Search

African Americans and Jews have both suffered from discrimination and prejudice, but the two groups are often at odds with one another. Differences in educational level and other aspects are explored, and Paul Berman's thesis on the subject is discussed.

The article presents a response of the author to sociologist James R. Abbott comments on his article. According to the author his article was designed as a methodological rather than a value analysis. It argues that should a social scientist aim to project moral values through his or her research reports, whatever the content of these values, it would be, logically, efficient to cast the work in a methodological individualist frame of reference. Whether the methodological individualist projects conservative or liberal values is irrelevant. The author gave Adorno as an example of a liberal methodological individualist. Yet, although the very section headings refer to topics such as the ontological basis of methodological individualism, the relation of a frame of reference for constructing research concepts to the projection of moral judgements, the role of concrete versus abstract concept referents, the distinction between interpretation and explanation in relation to motivational analyses, and slippages between cognitive generalizations and moral laws in history, Abbott misses his methodological concerns and converts his article into an unfriendly attack on Digby Baltzell's values.

The literature of the sociology of science discusses norms and institutional arrangements which distinguish the culture of science from that of other social institutions. This aspect establishes commonalities among scientists. The norms of "objectivity" and "skepticism," for instance, are shared by both psychologists and sociologists. This paper examines some social mechanisms which maintain this commonality and some mechanisms which generate differences in the cognitive culture of the disciplines. Furthermore, the paper analyses a relation between work setting and self-evaluation and the form and content of concepts. The small sample rapidly evacuates the cells of the tables as one or another control variable is considered. Consequently, while the tables show tantalizing associations between measures of the form and content of the concept, only rudimentary ad hoc explanations for these findings are possible. The explanatory association between the material character of research social relations and concept form and that between the culture in which research takes place and concept content seen plausible at this stage.

The names of twelve hundred and twenty-six concepts used in reports of research on human behavior under stress are classified according to whether, on the one hand, they are ethically neutral, or, on the other hand, are negatively or positively value- loaded. The proportion of value- neutral terms used by a researcher is responsive to the theological- philosophical position of his religious group on the possibility and desirability of scientific "ethical neutrality? The greater the social-psychological engagement of the world by the researcher (as measured by a scale of introversion-extroversion), the less likely is he to be ethically neutral. Among professions represented, social scientists are the most ethically neutral, and psychiatrists and psychologists the most likely to use negative value terms. A researcher tends to use negative terms in his research report when he is the dominant partner in the researcher- audience and in the researcher-research subject roles, and to report in positive terms when he is the relatively subordinate role. Some arguments about the possibility and desirability of ethical neutrality in social science are reviewed in the light of the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]