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For more information on the special issue, please feel free to contact our editorial office (socpsyq@uga.edu) or the special issue editors, Corey D. Fields (cdf46@georgetown.edu), Verna M. Keith (vmkeith@uab.edu), and Justine Tinkler (jtinkler@uga.edu). In 2003, I SPQ i published a special issue edited by Dr. Lawrence Bobo on the social psychology of race, racism, and discrimination. [Extracted from the article]

This paper first offers a tribute to Samuel Stouffer (1900–1960), a major contributor to social psychology. He helped to establish probability surveys as a useful method for social science, led three major studies at midcentury, and introduced important new concepts and statistical methods. Thus, both conceptually and methodologically, he shaped modern social psychology. Second, the paper revitalizes Stouffer’s most famous concept—relative deprivation. A new meta-analysis demonstrates that relative deprivation predicts a wide range of important outcomes, so long as it measures resentment with data from individuals and is paired with dependent variables of similar scope. Unfortunately, sociology largely abandoned the concept because it failed to meet the overstated early claims made for it in the collective protest domain. The history of this use and disuse of relative deprivation is summarized and critiqued. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Affect control theory shows how cultural meanings for identities and behavior are used to form impressions of events and guide social action. In this research, I examine whether members of the same culture tend to process social events in the same way, with a focus on U.S. English speakers. I find widespread consensus in the mechanisms of impression formation, particularly for judgments of evaluation (goodness, esteem), but also find sufficient individual differences to warrant further study for models of potency (power, dominance) and object impressions (feelings about the target of a behavior). Findings support long-standing claims that members of U.S. English language culture, especially cultural experts, tend to process social events in the same way. However, I find no significant gender differences in event processing. Iclose the paper by estimating and interpreting new impression change equations using methodological techniques appropriate to the degree of consensus found for each model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do individuals escape embarrassing moments in interaction? Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and video recordings of weekly street corner ciphers (impromptu rap sessions), this paper expands Goffman's theory of defensive and protective face-work. The findings reveal formulaic and indirect dimensions of face-work. First, this paper shows how individuals use prescripted techniques and other canned resources to overcome embarrassing gaffes in interaction. Specifically, rappers use “writtens” (prewritten rhymes) when they are close to “falling off,” a local term for messing up and stopping abruptly during a “freestyle” (improvised) rap performance. Second, this paper describes how shared pressures to sustain an interaction can lead to collateral face-saving. In the cipher, surrounding peers “jump in” and begin rapping when somebody else falls off. Although this protects the person who is falling off from embarrassment, it is often done to “keep the flow going” in the cipher. At the end, this paper also outlines situations in which individuals withhold face protection from others. These findings point to other social situations in which individuals escape embarrassment with canned resources and through collateral face-saving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the many traditions of research on "identity," two somewhat different yet strongly related strands of identity theory have developed. The first, reflected in the work of Stryker and colleagues, focuses on the linkages of social structures with identities. The second, reflected in the work of Burke and colleagues, focuses on the internal process of self-verification. In the present paper we review each of these strands and then discuss ways in which the two relate to and complement one another. Each provides a context for the other: the relation of social structures to identities influences the process of self-verification, while the process of self-verification creates and sustains social structures. The paper concludes with examples of potentially useful applications of identity theory to other arenas of social psychology, and with a discussion of challenges that identity theory must meet to provide a clear understanding of the relation between self and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a small set of interlocking definitions, this paper presents a generally applicable conceptualization of social structure developed from recollections of Merton's late-1950s formulation. A brief review of the literature supports the view that the proposed conceptualization provides sociological researchers with a relatively simple and logically consistent overall framework, generally continuous with past theorizing, in which to place their own findings. The paper pays particular attention to how social structures are related causally and epistemologically to more micro-level psychological and more macrolevel sociocultural phenomena. Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence suggest a decrease in the likelihood and speed of change as we move from psychological- to social structural- to sociocultural-level phenomena. Although they require proof in each instance, these postulated differences in the relative speed with which psychological-, social structural-, and sociocultural-level phenomena tend to affect each other provide a new and potentially useful tool for unraveling the knotted causal connections among these different-level phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By bringing together a set of papers in the broad social structure and personality tradition of social psychology, this issue of SPQ seeks to manifest its centrality to social psychology, and vice versa. The papers illustrate the utility and necessity of incorporating more careful and more explicit analyses of macrosocial and psychological processes into the study of the relationships of macrosocial structures and processes to the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of individual actors. Relationships between social stratification (by socioeconomic, gender, racial/ethnic, or age status) and the individual and intersections between the domains of work and family emerge as central problems in the study of social structure and personality, and of social psychology, sociology, and psychology more generally. These and other analyses could benefit from increased interplay among the different faces or branches of social psychology and of social psychology with emerging developments in the parent disciplines. The reemergence of the study of personality in psychology, especially from a cognitive perspective, the new concern of sociology with micro-macro links, increased intersections of biology with sociology and psychology, and the increased use of life course perspectives and longitudinal data in psychology and sociology are all developments that could contribute to, and benefit from, future advances in the study of social structure and personality. Each of these trends suggest the need for more attention to the interrelationships between individuals and macrosocial structures or processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that organizations with a particular social network structure are more effective than most organizations in responding to crises. Further, it is argued that the effective structure does not occur naturally, but must be designed consciously and carefully. A theory is developed based on well-founded principles of social science, most notably work on formal structure, conflict, friendships, and organizational crises. The paper concludes with an experimental test of one of the four propositions deduced from the theory. Six trials of the experiment found significant support for this proposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several earlier papers have discussed the results of a technique for analyzing paralinguistic adaptation of partners in conversation. The previous research showed that in a group of eleven tape-recorded dyadic conversations, where the actual conversation partners have been separated and then scrambled together, a set of computer routines is capable of re-matching a digitized version of the actual conversation partners through an analysis of voice frequency levels. In another paper based upon the same data set and making use of the same techniques of analysis, it was found that the adaptation phenomenon is also capable of quantitatively and objectively selecting out from a scrambled sample of group and non-group members, specific conversations associated with persons who share membership in a consolidated group. Members of a consolidated group in comparison with desparate individuals engage in a kind of paralinguistic crpto-communication constituting a code signifying their membership. These sociolinguistic techniques present innovative new ways of researching a multitude of general social psychological areas such as conversational affectivity, conflict and effectiveness, which obviously specifically influence social interaction between patient and therapist, non-native speakers and native speakers, salespeople and customers, professional interviewers and subjects, as well as a multitude of other diverse applications. Though ideas dealt with here are nor difficult to understand, some of the techniques used are less accessible. This paper explicitly sets forth methods used in this type of research in a less technical manner, in an effort to make techniques more accessible to the social psychological researcher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we interrelate different theories of identity and describe how various social contexts and cognitive motives influence the process of identity change. We consider two competing theories about the linkage of contexts with motives for identity change: the effect of category traits, based on social identity theory, and the effect of social networks, based on identity theory. To explore these relations, we use data collected on more than 6,000 adolescents at six high schools in two consecutive school years. Multilevel logit models reveal a strong relationship between contexts and perceived identity imbalances, and a strong effect of identity imbalance on identity change. More important than category traits are the social network characteristics of prominence, homogeneity, and bridging; these form social contexts that affect perceptions of identity imbalance, and the perceptions in turn lead to a heightened incidence of identity change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the relationship between cohabitation and mental health tends to ignore social psychological factors that help explain mental health differences between the married and the unmarried, including coping resources and perceived relationship quality. In this paper I draw on social psychological theory and research to clarify differences in depression and alcohol use between married and cohabiting individuals. Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, I examine the independent and combined influences of socioeconomic status, coping resources, and relationship quality to account for marital status differences in distress. I find that marital status differences in coping resources and relationship quality help explain the gap in depression, but not in alcohol use, between married and cohabiting individuals. I also find that social selection is not responsible for marital status differences in distress. The implications of these findings for future research on cohabitors' mental health are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown how black scholars' experiences differ from those of their white counterparts in regard to research and service, but few studies have addressed the influence of race on professors' teaching experiences. In this paper I examine how and to what degree race shapes professors' perceptions and experiences in the undergraduate college classroom. I analyze how students' social and cultural expectations about race affect professors' emotional labor and management, shaping the overall nature of their jobs. The findings suggest that black professors' work in the classroom is different and more complex than that of their white colleagues because negotiating a devalued racial status requires extensive emotion management. Social constraints affect the negotiation of self and identity in the classroom, influencing the emotional demands of teaching and increasing the amount of work required to be effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the validity of a survey question commonly used for measuring generalized trust. Trust has become a key variable in a variety or fields, including sociology, social psychology, political science, and economics; therefore the accuracy with which it is measured has profound implications for many studies. We suggest that ambiguous wording on this survey item has led to misinterpretations concerning actual trust levels, especially in a cross-cultural context. To test this claim, we conduct an extensive survey of students at UCLA and at Hokkaido University, Japan. Results strongly suggest that the survey question measures differences in caution levels rather than in trust. Implications of this research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although social psychology focuses on the relationships between individuals and their social environments, it has often failed to fully incorporate actors' social structural positions (e.g., their location in the social hierarchies of race, gender, socioeconomic status, or sexual identity). In this paper we analyze patterns in social psychology's approach to social inequalities, which we argue has been characterized by neglect, a focus on difference rather than on similarity, a tendency toward essentialism, and a lack of attention to social context and power We then focus in turn on the three major theoretical traditions in sociological social psychology--social exchange, social cognition, and symbolic interaction--and summarize how each has (or has not) addressed the topic of inequality. We conclude by presenting four directions for future research that we believe will move social psychology toward a clearer understanding of social inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I propose structural criteria for power based only on simple and valid assumptions about how individuals in exchange networks make decisions. The implication of the model is that exchange networks contain four types of components, identified by the solution to a set of equations. In coreless components, the equations are inconsistent and trading behavior is unstable. In strong power components, the equations have a unique solution and some positions have complete power. In equal power components, the equations have a unique solution, and all positions are equal in power. In indeterminate components, the equations have an infinity of solutions and power is not determined strongly by structure. Formal criteria are developed for these four types of components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network exchange theory has focused on a simple type of exchange structure in which all the exchange relations are equally valuable. In this paper we relax the usual constraint of uniform relations and evaluate the applicability of current theoretical approaches to structures of unequally valued exchange relations. For this evaluation we draw on experiments that entail three variants of mixed relations in four networks. We examine the fit of theoretical predictions and outcomes with respect to the probabilities of exchange transactions and their payoffs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper we use identity theory as a multilevel control system to investigate stability and change in identities. According to identity theory, change occurs when self-relevant perceptions become and remain inconsistent with the identity standard. Symbolic interaction theory suggests that change also may occur through the process of taking the role of the other; this process may facilitate the incorporation of aspects of role partners' identities into one's own identity. We investigate these ideas by studying the gender identities of newly first-married couples over a three-year period. The birth of a child results in a new source of self-perceptions that continuously disturb prior gender-relevant perceptions. We hypothesize that the parents' gender identities will change in the direction of the disturbance: Men will become more masculine and women more feminine. Insofar as husbands and wives each take the role of the other, we hypothesize that their gender identity standards will change in the spouses' direction: Men will become more feminine and women will become more masculine. Both of these hypotheses are supported, and we discuss the implications of these results for identity theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of choice and behavioral change are generally based on the premise that actors seek to maximize rewards and minimize costs. This premise, however, is rarely supported by empirical research. In this paper we propose an alternative principle: that choices tend to be made so as to equalize a function of costs across available alternatives. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this general principle in three binary-choice settings involving noncontingent and contingent reward probabilities for positive reinforcement and positive punishment situations, and in two framing situations. This study suggests that relatively simple principles may explain a wide variety of human choice behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances a line of work on an expected-value model of social exchange, in which a power structure indicates opportunities for exchange and a sample space of exchange networks. When the probability distribution of the networks in this sample space is known, the expected-value model provides an excellent account of the distribution of benefits among actors in a variety of power structures. The model would be more elegant if it also predicted the probability distribution of exchange networks. Furthermore, in its current form, the model fails to account for the observed exchange payoffs in the Kite, a structure that has attracted considerable attention among exchange theorists. Here I advance the expected-value model by deriving the probability distribution of exchange networks from a simple process in which the probability of an exchange at time t depends on the value of an exchange at time t-1. I show that this approach addresses the anomalies posed by the Kite structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural explanations of the production of inequality in organizations often mimic economics in their choice of both variables and theoretical accounts. The "new structuralism" typically has neglected important social psychological processes such as social comparison categorization, and interpersonal attraction and affiliation. This paper illustrates how some basic social psychological tenets can substantially enrich the analysis of the division of labor in organizations, the assignment of wages to positions, and the process through which individuals are matched with work roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study combines two of the major theoretical perspectives in social psychology: social exchange and attribution theory. We propose a theoretical model that depicts the influence of two fundamental social factors--structural power and outcome equity--on causal attributions for exchange outcomes, which in turn mediate behavioral reactions to the exchange outcomes. We manipulate the social factors in a vignette describing an exchange between a female typist and another student (male or female) who needs a paper typed. Female subjects play the role of the typist and respond to a series of questions about their perceptions of the situation. Findings support the hypothesized positive relationships between structural and perceived power, and between outcome equity and perceived fairness. The effects of perceived equity on attributions appear stronger than those of perceived power. Also, there is some support for the role of self attributions in mediating reactions to exchange outcomes in opposite-sex dyads, but such mediating effects are less robust in female dyads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has three main objectives. The first is to outline the parameters of methodological relationism, a new metatheoretical perspective created to parallel methodological individualism and methodological holism as overarching theoretical perspectives. The second is to demonstrate that social psychology always has been relational and therefore that methodological relationism is a more appropriate metatheory for this area than are the other two perspectives. Finally, we will show that methodological relationism sheds new light on the long-standing problem of fragmentation in social psychology. We suggest that most social psychology has been relational and therefore has been unified, at least implicitly, under a single metatheoretical perspective. Given this unity, we argue that the idea of crisis in social psychology is overstated. Furthermore, looking at the many varieties of social psychology in this way allows us to envision more clearly the possibility of an integrated social psychological approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that people are aware of who is affiliated with whom in their immediate social world. Their perceptions of the patterning of affiliation, however, do not correspond to the patterning actually displayed by interacting humans. Affiliation is not categorical; perceptions of affiliation are, however. On the basis of experimental evidence about errors in learning simple social structures, a theory that accounts for this discrepancy is proposed. This theory suggests that people impose a categorical form on noncategorical affiliation patterns by a process of "filling in the blanks" in their experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a series of articles which deals with theoretical and empirical developments in social psychology.

