Cooley, Charles Horton

Related Category: Sociology: Biographies

1864–1929, American sociologist, b. Ann Arbor, Mich., grad. Univ. of Michigan (B.A., 1887; Ph.D., 1894); son of Thomas M. Cooley. He taught in the sociology department at the Univ. of Michigan after 1892, although his degree was in economics. Cooley's major contribution to the field of sociology was his idea of the “looking-glass self” (a concept that emphasizes the social determination of the self) and primary groups—e.g., the family, the play group, or the neighborhood. He wrote Human Nature and the Social Order (1902, rev. ed. 1922), Social Organization (1909), Social Process (1918), and Sociological Theory and Social Research (1930).