MINING ERROR VARIANCE AND HITTING PAY-DIRT:

According to traditional error theory, sentiment measurements vary unsystematically from individual to individual. However, we find some patterned deviation in sentiments that characterize subsets of respondents within a seemingly homogeneous population. After demonstrating the existence of such patterns, we report an exploratory study aimed at identifying social characteristics of people with different patterns of sentiments. People embedded in multiple social networks have exaggerated sentiments that contour cultural patterns, and people with few social associations have attenuated sentiments conveying cultural detachment. In addition, people with disciplinary parents and romantic privation have some distinctive sentiments, depending on their gender.     

The Temporality of Emotion: Constructing Past Emotions

Symbolic interactionists have developed a rich literature on emotion that has advanced our understanding of the socially constructed nature of emotions and has provided a wealth of understanding about emotions and emotional life. Left unexplored, however, has been the temporal nature of emotion. Similarly, interactionists' renewed interest in time and temporality has not focused on emotion. In this article I describe the implicit leads in these two literatures that need to be pulled together to make the linkage clear. Drawing on the work defining emotions as social objects and on George Herbert Mead's theory of the past, I describe how emotional pasts are used as foundations for situated actions. I also explain how we use the emotional pasts in four areas: the individual level, individuals in interaction, collective behavior, and the social structural level. This linkage provides insights for understanding how we use emotional pasts when we construct and enact behavior. I argue that emotional pasts are important tools used in the interpretation and construction of present emotions, to situate selves and others, and to construct the social order.     

I Want to Be Your Friend: The Effects of Organizations’ Interpersonal Approaches on Social Networking Sites

Publics tend to use social networking sites mainly for interpersonal communication purposes. Corporate communication focusing on promotional activities, thus, might create negative sentiments toward the organization within those platforms. This experimental study examined the effect of organizations’ interpersonal approaches to communication (e.g., nonpromotional messages, high interactivity) in social networking sites using real and fictitious companies. Our results suggest that publics consider corporate activities in social networking sites more negatively when they perceive those platforms as a personal space. However, publics evaluate an organization more positively when it is highly interactive with its publics on these platforms. Finally, publics who perceive the platform as a personal space have a more positive attitude toward the organization when the organization is both highly interactive and employs nonpromotional messages.     

How publics react to situational and renewing organizational responses across crises: Examining SCCT and DOR in social-mediated crises

The prevalence of social media among networked publics calls for more research regarding how organizations can conduct effective crisis communication on social networking sites. Based on the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and the discourse of renewal (DOR) theory, this study examined how social media publics’ sentiments were affected by situational and renewing organizational responses in various clusters of crises. Twitter data of six crises representing three crisis clusters varying in the responsibility attribution (i.e., ambiguous, accidental, and preventable) were collected. We conducted a content analysis on organizations’ official tweets during crises (N = 59) and sentiment analysis on publics’ replies on Twitter (N = 4,340). The results showed that publics’ positive sentiments toward organizations were affected by organizational crisis responses that included instructing information, sympathy, systemic organizational learning, and effective organizational rhetoric. We recommend that crisis managers express sympathy toward publics as well as organizational learning that prevents a crisis from happening again.     

Laughter,the Best Mediation: Humor as Emotion Management in Interaction

Recent work in emotions and emotion management suggests that humor is a social phenomenon and serves an important purpose in interaction. That is, humor can be viewed as interpersonal emotion management, whose purpose is to manage the emotions of others as well as of the self. This article offers the following definition as an analytical tool: humor as emotion management is an expert cultural performance; which strengthens or restores the feeling norms of the situation and creates amusement in the self and others; generating positive sentiments among members of an interacting group by bonding them and/or reducing an external threat; often at the expense of some excluded person(s), event(s), or object(s).     

Social Engagement and Immigration Attitudes: Panel Survey Evidence from Germany

This article asks how social engagement influences individuals' immigration concerns. Rates of volunteering, churchgoing, socializing, and helping others are used to predict anti‐immigration sentiments. Panel survey data from Germany makes a dynamic “conditional change” modeling strategy possible; lagged immigration views are included in models to reveal the predictors of over time developments. The most robust findings signal that frequent church attendance reduces immigration concerns; routinely helping others enhances them. And in both instances, these relationships are conditioned by the presence of immigrants in the residential area. Overall, the results position social participation in certain activities as important factors that shape people's views on immigration.     

