Showing papers in "Social Psychology Quarterly in 1992"
TL;DR: The authors argue that attitudes and subjective norms are not sufficient determinants of intentions and that intentions are not a sufficient impetus for action, as maintained by leading theories of attitude, and they address the role of cognitive and emotional self-regulatory mechanisms.
Abstract: We argue that attitudes and subjective norms are not sufficient determinants of intentions and that intentions are not a sufficient impetus for action, as maintained by leading theories of attitude. To deepen attitude theory, we address the role of cognitive and emotional self-regulatory mechanisms. The attitude-intention link is hypothesized to depend on conative processes and on certain coping responses directed at the emotional significance of evaluative appraisals
2,027 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the relationship between self-identity and behavioral intentions independent of the role of attitudes in a study of attitudes towards the consumption of organically produced vegetables.
Abstract: Recent reports of a relationship between self-identity and behavioral intentions independent of the role of attitudes were examined skeptically in a study of attitudes towards the consumption of organically produced vegetables. We hypothesized that an adequate operationalization of the components of the theory of planned behavior would result in no independent relationship between a measure of self-identity and a measure of behavioral intentions. Two hundred and sixty-one randomly sampled members of the general public returned postal questionnaires relating to this theme
1,112 citations
TL;DR: The saliency or importance of various identities should differ systematically by gender and marital status; highly salient identities should have greater impacts on psychological symptoms than less salient identities; and identities that are more salient to particular gender-by-marital status subgroups should benefit those subgroups more than other subgroups as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Identities refer to self-conceptions in terms of individuals' roles. The salience or importance of various identities should differ systematically by gender and marital status; highly salient identities should have greater impacts on psychological symptoms than less salient identities; and identities that are more salient to particular gender-by-marital status subgroups should benefit those subgroups more than other subgroups. Data come from structured interviews with a stratified random sample of 700 married and divorced urban adults. Contrary to expectations, the identity hierarchies of married and divorced men and women were remarkably similar
561 citations
TL;DR: It is found that winners of chess trounaments show higher T levels than do losers, and in certain circumstances, competitors show rises in T before their games, as if in preparation for the contests.
Abstract: The hormone testosterone (T) has a central role in recent theories about allocation of status ransk during face-to-face competition. It has been methodologically convenient to test the hypothesized T mechanism in physically taxing athletic contests, where results have been supportive, although their generalizability to normal social competition is questionable. Competition among chess players is a step closer to normal social competition because it does not require physical struggle, and it is the arena for tests of the T mechanism which are reported here. We find that winners of chess trounaments show higher T levels than do losers. Also, in certain circumstances, competitors show rises in T before their games, as if in preparation for the contests. These results generally support recent theories about the role of T in the allocation of status ranks
287 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that children, through their participation in cultural routines, creatively appropriate information from the adult world to produce their own unique peer cultures and that socialization is a collective process which occurs in a social rather than a private realm.
Abstract: This paper addresses the lack of theoretical work on young children in sociology by presenting an interpretive approach to childhood socialization. This approach extends traditional psychological views of human development by demonstrating that socialization is a collective process which occurs in a social rather than a private realm. The interpretive approach argues that children, through their participation in cultural routines, creatively appropriate information from the adult world to produce their own unique peer cultures
286 citations
TL;DR: For example, this article investigated how the combination of job and household circumstances modifies the association between employment and the sense of control over one's life and found that people who do most of the household work find employment less beneficial to their sense of controlling.
Abstract: This paper investigates how the combination of job and household circumstances modifies the association between employment and the sense of control over one's life. Data are from a 1985 sample of 809 Illinois adults. The average sense of control is greater among people with paying jobs than among those without. The difference increases with greater job autonomy and higher earnings. Not all household contexts of employment are alike, however; people who do most of the household workfind employment less beneficial to their sense of control. Also, the more family income comes from sources other than one's earnings, the less that employment increases the sense of control. For married women, the typical combination of low pay, low autonomy, high responsibility for household chores, and family income other than personal earnings negates the positive association between employment and the sense of control.
