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This paper examines the hypothesis that residential mobility is disruptive of social relations; and it seeks to identify patterns of adaptation which emerge from that disruption. Among other things, it is found that women who moved between 1966 and 1969 were more frequently sociable both before and after their move than those who did not move. Further, differential patterns of disruption hold for intra- and extra-neighborhood contacts. There is, in addition, a period of heightened social interaction on the part of the most recent movers. Spatial mobility, it is concluded, does exert changes on the social lives of women in households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly twenty years ago, the author wrote a paper for presentation at a section of the annual meeting of American Sociological Society in which he sought to demonstrate the feasibility and utility of analyzing marital problems in terms of dynamic situational fields composed of interacting roles. Of little moment in the general progress of social psychology, the paper is nevertheless pregnant with meaning for the author. In the first place, it represented the results of his own efforts to integrate such of their ideas as he had assimilated from sociologists G. H. Mead, John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, Kurt Koffka, R. E. Parks, E. W. Burgess, H. D. Lasswell, and many others whose thinking and orientation are symbolized by these names, into a theoretical frame work which the author could apply to the very concrete and real problems of analysis and understanding of human behavior in the groups he was studying at that time. In the second place, the paper symbolized in his own experience the shift which characterized much of social psychology in the thirties from an orientation that led to phrasing explanations in terms of intrinsic attributes to one which can be called interactional.

The symposium on directions in mass communications research includes excerpts from seven papers that were prepared for an Arden House conference that was held in May 1913. The conference was part of a larger project, made possible by a grant from the Markle Foundation to the Graduate School of journalism, Columbia University. Its primary purpose was to identify questions deserving priority attention by mass communication researchers in the coming years. The papers on uses and gratifications and on the mass media and socialization are concerned primarily with the individual; the papers on national development and on government-media relations focus primarily on social organization; and those on mass communication's professional personnel and management relate to media sociology. A final paper, examining research questions that emerge as a result of new communication technologies, cuts across the three areas. The full texts of the papers from which these excerpts were selected by the editors, together with other papers that attempt to provide an overview of the entire field of mass communication research and to suggest priority areas for future research, are scheduled for publication in paperback and cloth editions by Praeger Publishers in the Fall of 1974.

The article presents comments of the author on sociologist Stewart Macaulay's research paper regarding doctrinal approach to law with the so-called behavioral approach. Macaulay's paper shows the wisdom of going beyond an exegesis of legal doctrines to a study of how law is affected by, and, in turn, affects social relationships. His paper in effect points to contract law as a sociologically significant area of inquiry. For a contract is by definition a type of social relationship whose function is to ensure predictability and security in business transaction. Macaulay's preliminary finding that noncontractual relations are common in industry is of interest to students of organization theory as well as to students of the sociology of law. Macaulay's paper deals with the problem of inter-organizational relations as regards the use or non-use of contracts in business transactions. In fact, legal and non-legal norms relative to contracts may be viewed as mechanisms for regulating inter-organizational relations.

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]

This paper presents an empirical analysis and conceptual extension of the work of Aiken and Hage. This work was accomplished by (1) constructing a causal model of organizational determinants of interorganizational relationships from an integration of two of their published sets of propositions; (2) testing symmetrical and asymmetrical versions of the model through analyses of data collected from 138 health and welfare organizations; (3) revising the model for theoretically inconsistent findings. The revised model of eight independent variables accounts for about 1/3 of the variance in interorganizational relations and calls into question several classical assumptions of organizational theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports one "spin-off" from the basic technology of sensitivity training, which is now widely used for inducing attitudinal and behavioral change in organizations. Changes in attitudes of members of a complex business organization are reported in this paper, and they support the value of the "confrontation design." Similar results have been obtained in other business and government settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to afford an additional medium of expression for scholars in the field of Rural Sociology. Rural Sociology has always been the joint responsibility of the professional organization of rural sociologists and a sponsoring university. Its history is intimately intertwined with the history of the Rural Sociological Society and its predecessor, the Rural Sociology Section of the American Sociological Society. The history of the journal may be summarized in four periods: (1) the prepublication period when decisions and plans were made; (2) the first five years (1936-40), at Louisiana State University; (3) the next eleven years (1941-51), under the sponsorship of North Carolina State College; and (4) the years at the University of Kentucky (1952-57), four of which fall in the 20-year period covered by this index. Moreover, it will be the policy to solicit manuscripts from workers in foreign countries, although it is intended that all such papers shall deal with some phase of rural social life.