Configuring Action in Objects: From Mutual Space to Media Space

It has long been recognized that the material environment is an essential feature of the organization of social action and interaction. It is only recently, however, that we have witnessed a burgeoning body of empirical studies, from within both the social and cognitive sciences, that has begun to delineate the ways in which objects are socially constructed and feature in social relations and activities. Despite this growing interest in the object in social life, there remains a paucity of research concerned with how objects are reflexively constituted in and through social interaction. In this article, we consider how aspects of the material environment are rendered momentarily intelligible in and through interaction and the ways in which objects provide a resource for the recognition of the actions and activities of others. We examine interaction in both conventional working environments and new experimental spaces created through advanced telecommunication and communication technologies to reveal the ways in which the sense and significance of social actions and activities are embedded in, and inseparable from, the local ecology.     

The Role of Dyadic Coordination in Organizing Visual Attention in 5‐Month‐Old Infants

In human infants, the ability to share attention with others is facilitated by increases in attentional selectivity and focus. Differences in early attention have been associated with socio‐cognitive outcomes including language, yet the social mechanisms of attention organization in early infancy have only recently been considered. Here, we examined how social coordination between 5‐month‐old infants and caregivers relate to differences in infant attention, including looking preferences, span, and reactivity to caregivers’ social cues. Using a naturalistic play paradigm, we found that 5‐month‐olds who received a high ratio of sensitive (jointly focused) contingent responses showed strong preferences for objects with which their caregivers were manually engaged. In contrast, infants whose caregivers exhibited high ratios of redirection (attempts to shift focus) showed no preferences for caregivers’ held objects. Such differences have implications for recent models of cognitive development, which rely on early looking preferences for adults’ manually engaged objects as a pathway toward joint attention and word learning. Further, sensitivity and redirectiveness predicted infant attention even in reaction to caregiver responses that were non‐referential (neither sensitive nor redirective). In response to non‐referentials, infants of highly sensitive caregivers oriented less frequently than infants of highly redirective caregivers, who showed increased distractibility. Our results suggest that specific dyadic exchanges predict infant attention differences toward broader social cues, which may have consequences for social‐cognitive outcomes.     

Reconceptualizing Social Movement Abeyance: The Role of Internal Processes and Culture in Cycles of Movement Abeyance and Resurgence

Abstract

Questions of social movement emergence and decline have long been of interest to social movement analysts, but discussions related to social movement endurance are relatively new to the field. In this work, we explicitly adapt Verta Taylor's concept of abeyance to a local grassroots social movement organization (SMO), Solutions to Issues of Concern to Knoxvillians (SICK), that has endured for 18 years and achieved success in multiple campaign issues. Arguing that an unfavorable external political climate is not the only reason for an SMO to decline in mass membership and mass-based challenges, we use the concept of abeyance to explain the SMO's continuity as a product of internal SMO processes and organizational culture. Our findings indicate that the grassroots organization emerged, won considerable victories, and then continued to survive rather than disbanding. The SMO subsequently underwent two cycles of abeyance-and-resurgence, which we assess using Taylor's set of five characteristics of movement abeyance structures. We conclude that some of the abeyance structures are applicable to a grassroots movement while others are not.     

Women Married to Transvestites:

This study focuses on the marital adjustment of wives of transvestites. Of particular interest are the attitudes of these women toward their husbands' behavior, the stresses under which they are placed, and their fears and concerns. A questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 70 women, obtained through the cooperation of 4 groups (a transvestite organization, a transvestite wives' support group, an outreach organization, and a group whose members wcrc undergoing counseling). The women generally learned about their husbands transvestism early in the relationship. While they most often tended to be supportive and understanding at first, many of the wives had negative feelings of hostility and resentment. Their immediate fear was that others would find out, followed by concern for their children. Most women did not support their spouses' transvestism, and few of them would recommend a transvestite for a husband. Yet, the women overwhelmingly felt that their marriages were very happy. The women appear to have adjusted to their husbands' transvestism by developing a rationale that emphasizes positive aspects of their husbands' behavior.     

Verification of Self Using a Mathematical Theory of Identity,Feeling, and Behavior

The current study tests the affect control theory of self, a mathematical theory that demonstrates a core social psychological principle: individuals strive for a stable and coherent self through identity selection and behavior. In the affect control theory of self, the self is conceptualized as self‐sentiments, which are measured on three dimensions: evaluation (good/bad), potency (powerful/powerless), and activity (fast/slow). In a longitudinal sample of college men and women, I find the self‐sentiment predicts how individuals describe themselves on a range of terms, including primary emotions and both stigmatized and esteemed traits related to mental illness and self‐esteem. It also predicts various productive and deviant behaviors five months later. Thus, the current study demonstrates the theoretical precision of the theory, its ability for understanding human behavior, and its potential for identifying at‐risk individuals.     

