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After reading this article you will learn about the personal and official documents as sources of data.
Personal Documents:
In its narrow sense, the personal document is a spontaneous first person description by an individual of his own actions, experiences and beliefs.
The wide range of personal documentary material comprises autobiographies, diaries and letters and other artistic and projective documents which describe the subject’s experiences and his beliefs or which give an insight into his cultural background. ‘Life history’ as a personal document relates to a comprehensive autobiography.
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But in common usage, a ‘Life-history’ may be almost any kind of biographical material. For Thomas and Znaniecki, the authors of ‘The Polish Peasant’, the personal document constituted a perfect type of sociological material.
Thomas and Znaniecki made vigorous use of the personal materials in their study of the Polish Peasants. Their stress on the use of such personal material subsequently proved to be something of a turning point in the development of social science.
At the time of publication of ‘The Polish Peasant’ more than 60 years now, the social scientists were very keen on making their discipline comparable in objectivity to natural sciences. From this viewpoint, personal documents (being essentially subjective) were regarded as of low scientific value.
However, the sociological use of personal documents, thought to be out of the mainstream of development for a time, had not at any stage disappeared totally. Its persistence was partly due to the growing acceptance by social science of the whole range of psychological concepts and method.
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The major thrust of the revelation by Sigmurid Freud that it was possible to conceptualize human beliefs and actions in terms of private and even unconscious motives and influences was that the subjective world is also accessible to and not beyond the scope of scientific investigation.
Blummer’s criticism of the use of personal documents by the authors of ‘The Polish Peasant’ inaugurated a controversy. Subsequently, four authorities drawn from different social science fields, namely, G.W. Allport, L. Gottschalk, Clyde Kluckhohn and Robert Angell were invited to develop their views on the validity and limitations of personal documents as a tool of social science.
These authorities reached the conclusion that subject to necessary safeguards, the use of personal document was not only permissible but also indispensable. They have indeed made a lasting contribution to “social science in terms of systematically analysing the typical hazards attendant upon the use of personal documents.
Two crucial issues they raised pertain to:
(1) The methodological question of how far disortions enter in the course of translating private records, and
(2) The questions of how to gather and analyse the number of personal documents needed for the derivation of abstract principles or hypotheses.
All port identifies thirteen motives that might induce individuals to record details about themselves, viz., self-justification by special pleading, exhibitionism, desire for order, literary delight, securing personal perspective, relief from tension or catharsis, monetary gain, assignment to write a brief autobiography, assisting in therapy (for a psychiatric patient), confession as means to absolution, scientific interest,-public service and example (to achieve a reform or offer a model) and desire for immortality.
It is understandable that the individual’s underlying motive is quite liable to influence the contents of the documents. Some authors, for example, may have a deliberate propagandist intention. Literary dishonesty may lead to suppression of unpalatable and un-dramatic sequences to form an aesthetically structured whole.
It must be remembered that “… every contributor is a prisoner of his own culture.” It cannot be helped, therefore, that his thought processes are likely, by and large, to be determined by the society in which he lives.
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We shall now discuss briefly the main forms of personal documents, namely, autobiographies, diaries and letters. Autobiographies which are written sometime after the occurrence of events recorded in them and intended for publication, may be expected to suffer from propagandist intentions, from a tendency to rationalize and from conscious stylization.
The prospective view, on the other hand, enables the writer to select and display such of his experiences and actions that subsequently come out to be significant features in his ‘life history.’
Diaries are often the most revealing especially, when they are ‘intimate journals.’ This is so because they are less constricted by the fear of public showing and because they reveal with greatest clarity what experiences and actions seemed most significant at the time of their occurrence.
But the diaries may exaggerate the conflicts and dramatic phase of life maintaining silence about the long calm and happy periods. Often the diarist assumes that the reader knows the persons and situations which he fails to adequately describe. A shrewd diarist may with some ulterior motive write a diary which will easily fall into the outsiders’ hands and in effect mislead them.
Letters are often used by researchers, as evidenced in the study of the Polish Peasant. The authors Thomas and Znaniecki analysed 754 letters exchanged between the Poles in the U.S.A. and those in Poland.
Letters often have some propagandist intention since they are designed by the writer to convey to the recipient some impressions more telling than mere facts. As with diaries, the letters often lack continuity and assume much of what any third party may be ignorant about.
We have seen how the personal documents by their very nature engender strong possibilities of distortion. It must be admitted that no internal test or screw exist for the analyst to correct such distortion.
