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Six decades of JCR research on negotiation and mediation are celebrated in this article. Starting with the earliest articles on these topics, we trace the development of recurring themes. The themes serve to organize a review of findings reported in the journal. The research on negotiation covers processes and conditions that occur prior to, during, and at the end of negotiation. The work on mediation provides insights into mediator approaches and impacts. This article concludes with suggestions for integrating and better understanding of the negotiation and mediation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the social dynamics of crime by means of evolutionary game theory, and we model the choice of boundedly rational potential victims to privately self-protect against prospective offenders. Negative externalities from self-protection, as the socially transmitted fear of victimization, can influence the strategic choices of victims even with constant or declining crime rates, and this circumstance may lead to Pareto inefficient equilibria with excessive expenses for private protection. Providing higher levels of public security (or of appropriate social care) financed through discriminatory taxation of private defensive behaviors can prevent crime and reduce superfluous self-protection, thus driving the social dynamics toward a more efficient equilibrium. Public policy can therefore be effective in implementing the social optimum. This article extends previous work by Cressman, Morrison, and Wen by increasing the range of possible dynamics and the scope for public intervention. Consequently, in our model, public policy can deter crime and improve the welfare of victims by addressing the intangible aspects of crime, that is, the social dynamics of fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To elucidate factors that impact intention (INT) to be active as well as actual physical activity (PA) behavior in colorectal cancer survivors (CRC-S) using the theory of planned behavior (TpB). Planning for PA was explored as a mediator of the INT-behavior relationship. Chemotherapy-induced neuropathy and fatigue were also explored.Design: A cross-sectional quantitative mailed survey was used.Setting: The study was conducted among community-dwelling adults living in Pennsylvania when diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC).Subjects: Subjects comprised 843 CRC-S diagnosed with CRC in Pennsylvania in 2009.Measures: The survey included questions about planning for PA, TpB constructs, medical and social variables, and PA as measured by a modified Godin Leisure Time Questionnaire.Analysis: Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the sample. A mediation analysis was used to determine if planning mediated the relationship between INT and actual PA behavior. A stepwise regression was used to determine predictors of INT and PA.Results: Ninety-six CRC-S responded, with 25% meeting PA recommendations for health promotion, suggesting that CRC-S are insufficiently active. Perceived behavioral control (PBC) and social norm (SN) accounted for 43% of the variance in INT, whereas 30% of the variance in PA was explained by PBC and age. Neuropathy negatively impacted PA behavior (p = .008). Both action and coping planning partially mediated the INT-behavior relationship (β = 20.08, p = .007; β = 22.85, p = .001, respectively).Conclusion: Survivors at risk for inactivity are those with low PBC, low SN, and neuropathy, and those who are older. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dual-process models of culture and action posit that fast, automatic cognitive processes largely drive human action, with conscious processes playing a much smaller role than was previously supposed. These models have done much to advance our understanding of behavior, but they focus on generic processes rather than specific cultural content. As useful as this has been, it tells us little about which forms of culture matter for action. Drawing on a cross-disciplinary set of theory and evidence, I argue that values are tied to many forms of behavior, across both contexts and cultures, and they operate in ways consistent with dual-process models. I illustrate the plausibility of these claims using data from the second wave of the European Social Survey, as well as real-time decision data from a large, online survey. I show that values predict self-reported behaviors in a variety of substantive domains and across 25 nations, and they operate using automatic cognitive processes. These findings suggest that values merit renewed theoretical and empirical attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge stickiness often impedes knowledge transfer. When knowledge is complex and the knowledge seeker lacks intimacy with the knowledge source, knowledge sticks in its point of origin because the knowledge seeker faces ambiguity about the best way to acquire the needed knowledge. We theorize that, given the extent of that ambiguity, knowledge seekers will make a choice to either ask for needed knowledge immediately after deciding it is needed, or wait and ask for it at a later date. We hypothesize that when knowledge is sticky, knowledge seekers will delay asking for knowledge and, in the interim period, use an enterprise social networking site to gather information that can lubricate stuck knowledge, such as how, when, and in what way to ask for the desired knowledge. We propose that by doing this, knowledge seekers can increase their ultimate satisfaction with the knowledge once they ask for it. Data describing specific instances of knowledge transfer occurring in a large telecommunications firm supported these hypotheses, showing that knowledge transfer is made easier by the fact that enterprise social networking sites make other peoples’ communications visible to casual observers such that knowledge seekers can gather information about the knowledge and its source simply by watching his or her actions through the technology, even if they never interacted with the source directly themselves. The findings show that simple awareness of others’ communications (what we call ambient awareness) played a pivotal role in helping knowledge seekers to obtain interpersonal and knowledge-related material with which to lubricate their interactions with knowledge sources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By integrating insights from economic and sociological theories, this article investigates whether and through which mechanisms friends’ fertility behavior affects an individual’s transition to parenthood. By exploiting the survey design of the Add Health data, our strategy allows us to properly identify interaction effects and distinguish them from selection and contextual effects. We use a series of discrete-time event history models with random effects at the dyadic level. Results show that, net of confounding effects, a friend’s childbearing increases an individual’s risk of becoming a parent. We find a short-term, curvilinear effect: an individual’s risk of childbearing starts increasing after a friend’s childbearing, reaches its peak approximately two years later, and then decreases. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This exploratory article points out how armies differ in the performance of their daily military activities during a peacekeeping mission and analyses the role of contrasting perceptions of the mission operational environment in explaining this variation. As a first step, this article documents systematic variations in the way French, Ghanaian, Italian, and Korean units implement the mandate of the UN mission in Lebanon in their daily military activity. Second, it shows that the four armies also interpret or “construct” the operational environment differently and in a way that is consistent with their different military behavior. Third, preliminary evidence suggests that previous experiences of each army influence the way in which the operational environment is constructed. Data were collected combining participant observation in Southern Lebanon with questionnaires and interviews. This article thus builds on sociological works on different operational styles but takes a methodological approach closer to that in security studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article proposes contingencies of behavior and professional control. The authors use two autoethnographic accounts to lend support to their theoretically derived propositions that using behavior control, when professional control is expected and appropriate, decreases organizational effectiveness. They argue that the more discrepant the expectations, the more negative will be the effect, especially if the discrepancy persists over time. They suggest that professional control should be employed when intense socialization is present and organization-specific skills have been developed. The autoethnographic accounts are based on lived experiences that occurred in the Canadian Navy while one of the authors was an officer in that navy. The authors argue that the lived experiences help to generalize back to theory—an important step in theory development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social class reflects more than the material conditions of people's lives. Objective resources (e.g., income) shape cultural practices and behaviors that signal social class. These signals create cultural identities among upper- and lower-class individuals--identities that are rooted in subjective perceptions of social-class rank vis-à-vis others. Empirical studies find that perceptions of social-class rank influence patterns of contextual versus dispositional cognition and other- versus self-oriented affect and behavior that are consistent with objective resource-based measures of social class. Our theoretical conceptualization emphasizes the utility of measuring and manipulating perceptions of social-class rank to better understand how social class influences thought and action across diverse social domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, a growing contingent of ‘‘evolutionary sociologists’’ has begun to integrate theoretical ideas and empirical findings derived from evolutionary biology, especially sociobiology, into a variety of sociological inquiries. Without capitulating to a naive version of either biological reductionism or genetic determinism, these researchers and theorists have begun to synthesize sociological thought with research produced in various branches of the evolutionary life sciences. These recent developments provide sociology instructors with new opportunities to reconsider how they address the topic of biology’s relevance to sociology. In this article, the authors review key issues pertaining to evolutionary explanations of social behavior, offer clarifications and explanations of several issues that are sometimes misrepresented and misunderstood, and provide specific suggestions for instructors who are interested in updating and improving the quality of instruction on this important topic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a speech by Jodi O'Brien, president of the Pacific Sociological Association, delivered as the Presidential Address at the association's annual meeting in 2008, in which she discussed the complexity of human social life, methodological developments in sociology, and engagement with personal conflict.

