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This paper treats structuralist and interactionist perspectives as complementary, in an approach to the dynamics of professional wrestling as a social scene. Both directive or formulating aspects of culture as it is specified for social life and the creativity of human agents in negotiating such constraints from the viewpoint of their particularistic interests are emphasized in an examination of the confirmation and negotiation of identities, the clash and resolution of moral meanings, the calculated transgression of legal tradition, the location of the charismatic hero, and the ritual importance of disorder and crisis in wrestling. As such, the paper is offered as a contribution to an understanding of the sources and movement of meanings in ritual and dramatic forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been recognized that the study of peasant movements requires two basic methodological rules for its proper understanding: first, the focus of the study must be both on the interaction process which binds the peasantry to its overlord and the social forces that impinge upon both poles of interaction; second, such study must necessarily deal with the historical contexts within which the interaction process between lord and peasant develops. The main purpose of this paper is to apply these two methodological rules to a case study of a) the transformation of a regional power structure and b) the origins and development of a peasant movement that swept an intermontane valley of Peruvian Central Sierra dominated by the hacienda system, transforming it into a region of Indian communities. A second purpose of the paper is to derive certain theoretical generalizations from the empirical case, which can be relevant for the development of a theory of political peasant movements. This article also discusses the role of successful peasant movements in the development process of dependent, unequally developed societies, like Peru.

This paper examines the community situation of shipyard workers on Tyneside, certain aspects of their orientations to work and general social perspectives, and the relationship of these to each other and to the structure of social relations at work. In terms of their community situation shipyard workers would seem to come close to Lockwood's traditional proletarian type of worker. There is evidence to suggest, however, that these workers' social perspectives are not at all clearly traditional proletarian. The explanation for this is found, at least m part, m the much greater complexity of social relations at work than are accounted for in the model of traditional proletarianism. The paper suggests that existing typologies of the orientations and social perspectives of workers need to be refined by more detailed studies of the structural and relational aspects of both work and community situations. The paper concludes with a brief examination of changes in both industry and community and the likely effect of these on the social perspectives of shipbuilding workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IN A RECENT paper Mr. Runciman concludes by inviting replies to his argument that it is logically and conceptually useful to employ the tripartite distinction between `class' `status' and `power' in the analysis of social stratification. Mr. Runciman does not, of course, deny the existence of links between these three dimensions, but suggests that such links must be seen contingent empirical relationships and not necessary logical ones. I hope that the following paper will provide such a reply. It must be clear that the following criticism is directed, in the main, to those parts of the paper in which Mr. Runciman is concerned with the logical and conceptual problem. The essay in question also contains a clear and valuable assessment of the problems encountered in any attempt to measure the three types of inequality. In the first part of the paper I propose to give a critical assessment of certain central aspects of Mr. Runciman's argument and, in the second part, I will put forward a very brief formulation of what I consider to be a more meaningful alternative view of the relationships between class, status, and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reviews sociological work dealing with American Blacks. In the past five decades three themes have largely dominated the work: (1) a description and documentation of Black disadvantage within American life; (2) an attack upon racist notions of Black biological inferiority; and (3) an interpretation of Black disadvantages as derived from White prejudice and discrimination. The work has been largely static and non-processual in character, derived largely from the structure-function model of society. The paper calls for the employment of multiple models and for emphasis upon a dynamic, processual model of social life. The concepts of network and field appear to offer much promise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ordinarily an anniversary occasions the reification of an artificial period. In this case however, there is a certain juncture in the history of the point of view which makes of the past quarter-century something worthy of consideration for symbolic interactionism as well as for our celebration of the founding of the Midwest Sociological Society. The year 1937 lies virtually in the middle of a four-year period which saw the publication of Mind, Self, and Society, Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, and The Philosophy of the Act. It would represent the greatest naiveté to suggest that thus the year 1937 represented the introduction of symbolic interactionism. We are all aware of the long development: from James, Baldwin, and Cooley to Thomas, Faris, Dewey, Blumer, and Young. Even the Tardean imitation and suggestion which underlay Ross's Social Psychology contributed a good deal ordinarily not credited to him in the development of interaction theory. Nor is it the fact that Mead represents the fullest development of the orientation that makes so significant the posthumous publication of his works (for which we may conveniently take 1937 as an anchoring point). Mead's ideas had been known for a very