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This paper presents a generalization of results of HAKIMI and GOLDMAN on optimum locations of centers (warehouses) in a network. This generalization is achieved by a conceptual simplification of the previous results leading to a proof of a stronger version of Goldman's conjecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY In this paper an attempt is made to use the methodology of economics and operations research for determining the optimum allocation of resources among different methods of preventing or curing diseases. First, after comparing the different indices proposed to measure the output of health services, a very simple one is adopted: the number of deaths. The objective of health planning is assumed to be the minimization of the number of deaths. Next, the optimum distribution of resources between prevention and cure of one particular disease is studied in some detail, and a numerical example is presented. Finally, the generalization of this model to include several diseases, under both static and dynamic conditions, is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supervision of workers in a group has been tried in a variety of ways to achieve a variety of goals. This paper will describe an experiment with group supervision undertaken by the Jewish Family Service of New York several years ago, the focus here is on one of the goals of the experiment, namely, helping the caseworker achieve greater independence and thereby accelerating his professional development. The experiment was an attempt by the agency to do something positive about the complaints of recent years that workers are frequently caught up in a stage of interminable dependency, that other professions move more quickly to independence and the use of consultation than do social workers, and that the close personalized relationship in individual supervision characteristic of social work contributes to infantilizing the worker. The paper will first present the distinctions among the various types of supervision carried on in groups; then, based on experience, some generalizations about the characteristics of this particular supervisory process; finally, four illustrations that will demonstrate various phenomena and how they were handled in the group.

This article examines the role of generalization in the marketing of consumer goods. Offered is the scholar Charles Osgood's findings on semantic generalization. Osgood discovered that when people see a similarity between two objects because these objects have a common sign, they are generalizing, because the objects have a similar meaning. These principles may be useful in the market place by reasoning that consumer attitudes toward one product would be transferred to another product with different characteristics simply by assigning the same brand name to both products. Examined is a two-phase study designed to reveal how much influence semantic generalization has in determining consumer attitudes toward consumer products.

This paper formulates a two-cell model of search for a moving target as a continuous-time Markov process with known constant transition rates and detection rates, and finds the distribution of searching effort that maximizes the probability of detection in time T, and the distribution that minimizes the expected time to detection. Although the optimization problems are difficult to solve, the solutions are simple. It appears to be possible, but difficult, to generalize this model to n cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers the problem of two-commodity network flows and generalizes a result of Hu on integral flows in networks with integral capacities. The main result of the paper is a max-flow min-cut theorem for two commodity networks. The method of proof involves a particular type of separation process. This leads to an algorithm for finding the maximal flows. Several counterexamples to certain possible generalizations are given at the end of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology is often criticized as being ambiguously general or too broadly eclectic. It is held that a scientific organization of knowledge is hindered by the variety of content and method grouped together as sociology. On the other hand, a case can also be made against excessive division of the subject matter of sociology into "fields" or "areas" and "sub-areas." There is a danger that basic forms and primary forces of social life will be forgotten in the shuffle of special sociologies. Both under-generalization and over-generalization, it would seem, may be pitfalls for sociologists. This paper is an attempt to clarify the nature of general sociology by suggesting a division of its subject matter. It is intended that the categories developed should be sufficiently comprehensive to represent the broad scope of sociology without the listing of numerous sub-areas. Furthermore, the categories should correspond more closely to the habitual operations of sociologists than to an ideal scheme of what sociologists should be doing.

In a book which has maintained attention and perhaps increased in influence over two decades, writer Florian Znaniecki describes the method he names analytic induction and designates it as the method which should be adopted in all sociological research. Analytic induction, is merely a special name for one formulation of a basic philosophy that research must be directed toward generalizations of universal rather than frequent applicably. But Znaniecki's statement is usually unequivocal and is specifically oriented toward sociological research. Hence it makes an excellent point of departure for a study of contrasting methodologies. Methodological advance requires more than the mere tolerance of alternative methods. Any particular methodology must be examined and assessed in the light of the total process of research and theory formulation. Accordingly, the objective of the present paper is to offer a definition of the place of the search for universals in the total methodology for dealing with non-experimental data. The procedure will be to examine specific examples of empirical research employing the analytic induction method, to note what they do and do not accomplish, to establish logically the reasons for their distinctive accomplishments and limitations and on these grounds to designate the specific utility of the method in relation to probability methods.

