33 results
Search Results
2. Coordinating Behaviors: Is social interaction scripted?
- Author
-
Eickers, Gen
- Subjects
SOCIAL interaction ,SOCIAL perception ,SOCIAL role ,SCRIPTS ,SOCIAL structure - Abstract
Some philosophical and psychological approaches to social interaction posit a powerful explanatory tool for explaining how we navigate social situations: scripts. Scripts tell people how to interact in different situational and cultural contexts depending on social roles such as gender. A script theory of social interaction puts emphasis on understanding the world as normatively structured. Social structures place demands, roles, and ways to behave in the social world upon us, which, in turn, guide the ways we interact with one another and the ways we coordinate our behaviors. In this paper, I explore the phenomenon of coordinated behaviors in social interactions in humans. I argue that looking closely at everyday interactions, for which social coordination is central, strongly points to a fundamental role of scripts for social cognition and interaction. In order to explain some social interactions, like those based on social coordination, we do not need to recourse to mental state attribution. Rather, I argue, scripts are a powerful resource for explaining social interaction and especially coordinated behaviors. Scripts have been neglected in standard approaches to social cognition but are (re‐)gaining attention via the normative turn in social cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
3. Institution as mediation between social structure and agency: Toward a realist social ontology of institutions.
- Subjects
SOCIAL structure ,SOCIAL institutions ,CRITICAL realism - Abstract
There is a widely accepted conception that institutions are norm systems or norm‐guided practices. Opening this conception itself to discussion, the paper initially discusses a group of concepts, such as norm, power, practice, structure, etc., that are related to the definition of institution. Following the discussion, it focuses on the possibility of understanding institutions as spaces. Finally, the paper suggests that institutions mediate ontologically between structure and agency within a framework developed with a critical‐realist approach, and formulates the two sides of this mediation (structure‐institution and institution‐agency) as two spatialities. While the institution as a topos corresponds to a ground on which social structures materialize their causal powers, the institution as a locus manifests itself as a place where agents reproduce and/or transform with their strategic and dispositional actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. Materialism, emergentism, and social structure: A response to Wendt's Quantum Mind.
- Author
-
Porpora, Douglas V.
- Subjects
MATERIALISM ,PHILOSOPHY of mind ,EMERGENCE (Philosophy) ,SOCIAL structure ,QUANTUM mechanics - Abstract
Abstract: This paper is a response to the new book by Alexander Wendt (2015) entitled Quantum Mind. The paper commends Wendt on the book's contribution to our understanding, particularly of quantum mechanics, panpsychism, and externalism in the philosophy of mind. At the same time, it takes issue with Wendt's overall thesis, particularly as it relates to materialism, emergentism, and social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2018
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. A Simmelian theory of structural loneliness.
- Author
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Donbavand, Steven
- Subjects
- *
LONELINESS , *SOCIAL isolation , *SOCIAL structure - Abstract
Whilst loneliness may be receiving greater media and political attention, the tendency to present the issue as a discrete individual problem separable from wider social concerns has led to some frustration amongst the sociologically minded. The purpose of this paper is to provide a sociological account of loneliness which is not as susceptible to individualist interpretations as other works in the genre have been. As such the paper focuses on how the structure of a society, rather than its culture, might lead to loneliness. To this end, the paper makes original use of the works of Georg Simmel (1858–1918). Specifically, Simmel's account of how we come to know other people through synthetic construction is applied to his better‐known theory of intersecting social circles. The author claims that when taken together these two aspects of Simmel's thought suggest that social structure can create a form of social isolation in which people find it very difficult to get to know one another, due to a lack of multiple‐context interactions with the same people during their day‐to‐day behavioural patterns. This clustering of interactions within narrow interlocuter‐contexts is hypothesised to account for a portion of the variability in loneliness across individuals, societies and historical time, and is provisionally named as structural loneliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. Social Structure and Social Relations.
