed of the ideological type. Ideological authority, like legal-rational authority, implies a bureaucratic administrative structure. It too, has the characteristics of authority of the expert, separation of the administrator from the means of his administration, impersonality of relationships, and the like.

This article presents an analysis of social relation within groups of members. By group it is meant any plural within which observable interaction (mutual stimulation and response) is present among the members. Any namable set of people is a plural, it becomes a group to the extent that its members behave in ways that influence one another. Groups are characterized by relations among members and social relations are a type of product, rather than a sum, as this discussion will show. Sociologists with quantitative inclinations will not find much that is surprising or instructive in this mathematically simple thesis. But many who study groups are unaware of the appropriate use of products rather than sums when considering a set of indices or variables. Much of what will be said is well known to statisticians, but it is now presented in everyday language in order to reach a wider audience. One can think first of a product of two all-or-none kinds of things which logicians call a "logical product" or "intersect" of sets in the new mathematics.

In "Social Behavior" the author showed how many of the emergent properties of the behavior of men in small groups, such as the emergence of a status-system, could be explained by deductive systems employing psychological propositions. In the case of the family farm the author could provide the explanation because he is fairly familiar with the necessary information. With a little research he is sure he could provide a psychological explanation of the appearance of the collective farm in the Soviet Union. This brings the author to a sociologist's difficulties with "history," for it is obvious that explanations of the principal structural features of large scale societies must be in part historical, in that they must make use of information about the past histories of men and nations. The explanations are only in part historical, for they should include an examination of what is happening to these features now. Their usefulness is clear when they have the historical record -- but they seldom have the record. The gaps in the story of individuals and of nations are obviously enormous; and one of the advantages of the study of history is its encouragement of modesty-a willingness to admit there are many things one do not know and never will and accordingly many things one cannot fully explain.

The article sheds light on the response generated by the work of sociologist George Homans. There is no lack of reviews, summaries and analyses of the work of sociologist George Homans, yet Homans himself would probably agree that the influence of a leader is to be seen in the response of his followers, rather than in the activity originated by the leader. Probably this response is never completely what the leader intended. The scope of this review is limited to all footnoted citations appearing in six journals, "The American Sociological Review," "The American Journal of Sociology," "Sociometry," "Social Forces," "Sociology and Social Research," and "Human Relations," over the period from 1951 through 1962. The approach does not take account of implicit influences and of general references to Homans in text, without footnote. Books and monographs have been excluded from the analysis largely because of the difficulty of defining a universe feasible to study. Certain journals have been omitted either because they have changed significantly in twelve year period or because they are not primarily sociological in orientation or sponsorship. The listed journals are surely representative of at least one level in the continuing discourse of the discipline and it is the fate of Homans' ideas in this universe that the article examines.

In addition to its stylistic flavor, the work of George C. Homans has two qualities which set it off from the writings of most sociologists. Homans always has in view a set of processes, never a collection of static relations among variables or patterns and he stays close to the concrete actions of men in groups. The processes work themselves out in accordance with simple and readily understood principles of human nature, however abstractly these may be conceived. In keeping with his sense of the concrete, Homans takes the view that social interaction is to be understood on the basis of its immediate antecedents, the behaviors and sentiments of the individuals involved. In particular some of Homans ideas closely parallel several related trends of theoretical development in social psychology which were initially stimulated by a sociologist's writings on "balance." The basic postulate of the balance theories is that there exists a need for the socialized human being to establish and maintain stable and consistent orientations toward the self, other persons, and the non-person environment.

One of the sociologists standard procedures is to introduce controls for background or so-called "demographic" variables. When one finds a relationship between two attitudes or perhaps an attitude and some type of behavior, he will often control for factors such as age race, sex, education, religion, or occupation of father. Controls may be introduced more or less routinely as though the rationale for their use were clearly understood or obviously apparent. The purpose of this article is to examine the nature of this rationale. Few sociologists admit to a direct theoretical interest in "demographic" variables per se. Usually, if not always, a background factor such as sex, religious denomination, occupation of father, or type of home community is employed merely as a convenient indicator of some other variable which may be very imprecisely defined. The rationale in comparing males and females, whites and Negroes, or Protestants and Catholics is usually that each of the categories will, on the avenge, have been exposed to different socialization experiences of one kind or another.

This article focuses on ideal and typical social norms. In view of the strategic position occupied by the concept of social norms in sociological theory it behooves sociologists to elaborate and refine it beyond its present formulation. Social norms are viewed as standards for behavior, which is to say they represent a base or criterion for judging the appropriateness or acceptability of actions. It should be apparent, however, that there are realty two sets of norms lo guide behavior. One standard is the ideal, what one ought to do. The ideal norm stipulates what the morally correct form of behavior would be for a given situation. Almost invariabIy however, actual behavior does not coincide with what would be socially preferable; one would be bard pressed to cite a social norm which is never violated. The distinction between these two types of norms can also be illuminated by reference to the socialization process. The acquisition of ideal norms seems to be primarily a matter of verbal transmission, whereas typical nouns are more likely to be acquired as a result of observation of overt behavior.

This article focuses on sociocultural factors and coronary heart disease. Studies of the social etiology of disease attempt to systematically examine social variations in the incidence of particular diseases among people variously located in the social structure and attempt to explore the ways in which their position in the social structure tends to make them more vulnerable, or less, to particular diseases. For most of the chronic, non-infectious diseases such as cancer, heart disease, arthritis, dental conditions, neurologic disorders, and so on, the role of social factors in the etiologic process is, at best, unclear. The view that a person's involvement in the social order affects his emotional and physical functioning is generally accepted by most sociologists. The study of coronary heart disease provides a reasonable example of this problem. Certain observations regarding this disease are clearly provocative: the coronary disease death rate in. the U.S. is among the highest in the world and seems to be increasing; urban industrialized states and metropolitan counties have age- and sex- adjusted rates considerably higher than rural states and non-metropolitan counties; the disease occurs far more frequently in men than women, far more frequently among whites than Negroes; married people have a lower rate than those who are single separated, or divorced.