long time. He had taught University of Chicago students from 1893 to 1931. His notions were bruited about in classes and seminars wherever there were professors conducting them who had studied at the University of Chicago—not least in the great heartland included in the Mid-west of our Society. Some of Mead's students had published their versions of his ideas or quotations from some of his philosophical papers—Kimbali Young's Source Book in Social Psychology of a decade earlier contained a paper by Mead, and his Social Psychology bore the strong imprint of Meadian interactionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symbolic interaction theory as derived mainly from the work of George Herbert Mead views the self-concept as a structure of attitudes which arises in social experience and organizes the individual's perception of his social milieu. Recently, tests based upon this symbolic interaction orientation have been developed for the elicitation of self attitudes. One such test frequently used is the Twenty Statements Test (TST) constructed by Manford Kuhn and Thomas McPartland. The TST attempts to ascertain the specific statements respondents use to identify themselves to themselves. The applicability of the TST to problems of self theory is indicated by the rather wide use which has been made of the instrument. Investigations using the TST have focused upon the following: self-concept and social position; a self-concept and behavior; and the self-concept and attitudes toward other social objects. While TST results have been of substantive interest, little attention has been given to the methodological issues involved in the instrument and its use. For example, little is known concerning the validity and reliability of the test and its scoring procedures. If substantive assertions based upon TST results are to be considered as sound, judicious concern should be directed toward basic methodological issues. It is the purpose of this paper to consider empirically one methodological aspect of the TST. The focus is upon the test format itself. The question is posed: Do variations in the TST format produce variations in individuals' response patterns? Specifically, does the length of the test influence the number and the nature of statements made by respondents? This paper is directed toward answering this question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the intraorganizational mobility interests of production workers in manufacturing organizations. Substantial numbers of workers report not only being interested in mobility within their organizations, but many also claim to be actively pursuing that objective. The immediate supervisor is found to be a central figure in their goal achievement plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents Peter M. Hall's response to Rosabeth Moss Kanter's comments toward his article "A Symbolic Interactionist Analysis of Politics," published in the 1972 issue of "Sociological Inquiry." The author concludes that Kanter misunderstands his perspective by subsuming it under American liberalism. If there is anything that he is not, it is an American liberal, and if there is anything he is criticizing in American sociology, political sociology, and symbolic interaction, it is consensual, pluralistic, and liberal bias. Hall also does not deny the need to see the totality of the society, its interdependencies, feedbacks, and impacts, in short, society as a system. To settle misconceptions, Hall emphasized that his paper had a special focus and set limits as to its goals and coverage. It was not intended to be a complete analysis of politics nor a complete analysis of American politics.

The concept of ‘generalized symbolic media of social interaction’ was introduced by Parsons five years ago in his two articles on the concepts of power and influence. I believe that it represents a theoretical development of the first importance, which has received much less attention—particularly in my own field of social anthropology—than it deserves. The purpose of the present paper is to review and criticize the concept itself and to point out its relevance to certain problems in social anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the nature of value-commitments, conceived as a generalized symbolic medium of interchange in the processes of social interaction, in this respect paralleling money, power, and influence. Commitments constitute moral obligations of units of a system of social interaction to maintain the integrity of a value-pattern and to strive toward its implementation in action through combination with non-value factors. Stability of commitments is a basic condition of the compatibility of wide moral freedom with the exigencies of social functioning. Like the other three media, commitments are not bound by a zero-sum condition, but can be expanded, especially through charismatic movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advocates an educationally focused definition of problems and procedures in educating handicapped children, with particular emphasis on the aptitude by treatment interaction model as a useful guide for both instructional and research activities. Specialized instructional systems based on decision variables are proposed as an alternative to simple categorization and placement of children based on source variables. A brief review of aptitude by treatment interaction research with handicapped children is followed by implications for the organization of schooling, diagnostic and instructional procedures, and preparation of teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological development at any age occurs in, and is dependent upon, complex patterns of group relationships and it is vital that these should be studied directly. According to analytical psychologist C.G Jung "individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to oneself and relationship to the self is at once relationship to our fellow men." In view of the comparative lack of interest in group analysis shown by analytical psychologists, this research paper aims at intimating, in broad outline, some methods of investigation of, and a few tentative formulations about, the structure and dynamics of analytic groups.

