America's Most Important Problem--A Trend Analysis, 1946-1976

Using an extremely rich data series, this paper traces trendsin America's most important problem from 1946 to 1976. Bothlong-term and short-term changes in public concern are charted.Additionally, the problem profiles of major sociodemographicgroups are analyzed. Changes in the problem concerns of thesegroups are also followed across time.     

You Are What You Eat: Slow Food USA's Constitutive Public Relations

This article employs a constitutive, or meaning-generating, approach to investigate how the Slow Food USA social movement employs public relations to counter commercial food industry messages. It argues that Slow Food successfully employs the rhetorical public relations techniques of definition, identification through narrative building, and enactment to build relationships and attract broader support of the sustainable food movement, to translate its somewhat lofty messages to mainstream audiences, and to encourage supporters to live the Slow Food lifestyle. Examining Slow Food's public relations through a rhetorical approach expands theory and practice by answering the call to explore how noncorporate entities successfully use public relations techniques.     

It's Not What You Do,But Who You Are: Informal Social Control,Social Status,and Normative Seriousness in Organizations

This paper analyzes the impact of managerial social status on the normative evaluation of managerial acts in organizational contexts. We test several propositions on the relationship between social status and normative evaluation derived from Donald Black's theoretical framework on social control. The research design consists of a factorial survey of 200 managers. Each respondent evaluated the seriousness of a normatively questionable managerial act. In each vignette, the perpetrator's social status was systematically manipulated in either a high or a low condition. The results generally support the argument that the higher a manager's social status the less vulnerable that individual is to unfavorable normative evaluations, holding constant the act. The paper closes with discussion of our findings in light of social structural and rational choice perspectives on informal social control in organizations. Additionally, we discuss methodological issues related to experimental research on informal social control in organizations, the consistency of our findings with those from previous studies of social control across diverse settings, potential theoretical applications and extensions of Black's framework in organizational contexts, and practical implications for the implementation of corporate codes of conduct and corporate dispute resolution systems.     

恒定的祈求与流变的体验——《非诚勿扰》节目及其走红的社会心理探源

本文以心理学的视角透视《非诚勿扰》节目及其走红背后包含的诸多社会心理根源：当代大众的自我认同焦虑;社会性别刻板印象固着;社会转型时期,“80后”的情感守望;受信息噪声影响的社会人际信任危机。     

When Conceiving and Developing Intergenerational Programs,the Most Important Guide Is a Clear,Structured Intervention Plan,Established Before the Program Begins

ABSTRACT

THE FATHER FACTOR: HOW YOUR FATHER'S LEGACY IMPACTS YOUR CAREER, by Stephan B. Poulter. Reviewed by Nancy L. Ashton.     

The Polls: America's Most Important Problems Part I: National and International

Researchers who use surveys and long psychological instrumentsassume that response sets are constant over time. Data fromthree studies are presented that challenge this assumption.Questionnaires of different response formats, subjects, andtopics were used. Correlations of the response sets across adjacenttime periods formed a simplex, suggesting that the responsesets across adjacent time periods were more similar than theresponse sets across distant time periods. The implicationsof the instability of response sets for the interpretation ofsocial science findings obtained with long instruments are explored.     

Sing for me,Mama! Infants' discrimination of novel vowels in song

When adults speak or sing with infants, they sound differently than in adult communication. Infant-directed (ID) communication helps caregivers to regulate infants' emotions and helps infants to process speech information, at least from ID-speech. However, it is largely unclear whether infants might also process speech information presented in ID-singing. Therefore, we examined whether infants discriminate vowels in ID-singing, as well as potential differences with ID-speech. Using an alternating trial preference procedure, infants aged 4–6 and 8–10 months were tested on their discrimination of an unfamiliar non-native vowel contrast presented in ID-like speech and singing. Relying on models of early speech sound perception, we expected that infants in their first half year of life would discriminate the vowels, in contrast to older infants whose non-native sound perception should deteriorate, at least in ID-like speech. Our results showed that infants of both age groups were able to discriminate the vowels in ID-like singing, while only the younger group discriminated the vowels in ID-like speech. These results show that infants process speech sound information in song from early on. They also hint at diverging perceptual or attentional mechanisms guiding infants' sound processing in ID-speech versus ID-singing toward the end of the first year of life.     

