William I. Thomas

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William I. Thomas

W.I. Thomas began his graduate career at the University of Chicago in America's first sociology department as one of the founders of the "First Chicago School." He continued his career there as a professor and ethnographer, exploring the city of Chicago and researching the connection between individual attitudes and social organization.

One of his most famous works, and one which Blumer critiqued extensively, is The Polish Peasant, written with Florian Znaniecki. They intended to sociologically investigate a wide range of behaviors and experiences of Polish immigrants in the early 1900's. In doing so, they developed a typology of human actors that distinguished human responses to cultural demands based on the conforming (Philistine), rebelling (Bohemian), or innovating (creative man) behaviors the immigrants engaged in upon entering a new culture with new social traditions. This typology became quite influential for subsequent typologies of human behavior put forth by other scholars.

Thomas' work later shifted into the area of social psychology and with it came his famous and perhaps most important contribution to the field of symbolic interaction: the definition of the situation. Thomas explained this as the stage of deliberation and examination that occurs before a person acts. Because an individual's actions depend on their definition of the situation, their life policy and personality follow from a series of such definitions. There is always a competition between one's 'on-the-spot' definition of the situation with the definition that society has already constructed. The set of definitions society provides for individuals are the rules and norms that regulate behavior and make up that society's moral code. This concept emphasizes one of the most fundamental ideas in Symbolic Interactionism, that people respond not only to the objective features of a situation (or object), but also to the meaning that situation has for them. As Thomas said, "if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences" (Thomas and Thomas, 1928).

Later in his life, Thomas moved from this concept to something he described as situational analysis, which he used to analyze behavior patterns, rather than individual acts. Through situational analysis behavior patterns and personalities are overwhelmingly conditioned by the types of situations and experiences encountered by the individual through the course of his or her life. Therefore, one must take into account these life experiences and situations to accurately analyze and understand behavior patterns.


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Other Influential Contributors William I. Thomas W.I. Thomas began his graduate career at the University of Chicago in America's first sociology department as one of the founders of the "First Chicago School." He continued his career there as a professor and ethnographer, exploring the city of Chicago and researching the connection between individual attitudes and social organization. One of his most famous works, and one which Blumer critiqued extensively, is The Polish Peasant, written with Florian Znaniecki. They intended to sociologically investigate a wide range of behaviors and experiences of Polish immigrants in the early 1900's. In doing so, they developed a typology of human actors that distinguished human responses to cultural demands based on the conforming (Philistine), rebelling (Bohemian), or innovating (creative man) behaviors the immigrants engaged in upon entering a new culture with new social traditions. This typology became quite influential for subsequent typologies of human behavior put forth by other scholars. Thomas' work later shifted into the area of social psychology and with it came his famous and perhaps most important contribution to the field of symbolic interaction: the definition of the situation. Thomas explained this as the stage of deliberation and examination that occurs before a person acts. Because an individual's actions depend on their definition of the situation, their life policy and personality follow from a series of such definitions. There is always a competition between one's 'on-the-spot' definition of the situation with the definition that society has already constructed. The set of definitions society provides for individuals are the rules and norms that regulate behavior and make up that society's moral code. This concept emphasizes one of the most fundamental ideas in Symbolic Interactionism, that people respond not only to the objective features of a situation (or object), but also to the meaning that situation has for them. As Thomas said, "if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences" (Thomas and Thomas, 1928). Later in his life, Thomas moved from this concept to something he described as situational analysis, which he used to analyze behavior patterns, rather than individual acts. Through situational analysis behavior patterns and personalities are overwhelmingly conditioned by the types of situations and experiences encountered by the individual through the course of his or her life. Therefore, one must take into account these life experiences and situations to accurately analyze and understand behavior patterns.