Individual Reactions to Organizational Conflict and Change*

When familiar organizational relationships are drastically changed, it is important to know what factors influence individuals in their attempts to re-establish stable work associations for themselves. In the situation described here, an organizational division (which was not administratively planned) made it necessary for individuals to decide whether to remain in their original jobs, move to a similar new organization created by a splinter group, or leave altogether. Eight hypotheses are tested which examine the effects of three sets of influences on individual decisions: psychological influences (job satisfaction, job tension); relational influences (social rewards, social costs, status consistency); and extra-organizational influences (marital status, professional committment, community involvement). Of the variables examined, the strongest influence is attributed to attempts by individuals to preserve their rewarding social exchanges with other members. The implications of these findings for social exchange theory are emphasized.     

Ease of remarriage for females: a cross-cultural test of competing explanations

Using data on the relative status of women in 93 societies, the authors attempt "to identify and test two explanations for the existence of sex biases in norms governing remarriage. These explanations focus on the benefits derived from imposing restrictions on women's opportunities in the remarriage process and the countervailing power women command to resist subordination and the limitation of their freedom." Results of a multiple classification analysis indicate that "both theories taken together do predict cross-cultural variation in sex biases in remarriage norms. In general, women experience more difficulty than men in remarriage in societies where females have little power in domestic contexts, there is low value attached to women's economic contribution and women have little control over property, control of female sexual expression is high, and the levirate is practiced."     

Explaining Satisfaction with Volunteering in Emergencies: Comparison Between Organized and Spontaneous Volunteers in Operation Protective Edge

The study aimed to identify factors that explain general satisfaction with volunteering among volunteers in Operation Protective Edge, in Israel, through a comparison between organized volunteers affiliated with volunteer organizations and spontaneous volunteers who arrived at the scene independently. Based on the social exchange theory as the theoretical framework, the contribution of several variables to explaining general satisfaction with volunteering was examined: satisfaction with the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of volunteering, personal sacrifice in volunteering, and motives for volunteering (social solidarity, personal empowerment, and escape from reality). The findings revealed that among organized volunteers, satisfaction with the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of volunteering mediated between motives for volunteering and general satisfaction with volunteering. Among spontaneous volunteers, the motives of social solidarity and personal empowerment as well as satisfaction with intrinsic and extrinsic rewards were the main variables that explained general satisfaction with volunteering. In contradistinction, the main variables that explained general satisfaction with volunteering among organized volunteers were the motive of personal empowerment and satisfaction with the extrinsic rewards of volunteering.     

Technique and Ethos in Nonviolent Action: The Woman Suffrage Case

The Woman's Party, a militant woman's suffrage organization, was active in nonviolent protests from 1916 through 1919. The party members, who drew their inspiration from the woman suffrage movement in Great Britain, were predominately middle and upper class. They were motivated to protest by the descrepancy between their relatively high social status and their relatively low political power. Although they continued to agitate for equal rights after the suffrage ammendment became part of the Constitution, they did not generalize their concern to an explicitly pacifist ethic but continued to emphasize the particularistic ideology of feminism.     

基于公平理论的高校辅导员队伍建设研究

高校辅导员和专业教师是高等教育发展必须依靠的两支最重要的队伍。但是在高校，他们的工作地位和报酬却有很大差异。本文在公平理论的基础上，从工作时间、工作任务、工作地位、工作压力、工作成就感、工作发展、工作报酬七个方面对二者进行比较，从而提出加强辅导员队伍建设的一些有效建议。     

Perceived norms and alcohol consumption: differences between college students from rural and urban high schools

OBJECTIVE: The authors examined perceived norms and drinking among college students who attended high schools in rural and urban communities. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: Undergraduates (99 men and 85 women) who attended high schools in communities with populations ranging from less than 100 to more than 400,000 completed surveys assessing perceived norms and alcohol consumption. RESULTS: Analyses revealed that students from smaller towns and in smaller high school graduating classes reported heavier drinking and that perceived norms were positively associated with drinking. Perceived norms were unrelated to population variables, and the relationship between perceived norms and drinking did not vary as a function of population variables. Results suggest that differences in drinking as a function of coming from more rural areas contribute to drinking behavior in college independently of perceived norms. CONCLUSIONS: College students may adjust to campus drinking norms relatively quickly, and longitudinal research would be useful in understanding this transition.     

