Citation

Bain R. Am. J. Sociol. 1928; 33(6): 940-957.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1928, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/214598

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The development of sociology as a natural science has been hindered by: (1) emphasis upon its normative rather than upon its descriptive aspects; (2) too much attention to subjective factors, such as ideas, ideals, motives, sentiments wishes, and attitudes, and too little attention to objective, overt behavior; (3) the inaccuracy, indefiniteness, and anarchistic confusion of sociological concepts. A critical examination of the concept "attitude" reveals its scientific shortcomings from all three points of view. It is all things to all men; it is seldom used consistently by any one writer; it is normative, valuative, subjective; it refers to verbal responses, opinion, habits, vegetative processes, tendencies to act, impulses to act, inhibitory impulses, feelings, wishes, values, motor sets, and various combinations of these. The attempt to differentiate "attitudes" and "values" is shown to be impossible in practice. Most so called "attitudes" research is really "opinion" research. The concept is largely in validated because of its subjective implications. The constructive part of the analysis results in a definition of attitude as "the relatively stable overt behavior of a person which affects his status." Attitudes which are common to a group are thus social attitudes or "values" in the Thomasian sense. The attitude is the status-fixing behavior. This differentiates it from habit and vegetative processes as such, and totally ignores the hypothetical "subjective states" which have formerly been emphasized. Investigation of attitudes thus depends upon the observation, quantification, and generalization of overt behavior. The questionnaire is held to be of little use for attitude research. The life-history, personal interview, and all written documents are little better, except as clues. The best sources are indirect evidences of overt behavior. The final test of an attitude is, "How do persons behave?" Statistical treatment of recorded uniformities is urged as the only valid method of scientific generalization. Examples of this kind of attitude research are cited.