“The richest and fullest lives attempt to achieve an inner balance between three realms: work, love, and play.” Erik Erikson
German-born US psychoanalytic theorist who contributed to the understanding of human mental development. Erikson coined the phrase identity crisis and proposed that the ego is not fixed at birth or during childhood, but continues to be molded throughout life by experience and environment. He established his reputation with the influential work Childhood and Society (1950), his first major book. His research in developmental psychology led to his theory of eight psychosocial stages in the life cycle.
Erikson was born in Frankfurt to Danish parents. After leaving school he spent some time wandering in Italy, sketching children; he would later state that watching children at play is vital to the understanding of their personalities, for ‘whatever is in them rises to the surface in free play’. He emigrated to the USA, where he held academic posts at Harvard; Yale; the Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge, Massachusetts; and the University of California at Berkeley before becoming a professor at Harvard..
8 Stages of Development - Erikson’s theory outlines 8 stages of psychosocial development from infancy to late adulthood.
image courtesy of SimplyPsychology
Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development
Gordon Allport was born in Montezuma, Indiana, in 1897, and received his Ph.D. in Psychology in 1922 from Harvard, following in the footsteps of his brother Floyd, who became an important social psychologist. His career was spent developing his theory, examining such social issues as prejudice, and developing personality tests. He died in Cambridge Massachusetts in 1967.
Appointed as a social science instructor at Harvard University in 1924, he became professor of psychology six years later and, in the last year of his life, professor of social ethics. He consistently related his approach to the study of personality to his social interests and was one of a growing number of psychologists who sought to introduce the leavening influence of humanism into psychology. His important introductory work on the theory of personality was Personality: A Psychological Interpretation (1937).
Allport is best known for the concept that, although adult motives develop from infantile drives, they become independent of them. Allport called this concept functional autonomy. His approach favored emphasis on the problems of the adult personality rather than on those of infantile emotions and experiences. In Becoming (1955) he stressed the importance of self and the uniqueness of adult personality. The self, he contended, is an identifiable organization within each individual and accounts for the unity of personality, higher motives, and continuity of personal memories. He also made important contributions to the analysis of prejudice in The Nature of Prejudice (1954). His last important work was Pattern and Growth in Personality (1961). - Encyclopædia Britannica
Theory
Walter Mischel, born in Vienna, Austria February 22, 1930, is an American psychologist best known for his groundbreaking study on delayed gratification known as "the marshmallow test".
In the late 1960s, Mischel began a study on delayed gratification—the ability to abstain from instant but less desirable outcomes in favor of deferred but more desirable outcomes. The experimenter seated preschool-age children alone at a table with a desired treat such as a marshmallow and, before exiting the room, presented them with a choice: either (1) to ring a bell to call the researcher back and, upon his return, consume the single marshmallow or (2) to wait until the researcher’s voluntary return and be rewarded with not one but two marshmallows.
Remembrance For Walter Mischel, Psychologist Who Devised The Marshmallow Test
Walter Mischel believed that cognitive factors determine behaviors when facing environmental stimuli and that the expectations of events are also determinants. In this, past experiences of different situations, as well as cognitive factors, determine behavior.
The Marshmallow Test for Grownups
John Bowlby is a British developmental psychologist and psychiatrist best known as the originator of attachment theory, which posits an innate need in very young children to develop a close emotional bond with a caregiver. Bowlby explored the behavioral and psychological consequences of both strong and weak emotional bonds between mothers and their young children. In 1946, he joined the staff of the Tavistock Institute in London, where he established a research unit to examine the effects on young children of separation from their primary caregivers. It was at Tavistock that he developed attachment theory, one tenet of which is that very young children who fail to develop close emotional bonds with a caregiver will experience behavioral problems in later life. Courtesy of Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Mary Ainsworth was an American-Canadian developmental psychologist. For most of her career, she studied the relationship between infants and their primary caregivers. Ainsworth is best known for her contributions to Attachment Theory and for developing the Strange Situation test. She is also one of the top 100 most frequently cited psychologists in history. Mary used the lukewarm response as motivation to create an assessment to measure the attachment between mothers and their children. She cataloged specific behaviors infants displayed in different settings and eventually developed the “Strange Situation Test” during her time at Johns Hopkins.
