Analysis of social networks is suggested as a tool for linking micro and macro levels of sociological theory. The procedure is illustrated by elaboration of the macro implications of one aspect of small-scale interaction: the strength of dyadic ties. It is argued that the degree of overlap of two individuals' friendship networks varies directly with the strength of their tie to one another. The impact of this principle on diffusion of influence and information, mobility opportunity, and community organization is explored. Stress is laid on the cohesive power of weak ties. Most network models deal, implicitly, with strong ties, thus confining their applicability to small, well-defined groups. Emphasis on weak ties lends itself to discussion of relations between groups and to analysis of segments of social structure not easily defined in terms of primary groups.

/pdf/the-strength-of-weak-ties-2ym2yer2cz.pdf

The Strength of Weak Ties

In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

Part I. From There to Here - Theoretical Background: 1. From visiousness to viciousness: theories of intergroup relations 2. Social dominance theory as a new synthesis Part II. Oppression and its Psycho-Ideological Elements: 3. The psychology of group dominance: social dominance orientation 4. Let's both agree that you're really stupid: the power of consensual ideology Part III. The Circle of Oppression - The Myriad Expressions of Institutional Discrimination: 5. You stay in your part of town and I'll stay in mine: discrimination in the housing and retail markets 6. They're just too lazy to work: discrimination in the labor market 7. They're just mentally and physically unfit: discrimination in education and health care 8. The more of 'them' in prison, the better: institutional terror, social control and the dynamics of the criminal justice system Part IV. Oppression as a Cooperative Game: 9. Social hierarchy and asymmetrical group behavior: social hierarchy and group difference in behavior 10. Sex and power: the intersecting political psychologies of patriarchy and empty-set hierarchy 11. Epilogue.

http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam032/98044356.pdf

Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression

This article proposes a contextual-evolutionary theory of human mating strategies. Both men and women are hypothesized to have evolved distinct psychological mechanisms that underlie short-term and long-term strategies. Men and women confront different adaptive problems in short-term as opposed to long-term mating contexts. Consequently, different mate preferences become activated from their strategic repertoires. Nine key hypotheses and 22 predictions from Sexual Strategies Theory are outlined and tested empirically. Adaptive problems sensitive to context include sexual accessibility, fertility assessment, commitment seeking and avoidance, immediate and enduring resource procurement, paternity certainty, assessment of mate value, and parental investment. Discussion summarizes 6 additional sources of behavioral data, outlines adaptive problems common to both sexes, and suggests additional contexts likely to cause shifts in mating strategy.

Sexual Strategies Theory: An Evolutionary Perspective on Human Mating

One of the most perplexing problems in risk analysis is why some relatively minor risks or risk events, as assessed by technical experts, often elicit strong public concerns and result in substantial impacts upon society and economy. This article sets forth a conceptual framework that seeks to link systematically the technical assessment of risk with psychological, sociological, and cultural perspectives of risk perception and risk-related behavior. The main thesis is that hazards interact with psychological, social, institutional, and cultural processes in ways that may amplify or attenuate public responses to the risk or risk event. A structural description of the social amplification of risk is now possible. Amplification occurs at two stages: in the transfer of information about the risk, and in the response mechanisms of society. Signals about risk are processed by individual and social amplification stations, including the scientist who communicates the risk assessment, the news media, cultural groups, interpersonal networks, and others. Key steps of amplifications can be identified at each stage. The amplified risk leads to behavioral responses, which, in turn, result in secondary impacts. Models are presented that portray the elements and linkages in the proposed conceptual framework.

/pdf/the-social-amplification-of-risk-a-conceptual-framework-5310s3qj6e.pdf

The Social Amplification of Risk: A Conceptual Framework

In men, high levels of endogenous testosterone (T) seem to encourage behavior intended to dominate - to enhance one's status over - other people. Sometimes dominant behavior is aggressive, its apparent intent being to inflict harm on another person, but often dominance is expressed nonaggressively. Sometimes dominant behavior takes the form of antisocial behavior, including rebellion against authority and law breaking. Measurement of T at a single point in time, presumably indicative of a man's basal T level, predicts many of these dominant or antisocial behaviors. T not only affects behavior but also responds to it. The act of competing for dominant status affects male T levels in two ways. First, T rises in the face of a challenge, as if it were an anticipatory response to impending competition. Second, after the competition, T rises in winners and declines in losers. Thus, there is a reciprocity between T and dominance behavior, each affecting the other. We contrast a reciprocal model, in which T level is variable, acting as both a cause and effect of behavior, with a basal model, in which T level is assumed to be a persistent trait that influences behavior. An unusual data set on Air Force veterans, in which data were collected four times over a decade, enables us to compare the basal and reciprocal models as explanations for the relationship between T and divorce. We discuss sociological implications of these models.

https://users.ox.ac.uk/~kgroup/publications/pdf/kacelnik_norris_1998_bbs_testosterone.pdf

Testosterone and dominance in men.

