ABSTRACT
Samuel A. Stouffer, American sociologist, was a founder of large-scale quantitative social research. His contribution to the analysis of survey data represents a distinctively American approach to sociology. The four volumes of the collaborative magnum opus, Studies in Social Psychology in World War II, of which the two volumes of The American Soldier are best known, remain a landmark and a model in the new tradition of mass production in research, emphasis upon quantitative evidence, avoidance of theoretical speculation except in close contact with the data, and close connection with applied problems. His career as a sociologist began with graduate work at the University of Chicago, where he received his ph.d. in 1930. Whether he worked with available social statistics or, later, with survey data created by the investigator, Stouffer's forte lay in this ingenious interplay, close to the data, of interpretative hypothesis and empirical check.
