Showing papers on "Social psychology (sociology) published in 1989"

A social cognitive view of self-regulated academic learning.

Abstract: Researchers interested in academic self-regulated learning have begun to study processes that students use to initiate and direct their efforts to acquire knowledge and skill. The social cognitive conception of self-regulated learning presented here involves a triadic analysis of component processes and an assumption of reciprocal causality among personal, behavioral, and environmental triadic influences. This theoretical account also posits a central role for the construct of academic self-efficacy beliefs and three self-regulatory processes: self-observation, self-judgment, and self-reactions. Research support for this social cognitive formulation is discussed, as is its usefulness for improving student learning and academic achievement.

Theory and Research Concerning Social Comparisons of Personal Attributes

Abstract: Social comparison theory has evolved considerably since Festinger (1954) originally proposed it. This article integrates these changes with insights offered by recent social comparison studies and by research on social cognition and the self. Contrary to the original theory or subsequent research, (a) the individual is not always an unbiased self-evaluator but may seek many goals through social comparison; (b) the social environment may not be inactive but may impose unwanted comparisons; and (c) the comparison process involves more than selecting a comparison target: It is bidirectional, rather than unidirectional, and it may adopt a variety of forms to meet the individual's goals. Research involving comparisons of personal attributes illustrates these principles. The couples we knew were also aging.., and paid rising taxes and suffered automobile accidents and midnight illnesses and marital woe; but under the tireless supervision of gossip all misfortunes were compared, and confessed, and revealed as relative. (Updike, 1985, p. 48) Salieri, speaking of Mozart, in Amadeus: Tonight... stands a giggling child who can put on paper, without actually setting down his billiard cue, casual notes which turn my most considered ones into lifeless scratches... [That] ensured that I would know myself forever mediocre. (Shatfer, 1980, p. 61) An important source of knowledge about oneself is comparisons with other people. In 1954, Festinger proposed a theory of social comparison based on this insight. Although interest in the theory has waxed and waned since then (Goethals, 1986b), social comparison research has enjoyed a resurgence recently: Over 100 journal articles on social comparison have appeared since 1982, which is almost three times the number published in the theory's first 12 years (Radloff& Bard, 1966). Moreover, social comparison processes are central to other prominent theories in social psychology, including relative deprivation (Masters & Smith, 1987; Olson, Herman. & Zanna, 1986), Tesser's self-evaluation maintenance model (Tenet, 1986), and Tajfel and Turner's (1979) social identity theory of groups. Although social comparison theory was once dubbed "everybody's second-favorite theory in social psychology (but almost nobody's first)" (Arrowood, 1978, p. 491 ), the literature has never before had more vitality. These developments call for a reexamination of social comparison theory. For some time, researchers have operated under an understanding of social comparison that goes beyond Festinger's (1954) original theory and that in some ways contradicts

Social Causes of Psychological Distress

Abstract: A core interest of social science is the study of stratification--inequalities in income, power, and prestige. Few persons would care about such inequalities if the poor, powerless, and despised were as happy and fulfilled as the wealthy, powerful, and admired. Social research often springs from humanistic empathy and concern as much as from scholarly and scientific curiosity. An economist might observe that black Americans are disproportionately poor, and investigate racial differences in education, employment, and occupation that account for disproportionate poverty. A table comparing additional income blacks and whites can expect for each additional year of education is thus as interesting in its own right as any dinosaur bone or photo of Saturn. However, something more than curiosity underscores our interest in the table. Racial differences in status and income are a problem in the human sense. Inequality in misery makes social and economic inequality personally meaningful. There are two ways social scientists avoid advocacy in addressing issues of social stratification. The first way is to resist projecting personal beliefs, values, and responses as much as possible, while recognizing that the attempt is never fully successful. The second way is by giving the values of the subjects an expression in the research design. Typically, this takes the form of opinion or attitude surveys. Researchers ask respondents to rate the seriousness of crimes, the appropriateness of a punishment for a crime, the prestige of occupations, the fair pay for a job, or the largest amount of money a family can earn and not be poor, and so on. The aggregate judgments, and variations in judgments, represent the values of the subjects and not those of the researcher. They are objective facts with causes and consequences of interest in their own right. This work is an effort to move methodology closer to human concerns without sacrificing the scientific grounds of research as such. The authors succeed admirably in this complex and yet worthwhile task. This is a work that could be helpful to those in all branches of the social sciences that take up issues relating to inequality and the uneven distribution of the social goods of a nation.

