bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Resource Variation and the Development of Cohesion in Exchange Networks
Authors: Schaefer David R.
Published: January 2010

Social exchange theories have identified social structural factors and interaction processes that build cohesion through the everyday exchange of valued resources. However, the types of resources considered in previous research do not reflect the properties of many commonly exchanged resources, namely information, social support, and material goods. In this article, I identify two resource dimensions that underlie and affect exchange: (1) duplicability, that is, whether a resource's provider retains control of the resource after exchange and (2) transferability, that is, whether a resource's recipient can exchange the resource in another relation. I present a causal model to explain how these dimensions affect cohesion through the mediating effects of structural power, exchange frequency, and uncertainty. Notably, resource variation alters the source of structural power, making it necessary to specify when different power mechanisms will operate and their disparate effects on the other mediating factors. A laboratory experiment provides support for the causal model. Resource characteristics fundamentally shape both the exchange process and the outcomes actors experience.
What Do These Memories Do? Civil Rights Remembrance and Racial Attitudes
Authors: Griffin Larry J. , Bollen Kenneth A.
Published: January 2010

Scholarly inquiry into collective memory has fostered a host of innovative questions, perspectives, and interpretations about how individuals and communities are both constituted by the past and mobilize it for present-day projects. Race is one of the more important current issues demonstrating how the presence of the past is both potent and sorrowful in the United States. It is therefore critical to examine how memories of racial oppression, conflict, and reconstruction shape race relations. Studies of race relations, however, generally ignore collective memory's role in shaping racial norms and attitudes. This article uses the 1993 General Social Survey to address the silences in the collective memory and race relations literatures by examining how Americans' recollections of the civil rights movement influence their racial attitudes and racial policy preferences. Although we find that Americans' opinions about government programs targeting African Americans are unrelated to civil rights memory, respondents who spontaneously recalled the civil rights struggle and its victories as an especially important historical event generally expressed more racially liberal opinions than did those with different memories. Our findings both support the basic presupposition of collective memory studies—memory matters—and point to a fruitful innovation in the study of racial attitudes.
Radicalism or Reformism? Socialist Parties before World War I
Authors: Marks Gary , Mbaye Heather A. D. , Kim Hyung Min
Published: January 2010

This article builds on social movement theory to explain ideological variation among socialist, social democratic, and labor parties across 18 countries in the early twentieth century. We propose a causal argument connecting (1) the political emergence of the bourgeoisie and its middle-class allies to (2) the political space for labor unions and working-class parties, which (3) provided a setting for internal pressures and external opportunities that shaped socialist party ideology. Combining quantitative analysis and case studies, we find that the timing of civil liberties and the strength of socialist links with labor unions were decisive for reformism or radicalism. Refining Lipset's prior analysis, we qualify his claim that male suffrage provides a key to socialist orientation.
Models and Marginals: Using Survey Evidence to Study Social Networks
Authors: McPherson Miller , Smith-Lovin Lynn , Brashears Matthew E.
Published: January 2010

Fischer (2009) argues that our estimates of confidant network size in the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS), and therefore the trend in confidant network size from 1985 to 2004, are implausible because they are (1) inconsistent with other data and (2) contain internal anomalies that call the data into question. In this note, we assess the evidence for a decrease in confidant network size from 1985 to 2004 in the GSS data. We conclude that any plausible modeling of the data shows a decided trend downward in confidant network size from 1985 to 2004. The features that Fischer calls anomalies are exactly the characteristics described by our models (Table 5) in the original article.
Admitting convicted felons to social work programs: Conceptual dilemmas and practices
Authors: Haski-Leventhal Debbie , Gelles Richard J. , Cnaan Ram A.
Published: January 2010

In this article, we review the ethical and legal dilemmas regarding the admission of convicted felons and study the practices used by American schools of social work. An important finding is that schools that are proactively engaged in asking for and processing felony conviction information are also more ethically engaged.
Further Evidence on Adolescent Employment and Substance Use: Differences by Race and Ethnicity
Authors: Johnson Monica Kirkpatrick
Published: January 2010

In an on-going debate over the consequences of adolescent employment, there is growing agreement that work intensity (i.e., longer hours) fosters underage drinking and other substance use. The current study furthers our understanding of the relationship between hours of employment and substance use in adolescence by testing whether it is evident across racial/ethnic groups. Based on data from two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the study finds that the effects of work intensity on substance use is mostly limited to whites. Work intensity is not consistently related to alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use among minority adolescents.
In Sickness but Not in Health: Self-ratings, Identity, and Mortality
Authors: Idler Ellen , Leventhal Howard , Mclaughlin Julie , Leventhal Elaine
Published: January 2010

