Samuel A. Stouffer

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[edit] Professor Samuel A. Stouffer (1900-1960) Sociologist

Samuel Andrew Stouffer (June 6, 1900 – August 24, 1960). Prominent American sociologist and developer of survey research techniques. Stouffer spent much of his career attempting to answer the fundamental question - How does one measure an attitude?

Dr. Stouffer served as a professor of sociology at both the University of Chicago and Harvard University, and also directed the Laboratory of Social Relations at Harvard.

Biography:

• Born Sac City Iowa June 6, 1900.
• BA Morningside College, Sioux City, 1921.
• MA English, Harvard, 1923.
• Returned to Sac City in 1923 to manage/edit the Sac City Sun until 1926.
• 1924 married Ruth McBurney (three children).
• 1930 PhD Sociology, University of Chicago. Dissertation: “An Experimental Comparison of Statistical and Case-History Methods of Attitude Research.”
• 1930-1: Instructor of statistics, University of Chicago.
• 1931-2: Postdoctoral work in statistics, University of London.
• 1932-5: Assistant professor/professor of social statistics at the University of Wisconsin.
• 1935-46: Professor of sociology at the University of Chicago. (1941-6 Director, Research Branch, Information and Education Division, US Army).
• 1946-1960: Director of the Laboratory of Social Relations and Professor of Sociology at Harvard.
• Died of cancer, August 24, 1960. (Sources: Who Was Who in America, vol IV, 1961-1968. (St. Louis: Von Hoffman Press, 1968), 910. John A. Garraty, ed. Dictionary of American Biography 1956-1960, suppl. 6. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980), 604. New York Times, Thursday, August 25, 1960, page 29 (obit.)

Stouffer’s Two Most Influential Works:

Studies in Social Psychology in World War II: The American Soldier. (Princeton University Press, 1949).

Stouffer surveyed over a half million American soldiers during World War II using interviews, over two hundred questionnaires, and other techniques to determine their attitudes on everything from integration to their officers’ performance. Their answers, almost always complex and often also counterintuitive, reveal individuals both defining and defined by their society and their primary groups. Stouffer’s work in World War II led to the Expert and Combat Infantrymen’s Badges, revision of pay scales, the demobilization point system, and influenced what appeared in Yank, the Army Weekly, Stars & Stripes, and Frank Capra’s “Why We Fight” propaganda films. Additionally, it was Stouffer and his colleagues who during their research for The American Soldier developed the important sociological concept of “relative deprivation,” which roughly stated is the idea that one determines his status based on comparison with others. (Stouffer, Samuel A., Edward A. Suchman, Leland C. DeVinney, Shirley A. Star, and Robin M. Williams, Jr. Studies in Social Psychology in World War II: The American Soldier. Vol. 1, Adjustment During Army Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949. 125).

Communism, Conformity & Civil Liberties: A Cross Section of the Nation Speaks its Mind. (Doubleday & Co., 1955).

In the summer of 1954, 500 interviewers under Professor Stouffer’s supervision polled a cross section of 6000 Americans to determine their attitudes on nonconformist behavior. Through both anecdotal and highly disciplined research data, Stouffer illuminated the attitudes of Americans to nonconformist behavior in general, and to the intolerance of the McCarthy Era in particular. Although he found no “national neurosis,” what he did find was that Americans remained mostly concerned about their day-today existence – an important discovery in the face of an increasingly mass-culture society. He also found differing levels of tolerance based on socio-economic factors.

Among his other major works is Social Research to Test Ideas, (The Free Press, 1962).

Activities:

Professor Stouffer was a delegate to the International Conference on Population in Paris, 1938, President of the American Sociological Society 1952-3, President of the American Association of Public Opinion Research 1953-54, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Association, Phi Beta Kappa, the American Statistical Association, the Sociological Research Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Population Association of America, the Psychometric Association, and the Harvard and Cosmos Clubs.

He also consulted with scores of private and public institutes, a partial listing of which includes:

American Standards Association, Cooperative Test Service of the American Council on Education, University of California, American Economic Association, Population Association of America, Atomic Scientists of Chicago, National Committee on Atomic Information, The American Psychoanalytic Association. (Stouffer Correspondence, 1946-1960, Harvard University Archives (Pusey Library).

Personality:

Stouffer is described by his family and those who knew him well as a gentleman of warmth, compassion, restless energy, high standards, depth, and a puckish sense of humor. His academic lectures, through which he often chain-smoked, were littered with allusions and quotations from Shakespeare, and these would often be accompanied by baseball statistics. Deeply intellectually curious and impatient for survey results, Prof. Stouffer would frequently sit by the IBM punchcard sifting machine to see the raw answers to his queries. (These traits help to explain how he produced the classic Communism, Conformity and Civil Liberties so quickly). In his few free hours he favored Mickey Spillane novels and listening to baseball on the radio. His correspondence reveals a clear thinking pragmatist with a deep sense of responsibility to his society and to his profession. As James Davis writes in the introduction to Communism, Conformity and Civil Liberties (reprinted in 1992 by Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick), “Sam was a great sociologist….”