In this paper we answer the question: Do people select interaction partners to enhance their self-image, or do they strive to maintain a stable view of self? Affect control theory, a quantified version of symbolic interactionism, predicts that individuals adopt strategies which maintain their identities in order to secure a stable definition of the situation. When individuals have low self-esteem, they select interactions that maintain this low self-esteem, even when these interactions cause negative emotions. Two Experiments examined the cognitive, affective, and behavioral effects of identity-confirming and -disconfirming information. Study 1, which assessed the cognitive and emotional outcomes of identity-relevant feedback, revealed that people with both high and low self-esteem feel good when praised and bad when they receive negative feedback on their performance. People with low self-esteem, however, think that the criticism is accurate, and like the critic more than do people with high self-esteem. Study 2 examined the implications of these responses for social interaction. Consistent with affect control predictions, subjects selected interaction partners who provided identity-consistent feedback. People with low self-esteem preferred to interact with a critic rather than with someone who said flattering things about their performance, even though the negative feedback made them feel bad. We discuss our results in terms of their implications for role stability and for the behavior of people with chronically negative self-identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I develop and discuss the concept of "identity-relevant stressors." Identities refer to individuals' conceptions of themselves in terms of the social roles that they enact (e.g., spouse, parent, worker, churchgoer, friend). An identity-relevant experience is one that threatens or, alternatively, enhances an identity that the individual values highly; identity-irrelevant experiences occur in roles that the individual does not value highly. This concept can help solve a problem in the stress literature, namely the inability of stress theory to account parsimoniously for social status differences in psychological distress. I propose that I) individuals' identity structures (their hierarchical identity rankings) should vary systematically by social status; 2) because of differential resources, lower-status individuals should be exposed to proportionately more identity-threatening stressors and higher-status individuals to more identity-enhancing experiences, and 3) variation in exposure to identity-relevant experiences should explain status differences in psychological distress more fully than conventional measures of life events and chronic strains. To illustrate the potential utility of this theoretical approach, I discuss gender and marital status differences in psychological distress as cases in point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural equation models of individual action typically do not take into account the network of interpersonal influence that appears, in virtually all of the fields of social psychology, as an important determinant of individuals' actions. It is not sufficiently appreciated that a proper test of a causal model is placed in jeopardy when this network is ignored. Some research has dealt with methods of estimating the causal impact of a network of interpersonal influences, once such a network has been made a part of a causal model. Hardly any attention, however, has been given to the theoretical foundations and implications of extending the general linear model to encompass a network of interpersonal influences. This paper is concerned with these foundations and implications: its goal is to make the network approach to individual action accessible to a larger audience of sociologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports three substantive findings from national survey data concerning the relationship between legal approval and moral concern in the abortion dispute. First, the moral beliefs of opponents of abortion reinforce their legal stance, whereas many people favor legal abortion despite personal moral reservations. Second, although there is little difference between men's and women's attitudes towards the legality of abortion, women are far more likely to feel that abortion is morally wrong. This gender difference holds even when education, religious preference, and church attendance are controlled. Third, a content analysis of open-ended responses illustrates the variety of moral concerns. There are no discernible gender differences in concerns mentioned, but opponents of abortion are much more absolute and rule-bound in their moral stance than are those who support legal abortion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationships of two psychological constructs that pertain to many domains of human activity: satisfaction and involvement. After reviewing the causal relationships between these constructs, we estimate a series of models of job satisfaction and job involvement using data from the 1973-1977 Quality of Employment Survey Panel. Job satisfaction was found to have a direct positive contemporaneous effect on job involvement. This finding is consistent with symbolic interactionist thought concerning the determinants of the prominence hierarchy of identities as well as with theorizing about the development of self-schemata in cognitive social psychology. There was some evidence that job involvement influences job satisfaction indirectly through work autonomy. The findings indicate the potential fruitfulness of considering satisfaction and involvement in generic terms and of extending their investigation to other spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of group identification is central to both social interdependence theories of reference groups (e.g., Hyman 1942; Merton 1949; Newcomb 1943) and to social identification theory (e.g., Tajfel and Turner 1979). Yet the social psychological literature contains comparatively little empirical analysis of what factors lead to "identifying with" or `feeling close to" a