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Some years ago the author rejected out of hand a sociologist colleague's argument that the use of analogies or models is characteristic of insecure individuals operating in immature disciplines. This paper essays an explanation that justifies a reversal of judgment concerning the utility of analogies in sociology and social psychology. It is well to recognize, before continuing with the case against analogical analysis of sociological data, that only an extremist would argue that the very persistence of a conceptual scheme is an argument for its functional nature. The reality of these rewards makes it difficult for those employing an analogy to discern whether it has actual heuristic pedagogical value or its continued use is merely a function of rationalization designed to preserve these subjective rewards. Although not unknown in earlier periods of time, mechanistic models or analogies became much more prevalent in the seventeenth century in response to the remarkable gains of the period in mechanics, physics, and mathematics.

Recent developments in the profession indicate that there is a growing interest in the sociological meaning of certain aspects of language, particularly speech, behavior. Moreover, those sociologists who have not been working with language, and who may in some instances have been "put off" by what the ethnomethodologists are doing, tend to be somewhat skeptical about the potential contributions of sociolinguistics. Social interaction is a reciprocal process involving communication, and most human communication requires the use of language. No two men use language in precisely the same way, and some men use language in ways obviously very different from others. Thus, to state that language structure and social structure are intimately interrelated is to reiterate a fundamental fact known to all men who participate in social interaction. Correlations between speech and the characteristics of its users are easy to determine. Correlations between language structure and social structure are more subtle but can also be identified.

This article reports secondary findings that emerged from a more general concern with social change. In attempting to make explicit the substantive arguments and implications of various theoretical approaches to the study of social change, sociologists discovered a substantial area of disagreement among symbolic interactionists with regard to this topic. In as much as symbolic interactionism is usually regarded as a unitary theoretical position, this considerable disjunction seemed to call for explanation in its own right. Both the historical development of interactionism and the nature of its principal intellectual sources suggest the possibility of important differences within this tradition. The purposes of this article are, first, to report the extent and nature of the differences that divide symbolic interactionists with respect to a topic of general concern, social change; second, to note certain sociological factors associated with these divergences; and, finally, to explore theoretically the relationship between a particular theoretical stance and a constellation of sociological variables. A central contention of this article is that differences among interactionists are associated with the kinds of relationships in which these sociologists are involved. A sociological perspective focusing upon the nature and types of relationships should be as useful in understanding sociological reasoning as it is in understanding any other type of reasoning.

This article discusses the problem of microtheory versus macrotheory theory versus macrotheory in sociology and the possibilities of relating them by simulation. Of course, we know that macro sociology operates on levels quite different from those of micro sociology, i.e. small group studies and social psychology. Some sociologists feel that the difference is so large that no attempt should be made to connect the two types of sociology, but others feel that the different levels of sociology should be united in some way. But even those who want such unification have to admit that they are far from achieving it at the present time. Simulation in this article is taken to mean the operation of a model of a social system. In practically all cases this means a computer operation, but in principle all kinds of analog devices may be used for the simulation. Excluded by this definition are "simulations" where human beings act as human beings in simulated social situations. The best known example of this kind of "simulation" is perhaps Guetzkow's study of inter-nation relations.

Judging from the quantity of published studies, the measurement of subjective factors, such as attitudes, is much more frequent than the measurement of behavior. Although measuring subjective responses is of course valuable, one may additionally want to know how an actor behaves, what he actually does given a position on an attitude, belief, or opinion scale. The difficulties lie in the time-consuming, expensive nature of obtaining behavioral observations, combined with the technical problem of devising techniques suitable to the natural setting in which the behavior occurs. There are, of course, ways to study behavior outside the laboratory. Techniques range from participant-observation to self-reports and various observer activities accounting schemes. Assuming that the research goal requires collecting quantifiable data on what actors actually do and sufficient eases for multivariate analysis, observation and self-reports present practical problems in the number of units which can be observed or, in the case of self-report records, "talked into" cooperating. Continuous observation of one person over a time period is not required to obtain behavioral measures representing that time period. This frees the observer to record the behavior of others in the population under study, thus increasing the number of cases, which can be studied within a given budget of time and money.