Theories of symbolic interaction and ethnomethodology, assume that everyone undertakes a complex process of construction of reality, including self-identity, in interaction with significant others. Utilizing insights into variations in identity reformulation in marriage obtained from a study of American metropolitan women, this paper concentrates on variations of identity reformulation among widows. The major hypothesis guiding the discussion is that the higher the education of the woman, as measured by formal schooling, the more she is likely to experience and undertake identity reformulation in marriage and in widowhood. The less education a woman has, the less she will be consciously affected in her identity formulation by these events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is the analysis of the interactional patterns of Wisconsin farm couples with their parents. Step-wise multiple regression analysis provides a technique to solve a sequence of one or more multiple linear models by step-wise application of the least sum-of-squares method. The predictor variables used in this analysis include: distance, husband's age, stage in the family life-cycle, husband's education, wife's education, gross farm income, agricultural training of the husband, productive-man-work-units, and level of living. The results showed that distance is an important factor in the interaction between generations in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an exploration of the relationship between members' role performance and the benefits they receive from their organizations. The general relationship is interpreted in the context of a "social exchange model" for voluntary associations. Data for the analysis pertain to members of four voluntary farm organizations: Farm Bureau, Farmers Union, National Farmers Organization, and Grange. The data were obtained in a state-wide survey of Wisconsin farm operators in 1965. In general, the data show a moderate relationship, in a positive direction, between benefits and role performance. The benefits tend to differ in the magnitude and, in some instances, in the direction of their relationships to such performance. The findings indicate the importance of taking into account magnitude and direction of relationship, as well as interaction among the benefits and among costs, in order to devise a viable social exchange model of cost benefit relations for voluntary associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, then, we investigate the extent to which persons using leadership styles of interaction in small groups adhere to a Machievellian approach, and the extent to which a Machiavellian approach may be successful outside the small group. The two hypotheses guiding the present research are as follows: 1) A Machiavellian orientation toward others is positively correlated with a leadership style of interaction, such as a greater amount of participation in discussion, and higher rates of asking for information, and making suggestions for action. 2) A Machiavellian orientation is correlated with successful implementation of a team plan within the community at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory and research dealing with the consequences of rank inconsistency have concerned themselves almost exclusively with the portrayal of the disagreeable aspects of this situation and with the identification of relatively extreme reactions to it. The data reported above serve to counterbalance this emphasis by suggesting circumstances under which rank inconsistency may be accommodated to without a radical reaction and under which this inconsistency may even be downright palatable. First, the data showed one instance where the inconsistent individual's preoccupation with the area of endeavor in which he held his higher rank led him to be tolerant of his lower one. Secondly, we saw that three different kinds of rank inconsistency produced discontent with the lower rank only for respondents whose array of ranks was likely to be highly visible. It is hoped that the modifications of rank inconsistency theory suggested above will in the near future be subjected to a more ideal empirical test than was possible with the data employed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tins paper describes several problems that have appeared as a computer system of content analysis has been used in research on social interaction. In addition, prospective contributions of such computer systems are also indicated in the hope that evaluations of the method will include the consideration of both issues. The particular system called The General Inquirer was developed by Stone and his associates at Harvard and is undoubtedly the most sophisticated computer system of content analysis and information retrieval presently available. A description of the essential features of this system will first be presented. Then some results of its application to a particular set of data will be described in order to illustrate the kinds of problems that emerge in the use of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we attempt to do the following with respect to the symbolic interactionist approach to social psychological phenomena: (1) to add to its relatively meager empirical base; (2) to develop a neglected aspect of the position, namely, the time dimension; and (3) to contribute to both the replication and the extension of the limited systematic research which has used this particular framework to focus on the key concept of self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manford Kuhn in his review of twenty-five years of symbolic interaction