Self-rated health as a predictor of mortality has been studied primarily in large, representative populations, with relatively little progress toward understanding the information processing that individuals use to arrive at these ratings. With subsamples of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) Epidemiologic Follow-up Study (NHEFS) data for respondents with circulatory system disease (N = 3,709) and respondents with no diagnosable disorders (N = 1,127) at baseline, we test the idea that individuals with experience of chronic disease of the circulatory system will have more predictive self-ratings of health than healthy individuals. Poor or fair self-rated health increased the adjusted hazard of all-cause mortality for respondents with circulatory system disease, but not for respondents who were healthy. Additional analyses confirm that poor or fair self-rated health is particularly predictive for respondents with self-reported history of circulatory system diagnoses and perception of symptoms, but not for respondents without symptoms or diagnoses prior to the NHANES physical exam.
Body Mass Index, Academic Achievement, and School Context: Examining the Educational Experiences of Adolescents at Risk of Obesity
Authors: Crosnoe Robert , Muller Chandra
Published: January 2010

Reflected self-appraisal suggests that individual functioning is related to the fit between individual characteristics and the norms of their primary contexts. To apply this social psychological concept to the study of obesity, we hypothesized that adolescents at risk of obesity would have lower academic achievement overall than other students, especially in schools in which their weight status was most likely to elicit negative evaluations. Multi-level modeling of nationally representative data revealed that the negative longitudinal association between risk of obesity and achievement was stronger in schools with higher rates of romantic activity and lower average body size among students, two school contexts in which obesity was likely to be stigmatized, but weaker in schools with higher rates of athletic participation, a school context in which such stigmatization was also likely. Additional analyses suggested that this last, unexpected finding reflected a process of niche-picking.
Volunteering and Depression in Later Life: Social Benefit or Selection Processes?
Authors: Li Yunqing , Ferraro Kenneth F.
Published: January 2010

Does volunteer participation reduce depressive symptoms among older people? Does depression influence whether older people will volunteer? Might nonrandom attrition in a longitudinal study bias the relationship between volunteering and depression? This research addresses these questions with three-wave data from the Americans' Changing Lives study. Multigroup structural equation models for complete and incomplete data are used to estimate the joint causal relationship between volunteer work and depression. The results reveal a beneficial effect of formal volunteering on depression, but not for informal helping. Depression was shown to be associated with a subsequent increase in formal volunteering, suggesting voluntarism as a means of compensation. Functional health problems, not depression, emerged as the important barrier to volunteering. In addition, a sample selection effect—depressed persons and nonvolunteers were less likely to complete the panel study—was detected and accounted for in the analysis. The results are discussed in light of the legitimacy of formal social integration.
Conformity and Change: Community Effects on Female Genital Cutting in Kenya
Authors: Hayford Sarah R.
Published: January 2010

In this article, I analyze women's decisions to have their daughters circumcised based on data from 7,873 women in Kenya collected in the 1998 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey. I use multilevel models to assess the degree to which women's decisions are correlated with the decisions of other women in their community, in addition to studying the effects of socioeconomic characteristics measured at both the individual and community levels. I find some support for modernization theories, which argue that economic development leads to gradual erosion of the practice of female circumcision. However, more community-level variation is explained by the convention hypothesis, which proposes that the prevalence of female circumcision will decline rapidly once parents see that a critical mass of other parents have stopped circumcising their daughters. I also find substantial variation among different ethnic groups in the pace and onset of the decline of female genital cutting.
Neighborhood Disorder, Psychophysiological Distress, and Health
Authors: Hill Terrence D. , Ross Catherine E. , Angel Ronald J.
Published: January 2010

How do neighborhoods affect the health of residents? We propose that the impact of neighborhood disorder on self-reported health is mediated by psychological and physiological distress. We hypothesize a stress process in which chronic stressors in the environment give rise to a psychological and physiological stress response that ultimately affects health. The exogenous variable of interest is the neighborhood where disadvantaged persons live, which may expose them to chronic stressors in the form of crime, trouble, harassment, and other potentially distressing signs of disorder and decay. The mediator is the stress response that occurs in the body and brain. Of interest here is a psychological stress response in the form of fearful anxiety and depression, and a physiological stress response in the form of signs and symptoms of autonomic arousal, such as dizziness, chest pains, trouble breathing, nausea, upset stomach, and weakness. The outcome is poor health. This model is supported using data from the Welfare, Children, and Families project, a sample of 2,402 disadvantaged women in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Chicago, Boston, and San Antonio.
A 3-D Model of Health Decline: Disease, Disability, and Depression among Black and White Older Adults
Authors: Kelley-Moore Jessica A. , Ferraro Kenneth F.
Published: January 2010

