Showing papers in "American Sociological Review in 1972"

A theory of ethnic antagonism: the split labor market.

Abstract: Societies vary considerably in their degree of ethnic and racial antagonism. Such territories as Brazil, Mexico, and Hawaii are generally acknowledged to be relatively low on this dimension; while South Africa, Australia, and the United States are considered high. The central hypothesis is that ethnic antagonism germinates in a labor market split along ethnic lines. The concept "price of labor" refers to labor's total cost to the employer, including not only wages, but the cost of recruitment, transportation, room and board and the costs of labor unrest. Labor markets that are split by the entrance of a new group develop a dynamic which may in turn affect the price of labor. Two motives affect the price of labor, both related to the worker's intention of not remaining permanently in the labor force. First, they are more willing to put up with undesirable work conditions since these need not be endured forever. Second, temporary workers avoid involvement in lengthy labor disputes.

Leadership and organizational performance: a study of large corporations

Abstract: Leadership influence in large complex organizations, though commonly assumed to be greatly significant, is normally not studied in terms of the variance accounted for in organizational performance. The leadership effect is viewed here as a product of an organization's environmental constraints and its leadership variance. Based on sales, earnings, and profit margin data for 167 large corporations over twenty years, we compare the impact of leadership changes with yearly, industry, and company influences. Industry and company account for far more of the variance in two performance variables than does leadership, but not for profit margins after lag effects are considered. It appears that the importance of external restrictions, and hence the maximum possible leadership influence, may range widely between specific performance criteria. The second phase of the study considers industry characteristics that appear to be associated with high and low leadership influences. These results suggest a perspective on organization performance that may be applied to the leadership influence in other large organizations and political bodies, like cities, states and nations.

Differentials in Marital Instability: 1970

Abstract: Using national data on white ever-married women under forty-five, differentials in marital instability are examined for several of the wife's characteristics at first marriage and for the couple's combined age, education and religion. Dummy variable multiple regression is used to adjust for the effects of differing durations since first marriage and to obtain effects for each variable net of other variables. With other variables controlled, an inverse age at marriage-instability relationship persists; and differences in marital stability by education appear largely attributable to differences in age at marriage by education. Other characteristics we considered are the wife's religion while growing up, whether she grew up on a farm, whether she lived with both parents at age fourteen, whether she was pregnant before her first marriage and whether her first husband had been married before. When we included the husband's variables, we found husbands age at marriage and education to have a negative relationship with marital instability. Higher instability for intermarriage is found among couples divergent in age or religion; only extreme differences in education are associated with higher instability.

A Modified Multiple Regression Approach to the Analysis of Dichotomous Variables

Abstract: To illustrate the models and methods of the present article, we shall reanalyze those data in the famous study of The American Soldier by Stouffer et al. (1949), subsequently analyzed by Coleman (1964), Zeisel (1968), and Theil (1970). The methods we present reveal how the odds pertaining to a given dichotomized variable (e.g., the odds that a soldier would prefer a Northern to a Southern Camp assignment) are related to other dichotomized variables (e.g., (a) the soldier's race, (b) his region of origin, (c) his present camp location). The usual regression analysis methods do not suit the case considered here, where the dependent variable is the odds pertaining to a given dichotomous variable. Nor do the usual methods suit the case where the dependent variable is a proportion pertaining to the dichotomous variable. This article presents some relatively elementary models and methods suitable for analyzing the odds (or a proportion) pertaining to the given dichotomous dependent variable. Applying these models and methods to the data referred to above, new insights are obtained.

Hall's professionalism scale: an empirical reassessment *

Abstract: A growing number of sociologists seek to determine appropriate criteria and measurement of individuals' professional standing. One notable attempt in this regard has been the professionalism scale recently developed and employed by Richard Hall. Using Likert scaling procedures, Hall measured five attitudinal components of professionalism: use of the professional organization as a major referent, belief in public service, belief in self regulation, sense of calling to the field, and a feeling of autonomy. By using rotated factor matrices, I assessed the empirical "fit" of Hall's items as they relate to each of the five above theoretical dimensions of professionalism. I suggest how such a "fit" might be improved. I consider the near term desirability of using a shorter version of Hall's original scale for both stratified and total scale reliability. The data analyzed are those of vastly diverse study populations collected by both Hall and me.