Are You A Terrorist? Comparing Security Screening for Iraqi Asylum Seekers in the United States and Sweden

How can countries balance demands for national security while remaining committed to humanitarian protection? In 2016, the United States and European Union agreed to resettle significant numbers of refugees. Some politicians, including President Trump, argued that refugees are a security threat, even though there are few refugees connected to terrorism. This article investigates how the United States and Sweden screened for terrorism with Iraqi asylum seekers from 2003‐2013, in order to discover how states balance protection and security. This study finds significant policy convergence in three areas (security checks and databases, interagency cooperation, and safety valve programmes), but retains different definitions of terrorism. Policy convergence was driven by international law, UNHCR guidance notes, and international conferences. The study concludes by discussing the policy implications for “extreme vetting” and the use of future safety valve programmes.

Policy Implications

• From 2003‐2013, both the US and Sweden added new security checks, databases, and interagency cooperation. One lesson is that in response to perceived security threats, states often add new layers of bureaucracy and technologies, resulting in slower, more burdensome processes.
• To overcome these barriers, both the US and Sweden created safety value immigration programmes to relieve the pressure from overwhelming demand from Iraqi asylum‐seekers. Policymakers should consider the strategic use of safety valve programmes to speed up processing, allocate additional resources, and provide temporary protection without revising the wider immigration systems.

     

Are You Sitting Comfortably Then We'll Begin: Three Gripping Policy Stories About Pension Reform

Throughout the 1990s, the issue of how to secure pension systems in the face of demographic change has been high on policy agendas in many countries. Yet, reforming pension systems has, more often than not, proved to be a particularly difficult and awkward political undertaking. The following article explores one of the many possible reasons why pension reform in Europe has been so arduous for the would-be reformers. After briefly reviewing some basic concepts and issues involved in reforming social security systems, the paper concentrates on how policy actors at international level have constructed the pension policy issue. Specifically, the paper reviews three pension reform policy stories. Each of the stories starts from differing assumptions, produces contradictory prognoses of the pension problem, and prescribes diverging policy solutions. Significantly, each policy story provides a normative vision of a 'good' pension reform. Thus, policy stories provide templates for producing plausible policy arguments in politiucal debates: yet, thay do so by weaving scientific knowledge, 'objective' fact and normative convictions about social welfare systems into a seamless rhetorical fabric. The final section, then, looks at the seams by analysing the more contentious assumptions of the different policy arguments.     

Mom,I Understand You

To celebrate Mother's Day, the editors of Society Weekly(published by People's Daily) invited their readers to write and submit A Sentence for Mother. This activity, which was co-sponsored by the Program of Happiness, garnered quite an emotional response. Among the contributions we received were several from the 21 students of Class Three, Grade Two of the high school affiliated with the Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology. Mother, you are a towering tree and I am your shadow. —ZHANG YE Mother, you are an umbrella, and we are the children under it. You are the pod, and we are the peas.—XU JING     

If You Want People to Listen to You,Tell a Story

We hypothesized that (a) when people share a meaningful story, as opposed to when they share information, they make their partner listen well, and (b) that narrative-induced listening is positively associated with speakers’ psychological safety and negatively associated with their social anxiety. In Study 1 (N = 45), we showed that a meaningful story is perceived much more as a narrative and higher in narrative quality than two types of informational-discourses (telling about daily routine and describing buildings). In Study 2 (N = 52), we randomly asked participants to either share a meaningful story or tell about their daily routine. The participants sharing a meaningful story reported that their interlocutor was a better listener, d = 0.61, 95% CI |0.32, 0.92|. In Study 3 (N = 42), we compared the effect of sharing a meaningful story to describing buildings, and replicated the results of Study 2, d = 1.10, 95% CI |0.61, 1.59|. Moreover, we found that the perceived listening, which was induced by the narrative, mediated the manipulation effects on psychological safety, and social anxiety. Thus, we concluded that when speakers share meaningful stories they make their partner listen well and consequently experience higher psychological safety and lower feelings of social anxiety.     