theory noted that the "oral tradition" had sustained the theory during the years preceding the "age of inquiry." And, as Kuhn has accurately noted, this "age of inquiry" has utilized different subtheories and there was little consensus or "formalization" which preceded the empirical studies. This is true for Kuhn's own theory as well as for the other subtheories of the orientation. It is the purpose of this paper to correct this condition for Kuhn's theory. In doing this I have brought together, in a systematic manner, the ideas, definitions, assumptions, and propositions of the work of Kuhn and his students. With this foundation, I discuss several methodological problems of the theory which have not been previously investigated. It is hoped that this effort will contribute to the "age of inquiry" in Symbolic Interaction Theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A striking feature of the social participation literature is the tendency to concentrate on one type of activity. For example, studies dealing with formal organizations have described the character of such groups and their participants. Studies of friendship participation have traced the patterns of friendships and the type of people who are attracted to each other as friends. Consequently, few sociologists have focused their attention upon a question like: Are there any patterns or relationships between the different types of social participation? Participation in formal voluntary associations and informal voluntary interactions may be related to each other, influence each other, or at least be similarly influenced by other variables. This paper analyzes different types of social participation to determine if participation in one area of social activity is related to participation in other areas of social life. Specifically, we will try to determine (1) whether people who have many friends or who have a number of intimate friends are more apt to belong to formal voluntary organizations than those who have few friends or intimate friends; (2) whether participation in the family is related to participation in formal voluntary associations and informal voluntary interaction; and (3) whether ethnic generation status and sex alter the patterns between the different types of social participation. Generational status will be used as an independent variable since changes in ethnic status may modify the direction or the degree of relationship between the types of social activity. Sex will be used as a control variable since the roles which men and women play in society often differ considerably-especially among ethnics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general theory of symbolic interaction, specifically self theory, is focused upon the importance of language as an instrument of definition and communication. People are seen as responding not directly to a resistant outer reality but to meanings of objects which are defined within a cultural system and social organization. G. H. Mead, in his discussion of the way persons develop self concepts and the accompanying ability to take roles effectively, speaks of the degree to which persons develop a "general other." This general other is an organized structure of attitudes believed to be common to all and is defined in terms of a universe of discourse growing out of the symbolic interaction of a community of individuals. Replies to the Twenty Statements Test, described by Kuhn and McPartland, display this quality. Self-identifying statements which people make fall along a rough spectrum of reference which can be broken up in various ways. The distinction which Kuhn and McPartland have reported is between what they call consensual and nonconsensual statements. Consensual statements are defined as those statements which would be generally understood by persons in the larger society without explanation. Nonconsensual statements are defined as those requiring interpretation before their social relevance can be assessed. The consensual statement is language behavior directed to the general other, while the nonconsensual statement is language directed to a more limited audience. H. S. Sullivan's contribution in developing the notion of the "significant other" consists in accounting for the fact that persons often do not seem to internalize standards and norms from the whole society but from segments of it on some selective basis. In this paper, the number of consensual statements made in response to the Twenty Statements Test will be called the locus score. Respondents are assigned to "high" and "low" locus categories as they make more or less than the median number of consensual statements. Expanding upon this frame of reference, it seems reasonable to propose that the locus quality found in self-conceptions of a given person is also characteristic of his conceptions of other objects. This hypothesis is based on the assumption that the self is the core of a set of interrelated attitudes, and that the level of reference employed by the respondent in his attitudes toward the self would therefore be applicable to other attitudes as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study, which aims to explore attitudes via social distance toward groups with varying degrees of acceptance. Nonverbal bodily cues, such as facial expression, orientation, posture, and distance, reflect attitudes as surely as verbal behavior, according to recent experimental evidence. The less the distance a man maintains from another person, the more positive is his attitude towards him. Actual interpersonal spatial behavior has been mirrored in paper-and-pencil figure placement tasks.