David Riesman and The Sociology of The Interview

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2277282
AutoresRaymond M Lee (0000-0001-5042-0351, Royal Holloway University of London, autor correspondente)
Ano2008
Volume49
Fascículo2
Páginas285-307
Data de publicação2008-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSociological Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0038-0253 • E-ISSN: 1533-8525
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1533-8525.2008.00116.x
OpenAlexW2125525545
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas8
Referências citadas60

For a decade beginning in the late 1940s, David Riesman, with a variety of collaborators, produced a sustained body of work on the methodology of the interview. This article looks at Riesman's writing on the interview. It explores the relationship between this work and Riesman's initial development as a sociologist, examines how he and his collaborators viewed the interview as a method, and assesses the relevance of Riesman's work to contemporary understandings of the interview as a research method. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI am grateful to Nigel Fielding, Wilma Mangabeira, Neil McLaughlin, Jennifer Platt, and Dana Rosenfeld for comments on an earlier draft, and to the journal's anonymous referees for helpful and constructive criticism.NOTESNotes1 Especially today, in an era of specialization, this mixture of interests seems rather unusual. It will be remembered, though, that Robert Merton, too, combined work as a theorist with a methodological interest in the interview (CitationMerton et al. 1956).2 Letter from Riesman to Erich Fromm, October 18, 1947, Erich Fromm Papers, 1929–1949, Series I: Correspondence B. 1947–1949. I am grateful to the Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, and to the Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations for permission to refer to this material.3 See also CitationManning (1967).4 An anonymous referee wondered how far Riesman and Glazer's use of the term “residues” reflected the influence of Vilfredo Pareto. Certainly, Pareto's work was influential at Harvard in the 1930s and '40s (CitationHeyl 1968). The physiologist, Lawrence J. Henderson, ran a Pareto seminar from 1932 to 1934 that included, among others, George Homans and Talcott Parsons. Riesman might have come into contact with this circle through his friend, Elton Mayo. Mayo, however, while publicly sympathetic to Pareto's work, was in private skeptical about Henderson's enthusiasm for the work of the Italian economist (CitationGillespie 1991:195). Freud speaks of “residues” in The Interpretation of Dreams, a much more likely source of influence on Riesman.5 Born Henry Degras in London around 1910, Mark Benney developed a reputation in Britain in the 1940s as a criminologist, based on his own experience of prison. Variously a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter, he worked at the London School of Economics on a survey of voting behavior before making his way to the United States, and eventually to a post teaching sociology to undergraduates at the University of Chicago.6 Hughes was a close friend and confidant of Riesman (CitationAbbott 1999). Riesman had audited the fieldwork course Hughes taught at Chicago (CitationRiesman 1988), and was familiar with his work on occupations. It is likely that Riesman, therefore, appreciated the opportunity to have the kind of close contact with the work lives of interviewers that Lazarsfeld's offer provided.7 CitationRiesman (1979) later described Benney's account as “colorful, but not wholly accurate” (p. 228).8 Lazarsfeld's insistence on multiple redrafts was also a feature of his conflict with C. Wright Mills over the Decatur Study (CitationSterne 2005).9 A possible additional factor here is that Riesman was becoming increasingly concerned about what he saw as a growing distance between study directors and the processes by which data were actually collected (see, e.g., CitationRiesman 1958a). He may have judged that the empirical demonstration of interviewer effects by means of secondary analysis would carry greater weight than a more impressionistic analysis.10 It is interesting in this context to note that both Everett Hughes and Harry Stack Sullivan, important influences on Riesman, felt that it could be appropriate in the interview to adopt a somewhat challenging posture toward the interviewee.11 Nigel Fielding reminds me that the influence of psychoanalysis remains strong within the (mainly European) tradition of “biographical interpretive” interviewing (see, e.g., CitationChamberlayne, Bornat, and Wengraf 2000).12 An anonymous referee, who knew Riesman at Chicago, comments that he was quite sensitive in conversation about his lack of training as a sociologist.13 This is a topic to be discussed in greater detail elsewhere.14 Charles Cannell, one of the founders of SRC, had been an associate of Carl Rogers, and had trained interviewers at the Division of Program Surveys, a prewar research unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in the use of Rogerian nondirective interviewing. Riesman also apparently discussed interviewing methods with SRC (see CitationKahn and Cannell 1957:vii).15 Neil McLaughlin points out in a private communication that a number of Riesman's teaching assistants at Harvard, such as Todd Gitlin, Christopher Jencks, and Michael Schudson went on themselves to be well-known social scientists. CitationSchudson (1994) has written interestingly about the interview in journalism, although without direct reference to Riesman's work.16 I am grateful to an anonymous referee for insisting that I address this point.17 Somewhat confusingly, the special issue bears an editorial introduction by CitationMark Benney and Everett Hughes (1956). However, both CitationBenney (1966) and CitationHughes (1974) identify Benney and Riesman as editors of the issue as a whole. It is unclear why Riesman is listed only as a contributor to one of the articles in the special issue and no reference is made to his editorial role. The omission might reflect the falling out between Benney and Riesman, one of Riesman's frequent absences from Chicago (see CitationAbbott 1999), or deference paid to Hughes as the journal's editor. Whatever the explanation, the content of the volume does give some insight into the work on the interview that Riesman found interesting.18 Errors by a number of writers in the citation of this passage suggest that reference is being made, not to the original source, but to a passage in CitationMishler (1986:22). The term “modern temper” is not original to Riesman. It is the title of an influential book, he is almost certain to have read, by the literary critic, and later ecological thinker, Joseph Wood Krutch. In this rather pessimistic book, CitationKrutch (1929) characterized the society of his day as one of existential doubt and anxiety associated with a loss of both religious certainty, and faith in the secular alternatives replacing it.19 A number of those who have commented on Riesman's work (see, e.g., CitationWilkinson 1988; CitationWrong 1992; CitationMcLaughlin 2001) have noted the extent to which he anticipated future social trends

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