The sociology of emotions

Abstract: Recent work in the sociology of emotions has gone beyond the development of concepts and broad perspectives to elaboration of theory and some empirical research. More work has been done at the micro-level than the macro-level of analysis. At both analytical levels, emotion most commonly is treated as a dependent variable, although increasingly, its role as an intervening and independent variable in social processes is being recognized, especially with regard to problems in substantive fields as diverse as gender roles, stress, small groups, social movements, and stratification. Considerable gaps exist in sociological knowledge about emotions; in particular, little is known about distribution of different emotional experiences in the population, the content of emotion culture, emotional socialization processes, emotional interactions, and relationships between social structure and emotion norms. More empirical research is necessary, to build on the theoretical groundwork that has been laid. Problems in measuring emotional experience and aspects of emotion culture have not been addressed and are likely to become critical issues as empirical work accumulates in the future.

On social facts

Abstract: Four concepts are considered in relation to the question: can an illuminating characterization of the social sciences be given in terms of one concept of a relatively natural kind of thing? Weber's concept of 'social action' provides neither a general characterization, nor an important partial account, or so I argue after examining its relation to collectivity concepts, to suicide studies, and to standard desiderata for scientific concepts I next assess the notion of 'meaningful'action Peter Winch claims that such action is always 'social' in some sense, because it involves rule-following and rules f presuppose' a social setting I consider the nature of Winch's Wittgensteinian arguments about rules; two senses in which all action might be 'social' emerge; however, were 'social actions' in either sense the focus of a science, it would not therefore aptly be called a social science, the senses of 'social' here being too weak I turn next to what I allege is Durkheim's basic notion of a 'social fact' , roughly, that of a way of acting which 'inheres in' and is 'produced by' a social group I present a highly articulated reconstruction of this notion: a 'collective practice', Pr, of a social group, G, will "be a 'Durkheimian social phenomenon', according to this revised conception, if and only if either Pr or another collective practice of G provides members of G who conform to Pr with a 'basic' reason for so conforming A central element in my account of collective practices is a notion of 'group common knowledge' derived from David Lewis I finally undertake a detailed critique of David Lewis's account of conventions and of the 'co-ordination problems' Lewis claims underlie conventions; I argue for a kind of account different in form from Lewis's, in which conventions are not, and do not necessarily involve, 'regularities' in behaviour The Durkheimian notion is judged the best joartial characterization of a social science considered Its presupposition of the notion of a social group is, I argue, no flaw I conclude with a general theory of 'socialness', and hence of social science, based on my judgements about the four concepts considered

Goal concepts in personality and social psychology.

Abstract: Contents: L.A. Pervin, Goal Concepts in Personality and Social Psychology: A Historical Perspective. A. Bandura, Self-Regulation of Motivation and Action Through Internal Standards and Goal Systems. R.A. Emmons, The Personal Striving Approach to Personality. N. Cantor, C.A. Langston, Ups and Downs of Life Tasks in a Life Transition. R.A. Wright, J.W. Brehm, Energization and Goal Attractiveness. H. Markus, A. Ruvolo, Possible Selves: Personalized Representations of Goals. B.R. Schlenker, M.F. Weigold, Goals and the Self-Identification Process: Constructing Desired Identities. T.W. Lee, E.A. Locke, G.P. Latham, Goal Setting Theory and Job Performance. D.R. Peterson, Interpersonal Goal Conflict. J. Trzebinski, The Role of Goal Categories in the Representation of Social Knowledge. S.J. Read, L.C. Miller, Inter-Personalism: Toward a Goal-Based Theory of Persons in Relationships. L.A. Pervin, Goal Concepts: Themes, Issues, and Questions.

New technology and human error

Abstract: This book is about the nature of human error and the implications for design of modern industrial installations. It is the first book discussing the topic from the point of view of cognitive psychology, social psychology and safety engineering. Advanced students, researchers and professional psychologists in industrial psychology/human factors and engineers or systems designers concerned with man-machine systems will find this book essential reading.