247 citations
TL;DR: This article showed that people are aware of who is affiliated with whom in their immediate social world, but their perceptions of the patterning oh affiliation do not correspond to the patterns actually displayed by interacting humans.
Abstract: This paper shows that people are aware of who is affiliated with whom in their immediate social world. Their perceptions of the patterning oh affiliation, however, do not correspond to the patterning actually displayed by interacting humans. Affiliation is not categorical; perceptions of affiliation are, however. On the basis of experimental evidence about errors in learning simple social structures, a theory that accounts for this discrepancy is proposed. This theory suggests that people impose a categorical form on noncategorical affiliation patterns by a process of filling in the blanks in their experience
235 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the cognitive, affective, and behavioral effects of identity-confirming and -disconfirming information and found that people with both high and low self-esteem fall good when praised and bad when they receive negative feedback on their performance.
Abstract: In this paper we answer the question : Do people select interaction partners to enhance their self-image, or do they strive to maintain a stable view of self ? Affect control theory, a quantified version of symbolic interactionism, predicts that individuals adopt strategies which maintain their identities in order to secure a stable definition of the situation. When individuals have low self-esteem, they select interactions that maintain this low self-esteem, even when these interactions cause negative emotions. Two experiments examined the cognitive, affective, and behavioral effects of identity-confirming and -disconfirming information. Study 1, which assessed the cognitive and emotional outcomes of identity-relevant feedback, revealed that people with both high and low self-esteem fell good when praised and bad when they receive negative feedback on their performance. People with low self-esteem, however, think that the criticism is accurate, and like the critic more than do people with high self-esteem
199 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the development of feeling norms underlying romantic love among early adolescent females and found that girls not only acquire cultural knowledge about romantic love, but also develop several feeling and expression norms to deal with their own concerns about romance.
Abstract: This paper examines the development of feeling norms underlying romantic love among early adolescent females. On the basis of data from in-depth interviews, transcriptions of naturally occurring discourse, and field notes, we find that girls not only acquire cultural knowledge about romantic love, but also develop several feeling and expression norms to deal with their own concerns about romance. These norms involve the relative importance of romantic relationships and the appropriate object of romantic feelings. Girls also use a variety of discourse strategies to communicate normative information and to reinforce feeling norms to friends, ranging from playful language activities to more serious modes of discourse. Yet, even though girls obtain normative information about romantic love, they do not always abide by feeling and expression norms
176 citations
TL;DR: Goffan's concepts of face and face-work have been used by researchers in recent years to explain the interpersonal underpinnings of language use as discussed by the authors, which has led to theoretical advances in explaining how speakers will phrase their remarks.
Abstract: Goffan's concepts of face and face-work have been used by researchers in recent years to explain the interpersonal underpinnings of language use. Most notable in this regard is the research of Brown and Levinson, whose theory of politeness has stimulated considerable research on this topic. By operationalizing face-work in terms of specific linguistic strategies and by linking face concerns with the major interpersonal dimensions of social interaction, this research has led to theoretical advances in explaining how speakers will phrase their remarks
147 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the links between the type of support, the source of support and the types of stressors in the support process, and proposed a continuum of support efficacy whereby spouses and friends can ameliorate the depressing effects of nonfamilial strains (e.g., work strains).
Abstract: The concept of «matching» is central to theories of social support, as researchers attempt to specify the links between the type of support, the source of support, and the type of stressor, and to identify their function in the support process. This study examines these links more closely by differentiating between spouse and friend support, and by considering different types of life problems (e.g., role and ambient strains). I hypothesized a continuum of support efficacy whereby spouses and friends can ameliorate the depressing effects of nonfamilial strains (e.g., work strains)
TL;DR: A role-playing vignette study was conducted to test these propositions further and examine how the individual variable gender and exchange orientations affect responses to inequity as discussed by the authors, finding that women were more likely than men to expect to become distressed and to engage in equity-restoring behaviors in response to both types of inequity.