Much of the research on health decline in older adulthood has specified a single causal direction between two health domains, often measured at the same time point, making it difficult to disentangle the mechanisms of health decline over time. Using three waves of data over seven years from older residents of North Carolina, a 3-D model is used to examine the temporal ordering of general health decline and the pathways of influence across three health domains (disease, disability, and depression). In addition, we test whether the 3-D model of health decline is similar for Black and White older adults. Results indicate that both prevalent and incident disease lead to increases in depression and that prevalent disease leads to greater disability three years later. Depression, in turn, leads to disease, identifying a cycle of health decline that is, for the most part, similar for Black and White older adults. The effect of widowhood is more deleterious to the health of Black older adults than for their White counterparts.
Community Reaction to Persons with HIV/AIDS and Their Parents: An Analysis of Recent Evidence from Thailand
Authors: Vanlandingham Mark J. , Im-Em Wassana , Saengtienchai Chanpen
Published: January 2010

We systematically examine community reaction to persons living with HIV/AIDS (PHAs) and their older parents in Thailand. We focus on parents as well as PHAs because parents are major providers of care for their ill adult children. Our analyses are based on several sources of recently collected survey and qualitative data from a wide range of perspectives. We find important variations in community reaction to PHAs and their families, but overall these reactions are much more positive than is widely assumed. We conclude that much existing research on community reaction to AIDS neglects both a rich body of social theory on stigma and a strong tradition of population-based empirical research in sociology. Much existing research also fails to adequately distinguish between key aspects of the social settings where most AIDS cases occur and the social settings where most of the stereotypes surrounding AIDS-related stigma have originated. A closer marriage between empirical and theoretical approaches to social stigma is required to advance our understanding of this critically important dimension of the AIDS epidemic.
When Do Older Adults Become “Disabled”? Social and Health Antecedents of Perceived Disability in a Panel Study of the Oldest Old
Authors: Kelley-Moore Jessica A. , Schumacher John G. , Kahana Eva , Kahana Boaz
Published: January 2010

Disability carries negative social meaning, and little is known about when (or if), in the process of health decline, persons identify themselves as “disabled.” We examine the social and health criteria that older adults use to subjectively rate their own disability status. Using a panel study of older adults (ages 72+), we estimate ordered probit and growth curve models of perceived disability over time. Total prevalent morbidity, functional limitations, and cognitive impairment are predictors of perceived disability. Cessation of driving and receipt of home health care also influence older adults' perceptions of their own disability. A dense social network slowed the rate of labeling oneself disabled, while health anxiety accelerated the process over time, independent of health status. When considering perceived disability, the oldest old use multidimensional criteria capturing function, recent changes in health status and social networks, and anxiety about their health.
Access to Health Care: Does Neighborhood Residential Instability Matter?
Authors: Kirby James B. , Kaneda Toshiko
Published: January 2010

Many Americans do not have access to adequate medical care. Previous research on this problem focuses primarily on individual-level determinants of access such as income and insurance coverage. The role of community-level factors in helping or hindering individuals in obtaining needed medical care, however, has not received much attention. We address this gap in the literature by investigating the association between neighborhood residential instability and access to health care. Using individual-level data from the 2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and block-group level data from the 2000 decennial census, we find that individuals who live in neighborhoods with high residential turnover have worse health care access than residents of other neighborhoods. This association persists even when the prevalence of poverty, the supply of health care, and a variety of individual characteristics are held constant. We offer explanations for these findings and suggest directions for future research.
How Does Functional Disability Affect Depressive Symptoms in Late Life? The Role of Perceived Social Support and Psychological Resources
Authors: Yang Yang
Published: January 2010

This study examines the process whereby functional disability amplifies depressive symptoms through decreasing perceived social support and psychological resources. The study analyzed two waves of panel data (1986 to 1992) of a large sample of older adults from the National Institutes of Aging Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly. The results of longitudinal change models and path analyses show that the perceived availability of a confidant, satisfaction with support, sense of control, and self-esteem mediate the effects of disability on increments in depressive symptoms in late life. Psychological resources play a dominant role in mediating the effects of functional impairment. Scales of sense of control and self-esteem account for 53 percent of the total effect of baseline disability and 43 percent of the total effect of changes in disability on changes in the CES-D depression scale. Self-esteem appears to be the strongest mediator.
Patients' Race, Ethnicity, Language, and Trust in a Physician
Authors: Stepanikova Irena , Mollborn Stefanie , Cook Karen S. , Thom David H. , Kramer Roderick M.
Published: January 2010

