Paul F. Lazarsfeld
An Empirical Theory of Social Action
Edited by Christian Fleck and Nico Stehr
Translated by Hella Beister

September 2010, 560pp, 234 x 156mm
Hardback, £150.00, ISBN 978-1-905622-22-1

The articles collected together in Paul F. Lazarsfeld, An Empirical Theory of Social Action demonstrate that many of Paul Lazarsfeld's influential intellectual and methodological concerns that were to so shape the direction of sociology as a discipline in the United States were already evident in his early writings, many of which are published here for the first time in English.

Accompanied by a detailed and illuminating biographical introduction by the editors, this collection is an important contribution to the history of sociology in the 20th century.

Contents

Sources
Acknowledgements
Foreword: Lazarsfeld's Main Intellectual Intuitions, Raymond Boudon
Introduction, Christian Fleck and Nico Stehr

Part I: Youth and Occupation

1. Behind the Scenes of School
Original: "Hinter den Kulissen der Schule" (1929), in Sophie Lazarsfeld, ed., Technik der Erziehung, pp. 212-236.

2. Motives in Occupational Choice
Original: "Die Berufswahlmotive" (1931), in: Jugend und Beruf, pp. 20-36.

3. Notes on Young Workers' Career Attitudes
Original: "Die Berufseinstellung jugendlicher Arbeiter" (1929/1931), in Jugend und Beruf, pp. 157-174.

4. Young People on Authority and Family
Original: "Erhebungen bei Jugendlichen über Autorität und Familie," (1936), in Max Horkheimer, ed., Studien zur Autorität und Familie, pp. 378-415 (excerpts).

5. What Young People Want
From: Coming of Age in Essex County. An Analysis of 10,000 Interviews with Persons 16-24 years old (1937), pp. 58-77.

Part II: Unemployment

6. An Unemployed Village
From: Character and Personality (1932-33), 147-151.

7. Emotional Attitudes and Specific Moods of the Unemployed
From: Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Bohan Zawadzki, "Psychological Consequences of Unemployment", in: Journal of Social Psychology 1935, pp. 234-245.

8. Marriage and the Sex Mores
From: Samuel Stouffer and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Research Memorandum on the Family in the Depression (1937), pp. 139-186.

9. Who Gets a Job?
From: Sociometry 4. 1941:64-77 (with Hazel Gaudet)

Part III: Qualitative Methods

10. Principles of Sociography
Original: "Prinzipielles zur Soziografie" (unpublished, 1934, 38 pp.)

11. Psychological Aspects of Market Research
From: Harvard Business Review 1934, pp. 54-71

12. The Art of Asking Why: Three Principles Underlying the Formulation of Questionnaires
Original: The National Marketing Review, volume 1, no 1, summer 1935, here from: Qualitative Analysis 1972, pp. 183-202.

13. Some Remarks on the Typological Procedures in socIal Research
From: Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 6 (1937):119-138, (excerpts)

14. Notes on the logic of generalization in family case studies
From: Samuel Stouffer and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Research Memorandum on the Family in the Depression (1937), pp. 187-201.

15. The Quantification of Case Studies
From: Journal of Applied Psychology 24. 1940: 817-825 (with William S. Robinson).

16. Remarks on Administrative and Critical Communication Research
From: Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 9. 1941: 2-16.

Part IV: Quantitative Methods

17. Market Research on a Psychological Basis
Original: "Marktuntersuchungen auf psychologischer Grundlage," in: Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Organisation, Berlin (1932), pp. 127-128.

18. The Techniques of Market Research from the Standpoint of a Psychologist
Original: Institute of Management Series 16. 1935: 3-24; reprinted in: Language of Social Research, 392-403 (under a new title: "The analysis of consumer actions").

19. Interchangeability of Indices in the Measurement of Economic Influences
From: Journal of Applied Psychology 23. 1939: 33-45.

20. The Change of Opinion During a Political Discussion
From: Journal of Applied Psychology 23. 1939: 131-147.

Part V: Retrospect and Summary

21. Historical Notes on the Empirical Study of Action: An Intellectual Odyssey (1958)
From Qualitative Analysis, 1972, 53-106.

Index