- Author
-
Elder-Vass, Dave
- Subjects
SOCIAL structure ,SOCIOLOGY ,CRITICAL realism ,SOCIAL sciences ,ANTHROPOLOGY ,CRITICAL thinking - Abstract
This paper replies to Porpora, King, and Varela's responses to my earlier paper “For Emergence”, focussing on the relationship between the concepts of social structure and social relations. It recognises the importance of identifying the mechanisms responsible whenever we make claims for the emergence of causal powers, and discusses the mechanism underlying one case of social structure: normative institutions. It also shows how critical realism reconciles the claims that both social structures and human individuals have emergent causal powers that combine to produce actual social events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2007
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
7. Elder-Vass's Move and Giddens's Call.
- Author
-
Varela, Charles
- Subjects
REALISM ,SOCIAL structure ,SOCIAL reality ,SOCIAL sciences - Abstract
David Elder-Vass's “For Emergence: refining Archer's account of social structure,” is the latest of a number of papers which together constitute a family quarrel in the cognitive space After Postmodernism among realist social scientists. In the case under examination here in “Elder-Vass's Move and Giddens's Call”, the concern is the structure and agency problem in the social sciences. The debate continuing in Elder-Vass's paper represents the proponents of the resurrection of Durkheim's social realism under the auspices of Bhaskar's Transcendental Realism; the debate that continues here as a response to the Elder-Vass paper, opposes the latter's attempt to advance the argument for social realism under the canopy of Harre's Immanental realism. The theme of this response is this: Elder-Vass fails to realize the promise of reconciling social structural realism and social relational realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2007
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
8. For Emergence: Refining Archer's Account of Social Structure.
- Author
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Elder-Vass, Dave
- Subjects
SOCIAL structure ,EMERGENCE (Philosophy) ,ONTOLOGICAL proof of God ,HUMAN behavior - Abstract
The question of social structure and its relationship to human agency remains one of the central problems of social theory. One of the most promising attempts to provide a solution has been Margaret Archer's morphogenetic approach, which invokes emergence to justify treating social structure as causally effective. Archer's argument, however, has been criticised by a number of authors who suggest that the examples she cites can be explained in reductionist terms and thus that they fail to sustain her claim for the independent causal effectiveness of social structure. This paper offers an alternative argument to support the emergentist claim for the causal effectiveness of social structure, and shows how this argument refutes a representative critique of social emergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2007
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
9. Why American Sociology Needs Biographical Sociology- European Style.
- Author
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Jindra, Ines W.
- Subjects
SOCIAL structure ,SOCIOLOGY ,BIOGRAPHICAL methods in sociology ,HERMENEUTICS ,CULTURE - Abstract
Life story methods in Europe commonly belong to the field of biographical sociology. This paper points out that biographical sociology is missing from American sociology and describes in-depth two well-known methods in this field in Europe, the narrative interview and objective hermeneutics. The absence of biographical sociology from U.S. sociology should be remedied, it is argued, for the following reasons: First, an analysis of biographical patterns could counteract the heavy emphasis on social structure in American sociology and enrich certain subfields within it. For example, some of the concepts used in European biographical sociology, such as the concept of the 'trajectory' can be related to conceptions of agency set forth by American and British sociologists and thus enrich sociology overall. Second, biographical sociology can help counteract the heavy orientation towards quantitative research in American sociology without falling into the pitfalls of purely interpretive methodologies. And third, biographical sociology can significantly enrich the still missing link between culture and cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
10. Abstracts.
- Subjects
INTERPERSONAL relations ,SOCIAL constructionism ,COGNITIVE science ,HUMAN behavior - Abstract
Presents abstracts of several articles related to social behavior. "The Taking of a Position: A Reinterpretation of the Elaboration Likelihood Model," by Andrew J. Cook, Kevin Moore and Gary D. Steel; "Social Constructionism as Cognitive Science," by Thomas E. Dickins; "The Elements of Rationality and Chance in the Choice of Human Action," by Ernest Krausz.
- Published
- 2004
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
11. Re-conceptualizing Abstract Conceptualization in Social Theory: The Case of the 'Structure' Concept Re-conceptualizing Abstract Conceptualization in Social Theory: The Case of the 'Structure' Concept.
