Restricted access

Research article

First published online December 30, 2015

Request permissions

Paul Felix Lazarsfeld’s Impact on Sociological Methodology

Leo A. Goodman and Tim F. Liao [email protected]View all authors and affiliations

Volume 129, Issue 1

https://doi.org/10.1177/0759106315615517

Abstract
References

Abstract

Abstract

Paul Felix Lazarsfeld was a major figure in the development of modern empirical methods in sociology and the social sciences. He laid many of the foundations for social survey techniques and other empirical methods for understanding key aspects of contemporary society, such as voting studies, opinion polling, panel studies, and mass media research. The American Sociological Association Methodology Section honors each year a distinguished sociologist with the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award for a career of distinguished contributions to the field of sociological methodology. Paul Lazarsfeld’s methodological work that he was most proud of was his introduction of the concept of latent classes, latent class analysis, and latent structure analysis. We consider in this paper Lazarsfeld’s institutional impact through this ASA award though we focus our discussion on his work and his impact on the development of latent class/structure analysis.

Résumé

L’impact de Paul Felix Lazarsfeld sur la méthodologie sociologique. Paul Felix Lazarsfeld était une figure majeure dans le développement de méthodes empiriques modernes dans la sociologie et les sciences sociales. Il a posé un grand nombre de fondations pour les techniques d’enquête sociaux et d’autres méthodes empiriques pour comprendre les principaux aspects de la société contemporaine, telles que des études de vote, des enquêtes d’opinion, des études de panel, et des recherches sur les médias. La section méthodologie de l’Association américaine de sociologie discerne chaque année à un sociologue distingué le Prix Paul F. Lazarsfeld pour des contributions remarquables au domaine de la méthodologie sociologique. Les travaux méthodologiques dont Paul Lazarsfeld était le plus fier était son introduction de la notion de classes latentes, l’analyse de structure latente, et l’analyse de la structure latente. Nous considérons dans ce papier l’impact institutionnel de Lazarsfeld à travers ce prix ASA si nous nous concentrons notre discussion sur son travail et son impact sur le développement de l’analyse de classe / structure latentes.

Get full access to this article

View all access and purchase options for this article.

References

Anderson TW (1954) On Estimation of Parameters in Latent Structure Analysis. Psychometrika 19: 1–10.

Anderson TW (1959) Some Scaling Methods and Estimation Procedures in the Latent Class Model. In: Grenander U (ed.) Probability and Statistics. New York: Wiley, 9–38.

Anderson TW, Carleton RO (1957) Sampling Theory and Sampling Experience in Latent Structure Analysis. P. 363 in: Alchian AA (ed.) Summary of Papers Delivered at the 116th Annual Meeting of the American Statistical Association in Detroit, September 7-10, 1956. Journal of the American Statistical Association 52: 361–383.

Balazova E, Marsalek J (2012) Paul Felix Lazarsfeld His Methodological Inspirations and Networking Activities in the Field of Social Research, Prague, 25 - 27 September 2011. Bulletin of Sociological Methodology/Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique 116: 61–66.

Boudon R (1997) Paul F. Lazarsfeld. In: van Meter KM (ed.) La sociologie. Paris: Larousse, 475–502.

Clogg CC (1977) Unrestricted and Restricted Maximum Likelihood Latent Structure Aanalysis: A Manual for Users. Working Paper 1977-09, Population Issues Research Office, Penn State Univeristy, University Park, PA.

Clogg CC (1982) Some Models for the Analysis of Association in Multiway Cross-classifications Having Ordered Categories. Journal of the American Statistical Association 77: 803-815.

Clogg CC, Goodman LA (1984) Latent Structure Analysis of a Set of Multidimensional Contingency Tables. Journal of the American Statistical Association 79: 762-771.

Clogg CC (1988) Latent Class Models for Measuring. In: Langeheine R, Rost J (eds) Latent Trait and Latent Class Models, New York: Springer Science+Business Media, 173–205.

