W.I. Thomas's Forgotten Four Wishes - An Exploratory History

• In Event: 592 - Section on History of Sociology Paper Session. Using Sociological Archives

Abstract

For more than twenty years, W.I. Thomas developed an analytic scheme (or "standpoint") to explain human motivation. This scheme invoked four fundamental human wishes: The wish for new experience; the wish for security; the wish for recognition; and the wish for response. This scheme plays a central role in Thomas and Znaniecki's interpretation of data in the Polish Peasant. It also is the theoretical anchor to Thomas's book, The Unadjusted Girl, in which he developed his situational approach. However, today no one remembers the four wishes. They have been deposited in the dustbin of history. The purpose of this exploratory paper is to trace the origins of the scheme and to highlight its significance for subsequent sociological theory.

Author

• Corey J. Colyer, West Virginia University