The relationship of the individual to society is of central importance in social action theory. Although Weber fully realised that individuals are affected by social institutions such as the family, school, the workplace and the mass media, he did not consider analysis of the operation and effect of these influences to be the only or primary purpose of sociology. It is more important, in his view, to understand the meanings that individuals experience in their own social lives than simply to analyse what ‘causes’ or ‘influences’ them to act as they do. Although Weber appreciated that individual social action is uniquely experienced by the social actor, he still felt able to generalise about social action, because in practice there are widely-shared patterns of social behaviour. For instance, people may act rationally, emotionally or idealistically, and it is possible to categorise and generalise their actions accordingly. Despite Weber`s emphasis on interpreting the quality and potential variety of individual experience and meaning, he was committed to scientific sociology. Nevertheless, although we have termed him a conflict structuralist here, he was also a founding father of interpretive sociology.
The interpretive approach has become popular, and has developed in a number of forms in contemporary sociology.

7. What is the primary purpose of sociological study?
The purpose of sociology is to understand and explain the meaning of social action and interaction.