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American Sociological Association

A Methodological Note on the Empirical Establishment of Culture Patterns
Author(s): Kurt H. Wolff
Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1944 Annual Meeting Papers (Apr., 1945),
pp. 176-184
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2085635
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I176

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AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL

ions; (5) those who were least decisivein activity in communitygroups; (g) union
their opinions (the percentagesundecided memberstendedto followthe trendof opinon given issues), tended to have lower in- ion -of labor leadersexcept for the issue of
comes on the average, followed the less administrationof rationingby local officers,
skilled or unskilled occupations,and had on which they disagreed; (io) ration board
slightly fewer years of school education, membersbelieved that their experienceon
than those with moredecidedopinions; (6) ration boardshad positive values for them
three differentgroupsof leaders,a specially as individuals;(ii) they felt, however,that
selected group, an emergentgroup, and a there were personalcomplicationsin such
group of labor leaders,showedsome sharp service which affectedhealth, fatigue, time
differencesof opinion on the administra- for recreationand business relationships;
tion of rationingrules by local enforcement (I2) ration board membersbelieved that
officers; (7) these three groups of leaders commonsense statementsof war time raalso showeddifferencesamongthemselvesin tioning rules would have been better than
the degree and extent of their community legal terminology;and (I3) occupational
activities; (8) the selectedleadersand the shifts amonggainfullyemployedpersonsin
emergentleaderswere clearly differentiated Red Wing were found between the I940
from the massesby higheraverageincome, Censusand this I943 sample,whichreflected
more years of schooleducation,and intense the impactof the war time economy.

A METHODOLOGICALNOTE ON THE EMPIRICAL

ESTABLISHMENT OF CULTURE PATTERNS1
KURT H. WOLFF
Earlham College

The culturalapproach.Fundamentally,
the scientific study of a culture ex* emplifiesone of two approaches.One
is followedin most of the monographicanthropological
literature.The otheris implied
in some of the more theoreticallyoriented
anthropologicalwritings2and especiallyin
I

1Revision of a paper presentedat the Summer

Institute of the Society for Social Researchat the
University of Chicago, August 4, I944. Research
on which this paper is based was made possible
by a post-doctoralfellowship of the Social Science
ResearchCouncil. I am indebted to Dr. Sol Tax,
University-of Chicago,and to Dr. Melvin J. Tumin,
Wayne University, for valuable criticismsand suggestions.
2E.g., GregoryBateson,Naven. Cambridge,England, I936, or E. E. Evans-Pritchard,Witchcraft,
Oraclesand Magic among the Azande.Oxford,England, 193 7, and the "culture pattern" school, of
which below. Cf. also Gregory Bateson, "Experiments in Thinking about Observed Ethnological
Material,"Philosophyof Science.8:53-68, January,
1941, and Clyde Kluckholm,"The Place of Theory

certainconceptsof the sociologyof knowledge3;yet it has not, to my knowledge,been

made the explicit theoreticalbasis of the
empiricalstudy of a cultureor community.
The two approachesmay be distinguished,
first, on the philosophical-methodological
level and, second,on whatmay be calledthe
contentuallevel.
Philosophicallyand therefore methodologically,the first approachproceedson the
assumptionthat a person can and should
study a cultureas the naturalscientiststudies nature. The cultureis there-the task is
'Cf. the works of George A. Lundberg,Read
Bain, and others.
'Esp. Karl Mannheim'sconcept of "existential
determinationof knowledge,"Ideology and Utopia.
New York: 1936,

pp.

237-240,

esp.

p. 239

and note,

and its discussion by Robert K. Merton, "Karl

Mannheim and the Sociology of Knowledge,"unpaged reprint from The Journal of Liberal Religion. II, 3, Winter, 194I;

further discussion of

in Anthropological Studies." Ibid., 6:328-344, July,

Mannheimin Virgil G. Hinshaw, Jr., "The Epistemological Relevance of Mannheim'sSociology of

I939.

Knowledge," The Journal of Philosophy.

