The Influence of Sigmund Freud Upon Sociology in the United States

The failure of psychoanalysis to make headway with sociologists in the United States during the first decade after its introduction into this country may be explained partly on the basis of the lag between the time of publication and actual consideration of Freudian theories, but more basically because of an aversion toward the explanation of human behavior in terms of sexual motivation,its particularistic emphasis, the simpler and apparently adequate cultural interpretations of behavior, a predisposition against absolute explanations as opposed to the relative, its apparently questionalble technique, the rise of rival schools of psychoanalysis, its lack of integration with previous studies of instinct, existing sociological conceptual schemes of motivation, a trend away from the theory of insticts, and a preoccupation on the part of sociologists with their own problems. The further working-out and integrating of methods for investigating the subjective life of their phenomena are viewed as the basic meth...