In this paper, the subject to be discussed is the use of scientific research for socially important ends. It is assumed that the primary aim as scientists is to maximize the power of generalization, and that a primary question with reference to application is that of the degree of generalization compatible with application of research to concrete social problems. Whether the intention of the research is "applied" or "pure" is, from this point of view, irrelevant. Much research undertaken without reference to application turns out to be highly useful, and much of it has no immediate action usefulness whatever. Much action-oriented research gives highly perishable results not as an inevitable result of its practical intent, but simply because the research answers are dated and localized or are derived by faulty techniques and design, and the same is true of research not directly oriented to social action. Whatever the research orientation may be diagnostic or analytical, aimed at generalization or at immediate, specific application the fact that research is carried out provides no assurance that it will be utilized in practice.

Some concept of generalization of responses is an important part of most psychological theories which make use of learning as a basic process of behavioral change. This paper deals with generalization in an individual's expectations that given behaviors will lead to reinforcement. Expectations about the effectiveness of certain behaviors in obtaining reinforcement change as the individual has direct experience with the behaviors as means of obtaining desired goals, but they also change as a function of generalization from changes in expectancies for related behaviors. Different bases or dimensions of organization are assumed by different authors. This study tests the hypothesis that generalization of expectancies occurs to the extent that behaviors are functionally related. Functional relationships among behaviors within an individual's repertoire occur as the result of experience that the behaviors are reinforced in the same way, degree of functional relatedness varies with degree of similarity of reinforcements obtained and/or the proportion of occurrences of the behaviors reinforced in the same manner.

This article discusses the reasons for the acceptance of sociological generalizations. There is only one fully satisfactory reason for accepting a scientific proposition, namely, its proof in accordance with the rigid demands of the logic of science. Certainly there are few, if any, generalizations of sociology that have been proved in this absolute sense. A second-best reason for accepting a scientific proposition is the fact that it is supported by better evidence than any of its rivals and is thus more probable than any of them. This principle is logical enough, but it is often hard to apply in sociology. There is no simple method of weighing evidence. Again, in sociology the evidence is often so scanty in comparison with the complexity of the issues involved that it can be interpreted equally well to support any of several very different theories. The result is that there is often no logical reason for accepting one sociological generalization rather than another. The influence of humanitarian philosophy in the field of social pathology was also discussed in the article. The influence of humanitarianism on the acceptance of sociological generalizations was illustrated by examples. The humanitarian atmosphere of American sociology tends to be self-perpetuating. Professors draw like-minded young men to their department as graduate students and these later go out to spread the viewpoint of their professors.

The article presents the results of a study in which analyzes the relationships between factuality and the discussion of value in an impartial sample of recent sociological writings. In this study, two sentences were chosen, by explicit routine rules, from each available page in 51 consecutive signed articles in the "American Sociological Review" and from 19 consecutive signed articles in the "American Journal of Sociology." This study considered factual and non-factual sentences dealing directly with values. The first type of non-factual sentences is referred as unsupported value judgments. The second type of non-factual sentences included all generalizations not dealing directly with values and clearly not belonging in the category. This group if informally referred as sweeping generalisations. This study involved calculation on intercorrelations between indexes representing the relative frequencies of all types of sentences. The objective of the study is to determine to what extent factual and non-factual treatments of values are correlated with each other and with factual and non-factual treatments of non-valuational matter.