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II

:57-72,

ESTABLISHMENTOF CULTUREPATTERNS
"objective" approach, and the second, the
"cultural" approach. On the philosophicalmethodological level, then, the contrast between the two can be pointedly summarized
as follows: For the former, the objective
approach, the relation between the student
and the culture which he examines is taken
for granted, and the central concept is that
of scientific procedure, under which aspects
of the relation between student and culture
under study which have become problematical are subsumed as technicalities. For the
latter, the cultural approach, the scientific
procedure is taken for granted, and the central concept is that of cultural equation,
under which aspects of scientific procedure
which have become problematical are subsumed as technicalities.
Yet furthermore, the follower of the objective school not only finds his work largely
predeterminedby scientific rules but also by
what may be labeled "contentual" rules. His
teachers have not only told him how to study
a culture but also what to study. If he is a
sociologist he may, for instance, take Middletown as a model and study his community
by beginning with "Getting a Living" and
February 4, I1943; and in H. Otto Dahike, "The following the chapters down the line until
Sociology of Knowledge,"in Barnes, Becker and he comes to an outlook on the future. If
Becker, Contemporary Social Theory. New York
he is an anthropologist he probably has in
and London: I940, esp. pp. 82-85. For a concise
generaltreatmentof the problemsof the sociology mind a number of important aspects of a
of knowledge(althoughwith very little attention to culture, such as economics, social relations,
Mannheim), see Gerard DeGre, Society and Ide- child-rearing and education, and the like.
ology. New York: I943.
He takes it for granted that some such
'Cf. Pauline V. Young, Scientific Social Sur"division"
obtains in the culture he wants
veys and Research. New York: I939, pp. I34-I35.
to study, no matter which, because such a
6 Cf., e.g., the general attitude as expressedby
L. L. Bernard,"The Sourcesand Methods of Cul- division makes sense in his own culture.8
tural and Folk Sociology,"in L. L. Bernard,Ed., Yet suppose that a Tasmanian, or even a
The Fields and Methods of Sociology. New York:
Spanish-American, studies the culture of
I934, esp. pp. 354-355; also the whole literature on
New
York or Seattle: would he take for
"evaluation"vs. "fact" in the social sciences,from
Rickert and Max Weber to Gunnar Myrdal, An granted the same aspects which an American
student of a Tasmanian tribe or of a MexiAmerican Dilemma. New York and London: 1944,
pp. I035-Io64.
can or New Mexican community takes for
to learn about it; and we learn about it
with the help of rules which will be perfected in the course of scientific progress.
It is true that many students of this school
are aware of the "personalequation,"5which
refers to the investigator's biases, emotions,
prejudgments, or even to his own cultural
"mold." Yet this personal equation is considered merely a flaw which each individual
student must try his best to eliminate so
that objectivity may be preserved as much
as possible.6 For this process of elimination
he relies on rules of science which are widely
held and often taken for granted, such as
the careful formulation of a hypothesis, the
systematic search for the negative case,
various pragmatic aspects, and others.7 By
contrast, for the second approachto the scientific study of cultures, the "personal equation" is not a necessary evil, but the explicitly acknowledged basis. The personal,
or better, cultural equation determines what
can be perceived and interpreted of the
culture under study, and as what it can be
perceived and interpreted. For reasons
of simplified reference, I call the first, the

7 Cf., e.g., M.

R. Cohen and E. Nagel, An Intro-

duction to Logic and Scientific Method. New York:

I934;
John Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry.
New York: I938; A. D. Ritchie, Scientific Method.

' In this connection, Gunnar Myrdal's suggestion

is highly stimulating (op. cit., p. 3): "America, comLondon: I923; A. N. Whitehead,Science and the pared to every other country in Western civilizaModern World.New York: I925; A. C. Benjamin, tion, large or small, has the most explicitly expressed system of general ideals in reference to
The Logical Structure of Science. London: I936;
G. H. Mead, "The Nature of ScientificKnowledge," human interrelations. This body of ideals is more
in The Philosophy of the Act. Chicago: I938, pp. widely understood and appreciated than similar
ideals are anywhere else." (Original italics.)
45-62; etc.

