The Sociological Study of Religion
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Abstract
and then considers carefully the sociological and methodological problems raised by these phenomena. This could be seen as an extension and application of his classic paper with Lazarsfeld on qualitative research; and the whole book leads on from Barton's work on property space and organizational measurement. Barton considers some of these sociological problems in detail-for instance, individual behaviour in the emergency social system. As he puts it, 'any large unfavorable change in the inputs of a social system disrupts its normal flow of activities and threatens the satisfactions and values of its members' (p. 65). Fire chiefs sometimes look after their families first. The most original and sociologically fascinating chapter is the fifth, on 'The Altruistic Community'. It considers the problem of motivation to help reduce suffering among community members in modern society. As he writes, 'arousing active altruistic behavior in a large part of the population is a most unusual event' (p. 206). He produces a model of the therapeutic community response, summarized as a series of 71 inter-related propositions which give a very complex picture. He does however compactly summarize them as a series of quasi-mathematical functions-not to provide quantitative statements of them, but only to indicate whether the relationship is positive, negative, or, in a few cases, curvilinear. He has in fact produced a model of informal mass activities in disasters. Naturally therefore he concludes with a consideration of the