social group. This paper uses nationally representative survey data joined with various measures of social and political contexts (derived from census and electoral data) to explore that topic, focusing specifically on 11 social groups. Three hypotheses are offered, concerning how readily a person is identified as an objective member of a group (the similarity hypothesis), the general salience of the group in society as a whole and temporarily in local politics (the salience hypothesis), and the proportion of fellow group members in the local environment (the social density hypothesis). The results provide tentative support for all three hypotheses, although how group members are influenced by the social and political contexts in which they live is determined at least partially by the group's place within the broader American society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overattribution effect has proved to be a well-replicated if not a tenacious finding in the social psychological literature. This paper explores the possibility that 1) the robustness of the overattribution effect may be partially due to the insensitivity of traditional measures to subjects' judgmental uncertainty (i.e., attitude extremity scores) and 2) ability (i.e., attributional complexity) and motivation (i.e., normativeness of the position defended in the essay) may interact to diminish the overattribution effect. On the basis of Jones and Davis's (1965) correspondent inference theory, confidence measures were included to rap subjects, judgmental uncertainty. Subjects, who were identified as being high versus `low in attributional complexity (Fletcher, Danilovics, Fernandez, Peterson, and Reeder 1986) were exposed to essays in favor of (normative) or opposed to (counternormative) federal support for AIDS research that had been prepared under free choice or constraint conditions. Subjects then estimated the essayist's attitude on the issue and rated their confidence in the attitude estimate. Attitude extremity scores showed the standard overattribution effect. As predicted, however, diminution of the overattribution effect was found for high-complexity subjects evaluating counternormative essays prepared under constraint. The discussion focuses on qualifications on the previously established pervasiveness of the overattribution effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerson's exchange theory builds from the micro-social toward the macro-social level of conception, observation, and analysis. Yet although this theory is important, some of its main concepts were formulated originally in simple, categorical terms and require refinement. Some progress toward such refinement is evident in recent research on the measurement of positional power. Aiming toward further progress, the present paper proposes a procedure for measuring power imbalance at the exchange network level, reports exploratory experimental data testing the measure in a hypothesis implied by Emerson's theory, and suggests a direction for future research using the measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research on intransitive or unbalanced sentiment relations focused on the incidence of intransitivity in triads embedded in a larger social network. The theoretical explanations for in transitivity, however, are directed toward the attitudes and sentiments of an individual rather than toward the structure of triadic configurations and the global properties of groups. This paper argues that intransitivity should be studied at the individual level, with the person experiencing the intransitive relationship as the focus of attention. Analyzing longitudinal data on 2,175 intransitive sentiment triplets from fourth- and fifth-grade students, we show that individuals' personal characteristics and the structural properties of their dyadic and triadic ties affect both their tolerance for in transitivity and the manner in which they resolve intransitive friendships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power-dependence theory and the social exchange framework on which it is based have been restricted to the analysis of rewarding exchanges. The only costs considered have been the "rewards foregone "from alternative exchange relations. This paper reports the first in a series of experiments studying power use in social exchange when actors have control over both positive and negative outcomes for one another. The relative effects of balance and imbalance in power over positive outcomes (reward power) and power over negative outcomes (punishment power) are compared in a laboratory experiment in which two real subjects and two computerized actors are connected in four-person exchange networks. Analyses of the distribution of exchange between the two real actors found that only imbalance in reward power affected power use. Punishment rarely was used and power use was no greater when punishment power was imbalanced than when it was balanced. An explanation for these findings, which suggests that imbalances in reward and punishment power are likely to affect behavior under different structural conditions, is proposed and hypotheses are offered for future testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a longitudinal second-order confirmatory factor-analytic model of alienation in employed U.S. men, based on Seeman's original five-facet conceptualization. Alienation appears in this model as a second -order factor that is significantly related to all five of these facets. Powerlessness and self-estrangement are shown to be the two central facets. Meaninglessness, normlessness and cultural estrangement show progressively smaller relationships to the underlying alienation construct. Although cultural estrangement is significantly related to the underlying construct, removing it results in a model that fits the data slightly better, Cross-national comparisons using cross-sectional data from Poland and Japan confirm the generalizability of this model. However, the magnitudes of the relationships of both normlessness and cultural estrangement to the second-order factor are somewhat different for Japan than for