Thomas theorem statement in sociology about human behavior

Thomas's theorem is a statement in sociology that the consequences in human behavior are determined not by reality, but by the person’s opinion about it (“self-fulfilling prophecy”). Tomas (W.A. Thomas and D. Thomas) in 1928 formulated their thesis as:

Original text (eng.):

For example, if depositors are confident that the bank will burst, they will run to withdraw deposits, and the bank will really burst, regardless of the real financial situation.

Story

According to R. K. Merton (who coined the term “Thomas’s Theorem” in 1942 [1]), the idea goes back to Hobbes, who said that prophecies were often the cause of events. Merton also points to the role of the works of Bossuet, Mandeville, C. Marx, Z. Freud and W. Sumner [2]. Merton also points to ancient Greek Epictetus, who at the beginning of the second century said that “it is not the actions that disturb a person and disturb him, but the opinions and imagination about actions” [3]. Political analyst A. Kiva traces the idea to R. Dahrendorf, and D. S. Khaustov points to the Oedipus Effect by K. Popper [4].

American sociologist William Tomas formulated it like this: “situations defined by people as real are real in their consequences.” For the first time the phrase appeared in the description of the story of a mad gangster who shot the members of his family because he took them for fiends. His ideas were illusory, the consequences of his actions were not. Thomas, of course, cannot be considered the author of this observation (besides, by any standards it is not a “theorem”), but he fit it into a sonorous formula that hundreds of sociologists associate with the name of an American.

Merton called the statement of Tomasov "a theorem" (and not, say, a "sentence"), in order not to emphasize analogies with mathematical theorems, but his conviction that this is "probably the most important phrase ever published by any American sociologist" [one]. In his opinion, the formulation of Tomasov (Merton emphasizes the role of Dorothy [1], although other researchers object to him [5]) differs from the words of her predecessors in her success: alternative formulations, including that given by her counterpart U. Thomas J. Mead (“a thing that is not consider it true, does not play the role of truth in society ", 1936), were immediately forgotten, and belonging to Thomas was taken up by other researchers [6]. Merton himself turned out to be an important factor in popularizing the theorem: according to estimates made in 1993, out of 40 analyzed sociology textbooks that quoted the theorem, only one directly referred to Thomas’s work, all others used Merton’s 1948 Self-Fulfilling Prophecies as a source [7].

Analysis

According to R. Merton, a person acts not only on the basis of an objective situation, but also on the meaning attached to a situation by a person [8].

According to M. Sokolov [9], the “real situation” may not be at all, for example, if A considers B to be his son, and B considers A to be his father, their actions will be largely based on their assessment of the situation (even if the reality is different ). However, in the case when A considers B to be a friend, and B considers his friend A, and they act on the basis of this understanding, it is difficult to talk about what the “reality” of this situation is.

The theorem allows different levels of reading. On the most superficial, it only says that every society exists in accordance with its ideas about the real. Whether the profession of a witch hunter will be spread somewhere is determined not by the objective existence of witches, but by belief in their existence. We think that 500 years ago there were no witches, but there were hunters because they were mistakenly believed in them. People of that time, if they saw us, would have decided that we have no hunters, because we naively do not notice the dominance of witches in our world.

At a deeper level, however, the boundary itself between the “real” and the “ideas of the real” begins to blur.

This happens when we address situations of social interaction. We can say that A considers B to be his father, and he considers him to be his son, but objectively both of them are mistaken. However, can we say that A considers B to be his friend, B considers A to be his friend, both of them sincerely act on the basis of this idea - but at the same time, again, objectively, they are not friends? Probably not. Social relations and their definitions are inextricably linked with each other; definition of the situation is the situation. It cannot be said that there was a quarrel or an unpleasant scene, but none of the participants noticed her. If no one defines an event as X, it is not X. And, on the contrary, if many people believe that the bank goes bankrupt, then it is already ruined due to this circumstance.

But let's take a step further. What exactly do we mean when we say that “A thinks B is his friend”? What does A find a good, interesting person with whom to have a good time? What does A think that B considers him, A, to be such a person, and A can count on society, location and help of B? What does A think, that B thinks that A finds him, B, such a person, and therefore will maintain their mutual disposition, offering his help and attention? The paradox is that any relation seems to imply the infinity of such mutually reflecting mirrors, and the more distant the level from the primary one, the more theoretically it is more important. Examples are abundant in the works of political scientists of the times of the (First) Cold War. Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling, who actively advised the Pentagon, described the scenario that makes nuclear war almost an inevitable event. Imagine an American politician who, of course, just like an American politician, does not want an atomic war. He even knows that his Russian colleagues do not want this war. But the Russians may not know what he does not want. Or they may not know that he knows that they do not want an atomic war. Or they may not know that he knows what they know ... If they fail at any level, they can decide what we can, which means they should, and this leaves us no choice but to try to be first. By abstracting from this, fortunately, a fictional example, the definition of a situation includes the definition of the situation by other participants, and their definitions of the definition, and so on.

Mikhail Sokolov "The Thomas Theorem"

John Keynes, who was understandably interested in the economic applications of all this, proposed an elegant model, which he called the “beauty contest model”. Imagine that in a local newspaper portraits of six girls are depicted, and readers are asked to determine which of the girls is the most attractive. Those who call the same girl as the maximum number of other readers will receive a prize. Trivial strategy of behavior - just choose the most attractive female face. But most readers will behave wrong. They will try to understand which woman's face most of the other readers find most attractive. And, worse, each of them will think that if most other readers reason in the same way, it’s not even what most other readers think, but that most other readers think about most other readers, including himself.

There is no reason why this endless regression should stop at the fourth, fifth, or sixth level.

It seems that in everyday life people usually stop at about the third level (Alfred Schütz, a great explorer of everyday consciousness, considered this to be part of an attitude that generally distinguishes everyday life from out-of-day life). I know that I personally can not think like most people, I even admit that the majority, in fact, think the same way as I do - but I do not believe that the majority know this about the majority, and therefore behave in accordance with how, in my opinion, the majority are represented by the majority representation.

Finally, it must be said that meta-definitions, ideas about ideas are a thing that do not coincide in different individuals and groups almost more than the primary ideas themselves, and, moreover, are much more difficult to correct. One can understand that he was mistaken and reconsider his views, but how can one understand that another person has revised his views, especially if for some reason he may want to mislead us about this? It seems that the reason why Western policy toward Russia over the past 25 years was, in general, catastrophically unsuccessful, lies not so much in the lack of understanding of Russian motives, as in the lack of understanding of what Russian motives are attributed to the West, and opinion, the West attributes to them.