Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

72 P. F. Lazarsfeld
they could observe social relations at first hand. Austrian and British sociol-
ogists observed the lives of unemployed workers in blighted industrial towns.
Polish investigators used letters and autobiographies to study peasants before
and after they had emigrated to the United States. In the early twentieth
century, the Chicago School dominated American sociology because of its skill
in analysing the problems of such groups as juvenile gangs and ethnic minori-
ties submerged in large cities.
The chief merit of this tradition was its sensitivity to cues permitting infer-
ences as to the social organization and normative structures of collectives. Efforts
to systematize such work have a considerable history. The Belgian astronomer,
QuBtelet, sought to uncover general statistical laws in the criminal records kept
by the French administration. The mining engineer, Le Play, mined for nuggets
which would enable him to construct a psychology of culture. In all instances,
the concern of such efforts was the collectivity rather than the individual.
For a time, however, enthusiasm with newly devised techniques of sampling
and of measuring attitudes and behaviour patterns eclipsed interest in the
further development of these older methods. For, by its very nature, the survey
technique threatened to atomize sociology ; instead of viewing the human col-
lective as a whole, the survey analyst tended to look at it as an aggregate of
separate individuals.
But soon, as we previously suggested, dissenting voices were heard. They re-
vealed some of the limitations inherent in the survey method as it first develop-
ed. This ‘holistic’ opposition was best expressed at the time when the great
classic of survey analysis - Stouffer’s The American Soldier - made its appear-
ance. A sociologist then remarked that if it had been a work of true sociology,
it would have been entitled The American Army.
Like all objections raised by thoughtful conservatives, these arguments had a
grain of truth; but like most conservative criticism, it did not seek an appropri-
ate remedy. What was needed was not dismissal of the survey method in its
entirety, but rather a broadening of the language of variates so that one could
talk about collectives as well as individuals. This is what has actually happened,
and it constitutes a major turning point in empirical social research.
The topic is most easily clarified by tracingrecent developments in the study
of social organizations. There is no reason why these cannot be described in
quantitative terms, once their nature is properly analysed. Organizations must
recruit personnel; the criteria of selection are clearly accessible to precise
description and often, to relatively precise measurement. Once men are at work,
their productivity must be maintained; this requires the study of inducements
and penalties. Workers must be guided and supervised; this calls for the study
of leadership, of hierarchical levels and channels of communication. Finally,
organizations require controls; feedback systems, which ensure that guide-
lines are executed on all levels, must be evaluated.
Such formulations permitted the measurement of characteristics which were
more complex than those pertaining to individuals but which, in their methodo-
logical structure, were not basically different. Once such measurements were
available, it was possible, in principle, to trace the effects of an organization on