[1]: 5 Microsociology is based on subjective interpretative analysis rather than statistical or empirical observation,[2]: 18–21 and shares close association with the philosophy of phenomenology.
1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias Microsociology exists both as an umbrella term for perspectives which focus on agency, such as Max Weber's theory of social action, and as a body of distinct techniques, particularly in American sociology.
[4] Contrary to Erving Goffman's theory, Émile Durkheim believed that advanced methodological principles should guide sociologists and that they should research social fact.
[4] Sartre, in his work on the phenomenology of social dynamics, Critique of Dialectical Reason, written in the late 1950s, called microsociology the only valid theory of human relations.
[9] Research begins by evaluating the social life of the individuals with the goal of showing the reciprocal relationship between events/actions and the nature of the societal context in which they occur.