We examine whether racial/ethnic/language-based variation in measured levels of patients' trust in a physician depends on the survey items used to measure that trust. Survey items include: (1) a direct measure of patients' trust that the doctor will put the patient's medical needs above all other considerations, and (2) three indirect measures of trust asking about expectations for specific physician behaviors, including referring to a specialist, being influenced by insurance rules, and performing unnecessary tests. Using a national survey, we find lower scores on indirect measures of trust in a physician among minority users of health care services than among non-Hispanic white users. In contrast, the direct measure of trust does not differ among non-Hispanic whites and non-whites once we control for potential confounding factors. The results indicate that racial/ethnic/language-based differences exist primarily in those aspects of patients' trust in a physician that reflect specific physician behaviors.
Self-Referent Constructs and Medical Sociology: In Search of an Integrative Framework
Authors: Kaplan Howard B.
Published: January 2010

A theoretical framework centering on four classes of self-referent constructs is offered as a device for integrating the diverse areas constituting medical sociology. Guidance by this framework sensitizes the researcher to the occurrence of parallel processes in adjacent disciplines, facilitates recognition of the etiological significance of findings from other disciplines for explaining medical sociological phenomena, and encourages transactions between sociology and medical sociology whereby each informs and is informed by the other.
Health Care Proxies: Whom Do Young Old Adults Choose and Why?
Authors: Carr Deborah , Khodyakov Dmitry
Published: January 2010

Dying persons are encouraged to name as durable power of attorney for health care (DPAHC) someone who will thus be empowered to make end-of-life treatment decisions for them in the event that they become incapacitated. We use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study to investigate whether and whom older adults designate as their DPAHC. DPAHC appointments are affected by recent hospitalizations, personal beliefs (including religion, fear of death, and the belief that doctors rather than patients should control health care decisions), and personal experience with the recent painful death of a loved one. The selections of DPAHC designees are generally consistent with the hierarchical compensatory model: Married persons overwhelmingly name their spouses, while unmarried parents appoint their children. Women are more likely than men to rely on children. Parents of one or two children tend to bypass their children for another relative. Unmarried, childless persons show considerable heterogeneity in their choices. We discuss implications of these findings for health care policy and practice.
Barrios and Burbs: Residential Context and Health-Risk Behaviors among Angeleno Adolescents
Authors: Frank Reanne , Cerdá Magdalena , Rendón Maria
Published: January 2010

The increasing size of the Latino immigrant population in the United States underscores the need for a more complete understanding of the role that social context plays in influencing the health of immigrants and their children. This analysis explores the possibility that residential location influences the health-risk behaviors of Latino youth in Los Angeles County, California. The data come from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey. We apply multivariate, multilevel Rasch models to two scales of adolescent health-risk behaviors (substance use and delinquency). The findings suggest that residence in Census tracts characterized by above-county-average levels of Latinos and above-county-average levels of poverty is associated with increased odds of health-risk behaviors for Latino adolescents, particularly for those born in the United States. The findings lend support to the contention, put forth in the segmented assimilation literature, that disadvantaged urban contexts increase the risk that U.S.-born children of immigrants will experience downward assimilation.
Violence and the Costs of Caring for a Family Member with Severe Mental Illness
Authors: Thompson Maxine Seaborn
Published: January 2010

Drawing on the stress paradigm and using data from the Duke Mental Health Study, this paper investigates the links between violence by and against persons with severe mental illness and their caregivers' financial burden (e.g., number of financial contributions and perceived financial strain). In addition to violence, substance use and medication noncompliance are included in a series of multivariate regression models predicting caregiver financial burden that include measures for disruptive behaviors, personal needs, social supports, and caregiver characteristics. The findings show that violent perpetration and violent victimization increase the number of financial contributions and perceived financial strain. Nonviolent victimization, in contrast, decreases caregiver financial burden. Number of financial contributions and perceived financial strain are greatest when the family member is violent and extremely disruptive or needs assistance with personal care. Neither substance use nor medication noncompliance contributed to caregiver financial burden. Co-residence, female sex, parenthood, and instrumental social support were also associated with financial burden.
Homelessness and Hunger
Authors: Lee Barrett A. , Greif Meredith J.
Published: January 2010