Mary Ainsworth and her colleagues created the "Strange Situation Test" to evaluate the nature of attachment relationships between infants and their caregivers. The experimental procedure consists of eight episodes involving brief separations from, and reunions with the caregiver, as well as exposure to a stranger. All episodes occur within the context of an unfamiliar playroom. See the videos below.
Ainsworth's Attachment Styles
Ainsworth believed attachment styles resulted from the infant’s early interactions with the mother, an idea which she termed the ‘maternal sensitivity hypothesis.’ A sensitive mother was defined as one who accurately perceives the needs of her child and responds to them promptly and appropriately. Ainsworth believed maternal sensitivity was necessary for healthy attachment.
Image courtesy of Practical Psychology
For more information on Mary Ainsworth and the Attachment style see Practical Psychology
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was a naturalist whose On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection introduced his theory of evolution and natural selection. In this guide, you will find information on researching both Darwin and evolution
Darwin and Natural Selection
Britannica's Charles Darwin Videos & Images
DATABASE: Charles Darwin's Scientific Manuscripts
The Origins of Species by Darwin
Rewriting the Book of Nature: Charles Darwin and Evolutionary Theory -U.S. Library of Medicine's Rewriting the Book of Nature: Charles Darwin and Evolutionary Theory
Darwin Manuscripts from the Cambridge Digital Library
Charles Darwin's Beagle Library
Find other FREE copies of Darwin's works at Darwin Online and Darwin Correspondence Project [New letters from Darwin's best friend, Joseph Dalton Hooker]
Ivan Pavlov was born into an impoverished family in the rural village of Ryazan, Russia. He won a government scholarship to the University of St. Petersburg and studied medicine at the Imperial Medical Academy, receiving his degree in 1883. In the 1890s, Pavlov investigated the workings of the digestive system, focusing on digestive secretions, using special surgically created openings in the digestive tracts of dogs, a project strongly influenced by the work of an earlier physiologist, Ivan Sechenov (1829– 1905). During his investigations in this area, Pavlov observed that normal, healthy dogs salivate upon seeing their keeper, apparently in anticipation of being fed.
This observation led Pavlov, through a systematic series of experiments, to formulate the principles of the conditioned response, which he believed could be applied to humans as well as to animals. According to Pavlov's system, an unconditioned stimulus, such as offering food to a dog, produces a response, or unconditioned reflex, (or an unconditioned response), that requires no training (salivation). In contrast, a normally neutral act, such as ringing a bell, becomes a conditioned stimulus when associated with the offering of food and eventually will produce salivation on its own, but as a conditioned reflex (or conditioned response). According to Pavlov, the conditioned reflex is a physiological phenomenon caused by the creation of new reflexive pathways created in the cortex of the brain by the conditioning process. In further studies of the cortex, Pavlov posited the presence of two important processes that accompany conditioning: excitation, which leads to the acquisition of conditioned responses, and inhibition, which suppresses them. He eventually came to believe that cortical inhibition is an important factor in the sleep process...
Courtesy of Tyonote
Lawrence Kohlberg is an American psychologist and educator known for his theory of moral development. Kohlberg graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1945. While pursuing his doctoral degree, Kohlberg became interested in Jean Piaget's work on the moral development of children. Kohlberg’s theory was highly influential, especially in psychology and education and his work broke new ground by concentrating on cognitive phenomena.
Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development constitute an adaptation of a psychological theory originally conceived of by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. Kohlberg began work on this topic while a psychology postgraduate student at the University of Chicago in 1985 and expanded and developed this theory throughout his life.