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I78

AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL
REVIEW

granted?I imaginehe would not. I cannot

prove it becauseto my knowledgeno Tashas studmanian,or even Spanish-American,
ied a U. S. community,or else he was trained
in the objectiveschool.In fact,unlesshe was
thustrained,we mightbe inclinednot to considerhis studyscientificbut merelya curious
and naive document.This reflection,though
in a roundaboutway, provesthe highlyspecific, i.e., cultural,characterof our social
scienceand shouldtherefore,at least, make
it clearthat its approachis only one among
others.9
Perhapsthe contrastwith the secondapproachcan be pointedout most sharplyon
this contentuallevel. Instead of treatinga
culture by contentualdivisions,10the cul' Following the presentationof the first draft
of this paper, Robert J. Havighurstsuggestedthat
this line of thought necessarilyleads to the question of whether, in our own society, a "middleclass" sociologist could adequatelystudy a "lowerclass" group. A thorough answer to this question
needs, first, a distinct and comprehensivetheory
of "class"and, second, a distinct and comprehensive theory of the relations between our "subcultures" and our "culture."I do not think that at
present we have either. (As to the first, certainly
W. Lloyd Warner'sand his followers'"class"theory
is inadequate;cf. C. Wright Mills's review of Warner and Lunt, The Social Life of a Modern Community. New Haven: I94I, in AmericanSociological
Review. 7:263-27i,
April, I942. On subcultures,cf.
the stimulating discussion in Ralph Linton, The
Study of Man. New York and London: 1936, pp.
275-276.) My offhandanswerto the questionraised
by Professor Havighurst is that recent presentations of U.S. culture,esp. Robert S. Lynd, Knowledge for What? Princeton:I939; Clyde Kluckhohn,
"TheWay of Life," The KenyonReview. 3 :i60-I79,
Spring,194I; MargaretMead,And Keep YourPowder Dry. New York: I942, would indicatethat what
our culture has in common is more pervasivethan
what it differentiates;so that the case of the "middle-class"sociologiststudying a "lower-class"group
would not seem to be an examplein point of my
thought,and that such documentsas Shaw'sstudies
of delinquents, Anderson's studies of the hobo,
Thrasher'sThe Gang, Whyte's Street Corner Society, etc., are not fundamentallyvitiated by the
shortcomingwhich ProfessorHavighurstenvisaged.
(Cf. in this connectionthe critiquesof Adler, Rank,
Freud, Thomas and Znaniecki,Shaw, and othersby
John Dollard in his Criteriafor the Life History.
New Haven: I935.)
The closeness to Malinowski's functionalism
is obvious; cf. functionalanthropology"holdsthat

tural approachproposesto treat it in terms

of its patterns.The conceptof patternoverrides contentualdistinctions.Rather,it considers any contentsas materialswhich may
be patterned.From the standpointof the
membersof the culture under study, the
contentualis that to which patterns may
apply; from the standpointof the student
of the culture,the contentualis the heuristic
sphereof observationwherepatternsmaybe
discerned.Clyde Kluckhohn" has clearly
presenteda list of types of patterns.Yet two
decisivequestionshavenot beenraised,much
less answered.One is the questionof selettion, namely: which observationsof materials or inferencesor constructsdoes the
student call "patterns"and which does he
not call so? The other is the question of
method,namely:howdoesthe studentestablish patternsempirically, i.e., so that another studentcan check on them; and how
does he prove his patternsto be adequate
the . . . laws [of the cultural process] are to be

found in the functionof the real elementsof culture.

The atomizing or isolating treatment of cultural
traits is regardedas sterile, because the significance
of culture consists in the relation between its elements.

." Bronislaw Malinowski,

"Culture,"

Encyclopediaof the Social Sciences. I93I, Vol. IV,

p. 625. However, while Malinowskiis predominantly interested in an explanation of culture as a
human characteristicand, proceedingon this basis,
comes upon the concepts of need and institution
(cf. his "Man's Cultureand Man's Behavior,"Sigma Xi Quarterly.29:i82-i96,
October, 194I, and
30:66-78, January, I942; and A Scientific Theory
of Culture and Other Essays. Chapel Hill: I944),
the culturalapproachis predominantlyinterestedin
studying cultures, and comes upon the concept of
pattern. See below.
"Clyde Kluckhohn,"Patterningas Exemplified
in Navaho Culture," in Leslie Spier, A. Irving
Hallowell, Stanley S. Newman, Eds., Language,
Culture,and Personality,Essays in Memory of Edward Sapir. Menasha: I94I, pp. I09-I30, esp. II4I29. This expositionby far surpassesthe methodology
of precedingstudies,esp. Ruth Benedict'spioneering
Patternsof Culture.Boston: I934, or CarleC. Zimmerman'sThe ChangingCommunity.New York and
London: 1938, esp. 155-I57, as well as philosophically
related works, from Nietzsche'sBirth of Tragedyto
Sorokin'sSocial and CulturalDynamicsand Morris's
Paths of Life.
' Kluckhohn, op. cit., pp. 120, 124, seems to
answer this question in terms of statistics, but see
below.