We employ data from the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients to examine the character and correlates of hunger among homeless people. Our analysis, couched in an adaptation framework, finds more support for the differentiation hypothesis than for the leveling hypothesis: Complex patterns of food insecurity exist at the individual level, and they vary with the resources available (e.g., higher monthly income, regular shelter use) and obstacles faced (e.g., alcohol, drug, and physical and mental health problems). The chronically homeless, who suffer from multiple deficits, appear particularly food-insecure, a finding that favors the desperation hypothesis over its street-wisdom alternative. We conclude that hunger is not uniformly experienced by members of the homeless population. Rather, some individuals are better situated than others to cope with the stressful nature of homelessness when addressing their sustenance needs.
Electronic Support Groups, Patient-Consumers, and Medicalization: The Case of Contested Illness
Authors: Barker Kristin K.
Published: January 2010

This article illustrates the role electronic support groups play in consumer-driven medicalization. The analysis is based on an observational study of a year in the life of an electronic support group for sufferers of the contested illness fibromyalgia syndrome. The analysis builds on and extends scholarship concerning the growing influence of lay expertise in the context of medical uncertainty by showing how the dominant beliefs and routine practices of this electronic community simultaneously (and paradoxically) challenge the expertise of physicians and encourage the expansion of medicine's jurisdiction. Drawing on their shared embodied expertise, participants confirm the medical character of their problem and its remedy, and they empower each other to search for physicians who will recognize and treat their condition accordingly. Physician compliance is introduced as a useful concept for understanding the relationship between lay expertise, patient-consumer demand, and contemporary (and future) instances of medicalization.
The Resources That Matter: Fundamental Social Causes of Health Disparities and the Challenge of Intelligence
Authors: Link Bruce G. , Phelan Jo C. , Miech Richard , Westin Emily Leckman
Published: January 2010

A robust and very persistent association between indicators of socioeconomic status (SES) and the onset of life-threatening disease is a prominent concern of medical sociology. The persistence of the association over time and its generality across very different places suggests that no fixed set of intervening risk and protective factors can account for the connection. Instead, fundamental-cause theory views SES-related resources of knowledge, money, power, prestige, and beneficial social connections as flexible resources that allow people to avoid risks and adopt protective strategies no matter what the risk and protective factors are in a given place or time. Recently, however, intelligence has been proposed as an alternative flexible resource that could fully account for the association between SES and health and thereby find its place as the epidemiologists' “elusive fundamental cause” (Gottfredson 2004). We examine the direct effects of intelligence test scores and adult SES in two data sets containing measures of intelligence, SES, and health. In analyses of prospective data
Health and the Educational Attainment of Adolescents: Evidence from the NLSY97
Authors: Haas Steven A. , Fosse Nathan Edward
Published: January 2010

This article examines the mechanisms linking health to the educational attainment of adolescents. In particular, it investigates the role of cognitive/academic achievement and a variety of psychosocial adjustment factors in explaining this relationship. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort (NLSY97), we estimate models of timely high school completion and of post-secondary enrollment using both standard logit estimation and sibling fixed-effects models. We find that, net of sociodemographic background and stable unobserved family characteristics, adolescents who experience worse health are substantially less likely to complete high school by their 20th birthday and to transition to post-secondary education. Cognitive/academic achievement and psychosocial factors appear to explain a large portion of these health-related educational deficits. However, adolescent health continues to be significantly associated with these key educational transitions. The findings highlight a potentially important role of health selection processes in generating socioeconomic inequalities in early adolescence to young adulthood.
Workplace Support, Role Overload, and Job Satisfaction of Direct Care Workers in Assisted Living
Authors: Chou Rita Jing-Ann , Robert Stephanie A.
Published: January 2010

This study aims to enhance our understanding of job satisfaction of direct care workers in assisted living facilities. Low job satisfaction is related to high turnover rates and lower quality of care in assisted living. We integrate two theories of job satisfaction to investigate relationships among workplace support, role overload, and job satisfaction. Data are from a survey of 984 direct care workers in 108 assisted living facilities. Results from multilevel hierarchical linear models (HLM) indicate that job satisfaction varies both within and among facilities. Job satisfaction is negatively associated with role overload, and it is positively associated with institutional support, supervisor instrumental and emotional support, and coworker emotional support. These workplace support measures and role overload are separately and independently associated with job satisfaction. Enhancing job satisfaction of assisted living direct care workers will likely require a multipronged approach that includes improving institutional, supervisor, and coworker support while simultaneously directly addressing role overload.
Relational Demography in the Workplace and Health: An Analysis of Gender and the Subordinate–Superordinate Role-Set
Authors: Schieman Scott , Mcmullen Taralyn
Published: January 2010