Voluntary Associations and Social Network Structure: Why Organizational Location and Type Are Important

Sociological Forum - Are voluntary associations integrative forces in our society because they promote diverse social ties, or do they primarily promote ties between socially similar people? The...     

The Gender Gap in Canada: Now You See It,Now You Don't*

Nous examinons les attitudes des Canadiens entre 1965 et 1990 afin d'établir l'ampleur et l'orientation du changement d'attitudes devant des enjeux qui produisent généralement des différences d'opinions entre hommes et femmes. Nous observons de plus en plus d'écarts d'opinions entre les deux sexes en ce qui concerne la force et la violence, et la sécurité sociale, mais non le féminisme et l'égalité. Les plus grandes différences se trouvent chez les jeunes, les personnes ayant étudiéà l'université et les individus qui ont un emploi. De plus, les divergences d'opinions entre les deux sexes quant aux enjeux féministes surgissent lorsque ces variables sont contrôlées. Nous en concluons que l'évolution des différences d'opinions entre hommes et femmes est influencée par l'interaction entre le changement des rôles et la socialisation en raison du féminisme et nous suggérons que les jeunes, l'éducation et l'emploi contri-buent à la création d'une conscience commune chez les femmes. We examine Canadian attitudes between 1965 and 1990 to determine the magnitude and direction of attitudinal change on traditional gender gap producing issues. We discover growing differences in aggregate attitudes towards force and violence and social welfare, but not feminism and equality. The greatest gender gaps appear among young, university-educated, and employed people. Furthermore, gender gaps on feminist issues appear with controls for these variables. We conclude that changing gender gaps result from the interaction of role change and socialization by the women's movement and suggest that youth, education and paid employment combine to create a gender consciousness among women.     

Are You Truly a Recovering Dope Fiend? Local Interpretive Practices at a Therapeutic Community Drug Treatment Program

Previous qualitative research on treatment programs for drug addiction/alcoholism has primarily focused on those processes whereby participants are expected to construct a new sense of self according to institutional parameters. The present article builds on that research and explores how contemporary programs attempt to resolve the problem that it is almost impossible to tell if someone has engaged in this self‐construction process. Informed by five months of ethnographic fieldwork at an adult residential drug treatment facility, the article asks: under what circumstances do program members call into doubt a client's efforts to create an institutional self, and how do they express this skepticism? The article reveals that staff and clients employ a set of local interpretive practices about community and emotions to assess whether clients are constructing the institutional self of a “recovering dope fiend.” It specifically considers how they interpret a client's emotional displays to represent that client's current self under construction. That is, a client's ability to control anger appropriately or to handle anxiety demonstrates s/he is effectively “doing the program” of self‐construction.     

Mabel Agnes Elliott,We Hardly Knew You

Sociologist Mabel Agnes Elliott was elected the fourth president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems in 1956–1957 and was the first woman to hold this position. She was an anti-war activist, a feminist and a creative and diligent writer. Yet she experienced many challenges. The Federal Bureau of Investigation kept an active file on Elliott for approximately 30 years, she was the victim of discrimination by her male colleagues at the University of Kansas where she spent much of her career and Professor Robert E. L. Faris used many of the ideas from her Social Disorganization textbook without attribution. In spite of her research productivity her salary was frozen for 18 years. Once she began teaching women at Chatham College she found an institution that appreciated her many talents and rewarded her appropriately. Even so, in a male-dominated discipline, her contributions to criminology and social disorganization have been nearly forgotten.