EXPERIMENTAL SOCIOLOGY: A PRELIMINARY NOTE ON THEORY AND METHOD.

For a number of years the evidence has been accumulating that American sociologists are moving from the Philosophical to the empirical stage of their thinking. More and more generally social phenomena have come to be regarded as "natural," that is, as phenomena that must be described before they can be evaluated or explained. Recent advances in social theory, in social psychology, in genetic psychology and in general linguistics are creating a situation in which there is at least an implied challenge to the sociologist to push on beyond the empirical level to the level of definitely controlled experiment. The theoretical change becomes apparent when one recalls that as recently as ten years ago most social theorists were still thinking in terms of instincts, institutions, conflict, accommodation, or similar vague rubrics. Unfortunately, of course one cannot expect to do very much in the way of discovery until more adequate means of record are available. Despite this, however, the venture is not without its intriguing aspects merely as an experiment in methods of teaching. Experience indicates that the experiments in social psychology should generally precede the interaction experiments instead of being interspersed with them as was the case this year.