Alcohol-related incident guardianship and undergraduate college parties: enhancing the social norms marketing approach

This randomized experiment examines the effects of contextual information on undergraduate college student's levels of alcohol-related incident guardianship at college parties. The research is conceptualized using routine activities theory and the theory of planned behavior. The experiment examines attitudinal variations about heavy drinking differentiated by sex, athletic status, and location of the drinking event. The sex and athletic status variables produce statistically effects on the dependent variables, while location of the drinking event is not significant. The article concludes by discussing the importance of context as it pertains to the social norms marketing strategy utilized in much college alcohol programming, and suggests a more directed marketing approach.     

Fishing for success without rocking the boat: Value conflict and work control in a maritime context

This paper deals with the role of work control in managing tensions between communitarian social organization and individualistic values. It uses data from a peripheral maritime community, where communitarian control is emphasized above all else; yet work there is organized as petty entrepreneurship, with expressed values on individualism and the Protestant Ethic. The dominant community institution controlling work (the Methodist Church), the structure of the work place and social organization of labor, and the face-to-face transactions concerning work and rewards that have allowed these conflicting ideologies to coexist on a day-to-day basis are examined. For example, entrepreneurial success is controlled by informal communal and church pressures, which encourage watermen to produce at the same levels. Consumption is controlled by community norms and gossip so that people have basically the same possessions. These practices, along with work information control mechanisms, curtail tendencies to convert individual work outcomes into community status. They permit a sense of individual freedom and success in the work place yet at the same time control it so that equality and communitarianism predominate.The author wishes to thank Steven Cole, Rose Laub Coser, Bill Gromfein, Lyle Hallowell, Robert W. Hodge, John McCarthy, Charles Perrow, Pat Roos, Ed Royce, Gerald Suttles, Eugene Weinstein, Glenn Yago, Stony Brook Research Seminar, and editors and reviewers ofQualitative Sociology for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.     

Norms,status and the dynamics of advice networks: A case study

The issue of the influence of norms on behavior is as old as sociology itself. This paper explores the effect of normative homophily (i.e. “sharing the same normative choices”) on the evolution of the advice network among lay judges in a courthouse. 0020 and 0025 social exchange theory suggests that members select advisors based on the status of the advisor. Additional research shows that members of an organization use similarities with others in ascribed, achieved or inherited characteristics, as well as other kinds of ties, to mitigate the potentially negative effects of this strong status rule. We elaborate and test these theories using data on advisor choice in the Commercial Court of Paris. We use a jurisprudential case about unfair competition (material and “moral” damages), a case that we submitted to all the judges of this court, to test the effect of normative homophily on the selection of advisors, controlling for status effects. Normative homophily is measured by the extent to which two judges are equally “punitive” in awarding damages to plaintiffs. Statistical analyses combine longitudinal advice network data collected among the judges with their normative dispositions. Contrary to what could be expected from conventional sociological theories, we find no pure effect of normative homophily on the choice of advisors. In this case, therefore, sharing the same norms and values does not have, by itself, a mitigating effect and does not contribute to the evolution of the network. We argue that status effects, conformity and alignments on positions of opinion leaders in controversies still provide the best insights into the relationship between norms, structure and behavior.     

INCORPORATING RITUAL INTO GREEDY INSTITUTION THEORY: The Case of Devotion in Amateur Chess

Based on ethnographic data, this article explains devotion to chess in terms of the structural mechanisms of its social organization. I use Lewis Coser's theory of greedy institutions as a way to analyze how these mechanisms influence player decisions and foster devotion to the game. Inspired largely by Randall Collins, I expand Coser's original framework by analyzing how the ritual of competitive play is structured in ways to heighten the intrinsic rewards of the game and further encourage commitment among the players. As such, devotion in chess is explained as a product of the following organizational elements: (1) isolation from competing social spheres; (2) encapsulation within a symbolic status structure; (3) a collective feeling of elite status; (4) trials of worthiness; and (5) prestructured ritual. After considering how these mechanisms operate in the world of chess, I discuss the potential of this expanded model of greedy institutions for future research across other social contexts.     