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ESTABLISHMENTOF CULTUREPATTERNS
as an interpretation of the culture under
study? In the following, preliminaryanswers
to these two questions are given. They are
based on five months of field work in a small
Spanish-Anglocommunity in New Mexico.'3
II. Selection of patterns. Tentative answers
to both questions may be found if it is remembered, first, that the pattern concept is
typical of the cultural approach and that
the central concept of this approach is the
"cultural equation," and, second, that the
cultural equation determines what can be
perceived and interpreted of the culture under study, and as what it can be perceived
and interpreted. It may be assumed that
in any culture under study a certain type
of phenomena is perceived in such a way
as to call for interpretation. It is these
phenomena which strike the student as different from the ones that form part of his,
and his group's, universe of discourse'4;
phenomena which therefore are not readily
incorporable into this universe of discourse
and which, consequently, call for some procedure by means of which they can be incorporated. This picture seems to be the
more clear-cut the more different the two
respective universes of discourse,or cultures,
are-that under study and that of the student. A ritual among the Iatmiil at once and
undoubtedly appears to be part of a culture
which the student does not share, and hence
calls for subsumptionunder a larger "whole"
which in turn is incorporated into the student's own culture. Or, to express the same
thought in more customary terms: the student tries to understand the ritual within
that larger complex and in turn tries to
understand that complex itself. The picture
13 Space limitations have made impossible the
inclusion of rather extensive field notes gathered
during the course of this field study which would
have served to illustrate the analysis presented in
this paper.
14 "Universe of discourse" (of an individual or a
group) is the totality of concepts used (by that individual or group) plus their implications. Cf. Kurt
H. Wolff, "The Sociology of Knowledge: Emphasis
on an Empirical Attitude," Philosophy of Science.
Io:io9,
note ig, April, I943. Cf. also George H.
Mead, Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: I934, p.
269.

I79

seems least clear-cut where the two cultures

are most similar. In contrast to the study
of an exotic culture we have the sociological
community study, where the student is
struck by relatively minor nuances of his own
culture.'5 The middle is held by "folk cultures."'6 They partake of the urban civilization of which the student is a member,
but also of another culture which he wants
to detect and describe in its fusion with his
own. In many cases, therefore, it is difficult
to ascertain whether an observation "belongs" to a whole that has the same significance as it has in his own culture, or
whether it betrays hitherto unsuspected or
suspected features. This is but to say that
in folk cultures, diversities are not as striking
as in exotic cultures, and likenesses not as
striking as in urban communities.
The first step, then, toward an answer to
the question of which observations are dignified by the term "pattern," is a preliminary
classification of the culture under study in
such terms as "exotic," "folk," or "urban."
This classification is usually performedspontaneously and without much or any regard
to the methodologicalconsequences here discussed. If made with the awareness of its
methodological implications, however, a
sharper focus on the selection of patterns
is produced. Suppose the culture under consideration is classified as belonging in the
broad category of folk culture. The student
thus expects to find patterns that this culture
shares with his own-perhaps, e.g., in the
field of attitudes toward money and the
manipulation of it-and others which are
not shared by the urban culture-perhaps,
e.g., in the field of certain beliefs about
planting or stars. Now, it must never be forgotten that this division of potential patterns
is the student's own division-very likely
not that of the membersof the culture under
study. It is a theoretical distinction on the
level of classification and heuristic hypothe'5 Cf. remarksmade in note 9 above.
'" The most recent systematic presentation of
folk culture known to me is Robert Redfield, The
Folk Society (hectographed).Chicago: August I2,
I942.