Using data from a 2005 national survey of working adults in the United States, we examine the effects of the gender composition of the superordinate–subordinate role-set on mental and physical health measures. Subordinates' and superordinates' genders are important determinants. Men who work in gender-mixed superordinate contexts (i.e., with one male and one female superior) report lower levels of distress and physical symptoms than men who work with one male superior. Women who work with one male superior report less distress and fewer physical symptoms compared to women who work with one female superior or in gender-mixed superordinate contexts. With a few exceptions, these observations generally hold net of occupation, job sector, and an array of work-related conditions. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of predictions derived from the similarity-attraction and role congruity theories. We also outline ways that theoretical development in relational demography can be refined by a more specific focus on the demographic characteristics—especially gender—of the superordinate—subordinate role-set.
Similar Pressures, Different Contexts: Public Attitudes toward Government Intervention for Health Care in 21 Nations
Authors: Kikuzawa Saeko , Olafsdottir Sigrun , Pescosolido Bernice A.
Published: January 2010

Health care systems worldwide are experiencing similar pressures such as rising cost, aging populations, and increased burden of disease. While policy makers in all countries face these challenges, their responses must consider local pressures, particularly the implicit social contract between the state, medicine, and insurers. We argue that public attitudes provide a window into the social context in which policy decisions are embedded. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), we compare public attitudes toward government involvement in health care in 21 countries, testing the associations between various nationallevel variables (e.g., health care expenditures, aging of population, health care traditions) and public opinions. Specifically, we posit four national-level hypotheses (“health care traditions,” “expenditure crisis,” “demographic crisis,” “changing disease profile crisis”), one individual-level hypothesis (“individual vulnerability”), and two cross-level hypotheses (“cultural socialization” and “health care need”). Our findings indicate that public attitudes cluster around the historical organization of health care, but also relate to current economic and demographic realities. Individuals in countries adopting the “National Health Service Model” (the state directly provides health care but complete state control is absent) or the “Centralized Model” (the state directly provides health care and has much control) are more supportive of government involvement in health care than those in the “Insurance Model” (the state is limited to maintenance of the system) countries. However, citizens in countries currently spending more on health care and having a greater burden of chronic illness are less supportive. Our results cast doubt on arguments that increased cost will result in a questioning of the contract between the state and citizens in the social provision of health care. We end by discussing implications for recent work in political sociology that highlights the importance of public attitudes.
Family Antecedents and Consequences of Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms from Adolescence to Young Adulthood: A Life Course Investigation
Authors: Wickrama K. A. S. , Conger Rand D. , Lorenz Frederick O. , Jung Tony
Published: January 2010

Using prospective data from 485 adolescents over a 10-year period, the present study identifies distinct segments of depressive symptom trajectories—a nonsignificant slope during adolescence and a significant negative slope during the transition to adulthood. The study hypothesized that different age-graded life experiences would differentially influence these depressive symptom growth parameters. The findings show that early stressful experiences associated with family-of-origin SES affect the initial level of depressive symptoms. Experiences with early transitional events during adolescence explain variation in the slope of depressive symptoms during the transition to adulthood. The growth parameters of depressive symptoms and an early transition from adolescence to adulthood constrain young adult social status attainment. Consistent with the life-course perspective, family-of-origin adversity is amplified across the life-course by successively contingent adverse circumstances involving life-transition difficulties and poor mental health. The findings also provide evidence for intergenerational transmission of social adversity through health trajectories and social pathways.
Neighborhood Disorder, Subjective Alienation, and Distress
Authors: Ross Catherine E. , Mirowsky John
Published: January 2010

Living in a threatening, noxious, and dangerous neighborhood may produce anxiety, anger, and depression because it is subjectively alienating. We hypothesize that neighborhood disorder represents ambient threat that elicits perceptions of powerlessness, normlessness, mistrust, and isolation. These perceptions in turn lead to anxious and angry agitation, and depressed exhaustion. We use data from the 1995 Community, Crime, and Health survey, a probability sample of 2,482 adults in Illinois, with a follow-up survey in 1998. We find that perceived neighborhood disorder is associated with high levels of anxiety, anger, and depression. Personal victimization mediates about 10 percent of the association. The rest of the association is mediated primarily by mistrust and, secondarily, by perceived powerlessness. Normlessness reflects neighborhood disorder, but it appears to have little influence on distress. Social isolation has trade-offs in its connections to neighborhood disorder and to distress.
Identities and Social Structure: The 2003 Cooley-Mead Award Address
Authors: Burke Peter J.
Published: January 2010