- Author
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Lizardo, Omar
- Subjects
SOCIAL theory ,ABSTRACT thought ,SCHEMATISM (Philosophy) ,STRUCTURALISM ,SOCIOLOGY ,SOCIAL structure - Abstract
I this paper, I draw on recent research on the radically embodied and perceptual bases of conceptualization in linguistics and cognitive science to develop a new way of reading and evaluating abstract concepts in social theory. I call this approach Sociological Idea Analysis. I argue that, in contrast to the traditional view of abstract concepts, which conceives them as amodal 'presuppositions' removed from experience, abstract concepts are irreducibly grounded in experience and partake of non-negotiable perceptual-symbolic features from which a non-propositional 'logic' naturally follows. This implies that uncovering the imagistic bases of allegedly abstract notions should be a key part of theoretical evaluation of concepts in social theory. I provide a case study of the general category of 'structure' in the social and human sciences to demonstrate the analytic utility of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
12. Not Thinking Ethnicity: A Critique of the Ethnicity Paradigm in an Over-Ethnicised Sociology.
- Author
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CARTER, BOB and FENTON, STEVE
- Subjects
- *
ETHNICITY , *SOCIOLOGY , *MULTICULTURALISM , *GROUP identity , *GENEALOGY , *SOCIAL structure , *SOCIAL action - Abstract
The many critical approaches to an ‘ethnicity framework’ have fallen short of a very possible conclusion—that the language of ethnicity provides, for the most part, a poor paradigm with which to work. In the present paper we seek not only to re-state some key weaknesses of this paradigm but also to suggest that these weaknesses are more general in an over-ethnicised sociology. There are numerous critiques of particular models or elements of ethnicity thinking, including critiques of primordialist approaches (Fenton 2003), of multiculturalism ( Barry 2000 ), and of the over-objectification of groups (Brubaker 2004; see also Jenkins 2008). The major critiques constitute a strong case against ‘thinking with ethnicity’; the broader weaknesses are more general in contemporary ‘identitarian’ sociology. From this position we turn to the question of offering an alternative approach in a sociology which emphasizes agency, and is grounded in an analysis of actors in material situations. This is allied to the concept of ideational resources, social categories and identities upon which actors draw, and a middle-range view of causality and tendency in social change. Ideas of ancestral belonging are among those ideational resources, and these ideas and assumptions are played out in a context of material and political change. The subject of study is not ethnicity, but power, resources, social relations and institutions (which may and may not be) informed by cultural identities and ideas of ancestry. The strategy of the paper will be first to re-state the deficiencies of ‘ethnicity thinking’ and second to offer an alternative framework for thinking about social action and social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2010
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
13. Institutions and Social Structures.
- Author
-
FLEETWOOD, STEVE
- Subjects
ASSOCIATIONS, institutions, etc. ,SOCIAL structure ,CONFERENCES & conventions ,SOCIAL norms ,VALUES (Ethics) ,MANNERS & customs - Abstract
This paper clarifies the terms “institutions” and “social structures” and related terms “rules”, “conventions”, “norms”, “values” and “customs”. Part one explores the similarities between institutions and social structures whilst the second and third parts explore differences. Part two considers institutions, rules, habits or habitus and habituation, whilst part three critically reflects on three common conceptions of social structures. The conclusion comments upon reflexive deliberation via the internal conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
14. On Elder-Vass: Refining a Refinement.
- Author
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Porpora, Douglas
- Subjects
SOCIAL structure ,INDIVIDUALISM ,SOCIAL norms - Abstract
This paper responds to Dave Elder-Vass's generally sympathetic critique of Margaret Archer's position on structure and emergence. Elder-Vass does helpfully emphasize the synchronic effects of structure. Yet, it is argued here, in his treatment of structure, Elder-Vass tends to concede too much to methodological individualism and to overemphasize social rules at the expense of social relations. Finally, a question is raised about how both Archer and Elder-Vass and Critical Realism in general speak of emergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2007
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
15. Abstracts.
- Subjects
INTERPERSONAL relations ,SOCIAL theory ,SOCIAL structure ,ASSOCIATIONS, institutions, etc. - Abstract
The article presents abstracts on social behavior which include a dynamic behavior of embodiment that aims to get beyond the absent moving body in embodied social theory, a paper on institutions and social structures, and a report on the Vygotskian tradition in the realist theoretical discussion of the structure-agency problem.
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
16. Human agency and social structure: From the evolutionary perspective.
- Author
-
Shanyang Zhao
- Subjects
SOCIAL structure ,AEROBIC capacity ,SOCIAL evolution ,SELF-consciousness (Awareness) - Abstract
This article addresses the agency-structure issue from the evolutionary perspective. Rather than treating it as something unique to human society, the article examines this issue in the broad context of how different species of social organisms, with humans being one of them, influence the constitution of their societies. The main finding of this analysis is that social organisms of different species all exert influence on their societal formations, but the impact varies depending on the level of agency the organisms possess, particularly their perceptual capabilities. Social organisms with higher perceptual ability play a bigger part in shaping the structure of their societies. A fundamental difference between humans and nonhuman social animals in the agency-structure relations lies in the fact that humans are the only species on earth known to be capable of constructing institutional rules for societal regulation. This capacity is attributable to the syntactic language and reflective self-awareness humans possess. Within human species, however, there is considerable variation in the exercise of this capacity among individuals, groups, and societies. It is therefore important to examine species and intra-species level differences in addressing the agency-structure issue in human society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
17. Analysing Social Values in Identification; A Framework for Research on the Representation and Implementation of Values.