Perceived Norms and Alcohol Consumption: Differences Between College Students From Rural and Urban High Schools

Objective: The authors examined perceived norms and drinking among college students who attended high schools in rural and urban communities. Participants and Methods: Undergraduates (99 men and 85 women) who attended high schools in communities with populations ranging from less than 100 to more than 400,000 completed surveys assessing perceived norms and alcohol consumption. Results: Analyses revealed that students from smaller towns and in smaller high school graduating classes reported heavier drinking and that perceived norms were positively associated with drinking. Perceived norms were unrelated to population variables, and the relationship between perceived norms and drinking did not vary as a function of population variables. Results suggest that differences in drinking as a function of coming from more rural areas contribute to drinking behavior in college independently of perceived norms. Conclusions: College students may adjust to campus drinking norms relatively quickly, and longitudinal research would be useful in understanding this transition.     

Focusing,implicational scaling,and the dialect status of New York Latino English1

This study examines the status of New York Latino English (NYLE) as a focused systematic dialect versus an unsystematic menu of features, what Benor (2008, 2009, 2010) calls an ‘ethnolinguistic repertoire.’ Systematicity is assessed through implicational scaling, under which high degrees of scaling are assumed to represent high levels of systematicity. Data from 20 young Latino New Yorkers are examined with respect to five variables presenting variants of presumed substrate origin. Results are initially contradictory. Depending on the form of scaling used, NYLE can be seen as only marginally systematic or highly so. The paradox can be resolved in two findings. First, non‐substrate factors obscure substrate effects at low frequencies, particularly in variables that tend to relatively low substrate‐variant‐usage rates. Second, individuals show different degrees of systematicity in variable usage. These findings are neutral about the eventual outcome of NYLE as fitting best a dialect or repertoire model. However, the results further imply that if systematicity is developing in NYLE, then it may follow a pattern of leaders and followers in its organization.     

The Role of Attitude Functions,Efficacy, Anticipated Emotions,and Relationship Status on College Students' Condom Use Intentions

Conducted from the reasoned action perspective, previous research related to condom use generally included a limited number of variables and treated attitudes and self-efficacy as unidimensional constructs. Informed by attitude functions theory and health literature on condom use and anticipated emotions, this project aims to provide a more detailed understanding of college students' intentions to use condoms during sexual intercourse. Results show that relationship status moderated the relationships between several psychological variables and condom use intentions. For female college students negative anticipated emotions were a stronger predictor of condom use intentions for those in monogamous relationships for three months or longer than for those in other relationships or not in a relationship. On the other hand, subjective norms were a stronger predictor of intentions for those in other types of relationship or not in a relationship than for those in a monogamous relationship for three months or longer. For male participants, sexual sensation was a more important, negative predictor of condom use intentions among those in monogamous relationships for three months or longer (versus other relationship status or not in a relationship). Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

A Politicization Paradigm: the Case of Yugoslavia*

This study uses data gathered in Yugoslavia to develop a predictive technique used to determine a person's combined degree of political participation and supporting political attitudes. The primary analytic variables used in the model were the following: (1) urbanness, (2) socioeconomic status, (3) atheism, (4) political consciousness–as determined by a five item index. The data are used to combine these variables into a predictive table which displays smooth linearity from high to low degree of politicization. in accord with the embryonic theory advanced.     

The Estimation of Task Performance and Reward Recommendations as a Function of Status Ranks

Abstract

A recurrent concern among social psychologists is to determine how individuals react to status ranks of others. This study presented 144 college students with a hypothetical situation and asked them to recommend an reward allocation to a person in the situation and to estimate that person's future task performance. Subjects were presented with information about either a diffuse status characteristic (educational level), or specific status characteristic with task relevance (performance on a related task), or both for an individual in comparison to a standard comparison other. When information was available on only one status rank, rewards were allocated and task performance estimated consistent with the single status rank. When information about both status ranks were available, specific status significantly affected both the reward distribution and performance expectations, while diffuse status significantly affected the reward distribution and had a marginally significant effect on performance expectations. The results are discussed in terms of status expectancy theory (Berger et al.), Kimberly's modification and extension of that approach, and equity theory (Adams).     