Abstract: The two major propositions from equity theory are that inequity causes distress and that this distress leads people to restore equity. A role-playing vignette study was conducted to test these propositions further and to examine how the individual variable gender and exchange orientations affect responses to inequity. Subjects expected to become distressed in response to underbenefiting inequity and to be likely to restore equiry to this situation. Although subjects did not believe they would become distressed overall in response to overbenefiting inequity, they expected that they would feel guilty and would engage in equity-restoring behaviors. Women were more likely than men to expect to become distressed and to engage in equity-restoring behaviors in response to both types of inequity
TL;DR: This article conducted two experiments to examine the predictions of the double standard and the evolutionary perspectives concerning the role of sexual permissiveness in desirability of partner at different levels of perceived commitment to relationship.
Abstract: We conducted two experiments to examine the predictions of the double standard and the evolutionary perspectives concerning the role of sexual permissiveness in desirability of partner at different levels of perceived commitment to relationship. Subjects reported their desired level of sexual permissiveness for either a low- or a high-commitment partner (Experiment 1), and evaluated the dating and the marriage desirability of either a permissive or a nonpermissive target person (Experiment 2)
Abstract: This paper addresses the intersection of race and gender in contemporary American society by exploring how one aspect of gender relations, the degree of agreement between men and women in their attitudes toward gender stratification, varies between blacks and whites. Both black men and black women tend to express more criticism in their gender-related attitudes than whites, and the level of agreement between the sexes is greater for blacks. I interpret this greater agreement in the context of the resistance to racial inequality, levels of exposure to gender inequality, and the degree of interdependence between the sexes among blacks
TL;DR: This paper found that differences in pay can induce corresponding differences in subjective assessments of one's own ability relatice to others, and the theoretical and practical implications of this inference from reward allocations to self-other performance expectations are discussed.
Abstract: The results of this study provide evidence that differences in pay can induce corresponding differences in subjective assessments of one's own ability relatice to others. In an expectation states experiment, men and women who were paid more than their partners were more resistant to influence by those partners than men and women who were paid less than their partners. The theoretical and practical implications of this inference from reward allocations to self-other performance expectations are discussed
TL;DR: This article investigated the implications of realistic group conflict theory and social identity theory for explaining the individual group discontinuity effect and developed a new three-choice matrix to differentiate max own from max rel competitiveness.
Abstract: Two experiments investigated the implications of realistic group conflict theory and social identity theory for explaining the individual-group discontinuity effect. We interpreted realistic group conflict theory as directly implying that individual-group discontinuity is motivated by competition for valued outcomes (max own); we interpreted social identity theory as suggesting that individual-group discontinuity is motivated by relativistic social comparisons (max rel). We developed a new three-choice matrix to differentiate max own from max rel competitiveness
TL;DR: The attitude-behavior relationship has had a prominent place in social and behavioral science for more than a half-century as discussed by the authors, and the initial expectations of strong asymmetrical causality have not been borne out.
Abstract: The attitude-behavior relationship has had a prominent place in social and behavioral science for more than a half-century. The initial expectations of strong asymmetrical causality have not been borne out, and contemporary research suggests that attitude-behavior consistency is a highly complex phenomenon. This paper undertakes a conceptual analysis based or the simplest longitudinal case in order to make explicit some overlooked features of the attitude-behavior relationship
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors employ data from a national survey of academics in four major fields to analyze the explanations by academics to account for the success of the best-kown people in their fields.
Abstract: In such a visibly hierarchical and success-oriented arena as academe, attributions for success are highly salient. These attributions represent explanations of, and often justifications for, social inequality. We employ data from a national survey of academics in four major fields to analyze the explanations by academics to account for the success of the best-kown people in their fields. More specifically, we analyse the way in which those explanations vary between academic women and academic men
TL;DR: In this article, the authors outline the parameters of methodological relationism, a metatheoretical perspective created to parallel methodological individualism and methodological holism as overarching theoretical perspectives, and demonstrate that social psychology always has been relational.