- Author
-
Menard, Rusten
- Subjects
SOCIAL values ,SOCIAL attitudes ,SOCIALIZATION ,SOCIAL integration ,SOCIAL structure - Abstract
This article contributes to the concept of social values by presenting analytical tools that explore how social values are classified, re-presented and interpersonally performed in the construction of identities. I approach social values as classificatory systems of acceptability and desirability that are collectively generated. The meanings of social values are embedded in culture and in power imbalanced social relations; they constantly undergo reformulation in identification processes and are also used to define the social order. I suggest that social values can be analysed in relation to aspects of representation and interpersonal positioning that are also involved in the construction of identities: Value classifications involve compartmentalising moral orders into e.g. good, desirable, important, necessary; value projects are concerned with how value classifications and content occupy roles and become oriented to action; and value positioning is concerned with how narrators align with value classifications and projects as well as with individuals and groups seen to share or reject such classifications and projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
18. Must cognitive sociology heed capitalism? Attention and marginal consciousness in political‐economic context.
- Subjects
CONSCIOUSNESS ,SOCIOLOGY ,SOCIAL forces ,SOCIAL structure ,SOCIAL influence - Abstract
Aron Gurwitsch's four‐domain model of consciousness is placed in political‐economic context to theorize how social forces influence perception. Along with clarifying key concepts in cognitive sociology like "relevance" and "the taken‐for‐granted," the model explains the processes through which social structures—despite being vaguely understood, ignored, or unknown by the typical subject on a typical day—condition thematization and what items are considered relevant or irrelevant to the given theme. A capitalist "social horizon" influences attention by structurally imposing themes on consciousness as well as filters what items are considered relevant to the given theme through hegemonic frames—which select theme‐relevant items conducive to encouraging actors to consensually reproduce the status quo—and reificatory processes, or discursive and material practices that constitute items as fixed and inalterable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
19. Who Makes the Rules? Using Wittgenstein in Social Theory.
- Author
-
Bailyn, S.J.
- Subjects
- *
SOCIAL structure , *SOCIOLOGY , *ETHNOMETHODOLOGY - Abstract
Although Alfred Schutz is most frequently identified as the main influence on Harold Garfinkel, and the latter on Anthony Giddens in his development of structuration theory, in fact the later Wittgenstein’s insights into meaning and understanding strongly influenced both. This paper attempts to demonstrate Wittgenstein’s influence on ethnomethodology and structuration theory, and show that despite their intentions, and contrary to what is normally thought, Giddens’s and Garfinkel’s work do not express as much of a creative version of social life as they intended, in that each had difficulties regarding the issues of social uniformity (“cultural dopes”) and individual choice. I will argue that these problems are rooted in their interpretations of Wittgenstein’s rule–following considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2002
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
20. What is Real and What is Realism in Sociology?
- Author
-
Nash, Roy
- Subjects
- *
SOCIAL structure , *SOCIOLOGY - Abstract
In the physical sciences a realist ontology rests on our ability to demonstrate the actual and real nature of material entities. Realist metaphysics of social entities, most influentially Bhaskar's critical realism, attempt to provide a related philosophical foundation for the social sciences. This paper examines the central issue of what is real about society it concludes that social relations and the organisations they constitute do exist and discusses the conditions of their demonstration. Realist interpretations of Bourdieu's theories are given particular attention in an argument that accepts the necessity of social realism but remains cautious about the development of methodologies able to provide effective demonstration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 1999
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
21. Abstracts.
- Subjects
SOCIAL influence ,SOCIAL structure - Abstract
This section presents abstracts of articles on social behavior including "Modeling Role Enactment: Linking Role Theory and Social Cognition," by Karen Danna Lynch, "Social Influence: Representation, Imagination and Facts," by Stéphane Laurens and "Social Structure and Social Relations," by Dave Elder-Vass.
