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Thomas theorem

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The Thomas theorem is a theory of sociology, namely

"If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences."[1]

The theorem was formulated by William I. Thomas in his 1928 book The child in America: Behavior problems and programs.

Thomas had more precisely stated, in 1923, that particularly within every-day-life social worlds any definition of the situation will influence the present. Not only that, but — whenever following a series of definitions the individual is involved in — such a definition influences also "gradually a whole life-policy and the personality of the individual himself"[2]. Consequently, Thomas, whenever investigating societal problems such as intimacy, family, education, stressed as fundamental the rôle of the situation when detecting a social world "in which subjective impressions can be projected on to life and thereby become real to projectors."[3]

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