Clogg CC (1995) Latent Class Models. In: Arminger G, Clogg CC, Sobel ME (eds) Handbook of Statistical Modeling for the Social and Behavioral Sciences, New York: Springer Science+Business Media, 311–359.

Duncan OD (1974) Stouffer Award: …Duncan Requests Reconsideration of Award. American Sociological Association Footnotes 2(9): 2–3.

Duncan OD (1981) A Ceremony of Research Reports. In: Merton RK, Coleman JS, Rossi PH (eds) Qualitative and Quantitative Social Research: Papers in Honor of Paul F. Lazarsfeld,. Contemporary Sociology (Review Symposium). New York: Free Press 10: 357–61.

Gibson WA (1955) An Extension of Anderson’s Solution for the Latent Structure Equations. Psychometrika 20: 69–73.

Gibson WA (1959) Three Multivariate Models: Factor Analysis, Latent Structure Analysis, and Latent Profile Analysis. Psychometrika 24: 229–52; also in Lazarsfeld PF, Henry NW (eds) (1966) Readings in Mathematical Social Science. Chicago: Science Research Associates, Inc., 54–77.

Goodman LA (1974a) The Analysis of Systems of Qualitative Variables When Some of the Variables Are Unobservable. Part. I: A Modified Latent Structure Approach. American Journal of Sociology 79: 1179–259.

Goodman LA (1974b) Exploratory Latent Structure Analysis Using Both Identifiable and Unidentifiable Models. Biometrika 61: 215–31.

Goodman LA (1979) The Analysis of Qualitative Variables Using More Parsimonious Quasi-Independence Models, Scaling Models, and Latent Structure Models. In: Merton RK, Coleman JS, Rossi PH (eds) Qualitative and Quantitative Social Research: Papers in Honor of Paul F. Lazarsfeld. New York: Free Press, 119–37.

Goodman LA (2002) Latent Class Analysis: The Empirical Study of Latent Types, Latent Variables, and Latent Structures. In: Hagenaars JA, McCutcheon AL (eds) Applied Latent Class Analysis. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 3–55.

Goodman LA (2007) On the Assignment of Individuals to Latent Classes. In: Yu Xie (ed.) Sociological Methodology, vol. 37. Boston MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1–22.

Green BF Jr. (1951) A General Solution for the Latent Class Model of Latent Structure Analysis. Psychometrika 16: 151–66.

Green BF Jr. (1952) Latent Structure Analysis and Its Relation to Factor Analysis. Journal of the American Statistical Association 47: 71–76.

Hagenaars JA (1988a) Latent Structure Models with Direct Effects between Indicators: Local Dependence Models. Sociological Methods & Research 16: 379–405.

Hagenaars JA (1988b) LCAG-loglinear modelling with latent variables: A modified LISREL approach. In: Saris W, Gallhofer I (eds) Sociometric Research vol. 2, 111–130.

Hagenaars JA (1993) Loglinear Models with Latent Variables. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Hagenaars JA (1998) Categorical Causal Modeling: Latent Class Analysis and Directed Log-Linear Models with Latent Variables. Sociological Methods & Research 26: 436–486.

Hagenaars JA, McCutcheon AL (eds.) (2002) Applied Latent Class Analysis. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.

Harper DH (1966) Some New Applications of Dichotomous Algebra to Survey Analysis and Latent Structure Analysis, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Sociology, Columbia University.

Lazarsfeld PF (1950a) The Logical and Mathematical Foundation of Latent Structure Analysis. In: Stouffer SA, et al. (eds) Measurement and Prediction. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, chapter 10.

Lazarsfeld PF (1950b) Some Latent Structures. In: Stouffer SA, et al. (eds) Measurement and Prediction. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, chapter 11.

Lazarsfeld PF (1954) A Conceptual Introduction to Latent Structure Analysis. In: Lazarsfeld PF (ed.) Mathematical Thinking in the Social Sciences. New York: Free Press, chapter 7.