Critical theory, Marxism, and modernity

Abstract: Preface and Acknowledgements. Part 1: Theory, Politics, and History: 1. 1. Critical Theory and Modernity. 1. 2. Critical Theory and the Crisis of Marxism. 1. 3. The Institute for Social Research. Part 2: From Supradisciplinary Materialism to Critical Theory: 2. 1. Supradisciplinary Materialism. 2. 2. Toward a Materialist Social Psychology. 2. 3. Traditional and Critical Theory. Part 3: State, Society, Economy: New Theories of Capitalism and Fascism: 3. 1. Political Sociology and Political Economy. 3. 2. From Market to Monopoly / State Capitalism. 3. 3. Fascism. 3. 4. Fragments of a Theory of Society. Part 4: From Dialectic of Enlightenment to the Authoritarian Personality: Critical Theory in the 1940s: 4. 1 Science, Reason and Dialectic of Enlightenment. 4. 2. Eclipse of Reason. 4. 3. Critical Theory, the Proletariat and Politics. 4. 4. Studies in Prejudice and the Return to Germany. Part 5: From 'Authentic Art' to the Culture of Industries: Critical Theory and the Dialectics of Culture: 5. 1. Dialectics of Culture. 5. 2. Critical Theory and the Culture Industry. 5. 3. New Critical Perspectives on Commodities, Needs and Consumption. Part 6: From the Consumer Society to Postmodernism: Critical Theory and the Vicissitudes of Capitalism: 6. 1. Critical Theory and the Consumer Society. 6. 2. New Critical Perspectives on Commodities, Needs and Consumption. 6. 3. Critical Theory, Modernity and Post-Modernity. Part 7: Techno-Capitalism: 7. 1. Technology, Capitalism and Domination. 7. 2. The Capitalist State. 7. 3. Toward a New Crisis Theory: Habermas and Offe. Part 8: Theory and Practice: The Politics of Critical Theory: 8. 1. Critical Theory and Radical Politics. 8. 2. Techno-Capitalism, Crisis and Social Transformation. 8. 3. New Social Movements and Socialist Politics. 8. 4. For Supradisciplinary Radical Social Theory with a Practical Intent. Notes. Index.

Jealousy: Theory, Research, and Clinical Strategies

Abstract: An old and recurring theme in human relationships, jealousy has been captured in myth, drama, literature, dance, sculpture, and painting, as well as in the popular press. Jealousy is also a major cause of murder, spousal violence, and marital breakdown. It has been estimated that up to 20% of all murders involve a jealous lover, and, in a nation-wide survey of marriage counselors, jealousy was cited as "a" (if not "the") major focus of treatment for about a third of all couples under 50. However, despite the rich array of commentary, the empirical study of this universal phenomenon is still in its infancy. Providing an important advance, this groundbreaking volume is the first to offer a comprehensive review of modern research on romantic jealousy. It offers a conceptual framework for ordering past research, an up-to-date review of the literature from diverse sources and fields, and useful clinical strategies for practitioners and clinicians in training. This volume concentrates on romantic jealousy, which the authors define as neither an emotion, a state of mind, nor a way of behaving, but rather as a multi-system phenomenon involving personality, relationships, culture, and perhaps biology. This model serves to integrate remaining chapters, yields a richer theory, and engenders a flexible clinical perspective. The book opens by presenting a model of romantic jealousy that integrates research and clinical phenomena. It then offers analyses of several different perspectives including: sociobiological and personality approaches; ways in which relationship characteristics and dynamics contribute to jealousy; gender differences; and cultural and social factors that affect jealousy. Chapters on clinical concerns focus on violence, psychopathology, and the assessment and treatment of normal, reactive, and symptomatic jealousies. Specific strategies are provided with clinical, real-life, and cross-cultural case examples used throughout. Providing both theory and practical suggestions for understanding and treating romantic jealousy from individual and couples therapeutic approaches, JEALOUSY is an invaluable resource for clinicians and researchers in psychology, psychotherapy, marital and family therapy, psychiatry, and social work. The volume serves as a primary or secondary text in advanced undergraduate and graduate seminars in social psychology of interpersonal relationships, emotions, personality or clinical psychology, couples relationships, and interdisciplinary courses linking culture and the individual. Because it discusses the relationship between violence and jealousy, it also provides insightful reading for lawyers, criminologists, and law enforcement officials.