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I80

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sis or, to use a term of Karl Mannheim's,17

of "sociological interpretation." It has not
proceeded to the level of understanding, or
of "immanentinterpretation."It does not, as
yet, interpret the culture under study in
terms of its members.'8 The real difficulty,
or the proper task, of the student of a folk
culture is to study the mutual interdependence and the mutual shaping of patterns
which he has preliminarilyascribed to urban
or to "native" influences. Thus, patterns
expressingattitudes toward money, e.g., must
be examined with reference to their possible relation to, or influence on, patterns
expressing beliefs in stars. The empirical
ascertainment of interactions of this kind
allows the student to describe the uniqueness
of the folk culture which he is examining.19
The student, aware of a preliminaryclassification of the culture he wants to study, and
of the differencebetween a classificatory and
an immanent interpretation of what he will
observe, now proceeds to the actual field
work. To put it bluntly, he is about to fill
his theoretical, or rational, framework empirically. He is now interested in answering
the question of how this particular folk culture is made up in terms of his theoretical
approach. According to 'his individual disposition he may quickly formulatehypotheses
and search for checks on them; or he may
record anything that comes under his observation and try to piece together patterns
" Karl Mannheim, "Ideologische und soziologische Interpretation der geistigen Gebilde," Jahrbuch fuir Soziologie. Vol. II, Karlsruhe, I926.
' It is, however, from the latter standpoint that
Kluckhohn, op. cit., has classified patterns.
'1It should be noted that the two "elements" of
a folk culture, here designated in so oversimplified
a form as "urban" and "non-urban," may, of
course, each need to be seen as consisting of various
cultural strains. Thus the culture of the New Mexican community previously referred to, in its urban
aspects, combines strains from a culture colored by
international industrialization, from the "average
American city culture," from regional cultural peculiarities, and from cultures of still more near-by
"semi-urban" centers; in its non-urban aspects, it
combines strains from Spanish, Mexican, rural, and
Indian cultures-and all strains are differentiated
in terms of the two main (and other) types of the
members of this culture-Spanish-speaking
and
English-speaking persons.

in a slower manner. In either case, his cultural and personal sensitivity, enriched and
sharpened by theoretical thinking, puts the
limit on what he can perceive and interpret.20
In the field, then, the question of selection
is answered in the followed order: avid collection of empirical materials, immanent interpretation of these materials, their classification, classification of the culture. This is
the reverse order of that which characterized
the theorizing stage preceding the field work,
where it was: preliminary classification of
the culture, classificatory expectations regarding the materials to be collected. The
three last steps in the field-immanent intepretation of materials, their classification,
classification of the culture-in fact answer
the question of selection. They determine,
(a) what patterns appear when the materials
are interpreted as constituents of a meaningful presentation of the culture; (b) how the
materials are to be classified-because constituents of this presentation-as imputable
to other presentations (types) of cultures;
(c) how the culture itself is to be classified.
When each of these steps is taken probably
depends on the investigator's disposition.2
III. Empirical establishment of patterns.
The answer to the first question-of selection
-remains not quite clear as long as there
is none to the second, namely, how the student establishes patterns empirically, and
how he proves them to be adequate as an
interpretationof the culture. In other words,
'My own experience is that for an initial period
of field work I prefer the slower, more chaotic manner of recording anything that comes under my
observation to the method of rapidly formulating
hypotheses, because I am aware that a premature
hypothesis, although checkable and corrigible, shapes
one's chances of perception and interpretation. I am
also aware, of course, that one cannot proceed without hypotheses. But those which I have advanced
as a general theoretical approach to the study of
cultures appear to me the minimal limitationsenrichments of my sensitivity.
21 From my own experience I should say that the
initial period of avidly collecting materials comes
to an end when their "sheer quantity" forces the
student to begin his interpretation. It may be noted
that this interpretation is likely to be based on a
topical breakdown of the materials-a breakdown
which has probably accompanied their collection
itself.