Legacy:

Samuel Stouffer’s influence reaches well beyond military history and sociology. His work is cited in journals as diverse as Child Development Abstract, The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, and Commentary. His research has had a lasting effect on polling procedures and analysis, market research and interpretation, race relations, population and nuclear policies, education, and economics. Additionally, his clear, honest writing style, free of unexplained jargon and “bureaucratese,” remains a model of the simple, elegant use of the English language.

Bibliography:

Abbott, Andrew. Department and Discipline: Chicago Sociology at One Hundred. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Abbott, Andrew. Chaos of Disciplines. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001.

______. Time Matters: On Theory and Method. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Alpers, Benjamin. “This Is the Army: Imagining a Democratic Military in World War II. The Journal of American History 85, no.1 (June 1998): 129-163.

Converse, Jean M. Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence, 1890- 1960. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.

Berger, Bennett M. Authors of Their Own Lives: Intellectual Autobiographies by Twenty American Sociologists. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

Bulmer, Martin. The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of Social Research. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984.

Burke, James. “Morris Janowitz and the Origins of Sociological Research on Armed Forces and Society.” Armed Forces & Society 19, no.2 (Winter 1993): 167-185.

Davis, James A. “Communism, Conformity, Cohorts and Categories: American Tolerance in 1954 and 1972-3.” The American Journal of Sociology 81, no.3 (November 1975): 491-513.

Eysenck, H.J. “Measurement and Prediction: A Discussion of Volume IV of Studies in Social Psychology in World War II.” The American Journal of Sociology 57, no.4 (January 1952): 95- 102.

Fine, Gary A., ed. A Second Chicago School?: The Development of a Postwar American Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Garrity, John A., ed. Dictionary of American Biography 1956-1960 (suppl. six) “Samuel Andrew Stouffer.” New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980. 604.

Gerhardt, Uta. Talcott Parsons: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Hammond, Phillip E., ed. Sociologists at Work: Essays on the Craft of Social Research. New York: Basic Books, 1964.

Hauser, Philip M. “In Memoriam: Samuel Andrew Stouffer 1900-1960. The American Journal of Sociology. vol 66 no.4 (January 1961) : 364-365.

______. “On Stouffer’s Social Research to Test Ideas.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 26, no.3 (Autumn 1962): 329-334.

Hyman, Herbert H. “Samuel A. Stouffer and Social Research.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 26, no.3 (Autumn 1962) : 323-328.

______. and Eleanor Singer, eds. Readings in Reference Group Theory and Research. New York: The Free Press, 1968.

________. Taking Society’s Measure: A Personal History of Survey Research. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1991.

Janowitz, Morris and Roger W. Little. Sociology and the Military Establishment. London: Sage Publications, 1974.

Lazarsfeld, Paul F. “The American Soldier: An Expository Review.” Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 13 no. 3. (Fall 1949) : 377-404.

Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Ann K. Pasanella and Morris Rosenberg¸eds. Continuities in the Language of Social Research. New York: The Free Press, 1992.

______. On Social Research and Its Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Loss, Christopher P. “The Most Wonderful Thing Has Happened to Me in the Army: Psychology, Citizenship, and American Higher Education in World War II.” The Journal of American History 92, no. 3 (December 2005): 864-891.

Madge, John. The Origins of Scientific Sociology. New York: The Free Press, 1962.

Matthews, Fred H. Quest for an American Sociology: Robert E. Park and the Chicago School. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1977.

Merton, Robert K. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: The Free Press, 1965.

______. On Theoretical Sociology. New York: The Free Press, 1967.

______. On Social Structure and Science. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996.

______. and Paul F. Lazarsfeld. Continuities in Social Research: Studies in Scope and Method of “The American Soldier.” New York: The Free Press, 1950.

______. and Mathilda White Riley. Sociological Traditions from Generation to Generation. New York: Ablex, 1980.

Platt, Jennifer. A History of Sociological Research Methods in America, 1920-1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Ross, Dorothy. The Origins of American Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Runciman, W.G. Relative Deprivation and Social Justice. Aldershot: Gregg Revivals, 1993.

Schumann, Howard and Stanley Presser. Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys: Experiments on Question Form, Wording and Context. New York: Sage, 1996.

Schwartz, T.P. and Robert M. Marsh. “The American Soldier Studies of WWII: A 50th Anniversary Commemorative.” Journal of Political and Military Sociology. vol 27 no. 1 (Summer 1999) : 21-37.