Public Attitudes and the Chinese Migrants in Central-Eastern Europe

The Chinese are one of the largest migrant groups in Central-Eastern Europe. While governments have welcomed these newcomers, we do not know whether locals share this sentiment. This is because we have not had the requisite data. In this article, I address this shortcoming. I draw on two oft-cited explanations in the migration literature to examine public attitudes toward the Chinese. The first is about competition over scarce economic resources; the second is about conflicts between two distinct cultures. Using two different survey samples, I find strong evidence to corroborate the second hypothesis. Attitudes toward the Chinese are generally negative when the aggregate Chinese population is large. Public discourse (i.e., passive contact) reinforces cultural stereotypes. There is, however, a caveat: An increasing Chinese presence in a person's neighbourhood (i.e., active contact) can offset these negative effects. As the spatial gap between the two cultures closes, the social ones correspondingly narrow.     

Partisan difference in social desirability bias on anti-immigrant sentiments: Covert and overt expression among French voters

Various types of anti-immigrant sentiments have been taken as the characteristic independent variable to explain specific support for radical right parties. However, some survey respondents tend to conceal their attitudes towards socially sensitive issues. To overcome this challenge, the present study used a list experiment method (item count technique) to reveal respondents' covert attitudes towards immigrants (and compared these with overt expressions) based on party support in France. Results indicated similar levels of anti-immigrant sentiments among radical right National Front supporters and other centre-rightist parties. In addition, comparison with the direct question method revealed that while supporters of centre-right parties were reluctant to express their anti-immigrant sentiment in overt expressions, National Front supporters willingly expressed it overtly more than in covert expressions. Using regression analysis, this paper demonstrates the diversity of anti-immigrant norms and the social desirability bias gap in the French political space.     

The ambivalence of ordinary cosmopolitanism: Investigating the limits of cosmopolitan openness

Despite diverse understandings of cosmopolitanism, most authors agree that cosmopolitans espouse a broadly defined disposition of ‘openness’ toward others, people, things and experiences whose origin is non‐local. It is argued that such an attitude is expressed by an emotional and ethical commitment towards universalism, selflessness, worldliness and communitarianism, and that such values should be identifiable in the practices, attitudes and identifications of individuals. By using data generated through qualitative focus group research, this paper extends the development of Lamont and Aksartova's (2002 ) category of ‘ordinary cosmopolitanism’. The participants in this study saw themselves as beneficiaries of an increasingly interconnected world, and they generally expressed cosmopolitan sentiments by referring to easily accepted opportunities associated with globalisation (eg. travel, cuisine, music) rather than the more difficult aspects of openness such as showing hospitality to strangers, or accepting human interest ahead of perceived national interests. Their positive views were counterbalanced, however, by sentiments of ‘dilution of national culture’ and ‘culture loss’. We argue that cosmopolitanism is a set of structurally grounded, discursive resources available to social actors which is variably deployed to deal with issues like cultural diversity, the global, and otherness. Ironically these discourses, which are the basis of the everyday accounts we describe, mirror academic debates on globalisation, suggesting the immersion of theorists in these discursive webs of meaning that structure responses to things global.     

Individual determinants of social behavior

By using unique data from the section on social behavior of the Bank of Italy's 2004 Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW), the paper studies the individual determinants of several aspects of social behavior: attitudes to cooperating with anonymous others; interest in politics; participation in groups and associations; and propensity to rely on favoritism both in finding a job and in dealing with government red tape. Our findings suggest that these different aspects of social behavior are only weakly correlated to each other and are explained by different individual determinants. We find that older and more educated individuals display a greater willingness to cooperate, a stronger interest in politics, and more intense association activity. By contrast, the likelihood of relying on favoritism does not depend on age and education. We also find that home-ownership is associated with good social conduct, while urban residence has mostly a negative impact on public behavior. Finally, having left-wing political opinions increases the interest in politics, while it does not affect the other aspects of social behavior.     