A theory is formulated with which to analyze transactions in social relationships. Economic types of exchange characterized by calculation and self-interest on the part of the actors are contrasted with more "social" forms of transaction such as occur in the cases of role relationships with interlocking rights and obligations and persons strongly attached to one another. The social factors and conditions determining the types of transaction likely to occur between actors are examined in the paper. The key idea in this respect is that the structural and temporal context of interaction, including the past and anticipated character of their relationship, affects actors' orientations toward one another, their preferences, decisions and interaction patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The epistemology of symbolic interaction derives from the pragmatic model of Dewey and Mead, close associates. This paper argues that the methodology of pragmatism and symbolic interaction permits the perspectives of the researcher and the people in interactive situations to bias the research. influenced by Hegel, Dewey and Mead adopted an evolutionary, holistic view of reality; progress was inevitable and people were naturally rational. In addition, their notion of the logico-theoretic component in science deviated sharply from the more common hypothetico-deductive model, in both she pragmatic and symbolic interaction approaches, the theoretic component is ambiguous; to formulate theory prior to research is thought to be risky for it may bias the research. instead, theory emerges fro,n the research process; the participants in an interactive situation contribute to it. Thus the social givens of the researcher and the participants serve as a theoretical framework, giving the research a bias which reflects the social perspective of the researcher and the distribution of power in the interactive setting. That many researchers in this tradition are liberal humanitarians obscures the problem of bias inherent in this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 staled 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 micro- and 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 in some of these contingencies so that predictions about behavioral changes can be made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on "demographic metabolism," a reflection of the fact that social organizations often exhibit continuity although their human components come and go. Ryder focused on the cohort as an analytic tool for analyzing demographic metabolism; we offer an index of regeneration which reflects the fact that social organizations often contain many overlapping cohorts. The index measures the rate of change in ratio of newcomers to veteran members. The paper considers (1) how and why reganizations processes vary, (2) the potential consequences of such variations, and (3) how social organizations deal with regeneration phenomena. Illustrative data are offered for two American universities, and the discussion is extended to other complex organizations, families, nation-states, and cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Paper resents a definition and typology of "awareness contexts" and offers a paradigm for their study. The paradigm emphasizes the developmental interaction processes deriving from given awareness contexts, and directs attention to transformations of those contexts. The writings of four sociologists are located within the paradigm with respect to the types of awareness context they assume and the segments of the paradigm they treat. Implications of the paradigm for future research and theory are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research attempts to determine if the notion of separate theories for prejudice and discrimination, as put forth by Rose, is viable. The paper examines, as a result of differential responses to selected situational variables, some of the reasons wily nonprejudiced subjects discriminate against blacks and prejudiced subjects do not. The situational variables (social constraint and social distance) were experimentally introduced in a field setting. The paper concludes by agreeing with Rose's contention that separate theories for prejudice and discrimination are necessary. However, the authors take exception with the idea that theories of discrimination are sufficient to explain discriminatory behavior. In particular, in order to better understand discriminatory behavior, the argument is set forth that instead of restricting the scope of investigation, as suggested by Rose, it should be enlarged by including other relevant variables which have been shown to have an impact on discriminatory behavior. Other studies have indicated that conformity tendencies are often involved in producing behaviors which are inconsistent with attitudes. It is suggested that some measures of these, as well as of attitudes, should be included in future studies of discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of the interpersonal task, influencing others so they respond in ways congruent with one's own purposes, is a residual category both in the group dynamics focus in the common group task and in role theory with its emphasis on automatic normative reciprocity. Goode, Thibaut and Kelley, and Homans, see interaction as a bargaining process. However, the modus vivendi of the process is not made explicit in their work. Goffman begins to address this problem and this paper points to possible extensions of his framework. Given particular emphasis is the "altercasting" perspective which focuses on functions of acts in shaping the responses of others rather than exclusively on their content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existential anxieties face the individual at the inception of his act. Derivatively, they produce a social problem and call forth a social response. This paper begins by illustrating several types of existential anxeieties. This is followed by an examination of some socially structured arrangements for assuring action despite them. The existential anxieties described above are rooted in the nature of social actions. They reflect factual suffering imposed by concrete freedom of choice. A value conflict or a condition of uncertainty is experienced as anxiety because conflicting motives are engaged or because an early trauma is reactivated. The result of channeling genetically prior motivational resources into support of more differentiated values is manifested as an act of courage. Courage may be defined as an attitude enabling action in the face of anxiety. Because existential anxiety inheres in every free act, individuals universally need courage. Society has an interest in courage. It is not surprising, therefore, that social institutions develop means to assure individual achievement of courage or faiths. This is a central function of the worship role in religious institutions.