Stouffer, Samuel A. “An Experimental Comparison of Statistical and Case History Methods of Attitude Research.” Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology Dissertation, The University of Chicago, 1930.

______. Edward A. Suchman, Leland C. DeVinney, Shirley A. Star, and Robin M. Williams, Jr. Studies in Social Psychology in World War II: The American Soldier. Vol. 1, Adjustment During Army Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949.

______. Studies in Social Psychology in World War II: The American Soldier. Vol. 2, Combat and Its Aftermath. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949.

______. Studies in Social Psychology in World War II: The American Soldier. Vol. 3, Experiments in Mass Communication. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949.

______. Studies in Social Psychology in World War II: The American Soldier. Vol. 4, Measurement and Prediction. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949.

______. Social Research to Test Ideas. Glencoe: The Free Press, 1962.

______. Communism, Conformity & Civil Liberties: A Cross Section of the Nation Speaks its Mind. New Brunswick: Transaction, 1992.

______. “A Technique for Analyzing Sociological Data Classified in Non-Quantitative Groups.” The American Journal of Sociology 39, no.2 (September 1933):180-193.

______. “Testing the Significance of Comparisons in Sociological Data.” The American Journal of Sociology 40, no.3 (November 1934): 357-363.

______. “Statistical Induction in Rural Social Research.” Social Forces 13, no.4 (May 1935) : 505-515.

______. “Trends in the Fertility of Catholics and Non-Catholics.” The American Journal of Sociology 41, no.2 (September 1935) : 143-166.

______. “Recent Increases in Marriage and Divorce.” The American Journal of Sociology 44, no.4 (January 1939) : 551-554.

______. “Intervening Opportunities: A Theory Relating to Mobility and Distance.” American Sociological Review 5, no.6 (December 1940): 845-867.

______. “How a Mathematician Can Help a Sociologist.” Sociometry 4, no.1 (February 1941) : 56-63.

______. “Notes on Case Studies and the Unique Case.” Sociometry 4, no.1 (November 1941) : 349- 357.

______. “Government and the Measurement of Opinion.” The Scientific Monthly (December 1946) : 435-440.

______. “Sociology and Common Sense: Discussion.” American Sociological Review 12, no.1 (February 1947): 11-12.

______. “An Analysis of Conflicting Social Norms.” American Sociological Review 14, no.6 (December 1949): 707-717.

______. “Some Observations on Study Design.” The American Journal of Sociology 55, no.4 (January 1950): 355-361.

______, and Jackson Toby. “Role Conflict and Personality.” The American Journal of Sociology 56, no.5 (March 1951): 395-406.

______. “Measurement in Sociology.” American Sociological Review 18, no.6 (December 1953): 591- 597.

______. et al., “Presidential Advice to Younger Sociologists.” American Sociological Review 18, no.6 (December 1953): 597-604.

______. “1665 and 1954.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 18, no.3 (Autumn 1954) : 233-238.

Williams, Robin M. Jr. “The American Soldier: An Assessment, Several Wars later.” Public Opinion Quarterly 53, no. 2 (Summer 1989): 155-174.

Wolfle, Dael. “Review of Measurement and Prediction, vol. 4 of Studies in Social Psychology in World War II, by Samuel A. Stouffer et al.” The Scientific Monthly, (March 1951): 192-3.

“What the Soldier Thought.” Book Review of Volume 1, The American Soldier: Adjustment During Army Life, Studies in Social Psychology in World War II.” Infantry Journal 64, no.6 (June 1949): 55-56.

Who Was Who in America, vol. IV, 1961-1968. (St. Louis: Von Hoffman Press, 1968), 910.

The New York Times. “Samuel Stouffer, Sociologist, Dead: Chief Author of ‘American Soldier’ led Harvard Unit - Studied Public Opinion.” August 25, 1960, p. 29.

The Samuel A. Stouffer Papers at the Harvard Archives, Pusey Library.

The University of Chicago Sociology Department Catalogue, 1930-31, 1935-36, 1936-37, 1937-38, 1938-39, 1939-40, 1940-41, 1941-2. Special Collections Research Center, The University of Chicago.

Public Opinion Archives at the Roper Center, University of Connecticut http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/

The United States National Archives (NARA) Electronic Records http://www.archives.gov/publications/ref-info-papers/78/part-3.html (July 4, 2007)

American Sociological Association: Samuel Andrew Stouffer http://www2.asanet.org/governance/stouffer.html (July 4, 2007)

External Links:

American Sociological Association: Samuel Andrew Stouffer http://www2.asanet.org/governance/stouffer.html

The Roper Center, Public Opinion Archives http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/

The National Archives http://www.archives.gov/publications/ref-info-papers/78/part-3.html