Abstract: This paper has three main objectives. The first is to outline the parameters of methodological relationism, a new metatheoretical perspective created to parallel methodological individualism and methodological holism as overarching theoretical perspectives. The second is to demonstrate that social psychology always has been relational and therefore that methodological relationism is a more appropriate metatheory for this area than are the other two perspectives. Finally, we will show that methodological relationism sheds new light on the long-standing problem of fragmentation in social psychology
TL;DR: In this paper, the effectiveness of dividing a collective into subgroups was studied as a method for reducing members' motivation losses in group performance, and it was shown that when a fixed number of members is divided into sub groups or teams, team size and number of teams are related inversely.
Abstract: The effectiveness of dividing a collective into subgroups was studied as a method for reducing members' motivation losses in group performance. When a fixed number of members is divided into subgroups or teams, team size and number of teams are related inversely. Assuming that perceived indispensability of individual contribution declines with an increase in either factor, we hypothesized that members' motivation level is an inverted U-shaped function of subgroup size. Groups of 12 subjects were formed and were divided into subgroups of various sizes. Also, subjects were instructed that their individual performances would be aggregated into the entire group score either additively, conjunctively. As expected, subjects' motivation on two cognitive tasks peaked at moderate-sized subgroups and showed a nonmonotonic pattern roughly describable as an inverted U. Other results further emphasized the critical role of perception of indispensability in motivation
TL;DR: This work explores how several alternative models of structural similarity correspond to the perception of interpersonal similarity and helps to explain how social structure may influence perceptions.
Abstract: Several alternative models of structural similarity, or positions, have been proposed. A wide variety of algorithms currently are employed to detect structural positions in a social network. The present work explores how these models correspond to the perception of interpersonal similarity. At the same time this work helps to explain how social structure may influence perceptions. Social network data were collected over 11 weeks in a class of 18 college students
TL;DR: The 1991 Cooley-Mead Award as discussed by the authors was the first time a sociologist has been recognized with the CooleyMead award, and it was given to Morris Zelditch, Bernard P. Cohen, and Elizabeth G. Cohen.
Abstract: I am very pleased and honored to receive the 1991 Cooley-Mead Award. There are many reasons for this. First, this award is a source of pleasure that I can share with my family, particularly with my wife, Theory. Theory has been there through all the steps and stages of my work for the last 25 years, and her support and confidence in that work have been of enormous importance to me as an individual and as a sociologist. I am also pleased because I take this as an evaluation not only of my work but also of the work of a very large number of colleagues and co-workers. It is not possible for me to list the work of all those who have played active roles in expectation states research. I do want to mention, however, my three Stanford colleagues-Morris Zelditch Jr., Bernard P. Cohen, and Elizabeth G. Cohenwho have been involved in the expectation states program from its earliest phases. Finally, I am pleased by this award when I remember some of the others who have received the Cooley-Mead Award, such as Muzafer Sherif and Robert Freed Bales. These two social psychologists have strongly influenced my own work, and I am pleased to share such an honor with them. I developed my interest in sociology at a very early age-certainly long before I appreciated the diversity that exists on so many different levels in this discipline. Also very early in my career, I became interested in the study of interpersonal or group processes. I especially became intrigued with the idea of constructing theories of social behavior, particularly theories that evolved, that developed, that grew. These two interests-understanding interpersonal or group processes and constructing theories of social behavior that evolve-have been with me my
TL;DR: This article showed that the negative association between educational level and measures of authoritarianism is artifactual at lower educational levels, but is substantively more meaningful at higher educational levels and treated more usefully as a statistical interaction.
Abstract: The negative association between educational level and measures of authoritarianism has been recognized for many years. Here we present evidence that the problem is treated more usefully as one of statistical interaction: the relation of authoritarianism to other substantive measures is largely artifactual at lower educational levels, but is substantively more meaningful at higher educational levels
TL;DR: This paper examined the impressions that are created when individuals direct activity toward the self (e.g., the widow pampered herself) and found that actors and behaviors involved in self-directed activity generally seem less good, less powerful, and less active than before the event; a decline in potency is the largest effect.