\"Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history,\" thus ended Darwin's \"Origin of Species\". For many years, the book provoked a flood of argument, but yielded little evidence. In the first century after the book's publication, virtually no one tested Darwin's theory against the evidence of human history. Now that tide has changed.. Laura Betzig challenges the proposition that the evolved end of human life is its reproduction by presenting the literature on conflict resolution from over a hundred societies. The research results presented in Despotism, Social Evolution, and Differential Reproduction convincingly uphold Darwin's prophecy.A basic premise behind research has always been that understanding the way things are should contribute to our ability to change them to the way we would like them to be. This idea forms the basis for Betzig's research - she sets out to explain how things really are by leading the reader through the historical and natural conditions that have promoted despotism in the hopes that this might eventually eradicate it. She begins with the idea that reproduction is the end of human life, and that all forms of power and strength are exploited in reaching this end. In this way, Betzig shows with startling clarity how power corrupts and how despotic governments continue to exist in the world today. Engaging - even at times railing against - existing literature on human and social evolution, such as that of Rousseau and Marx, Betzig asserts herself as a formidable and undeniable voice in this debate.Since Darwin's monumental work, more has been said about why questions regarding how human history has been shaped by natural history should not even be asked, than has been said in an effort to answer them. This work puts a stop to that by testing the Darwinian hypothesis and finding that he was right light has in fact been shed on human political and reproductive history. Controversial and creative, this book makes no apologies for its bold messages and interdisciplinary boundary blending and addresses a topic of continuing interest and importance.

Despotism and Differential Reproduction: A Darwinian View of History.

This paper describes a biosocial model of status in face-to-face groups. It argues that status ranks are allocated among members of a group through face-to-face interaction and that the allocation process is similar across each primate species, including humans. Every member of a group signifies its rank through physical or vocal demeanor. For example, behavioral signs of dominant status include erect posture, glares, eye contact, strutting, and (in humans) assertive speech. Individuals whose behaviors exhibit dominance show high or rising levels of testosterone compared to those who exhibit deference. Testosterone and dominance are reciprocally related. The model relies more on research on males than on females. It is proposed as a theory about both sexes, but with a caution that little is known about sex differences in the relation of hormones to dominance behavior. It has become dear, after two decades of primate studies, that the \"dominance orders\" of monkeys and apes have important commonalities with status hierarchies in small, established human groups, suggesting that they have common evolutionary roots (Mazur; Savin-Williams and Freeman).' Whereas early theories of face-to-face status processes among humans have often depended on complex cognitive and linguistic mechanisms, requiring human-level mental abilities, it now seems proper to seek explanatory mechanisms that apply across the primate species, not just to humans.

A Biosocial Model of Status in Face-to-Face Primate Groups

Testosterone, and winning and losing in human competition.

Men place more importance on the physical attractiveness of women than women do on the physical attractiveness of men. As a result, women's social opportunities are more affected by their physical beauty than are men's, so that women are under more pressure to conform to an ideal of beauty. Although standards of female beauty are not as arbitrary as is sometimes claimed, they do vary greatly over time and across cultures. Modern institutions of advertising, retailing, and entertainment now produce vivid notions of beauty that change from year to year, placing stress upon women to conform to the body image currently in vogue. The best known of these beauty standards are the “bosom mania” of the 1950s and 1960s and the current trend toward slenderization. As women attempt to adapt to each of these changes, a minority overadapt, sometimes to the point of incapacitation. Among these over‐adaptations have been hysteria, early in the century, which was an exaggeration of the fragile feminine ideal of that time;...

Allan Mazur

Papers

Testosterone and dominance in men.

Despotism and Differential Reproduction: A Darwinian View of History.

A Biosocial Model of Status in Face-to-Face Primate Groups

Testosterone, and winning and losing in human competition.

U.S. trends in feminine beauty and overadaptation