the United States and Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Verbal interaction is related to the task at hand. Language and other social practices are interdependent. Not all students of language use and social interaction, however, will concede that ethnographic material, participant attributes, and patterns of social organization that are constitutive of talk need to be included in studies of conversation or discourse. The researcher can exercise considerable discretion in what the reader will be shown or told about "context." In the present paper, / discuss two senses of "context" as it involves conversational interaction in a bureaucratic environment. This use of the term "context" includes an institutionalized framing of activities or ways that group-derived prescriptive norms pressure and/or channel people with designated titles, presumed competencies, duties or responsibilities into certain physical spaces at certain times in order to engage in a finite number of specifiable activities. Within this institutionalized context or framing of activities, emergent processes of talk appear that creates a more narrow view of "context" in the sense of locally organized and negotiated interaction. I have chosen a conversation between three physicians in a university medical center to underscore the importance of context at different levels of analysis. The analyst's decision to focus on particular sociolinguistic notions rather than the interrelationship between discourse and broader and narrow senses of social structure will frame different expectations for the reader and different substantive conclusions on the part of the researcher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of "satisficing" is of central importance to many investigations of the social psychology of economic decision making. Through the examination of materials drawn from an actual business negotiation, this paper seeks to explore the interactional features of satisficing as a rational course of economic action. Two devices for accomplishing outcomes which satisfice are noticed and analyzed. Some implications of this mode of analysis for studies of decision making are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The SYMLOG method of group analysis has been in use for more than ten years. During that time, very little data have been published concerning validation of its major instrument, the Adjective Rating Form. One version of that form, the Individual and Organizational Value Form, has been used in making more than 10,000 sets of ratings for bat/i research and consulting purposes. This paper presents item-to-scale correlations based on 6432 of these sets of ratings. Serious flaws in the scales are detected. A revised form is presented. Item-to -scale correlations based on 544 sets of ratings on the new form demonstrate substantial improvement over the earlier version. In addition, normative data are presented for both forms, showing greater differentiation through the use of the new items. Finally, parallel studies currently under way in Norway and Sweden are cited as an indication that the method proposed here ma)' be used for perfecting both original scales and translations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between gender identity and verbal behavior in same-sex interactions. Using structural symbolic interactionism (Stryker, 1980), it is argued that gender identity, as the set of meanings individuals attribute to themselves as modes or females, is more important for shaping role performance than gender per se. Using a technique developed by Burke and Tully (1977), the gender identities of 91 college undergraduates were measured. A sample of these students (30 females, 26 males) participated in dyadic role-playing exercises, and their conversations were recorded and coded for the use of overlaps and interruptions by the speakers. An event history model was estimated in order to assess the impact of the gender identity scores on the rate of overlaps and interruptions produced. Findings indicate that the more "male like" a person's gender definition, regardless of the person's sex, the greater the risk that the person will overlap or interrupt the speech of another. The findings of this study have implications for the analysis of structure and process in day-to-day interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper addresses a call for clarification of the distinction between demeanor and status characteristics to permit analysis of their respective roles in social influence processes. A conceptual framework for the differentiation of demeanor from both specific status and performance connotations is proposed and evaluated in the context of a critique of Lee and Ofshe (1981). 126 people viewed one of a series of videotapes of a pair of actors debating a personal injuries compensation case, the tapes differing in terms of whether the high- or low-award proponent was behaviorally dominant, and which was of higher alleged external status. Status information was introduced after participants had seen approximately half the discussion film and had responded to a first block of questions; a repeat series of questions was put at the conclusion of the discussion film. Although neither variable was seen to influence viewers' award recommendations, they did, both individually and in interaction, affect viewers' perceptions of the actors. The results are interpreted as supporting the contention that Lee and Ofshe's demeanor effect was probably due to a performance differential. Further implications of the proposed formulation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis of this paper is that influence processes can stimulate or inhibit originality on the part of individuals. In particular, we hypothesized that exposure to persistent minority views causes subjects to reexamine the issue and to engage in more divergent and original thought. Subjects exposed to persistent majority views should concentrate on the position proposed, converge thinking and be less original. Testing the originality aspect of these propositions, subjects were exposed to either a majority