People Processing Organizations: An Exchange Approach

Abstract: This paper sets forth a framework for analyzing the role of organization-environment relations in defining the classification-disposition functions of people-processing organizations. People processing organizations are defined as attempting to achieve changes in their clients not by altering basic personal attributes, but by conferring on them a public status and relocating them in a new set of social circumstances. The paper's basic proposition is that people-processing organizations employ classification-disposition systems that reflect, in part, organizational adaptations to the constraints of their exchange relations with various market units receiving the processed clients. Using a power-dependence paradigm, variables which increase or decrease the organization's dependence on its market units are identified. The consequences of these exchange relations on the organization's classification-disposition system are then explored.

Sex and Social Participation

Abstract: To compare the extent and quality of participation by men and women in friendship dyads, voluntary associations and kin relations, we drew on interview data from a sample of adults in two urban communities. While males had more friends than females, we found female friendship relations to be effectively richer. Men exceeded women in the number of voluntary association memberships, but not in commitment of time to group activities. Extensive kinship resources were found to effect men's and women's affiliations differently. We found no evidence to support recent claims that male bonds are stronger than women's.

Modification of Interracial Interaction Disability: An Application of Status Characteristic Theory

Abstract: This experiment attempted to produce equal-status interaction among four-person interracial groups of junior high school boys by assigning a high level of competence to the black subjects on two related tasks. Each treated group played a criterion game where the probabilities of whites and blacks being active and influential could be measured. Previous research has shown that in untreated groups the racial status characteristic becomes activitated, i.e., whites are much more likely than blacks to be active and influential. Results: unless the expectations for black competence held by both whites and blacks are treated, whites will dominate the interaction in the criterion game. When expectations of the whites are treated by having the whites serve as students of the black teacher, behavior on the game approximates an equal status pattern. The strongest treatment involves spelling out the relevance of the training tasks to the criterion game. Implications for school desegration are discussed.

The Sphere of Influence

Abstract: This is a study of network representation: The data represent a set of interlocked directorates—specifically, the network in which the boards of major banks are interlocked with the boards of major industrials. The problem is to represent this network so as to organize it and describe its major outlines. Using an unfolding variant of smallest space analysis, the problem is solved by a spherical map: the “Sphere of Influence.” The sectors of the sphere represent similarly-linked corporations, and the relations among the sectors represent the relations among bank-industrial communities.

Size and the Structure of Organizations: A Causal Analysis

Abstract: Slater, Philip E. 1955 "Role differentiation in small groups." American Sociological Review 20:300-310. Verba, Sidney 1961 Small Groups and Political Behavior. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Waxler, N. and E. Mishler 1966 "Scoring and reliability problems in interaction process analysis: a methodological note." Sociometry 29:28-40. Wheeler, D. K. 1957 "Notes on 'role differentiation in small decision-making groups."' Sociometry 20: 145-151. Wilson, S. 1969 "The effect of the laboratory situation on experimental discussion groups." Sociometry 32 (December): 220-236. Zelditch, M. 1955 "Role differentiation in the nuclear family: a comparative study." Pp. 307-351 in T. Parsons et al., Family, Socialization and Interaction Process. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.

A Configurational Approach to Contingent Consistency in the Attitude-Behavior Relationship

Abstract: Using 202 subjects, this study develops and tests a configurational approach to the contingent consistency concept of the attitude-behavior relationship. Its theoretical position is that neither attitude, nor social situational variables adequately predict behavior when treated separately. When combined in a linear model based on interaction between variables, behavioral predictions are improved considerably. Attitude toward the legalization of marijuana was measured along with perception of the position of peers and family. At a later date subjects were observed in an experimental situation where they were asked to vote to legalize marijuana. A multiple regression solution showed that the independent effects of the three variables did not clearly predict behavior, their additive effects did somewhat better, and the interactions (configurations) led to the clearest predictions. These results supported a theoretical orientation similar to field theory. It should be noted that only one attitude object was used and only two situational variables were considered along with attitude. Nonetheless, the results strongly suggest that a configurational approach promises to unravel the attitude-behavior inconsistency problem generated in recent years. Therefore, the approach deserves further development and testing as a specific model of the contingent consistency relationship between attitudes and action.