Reconsidering the employment interview: a review of recent literature and suggestions for future research

Abstract: Literature since the last comprehensive review of research on the employment interview is summarized, and suggestions for future studies in this area are described. Major changes in findings regarding the validity of the interview, the impact of applicant sex, and the effect of interviewer characteristics/behavior on applicant reactions, as well as other issues, are reported. Contrary to the widely held belief that the interview has low validity, recent research indicates at least modest validity for this selection tool. Conversely, the effect of the campus interview on applicant reactions has been seriously questioned. Researchers are urged to examine several areas in social psychology, including the literature on attitudes-intentions-behavior, the elaboration likelihood model, and theories of discrimination to achieve greater understanding of the employment interview.

Analysing everyday explanation : a casebook of methods

Abstract: Explanations are given and received in all areas of social life: in the home, at school, at work and in the courtroom. They are exchanged between friends and argued over by enemies. The analysis of these ordinary everyday explanations is regarded as a notoriously difficult area of study by social scientists. This book offers, for the first time, a clear and comprehensive guide to the most fruitful and interesting techniques for collecting, analysing and interpreting everyday explanation. The authors have been chosen to represent the most important work being done in a variety of disciplines: social psychology, linguistics, pragmatics, artificial intelligence, ethogenics, narratology, conversation analysis and discourse analysis. Each chapter follows a uniform format. The author introduces the general theoretical outlines of the technique and describes his or her own theoretical position. The heart of the chapter is then devoted to an extended description of the analysis of a particular piece of data: a conversation, a collection of documentary accounts, or a corpus of explanatory phrases. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of this particular analytical method are assessed. Usefully organized into four parts, the book deals with the nature of explanation in general; methods for analysing the structure and content of accounts; the social context in which accounts are exchanged; and the use of rhetorical and ideological approaches to everyday explanation. Analysing Everyday Explanation is a unique casebook of methods which will prove invaluable to all social scientists.

Delegitimization: The Extreme Case of Stereotyping and Prejudice

Abstract: Social psychology has devoted much effort to the exploration of various social representations in the form of beliefs and attitudes, which serve to characterize social categories of individuals within the context of intergroup relations (Hamilton, 1981; Stephan, 1985). One outcome of this effort has been extensive study of two social representations — stereotypes and prejudice. Stereotypes are beliefs about another group in such terms as personality traits, attributions, or behavioral descriptions (Brewer & Kramer, 1985; Hamilton, 1981). Prejudice refers to negative attitudes toward another group that express negative affective or emotional reactions (Allport, 1954; Jones, 1972; Pettigrew, 1971; Stephan, 1985). Both categories, being loosely defined, are highly general concepts that lack explicit specifications regarding their outcomes in terms of the nature of intergroup relations. Thus, the contents of stereotypes are of a wide scope, ranging from descriptions with negative to positive connotations (e.g., lazy, superstitious, industrious, shrewd — see Katz & Braly, 1933). Likewise, although the conception of prejudice implies negative affective reaction, it does not specify the intensity of such reactions, and, therefore, may range from mildly to extremely negative. In addition, the two concepts focus mainly on cognitive and affective components of intergroup relations, and do not necessarily specify their role in guiding actual behavior towards the other group.

Stereotyping and prejudice: Changing conceptions.

Abstract: The study of stereotyping and prejudice is a study of human nature, group mem bership, and intergroup relationships. It sheds light on each of these aspects of social psychology. With respect to the first two, it has been observed that since groups provide the best framework for satisfying various human needs, individuals continuously organize themselves in collectives. They belong to a variety of groups-many of which they voluntarily select and some to which they are ascribed. Group membership, therefore, is one of the most salient and important of an indi vidual's characteristics. The implication of this characteristic is that human beings not only constantly classify other people into group categories, either by identifying membership or constructing their own categories, but also judge and evaluate them on this basis. The stereotypes and prejudice are outcomes of this process. They are the beliefs and attitudes toward members of another group. In addition, the study of stereotyping and prejudice reflects an interest in inter group relationships. While we recognize that a discussion of intergroup relation ships may focus on behaviors describing actions such as confrontations, violence, wars, cooperation, alliance, negotiation, or coordination, we also believe that each of these intergroup behaviors is mediated by perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes. In the case of intergroup behaviors, the listed actions are not performed instinctively or mindlessly, but are preceded by cognitive processes which, among other outputs, involve the formation of stereotypes and prejudice toward the other group."