Aesthetic Labor for the Sociologies of Work,Gender, and Beauty

Amid the growing literature on the costs and rewards of physical appearance for labor market outcomes, an economistic emphasis on looks as an investment strategy has gained prominence. The concept of aesthetic labor is a useful sociological intervention for understanding how the value of certain looks is constructed, and how looks matter for social stratification. Aesthetic labor is the practice of screening, managing, and controlling workers on the basis of their physical appearance. The concept advances research on the service economy by moving beyond a focus on emotions to emphasize worker corporeality. This article first untangles aesthetic labor from related concepts, including body work, emotional labor, and embodied cultural capital. Next is a review of three contexts in which scholars have applied aesthetic labor to the workplace: the organization, freelance labor, and the market. Because it situates the value of beauty in context, aesthetic labor foregrounds those power relations that define aesthetics, such as class, race, and gender. The concept incorporates insights from field theories of bodily capital, such that aesthetic labor denaturalizes beauty and seeks to explain the processes through which looks translate into economic and symbolic rewards.     

Predicting Responses to Volunteering among Adolescents in Israel: The Contribution of Personal and Situational Variables

The study examined positive and negative responses to volunteering (satisfaction with volunteering, perceived contribution to beneficiaries, and burnout) among 102 adolescents in Israel. The conceptual framework for explaining those responses was the ecological approach to the study of human development. In that context, the paper deals with the combined contribution of two ecological systems—the ontogenic system and the microsystem. The ontogenic system included sociodemographic variables (gender and religiosity), as well as empowerment resources. The microsystem included variables related to family context (parental volunteer activity and family support for volunteering), as well as to the context of volunteer activity (perceived rewards, difficulties with volunteering, and professional supervision). Sociodemographic variables and difficulties in relations with the provider organization predicted burnout, whereas rewards and professional supervision predicted satisfaction with volunteering. Empowerment contributed most to explaining volunteers’ perceived contribution to the beneficiaries of services.     

Unsanctioned births in China

This study hypothesizes that "unsanctioned" births (beyond the limit authorized by the government) in China are more likely among couples who have strong traditional fertility norms and less likely among couples who adopt new family planning norms. The theoretical framework is based on cultural conflict theory as developed by Sellin. Data are obtained from 6654 ever married women aged under 49 years from the 1987 In-Depth Fertility Survey for Guangdong province. Over 30% of the sample were married before 20 years of age. 20% had 1 child, 26.7% had 2 children, about 23% had 3 children, 13.9% had 4 children, and under 10% had 5 or more children. The average number of living children was 2.5. Findings reveal that socioeconomic status was significantly related to unsanctioned births; they were more common in less developed areas and among women of lower socioeconomic status (SES). Persons living in areas with a high monetary contribution per person in family planning efforts at the county level were less likely to have unsanctioned births. Women who lived in urban areas, worked in state enterprises, and had parents with high educational status were less likely to have unsanctioned births. They were more likely among women who married at an early age, lived with parents after the marriage, had female living children, and had failed pregnancies. They were also more likely among women who had arranged marriages, a traditional desire for large family sizes, an early marriage ideal, and a preference for sons. Knowledge of family planning and greater use of abortion were related to a lower incidence of unsanctioned births. Women who talked with their husbands about their family size desires were less likely to have unsanctioned births. Parental educational attainment only had an influence among rural women. Variables impacted on fertility differently in urban and rural areas.     

Actor's Status and Conformity to Norms: A Study of Students' Evaluations of Instructors*

The relationship between behavior and interpersonal evaluation is examined from the perspective of role theory. We hypothesize that others' evaluation of a role actor–his or her status–is related to the actor's conformity to their norms. Students in 50 university classes were asked (a) to indicate their expectations for a “typical university instructor” by filling out a 55-item questionnaire which incorporates Jackson's Return Potential Model for measuring normative role phenomena, or (b) to judge the frequency of the class instructor's behavior on the same 55 items. An index was constructed which indicates the degree to which each instructor's behaviors conform to students' expectations for a typical instructor. This index correlated with students' mean evaluation of each instructor: his or her status (r=.64, p<.001). We demonstrate, however, that this relationship between conformity and status holds more strongly for intense, powerful norms, and only for instructors with a moderate rather than a relatively high reputation, that is, estimated status.