ABSTRACT
In recent decades, especially in social psychology but also in symbolic interactionist sociology in the United States, the contribution of Georg Simmel to the study of small-group interaction has been increasingly recognized. This is particularly true of Simmel’s writings on dyadic and triadic relationships, the consequences of which have still not been fully investigated. Simmel’s contribution to small-group interaction, the psychology of conflict, reference-group theory, role theory, and other areas has also been given recognition.1 However, recent research in social psychology and small-group sociology has focused only on those writings that are in translation and on his later works.2 The result is that his contribution to social psychology has been seen to be derived largely from translations of sections of his Soziologie (1908), the whole of which has still not been translated.3 The absence of any sense of the development of Simmel’s work as a totality has also created the impression that his possible contributions to social psychology are merely an offshoot of his interest in sociology. This is perhaps understandable in the light of Simmel’s presentday reputation primarly as a sociologist. His contribution to this latter discipline has come to be assessed in the light of that of his contemporaries, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and, to a lesser degree, Ferdinand Tönnies.