The article focuses on the boundaries and development of sociology. It probes into some problems of cross-national sociology. As a young science and a new profession, sociology has been approached in different ways by different nations. In the United States where social changes have taken place more rapidly than in other nations, its existence has largely been limited to the university campuses. Sociologists are only now beginning to play their part in all branches of national life. A national boundary, as the term is used in the article, does not merely refer to the demarcation lines established by international commissions as a result of political negotiations or a war between two or more states. National boundaries constitute barriers of three major types, namely: semiotic, political, and cultural. It is possible that the diversity of arguments about what should constitute the subject matter of sociology stemmed from the fact that the early American sociologists represented a variety of backgrounds ranging from the ministry to paleontology.

This article presents some issues and problems encountered by the clinical sociologist who helps an organization to cope with organizational problem. The author has considered three main issues, the change in self-concept and the change in interaction between the sociologist and client implied by the clinical role, certain technical problems which arise in this relationship and possible ways of resolving such problems so as to be of most use to a client organization. The three problems are apt to plague the sociologist when he applies his expertise in clinical role. These problems are, problems arising in structuring the clinical relationship, problems arising in attempting an initial prognosis and problems arising from the client's resistance to insight. These three problems may be spoken of as "problems of interpretation." But the questions which are apt to plague the sociologist who applies his expertise to organizational problems, whether or not he self-consciously considers himself a "clinical sociologist."

This article focuses on codification of typological procedure. The construction of types is not confined to any particular science; it is a procedure applicable to the data of any science although obviously more characteristic of some than others. The device has played an undeniable role in the growth of sociological knowledge despite the fact that it remains a controversial item in the sociologist's kit of tools. Unfortunately, it is not possible to turn to the work of those who have used typologies in the past to gain a clear idea of the steps involved. There does not seem to be any standardized procedure used by all typologists. However, given the work of the past and an extension of this work in the light of relatively simple sociological methods, it is possible to develop a series of typological operations or procedural steps that may help to make explicit both the utility and the limitations of constructive typology in sociology. The typologist, as all sociologists, works with some substantive area of inquiry.

This article focuses on the role of sociologists within industries. While discussing the role of sociologists within the industry, one of the professors found that it is the problem of legitimacy which is to be studied first to understand this topic. The problem projected is that of establishing where the appropriate industry roles overlap with the roles of professional sociologists. Certainly sociologists employed in the industry experiences in many instances a kind of role conflict. It is little wonder that the sociologist who becomes employed in the industrial setting may encounter problems of role reconcilement. In the industrial sector the sociologist may be faced with an ambiguous situation upon entering into such work because that industrial situation may not yet have become structured to accommodate the sociologist most adequately. His status, and certainly his role, are imprecisely defined. He may suffer some period of discomfort in seeking to be both of service to that organization which sustains him and pursue simultaneously those professional interests for which he was prepared in his academic training.

The article presents an opinion on the role of sociologists within industry and begins with a consideration of the problem of legitimacy. Industry recognizes a certain set of roles as legitimate. Sociologists define a second set as legitimate for themselves as professionals. The problem is one of determining where these sets overlap in such a way as to allow the professional to operate both as a valuable employee and a respected social scientist. The industrially employed sociologist may share certain doubts expressed by his colleague concerning the professional legitimacy of working in any industrial capacity. More specific issues arise when consideration is given to the types of industrial functions that might be open to sociologists. Five possible roles can be considered. First, there are certain well-established, non-supervisory staff functions such as those in personnel and public relations departments. Second, there are administrative positions in these same and other areas. Third, the role of roving "inside" consultant is at least a possibility. Somewhat related to this third possibility is a fourth role, that of "action" researcher. Finally, there is the traditional professional role of "basic" researcher.

This article discusses various issues related to Indian community in Mexican society. How the Indian part of Mexican society is distinguished from its wider matrix has great consequences for most sociological analyses of Mexico. Many investigators begin with a list of traits winch are supposed to characterize the Indian. Yet upon examination these traits prove unsatisfactory. Even characterization of the Indian sector of Mexican society by language proves inadequate. Indianhood does not consist of a list of discrete social traits; it resides in the quality of social relations found in communities of a certain kind, and in the self-image of individuals who identify with these communities. If the Indian community has occupied continuously shifting ground, how it has maintained its integrity and autonomy in the Mexican society, and how one can explain that there are still Indians in Mexico, the answer to these questions lies in the specific way in which the Indian participates in the national economy; and in the specific way in which the Indian community rewards its members for cleaving to it, in times of prosperity as well as in times of strain.

The article presents a critical analysis of social notes related to sociology. In the case of a journalist observing the sociologist, a formula for a perpetual circular interaction may be concluded. Philosophers and students of social change have often questioned whether there is such a thing as progress, but to sociologists a full treatment in the social notes of a metropolitan newspaper may seem like the essence of progress, after decades of being overshadowed by the livelier and more satisfyingly alcoholic conventions of lumbermen, war veterans and publishers. The social notes also overlooked the contributions of sociologists such as George P. Murdock, Leonard Broom, Howard Becker, William H. Sewell, Calvin F. Schmid, Otis D. Duncan, R.F. Bales and others. The functions of a national meeting--exchange of research discoveries, discussion and decision on problems of the profession, efficient allocation of persons to positions, and a variety of productive types of interstimulations--are understood by people but these do not entertain the subway reader.