Getting Beyond the Facts: Teaching Social Studies/Social Sciences in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract: In this second edition of Getting Beyond the Facts, Kincheloe presents a comprehensive view of complex-democratic social studies in the 21st century He argues that the reform of social studies education requires a corps of rigorous social science scholars who understand the historical origins of the social studies, the conceptual foundations of the field, its strengths and weaknesses, and modes of social theoretical analysis and takes students through numerous intellectual encounters in social studies and the contexts that inform it Focusing on the importance of knowledge production and interpretation, Kincheloe calls for the education of social studies teachers as researchers who can critique and reconstruct curriculum as they expose the covert, ideological functions of contemporary educational reforms and top-down standards-driven social studies subject matter In an era of depoliticization and induced political illiteracy, Kincheloe calls for a new form of social studies/social sciences scholarship to counter such alarming trends

Stereotype, Prejudice, and Discrimination: Changing Conceptions in Theory and Research

Abstract: Readers of the chapters on prejudice and discrimination in the three editions of the Handbook of Social Psychology (Harding, Kutner, Proshansky, & Chein, 1954; Harding, Proshansky, Kutner, & Chein, 1969; Stephan, 1985) will be impressed by the reduction in theoretical perspectives which this area seems to have experienced within the space of less than two decades While the earlier chapters (Harding et al, 1954, 1969) approached prejudice and stereotypes from multiple theoretical perspectives, covering psychoanalytic, sociological, developmental, and personality-oriented explanations, Stephan’s (1985) chapter focuses only on one perspective, the cognitive approach

The Optimal Level of Measurement for Personality Constructs

Abstract: William McDougall once argued that tendencies are the indispensable postulates for all of psychology (1938) To the extent that his assertion is correct, the study of personality focuses on tendencies of two types: those common to the species and those specific to individuals (Murphy, 1966) In the first instance, students of personality explore the “nature of human nature”, attempting to identify, understand, and integrate the qualities and tendencies that are central to our humanness In the second instance, students of personality catalogue and measure personal tendencies: the actions, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and motives that reliably distinguish individuals from one another Thus, the study of personality encompasses two endeavors that are complementary, but quite distinct (Buss, 1984) One venture is directed toward the study of species-typical characteristics, the other toward individual differences This difference in orientation is reflected in the name of the relevant section of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Personality Processes and Individual Differences It also emerges in the subject matter of textbooks that focus primarily on personality theory or personality measurement

Social psychology and the wrong revolution

Abstract: Many social psychologists take increasing comfort in cognitive explanations of human action. This paper first attempts to demonstrate that cognitively based formulations not only delimit the possibilities for social understanding, but create a range of intractable conceptual problems. If real world events are reduced to cognitive representations of the world, then social events cease to exist for the discipline as legitimate foci of concern. Further, once the reality of cognition is granted, there is no conceptual means of viably explaining either the origins or acquisition of cognitive categories (schemas, representations, etc.), or the relationship between cognition and action. The paper then goes on to argue that the cognitive revolution in psychology blinds the discipline to the far more pervasive revolution occurring elsewhere in the intellectual world, that of social epistemology. When cognition is replaced by language as the major means for representing the world, then the individual is replaced by the social relationship as the central focus of concern. Theory and research within the framework of social epistemology are reviewed and their implications discussed.

Social-Psychological Processes that Perpetuate Racial Segregation: The Relationship between School and Employment Desegregation.

Abstract: A few diverse studies show that racial segregation tends to be perpetuated over stages of the life cycle and across institutional settings (Braddock, 1980; Braddock and McPartland, 1982; Crain, 1970; McPartland and Crain, 1980; McPartland and Braddock, 1981; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1967: App. C5). Blacks who grow up in a largely segregated environment are more likely to lead their adult lives in segregated situations. And, at any given age, Blacks who are segregated in one institutional sphere-be it in education, residential location, employment, or informal social contacts-are also likely to have mostly segregated experiences in other institutional environments.