The only satisfactory correctives are the external ones, such as the degree of correspondence with other sources of information or with observed behaviour and the success of predictions based on the original material. Gottschalk lists five kinds of circumstances which may predispose the investigator to believe that the informant’s statement is truthful.
(a) When the truth of the statement is a matter of indifference to the witness, he is likely to be unbiased (this might possibly have impaired his observation or memory).
(b) When the statement is prejudicial to the informant or his interests, it is likely to be unusually truthful.
(c) When the facts at issue are so much the matters of common knowledge that the informant would be unlikely to be mistaken or lie about them.
(d) When the part of the statement of primary interest to the investigator is both incidental and intrinsically probable.
(e) When the informant makes statements which are contrary to his expectations and anticipations as assessed by the investigator’s knowledge of his thought- patterns and preconceptions.
It may be remembered here that many of the personal documents are recorded not by the informant but by the investigator (as when the informant is illiterate). In the course of recording, the investigator himself may be responsible for introducing distortions.
The informants are likely to be ‘blinkered’ and ‘polarized’ by the investigator’s own interests and line of approach. The informant is not only led to introduce topics which may barely be of any interest to him; he may even adopt attitudes and pretend to hold beliefs which he would not have expressed if only he had been free of investigator’s Influence.
Let us now turn to consider how far the personal document material might serve as a basis for generalization. It is generally believed that people whose personal documents become available are the ones who tend to be suffering from frustrated emotional lives. Should this be fair surmise, generalisations based on personal documents would clearly refer to such people and not to the population as a whole.
One way of overcoming this limitation is to solicit the cooperation of a more representative cross-section of the population. The documents may be offered to be purchased. The offer of payment coupled with a promise of anonymity has been shown to induce the otherwise reluctant people to come out with personal documents. But such a practice may affect adversely their representativeness.
Even if the problem of typicality is solved, the problem of obtaining a sample of documents large enough to permit fine analysis still remains. In favourable circumstances, however, investigators have been able to obtain large samples (for example, Thomas and Znaniecki used a number of fragmentary autobiographies, large number of letters and a considerable collection of records, newspaper accounts, etc.).
Thrasher in his study ‘Gang’ was able to supplement his main technique by persuading a number of gang members to write their life-stories.
The Public or Official Documents:
1. Newspapers:
Newspaper reports, where a reporter was present at the scene, might be thought of as valuable. But it has been shown too often how little reliance can be placed on them. We should recognize the pressures under which the newspaper correspondents work. Many of the correspondents may depend on their personal system of recording.
In many cases, the correspondent may highlight only the ‘eye-catching’ and the ‘dramatic’ parts of the total occurrence. Typically, newspapers work very fast. Latest news is always most desirable. Staleness is a taboo. Reports are controlled by available space and newspaper’s policy. The popular press is often more concerned with entertaining than informing.
2. Public Records and Statistics:
These are, on the face of things, the most satisfactory and reliable sources. For example, the verbatim parliamentary record of what is said possibly is the most trusted document one can find. More valuable than a written record is tape-recording which preserves not only what was said, but also how it was said.
An unedited sound film could be even better. Their reliability too is usually high. The inventory, balance sheet etc., are useful accessories to business transactions; there are penalties for false statements.
The Census Reports, the annual digests of statistics and statistical reports of various State departments and other national bodies produce a great deal of useful data for social scientists to work with.
Official statistics, although the data on which they are based may not be directly relevant to the researcher’s interests, are in most instances designed to inform rather than deceive the readers. These are normally prepared by experts and this is a point in their favour.
The range of matter covered in available records and the treatment a subject receives in such records varies with the administrative needs of which they were collected.
Health statistics give birth and death rates, etc. Public and private economic organizations collect and publish data on wages, hours of work, productivity, absenteeism, strikes, etc. In addition, a small but steadily increasing body of data is being collected by various institutions like schools, hospitals, social service agencies, etc., on the psychological level proper.
Data collected in the course of such other activities have a number of advantages for social research in addition to that of economy. A major one is the fact that much information of this sort is collected periodically, making the establishment of trends over time possible.
Another is that the gathering of information from such sources does not require the co-operation of the individuals about whom information is desired as does the use of techniques such as questionnaires, interviews, projective techniques and techniques such as questionnaire, interviews, projective techniques and techniques such as questionnaires, interviews, projective techniques and often observation.
Moreover, since such data are collected in the ordinary course of events, the measurement procedure is less likely to reveal the investigator’s purpose or to change the behaviour in which he is interested.
