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Social scientists have expressed strong views on corporate influences over science, but most attention has been devoted to broad, Black/White arguments, rather than to actual mechanisms of influence. This paper summarizes an experience where involvement in a lawsuit led to the discovery of an unexpected mechanism: A large corporation facing a multibillion-dollar court judgment quietly provided generous funding to well-known scientists (including at least one Nobel prize winner) who would submit articles to “open,” peer-reviewed journals, so that their “unbiased science” could be cited in an appeal to the Supreme Court. On balance, the corporation’s most effective techniques of influence may have been provided not by overt pressure, but by encouraging scientists to continue thinking of themselves as independent and impartial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increased sociological interest in popular culture, many studies have examined the hero types lauded by the media from situation comedies to movies, books, and magazines. Few studies, however, have examined who, if anybody, actual individuals identify as personal heroes. To the extent that the hero identification of individuals has been examined at all it has generally been the hero identification of children and adolescents that has been studied. The study of heroes is important because heroes are one indicator of who we are and what we stand for. That is partly what motivates the recent attention to the media's identification of heroes. Yet while the media represent a very visible aspect of culture, who individuals privately cite as their heroes is, although less visible, just as much a part of who we are as a culture. Accordingly, this paper reports on findings from two telephone surveys conducted in Philadelphia that, among other questions pertaining to the meaning of life, asked adults over 18 whether they had any heroes and if so who those heroes were. The tendency to identify with heroes was found to be related to transcendental concerns with the meaning of life and to religiosity. Overall, the pattern of findings discloses an unstudied dimension of cultural disenchantment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent contributions of sociologists and others have brought a new awareness and new theoretical under standing of the extent to which human aging and life-course patterns are shaped by social conditions and influenced by social change. Yet the potential of many social processes to account for individual aging patterns remains untapped, because research and theory have focused heavily upon comparisons between cohorts rather than the internal differentiation of cohorts, This paper shows that focusing upon intracohort differentiation over the life course leads to a mobilization of sociological findings whose age-related implications have not been exploited. Using the phenomenon of "aged heterogeneity" as an illustrative case, it is suggested that intracohort differentiation- operating through macro-level, organizational, and micro-level processes-can explain significant phenomena of aging previously neglected by theory, or else assumed to be psychological in origin. These processes specify Men on's "Matthew effect." Implications for biological aging and for research are briefly discussed˙. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accomplished sciences are distinguished by an active orientation to data. Rather than explaining passive observations or even laboratory results, these sciences put a premium on creating effects or objects never before observed. Theories provide a basic for denying the data, in showing how nature can be better organized to produce some new effect or object. In this paper, a method for constructing these theories is developed A sociological application is carried out to the point where an accomplishment is claimed. A very peculiar object is discovered - a relationship. Though it does not resemble anything we may have ever observed it offers to groping actors a guide to something that works and hence could become something that is commonly observed. Likely scruples are addressed that might block the pursuit of such accomplishments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a note from the editor which focuses on the relationship between theory and research. As the editor of "Forum," one primary criticism made by the author is that theory in submitted manuscripts adds little to the understanding of the topic. According to the author, a theory is an explanation of a sociological phenomenon. In analyses of the substance of citations sociologists of science have found that a high portion, about 60%, of citations to theorists are ceremonial. It is incumbent on the author to show how the theory adds to the understanding of the subject matter of the article. Also, authors must realize that adding references to or quotations from famous theorists does not absolve them from making their articles truly theoretical. To do this, authors should begin their articles by clearly defining the problem that the research is aimed at solving. After the problem is defined, the material, whether it be qualitative or quantitative data or analysis of existing literature, that helps solve the problem is presented. The article is truly theoretical if it presents a credible solution to the problem it deals with.

Fifty years ago, Robin M. Williams Jr. described eight notable changes in U.S. sociology, one of which was the “widespread diffusion of a relatively clear and sophisticated conception of the place of values in sociological study, as an object of research, as a factor in behavior, and as an element to be controlled in the prosecution of research” (Williams, 1958:621). In this essay, I ask what has become of that rising interest in the sociological study of values? I follow three distinct trajectories of sociological research on values, briefly describing the contributions of each, and identifying several lines of inquiry that strike me as particularly important and promising for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waiting lines are spatial configurations of people that store information about time of arrival until it is recapitulated as order of service. Someone joining a line has an interest in assuming a position that will be seen as recognizably “in line,” particularly by those arriving later. When physical constraints are few—such as in 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, the site for this research—this is normally accomplished through conformity with the line’s recent trajectory. However, conflict between normally congruent line-joining rules can occasion a sharp turn; an example is when a self-identifying group joins the line, muddying the geometry and creating uncertainty as to what should happen next. Further, the normal rules for line formation can misfire, giving rise to mutant lines with multiple “tails” and an impaired capacity for encoding time into space. Alternatives to waiting lines are considered and judged less efficient and more likely to be judged unfair, particularly given the expectation that rewards will be proportional to investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A research front of rapid discovery, leaving a trail of cognitive consensus behind it, is characteristic of natural sciences since about the 17th century in Europe. The basis of this high-consensus, rapid-discovery science is not empiricism, since empirical research existed in the natural sciences before the 17th century. The key is appropriation of genealogies of research technologies, which are pragmatically manipulated and modified to produce new phenomena; high consensus results because there is higher social prestige in moving ahead to new research discoveries than by continuing to dispute the interpretation of older discoveries. The social sciences have not acquired this pattern of rapid discovery with high consensus behind the research front. Their fundamental disability is not lack of empirical research, nor failure to adhere to a scientific epistemology, nor the greater ideological controversy that surrounds social topics. What is fundamentally lacking in the social sciences is a genealogy of research technology, whose manipulation reliably produces new phenomena and a rapidly moving research front. Unless the social sciences invent new research hardware, they will likely never acquire much consensus or rapid discovery. Possibilities may exist for such development stemming from research technologies in microsociology and in artificial intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]