The theoretical contribution of this paper involves a reformulation and a generalization of the view of voting behavior originally expounded in The Voter Decides. The basic variable of party identification has been expanded to include any belief which constitutes a standing commitment to vote in a certain way. Hence, differences across political cultures which involve the basic belief systems about partisan competition may be recognized and taken into account. The short-term forces which accompany any election are seen as motivational vectors which may deflect the basic commitment of the individual, bringing about a desertion from the normal partisan vote in certain cases. This general model of voting has been applied to the case of France in the late 1960s. One variable essential to the achievement of long-term political stability in France is the willingness of the electorate to continue its support of the current Gaullist majority in the Assembly, or alternately, to fall in line behind a coherent majority on the Left. By grouping the electorate according to the strength of standing commitment, those voters who contributed to the Gaullists' 1968 victory are examined to explore the likelihood that they will remain loyal to the Gaullists in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a mathematical theorem by Samuelson on what he calls the "LeChatelier principle" is generalized, the generalization being closer to the original formulation of the LeChatelier principle than Samuelson's theorem itself. The results obtained are formulated in terms of systems theory and mathematical programming. Examples concerning cost minimization or profit maximization are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since delay distributions obtained in simulations of a LIFO queuing system have been found to disagree with those obtained from a published analytic solution, this paper determines the source of the error in the published solution and gives a corrected solution that is obtained by using a generalization of the classical ballot theorem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on a study which provides further contributions to the Theory of Scale Analysis by social researcher Louis Guttman. One of the points taken into consideration is that a generalization of the Theory of Scale Analysis to include alternative methods for the reduction of attributes to a defined variable, is not applicable. Arbitrary methods and experimental methods are the two distinct types of methods of quantitative analysis used in the study. The article states that the study does not attempt to formulate any one particular experimental design for testing the hypotheses of scale analysis, but recommends many designs so that experimental tests may be carried out when theorems of scale analysis are to be applied.

The thesis of this paper is that if sociology is to develop into a useful discipline it must combine the type of knowledge and understanding which is derived by use of the most rigid technique of science and by the type of knowledge that is known among practical men as common sense. The combined knowledge derived from these two sources will not, and cannot be pure science, but it will not lack the validity of science in that it will be trustworthy in both its capacity to validate its findings and to predict social behavior. Its genius is that it is largely qualitative and adaptive. In some cases scientists are able to arrange this same knowledge into logical constructs and even reduce it to quantitative symbols of expression and convert it into precise scientific generalizations. Such generalizations do not, however, completely convert common sense into science because the generalizations are almost certain to be so abstract as to leave out some of the subtle arid useful understanding contained in the adaptive knowledge of common sense. This is due to no technical shortcoming on the part of the social scientist. It is due to the nature of the phenomena with which sociological generalizations deal and the necessity of abstraction in arriving at generalizations.

To judge by the frequency with which the term ‘decision’ is employed, it is a useful one. In domestic life, we talk of deciding what clothes to put on in the morning, or whether to buy a new car. We talk of commercial organizations making decisions — to shut down a factory, or to introduce a new product. We talk of the Government's decision to raise the standard rate of income tax, or of a local authority's decision to install a parking meter scheme. Used in this way, the concept of ‘decision’ is evidently a trivial one: a decision is merely something which comes before an action. So limited a concept does not do justice to the complexity of the processes by which governments and organizations make decisions. It does not, for example, afford us any means of describing what goes on during the often lengthy period separating the first awareness of a need for a decision and the decision itself, and the further lengthy period separating decision and action. If we are to understand how decisions are made, and how actions come about, we need to develop a model of the decision-making process, with concepts and a language which will enable us to describe the relationship between ‘first awareness of need’ and decision, and between decision and action. The purpose of this paper is to develop such a model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fact that the complicated business of making war can be epitomized for certain purposes into a few guiding principles suggests that accounting also may rest upon certain leading ideas which we may call principles. The military strategist would not thumb through a pocket list to choose the principle to be applied next to his situation. Neither would an accountant. Principles probably serve their purpose best after their essence and their interrelations have been made so thoroughly a part of a man's thinking processes as to have been forgotten as verbal propositions. In times like these, generalizations about the science of making war are interesting for their own sake to laymen. But they can be of more than passing interest to accountants because they illustrate so well the useful art of generalization. About a year ago a compact summary of the principles of war was published, as of October 1943. The nine principles stated in the summary are briefly summarized in this article to give further emphasis on the factor of interdependence.

As the first of several articles dealing with different techniques applied to the study of decision making in various disciplines, this article outlines the scope of current decision-making analyses; the complimentarities that exist among the different approaches; and the conclusions drawn by each approach. The author also reports on one aspect of work on decision making which has developed from consideration of economic theories of the behavior of the firm. Finally, some tentative generalizations about the method and substance of decision making are set down, as suggested by the five articles in this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the limits imposed by publication needs, the Quarterly has consciously tried to encourage the building of generalizations about administration by bringing together research results and theoretical analyses from the various social sciences. In an effort to determine how well this target has been kept in view, we have asked for a critical appraisal from someone exceptionally well aware of contemporary developments in the disciplines upon which administration rests. The following article is the result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines beliefs from the area of college physical education for the general student that are viewed as one of the forces serving as triggers-to-human action. Beliefs are limited to the philosophic type such as values and generalizations. Beliefs are intimately a part of an individual and his life so they are a force in human action. Beliefs are impregnated with feeling. Beliefs work unlabelled due to their incognito status. The reason for the difficulty of examining beliefs is explained. The individual is responsible for his actions and behavior but the control and manipulation stem from beliefs.