- Published
- 2007
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
22. Debate: Seven Ways to be A Realist About Language
- Author
-
Dave Elder-Vass
- Subjects
Philosophy ,Critical realist ,Social Psychology ,Process (engineering) ,Phenomenon ,Ontology ,Normative ,Sociology ,Causal structure ,General Psychology ,Social structure ,Epistemology - Abstract
There are many differing ways to be a realist about language. This paper seeks to classify some of these and to examine the implications of each for the study of language. The principle of classification it adopts is that we may distinguish between realisms on the basis of what exactly it is that they take to be real. Examining in turn realisms that ascribe reality to the external world in general, to causal mechanisms, to innate capacities, to linguistic signs, to social structures, to language systems, and to linguistic groups, the paper summarises the case for a particular critical realist ontology of language. In the process, it engages briefly with the work of Saussure, Chomsky, Halliday, and more recent explicitly realist thinkers such as Bhaskar, Pateman, Archer, Sealey and Carter. One implication is that language itself is not a phenomenon that separates us from a causally structured world, but rather a part of that world, a part with an identifiable causal structure of its own that is similar to that of other normative phenomena.
- Published
- 2013
23. Social Structure and Social Relations
- Author
-
Dave Elder-Vass
- Subjects
Social Psychology ,Social network ,business.industry ,Social philosophy ,Social change ,Social relation ,Epistemology ,Social group ,Philosophy ,Social order ,Sociology ,business ,General Psychology ,Social structure ,Social entropy - Abstract
This paper replies to Porpora, King, and Varela's responses to my earlier paper "For Emergence", focussing on the relationship between the concepts of social structure and social relations. It recognises the importance of identifying the mechanisms responsible whenever we make claims for the emergence of causal powers, and discusses the mechanism underlying one case of social structure: normative institutions. It also shows how critical realism reconciles the claims that both social structures and human individuals have emergent causal powers that combine to produce actual social events.
- Published
- 2007
24. Realism, Causality and the Problem of Social Structure
- Author
-
Paul Lewis
- Subjects
Social Psychology ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Metaphysics ,Critical realism (philosophy of the social sciences) ,Unobservable ,Epistemology ,Philosophy ,Ontology ,Conversation ,Sociology ,General Psychology ,Realism ,Social structure ,media_common ,Social theory - Abstract
Recent debate over the merits of various realist perspectives on society, mostnotably the critical realist approach developed by Roy Bhaskar, has focused onthe ontological status of social structure. Social structure, critical realists maintain,is ontologically irreducible to people and their practices. This belief differentiatescritical realists from those theorists, such as Rom Harre, for whom social structureis immanent to people’s practices. On the latter view, structure is so intimatelybound up with agency that to accord the former a distinct ontological status wouldbe to reify it.Central to the debate is the issue of the causal efficacy of social structure.Critical realists contend that although social structure is unobservable it cannevertheless be known to be real because it makes a difference to observablehuman behaviour. In making this argument critical realists invoke the so-calledcausal criterion for existence, according to which unobservable entities can beknown to exist through their impact on observable events. The critique advancedby Harre and his supporters, most notably in Harre and Varela (1996), main-tains that an appeal to the causal criterion is illegitimate in the case of socialstructure, implying that critical realism’s claim that the social world containsontologically irreducible social structures cannot be sustained.My aim in this paper is to cast a critical eye over the debate betweenthe two varieties of realist social theory. To this end, having first outlined thebasic critical realist position together with Harre and Varela’s critique, thepaper will attempt to develop a critical realist response to the charges levelledagainst it. The objective of the response is twofold. First, it aims to advancethe debate by clarifying the key issues which divide the two perspectives andevaluating where the balance of the argument over these issues lies. Second,by suggesting how the weaknesses in critical realism highlighted by Harre andVarela might be dealt with, the hope is that the paper will prompt critical realists
- Published
- 2000
25. The mind–body problem and social science: Motivating a quantum social theory.
- Author
-
Wendt, Alexander
- Subjects
MIND & body ,SOCIAL theory ,QUANTUM theory ,THOUGHT & thinking ,SOCIAL structure - Abstract
Abstract: This comment addresses some of the critiques of “Quantum Mind and Social Science” by the other contributors, with special reference to the challenge that the mind‐body problem poses to conventional, classical thinking about social science. A quantum social ontology transcends those challenges, and in the process could transform social scientific thinking across the board. As an example the essay concludes with a consideration of the physics of social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2018