Lazarsfeld PF (1955) Recent Developments in Latent Structure Analysis. Sociometry 18: 391–403; also in Moreno JL (ed.) (1956) Sociometry and the Science of Man. New York: Beacon House, 647–59.

Lazarsfeld PF (1959a) Latent Structure Analysis. In: Koch S (ed.) Psychology: A Study of a Science, vol. 3. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 476–535.

Lazarsfeld PF (1959b) Latent Structure Analysis. Contributions to Scientific Research in Management. Los Angeles: UCLA Graduate School of Business Administration.

Lazarsfeld PF (1960) Latent Structure Analysis and Test Theory. In: Gulliksen H, Messik S (eds) Psychological Scaling: Theory and Applications. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 83–95; also in Lazarsfeld PF, Henry NW (1966) Readings in Mathematical Social Science. Chicago: Science Research Associates, Inc., 78–88.

Lazarsfeld PF (1965) Latent Structure Analysis. In: Sternberg S, et al. (eds) Mathematics and Social Sciences. The Hague: Mouton, 37–54.

Lazarsfeld PF, Dudman J (1951) The General Solution of the Latent Class Case. In: Lazarsfeld PF, et al. (eds) The Use of Mathematical Models in the Measurement of Attitudes, RAND Research Memorandum No. 455. Part II. Santa Monica CA: RAND Corp., paper No. 5.

Lazarsfeld PF, Henry NW (1965) The Application of Latent Structure Analysis to Quantitative Ecological Data. In: Massarik F, Ratoosh P (eds) Mathematical Explorations in Behavioral Science. Homewood IL: Richard D. Irwin, Inc. and Dorsey Press, 333–48.

Lazarsfeld PF, Henry NW (1968) Latent Structure Analysis. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co.

Liao TF (2004) Estimating Household Structure in Ancient China by Using Historical Data: A Latent Class Analysis of Partially Missing Patterns. Journal of Royal Statistical Society Series A 167: 125–39.

Madansky A (1960) Determinantal Methods in Latent Class Analysis. Psychometrika 25: 183–98.

Magidson J, Vermunt JK (2001) Latent Class Factor and Cluster Models: Bi-Plots and Related Graphical Displays. In: Sobel ME, Becker MP (eds) Sociological Methodology, vol. 31. Boston MA: Blackwell Publishing, 223–64.

McHugh RB (1956) Efficient Estimation and Local Identification in Latent Class Analysis. Psychometrika 21: 331–47; correction 23, 273-74.

Pollak M (1979) Paul F. Lazarsfeld, fondateur d’une multinationale scientifique. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 25: 45–59.

Rossi PH (1951) Latent Structure Analysis and Research on Social Stratification, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Sociology, Columbia University.

Somers RH (1961) Latent Content Model of Latent Structure, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Sociology, Columbia University.

Vermunt JK (1996) Log-linear Event History Analysis: A general Approach with Missing Data, Latent Variables, and Unobserved Heterogeneity. Tilburg, Netherlands: Tilburg University Press.

Vermunt JK (1997) Log-linear for Event Histories. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Vermunt JK (2001) The Use of Restricted Latent Class Models for Defining and Testing Nonparametric and Parametric Item Response Theory Models. Applied Psychological Measurement 25: 283–294.

Vermunt JK (2002) A General Latent Class Approach to Unobserved Heterogeneity in the Analysis of Event History Data. In: Hagenaars JA, McCutcheon AL (eds) Applied Latent Class Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 282–307.

Vermunt JK (2003) Multilevel Latent Class Models. Sociological Methodology 33: 213–236.

Vermunt JK, Magidson J (2005) Technical Guide for Latent Gold 4.0: Basic and Advanced. Belmont MA: Statistical Innovations.

Wiggins LM (1955) Mathematical Models for the Interpretation of Attitude and Behavior Change, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Sociology, Columbia University.

|

You currently have no access to this content. Visit the access options page to authenticate.