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ESTABLISHMENT OF CULTURE PATTERNS

after it has been shown how patterns are
looked for and found, it must now be demonstrated how they can be ascertained. While
the preceding discussion did justice to any
meaning the reader may reasonably have
been expected to attribute to "pattern," it
now becomes necessary to introducea formal,
though still provisional definition of it. A
pattern is a uniformity of emotion, attitude,
thoughtway, or knowledge.22In this definition it is implied that a pattern may be
characteristic of an individual, of a group,
or of all membersof the culture under study.
Therefore, to find out to which of these
three categories the pattern applies, is a
statistical proposition. Theoretically, this is
all that has to be said in answer to the question of how patterns are established empirically-by statistics.23 In practice, however, there is more to the answer to this
question. In most cases a sample technique
must be devised. This, not only because it
would be impossible, even in a culture shared
by very few individuals, to test all patterns
by a complete coverage, but also because
it is not necessary to do so. In fact, in many
cases it is scientifically legitimate to do without a statistically valid sample, as I shall
try to show. When this is possible depends on
the nature of the pattern under examination
and on the purpose of the study.
If we want to know how many membersof
a culture own a house, are married, belong
to a certain organization, have given occupations, or similar uniformities, there is no
substitute for at least a statistically valid
sample count. According to the conception
of society and culture current in our universe
of discourse, counts of this sort are held to
be necessary for the presentation of a gen' Kluckhohn, op. cit., unfortunately gives no explicit definition of "pattern." In contrast to "custom" and "trait," which are contentual, it is structural (pp. 114, ii6); in contrast to "configuration,"
which applies to covert culture, it applies to overt
culture (pp. II4, I24, I29);
"overt" and "covert"
are not defined, however.
' It is understood (as is all scientific rule) that
the method by which statistical data are arrived at
depends on the nature of the pattern (it may be
interview, casual conversation, observation, questionnaire, etc., or any combination of them).

i8i

eral picture of the culture under study. They

are customarily dealt with under such contentual models as, respectively, "property,"
"marriage and family," "organizations and
institutions," and "occupational distribution." It is not important here to answer the
question whether uniformities of this nature
should be called patterns or not; they could
be only by stretching our definition considerably.24If the task of the student is to give
a "total picture" of the culture, they are,
at least, not of primary importance.25Yet
they bridge the two cultures or universes of
discourse (the student's and his readers',and
the one to be studied) in such a way as to
function as "background materials" for the
culture to be incorporated: they can be
grasped as readily understood things by the
same means as they would be in the study
of a culture very similar to that of the
student's and reader's-an American urban
or even rural community, for instance.
At this point the implications of "immanent interpretation"must be more closely
examined. "Immanent interpretation" has
two referents, of which Mannheim has discussed only one.26"Immanent interpretation
of patterns" is, first, the description of the
meaning which an individual or group gives
to the uniformity of emotion, attitude,
thoughtway, or knowledge. In this sense, it
is the description of what meaning a person
or group gives, e.g., to being in a reverent
mood when at church (emotion), to liking
beer, children, nature, or to hating Negroes,
Jews, Mexicans (attitude), to conceptions
of the war, of time, of money (thoughtways), or to orientation in time and space,
to acquaintance with and use of herbs, sew4 Namely, if Kluckhohn's distinction between
structural (patterns) and contentual (traits) regularities were obliterated and, e.g., house-ownership
(i.e., something in which the student is interested
as in a contentual item) were considered in its
interrelation with (structural) patterns. The study
in which this is done to my knowledge has yet to
be written. See above and below on interrelatedness of patterns.
' They are paid no, or very little attention in
Benedict, op. cit.
' And with reference to intellectual productions
exclusively. Cf. op. cit.

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i82

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AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL

ing machines, wells, radios (knowledge). In

other words, it is the recording of interpretations given by the members of the culture
under study (and in some cases these interpretations may be "rationalizations)." This
is the referent Mannheim discusses. But "immanent interpretation"has another referent,
and it is the more important one denoted in
the expression, the "immanentinterpretation
of the materials." This expresssion was used
to designate the first step which the student
takes toward a presentation of the culture
he studies. When this step was discussed it
was defined as the interpretation of the materials "as constituents of a meaningful presentation of the culture." The significance of
this statement must be made more explicit.
"Meaningful presentation of the culture"
is its reinterpretation in such a way as to
make its uniqueness incorporable into the
universe of discourse of the student's and of
his readers. The ideal-theoretical extreme of
meaningfulnessis identificationwith this culture.27However, this is not, only practically
impossible to attain, such identificationwould
also be unformulable objectively, and hence
unscientific (but rather artistic-intuitive).
Yet even if we do not go beyond the establishment of patterns, their scientifically desirable statistical bases are not always either
obtainable or called for. I have shown for
which types of uniformities (usually not
called patterns) they are obtainable as well
as called for-for those which, in the cultural
approach, make up background materials.28
For patterns, i.e., uniformities of emotion,
attitude, thoughtway, knowledge, something
else is both obtainable and called for, namely,
the presentation of the interrelatedness of
patterns in such a way as to enable us to
understand and predict the culture under
study.
Suppose29the student has observed that
a girl of eight years is afraid to cross a small
creek. He has also observed fear in other
Cf. Wolff, op. cit., p. I 13.
' See above, esp. note 2I.
' The following discussion is simplified by overlooking a classification of the patterns mentioned
according to Kluckhohn's (op. cit., pp. II4-I29)
scheme.