Abstract: This study examined the impressions that are created when individuals direct activity toward the self (e.g., the widow pampered herself). Ratings of evaluation, potency, and activity (EPA) for 256 combinations of identity and self-directed behavior were regressed on EPA measurements of the component identities and behaviors. The prediction equations show that actors and behaviors involved in self-directed activity generally seem less good, less powerful, and less active than before the event; a decline in potency is the largest effect. Specific outcomes, however, are influenced by the character of the actor, by the behavior, and by interactions between the two. Females and males develop impressions of self-directed action in the same ways, but tentative findings suggest that female actors are processed somewhat differently from male actors and that impressions of one's own self-directed action may differ from impressions of others'.
TL;DR: In this article, a review of studies of the growth and continuous regeneration of groups suggest answers to recent questions about the relations between agency and structure, within a framework built on G.H. Mead's social behaviorism and on research concerning organizational growth and collective behavior.
Abstract: Studies of the growth and continuous regeneration of groups suggest answers to recent questions about the relations between agency and structure. Several of these studies are reviewed within a framework built on G.H. Mead's social behaviorism and on research concerning organizational growth and collective behavior. The explanations based on this framework are contrasted with alternative approaches
TL;DR: This paper analyzed the impact of offensive and defensive punitive tactics in two-party bargaining and found that defensive use of punitive tactics produces a lower rate of damaging action by another than does offensive use of punishing tactics, and that higher power actors use punitive tactics offensively, whereas lower-power actors use them defensively.
Abstract: This research analyzes the impact of offensive and defensive punitive tactics in two-party bargaining The basic predictions are that defensive use of punitive tactics produces a lower rate of damaging action by another than does offensive use of punitive tactics, and that higher-power actors use punitive tactics offensively, whereas lower-power actors use them defensively These predictions were tested in a two-party bargaining setting that allowed parties to exchange offers and counteroffers and to take punitive action against each other The results generally support the implications of bilateral deterrence; parties facing opponents who took strong offensive measures used more punitive tactics than those who did not, whereas parties facing opponents who took strong retaliatory measures combined with weak offensive measures used fewer punitive tactics
TL;DR: The authors published a special issue entitled "theoretical advances" in social psychology, which is bound to be disappointing to many segments of the field, since it makes possible invidious comparisons between what is included in the journal and what is not.
Abstract: Any special issue entitled "theoretical advances" in social psychology is bound to be disappointing to many segments of the field, since it makes possible invidious comparisons between what is included in the journal and what is not. We would like to begin by stating up front that what we have included in the special issue reflects both a sample of the styles of work submitted for consideration and our own editorial efforts to select pieces that would be provocative. The articles included in this special issue do not represent a random sampling of the most current theoretical developments in the field. However, they do provide a clear sense of progress, addressing old themes and substantive topics from new vantage points. The topics will be familiar to mainstream social psychologists: attitudes and behavior, socialization, the production and reproduction of culture, face-management and language use, person perception, the patterning of affiliation, group growth and development, collective action, and the emergence of social order. In addition, recent metatheoretical themes in sociological theorizing are reflected in the pages of this special issue: agency and structure, microprocesses and macrostructures and objective versus subjective perspectives on social reality (Ritzer, 1988). We will describe the nature of the contributions to this special issue and in doing so, draw more general implications of this work for future theoretical and empirical developments in social psychology.
TL;DR: In this article, the central social circles of the national political subcultures of Australia and the United States were modeled sociometrically by using a positional approach to network analysis.
Abstract: National political subcultures (NPSs) that are described as consensually integrated may vary in the extent to which their central social circles (CSCs) fit the power elite model as opposed to the plural elite model of social structural integration. Social network analyses have shown that certain NPSs fit a model of consensual integration because of the existence of CSCs that integrate these subcultures. In the present study, the central social circles of the national political subcultures of Australia and the United States were modeled sociometrically by using a positional approach to network analysis