The theory holds that moral reasoning, the basis for ethical behavior, has six identifiable developmental stages, each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than its predecessor. Kohlberg followed the development of moral judgment far beyond the ages studied earlier by Piaget, who also claimed that logic and morality develop through constructive stages. Expanding on Piaget's work, Kohlberg determined that the process of moral development was principally concerned with justice and that it continued throughout the individual's lifetime, a notion that spawned dialogue on the philosophical implications of such research.
Kohlberg relied for his studies on stories such as the Heinz dilemma and was interested in how individuals would justify their actions if placed in similar moral dilemmas. He then analyzed the form of moral reasoning displayed, rather than its conclusion, and classified it as belonging to one of six distinct stages.
Solomon Asch was born in Warsaw but emigrated to the United States in 1920 at the age of 13. He was a Polish American Psychologist responsible for the pioneering social psychologist. He is perhaps best remembered for his research on the psychology of conformity. Asch took a Gestalt approach to the study of social behavior, suggesting that social acts needed to be viewed in terms of their setting. His famous conformity experiment demonstrated that people would change their responses due to social pressure in order to conform to the rest of the group.
The Asch Conformity Experiment, conducted by Solomon Asch in the 1950s, was a series of studies designed to investigate how social pressure from a majority group could influence an individual to conform. In the experiments, groups of participants were asked to match the length of lines on cards, a task with an obvious answer. However, each group only included one real participant, with the rest being confederates instructed to give the incorrect answer.
Image Courtesy of Simply Psychology.
For more information see Solomon Asch's Conformity Line Experiment Study
Abraham Maslow -American Psychologist, best known for his self-actualization theory of psychology.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, scalable vector illustration by Laplateresca
Biographical Sketch (adapted from the American Psychologist, 1992, 47, 499-501
Evelyn Hooker, a psychology professor at the University of California at Los Angeles for 30 years, embraced the gay rights movement in the 1940s when she befriended a gay man, Sam From, who convinced her to study the population. In the study, Hooker administered three standard personality tests to two groups of 30 men. In one of the groups, the participants were gay. The two groups were matched in age and IQ and were equal in educational levels. Hooker was also instrumental in establishing homosexuality as a field of study. The University of Chicago honored her for this accomplishment by establishing the Evelyn Hooker Center for the Mental Health of Gays and Lesbians.
Evelyn Hooker Profile and Work
Dr. Evelyn Hooker Advocacy Award
Psychology & Conversion Therapy
Dr. Hooker’s story has been chronicled in a documentary entitled Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker. Click here to see a clip from the film.
Bandura was born on December 4, 1925, in a rural hamlet in northern Alberta, Canada. He was the only son in a family of six children of Ukrainian and Polish heritage. His early educational experiences were conducted in an eight-room school with only two high school teachers and few instructional resources. This often led to a reversal of teacher and student roles, and Bandura and his classmates had to develop their own academic skills, which they accomplished with considerable success. Defying conventional expectations, all members of his self-study group attained collegiate degrees. Bandura achieved recognition as an undergraduate at the University of British Columbia by receiving the Bolocan Award in Psychology, the first of many honors in his storied career. These formative educational experiences led to his view of learning and adaptive functioning as a social and self-directed process...For more information on Bandura's see Albert Bandura
Professor Albert Bandura (1925 - 2021) was an innovative scholar whose pioneering work in social cognitive theory has served as a rich resource for academics, practitioners, and policymakers alike across disciplinary lines. His illustrative career includes groundbreaking work across a broad range of areas. His seminal research on social modeling expanded our view of human learning and the growing primacy of this mode of learning in this electronic era.
Albert Bandura (Biography + Experiments)
Image from Flickr Created by Timothy Takomoto
George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), an American philosopher and social theorist, is often classed with William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey as one of the most significant figures in classical American pragmatism. He is considered by many to be the father of the school of Symbolic Interactionism in sociology and social psychology, although he did not use this nomenclature. Mead argued the antipositivistic view that the individual is a product of society, the "self" arising out of social experience as an object of socially symbolic gestures and interactions.
The first person to write about the principles underlying Symbolic Interactionism was George Herbert Mead (1934). Mead, an American philosopher, argued that people develop their self-image through interactions with other people.