The present paper examines existing links between identities and the social structure in the context of identity control theory. I point out that, whether social structure is conceived as positions (roles and group memberships) to which identities are tied, or as the human organization of resource flows and transfers that are controlled by the identity verification process, identities and social structure are two sides of the same coin. Building on this theme, I develop hypotheses that explore some of the implications of this identity—social structure link. Some hypotheses suggest contexts in which identity change is likely; others explore the various consequences of identity verification, which depend on the different ways in which identities are tied to the social structure.
Status As a Valued Resource
Authors: Huberman Bernardo A. , Loch Christoph H. , ÖNçüler Ayse
Published: January 2010

The striving for status has long been recognized in sociology and economics. Extensive theoretical arguments and empirical evidence propose that people view status as a sign of competence and pursue it as a means to achieve power and resources. A small literature, however, based on arguments from biology and evolutionary psychology, proposes that people pursue status as an (emotional) goal in itself, independent of competence and expressed by culturally flexible symbols. We present results of an experiment with human subjects from five different national cultures. We found that the subjects valued status independently of any monetary consequence and were willing to trade off some material gain to obtain it. Although this result was stable across the five cultures, the intensity of the striving for status and the desirability of a public display of status varied strongly: the intensity of the status motive corresponded to Hofstede's power distance index of the respective culture. Finally, the amount of status seeking observed differed for men and for women, a preliminary but intriguing observation that deserves further study.
Activating Performance Expectations and Status Differences Through Gift Exchange: Experimental Results
Authors: Bienenstock Elisa Jayne , Bianchi Alison J.
Published: January 2010

Early theoretical work on social exchange focused on how exchange relations generate social structural outcomes. Specifically, gift giving was said to evoke status structures. No experimental evidence exists to verify or refute the notion that gift giving during exchange processes generates status hierarchies. We present experimental results demonstrating the emergence of status inequalities directly from social exchanges in dyads. Our findings support the assertion that the receiving of a gift causes the recipient to feel deferential toward the exchange partner. More formally, we demonstrate how gift giving, linked to a behavioral interchange pattern, has the capacity to induce differential performance expectations. These results are a first step toward testing the theory that status is an emergent property of exchange.
Seeing Disorder: Neighborhood Stigma and the Social Construction of “Broken Windows”
Authors: Sampson Robert J. , Raudenbush Stephen W.
Published: January 2010

This article reveals the grounds on which individuals form perceptions of disorder. Integrating ideas about implicit bias and statistical discrimination with a theoretical framework on neighborhood racial stigma, our empirical test brings together personal interviews, census data, police records, and systematic social observations situated within some 500 block groups in Chicago. Observed disorder predicts perceived disorder, but racial and economic context matter more. As the concentration of minority groups and poverty increases, residents of all races perceive heightened disorder even after we account for an extensive array of personal characteristics and independently observed neighborhood conditions. Seeing disorder appears to be imbued with social meanings that go well beyond what essentialist theories imply, generating self-reinforcing processes that may help account for the perpetuation of urban racial inequality.
Assessment, Objectivity, and Interaction: The Case of Patient Compliance With Medical Treatment Regimens
Authors: Lutfey Karen
Published: January 2010

Much of the daily work of professional organizations is accomplished via interaction between representatives of those institutions and laypeople. Scholars of talk in institutional settings have argued that lay-professional interaction is often assumed mistakenly to operate as a neutral conduit for professionals to gain information relevant to their work. I use the case of doctor-patient interaction to examine how patient compliance with diabetes treatment is assessed in interaction. Despite the abundance of research on patient compliance, the approaches to this work show a conceptual uniformity stemming from the notion that noncompliance is a matter of individually based, essential behaviors. Using conversation analysis, I draw attention to the ways in which compliance is produced jointly in and through institutional talk. As a result, I seek to elaborate two extant literatures: interdisciplinary research on patient compliance as an aspect of health behavior, and social psychological literature on attitudes and behavior.
Participation in Household and Paid Labor: Effects on Perceptions of Role-Taking Ability
Authors: Cast Alicia D. , Bird Sharon R.
Published: January 2010

Our work contributes to research on variation in role-taking by investigating changes in perceptions of role-taking ability over time as a result of exposure to situations and activities typically associated with others; that is, we investigate how “walking in others' shoes” contributes to individuals' perceptions of role-taking ability. Using a sample of newly married couples, we examine the effects of participation in nonnormative domains on such perceptions. We suggest that the more husbands participate in household labor activities, the more they will perceive that they can role-take with their wives; the more wives participate in paid labor activities, the more they will perceive that they can role-take with their husbands. We find, however, that these effects depend on the couple's gender ideology; this point suggests that individuals must be open to the knowledge such experiences provide. We consider the implications of our findings for research on the division of family labor.
When Status Equals Make Status Claims
Authors: Whitmeyer Joseph M. , Webster Murray , Slattery Rashotte Lisa
Published: January 2010

