ABSTRACT
This chapter is a composite of two extended review essays showing how the critical frame of reference to social psychology has been converted into a constructive, neo-positivist, framework. Social psychology has increasingly become a central focus in sociology, but how it moves from structural analysis to action therapy has been little examined. The chapter discusses the two books—the Gerth and Mills Character and Social Structure, and the Gouldner and Miller Applied Sociology—as indicative of the larger trends each represented for the 1950's and 1960's respectively. With all of that, there are powerful unifying themes and faiths in Character and Social Structure. Gerth and Mills shared a strong propensity to think in terms of conflict models, rather than any consensual scheme. Applied Sociology is a volume not easily ensnared by a paradigm. The final portion of the book points up the continuing dialogue, even the continuing agony that sociologists feel about the relationship of social theory and social action.
