Herbert George Blumer (March 7, 1900 – April 13, 1987) was an
American sociologist whose main scholarly interests were symbolic interactionism and methods of
social research. Believing that individuals create their own social reality through collective and individual action, he was an avid interpreter and proponent of
George Herbert Mead’s work on symbolic interactionism. Blumer eventually became the leading symbolic interactionist of his time and wrote the book
Symbolic Interactionism, which is known as the clearest theoretical statement of symbolic interactionism. An ongoing theme throughout his work, he argued that the creation of social reality is a continuous process. Blumer was most scrutinized for his negative critiques of
positivistic social research.