Bellah, Robert

Bellah, Robert (bĕl`ə),1927–, American sociologist and educator. He was educated at Harvard before becoming Elliot professor of sociology at the Univ. of California at Berkeley. He wrote several books on the sociology of religion, including The Broken Covenant (1975), which won the Sorokin Award. His best-selling Habits of the Heart (1985) looks at questions of individualism and commitment in American life. Bellah has been linked with the "new constructivists," who argue that ordinary people use the cultural resources around them to actively construct meaning, resisting or undermining various forms of social control.