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
26. Ontology and Social Relations: Reply to Doug Porpora and to Colin Wight.
- Author
-
Lawson, Tony
- Subjects
SOCIAL theory ,ONTOLOGY ,MARXIST philosophy ,RESPONSIBILITY ,COMMUNITIES ,SOCIAL structure - Abstract
The author responds to comments on his article on ontology and social relations. He defends his conception of rights-obligation relations by criticizing relations of exploitation in relation to Marxism. He also discusses several alternative forms of social relation in relation to his belief that the community is the most basic form of social totality bounded by the positional rights and obligations.
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
27. Social Acceleration Theory and the Self.
- Author
-
Hsu, Eric L. and Elliott, Anthony
- Subjects
SOCIAL sciences ,SOCIAL structure ,MODERNITY -- Social aspects ,MANNERS & customs ,SELF-perception - Abstract
In recent years, there has been a rapidly growing body of work in the social sciences that underscores the prevalence of the phenomenon of 'social acceleration'--the speeding up of social life-- in many parts of the Western world. Although research on social acceleration has tended to analyze the phenomenon on a social-structural level, there is also a need to investigate how social acceleration has 'ramifications for the socially dominant forms of self-relation'. One way to gain a more in-depth understanding of this facet of social acceleration is to investigate the speeding up of social life through the prism of the self. The central argument of this article is that there are at least five images of the self which can be associated with the social acceleration phenomenon: (1) the 'detached' self, (2) the 'reflexive' self, (3) the 'reinventive' self, (4) the 'stationary' self and (5) the 'decelerating' self. By explaining how these kinds of self relate to the speeding up process, we seek to advance a more nuanced and sophisticated theory of social acceleration, which captures some of the complexities and paradoxes that the phenomenon involves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
28. Cognitive Mechanisms of Ingroup/Outgroup Distinction.
- Author
-
Shkurko, Alexander V.
- Subjects
INGROUPS (Social groups) ,COGNITIVE ability ,SOCIAL groups ,SOCIAL structure ,IDENTITY (Psychology) - Abstract
People use social categories to perceive and interact with the social world. Different categorizations often share similar cognitive, affective and behavioral features. This leads to a hypothesis of the common representational forms of social categorization. Studies in social categorization often use the terms 'ingroup' and 'outgroup' without clear conceptualization of the terms. I argue that the ingroup/outgroup distinction should be treated as an elementary relational ego-centric form of social categorization based on specific cognitive mechanisms. Such an abstract relational form should produce specific effects irrespective of the nature of a particular social category. The article discusses theoretical grounds for this hypothesis as well as empirical evidence from behavioral and brain research. It is argued that what is commonly termed as 'ingroup' and 'outgroup' can be produced by distinct cognitive operations based on similarity assessment and coalitional computation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
29. Emotion and Social Structures: Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach.
- Author
-
Von Scheve, Christian and Von Luede, Rolf
- Subjects
EMOTIONS ,SOCIAL structure ,NEUROSCIENCES ,PSYCHOLOGY ,SOCIOLOGY ,BRAIN ,BEHAVIOR ,COGNITION - Abstract
This contribution presents an integrative and interdisciplinary approach to emotions and social structures. Combining theoretical accounts from the neurosciences, psychology, and sociology, the role of emotion in the micro-macro link is investigated and the social components of emotion on different levels of analysis are examined. Micro-level analysis explores societal influences on the interaction of cognition and emotion, emphasizing the role of appraisals and of emotion circuits on the brain level. Analysis of the meso-level investigates how emotions are elicited and expressed in social interactions and macro-level investigation scrutinizes how instances of social structural configurations affect the processing and regulation of emotion. The authors conclude with a conceptualization of emotions as a bidirectional mediator between large-scale social structures and individual behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2005
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
30. Fear of the Dead as a Factor in Social Self-Organization.
- Author
-
Nazaretyan, Akop P.