Symbolic interactionism and the concept of power

Symbolic interactionism is often represented as a perspective which is limited by its restriction to 'micro' aspects of social organization. As such, it is allegedly unable to adequately conceptualize 'macro' phenomena such as social structure, patterns of inequality, and power. Such a view is routinely presented in undergraduate textbooks. This paper contests such a view through a consideration of the concept of power. We argue that the interactionist research tradition does show a fundamental concern with power phenomena, and that a reconsideration of the concept is timely in light of theoretical developments in sociology more generally. An increasing concern with the analysis of culture, the continuing influence of Foucault, the development of feminist perspectives, and the emerging consensus around neo-Weberian thought have all contributed to a renewal of interest in themes long ago explored by interactionists. As examples we suggest that interactionist studies in the fields of deviance and education have been concerned above all with the authoritative imposition of consequential identities, i.e., with the social processes through which power is enacted and institutionalized in real situations. Such developments have led some to argue that interactionism has now been incorporated into the mainstream of sociology. We conclude, however, by arguing that such a view runs the risk of granting to orthodox sociological thought a legitimacy which is analytically unwarranted, and which fails to recognize the alternative theoretical and philosophical foundations of symbolic interactionist thought.     

Marital Sentiment Override: Does It Influence Couples' Perceptions?

This study investigated the effects of spouses' global sentiments (i.e., their marital bonds) on spouses' perceptions of their partners' specific affects. Ninety‐six newlywed couples participated in the study. Positive or negative sentiment override was indicated when spouse ratings of specific affects differed from the coding of objective coders. For both positive affect and low‐intensity negative affect, wives' marital bond predicted their ratings of their husbands' affect. In addition, there was evidence for positive sentiment override when wives rated husbands' low‐intensity negative affect. As predicted, neither husbands nor wives were influenced by sentiment override when rating their spouses' high‐intensity negative affects. These results suggest that marital bond serves as a perceptual filter through which wives evaluate their husbands' behavior.     

When organizational crises meet nationalism: Crisis communication of multinational corporations in the Chinese context

The purpose of this study is to explore how nationalism shapes the public perception of multinational corporations’ crises on Chinese social media. Using qualitative content analysis, this study examines 1000 public comments from the top 10 hashtag posts and explores the interaction between nationalist expression (i.e., content and sentiment of nationalism) and the public’s perception of the United Airlines crisis in 2017. The findings demonstrate how nationalist content impinged upon the interpretation of United Airlines’ misconduct. Six concrete emotions (anger, hared, amusement, pride, encouragement, and disgust) were identified from the sample comments, which were categorized into inward-directed and outward-directed nationalist sentiments. Given the findings, this study argues that nationalist expression has driven the evolution of the United Airlines crisis beyond the discussion of organizational misconduct. While inward-directed sentiment served to strengthen the Chinese public’s national identity, outward-directed sentiment was utilized to exclude multinational corporations as “out-groups.” The theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.     

“No Thanks,We’re Full”: Individual Characteristics,National Context,and Changing Attitudes Toward Immigration1

In this paper we examine how individual‐level characteristics and national context affect attitudes toward immigration. Although many previous studies have compared attitudes toward immigration across countries, little attention has been paid to how attitudes may be affected by changes within a country over time. We take advantage of seventeen national Canadian Gallup surveys to consider how differences in national economic conditions and changing immigration flows affect attitudes and changes in attitudes between 1975 and 2000. While the state of the national economy affects attitudes this is not the case for the rate of immigration. Rather than affecting some groups more than others the state of the economy has a relatively uniform effect across groups. Our results also show that far from being a continuum, being anti‐immigration and being pro‐immigration are qualitatively different. Interest, ideology, and the national economy affect anti‐immigration sentiments, but only ideology affects pro‐immigration sentiments.     

Diet and Exercise in Parenthood: A Social Control Perspective

Previous work on social control—the direct and indirect regulation of an individual's health behaviors by others—suggests that parent–child relationships promote healthy diet and exercise. Yet parenthood is associated with less healthy diet and exercise patterns. The authors investigated this paradox by examining social control processes in 40 in‐depth interviews with mothers and fathers. They found that parenthood involves social control processes that both promote and compromise healthy behavior, contributing to contradictory perceived effects of parenthood on health behavior. Moreover, the dynamics of social control appear to unfold in different ways for mothers and fathers and depend on the child's gender and life stage, suggesting that gender and age dyads are central to understanding the seemingly contradictory consequences of parenthood at the population level. These articulations of gendered social control processes provide new insight into the consequences of the gendered organization of parenthood for diet and exercise.