Several studies have shown that second-order expectations, an interactant's perceptions of a coactor's self-other expectations, can affect the receiving actor's performance expectations and behavior. Using new theoretical developments, we report new data and further tests of three models concerning effects of coactors' expressed expectations. Prior work focused on interaction of individuals differing in status; here we study interacting status equals. Results show that a simple aggregation model, with parameters estimated in an earlier study, predicts results very accurately.
Mattering and Suicide Ideation: Establishing and Elaborating a Relationship
Authors: Elliott Gregory C. , Colangelo Melissa F. , Gelles Richard J.
Published: January 2010

Mattering is the belief that one makes a difference in the lives of others. We explore the effect of mattering on adolescent suicide ideation. The data source is the 2000 Youth At Risk Survey, composed of interviews with 2,004 youths, age 11–18 and screening interviews with their parents. Our analysis reveals that those who matter more are significantly less likely to consider suicide. In addition, we elaborate the relationship between mattering and suicide ideation by postulating a series of intervening variables (self-esteem and depression): mattering influences levels of self-esteem, which in turn influences depression, which ultimately leads to suicide ideation. Results demonstrate that mattering is mediated fully by these intervening variables, and that self-esteem is the primary source of the mediation. We discuss the implications of these results for adolescents' self-concepts.
Surprise As an Interactional Achievement: Reaction Tokens in Conversation
Authors: Wilkinson Sue , Kitzinger Celia
Published: January 2010

The expression of surprise—at something unexpected—is a key form of emotional display. Focusing on displays of surprise performed by means of reaction tokens (akin to Goffman's “response cries”), such as wow, gosh, oh my god, ooh!, phew, we use an ethnomethodological, conversation-analytic approach to analyze surprise in talk-in-interaction. Our key contribution is to detach the psychology of surprise from its social expression by showing how co-conversationalists collaborate to bring off an interactionally achieved performance of surprise. Far from being a visceral eruption of emotion, the production of a surprise token is often prepared for several turns in advance. We also show how surprise can be recycled on an occasion subsequent to its initial production, and how surprise displays may be delayed by silence, ritualized disbelief, and other repair initiations. Finally, we consider some of the uses of surprise as an interactional resource, including its role in the reflection and reproduction of culture.
Stigma Sentiments and Self-Meanings: Exploring the Modified Labeling Theory of Mental Illness
Authors: Kroska Amy , Harkness Sarah K.
Published: January 2010

We introduce “stigma sentiments” as a way to operationalize the cultural conceptions of the mentally ill. Stigma sentiments are the evaluation, potency, and activity (EPA) associated with the cultural category “a mentally ill person.” We find consistent support for the validity of the evaluation and potency components as measures of these conceptions. We also demonstrate the validity of EPA ratings of self-identities (“myself as I really am”) and reflected appraisals (“myself as others see me”) as measures of self-meaning among psychiatric patients. Then we assess hypotheses derived from the modified labeling theory of mental illness: we expect each stigma sentiment to be related positively to the corresponding dimension of self-identities and reflected appraisals among psychiatric patients but unrelated to the corresponding dimension among non-patients. We find support for 13 of the 18 components to these hypotheses. We also find three cross-dimensional results that were not anticipated. The results suggest that the cultural conceptions of the mentally ill do affect the self-meanings of individuals diagnosed with a mental disorder, although the connection is sometimes more complex than a one-to-one relationship between a stigma sentiment and its corresponding dimension of self-meaning.
Traditional and Health-Related Philanthropy: The Role of Resources and Personality
Authors: Bekkers René
Published: January 2010

I study the relationships of resources and personality characteristics to charitable giving, postmortem organ donation, and blood donation in a nationwide sample of persons in households in the Netherlands. I find that specific personality characteristics are related to specific types of giving: agreeableness to blood donation, empathic concern to charitable giving, and prosocial value orientation to postmortem organ donation. I find that giving has a consistently stronger relation to human and social capital than to personality. Human capital increases giving; social capital increases giving only when it is approved by others. Effects of prosocial personality characteristics decline at higher levels of these characteristics. Effects of empathic concern, helpfulness, and social value orientations on generosity are mediated by verbal proficiency and church attendance.