STOUFFER, Samuel A(ndrew) 1900-1960

PERSONAL:

Born June 6, 1900, in Sac City, IA; died August 24, 1960, in New York, NY; son of Samuel Marcellus (editor and owner of Sac City Sun) and Irene (Holmes) Stouffer; married Ruth McBurney, June 10, 1924; children: three sons. Education: Morning-side College, Sioux City, IA, B.A., 1921; Harvard University, M.A., 1923; University of Chicago, Ph.D., 1930.

CAREER:

Sac City Sun, Sac City, IA, editor and manager, 1923-26; University of Chicago, instructor in statistics, 1930, professor of sociology, 1935-46; University of Wisconsin, professor of social statistics, 1932-35; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, director of the Laboratory of Social Relations/professor of sociology, 1946-60. Worked with various governmental agencies during the 1930s; worked as director of the professional staff of the Information and Education Department of the War Department during World War I.

WRITINGS:

(With Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Abram J. Jaffe) Research Memorandum on the Family in the Depression, Social Science Research Council (New York, NY), 1937, reprinted, Arno Press (New York, NY), 1972.

An Experimental Comparison of Statistical and Case History Methods of Attitude Research, thesis for University of Chicago, 1930, reprinted, Arno Press (New York, NY), 1980.

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

Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties: A Cross-section of the Nation Speaks Its Mind, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1955, reprinted, Transactions Publishers (New Brunswick, NJ), 1992.

SIDELIGHTS:

Samuel A. Stouffer was an American sociologist and statistician best known for the research he conducted regarding the attitudes of soldiers during World War II.

After earning a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1930, Stouffer worked with several governmental agencies. While working for the War Department during World War II, he directed an important series of studies on the attitudes of servicemen, the results of which were published in four volumes as The American Soldier: Studies in Social Psychology in World War II. This monumental work earned Stouffer a reputation as an expert on survey research techniques, but his work prior to this paved the way for his eventual recognition.

Stouffer pursued his interest in using varied research techniques as opposed to the current day's common practice of focusing on one or two areas in the broad field of sociology. In 1937 he and colleague Paul Lazarsfeld published Research Memorandum on the Family in the Depression, in which they explored the social and psychological effects of unemployment. With this book, Stouffer began to investigate the area of opinion research and mass communications. When Lazarsfeld published his book Radio and the Printed Page in 1940, it included a chapter written by Stouffer.

Stouffer was initially recognized for his sophisticated statistical methods in 1940, when he conducted an analysis of factors of migration. His theory was that the number of migrants between two communities was influenced by opportunities available at the receiving community, and he went so far as to hypothesize that the number was modified by the presence of opportunities between the home community and the destination. A pioneer in his field, Stouffer creatively used local rental data to obtain sufficient confirmation to stimulate several comparable studies of this basic problem that accurately described and, to a lesser degree, explained migrant patterns in the United States.

In late 1941, Stouffer became the director of the Research Branch Information and Education Division of the United States Army. The job of this department was to conduct hundreds of surveys and social psychological studies of soldiers. Stouffer seemed the ideal man for the task, and he carried out this work until 1946. These surveys provided systematic, comprehensive evidence on the attitudes and emotions of military personnel during wartime and as they returned to civilian life. Stouffer's painstaking work with these surveys and studies forged the path to what has become known as the concept of "relative deprivation." That is, satisfaction depends on whom/what one compares him-or herself to.

The last decade of Stouffer's career found him turning to the study of attitudes in situations of conflicting values and roles. His focus was on the barriers to educational advancement and mobility among young people. His last book, Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties: A Cross-section of the Nation Speaks Its Mind, explores this issue and, more generally, studies the compromises made by people faced with inconsistent moral directives. In it, he was able to prove that tolerance was directly connected with education, urban residence, and personal optimism.

Stouffer died in New York City in 1960 at the age of sixty.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 6: 1956-1960, American Council of Learned Societies, 1980, reproduced in Biography Resource Center, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2002.

Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1998.

Palmisano, Joseph M., editor, World of Sociology, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2001.

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, July, 1986, Howard D. White, "Majorities for Censorship: An Analysis of Responses from American Demographic Groups in the General Social Surveys," p. 31.*