K. M. Landis based his study entitled ‘Segregation in Washington’ exclusively on the analysis and interpretation of available statistical data, e.g., census reports, official health statistics, employment data, police statistics, etc.
Similarly, Leo Srole in his study of ‘Status and Prestige’ (in the ‘Yankee City’ series of investigations by Warner and Associates) utilized a rather unusual source of data relevant to his problem—the cemetery records.
It needs to be stressed that the statistical data require that the investigator is able to ask many different questions related to the research problem. If a research idea or hypothesis can be formulated in such manner that the available recorded material bears on the question, the use of such material becomes possible. The guiding principle for the use of such material becomes possible.
The guiding principle for the use of available statistic consists in keeping oneself flexible in respect of the form in which research questions are asked. Durkheim’s study on suicide provides a classic example of how the superior flexibility of a genius resulted in the testing of a social theory by available statistics.
Durkheim started with the hypothesis that the causes of suicide are to be found in the social conditions. To test this theory, Durkheim studied critically the statistics on suicide in certain European countries.
Certain studies, such as Durkheim’s, rely entirely on the analysis of data collected for purpose other than those of the particular study. In others, such data are used in conjunction with other procedures. Data regularly collected for other purpose may be used to measure the effects of an experimental treatment.
Thus, in the Hawthorne electrical studies, Roethlisberger and Dickson found that changes in such conditions as illumination, rest periods and hours of work could not account for a consistently rising rate of productivity in the experimental groups over a period of time.
They subsequently concluded that changes in social organization of work groups and their relationship to management were responsible for a rise in productivity.
Available statistics may be used for other purposes, in a study. They are frequently useful in selecting cases with specified characteristics for intensive study. Available records may also be used to supplement or to check information gathered specifically for the purposes of a given investigation.
For example, in a study of the psychological impact of long-term unemployment in an Austrian village (Jahoda, Lazarsfeld and Zeisl) the ‘shock’ effect of unemployment was checked against such records as the accounts of the local grocer.
The records of specific behaviour may be used as an indicator of some more general concept. A series of studies by Tryon illustrate this use of records. Tryon was concerned with the problem of identifying sub-cultural groups in more meaningful and reliable ways.
One of his hypotheses was that the residents of common demographic social area will experience certain common socially relevant situations and common psychological states elicited by those situations and will behave in certain common ways. As an evidence to test this hypothesis, Tryon used voting records. Voting for him was an indicator of social attitudes.
The investigator must take certain precautions even when using statistics which are generally considered reliable.
(a) The definitions of categories used in available statistical material do not so often coincide with those used in social research. In criminal statistics, for instance, the concept of ‘crime’ is operationally defined in a number of ways.
A social scientist interested in family composition may be grossly misled if he proceeded on the basis of the operational definition of a household as used in the census reports. In view of such confusion, the use of available records may be more misleading than enlightening unless the precise definition on which the statistics are based is ascertained.
(b) To know merely what the original collector of available data (records) set out to gather is not enough; it is also necessary to enquire into his methods. Many records are collected with the intention of covering an entire ‘population’ and not just a sample.
Many obstacles stand in the way of realizing this ideal. It may also be that the informants from whom the original collector drew information were not willing to provide it. Income statistics based on individual tax declarations generally tend to be underestimates. This cannot but be the case.
(c) It is quite possible that the degree of inaccuracy in official statistics due to these reasons may be negligible from the point of view of the social scientist. But there are methodological errors that may lead to serious inaccuracies. This fact needs to be kept in mind especially when dealing with data collected over many years.
Kingsley Davis in ‘The population of India and Pakistan’ has pointed out that the olden rural statistics were kept by the village chowkidars to whom the most obvious and. intelligible cause of death was ‘fever.’ The increase of certain causes of death (other than fever) shown in later statistics is probably a reflection of the change in the techniques of reckoning.
Thus, to ignore how statistics are kept and for what purpose, is to misuse statistics badly. It is, of course, no criticism of the statistics themselves. Occasionally, it is possible to correct available records in the light of what is subsequently known about the methods by which they have been gathered.
In any case, the proper qualifications in respect of such data when used for research purpose can be made only if the social scientist is aware of the possible errors inherent in the particular method employed.
We close this discussion with the brilliant remarks on the subject by Professor Bowley:
“It is never safe to take published statistics at their face value, without knowing their meaning and limitations, and it is always necessary to criticize arguments that are based on them unless one is able to trust implicitly the knowledge and good faith of the persons bringing them forward. It is extremely easy to falsify lessons which numerical statements should teach. The actual use or appreciation of statistics are ultimately a matter of intelligence, special knowledge and common sense.”
