The Department of Social Relations for Interdisciplinary Social Science Studies, more commonly known as the "Department of Social Relations", was an interdisciplinary collaboration among three of the social science departments at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

(

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

, and

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

) beginning in 1946. Originally, the program was headquartered in Emerson Hall at Harvard before moving to William James Hall in 1965. While the name "

Social Relations A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...

" is often associated with the program's long-time chair and guiding spirit, sociologist

Talcott Parsons Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Parsons is considered one of the most influential figures in sociol ...

, many major figures of mid-20th-century social science also numbered among the program's faculty, including psychologists

Gordon Allport Gordon Willard Allport (November 11, 1897 – October 9, 1967) was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personal ...

(personality and motivation),

Jerome Bruner Jerome Seymour Bruner (October 1, 1915 – June 5, 2016) was an American psychologist who made significant contributions to human cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational psychology. Bruner was a senior research fellow ...

(cognitive psychology and narrative analysis), Roger Brown (social psychology and psycholinguistics), and

Henry Murray Henry Alexander Murray (May 13, 1893 – June 23, 1988) was an American psychologist at Harvard University, where from 1959 to 1962 he conducted a series of psychologically damaging and purposefully abusive experiments on minors and under ...

(personality); anthropologists Clyde and Florence Kluckhohn (value orientations), John and Beatrice Whiting (cross-cultural child development), Evon Z. Vogt (comparative religion); and sociologist

Alex Inkeles Alex Inkeles (March 4, 1920 – July 9, 2010) was an American sociologist and social psychologist. One of his main areas of research was the culture and society of the Soviet Union. His career was mostly spent at Harvard University and Stanfo ...

(Soviet studies and national character). Other prominent scholars, such as

Jerome Kagan Jerome Kagan (February 25, 1929 – May 10, 2021) was an American psychologist, who was the Daniel and Amy Starch Research Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, as well as, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute. He was ...

(developmental psychology) and

Ezra Vogel Ezra Feivel Vogel (; July 11, 1930 — December 20, 2020 ) was an American sociologist who wrote prolifically on modern Japan, China, and Korea, and worked both in academia and the public sphere. He was Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Scie ...

(East Asia studies and sociology) belonged to the department early in their careers before it split. Many of the department's graduate students also went on to be major figures in US social sciences during the latter part of the twentieth century; their work tends towards strong interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches. Allport and Boring discussed the origins of the department's name in the April 1946 issue of ''the American Psychologist'': Social Relations sponsored or collaborated in a number of research studies characterized by explicit cross-cultural comparisons and multidisciplinary approaches to problems of policy or social theory. Major projects included the Six Cultures Study (headed by John and Beatrice Whiting, an anthropological study of child development in six different cultures, including a New England Baptist community; a Philippine barrio; an Okinawan village; an Indian village in Mexico; a northern Indian caste group; and a rural tribal group in Kenya); a multidisciplinary analysis of Soviet culture and society, published in part as ''How the Soviet System Works''; and the Comparative Study of Values in Five Cultures during the 1950s, which examined five very different communities living in the same region of Texas: Zuni,

Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

(LDS), Spanish-American (Mexican-American), and Texas Homesteaders. The curriculum of the Harvard Social Relations had four inter-related components: * Sociology; * Social Psychology; * Social Anthropology; and * Personality Theory. The program disaggregated into its component departments around 1972, though a certain interdisciplinarity remained throughout the 1970s.Schmidt, P. L. (1978). "Towards a history of the department of social relations: Harvard University, 1946-1972." Unpublished honors thesis. Harvard College. A similar program at Yale, the Institute for Human Relations, also now disbanded, developed the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), a cross-cultural database for comparative research, administered by Carol and

Melvin Ember Melvin Lawrence Ember (January 13, 1933 – September 27, 2009) was an American cultural anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher with wide-ranging interests who combined an active research career with writing for nonprofessionals. Biography ...

Scholars associated with social relations at Harvard

, (1897–1967) psychologist * Roger Brown, social psychologist *

, psychologist *

George Homans George Caspar Homans (August 11, 1910 – May 29, 1989) was an American sociologist, founder of behavioral sociology, and a major contributor to the social exchange theory. Homans is best known for his research in social behavior and his works ' ...

, sociologist * Alex Inkeles, sociologist and scholar of national character *

Clyde Kluckhohn Clyde Kluckhohn (; January 11, 1905 in Le Mars, Iowa – July 28, 1960 near Santa Fe, New Mexico), was an American anthropologist and social theorist, best known for his long-term ethnographic work among the Navajo and his contributions to the de ...

