The relationship between work status (working and retired) and the degree of formal and informal social participation among elderly respondents sixty to sixty-nine years of age was studied and analyzed. A national probability sample of 735 elderly Americans provided the major data source. Elaboration model was used to further understand and explain the relationship between work status and the degree of formal and informal social participation. Ten control variables were introduced: work status of spouse, marital status, occupational status, family income, satisfaction with health, size of kinship network, race, gender, and size of community of residence. Indices of formal and informal social participation were constructed.

Sociological interest in psychoanalytic thought, which began early in this century, has thus far emphasized the implications of Sigmund Freud's clinical discoveries. However, beginning in 1912, Freud produced a series of works which addressed social themes. These works included Totem and Taboo, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, The Future of an Illusion, Civilization and its Discontents, and Moses and Monotheism, as well as a number of papers dealing with social themes. This study began with a review of the social and intellectual influences on Freud's life and thought. Then a content analysis of Freud's social writings, identified above, was undertaken, to assess the significance for contemporary social theory of Freud's social thought. Categories for analysis were constructed: Society: Social Origins, Social Control and Social Change; Social Groups; the Family; Religion. Freud's ideas concerning these social categories and social institutions were explicated and an assessment of Freud as a social theorist was undertaken.