or minority judgment that "blue" stimuli were "green." Subsequent to this manipulation, subjects gave associations to the words "blue" and "green." Findings indicate that subjects in the minority condition gave more associations overall and that these associations were more original, i.e., less statistically frequent. than subjects in the majority condition or the control. There is additional evidence that, after the first association, subjects in the majority condition are even less original titan control subjects. Their associations are more conventional, i.e., statistically frequent. Results are discussed in the context of influence processes and creativity as well as the differential impact of majority vs. minority influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The generalization of information for decision making is a major concern for social psychology. This paper investigates how such generalization is affected by information that equates the actors involved in decision making. We find that when the information that equates actors is diffuse status (age, sex, occupation) it does not seem to combine with or affect information that differentiates actors. Also, it appears that when actors are ranked on their performance abilities, both high- and low-rank actors ignore equating characteristics; however, their rank does seem to affect the way in which they generalize differentiating information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a structural model of self-conception, this paper proposes a theory of personal consistency. This theory emphasizes certain parameters from distributions of identities in a meaning space (defined by personal attributes) and for an identity-salience dimension (reflecting the importance of an identity for self-definition). It is proposed that the clustering of identities on the salience dimension (when identities in the cluster are relatively salient) and the relative lack of clustering of identities in meaning space have beneficial outcomes for individuals (particularly in terms of perceived power, activity and well-being) by increasing potential and opportunity for complex responses to social stimuli, and thus the total reward value of interaction. Some initial empirical evidence 13 offered in support of the theory, and implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces Karen S. Cook, professor of sociology at Stanford University, who is the recipient of the Cooley-Mead Award for 2004. Each year the Cooley-Mead Award is given by the American Sociological Association's Section on Social Psychology for distinguished and lasting career contributions to the field. Cook received her undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees from Stanford University. Cook has contributed to the field of theoretical research program. Her first articles were a series of papers in the journal "American Sociological Review" that elaborated and tested aspects of the status value theory of distributive justice. She found a crucial relationship between status structures and reference standards for justice evaluations. By virtue of her involvement in exchange theory, Cook has made equity, commitment, social capital, and trust central to that field. These topics were largely missing from the earlier treatments of power-dependence theory. They have become central because of Cook's devotion to developing a theory that is capable of spanning levels of analysis from micro-level interactional principles to macro-level concepts of power, conflict, collective action, and social change.

The article throws light on William H. Sewell, professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, the Recipient of the 1988 Cooley-Mead Award. The Cooley-Mead Award is given annually by the Section on Social Psychology of the American Sociological Association; it is made on the basis of lifetime contributions to social psychology, recognizing distinguished long-term contributions to the intellectual and scientific advancement of social psychology. Sewell has made his primary research and scholarly contributions in the study of socialization, social structure and personality, and the role of social psychological factors in social stratification and inequality, as well as in the application of empirical quantitative methods of research. One of Sewell's earliest and most significant contributions to the understanding of socialization processes occurred with the publication of his 1952 paper, "Infant Training and the Personality of the Child," published in the American Journal of Sociology and later reprinted in six or more books of readings or sourcebooks on the sociology of the family.

The article discusses the special issue of the magazine which calls for papers on social network analysis, the psychological foundations of social networks and the social psychological processes.

This article presents an acknowledgement by the editor to his colleagues for entrusting the job of editorship of the "Social Psychology Quarterly." They will strive to publish the highest quality work that significantly advances the understanding of the complex links between the individual and society. To that end, invitation for the submission of both empirical and theoretical papers that address those links, regardless of theoretical perspective or investigative and analytic strategy will be made. They will also encourage the submission of papers from scholars around the world and across academic disciplines. Although this journal officially belongs to the American Sociological Association, it is believed that it is the property of a much larger scholarly community. That community spans the globe as well as traditional disciplinary boundaries. Its members include everyone committed to systematic study of how the individual is shaped by and shapes her or his social and cultural environment.

A call for papers on the special issue "Social Psychology and Culture: Advancing Connections" to be published in periodical "Social Psychology Quarterly" is presented, including suggestions about the connection between culture and cognition, cultural objects, and intergroup dynamics.