Social participation and voting turnout: a multivariate analysis *

Abstract: As an explanation of voting turnout, the social participation theory argues that involvement by individuals in nonpolitical social organizations such as voluntary associations community affairs, and churches will in turn mobilize them to become politically active. Survey data from Indianapolis show marked correlations between all the above forms of social participation and voting turnout in three recent elections. The partial correlations for each of these measures, controlling the others, remain significant, indicating that each form of participation has independent effects on voting. This is not true with informal interaction among friends and neighbors, however. Evidence for inferring a causal linkage from social participation to voting turnout is found in the fact that most respondents belonged to voluntary associations prior to these elections. Finally, the relationship between social participation and voting remains moderately strong after the compounding variables of age, education, political contacts through the mass media and political parties, and political orientations such as political interest and party identification are all held constant. The mean multiple R with all predictor variables is .58. POLITICAL democracy assumes that citizens will exercise their franchise on election day. Yet millions in the United States regularly fail to vote. Presidential elections typically attract only about 60 percent of the voting-age population (the estimated figure for the 1968 Presidential election was 62 percent); off-year Congressional elections generally draw less than 50 percent (the estimated figure for 1966 was 46 percent); and separate state and local elections usually have even lower turnouts. Why so many people fail to vote is a critical problem for democratic political theory and for understanding political behavior. A host of empirical studies, beginning with Merriam and Gosnell's (1924) examination of the 1923 Chicago mayoral election, have investigated relationships between voting turnout and various social and political variables, to discover what kinds of people fail to vote. This research has established that voting turnout in the United States is commonly related to such factors as sex, age, race, marital status, religious preference, education, occupational status, income, membership and participation in voluntary associations, exposure to the mass media, political involvement of one's parents, contacts by political parties, political discussions with friends, interest in politics, strength of party preference, and feelings of political efficacy.' In recent years such writers as Lane (1959), Lipset (1954, 1960), and IMiilbrath (1965) have offered numerous theoretical explanations of the relationships between these factors and voting turnout, but none of them have subsequently been adequately tested. This paper focuses on just one of these competing theoretical explanations, which I term the "social participation" theory, but subjects it to rigorous empirical analysis. This analysis proceeds in three stages: (a) determining relationships between voting turnout and various measures of social participtaion, both separately and in combination; (b) exploring the theory's relevance as a causal argument; and (c)

The Analysis of Mobility Processes by the Introduction of Independent Variables into a Markov Chain

Abstract: Thrupp, Sylvia 1962 The Merchant Class of Medieval London. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor Paperbacks. Tilly, Charles 1964 The Vendee. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. United States National Center for Health Statistics 1965 Vital and Health Statistics. Demographic Characteristics of Persons Married Between 1955 and June 1958, United States. Series 21, No. 2, Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office. Veblen, Thorsten 1899 The Theory of the Leisure Class. In Max Lerner (ed.), The Portable Veblen. New York: The Viking Press, 1948. Weber, Max 1946 "India: the brahman and the castes." Pp. 396-415 in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. 1968 Economy and Society. New York: Bedminster Press. Zelditch, Morris, Jr. 1964 "Family, marriage, and kinship." Pp. 680733 in Robert E. L. Faris (ed.), Handbook of Modern Sociology. Chicago: Rand McNally.

The process of entry into first marriage

Abstract: A mathematical model is developed for the process of entry into first marriage. The members of a cohort are seen as subject to two types of forces. One is the increase in social pressure to get married as the percentage of the cohort already married increases. The other is the declining marriageability of members of the cohort as they grow older. With some additional assumptions, this gives rise to a non-homogenous diffusion model. The model is illustrated with U.S. Census data, and factors contributing to deviation between observed and predicted distributions are discussed. Other applications of the diffusion model are suggested.

Role-taking and power in social psychology.