The role of the child as an influencer of consumer decisions was investigated by studying the interaction between mother and child. Purchase behavior by the mother of a child's preferred packaged cereals was related to the child's assertiveness and the mother's child-centeredness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selecting a sample for study entirely from one setting does not provide much of a base for generalization. In addition to the limited generalizability built into this study by the restricted sampling, one is struck by the repeated assertions that a hypothesis has been verified when the statistical test used failed to yield a significant difference between the relevant means. It is difficult to evaluate the appropriateness of the tests of significance used by the Olsem for the data they report without wore information than is given regarding the specific term used and without the presentation of means standard deviations, and sample sizes for all comparisons reported. The most appropriate and statistically permissible test would appear to have been the test for the difference between the means, using the standard error of the difference between the means as the error term. The use of percentages with such small samples is misleading since it lends to mask the actual number of physicians or social workers agreeing on any given item.

Copyright of European Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article shows that the conflict involving collective rationality goes much deeper than one might suppose on the basis of the impossibility theorems that focus on binary social choices. In effect, it is proved that generalized versions of the principal conditions used by researchers A. Mas-Colell and H. Sonnenschein are incompatible. The results are based on social choices from subsets of in alternatives rather than on social choices from subsets of two alternatives. It will be assumed throughout that the number n of voters is finite. To weaken one of the typical structural conditions slightly we shall assume later that all voters have linear preference orders on X, and, given this, adopt a universal domain condition which says that all n-tuples of linear preference orders on X are admissible or potential voter preference profiles. The article builds up to binary-choice impossibility theorems with special emphasis on notions of collective rationality. The collective-rationality idea along with other conditions to apply are generalized to m-alternative subsets of X, and states the new impossibility theorem. Proofs are given with conclusions in the final section.

The article focuses on differences in career development of management in small and large companies. It states that executives in smaller companies tend to achieve managerial status at an earlier point in their career and retain it for a longer period, especially if the executive is or becomes a shareholder in their company. It mentions that managers in smaller companies tend to be less qualified educationally than executives in larger firms, and adds that executives in larger companies take greater advantage of educational opportunities. It comments on the diversity of experience in managers of small companies and states it is difficult to track any consistent career development patterns among them.

The article focuses on labor supplies for organizations. It states that there is a need for a predictive theory of labor supply and demand for individual organizations in order to solve problems such as labor turnover, wage and productivity drift, and unofficial strikes. It comments that newspaper descriptions of these problems rarely contain elements needed to predict particular cases or the generalization of particular processes. It mentions that labor theory proceeds from two perspectives, economic theory and institutional analysis, and that neither can give practical insights into labor issues faced by organizations.