Courtesy of Getty Images Creator Taylor Hill | Credit: FilmMagic
Philip G. Zimbardo is a psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University, where he taught for 50 years, starting in 1968. Philip is a prominent Italian-American psychologist, author, and retired professor. He is best known for his 1971 work in the Stanford Prison Experiment, which demonstrated the power of social situations to influence people’s behavior. It is widely considered one of the most impactful and controversial social psychology experiments in history. The experiment has been the subject of conversations, classes, and even movies for years.
Zimbardo and his colleagues (1973) were interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards (i.e., dispositional) or had more to do with the prison environment (i.e., situational).
Eric. E. Castro - https://www.flickr.com/photos/ecastro/14629567894/in/photolist-ohLmRd-qJ7hPW-BVcQbQ
Simulated Prison Experiment
Philip Zimbardo (Biography + Experiments)
Stanford Prison Experiment: Zimbardo’s Famous Study
Demonstrating the Power of Social Situations via a Simulated Prison Experiment
Carl Rogers (1902-1987) was an American psychologist, researcher, author, and humanistic psychologist best known for his views on the therapeutic relationship and his theories of personality and 'self-actualization" Rogers is widely considered one of the founding fathers of psychotherapy research and was honored for his pioneering research with the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions by the American Psychological Association(APA) in 1956.
Carl Rogers's Humanistic Theory And Contribution To Psychology
Carl Rogers Biography - Contributions to Psychology
Carl believed self-concept could be broken down into three primary components.
According to Rogers, the three core parts of self-concept are:
Rogers believed how your ideal self and real self-aligned were important to the development of your self-esteem.
If your ideal self did not match the reality of your real self, he suggested your self-concept was “incongruent,” and your self-esteem was likely to be negatively affected.
B. F. (Burrhus Frederic) Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. He attended Hamilton College as an English major, with the goal of becoming a professional writer. After graduation, Skinner was discouraged about his literary prospects and became interested in behavioristic psychology after reading the works of John Watson and Ivan Pavlov. He entered Harvard University as a graduate student in psychology in 1928 and while at Harvard, Skinner laid the foundation for a new system of behavioral analysis through his research in the field of animal learning, using unique experimental equipment of his own design.
The B. F. Skinner Foundation -Established in 1988, the B. F. Skinner Foundation promotes the science founded by B. F. Skinner and supports the practices derived from that science. The Foundation advances the understanding that a more humane world is achieved by replacing coercive techniques with positive procedures. We connect scholars, students, and the general public through our magazine, Operants. The Foundation is also the prime contact for permissions for reproducing Skinner material or for translations of Skinner’s works.”
Images Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
William Edward Burghardt DuBois (W.E.B. DuBois) was a writer, educator, civil rights activist, sociologist, and editor. He became one of the key voices in the argument over the role of the black man in modern America through his seemingly endless works of social activism. Du Bois was, an American sociologist best known for his scholarship on race and racism in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War. He was the first African-American to earn a doctorate degree from Harvard University and served as the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910. His most notable works include "The Souls of Black Folk," in which he advanced his theory of "double consciousness," and his massive tome on the social structure of U.S. society, "Black Reconstruction."
W.E.B Dubois was a highly decorated and accomplished sociologist and one of the first proponents of race-conflict theory. He began his work at a time when race was considered a purely biological differentiation.
W. E. B. DuBois: A Resource Guide
W.E.B. DuBois (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
W.E.B. DuBois’ Visionary Infographics
W.E.B. DuBois and the Concepts of Race and Class
W.E.B. DuBois, Race, and Human Rights
The Crisis (The Modernist Journals Project
"The Modernist Journals Project does not own nor does it assert any copyright in the contents of this object. This object has been reproduced and made available on this site based on its public domain status in the United States."