This article suggests some practical and theoretical problems of churches pertinent to social class which ought to be the subjects of research and study. This article has grown out of a recent workshop conducted by members of the Religious Research Association. A sense of smugness about the status of their inter-group relations seems to characterize many churches since policies for integrating nonswhites into their congregations have been initiated or strengthened. Accepting racial integration on paper is not the end of such problems for the church, however; it often is but the beginning. others. The nature of the underlying attitudes of the social classes and their influences upon religious beliefs and behavior need study. It would be instructive to know whether or not the values of the various social classes are assimilated into the value systems of the churches in which the respective classes are the most strongly represented. New Testament teachings about the relationships of slaves and their masters, the bond and the free, and the rich and the poor are especially pertinent as a basis for establishing the ideal position of the contemporary Christian church on the subject of social-class distinctions.

This paper reports an investigation of communication behavior in a "natural" social system the white adult community in a Mississippi town of 5,000 population, called Bakerville in this report. The study was directed at the general question of who talks to whom about specific community problems and projects. The present paper, however, deals with only one aspect of this problem: how persons who report a variety of communication contacts differ from those who report few or no contacts. To examine the relationship between extensiveness of communication contacts and other variables the sample has been dichotomized into high communicators and low communicators. Operationally defined, high communicators are those who report talking to three or more different persons about community problems; low communicators, those who report talking to fewer than three persons. "Positional" Factors. The relationship between extensiveness of communication contacts and position in the social structure was in part investigated in the present study by comparing the social status of high and low communicators. Index of Status Characteristics (ISC) was used as a convenient method for estimating the social position of members of the sample.

This paper is a report on part of a larger project designed to develop a combined test for interpersonal competence. The findings of the study indicated that autonomy role playing tests were highly representative of "real life" autonomy behavior, correlating with the best outside criterion. Autonomy role playing accurately predicted general autonomy and general competence in handling particular tasks theoretically requiring high autonomy. It was more satisfactory than current social work procedures in this respect. However, it was pointed out that only role playing specifically designed to get at autonomy was successful. Role playing not focused on autonomy gave a distorted perception of "real life" autonomy. The tests can be reliably analyzed and are simple to give. The tests could be given in homes or offices to people of different social classes, different races, and different educational levels without too much trouble. In the light of the above findings and assuming that they will hold up through further research, the following uses of role playing seem empirically verified. If autonomy within role playing changes from one time to another, "real life" autonomy may be assumed also to have changed.

The books, papers, studies, and investigations currently nearing completion in the field of sociological theory exhibit an impressive range. The heterogeneity of these studies introduces special difficulties into their classification. In spite of certain deficiencies in taxonomic rigor, it is presented in the following categories general sociological theory, the history of sociology, historical sociology, methodology, the sociology of knowledge, political sociology, value studies and social control. Author Howard Becker is currently drawing out the theoretical implications of several substantive studies and building on the foundations laid in his book "Through Values to Social Interpretation." The first of these studies, a long-term project, will be called Mind on the Looms of Greece. This work will have solid relevance not only to general sociological theory but also to the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of religion, and the sociological analysis of historical change. Sociologist Read Bain has developed a theory of communication as the basic factor in society and is considering the manner in which it affects the definition of both sociological and social problems. The five topics which will appear most prominently in his book are reading and writing, art and science, mind and body, race and class, and war and peace.

The world population is confronted with the intensification of racial, cultural, religious, and national conflicts. That is, there has been an intensification of intercultural relations of populational groups. Of late years worldwide travel, trade, communication, migration, and especially war and the threat of war have been important in bringing this situation about. Whether there is war or not, one must deal with populations, as, for example, in the governing of Japan and Germany at the present time and negotiations with them previous to the war. The same is true in relation to the USSR. Whether the problem of intergroup relations is discussed on the international level, the national level, the industrial level of management and labor, or the level of a small community, as it shall be done in this paper, the point at issue is that of participation. This paper touches upon the positive values of diverse cultures in a great complex where each sub-population contributes to the total functioning culture.

It is the office of theoretical investigation," said scholar Willard Gibbs, "to give the form in which the results of experiment may be expressed." If he had put "observation" for "experiment," Gibbs would have stated the purpose of the present paper. It is to provide one form in which may be ex- pressed what one knows about social organization. Please note, at the beginning, that more than one form is possible and that, in a limited space, the one suggested here can only be sketched out. The elements of social behavior. The present paper presupposes the direct observation of social behavior. It asks the devastating questions: Looking at the actions of men with eyes innocent of the usual preconceptions what does one see? What a simple classification can one start from in this field of fact? Attempting to answer, it sets up, as components of the conceptual scheme, individuals and three elements or determinants of the behavior of individuals in groups, which will be called operation, sentiment, and interaction.