Robert K. Merton

Lore & Background

Merton was born into a family of Yiddish-speaking Russian Jews who immigrated to the United States in 1904. His family lived in strained financial circumstances after his father's uninsured dairy-product shop burned down. He adopted the name Robert K. Merton initially as a stage name for his magic performances, settling on 'Merton' to Americanize his immigrant-family name and 'Robert' in honor of the French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin. He began his sociological career under George E. Simpson at Temple University, then worked as a research assistant to Pitrim A. Sorokin at Harvard, earning his MA and PhD in sociology in 1936. His dissertation proposed a positive correlation between the rise of Protestant pietism, Puritanism, and early experimental science, helping create the sociology of science.

Merton taught at Harvard until 1938, then became professor and chairman at Tulane University. In 1941 he joined Columbia University, where he spent most of his teaching career, becoming Giddings Professor of Sociology in 1963 and University Professor in 1974. He withdrew from teaching in 1984. He married Suzanne Carhart in 1934, with whom he had three children, including Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert C. Merton. After separating in 1968 and Carhart's death in 1992, he married fellow sociologist Harriet Zuckerman in 1993. He died in Manhattan on February 23, 2003, aged 92, after battling six forms of cancer.

Reader's Guide

Merton's contribution to sociology falls into three areas: sociology of science, sociology of crime and deviance, and sociological theory. He popularized concepts such as 'unintended consequences,' 'reference group,' 'role strain,' 'role model,' and 'self-fulfilling prophecy.' The self-fulfilling prophecy, as Merton defined, is a false definition of the situation that evokes new behavior making the originally false conception come true. His term 'role model' first appeared in a study on the socialization of medical students at Columbia University, growing from the concept of the reference group. Merton emphasized that individuals have a status set in the social structure with a whole set of expected behaviors. Unlike Talcott Parsons, Merton preferred middle-range theories that start with clearly defined aspects of social phenomena rather than broad abstractions. His work with Paul Lazarsfeld at Columbia emphasized systematic data collection through representative sampling. Merton's legacy includes founding the sociology of science and shaping modern sociological, political, and economic theory through his concepts.

Did You Know?

• Merton originally adopted the name Robert K. Merton as a stage name for his magic performances.
• He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1994 for founding the sociology of science.
• His son Robert C. Merton won the 1997 Nobel Prize in economics.
• Merton's dissertation committee was chaired by Pitirim Sorokin and included Talcott Parsons and Lawrence J. Henderson; historian George Sarton served as an informal advisor.