Abstract: It is theorized that when structural control resources are not available, persons will tend to use role-taking as a "management" strategy. Thus role-taking ability is at a premium when the subordinate attempts to balance the structurally based power of a superordinate by increasing the latter's ego gratification in the relationship. Role-taking and power are seen as distinct strategies by which persons achieve control of others. Drawing from a sample of 888 subjects from 222 family units, questionnaire data are analyzed to test the hypothesis that role-taking accuracy will be inversely related to power inside the family. Using position in the nuclear family as an index of power, it was found that fathers were less accurate role-takers than mothers and mothers less accurate than children. Data were also analyzed using children's perceptions of their parents' power and the wife's perceptions of conjugal decision-making as measures of power. Partial support for the hypothesis was found in that dominant wives were poorer role-takers than wives with less decision-making power (autonomic). Research is suggested to test the proposition that role-taking ability may be a function of the person's position on a situationally given role-set rather than a static personality trait.

Effects of Vertical Mobility and Status Inconsistency: A Body of Negative Evidence

Abstract: This study attempts to determine whether dimensions of social rank combine additively in influencing individual attitudes and behaviors, or whether statistical interactions appear which would support hypotheses of vertical mobility or status inconsistency effects. Samples of male heads of household were interviewed in three Indiana and three Arizona communities, roughly matched in size. Two forms of mobility (career and intergenerational) were employed and six forms of inconsistency (including achieved vs. ascribed forms). Fortythree dependent variables were used, including most of the variables previously suggested as consequences of mobility or inconsistency. Most of the relationships appeared to be additive. The interactions which did appear were not clustered with respect to any particular independent or dependent variables, usually varied in form from city to city, and did not resemble patterns expected on the basis of mobility or inconsistency theory. The findings suggest that multidimensional additive models adequately represent the effects of social stratification on the individual.

High School Context and College Plans: The Impact of Social Structure on Aspirations

Abstract: The controversy surrounding the contextual effects of high school status on college aspirations is reviewed. Some of the ambiguity in research findings may be traced to the failure to consider school conditions which foster and hinder college aspirations. Research on high school students in the metropolitan Minneapolis-St. Paul area shows that highly intelligent students are most likely to be found in high status schools. Hence, it may be easier for adolescents at any level of intelligence to get higher grades in low status schools where competition is lean. Within any given category of measured intelligence, attending a high status school appears to raise scores on a less potent predictor of aspirations, school status, and lower scores on a more potent predictor of aspirations, academic rank position. Since rank is an important predictor of college aspirations under all conditions, controlling for rank increases the correlation between school status and aspirations. The analysis suggests that although the effects of school status tend to cancel each other out and the net effect on aspirations is small, the theoretical importance of school status cannot be discounted.

Exchange as Symbolic Interaction: Convergences between Two Theoretical Perspectives

Abstract: This paper explores convergences between symbolic interactionism and exchange theory in four major areas: (1) both theoretical orientations assume the operation of constructive mental processes when actors act toward their environment; this assumption is explicitly stated by symbolic interactionists and implied in exchange-theoretical propositions dealing with valuation, decision-making or justice; (2) exchange theory implies processes akin to G. H. Mead's "self" and "generalized other" in the sense that interaction in exchange requires persons to imaginatively assume the roles of others and view themselves in terms of the conceptions of others; (3) in both perspectives social organization is viewed as emerging from constructed individual acts "fitted" to one another; such "elementary" interactions give rise to institutional modes of behavior which, once established, exist as a reality sui generis over and against the individual actors; (4) in both perspectives social dynamics is conceived in dialectic terms, arising out of contradictions between microand macro processes and inherent tendencies-in social organization toward inconsistency, conflict and change. It is proposed that a possible synthesis between exchange theory and symbolic interactionism can begin by postulating a dialectical process in which objective realities become subjectified by actors and subjective meanings become objectified in social institutions. A synthesized theory based on such general postulates can be empirically tested when (a) the concrete "subjective" and "objective" contingencies which make acts meaningful for the actors are posited and empirically indicated and (b) longitudinal observations show changes iin some of these contingencies so that predictions about behavioral changes can be made.

