It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to suffering, but only to one's own suffering.

Lynd was member of a number of scientific societies in the field of sociological anthropology and economics such as the AAAS the American Social Society American Statistics Society and American Economics Association. Afterwards Lynd wrote the article "Done in Oil" as an expose of the conditions there. From July 1931 to June 1942 he held the position of Professor of Sociology at the Columbia University.

Muncie was the first community to be systematically examined by sociologists in the United States. Robert and his wife Helen Lynd are best known for writing the groundbreaking "Middletown" studies of Muncie Indiana - Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture (1929) and Middletown in Transition (1937) which are classics of American sociology.