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Unidimensional conceptions of socioeconomic status require that alternative indicators of one's position in the stratification system have similar elects upon the consequences of socioeconomic level. We show herein that different indicators of social participation and psychological well-being are in fact associated with different indicators of socioeconomic status. Thus, any attempt to combine these indicators—educational attainment, occupational pursuit, family income, or occupational origins—into a single index of socio- economic status will prove unsatisfactory because its component parts have different consequences for the same variable. We also show in this paper precisely how certain formulations of the effects of inconsistency and mobility are wholly redundant and only represent a logically possible way of interpreting the linearly additive effects of the variables used to define inconsistency and mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over 300 years the members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) have been making group decisions without voting. Their method is to find a ‘sense of the meeting’ which represents a consensus of those involved. Ideally this consensus is not simply ‘unanimity,’ or an opinion on which all members happen to agree, but a ‘unity’: a higher truth which grows from the consideration of divergent opinions and unites them all. Friends can ‘unite’ in support of action which shows due consideration to the individuality of each member and to their corporate concerns. As an illustration of this method, we will analyze in some detail the group process of a Quaker committee as it worked with a difficult social problem over a period of one year. Before beginning the analysis, we will summarize some of the main points in the process of reaching the ‘sense of the meeting’ as it has been described by Friends and others. Also we will review the functional theory of social interaction which will provide the basis for theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional small group concepts have been derived from experimental decision-making groups. Encounter groups not only locus on functional problem-solving but also attempt to facilitate participants' spontaneous and open expression of their authentic emotions in-situ. Through this emphasis the encounter group leader attempts to provide an antidote to role-oriented everyday societal transactions. The complex nature of encounter group interactions defy standard codification by a non-participant researcher. Recently certain small group researchers have become participants in their groups under study as a way of capturing more dynamic processes of group interaction. The small group researcher as participant and encounter group leader/researcher have become united through their use of empathic identification as an artful method in linking up abstract theoretical concepts with observed group happenings. An ethnography of a Youth Encounter Group (that I lead) is presented to illustrate the complex features of leadership in an encounter group. Through an analysis of my ethnography I attempt to show (1) how both small group researchers and encounter group researchers have presented idealizations of group process divorced from the practical features that organize and sustain the on-going group interactions and (2) how both the small group researcher as participant and encounter group leader/researcher have used the process of empathic identification as an unexplicated resource that has obscured and masked the interpretive work carried on by participants—lay and professional—during the encounter group and by researchers in their professional reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explore the occupational prestige in the Negro subculture. It is noted that in the study of occupational prestige it is well established that within a given country there are no sizeable subgroups of the population which hold radically differing views of the occupational prestige hierarchy. This agreement seems to contradict the notion that job discrimination and ghetto life have produced a distinct black subculture which includes occupational evaluations radically different from those of the modal society. Part of the observed Negro-white difference in socioeconomic achievements is to be attributed to the fact that for any particular status characteristic, Negroes have, on the average, less of each of the factors which cause it than do whites. Thus, for example, part of the average difference between Negro and white average incomes can be attributed to the generally poorer standing of Negroes in occupation, education, and social background, and the color-blind process of stratification. But in addition to these differences due to stratification, for any particular status dimension, Negroes get less than do whites with the same levels of the causal characteristics, because of discrimination.

Individuals ordinarily have considerable information about voluntary associations even before they seriously think about joining a group. In becoming affiliated, members usually rely on personal networks and often several persons are consulted. When mass media sources are utilized in the affiliation process, they serve as a stimulus or catalyst (not one respondent in the sample joined an organization solely on the basis of mass media sources of information). Those with an extensive network of friends and relatives often become members through informal leaders. Moreover, they are sought out and encouraged to join. Individuals who have fewer primary-group resources frequently become members through formal leaders and themselves initiate the contact which results in membership. Finally, personal influence networks are more likely to play an important role for those joining expressive rather than instrumental voluntary associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the development of small group. Recent advances in social psychological theory have made it possible to reduce the number of dimensions necessary to describe interaction in small groups. Earlier analyses had often used category syste

This article presents information on time-space relationship in socio cultural development. The meaning and value attaching to social space is once again intimately associated with the possibilities and probabilities of achieving a spectrum of purely social purposes which accrue to enhanced status positions in the group or society. For status has associated with it the right to command scarce resources whether material or wholly symbolic, or both. The achievement of many purposes is contingent upon the command of such scarce resources. It follows that the achievement of many of the purposes which enhanced status makes possible have essentially nothing to do with physical survival, they may have much to do, however, with the achievement of certain social rewards and privileges. Thus, if an individual desires, say, a professional status or a reputation as a celebrity of some kind, the achievement of such pure poses involves primarily an investment of time, energy, and willingness to engage in competition with other contenders. In such instances the probability of success or failure is not immediately determined by ownership and or control of physical space in the farm of real property.

This article presents an analysis of social relation within groups of members. By group it is meant any plural within which observable interaction (mutual stimulation and response) is present among the members. Any namable set of people is a plural, it becomes a group to the extent that its members behave in ways that influence one another. Groups are characterized by relations among members and social relations are a type of product, rather than a sum, as this discussion will show. Sociologists with quantitative inclinations will not find much that is surprising or instructive in this mathematically simple thesis. But many who study groups are unaware of the appropriate use of products rather than sums when considering a set of indices or variables. Much of what will be said is well known to statisticians, but it is now presented in everyday language in order to reach a wider audience. One can think first of a product of two all-or-none kinds of things which logicians call a "logical product" or "intersect" of sets in the new mathematics.

The article presents a discussion on the role of voluntary associations as integrative forces in urban society. A basic distinction in the conceptualization of integration has been suggested, and a number of significant factors pertinent to the social-psychological and sociological levels of analysis have been explored. The article revolves around study of role played by voluntary organizations for the participants and the place of these groups in the community, or the interrelationships between associations. It further discusses the social psychology of affiliation. Where sub-issues like extent of affiliation,involvement in organization,type of association,age and life cycle,organization locus are discussed. Then it discusses the sociology of associations, which describes organizational function, size and formalization,neighborhood stability, organizational prevalence, community size and ecology of associations. It has been emphasized that most students of associations have neglected to explore the complexity of integration and the role voluntary groups play in the process.

This article focuses on the concept of mental health and religious socialization given by sociologist Emile Durkheim. It seeks an alternative explanation, one which is couched at the socio-psychological level. Its method of approach is an analysis of religious socialization. In the analysis which blows, stress is placed upon differences in the content and function of the mythological reference group structure, i.e., the inventory of both divine and demonic personalities, with whom the religious confessant develops relationships. Such mythological reference groups may be thought of as independent of, but supplemental to, the real worldly reference groups to which the individual relates. The analysis proceeds from a conception of the ideal-typical rather than the modal form of the conscience manifest in New World Catholics and Protestants, specifically those raised in the Calvinistic tradition prevalent throughout English-speaking North America. The focus of this article, moreover, is with the type of conscience produced in members of the two respective religious communities during the historical period beginning in the Renaissance-Reformation.