Different criteria for orienting and conditioned responses (ORs and CRs) are discussed, and it is proposed that neither latency nor differences between conditioning and sensitization treatments provide adequate solutions to the problem. An additional criterion is proposed based on differences in the slopes of the generalization gradients, i.e. ORs should show rising and CRs falling generalization gradients with increased stimulus change. This criterion was tested for conditioning and sensitization groups in paradigms involving generalization along pitch and temporal continua. It was found that the response to the onset of the conditional stimulus (the CS response) fulfilled the proposed criteria for an OR, while responses in the interval of the unconditioned response on trials where the unconditional stimulus (US) was omitted (post-US responses) satisfied the criteria for an OR early in training and the criteria for a CR later in training. For the response preceding US (the pre-US response) no definite conclusion was reached, but the evidence could be interpreted to mean that both OR and CR components participated in that response too. The relationships between these response components and stages of sensory integration and response acquisition of conditioning are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty-two male college students who scored above 50 (standard score) on the Closure Flexibility (CF) test were designated field independent (Fl). and eight who scored below 50 were designated field dependent FD. It was found that FI subjects were able to discriminate between the conditioned tone (CS) and the un-reinforced generalization tones by the amplitude of their GSR significantly better (p < 0.01) than were FD persons. Although it cannot be asserted with certainty that this relationship is dependent on the autonomic response system, there is tentative support for this position. It seems probable that even the FD subjects could distinguish between the two most different pitched tones; yet they failed to make this distinction by their GSR responses. This lack of differentiation by the FD subject appears to be a function of a less well-differentiated autonomic nervous system. This study demonstrates that the stimulus generalization gradient involves an interaction between the cognitive style of the organism and the impinging stimuli, not merely the quantitative physical characteristics of the stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. A questionnaire on the traits of eight nationalities and on related variables was filled out by 104 college students in the spring of 1938 and by the same individuals in January of 1940. 2. The frequency with which each of 21 traits was attributed to each of eight nationalities in 1938 and in 1940 is presented for the sake of historical interest. 3. When all the traits are considered together, it is found (a) that approved traits tend to be attributed to the citizens of preferred countries, regardless of whether these traits are attributed by the subjects to themselves; (b) that disapproved traits which the subjects do not believe to characterize themselves tend to be attributed to the people of non-preferred countries; (c) that disapproved traits which the subjects believe to characterize themselves show a slight tendency to be attributed to the people of preferred countries. 4. Generalizations parallel to most of those just stated hold true for the direction and magnitude of changes in the attribution of traits between 1938 and 1940 as well as for the static condition observed at each end of the period. 5. When the same variables are considered as possible influences on the attribution of a single trait by various individuals, similar generalizations are found to hold true less consistently and only for certain traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study regarding the effect of violence portrayed in mass media to the attitudes and opinions of people towards some aspects of violence in real life. It says that the study focuses on the generalizations put forward by R. K. Baker and S. J. Ball about the effect of violence in television. It mentions that the study focuses on the difference between the preference of young people on aggressive television programmes and exposure to aggressive programmes. It argues that the hypotheses of Baker and Ball could be considered as ill-founded because mass media violence had only slight adverse influence on young people.

This article is an attempt to formulate a number of generalizations concerning the internal structure of a large city of the U.S. In planning this study every effort was made to select a relatively large, statistically comparable and representative group of U.S. cities; to utilize relevant, comprehensive, and reliable quantitative and other data; and to follow systematic and rigorous techniques in analyzing these data. The basic data for this study were taken from the series of census tract bulletins prepared by the U. S. Bureau of the Census in connection with the sixteenth decennial census taken as of April 1, 1940. The primary sample consists of 20 U.S. cities of comparable size. In developing a model for an analysis of this kind it was felt that the results could be invalidated if the group of cities selected did not possess some degree of statistical comparability. Accordingly, cities that were within a relatively narrow total population range and at the same time did not vary widely in the average size of census tracts were included in the primary sample.

Scant attention has been given differences in the economic and social organization of variant types of rural centers. Descriptions of agricultural villages, which serve primarily as service centers for surrounding open-country hinterlands, have been made to do for all places. The fallacy of such generalization is that it fails to recognize the differences in structure and role which occur in rural centers of different size and functional type. This is not to argue that in both structure and function villages and hamlets do not possess a group similarity in which individual deviations are overshadowed. Group differences, of course, receive increased emphasis as one approaches extremes of size and type, yet all villages have characteristics in common which may be observed and measured. Such characterization and measurement, however, must take into account variations both in degree and in kind. For among agricultural, industrial, suburban, lumbering, mining, political and resort villages, there are marked variations in structural and functional organization. These variations appear to be associated particularly with locational and occupational factors.

Acculturation in its general sense may be regarded as referring to those processes whereby the culture of a society is modified as the result of contact with the culture of one or more other societies. The article discusses primarily the type of accultura

For a number of years, the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University has been conducting a general program of research in the social sciences, with particular reference to the areas common to, and marginal between, the special sciences of sociology, anthropology, psychology and psychiatry. In 1937, as one of the specific research projects on the anthropological and sociological side of this program, the Cross-Cultural Survey was organized. A year of previous experience in collaborating with other social scientists in research and discussion had made it clear to the anthropologists associated with the Institute that the rich resources of ethnography, potentially of inestimable value to workers in adjacent fields, were practically inaccessible to them. Culture is not instinctive, or innate or transmitted biologically, but is composed of habits, that is, learned tendencies to react, acquired by each individual through his own life experience after birth. The conception of cultural change as an adaptive process seems to many anthropologists inconsistent with, and contradictory to, the conception of cultural change as an historical process. The Cross-Cultural Survey can answer specific questions of fact with a minimum of time-wasting labor. It can reveal gaps in the ethnographical record and thus suggest what groups should be restudied and what hitherto unreported data should be gathered in the field. It can subject existing theoretical hypotheses about collective human behavior to a quantitative test and can be used to formulate and verify new social science generalizations.