, (1905–1960) anthropologist * Florence Rockwood Kluckhohn, anthropologist *

Seymour Martin Lipset Seymour Martin Lipset ( ; March 18, 1922 – December 31, 2006) was an American sociologist and political scientist (President of the American Political Science Association). His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union o ...

, sociologist *

Eleanor Maccoby Eleanor Emmons Maccoby (May 15, 1917 – December 11, 2018) was an American psychologist who was most recognized for her research and scholarly contributions to the fields of gender studies and developmental psychology. Throughout her career she ...

, developmental psychologist *

Barrington Moore Barrington Moore Jr. (12 May 1913 – 16 October 2005) was an American political sociologist, and the son of forester Barrington Moore. He is well-known for his ''Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy'' (1966), a comparative study o ...

, sociologist *

David McClelland David Clarence McClelland (May 20, 1917 – March 27, 1998) was an American psychologist, noted for his work on motivation Need Theory. He published a number of works between the 1950s and the 1990s and developed new scoring systems for th ...

, psychologist *

Henry A. Murray Henry Alexander Murray (May 13, 1893 – June 23, 1988) was an American psychologist at Harvard University, where from 1959 to 1962 he conducted a series of psychologically damaging and purposefully abusive experiments on minors and under ...

, psychologist *

, (1902–1979) sociologist *

David Riesman David Riesman (September 22, 1909 – May 10, 2002) was an American sociologist, educator, and best-selling commentator on American society. Career Born to a wealthy German Jewish family, he attended Harvard College, where he graduated in 1931 ...

, sociologist *

Charles Tilly Charles Tilly (May 27, 1929 – April 29, 2008) was an American sociologist, political scientist, and historian who wrote on the relationship between politics and society. He was a professor of history, sociology, and social science at the Univ ...

, (1929–2008), sociologist, historian, political scientist *

Evon Z. Vogt Evon Zartman Vogt, Jr. (August 18, 1918 – May 13, 2004) was an American cultural anthropologist best known for his work among the Tzotzil Mayas of Chiapas, Mexico. Vogt was the author of numerous articles and 19 books. He was a fellow of the A ...

, anthropologist *

Harrison C. White Harrison Colyar White (born March 21, 1930) is the emeritus Giddings Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. White played an influential role in the “Harvard Revolution” in social networks and the relational sociology, New York School ...

, sociologist * Robert W. White, (1904–2001) personality psychologist *

John Whiting (anthropologist) John Wesley Mayhew Whiting (June 12, 1908 Chilmark, Massachusetts – May 13, 1999, Chilmark, Massachusetts) was an American sociologist and anthropologist, specializing in child development.Beatrice Blyth Whiting, (1914–2003) anthropologist

Notable graduates of social relations at Harvard

* Robert N. Bellah, sociologist, American civil society * Bertram J. Cohler, (1938–2012) psychoanalyst and cultural psychologist * Roy G. D'Andrade, cognitive anthropologist * Carol R. Ember, cultural anthropologist *

Zelda Gamson Zelda Gamson (born March 12, 1936) is an American sociologist, writer and activist. Her scholarly work has primarily focused on the sociology of higher education, in particular innovation and change. Personal life and education Born Zelda Finke ...

, sociologist and educational reformer *

Harold Garfinkel Harold Garfinkel (October 29, 1917 – April 21, 2011) was an American sociologist and ethnomethodologist, who taught at the University of California, Los Angeles. Having developed and established ethnomethodology as a field of inquiry in sociolo ...

, (1917–2011) sociologist *

Clifford Geertz Clifford James Geertz (; August 23, 1926 – October 30, 2006) was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology and who was considered "for three decades. ...

, (1926–2006) cultural anthropologist *

Mark Granovetter Mark Sanford Granovetter (; born October 20, 1943) is an American sociologist and professor at Stanford University. He is best known for his work in social network theory and in economic sociology, particularly his theory on the spread of inform ...

, sociologist *

Janellen Huttenlocher Janellen Huttenlocher (February 17, 1932 – November 20, 2016) was a psychologist and professor known for her research in the field of the child's environment in the development of cognitive skills. She was the William S. Gray Professor Emer ...

, developmental and cognitive psychologist *

Edward E. Jones :For the Louisiana civil rights pioneer, see ''E. Edward Jones''. Edward Ellsworth "Ned" Jones (August 11, 1926 – July 30, 1993) was an influential American social psychology, social psychologist, he is known as father of Ingratiation due to ...