The Social Theory of W. E. B. du Bois by U.S. sociologist Patricia Hill Collins (born 1948) is one of the most revered practitioners of the field alive today. She is a ground-breaking theorist and researcher in the areas of feminism and race and is most well-known for popularizing the theoretical concept of intersectionality, which emphasizes the intersecting nature of race, class, gender, and sexuality as systems of oppression. She has written numerous books and scholarly articles. Some of the most widely read are "Black Feminist Thought," and the article "Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought," published in 1986.
Patricia Hill Collins offers a set of analytical tools for those wishing to develop intersectionality's capability to theorize social inequality in ways that would facilitate social change. While intersectionality helps shed light on contemporary social issues, Collins notes that it has yet to reach its full potential as a critical social theory. She contends that for intersectionality to fully realize its power, its practitioners must critically reflect on its assumptions, epistemologies, and methods. ~Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory
A New Perspective with Patricia Hill Collins
Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory - PMC (nih.gov)
Patricia Hill Collins explains BLACK FEMINIST THOUGHT | #1 Controlling images
Common grounds and crossroads - race, ethnicity, class in women's lives
Black sexual politics : African Americans, gender, and the new racism
From Black power to hip hop racism, nationalism, and feminism
Patricia Hill Collins (1948-living) -This is a link to her presidential address during the 2009 American Sociological Association (ASA) Annual Meeting
French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857) is known as the founder of positivism and is credited with coining the term sociology. Comte helped shape and expand the field of sociology and placed a great deal of emphasis on his work on systematic observation and social order. Comte’s main contribution to positivist philosophy falls into five parts: his rigorous adoption of the scientific method; his law of the three states or stages of intellectual development; his classification of the sciences; his conception of the incomplete philosophy of each of these sciences anterior to sociology; and his synthesis of a positivist social philosophy in a unified form, Britannica
The term sociology was coined by French philosopher Auguste Comte in 1838, who for this reason is known as the “Father of Sociology.” Comte felt that science could be used to study the social world. Comte thought that scientific analyses could also discover the laws governing our social lives. It was in this context that Comte introduced the concept of positivism to sociology — a way to understand the social world based on scientific facts. He believed that, with this new understanding, people could build a better future. He envisioned a process of social change in which sociologists played crucial roles in guiding society.
Auguste Comte's philosophy of positivism | Britannica
Becker defined deviance as a social creation in which “social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders.” Becker grouped behavior into four categories: falsely accused, conforming, pure deviant, and secret deviant.
Howard S Becker was an American sociologist known for his studies of occupations, education, deviance, and art. Becker defined deviance as a social creation in which “social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders.” Becker grouped behavior into four categories: falsely accused, conforming, pure deviant, and secret deviant. Becker’s most famous book, Outsiders (1963), is viewed as the cultural product of interactions between people whose occupations involved either committing crimes or catching criminals. It represented a major turning point in the sociology of deviance. In Art Worlds (1982), a book that greatly influenced the sociology of art, Becker examined the cultural contexts of the “art worlds”) in which artists produce their work. Courtesy of Britannica
Labeling Theory of Deviance In Sociology: Definitions & Examples
Émile Durkheim, French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) is known as the "father of sociology" and is a founding figure in the field. He is credited with making sociology a science. One of his most famous pieces of work is "Suicide: A Study In Sociology," which describes the common characteristics of people who commit suicide. Another important work of his that focuses on how society functions and regulates itself is "The Division of Labor in Society." He introduced the term "anomie". Anomie, in societies or individuals, is a condition of instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values or from a lack of purpose or ideals. Courtesy of Britannica
How Emile Durkheim Made His Mark on Sociology
Emile Durkheim – Major Concepts and Works
According to Durkheim, there are three main aspects to Durkheim’s theory of crime:
Courtesy of Karl Thompson
Durkheim argued that crime is an inevitable and normal aspect of social life. He pointed out that crime is inevitable in all societies, and that the crime rate was in fact higher in more advanced, industrial societies.
The social thought of Emile Durkheim by 
Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) by Morris Janowitz was an American sociologist and professor who made major contributions to sociological theory, the study of prejudice, urban issues, and patriotism. He was one of the founders of military sociology and made major contributions, along with Samuel Huntington, to the establishment of contemporary civil-military relations. He founded the Heritage of Sociology series at the University of Chicago Press and served as editor for twenty years.