3. Biographies:
A glance along the borrower’s registers of a public library will show that the common borrower enjoys reading about other people’s lives. The biographer generally works on people of some fame, whatever their spheres of activity. Thus, a biography is more likely to be about some famous person, his outstanding success or the eye-catching personality.
The professional biographer depends on sensationalism for the sale of his work and as such he may try to make his book sensational, shocking and dramatic. There is a possibility that the biographer may be motivated by a concern with the defence of a dead person, such as biographies written by loving sons and daughters.
In yet another instance, biographer may have been commissioned by the family of a person. This latter type of biography must be carefully scrutinized since it is hardly likely to contain much criticism of its subject; it is rather likely to be replete with justifications and accentuation.
4. Historical Documents:
Conventionally, historical documents deal with events of the past about which the main source of information is documentary, the participants being dead. This definition is by no means satisfactory since there is plenty of the present century alive in the minds of the living people.
Nevertheless, the historical document belongs to special category of its own since it enables us to appreciate the importance of the links between social sciences and history.
Much of sociological investigation is perfected with historical background. For example, community studies bring out the historical development of the given settlement, the study of organizational structure of the trade union can only gain a good perspective by tracing the developmental chain.
In all investigations such as these the sociologist must turn to documents to establish the sequence of events and try to understand the process that took place in the past.
The sociologist who dives into historical research, without seeking advice from the historian will only waste time and effort in seeking out correct sources and is likely to use the sources badly if he knows little about the way in which the documents were complied.
5. Case Histories:
‘Case-history’ records are collected in the course of welfare work. The case-workers are firsthand observers of social behaviour. This material can be utilized by social scientist with great advantage.
It should be noted, however, that the caseworkers tend to record their observation in an impressionistic way, their descriptions are subjective based on general personal experience with little concern for classification within an integrated conceptual framework.
Since there is likely, in case work, a bias toward the socially pathological (in the selection of cases) and as the case records have little uniformity, generalization is often difficult, On the other hand, it is in the nature of case-histories that they abound in richness and evocative quality.
There is no doubt that the data of the large and increasing body of case-workers with experience of various forms of pathology, can be utilized by the social scientists very fruitfully in their researches.
Before the close of the discussion on documents, which afford a potent source of social science data, it is important to consider the question:
“How far can documentary evidence, even when properly selected and checked for authenticity, be used as proof?”
This is an issue of great importance, not only because a large part of social evidence is still entirely derived secondhand from documentary sources but also because there are reasons for supposing that the user of documents is often tempted to stretch his material to suit his imaginative thesis. He also has, to boot, unique opportunities for doing so.
It has been recognized generally that the documentary material by itself may never provide a deep insight into the motives and activities of other generations. It is also generally accepted that the ideal of objectivity, however possible for the natural scientist, is beyond the reach of any historian. This does not mean, of course, that the historical facts are a suspect.
As Carr points out, “… (the facts) have the same relation to history as bricks or steel or concrete have to architecture…. But they are not in themselves ‘facts of history.’ It is only the decision of the historian that they are significant for his purpose which makes them into the facts of history….’ His choice and arrangement of these facts and juxtapositions of them which indicate his view of cause and effect, must be dictated by presuppositions and (these) will be closely related to the conclusion which he is seeking to establish…. History therefore is an interaction between the historian and the past of which he is writing. The facts help to mould the mind of the historian. But the mind of the historian also… helps to mould facts.”
A question that poses itself is how the social scientists can exploit the documentary material and how they can overcome their prejudices while using them. The classical well-thumbed method is for the scientist to search his mind until he has exposed his own biases. Even if he cannot overcome them, at least he is able to make some allowance for them (Socrates).
But the psychologically naive belief that it is possible by introspection to unearth every secret interest and prejudice is no longer tenable.
The most persistent, ‘obvious’ and ‘commonsense’ of the individual’s presuppositions may just be those which could be restricting his understanding and preventing him from realizing the significance of many of the facts available to him. If his access to the problem is by way of documents alone, these limitations are especially prone to detract from the richness of his results.
Even within the bounds of admissible ideas, the user of documents has ample scope for distortion so long as his conclusions are based on impressions and he wants us to take a lot of trust.
A more recent development which consists in, the direct use of quantitative methods on documents themselves, greatly reduces the possibility of impressionistic distortion. The technique is known as ‘Content Analysis.’