individuals of the same culture on other occasions. He tentatively formulates fear as a

pattern of reacting to certain things. It is
impossible for him to ascertain statistically
all things to which all members of the culture react with fear. Rather, he keeps his
preliminary fear pattern-a uniformity of
emotion and/or attitude-in mind while
continuing his observations and preliminary
formulations of other patterns. One of these,
he observes, is the economical handling of
language in speech, and its unaccomplished
semi-illiterate handling in writing-a uniformity of thoughtways. He also remembers,
from his background materials, statistical
figures on illiteracy, formal education, and
similar. Again, it is impossible for him to
ascertain statistically all situations in which
all membersof the culture express themselves
linguistically. Nor is this called for, for what
the student is interested in is the question of
the interrelatedness of the fear pattern and
the language pattern. Is there a connection
between fear as a norm of reacting to certain
things accepted by the members of this culture, and the likewise accepted economic
handling of language as a norm of manipulating (expressing, withholding, implying)
one's thoughts? Is perhaps economic insecurity a link between the two patterns? Here
again the student adduces his background
figures on property, income, indebtedness,
budgets, etc.
In this example a number of methodological questions have been ignored, but it
is hoped that the answer to the first part of
our second question now becomes clearer:
the student establishes patterns empirically
by the presentation of the interrelatednessof
patterns in such a way as to enable us to
understand and predict the culture we study.
It should be added that in establishing the
interrelatednessof patterns the student makes
use, as much as his sensitivity and integrity
as a scientist force him to, of scientific rule.
He will try to obtain some statistical basis,
which alone enables him to ascertain whether
the pattern he has hypothetically formulated
applies to an individual, to a group, or to
all members of the culture. Both for this
purpose and for the purpose of throwing

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ESTABLISHMENT OF CULTURE PATTERNS

light on the interrelatedness of patterns, it
is necessary to search for negative cases.
These two examples once more illustrate
what is meant, with reference to the empirical establishment of patterns, by the fact
that scientific rule is taken for granted in
the cultural approach.
It will have been seen that the answer to
the question of how patterns are established
empirically is intimately connected with the
answer to the question of their selection.
Even more closely related to the problem
of empirical ascertainment of patterns is
the last question, namely, how the student
proves that the patterns he has established
are indeed adequate as an interpretation of
the culture. In fact, the answer to this question is implied in the statement that he
establishes patterns empirically by the presentation of their interrelatedness. The answer only needs to be made explicit. His
patterns are proved to be adequate when
they make it possible to understand and
predict the culture presented in their terms.
What is meant by predictability, i.e., the anticipation of the reaction of the culture to
certain changes and its change with these
changes, is connoted by the colloquial meaning of this term itself. The prediction value
of the presentation can be judged only by the
future. As regards understanding, the meaning of this term has been made clear by the
discussion of the pattern approach: it is
precisely this approach which is held to be
most appropriate to our understanding of a
culture. It should be noted, however, that the
understandingof certain aspects of a culture,
made possible through the presentation of
certain patterns, does not guarantee the understanding of other aspects. In other words,
the fact that a presentation "makes.sense"
or is plausible does not prove that important
things have not been overlooked-the future
may, or may not, find the student out. Other
than this, his only probability of having understood the culture is the maximum collection of materials, the most rigorous search
for negative cases, and the most imaginative
testing of varieties of alternatives in explanations and pattern combinations. Here
again his sensitivity, trained by theoretical

i83

thinking, is of the essential importance.

