Dynamic sociology: a social theory in action

Dynamic sociology is the sociological approach that studies the effects of the social forces present and operating in social and cultural systems on the personality systems of individuals, determining the different forms of psychological organization which they assume through cultivation or primary and secondary socialization processes. The paper tries to explain how the original idea of dynamic sociology formulated by Howard Washington Odum in 1947 has developed into current social theory through the integration of some essential theoretical contributions taken from Talcott Parsons, Herbert Marcuse, Nicklas Luhmann, Michel Foucault and Leonardo Benvenuti. The focal points are the distinction between acquisitive and ascriptive societies, the key concept of subjectivity, the plurality of the forms of psychological organization and the range of psychoanalysis. The paper also describes the core of the theory, the pattern variables of the different forms of psychological organization: ascription, subjectivity, post-subjectivity and re-ascription. In conclusion, it illustrates the main training and social research programs carried out on the basis of this approach in the fields of criminology, political sociology and intervention in situations of hardship with social origins.