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The relation between attitudes and behavior has been of enduring concern to social scientists over the past half century. The present volume is a sequel to a landmark theoretical and methodological critique of the literature on that relationship, published by the first author, Dr. Deutscher, in 1973. It is informed throughout by a symbolic interactionist perspective, and turns on issues of validity and credibility of the verbal evidence on which social science still heavily relies in its accounts of behavior.

What Sentiments and Acts provides is a more complex, nuanced, and valid account of the relationship between what we say and what we do. Drawing on the example of Deutscher's earlier research and of cognate work by ethno-methodologists--this book is, in part, the history of a problem--the authors argue for a "double screen," in part methodological and in part conceptual, through which the evidence for inconsistencies must be sifted.

The account here adduced goes well beyond the merely interpersonal level; it insists, instead, on the problematics of the symbolic language used to express or convey the meaning of human behavior. In so doing, it extends the perspective on social organization it embodies, and suggests a relevant and welcome line of investigation for those doing applied work in the nexus of human relations.

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CHOICE Review

A sequel to the landmark study, What We Say/What We Do: Sentiments and Acts (1973). The authors update and elaborate their previous theoretical and methodological critiques of the vast sociological literature on the relationship between what people say and what they do. Their central argument is that the attitudes people hold are not always consistent with the behaviors in which they engage, and that a change in one does not necessarily lead to a change in the other. General readers might be tempted to dismiss this conclusion as a truism, or worse, not think about it at all. But the authors are right to argue that the discrepancy between what people say and do is central to a host of social issues. For example, Head Start and other Great Society programs are commonly evaluated on the basis of what people say in opinion polls rather than on empirical measures of actual effects. In fact, opinion polls are the rule in most studies of racial prejudice, sexual attitudes, and family violence, among others. Clearly, the encouraging results of such studies of attitudes do not square with the racist, sexist, and violent behaviors found in many contemporary societies. Extremely thorough index and references. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduate; graduate; faculty. S. G. Mestrovi'c; Texas A&M University