, social psychologist * Nathan Kogan, social psychologist *

Leon Kamin Leon J. Kamin (December 29, 1927 – December 22, 2017) was an American psychologist known for his contributions to learning theory and his critique of estimates of the heritability of IQ. He studied under Richard Solomon at Harvard and contributed ...

, experimental psychologist * Edward O. Laumann, sociologist and sexologist *

Jean Lipman-Blumen Jean Lipman-Blumen is the Thornton F. Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Organizational Behavior at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. She is an expert on leadership, achieving styles, crisis management, ...

, sociologist and leadership scholar * Jean Mandler, cognitive psychologist * Dan P. McAdams, social and personality psychologist *

Stanley Milgram Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was an American social psychologist, best known for his controversial experiments on obedience conducted in the 1960s during his professorship at Yale.Blass, T. (2004). ''The Man Who Shocke ...

, (1933–1984) social psychologist * Richard Price (American anthropologist) *

Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo Michelle "Shelly" Zimbalist Rosaldo (1944 in New York City – 1981 in Philippines) was a social, linguistic, and psychological anthropologist famous for her studies of the Ilongot people in the Philippines and for her pioneering role in women's ...

, (1944–1981) feminist theorist and psychological anthropologist *

Renato Rosaldo Renato Rosaldo (born 1941) is an American cultural anthropologist. He has done field research among the Ilongots of northern Luzon, Philippines, and he is the author of ''Ilongot Headhunting: 1883–1974: A Study in Society and History'' (1980) ...

, cultural anthropologist *

Barbara Rogoff Barbara Rogoff is an American academic who is UCSC Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research is in different learning between cultures and bridges psychology and anthropology. Education and c ...

, developmental and cultural psychologist * Richard A. Shweder, psychological anthropologist and cultural psychologist *

Neil Smelser Neil Joseph Smelser (1930–2017) was an American sociologist who served as professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was an active researcher from 1958 to 1994. His research was on collective behavior, sociological theo ...

, sociologist * Fred L. Strodtbeck, (1919–2005) social psychologist * Abby Stewart, personality and feminist psychologist * Marc J. Swartz, (1931–2011) cultural anthropologist *

, (1929–2008), sociologist, historian, political scientist * Michael Wallach, social psychologist *

Barry Wellman Barry Wellman (born 1942) is a Canadian-American sociologist and is the co-director of the Toronto-based international NetLab Network. His areas of research are community sociology, the Internet, human-computer interaction and social structur ...

, (1942–), sociologist

Interlocutors

* Irvin L. Child, (1915–2000) psychologist (Yale) * Melvin Ember, (1933–2009) cultural anthropologist (Yale) *

Edward Shils Edward Albert Shils (1 July 1910 – 23 January 1995) was a Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and in Sociology at the University of Chicago and an influential sociologist. He was known for his research on the rol ...

, (1911–1995) sociologist (University of Chicago)

Selected publications

*Bauer, Raymond A., Alex Inkeles, and

. 1956. ''How the Soviet System Works: cultural, psychological, and social themes''. New York: Vintage. * Homans, George Caspar. 1984. ''Coming to My Senses: The Autobiography of a Sociologist''. Medford, MA: Routledge. *Inkeles, Alex; with D.J. Levinson; Helen Beier; Eugenia Hanfman; Larry Diamond. 1997. ''National Character: a psycho-social perspective''. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. *Kluckhohn, Florence Rockwood and Fred L. Strodtbeck. 1961. ''Variations in value orientations''. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson. *Munroe, Ruth H., Robert L. Munroe, Beatrice B. Whiting, eds. 1981. ''Handbook of cross-cultural human development''. New York: Garland. * Parsons, Talcott. 1949. ''The Structure of Social Action''. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. *Parsons, Talcott and

. 1951. ''Toward a General Theory of Action''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. * Vogt, Evon Zartman and Ethel M. Albert Vogt. 1966. ''People of Rimrock; a study of values in five cultures''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. *Whiting, Beatrice and

John Whiting John Robert Whiting (15 November 1917 – 16 June 1963) was an English actor, dramatist and critic. Life and career Born in Salisbury, he was educated at Taunton School, "the particular hellish life which is the English public school" as he ...

. 1975. ''Children of Six Cultures: a psychocultural analysis''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

References

External links

Further reading:

History of the Harvard Psychology Department

Social Relations at Harvard after Seventeen Years
William James Hall
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harvard Department Of Social Relations Anthropology organizations Psychology departments in the United States Harvard University Educational institutions established in 1946 1946 establishments in Massachusetts