In Western countries, women and men, young and old, enroll in adult education for different reasons. This is even more the case in China. This study helps Shanghai program planners better appreciate learners by understanding how motivational orientations vary as a function of gender and age. The Chinese version of the Education Participation Scale was administered to 448 adults enrolled in Shanghai adult education classes. It had a factor structure loosely comparable to the English version. Women were more inclined than men to be enrolled for social stimulation, social contact and cognitive interest. However, gender differences were less pronounced than those for age. The Cultural Revolution and pressures of market socialism in postmodern Shanghai appeared to shape motivational orientations of participants who came of age between 1966 and 1976. Just the fact that learners were asked about motivational orientations may change the politics of human subjectivity in Shanghai adult education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies the putative relationship between birth order and human behavior. K. Konig's description of behavior; L.H. Stewart's analysis of the birth order of British prime minister; Question on how to measure birth order; H.E. Jones' definition of birth order; Extent of which birth order is a factor in the selection of British prime ministers.

Describes the social identity and self-awareness approaches to group members' behavior. Effects of identity salience on behavior; Integration of the approaches; Flexibility and applicability of the model of social self-regulation; Deindividualization and social identity.

Examines the non-causal explanation for human action. Analysis of the verification argument; Analysis of the free will argument; Analysis of the supposition that no free action can be caused by an event.