Interactionist Theories of Emotion

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Doyle McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Cultural Influence ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Culture Theory ◽  
Entire Domain ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Sociocultural Processes

Classical and contemporary developments in the study of culture are examined for ways to conceptualize emotion(s) and to frame their study. The foundation of this approach is found in early social pragmatism and interactionism, both of which view the structuring of mind, self, and emotion as sociocultural processes. The same principles are found in contemporary arguments about emotions and subjectivity made by ‟constructionist” works in psychology and social science as well as in culture theory today. These approaches have given greater emphasis to the study of everyday beliefs of social actors, arguing that the entire domain of subjectivity is not (as commonly understood) devoid of social and cultural influence. Rather, subjectivity itself is “socially constructed.” In this way and in others, pragmatist social psychology and contemporary culture theory have both enlarged and changed the idea of subjectivity from something isolated and unique and purely individual to something shared and observable. Subjectivity’s continual formation and development take place in society in interaction with others. Accordingly, emotions and the ways they are experienced exist within socially and historically variable cultures, implying that people’s ideas about what emotions are and what they mean vary across cultures as well as within cultures.

A Sociological Critique and Reformulation of Brands

2019 ◽  
pp. 126-149
Author(s):  
Thomas C. O’Guinn ◽  
Albert M. Muñiz ◽  
Erika Paulson
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Culture Theory ◽  
Research Traditions ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Consumer Culture Theory ◽  
Traditional Sociology

In just under 150 years, societies have changed from having very few brands to having almost everything branded or brandable. How, and why don’t we know more about it? This chapter provides a much-deserved critique of extant brand thought and highlights the considerable need for a sociological conception of brands. Analyzing brands as vessels of popular meaning used for promoting things, places, people, and ideas, the chapter also questions how existing research traditions restrict and retard the development of a meaningful social science of brands. Too much attention to social psychology and to consumer culture theory, and too little to traditional sociology, has meant that the general social and political processes that generate, animate, and transform brands have been sacrificed to the priorities of these dominant research traditions in marketing departments. We offer this critique in order to identify opportunities for generating empirical research tying together society, politics, and markets.

scholarly journals Social Science Perspective on Artificial Intelligence

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Lindgren ◽  
Jonny Holmström
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Societal Context ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Human Actors

In this article, we discuss and outline a research agenda for social science research on artificial intelligence. We present four overlapping building blocks that we see as keys for developing a perspective on AI able to unpack the rich complexities of sociotechnical settings. First, the interaction between humans and machines must be studied in its broader societal context. Second, technological and human actors must be seen as social actors on equal terms. Third, we must consider the broader discursive settings in which AI is socially constructed as a phenomenon with related hopes and fears. Fourth, we argue that constant and critical reflection is needed over how AI, algorithms and datafication affect social science research objects and methods. This article serves as the introduction to this JDSR special issue about social science perspectives on AI.

Social Response to Age-Gap Sex Involving Minors

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-125
Author(s):  
Bruce Rind
Keyword(s):  
Moral Panic ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Social Response ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Scarlet Letter ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Age Gap ◽  
The Us ◽  
Trauma Response

Social response to age‐gap sex involving minors has become increasingly severe. In the US, non‐coercive acts that might have been punished with probation 30 years ago often lead to decades in prison today. Punishment also increasingly includes civil commitment up to life, as well as scarlet‐letter‐like public registries and onerous residence restrictions for released offenders. Advocates and the general public approve, believing that age‐gap sex with minors is uniquely injurious, pathological, and criminal. Critics argue that public opinion and policy have been shaped by moral panic, consisting of unfounded assumptions and invalid science being uncritically promoted by ideology, media sensationalism, and political pandering. This talk critically examines the basic assumptions and does so using a multi‐perspective approach (empirical, historical, cross‐cultural, cross‐species) to overcome the biases inherent in traditional clinical‐forensic reports. Non‐clinical empirical reviews of age‐gap sex involving minors show claims of intense, pervasive injuriousness to be highly exaggerated. Historical and cross‐cultural reviews show that adult‐adolescent sexual relations have been common and frequently socially integrated in other times and places, indicating that present‐day Western conceptualizations are socially constructed to reflect current social and economic arrangements rather than expressions of a priori truths. Analogous relations in primates are commonplace, non‐pathological, and not infrequently functional, contradicting implicit assumptions of a biologically‐based “trauma response” in humans. It is concluded that, though age‐gap sex involving minors is a significant mismatch for contemporary culture—and this talk therefore does not endorse it—attitudes and social policy concerning it have been driven by an upward‐spiraling moral panic, which itself is immoral in its excessive adverse consequences for individuals and society.

scholarly journals The Ground They Walk On: Photography and Narrative Inquiry

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Ketelle
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Narrative Inquiry ◽  
Research Method ◽  
School Principals ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Photo Elicitation ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Novel Variation

In this project, the author explores a novel variation on an established social science research method, photo-elicitation. The author photographed eight school principals during a two-year period and asked the principals to respond to the photographs by writing narratives below each. The author uses photography, reflections, and her own memories to construct descriptive narrative snapshots of the eight principals. Further, the author argues that this approach underscores how photographs are both technically and socially constructed and through the use of photo-elicitation new ways of understanding self and others in relation can be explored.

