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This paper examines the relation between positivistic and interpretive sociology, using the stress research literature as a case study. Analyzing the cultural history of the stress concept, it uncovers four central themes: anxiety, performance, adjustment, and mentalism, Examining the self-criticismc made by scientific students of stress, it focuses on the problems of temporal order, confounding, and interaction. Comparison of the cultural and scientific literatures shows that while some of the positivists' complaints derive from general methodological choices, others come from inescapable aspects of the culture's general idea of stress. Considering the past development of stress research, the paper argues that positivism and interpretation have not been Cartesian opposites but interpenetrating fractals. It then speculates about what this relation implies for future positivistic studies, both in the stress literature and more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that a better articulated conception of stigma can enhance the analysis of popular culture. Beginning with the work on stigma by Erving Goffman and other scholars, the article contends that the stigma sometimes attached to the production and consumption of popular culture is distinct from the low status associated with certain forms of popular culture. Unlike low status, stigma discredits cultural forms and practitioners often rendering them problematic. This reassessment of stigma is applied and developed further through a study of comic books, showing the various ways stigma can operate in popular culture. The analysis suggests that stigma significantly impeded the evolution of the comic book as an art form, illustrating the potential negative effects of stigma in popular culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual moral value attitudes are typically explained by reference to social experiences as indicated by social group variables. Contrary to this view, the emergent “culture wars” perspective claims that two worldviews that transcend social groups are ultimately and fundamentally responsible for moral value attitudes. Although this relationship has been claimed for the general population, it has not been investigated with national representative data. This paper contrasts the worldview and social group explanations by examining the relative importance of the worldviews implicated in the culture wars literature and the social groups found to be important in previous research. I find social groups to be more important than worldviews, but that worldviews also have explanatory power. I conclude with a discussion about possible clarifications of the “culture wars” thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores two themes that had a significant place in Durkheim's Division of Labor: the idea that people's needs and wants vary across epoches and cultures, and the conception of societies as systems. The first leads to a rejection of efficiency as the primary driving force behind advances in the division of labor. Considering power in addition to efficiency, but also the complex conditions of trust and meaning, leads into questions of interdependence and systems analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, sociologists have lamented the fact that interdisciplinary exchange regarding Culture and Cognition has been largely asymmetrical. However, to date, no sociologist has empirically established the degree of interdisciplinary diffusion of Culture and Cognition scholarship. We add empirical detail to these discussions through a bibliographic analysis of 16 key Culture and Cognition articles, analyzing their citation patterns both within and beyond Sociology. Within Sociology, we find that citations of Culture and Cognition scholarship tend to cluster within culture, generalist, and theory journals. In terms of interdisciplinary diffusion, we find that while engagement with Culture and Cognition scholarship is indeed concentrated within sociology, almost half of the citations of this work come from other disciplines. This suggests that, while not entirely incorrect, the characterizations of Culture and Cognition's interdisciplinary uptake have been somewhat exaggerated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, a burgeoning literature finds cultural sociologists incorporating ideas from the cognitive sciences—cognitive anthropology, cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, and philosophy——and significantly reshaping sociologists' approach to culture, both theoretically and methodologically. Elsewhere, we have reviewed the cognitive turn in cultural sociology (Cerulo, Leschziner and Shepherd, 2021). But in this special issue, authors capitalize on new directions in culture and cognition, providing 12 original articles that forward new theoretical ideas, offer novel methodologies, provide exciting empirical tests of current theories, and suggest possible applications of the culture and cognition lens to other sub‐disciplines in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The approach sociologists should take toward the biological sciences, particularly in light of the neurocognitive turn that is taking place in many other disciplines, is not as straightforward as some have suggested. Advocates of bridging neurocognitive and sociological frameworks have argued that we should learn and utilize neurocognitive science in order to refresh sociological concepts, as well as to contribute positively to the development of bio/psycho/social knowledge. However, I argue that the onto-epistemological question of how we should approach neuroscientific knowledge, which has yet to be resolved, should be foregrounded rather than forgotten in these efforts. Without a willingness to criticize as well as learn from neurocognitive science, and wade into its internal debates, sociologists risk reifying neurocognitive knowledge and diminishing awareness and appreciation of its complexities and contradictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When war challenges civilian survival, what shapes the balance between normative and instrumental rationalities in survival practices? Increasing desperation and uncertainty can lead civilians to focus on their own material interests and to violate norms in the name of survival or gain-to the detriment of the war effort and of other civilians. Do norms, boundaries against transgressions, and considerations of collective interests and identities