This article attempts to formulate the dynamics of research as an exchange process, and describes the method found successful for establishing good relations between researcher and community. Becker has challenged sociologists to examine critically the role of the researcher relative to the role of research subjects, and Gouldner and Riley have questioned whether investigators should adopt a partisan stand and thereby lose sight of the objectivity of their research. Investigators such as Josephson, Beck and Adams, and Spiegel and Alicea have addressed themselves to the issue of resistance by community residents to research and have suggested ways to circumvent resistance. The methods they suggest may be characterized as trade-offs between researcher and community residents; in return for the cooperation of residents, the researcher must hire local persons to do field work, pay protection money, report the research findings to community residents, and provide technical assistance to the community upon request. These techniques are well and good and are certainly an improvement over the practice of leaving the researcher to his own devices. They are, however, interim devices because they do not take us far enough toward the development of a truly innovative methodology directed toward the issue of participation in and control of the research decision process by community residents.

The purpose of this article is to focus attention on the philological fallacy of the term "social disorganization", and to attempt to re-construct the term from "social disorganization", to "Disorganization in Society", so that the term may satisfy its intended use in the field of sociology. Social Disorganization is defined as a disruption of relationship among interdependent persons or groups, 'with disagreement on objectives, means of goal achievement, or non-performance of group tasks." Such a status of a group contradicts the definition of the term social. Such a collection of individuals cannot constitute a group, which could be referred to as social. It is actually a plurality of people who do not have common achievements or performances. Revolution, guerrilla warfare, and wars in general could be included under the term social organization. But, even if the term is justified in that sense, a distinction should be made between socially organized acts and an eruption of a volcano, which may lead to disorganization of the social structure of a group or a society. Such disorganization is not by any means social.

The article discusses the conceptual link between power and casuality. The article suggests that causal language should be adopted because power can be equated to causality. Causal laws are statements about slopes and they refer to constant relationships. The slope is the causal law indicates the effect of change in one individual on another individual. The advantage of this language is that it is likely to be accepted by pluralists and the elitists. The article views that power must be distinguished from causality because it is accompanied by vague intentionality. Causality is a constant relationship between two variables in which one produces the variation in the other. Power and causality are not quite interchangeable and casual relationships does not always imply power. Power is a constant relationship and does not vary due to external factors. The real world analogue of feedback is interaction which includes actions, reactions, anticipations. These are very important in determination of power.

The article presents a report of the editor of the "Sociometry," a research journal published by the American Sociological Association (ASA), on the number of manuscripts published by the journal between March 1970 and May 1971. The author informs that the journal received 196 new submissions in this period, as compared with 242 for the prior year. The author further reports that there has been a steady decline in review time. According to the author, this trend reflects the efficacy of reminding delinquent editorial readers that the journal is waiting to hear from them. Total review time from submission to final acceptance, including revisions and their evaluations, is down from an average of 6 months last year to 4 months this year. The author informs that around ten percent of manuscripts submitted were returned without review because of unsuitability for the journal. Overall rejection rate is constant at ninety percent. The author also informs that the journal will continue to publish theoretical items and attempts at synthesis.

The article presents information on game theory, prisoner's dilemma, and some recent discussions of the dilemma by some of those who take a "moral point of view." The term "game theory" is generally used to refer to a branch of mathematics dealing with decision-making processes through attempting to simulate mathematically a situation of decision-making so as to discover the most rational decision. The Prisoner's Dilemma is a 2-person, non-zero-sum, non-cooperative game first devised by mathematician A.W. Tucker in the early 1950's.

The article focuses on an assumption that there are patterns of courtship, marriage, child bearing, and family dissolution which are characteristic of social groups; such patterns vary among societies, sub-cultures, and social groups; and in time and space; arid in give a groups, they may change over time. The patterns or "strategies of family formation" characterizing a group, and the changes therein, have very important consequences for population composition and social organization, on the one hand, and for the rate and structure of population growth on the other hand. None of the survey materials has attempted to examine fertility control characteristics in relationship to age at marriage, and none has viewed these two variables as facets of family formation behavior to be considered simultaneously. It is hoped that future studies can extend the comparisons both geographically and in time and that more detailed social and economic specification of cohorts may permit investigation of relationships between cohort attributes and their family formation patterns and strategies.

In the behavioral sciences the gap between those who try to use generally solvable mathematical models in describing the problems and those who try somehow to understand behavioral processes by simulating them--using some exact rules, usually computer programs--is getting wider and wider. It is easy to criticize the "model-makers" for the lack of any large application field for their constructs and for the oversimplifications they have made in order to get the mathematical problem solvable in practical terms, oversimplifications which often raise the question whether there are any interesting applications at all from the point of view of the serious researcher in the social science concerned. This study is an attempt to show one possible way of constructing a theory in social psychology based on as few concepts and as few assumptions as possible, while still trying to cover equally the different problem areas. One must make a tremendous number of risky decisions between different alternatives in forming such a system on this level of knowledge. Many of them may be wrong.