27 Facts About Paul Lazarsfeld

1.

Paul Felix Lazarsfeld was an Austrian-American sociologist.

2.

Paul Lazarsfeld was a founding figure in 20th-century empirical sociology.

3.

Paul Lazarsfeld attended the University of Vienna, eventually receiving a doctorate in mathematics in 1925.

4.

From 1933 to 1935, Paul Lazarsfeld worked with the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and toured the United States, making contacts and visiting the few universities that had programs related to empirical social science research.

5.

Paul Lazarsfeld contacted the Psychological Corporation, a non-profit organization devoted to bringing the techniques of applied psychology to business, and proposed a number of projects that were rejected as not having enough commercial value or being too involved.

6.

Paul Lazarsfeld helped John Jenkins, an applied psychologist at Cornell University, translate an introduction to statistics Lazarsfeld had written for his students in Vienna.

7.

Paul Lazarsfeld saw his institute as an important bridge between European and American models of research, and was willing to place the future of his institutes before his personal career.

8.

For example, in order to make the Newark Center seem to have a larger staff, Paul Lazarsfeld published under a pseudonym.

9.

Paul Lazarsfeld feared that the institute would fail without his management.

10.

At the Project, Paul Lazarsfeld expanded the aims postulated by the assistant directors, Hadley Cantril and Frank Stanton, and in a special issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology in February 1939, edited by Paul Lazarsfeld, he tied together some of the varied research the Project was engaged in.

11.

Paul Lazarsfeld felt this publication was necessary because "no central theory was visible, and we began hearing rumors that important people questioned whether we knew what we were doing".

12.

Paul Lazarsfeld's research led to a marriage between interpersonal communication and mass communication.

13.

Paul Lazarsfeld divorced Marie in 1930 and married his colleague Herta Herzog in 1936.

14.

Paul Lazarsfeld made great strides in statistical survey analysis, panel methods, latent structure analysis, and contextual analysis.

15.

Paul Lazarsfeld is noted for developing the two-step flow of communication model.

16.

One of Lazarsfeld's biographers, Paul Neurath, writes that there are "dozens of books and hundreds of articles by his students and the students of his students, all of which still breathe the spirit of this man's work".

17.

Index formations and qualitative mathematics were subjects taught by Paul Lazarsfeld and are important components of the GT method according to Glaser.

18.

Paul Lazarsfeld started his journey of institute creation overseas in Vienna.

19.

The most prestigious era of this Bureau was when Paul Lazarsfeld was the director, associate director, as well as an active researcher in the Bureau.

20.

Paul Lazarsfeld contributed to data analysis with a variety of techniques such as the 2x2 contingency tables, frequency analyses, scatter plots, and mixed methods like focus groups.

21.

Paul Lazarsfeld has been the President of the American Sociological Association and the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

22.

Paul Lazarsfeld received honorary degrees from many universities, including the University of Chicago, Columbia University, the University of Vienna and the Sorbonne University.

23.

Paul Lazarsfeld emphasized that a research institution is capable of existing in an organized fashion but that the commandeering and leadership really dictated the success of it.

24.

Paul Lazarsfeld was successful for nearly two decades; however actors within this particular system could manipulate the machinations of the institution and thus derail the program.

25.

Paul Lazarsfeld predominantly worked in the area of administrative research.

26.

Paul Lazarsfeld did many surveys but was reluctant to generalize his findings to a larger group.

27.

Paul Lazarsfeld was noted for his ability to forge productive collaborations with a wide range of thinkers.