persist, and, if so, through what mechanisms? Using diaries and recollections from the 872-day Blockade of Leningrad (1941-1944)-an extreme case of wartime desperation-this article examines how three forms of cultural embeddedness shape variation in the strength of norms against calculative, instrumental rationality. Proximity and empathy with others, the structure of norms and analogies to legitimate instrumental practices, and reflexivity vis-à-vis war and others' response interact dialectically with the war context to shape variation in violating norms and rationalizing transgressions. Theft of food and cannibalism, which involve tactics of survival or gain that also risk the well-being of victims (theft) or violation of a powerful taboo (cannibalism), demonstrate the weakness of norms on the margins but their power when core norms or other real, visible individuals are threatened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how people cognitively engage with the contemporary, mainstream, U.S. news in ways that yield ontological services. It treats the news as both a system of signs and a cultural object, and assesses how people mentally intercept, negotiate, and use the news in ways that foster a sense of control and order over an unstable and unpredictable social world (i.e., 'ontological security') ( ). Based on interview data, it argues that through criticisms, consumption orientations, lay theorizing, and 'ignorant othering,' all orbiting and drawing from the contemporary, mainstream, U.S. news, people cognitively sift through and simplify a broader frenzied social environment. In so doing, they are able to mentally establish at minimum a sense of rudimentary understanding and at most a sense of trusted certainty of what is real and true of the world outside their immediate social circles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

I point to contradictions in American individualism not unlike those suggested by Robin M. Williams Jr. I go on to suggest how twenty-first-century sociologists might better understand this aspect of American exceptionalism: not as an egoistic, asocial individualism, but as a covenantal, social voluntarism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In-depth interview data reveal that workplace context and the social characteristics of clients and coworkers play an important role in shaping how upwardly mobile individuals experience class at work. While respondents did discuss their working-class backgrounds as a liability, as might be expected, they also described ways in which they experience their backgrounds as an occupational asset. These findings challenge the notion of a linear relationship between class and culture, suggesting instead a complex, fluid relationship between class, culture, and occupation, where the “class” of a job does not necessarily determine the class culture needed for that job. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most scholarship on assimilationism and pluralism either scientifically assesses their validity as theories or ideologically makes claims about their propriety. Missing is inquiry into how assimilationism and pluralism are not merely about society (as outcomes or ideals) but are used in society, sometimes as “antithetical master-frames.” I therefore do two things here: In Part I, I recast assimilationism and pluralism in terms of two dimensions of concern to people: morality (is assimilating or retaining the right thing to do?) and inclusiveness (which groups are candidates for assimilation or retention?). In Part II, I analyze the use of assimilationist and pluralist frames in three social movements—gay, Deaf Culture, and white separatist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While it is clear that cultural boundaries shape the ways we think and act, the processes by which some emerge as dominant while others languish is less well understood. Drawing on a case study o fa conflict among climbers, I show how an innovation's evolution from heresy to orthodoxy was shaped by the relationship between borders enacted by players on different sides of the issue. I argue that because boundaries emerge in an interactional nexus, the nature of the boundaries that prevail can only be understood in the context of prior boundaries through and against which they are created. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The determinants of and variations in processes of cultural valorization are of increasing interest to sociologists. In the case of high-culture literary texts, the central evaluation process takes place through canon formation. We explore the mechanisms of canon formation and of cultural valorization processes more generally by analyzing the critical history of Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Published in 1937 to lukewarm reviews, the novel is currently considered a core canonical text. We specify three processes involved in the reconstruction of Hurston's novel and in the establishment of the African American literary canon: (1) the application of new evaluative criteria, (2) the reconstruction of textual meaning through newly available interpretative strategies, and (3) changes in the institutional and organizational environment that allowed new claims on high-status critical positions to be made by those previously outside the literary hierarchy. The implications of this study for theoretical models of cultural valorization in sociology are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participant observation was employed to analyze the stratification of artists in the visual art world around a small northeastern American city. Reflecting their art world reputation, artists' strata included naifs, hobbyists, serious amateurs, aspiring preprofessionals, and professionals. The local careers of some artists moved progressively from lower to higher reaches of the system; as they moved upward, their level of professional commitment, art world involvement, knowledge of art, skill, and artistic style tended to change also. Except among professionals, the great majority were women. Overall, certain art styles were selectively favored. The most important selective mechanisms were formal art education, professionalization, artistic style, network centrality, jurying and sales. With a few recent exceptions, truly naive and imitative traditional styles were excluded from the upper levels in favor of modernist abstraction, innovative figuration, or sophisticated forms of art brut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]