Family Disruption, Delinquent Conduct, and the Effect of Subclassification

Abstract: Employing seriousness of offense as a measure of delinquency, we re-examine the relationship between delinquency referral and family disruption. Information from the Juvenile and County Courts of Florida for the first four months of 1969 provided us with uniform delinquency data for 8,944 children. We compare the family situations of 5,376 of these children with the situations of children in the U.S. population in 1968. The analysis suggests (1) that children charged with delinquency live in disrupted families substantially more often than children in the general population, (2) that children referred for more serious delinquency are more likely to come from incomplete families than juveniles charged with minor offenses, and (3) that family income is a more important factor for understanding the relationship between delinquency referral and family situation than age, sex, or urban-rural residence, but that it may not be more important than race. We briefly examine the implications for alternative intervention strategies in light of these variables' interrelations. (Abstract Adapted from Source: American Sociological Review, 1972. Copyright © 1972 by the American Sociological Association) Florida Family Relations Juvenile Delinquency Juvenile Offender Delinquency Causes Late Adolescence Early Adolescence Socioeconomic Status Socioeconomic Factors 06-01

The Division of Labor: A Post-Durkheimian Analytical View

Abstract: Though we quite properly value Durkheim's discussion of the division of labor, a close look shows that he limited his concept to specialization. I propose that the ineluctable condition of humans is interdependence and that this implies divided labor to complete the tasks that no one actor can do alone. Importantly, actors may or may not be specialized in their interdependent activity. It is possible to examine different forms of the division of labor, as well as properties of whole systems of divided labor. The method adopted here is a nontechnical, discursive analysis based on graph theory, which deals with the abstract properties of arrangements of points and lines. This analysis reveals several properties of the division of labor relatively common in sociological usage as well as several that are relatively uncommon.

Developmental Change in the Sentiment Structure of Children's Groups

Abstract: Current theories of cognitive development in children and those of structure in small-scale social systems when jointly considered suggest that the social organization of children's peer groups will demonstrate developmental trends. This inference is tested by measuring transitive organization in 118 positive affect sociograms of children's classroom groups and regressing these measurements on an age variable and other variables associated with the sociometric data. The analyses indicate that a statistically significant positive association exists between transitive organization and age and that this association is independent of variation in choices, made and received per group member, pair proportions, group size or sex composition.

Illness and the legitimation of failure.

Abstract: In achievement oriented societies one may use illness to justify failure to fulfill socially prescribed role obligations. This hypothesis is tested on two samples of welfare mothers and one sample of working class black women. Many welfare mothers accept the dominant cultural view that being on welfare is a result of personal failure. When women accept this view and give up hope of getting off welfare, they are prone to adopt the sick role to legitimize their self-defined failure. Women who can no longer justify their dependency by the presence of pre-school children are particularly likely to make this adjustment. We conclude that the sick role may offer "substitute" status for one who lacks other socially approved statuses. Furthermore, we show that women who viewed themselves as inadequate wives and mothers were more likely to define their health as poor than those satisfied with their performance in these roles.

Strategies for Organizational Innovation: An Empirical Comparison

Abstract: The paper identifies several sociological strategies of intervention used in a national effort to reform social organizations and compares their relative effectiveness. Different streams of sociological literature dealing with unplanned social change suggested concepts and variables that might apply to the problem of deliberate organizational reform. Indicators were then derived from questionnaires and interviews with new teacher-interns, experienced teachers, ond college professors who were part of a national experiment to train teachers for low income schools (the Teacher Corps program). The analysis is based on forty-two public schools and ten universities located throughout the United States. The dependent variable is the number (and innovativeness) of new technologies introduced into schools through the program (derived from a content analysis of interviews). A factor analysis of thirty-five indicators revealed seven factors underlying the different explanations. A regression analysis based on these factors indicated that approximately half of the variance in the dependent variable could be explained. Technological innovation appeared to be produced by a combination of: (a) a dominant outside organization staffed by competent and liberal members; (b) competent, receptive boundary personnel in the host organization; and (c) functional interdependence and channels for cooperation to take place. These conditions underscore the importance of characteristics of the general organizational context in which innovation is taking place. The findings also suggest that a mixture of conceptual approaches is needed to explain organizational change.

Measuring individual modernity: a near myth.