scholarly journals Exposure to Common Enemies can Increase Political Polarization: Evidence from a Cooperation Experiment with Automated Partisans

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eaman Jahani ◽  
Natalie McDaniel Gallagher ◽  
Friedolin Merhout ◽  
Nicolo Cavalli ◽  
Douglas Guilbeault ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Computational Social Science ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Group Conflict ◽  
Opposing Party ◽  
Common Enemy

Longstanding theory indicates the threat of a common enemy can mitigate conflict between members of rival groups. We tested this hypothesis in a pre-registered experiment where 1,670 Republicans and Democrats in the United States were asked to complete a collaborative online task with an automated agent or “bot” that was labelled as a member of the opposing party. Prior to this task, we exposed respondents to primes about a) a common enemy (involving threats from Iran, China, and Russia); b) a patriotic event; or c) a neutral, apolitical prime. Though we observed no significant differences in the behavior of Democrats as a result of these primes, we found that Republicans—and particularly those with very strong conservative views—were significantly less likely to cooperate with Democrats when primed about a common enemy. We also observed lower rates of cooperation among Republicans who participated in our study during the 2020 Iran crisis, which occurred in the middle of our fieldwork. These findings indicate common enemies may not reduce inter-group conflict in highly polarized societies, and contribute to a growing number of studies that find evidence of asymmetric political polarization. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for research in social psychology, political conflict, and the rapidly expanding field of computational social science.

Trust and National Identity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patti Tamara Lenard ◽  
David Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Social Science ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Empirically Supported

This article examines evidence from social psychology and comparative social science on the trust-related effects of having a national identity. The starting hypothesis is that identities provide a foundation for extending trust by permitting those who share them to make assumptions about the motivations and intentions of others. The discussion in the article establishes that this hypothesis is empirically supported, and examines the trust-related effects of national identities in particular. We are attentive to the strength and quality of these identities, which correlate with how inclusive or exclusive they are. We then propose that public policy steers national identities in a culturally civic direction, emphasizing elements that are accessible to newcomers and minorities and downplaying those that are not.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 242-258
Author(s):  
Nana Okura Gagné
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Socioeconomic Change ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Dominant Ideology ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Postwar Japan ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Individual Self

This chapter reviews the different meanings of the new middle class, which describe the historical and cultural configurations of postwar Japan and universalized notions of socioeconomic class used in social science. It reflects on the configurations, relations, and operationalizations of the slippage between discursive and ideological characteristics of “middleness” that have been elided under the term the new middle class in postwar Japan. It also offers new insights on the understanding of dominant ideology and dominant groups, including anthropological theorizations of power, ideology, and subjectivity in late capitalism. The chapter emphasizes on the issues of individual self-cultivation and concerns of families in practice in the midst of socioeconomic change. It explains how salarymen or any other social actors represent both the nexus and product of ongoing self-cultivation and socialization in the changing global economy.

Experiments in social science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Experimental Design ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Hawthorne Effect ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Control Factors ◽  
The Social

Within social science the experiment has an ambiguous place. With the possible exception of social psychology, there are few examples of strictly experimental studies. The classic study still often cited is the Hawthorne experiments, which began in 1927, and is used mainly to illustrate what became known as the ‘Hawthorne Effect’, that is, the unintended influence of the research itself on the results of the study. Yet, experimental design is often taken within social research as the embodiment of the scientific method which, if the social sciences are to reach the maturity of the natural sciences, social research should seek to emulate. Meeting this challenge meant trying to devise ways of applying the logic of the experiment to ‘non-experimental’ situations where it was not possible directly to manipulate the experimental conditions. Criticisms have come from two main sources: first, from researchers who claim that the techniques used to control factors within non-experimental situations are unrealizable with current statistical methods and, second, those who reject the very idea of hypothesis-testing as an ambition for social research.

scholarly journals Why Social Psychology Needs Autism and Why Autism Needs Social Psychology: Forensic and Clinical Considerations

2019 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas W. Maynard
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Anomalous Behavior ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Autistic Behavior ◽  
Responsive Behavior ◽  
Clinical Considerations ◽  
The 1960S

We know a lot about why the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has risen so dramatically since the 1960s. However, social science and social psychology in particular fall short in the analysis of autistic behavior, the real-life manifestations of the disorder. In this address, I suggest that unless we tackle behavior in interaction, rather than as emanating from individuals, we cannot analytically comprehend behavior as a socially real and holistic entity. The particular phenomena under investigation is transpositioning, or how a neurotypical (NT) professional initiates a sequence of action (first position) involving a recipient who has ASD. Then, the person with ASD fashions a response (second position) that is resistive or noncooperative. However, the NT professional subsequently fashions an action that portrays the ASD person’s second position or responsive behavior as an initiation or feature independent of what may have prompted it. Moreover, in reporting on the event in police, clinical, or other records, there is an elision of the prior initiations or first position actions such that the person with ASD is shown to have manifested ostensibly autonomous and anomalous behavior requiring interventions or remediation.

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