Notes on the Disparagement of "Sociologizing" in Collaborative Research

In recent years I've had the privilege of participating in numerous transactions involving psychiatrists in collaborative enterprises with social scientists. Frequently in this context I have heard the term "sociologizing," or some kindred expression, used to imply a disparagement of journeyman sociologists' activities in reconceptualizing ordinary experiences. In some cases the criticism seemed well-founded, even in terms of the most generous standards laid down by the sociologist himself for his professional methodology. The language, for example, might have been unnecessarily stultified or florid, even for the academic community's norms; or the use of statistics might have been unnecessarily mechanical and pointless. In other cases the criticism did not seem well founded and thus seemed to merit closer examination. The problems associated with it seem applicable to social science collaboration in other applied fields as well as psychiatry.