The volume is somewhat of an anomaly in sociological literature, but it is none the less welcome for its very non-conformity. 1
The above statement by George E. Vincent in his 1903 review of Charles Horton Cooley's Human Nature and the Social Order can serve to give the reader some indication of the nature of Cooley's ideas relative to the mainstream of early American sociology. In combining the study of social organization with an interactionist social psychology, Cooley was implementing the psychological works of John Dewey and George Herbert Mead at the social level. The effect of this combination was to establish the social group as something more than a mere aggregate of individuals. Besides adding a new dimension to American sociology, Cooley became one of the founders of the approach later to be named "symbolic interaction theory."
Whereas the interactionism which characterized the works of John Dewey and George Herbert Mead had contributed mainly to an understanding of the processes of human behavior, Cooley expanded upon this aspect and complemented it with a structural component making the social psychological theories of Dewey and Mead applicable to the study of society. In his application of these theories, Cooley hoped to establish a new framework for the study of man in society. To this end, he emphasized the need for both a new theory of society and a new methodology3