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The Development of German Sociology
In the 1930s Talcott Parsons introduced an American audience to Max Weber’s action theory. Action theory describes the subjective factors that influence action and serve as the foundation for society. In developing his theory, Weber distinguished between the concepts of behavior and action. Behavior is an automatic response that occurs with little thought, whereas action is the result of a conscious process in which people give meaning to their actions and the world around them. Weber was concerned only with the study of action and believed that the sociologist could understand the meaningful basis of people's actions through the method of "understanding," or verstehen. He distinguished between four ideal-types of action such as affect action, traditional action, value-rational action, and means-end rational action.