Abstract: A variety of scales of individual modernity have been developed to measure a universal set of attitudes and behaviors which presumably better fit men for life in modern society. The present study attempts to assess empirically the equivalence reliability and validity of four such scales constructed by Smith and Inkeles Kahl Schnaiberg and Armer. Data were collected from multiple-wave interviews of a sample of lower-to-middle class ethnically heterogeneous married males in the Uptown area of Chicago. The results indicate that the scales (a) are moderately equivalent (intercorrelations range from .40 to .64) despite differences in dimensions items and scale construction procedures (b) have moderately high internal consistency (r alpha = .56\quadto .76) and test-retest (r tt = .66\quadto .81) reliabilities and (c) have low discriminant validity with respect to anomia alienation and to a less extent socioeconomic status. Low construct validity persists when corrections or tests are made for attenuation due to unreliability acquiescent response and other possible interpretations. In short the modernity scales tend to predict scores on anomia alienation and socioeconomic status about as well as they predict other measures of modernity. Conversely measures of anomia and alienation appear to predict modernity scores almost as well as do the modernity scales. The findings call into serious question the meaningfulness of the construct and/or measurement of modernity. (authors)

System Size and Structural Differentiation in Formal Organizations: A Baseline Generator for Two Major Theoretical Propositions

Abstract: Blau's (1970) two major theoretical propositions relating size and structural differentiation in formal organizations can be produced by the logical possibilities for differentiation that are generated by different values of size. The relationships specified by these propositions are illustrated with calculations from a computer algorithm that enumerates all possible structural forms for each size and assigns the same probability of occurrence to each structure. Theoretical implications of this model are discussed.

Migration and the Ecological Complex

Abstract: Following the suggestions of Hawley, Dwncan, and Schnore, this paper investigates the possibility of viewing the variables subsumed under the population rubric of the ecological complex as dependent variables. The demographic processes of fertility, mortality, and migration are defined as a set of alternative means available to populations which seek an equilibrium between their size and sustenance organization. Focusing on migration, a general model is developed which suggests that neither environmental nor technological factors affect migration directly; but rather, that their effect on migration is produced through changes in organization which they generate. A modest empirical test of the model is carried out through an examination of Southern black migration rates, and general support for the model is obtained.

The Signals of '68: Alienation in Pre-Crisis France

Abstract: Interviews with four hundred employed males in France, and with a parallel sample of American workers, provide the basis for characterizing the alienation of French workers in the spring which preceded the "events of May" (1968). Various forms of alienation (e.g., powerlessness; social isolation, etc.) are examined, along with their likely correlates (e.g. political knowledge; organization membership; left-right political stance). Neither direct participation in the rebellion nor changes in the level of alienation could be monitored, hence the argument rests on (1) a depiction of the prior pattern of alienation, and (2) the plausibility that this pattern lends to various interpretations of the May events. The data suggest that "powerlessness" was the primary problem: (1) French workers, both manual and white collar, were conspicuously low in sensed control; (2) this powerlessness was expressed in a discriminating way (i.e., did not reflect a uniform French pessimism); (3) powerlessness, rather than work estrangement (or other alienations), correlated with the politically relevant variables (e.g., knowledge and membership); and (4) powerlessness (but not work alienation) was especially notable in the problematic political "center." The findings are interpreted in the light of propositions about the importance of alienation in collective behavior, and questions are raised about the significance often imputed to work alienation.

Blue collar anger: reactions to student and black protest.

Abstract: Participation of Negroes." The American Journal of Sociology 72 (July) :32-46. Pinard, Maurice 1968 "Mass Society and Poitical Movements: A New Formulation." The American Journal of Sociology 78 (May):682-690. Ranney, Austin and Leon D. Epstein 1966 "The Two Electorates: Voters and NonVoters in a Wisconsin Primary." Journal of Politics 28 (August) :598-616. Sudman, Seymour 1966 "Probability Sampling with Quotas." Journal of the American Statistical Association 61 (September):749-771. Tocqueville, Alexis de 1961 Democracy in Amerlca. Translated by Henry Reeve. New York: Schocken Books. Truman, David B. 1951 The Governmental Process. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Zimmer, Basil G. and Amos H. Haw'ey 1959 "The Significance of Membership in Voluntary Associations." The American Journal of Sociology 65:196-201.