Military sociology is a subfield of sociology. Military sociology is similar to medical sociology and other institutional studies such as the sociologies of education, family, sport, and religion, taking organization matters as the main focus and studying them systemically. Military sociology as a substantive field within sociology transcends the institutional and examines a broad range of social activities. Military sociology is sociological in the sense of capturing the breadth and depth of the field of sociology to include social psychology and small groups to management and leadership of societies and cultures. Courtesy of Encylopedia.com
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences by 
Social Change and Politics by German political economist Karl Marx (1818–1883) is one of the most famous figures in the founding of sociology. He is known for his theory of historical materialism, which focuses on the way social order, like class structure and hierarchy, emerges out of the economic system of a society. He theorized this relationship as a dialectic between the base and superstructure of society. Some of his notable works, like "The Manifesto of the Communist Party," were co-written with German philosopher Friedrich Engels (1820–1895). Much of his theory is contained in the series of volumes titled Capital. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and in a 1999 BBC poll he was voted the "thinker of the millennium" by people from around the world.
What Is Social Class, and Why Does it Matter? How Sociologists Define and Study the Concept
Karl Marx by 
Karl Marx by Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) was a prominent British writer and political activist, and one of the earliest Western sociologists and founders of the discipline. Her scholarship focused on the intersections of politics, morals, and society, and she wrote prolifically about sexism and gender roles. Harriet Martineau's theory of sociology entailed her belief that social reform was a necessity in order to improve better conditions for everyone. Also, she felt humans should live in accordance with natural laws while emphasizing science, education, and religious tolerance.
Her social theoretical perspective was often focused on the moral stance of a populace and how it did or did not correspond to the social, economic, and political relations of its society.
The Woman and the Hour by U.S. sociologist C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) is known for his controversial critiques of both contemporary society and sociological practice, particularly in his book "The Sociological Imagination" (1959). He also studied power and class in the United States, as displayed in his book "The Power Elite" (1956).
Radical ambition C. Wright Mills, the left, and American social thought by 
The politics of truth selected writings of C. Wright Mills by CJ Pascoe is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon where she teaches courses on sexuality, masculinity, social psychology, and gender. Her current research focuses on masculinity, youth, homophobia, sexuality and new media. Dr. Pascoe has explored issues of gender based violence, young people’s new media use, bullying, harassment and education through a variety of research projects. Dr. Pascoe lectures widely to academic and public audiences on contemporary issues facing young people and schools such as bullying, harassment, gender inequality, and homophobia. Courtesy of University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences
A Conversation with Dr. C.J. Pascoe
Sociologist C.J. Pascoe talks bullying at Elmhurst College
Sociologist to Present ‘Bullied: Youth, Gender and Homophobia
Personal Website: http://www.cjpascoe.org/
Dude, You Re a Fag by Juliet Schor is an economist and sociologist at Boston College. Schor’s research focuses on work, consumption, and climate change. A graduate of Wesleyan University, Schor received her Ph.D. in economics at the University of Massachusetts. Before joining Boston College, she taught at Harvard University for 17 years, in the Department of Economics and the Committee on Degrees in Women's Studies. Since 2011 Schor has been studying the “sharing” and “gig” economies. Institute for New Economic Thinking
She has studied trends in working time, consumerism, the relationship between work and family, women’s issues and Economic inequality, and the environment and concerns about climate change. From 2010 to 2017 she studied the sharing economy under a large research project funded by the MacArthur Foundation.
Economist Juliet Schor on Inequality & Climate Crisis (thenextsystem.org)
"[ECO]nomics" with Juliet Schor
The Case for a 4-Day Work Week | Juliet Schor | TED
Juliet Schor: The Impact of Consumption & Working Hours on Climate
[The image comes from “The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.”]
