Social psychology (sociology)

About: Social psychology (sociology) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 18151 publications have been published within this topic receiving 907731 citations. The topic is also known as: Social psychology & sociological social psychology.

The Role and the Person

Abstract: As a complement to the familiar idea of self-conception, the concept of role-person merger is proposed as a more behavioral approach to understanding the social construction of personality than has been taken previously. Person and role are said to be merged when there is a systematic pattern involving failure of role compartmentalization, resistance to abandoning a role in the face of advantageous alternative roles, and the acquisition of role-appropriate attitudes. Three principles concerning appearance, effect, and consistency provide the basis for a series of propositions concerning interactive determinants of merger. Three other principles-consensual frames of reference, autonomy and favorable evaluation, and investment-provide the basis for propositions concerning individual determinants of roleperson merger. By each individual, some roles are put on and taken off like clothing without lasting personal effect. Other roles are difficult to put aside when a situation is changed and continue to color the way in which many of the individual's roles are performed. The question is not whether the role is played well or poorly or whether it is played with zest or quite casually. Role embracement (Goffman 1961b, p. 106) can coexist with strict role compartmentalization. An accomplished thespian can give himself unreservedly to a role and take great pride in producing a convincing portrayal of the part but return to being a very different kind of person when the play is over. The question is whether the attitudes and behavior developed as an expression of one role carry over into other situations. To the extent that they do, we shall speak of a merger of role with person. Many of the discrepahcies between role prescription and role behavior in organizations can be explained by the individual's inability to shed roles that are grounded in other settings and other stages of the life cycle. Merger of role with person is often the source of role conflict, as Killian (1952) demonstrated for emergency workers whose more deeply merged family roles infringed on the performance of their rescue roles in a disaster situation. When a role is deeply merged with the person, socialization in that role has pervasive effects in personality formation. When there is little 11 am grateful for support from the National Institute of Mental Health (grants USPHS MH 16505 and MH 26243) and comments from Steve Gordon, Sheldon Messinger, Jerald Schutte, Stephen Spitzer, Thomas Tyler, and Lewis Zurcher.

Mood as Information: 20 Years Later

Abstract: (2003). Mood as Information: 20 Years Later. Psychological Inquiry: Vol. 14, No. 3-4, pp. 296-303.

City Shoppers and Urban Identification: Observations on the Social Psychology of City Life

Abstract: Chicago housewives comprise four types of shoppers: economic, personalizing, ethical, and apathetic. The personalization and moralization of customer-clerk relationships cannot be inferred from conventional proposition about the anonymity of city life, yet the shoppers are urbanites. Each type of shopper is distinguished by a specific pattern of social characteristics reflecting her position in the social structure of her residential community. Moreover, some evidence suggests that personalizing shoppers draw on their relationships with clerks to form subjective identifications with a community in which they have restricted opportunities for participation.