In comparisonwith the immanentinterpretation of a culture, its classification is easier,
less urgent, and less exclusively the responsibility of the student. For once he has presented the culture, others may classify it
accordingto their theories. The original presentation may enrich a relatively wide public's universe of discourse by a new conception of human society and culture. The classification will enrich the universe of discourse
of a more specializedpublic-those interested
in sociological and anthropological theory
and, especially, in types or continua of cultures. This is not to say, however, that the
classificatory phase is less important. For
science itself it is the most important aspect
of the study, since science progresses by a
refinement of theory. Therefore, the decisive
contribution to the advancement of science,
made by the cultural approach through the
presentation of a culture, is its contribution
to scientific theory.
IV. Summary of the theory presented in
this paper. A summary of the contrast between the two approaches to the study of a
culture and of the methodological bases of
the cultural approach may be given as follows:
A. Two approachesto the scientificstudy of a
culture.
(i)
"Objective":centralconcept,the scientific (natural-science)procedure; personal equation taken for granted and
sought to be eliminatedas far as possible.
(2)
"Cultural": central concept, the cultural equation; scientific procedure
taken for granted and followed as far
as possible.
B. Characteristicsof the cultural approach.
(i)
Overridingof model contentualaspects
of culturesby the patternconcept.
(2)
Steps in the study of a culture:
a. Preliminarycomparisonof the culturewith that of the student's;hence
its preliminaryclassification;hence
expectationsregardingtypes of patterns.
b. Establishment of patterns. Hypothetical patterns arrived at through
observationand tentative interpretation; their immanentinterpretation,

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AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICALREVIEW

i84

i.e., recording of interpretations

given by the membersof the culture,
plus the establishmentof the interrelatednessof the patternsin such a
way as to make possible the understanding and predictingof the culture.
(3) Methodologicalelements characterizing
the cultural-approach
study:
a. Presentationof statistically reliable
backgroundmaterialsand of the connection between these and the patterns.
b. Presentationof patternsand of their
immanentinterpretation.
c. Demonstrationof the applicationof

the patterns to individuals,groups,

or all membersof the culture.
d. Demonstrationof the connectionbetween the patternsand culturetypes
(cf. B2a); the problemsof history
and culture change (especially importantin the studyof folk cultures).
e. Demonstrationof the adequacy of
the patterns for understandingand
predictingthe culture,by discussion
of negative cases and of alternative
interpretationsof materialsand patterns.
f. Classificationof the culturein terms
of types of cultures or of other
theories.

THE SPANISH HERITAGE

ELISEOVIVAS
Universityof Chicago

IT

IS

well knownthat democracydoesnot

flourish in Spanish America today as it

does in the United States and in Great
Britain. The Spanish-Americanrepublics are
by and large fairly democratic on paper;
for their constitutions call for representative
forms of government in which the citizens
are supposed to have an effective control of
their own destiny. But in fact the countries
of Spanish America are governed by techniques which are the very opposite of democratic, and which veil more or less successfully variants of class dictatorship.This generalization may not be true of Costa Rica;
and many acquainted with Mexican history
and with what the revolution did for the
Mexican masses may be inclined to hold
that it is utterly untrue of Mexico today. As
to Costa Rica I would suspend judgment;
but in respect to Mexico there are grounds
to believe that elections have little to do
with the selection of the chief magistrate, and
in Mexico he has much more power than
he has in the United States. Be that as it
may, the generalization is true of all other
Spanish American countries, if not of the
two mentioned. They cannot be called democracies because they are ruled by a small
but highly self-conscious class, made up of

men who in terms of education and political

ability are distinctively superior and who exploit the human and natural resources of the
country chiefly for their own benefit.'
Now the reasons for this condition of
affairs are many and complex and an attempt to discuss them all or even part of
them in a short paper would be quite useless.
Nor would the writer be equipped to do it.
What may therefore be advisable is to select
for discussion one of the factors which may
have had an important influence in the development and maintenance of the class system in Spanish America. The factor here
selected is the Spanish character, in certain
of its relevant aspects.
Let us go back to the Spain that stumbled

on the new continentin

I492.

For in the

traits of character displayed by the conquistadores we can see clearly the sources
of many of the traits displayed by the dominant classes of Spanish America today.
1This class is usually thought of in the United
States as of "Spanish" blood, and in Spanish America its members are referred to by themselves and
those below them as los blancos, or "the white ones."
But the term indio or the term negro, like the term
blanco, are social-economic categories, not ethnic
ones.

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