- Subjects
SOCIAL control ,FEAR ,DEAD ,ORGANIZATION ,INTERPERSONAL relations ,SOCIAL structure ,SOCIOLOGY ,ANTHROPOLOGY ,ETHNOLOGY ,SOCIAL psychology - Abstract
The image of dead person returning to life was the most ancient source of irrational fear (i.e. fear not caused by objective menace) appeared in culture. This conclusion is argued with empirical data from archeology and ethnography. Fear has been expressed in funeral rites, the tying of extremities, burning and dismemberment of dead bodies, and ritual cannibalism (compensatory necrophilia) etc. At the same time, it was attended by effective care for helpless cripples, which seems to descend to the Lower Paleolithic as well. Dread of posthumous revenge played a decisive regulative role at the earliest stage of anthropogenesis, as the disparity between artificial weapons (the tools) and natural aggression-retention mechanisms (the instincts) became self-destructive. In the new conditions, individuals with normal animal mind were doomed to catastrophe. Those hominid groups proved viable, in which mystical fear, a product of unnaturally developed imagination, bounded lethal conflicts among kinsmen. The phobias corresponded to the psycho-nervous system's“strategic pathology”; that was a condition for early hominids’ self-preservation. As a result, a causal connection between instrumental potential, cultural regulation quality and social sustainability (the techno-humanitarian balance law) was formed, which has been a mechanism of social selection for all of human history and prehistory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2005
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
31. The Causal Power of Discourse
- Author
-
Dave Elder-Vass
- Subjects
Social group ,Power (social and political) ,Philosophy ,Social Psychology ,Social philosophy ,Civil discourse ,Ontology ,Subject (philosophy) ,Critical realism (philosophy of the social sciences) ,Sociology ,General Psychology ,Social structure ,Epistemology - Abstract
This paper outlines a realist approach to the social ontology of discourse. It seeks to synthesise some elements of the approach to discourse found in the early work of Michel Foucault with a critical realist understanding of the causal power of social structures. It will argue that discursive structures can be causally significant when they are normatively endorsed and enforced by specific groups of people; that it is not discourse as such but these groups—discursive circles—that are causally effective; and that such an account allows us to reconcile the role of discourse with that of the subject.
- Published
- 2010
32. Institutions and Social Structures1
- Author
-
Steve Fleetwood
- Subjects
Philosophy ,Social Psychology ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Reflexivity ,Habitus ,Conversation ,Sociology ,Deliberation ,General Psychology ,Social structure ,media_common ,Epistemology - Abstract
This paper clarifies the terms "institutions" and "social structures" and related terms "rules", "conventions", "norms", "values" and "customs". Part one explores the similarities between institutions and social structures whilst the second and third parts explore differences. Part two considers institutions, rules, habits or habitus and habituation, whilst part three critically reflects on three common conceptions of social structures. The conclusion comments upon reflexive deliberation via the internal conversation.
- Published
- 2008
33. The Cognitive Origins of Bourdieu's Habitus
- Author
-
Omar Lizardo
- Subjects
Philosophy ,Reductionism ,Objectivism ,Social Psychology ,Agency (philosophy) ,Habitus ,Cognition ,Sociology ,General Psychology ,Social structure ,Structural anthropology ,Epistemology ,Social theory - Abstract
This paper aims to balance the conceptual reception of Bourdieu's sociology in the United States through a conceptual re-examination of the concept of Habitus. I retrace the intellectual lineage of the Habitus idea, showing it to have roots in Claude Levi-Strauss structural anthropology and in the developmental psychology of Jean Piaget, especially the latter's generalization of the idea of operations from mathematics to the study of practical, bodily-mediated cognition. One important payoff of this exercise is that the common misinterpretation of the Habitus as an objectivist and reductionist element in Bourdieu's thought is dispelled. The Habitus is shown to be instead a useful and flexible way to concep-tualize agency and the ability to transform social structure. Thus ultimately one of Bourdieu's major contributions to social theory consists of his development of a new radical form of cognitive sociology, along with an innovative variety of multilevel sociological explanation in which the interplay of different structural orders is highlighted. In keeping with the usual view, the goal of sociology is to uncover the most deeply buried structures of the different social worlds that make up the social universe, as well as the "mechanisms" that tend to ensure their reproduction or transformation. Merging with psychology, though with a kind of psychology undoubtedly quite different from the most widely accepted image of this science, such an exploration of the cognitive structures that agents bring to bear in their practical knowledge of the social worlds thus structured. Indeed there exists a correspondence between social structures and mental structures, between the objective divisions of the social world . . . and the principles of vision and division that agents apply to them (Bourdieu, 1996b[1989], p. 1).
- Published
- 2004
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