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) was a British philosopher and sociologist, sociologist who was one of the first to think of social life in terms of social systems. He saw societies as organisms that progressed through a process of evolution similar to that experienced by living species. Spencer also played an important role in the development of the functionalist perspective.
Spencer conceived a vast 10-volume work, Synthetic Philosophy, in which all phenomena were to be interpreted according to the principle of evolutionary progress. In First Principles (1862), the first of the projected volumes, he distinguished phenomena from what he called the unknowable—an incomprehensible power or force from which everything derives. He limited knowledge to phenomena, i.e., the manifestations of the unknowable, and maintained that these manifestations proceed from their source according to a process of evolution. From CREDO Herbert Spencer: Columbia Encyclopedia.
Max Weber (1864-1920) is considered to be one of the founders of modern sociology. This image is in the public domain.
(April 21, 1864- June 14, 1920). Max Weber was a German sociologist, mysticism philosopher, and political economist. He was best known for his thesis combining economic sociology and sociology of religion. His ideas influenced social theory, social research, and the entire discipline of sociology. Weber is often cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as among the three founding architects of sociology.
Weber was a key proponent of methodological anti-positivism, arguing for the study of social action through interpretive (rather than purely empiricist) means, based on understanding the purpose and meaning that individuals attach to their own actions. Weber's main intellectual concern was understanding the processes of rationalization, secularization, and "disenchantment" that he associated with the rise of capitalism and modernity, and which he saw as the result of a new way of thinking about the world. Courtesy of New Mexico State University.
Biography of Max Weber (thoughtco.com)
Max Weber’s Types of Social Action – Explained in Simple Words
Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism
Ascribed Status: Definition and Examples – Simple Explanation
Thorstein Veblen, (1857-1929), American economist and social scientist who sought to apply an evolutionary, dynamic approach to the study of economic institutions. With The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) he won fame in literary circles, and, in describing the life of the wealthy, he coined phrases—conspicuous consumption and pecuniary emulation—that are still widely used. Thorstein Veblen was an economist noted for his contributions to the development of American institutionalist economics. Veblen is best known for developing the concept of conspicuous consumption, or excessive consumption for the sake of signaling social status. Courtesy of Britannica
The Theory of the Leisure Class
Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929): Economics
Thorstein Veblen on Culture and Society by 
Thorstein Veblen and the Enrichment of Evolutionary Naturalism by Michel Foucault (1926–1984) was a French social theorist, philosopher, historian, public intellectual, and activist best known for revealing through his method of "archaeology" how institutions wield power by creating discourses that are used to control people. Today, he is one of the most widely read and cited social theorists, and his theoretical contributions are still important and relevant in the 21st century.
Michel Foucault (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Explainer: the ideas of Foucault
Introduction to Michel Foucault, Module on Power
Michel Foucault by 
Michel Foucault by Roy F. Baumeister is an American social psychologist known for his work on the self, including self-esteem, free will, social rejection and belongingness, and human sexuality.
Roy Baumeister has spent his career trying to understand what human social life is all about. Trained as an experimental social psychologist, he received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1978. His research spans many topics from self and identity to how people think about the future. In 2013, he received the highest award given by the Association for Psychological Science, the William James Fellow award, in recognition of his lifetime achievements. He has published in excess of 600 scientific works and 35 books, including the New York Times Bestseller ‘Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength’. Listed in the bibliographies of more than 130,000 scientific writings, Roy is considered among the handful of most influential psychologists in the world. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
The Science Behind Our Need to Belong
The Need to Belong: The Belongingness Hypothesis and the Psychology and Theory Behind It
Websites
Videos
Being Social A Conversation with Roy Baumeister by Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman (1922–1982) was a significant thinker in the field of sociology and in particular the symbolic interaction perspective. He is known for his writings on the dramaturgical perspective and pioneered the study of face-to-face interaction. His notable books include "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life", and "Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity." He served as the 73rd president of the American Sociological Association and is listed as the 6th most-cited intellectual in the humanities and social sciences by The Times Higher Education Guide.
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity
Erving Goffman by 
Stigma by