The article presents some problems in combinations and permutations as applied to social group structures. The content of a science consists of a related and verifiable system of generalizations. In sociology, generalizations of one kind or another are very plentiful. The trouble is that no one knows under which conditions these principles apply. Generalizations can apply only to classes of events. If a statement applies only to a single event, it is not a generalization. Hundreds of classifications and systems of classification have accordingly been made and are being made. Most classifications are made up as the need for them arises. That is, they are made to fit the cases immediately under consideration. Sociologists are in fair agreement that the most elementary human social unit is an individual with his social conditionings. Such an individual has been called a person or socius, or, as Simmel5 called it, a monad. The swing toward empirical methods in the social sciences has been so pronounced in recent decades that there is some reason to fear that the true relation of empiricism and scientific theory has been overlooked.

The article presents information on the progress of geography in the U.S. Progress in geography among people has been market by the extension and refinement of observation, and therefore also by a growing safety of generalization, and by a gradual change from an empirical to a genetic method of treatment, whereby science has been brought under the philosophy of evolution, but curiously enough a great part of this progress has been accomplished by the labors of others than professional geographers. If discouragement is sometimes felt because geography has not yet reached a higher development among people, encouragement may be found in the assurance that it has at any rate made much progress, and that its progress is still going on. People have at least advanced from a stage when geography was anyone's and everyone's business to a stage when it is also the business of geographers. People have advanced from a day when geographical knowledge was gathered in an almost unconscious, accidental manner by untrained travelers, to a day when it is consciously and intentionally gathered by trained expert.

Problems concerning the psychological tics to minority groups in the sense of belongingness have been related to the concept of identification. In the discussion of this genera! matter some social processes arc considered which are subsumed under the individual's experiences relative to the social scheme in which he moves. Particular emphasis is placed on the application of generalizations involving individual psychological phenomena as they seem to apply to minority group membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of the concept of role as the meeting point of theories of culture and theories of personality is examined and found to be caught in a double theoretical pressure. While serving to unite some of the generality of cultural theories with some of the specificity of personality theories, the concept of role is alternately stretched and constricted, resulting in a situation of theoretical ambiguity. This is due to the lack of a perspective which would strengthen the generalizing power of the concept of role without eliminating any of its specific reference. The following article attempts to outline such a perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparison of two recently devised Guttman scales of community organization suggests that, regardless of culture content, recent human communities follow a unidimensional sequence of growth in the direction of greater articulation with the larger urban-industrial society. The scales specify a series of steps reflecting simultaneous internal and external elaboration of social organization, but roughly there are three main emphases: local autonomy, representative external contacts, and interpenetration of the community and national systems. A theoretical basis for the generalization is proposed and some of its practical applications are indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the meaning of empirical law or generalization in sociology and distinguishes these from other kinds of findings. It recalls the elements of the hypothetic-deductive method and discusses how this may be used to explain sociological laws. Some examples of deductive theories from the spheres of small social groups and sociology proper are also discussed. The article also presents the author's arguments against the use of psychology in sociology put forward by sociologist Emile Durkheim in his book "Rules of Sociological Method." It is important in this connection to recognise the change, which has come about in psychology since Durkheim's day. Durkheim's first argument was that social facts were to be distinguished from individual states of consciousness and that therefore sociology, was irreducible to psychology. In terms of contemporary psychology the important difference between the two fields is that sociology is concerned with combinations and aggregates of people rather than with single individuals. In the second place, Durkheim maintained that social facts could only be explained in terms of causal relations with other social facts. The author disagrees with Durkheim by suggesting that the generalisations also require explanation and it is only at this point that there is any question of psychology entering in.