Aspirations for Higher Education

1982 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. G. Carpenter ◽  
J. S. Western
Keyword(s):  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Direct Effects ◽  
Mediating Effects ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
The Social

This paper reports data from the first phase of a longitudinal study of the processes by which selected structural, social-psychological, and group variables influence the capacities and achievements in both educational and occupational spheres of a cohort of young people. A causal recursive path analytic model which hypothesizes both direct and indirect effects of social origins, schooling, the perceived influence of significant others, and self-assessment on aspirations for tertiary education is developed. The model is found to have more explanatory power for men than for women. For both groups the perceived influence of parents, teachers, and peers bears the major impact on aspiration formation. Social origins are more important in aspiration formation for women than for men although for both groups mediating and direct effects are observed. Schooling also has mediating effects for both groups and direct effects among men. It is concluded that, while the analysis provided strong support for crucial elements of the social-psychological theory of aspiration formation, there are linkages for status transmission not identified in the model.

scholarly journals Euripides’ Medea and Jason: A Study in the Social Power of Love

Phronimon ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 31-47
Author(s):  
Kofi Ackah
Keyword(s):  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Psychological Perspective ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
The Social ◽  
Power Game ◽  
Social Psychological Theory ◽  
Social Psychological Perspective

Euripides’ Medea resonates with modern issues in intimate relationships. However, little has been written on this, especially from the social-psychological perspective. This paper explores the breakdown of the Jason-Medea marriage in terms of the social-psychological theory of love as an exchange in a power game in which a certain degree of imbalance in the exchange could account for such a breakdown. I analyse the Medea text in terms of Olson and Cromwell’s (1975) tripartite theoretical framework, namely: (a) the bases on which social power is built; (b) the processes by which social power is wielded; and (c) the outcomes produced by the use of social power. I find that Medea carried a greater burden of love towards Jason than Jason did towards her, fuelled and sustained by her enduring and greater need for security and happiness. And in intimate relationships, the principle of least interest (Waller and Hill 1951) works: the beloved tends to dominate the lover. Jason, however, overreached himself when he violated the minimum conditions of his own desirability – fidelity to and respect for Medea. I conclude that Medea’s violent reaction to Jason’s conduct indicates the fragility of love as a basis of social power in intimate relationships.

Collective Mobilization and Social Protest

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martijn van Zomeren
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Collective Agency ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Second Development ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Contextual Characteristics

The social psychology of collective mobilization and social protest reflects a long-standing interest within this discipline in the larger question of how social change comes about through the exercise of collective agency. Yet, within this very same discipline, different approaches have suggested different motivations for why people protest, including emotional, agentic, identity, and moral motivations. Although each of these approaches first tended toward development of insulated models or theories, the next phase has been more integrative in nature, giving rise to multi-motive models of collective mobilization and social protest that combined predictions from different approaches, which improved their explanatory power and theoretical scope. Together with this first development toward integration, a second development has also clearly left its mark on the field. This development refers to the rapid internationalization of the field, with studies on collective mobilization and social protest being conducted across the world, leading to very diverse participant samples and contextual characteristics. These studies typically also vary methodologically, including survey, experiment, interview, longitudinal, and other methods. This second trend—toward diversity—fits well with the first integrative trend and will lead to more in-depth and integrative understanding of the social-psychological workings of collective mobilization and social protest. However, this will require innovative conceptual and empirical work in order to map the structural (particularly, political and cultural) conditions under which different motivations matter with respect to mobilization and protest.

Taking the Social Origins of Human Nature Seriously: Toward a More Imperialist Social Psychology

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilynn B. Brewer
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Basic Premise ◽  
Social Interdependence ◽  
Human Psychology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Psychological Theory

To recognize that human beings are adapted for social living is fundamental to the science of human psychology. I argue that the development of broad social psychological theory would benefit from taking this basic premise more seriously. We need to pay more attention to the implications for personality and social psychology of recognizing that all of the building blocks of human psychology—cognition, emotion, motivation-have been shaped by the demands of social interdependence. In this article I illustrate the generative potential of this basic premise for development of more expansive social theory.

scholarly journals Grief, Care, and Play: Theorizing the Affective Roots of the Social Self

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Abrutyn ◽  
Omar Lizardo
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
The Self ◽  
Social Self ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Understanding Emotions ◽  
Social Psychological Theory

For several decades, some sociologists have turned to evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and cognitive science to support, modify, and reconfigure existing social psychological theory. In this paper, we build on this momentum by considering the relevance of recent work in affective and cognitive neuroscience for understanding emotions and the self. Our principal aim is to enlarge the range of phenomena currently considered by sociologists who study emotion, while showing how affective dynamics play an important role across every outcome and process of interests to social scientists. : Central to our concern is the way in which external social objects become essential to, and emotionally significant for, the self. To that end, we draw on ideas from phenomenology, pragmatism, classic symbolic interactionism, and dramaturgy. We begin by showing how basic affective systems may graft on, build from, and extend current social psychological usages of emotions as well as the important sociological work being done on self, from both symbolic interactionist (SI) and identity theory (IT) perspectives. Subsequently, we turn to the promising directions in studying emotional biographies and various aspects related to embodiment.

scholarly journals Cooperation and the Logic of Action

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 370-377
Author(s):  
Antti Eskola ◽  
David Kivinen
Keyword(s):  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Logic Of Action ◽  
The Social

Abstract This study has two purposes. As a social-psychological contribution to the theory of translation, it points to some of the advantages and drawbacks of the researcher's participation in the translation of scientific texts. As a contribution to social-psychological theory, it wishes to demonstrate that forms of cooperation cannot be planned in abstracto, without taking the overall social activity of the actors into account, of which participation in cooperation is only one part. One of the most original and ingenious inventions in the social sciences dates back to the early 1950's: the game known as the Prisoner's Dilemma (see Rapoport 1982). With perplexing accuracy, it puts it quite plainly that, first, action taken by individuals upon perfectly rational deliberation does not necessarily lead to collective rationality. Also, showing how a social structure may produce forces motivating the individual, the Prisoner's Dilemma has something to give to social psychologists. Even in the event that the prisoners have had the opportunity to discuss different strategies and jointly decide on adopting one, each is tempted to betray the other - and both are afraid that they will be betrayed. Psychological motives, the temptation and the fear, arise out of the logic of the social situation. Our intention has been to show that translation as a social activity involves motivating forces, assumptions to do with competence, and restrictive factors that all shape the scientist-translator cooperation irrespective of their deliberate pursuits. Therefore, rather than planning it oh an abstract basis, the working method has to be deduced from the logic of action. In doing so, we will see that cooperation cannot be symmetric; the weight is necessarily on the translator's role. The scientist, then, comes into the picture when the translator needs help; he does not have to be prepared for regular and face-to-face interaction with the translator, but only to make sure that the message of his text is conveyed (provided that he has the competence in the target language). Cooperation between translator and editor, in turn, is much more dependent on face-to-face interaction.

scholarly journals Social Psychological Theory as History: Outlining the Critical-Historical Approach to Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Social Process ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Problem Area ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
The Social ◽  
Validity Claims ◽  
Group Experiences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Tool ◽  
Historical Theory

The mainstream epistemology of social psychology is markedly ahistorical, prioritizing the quantification of processes assumed to be lawful and generalizable. Social psychologists often consider theory to be either a practical tool for summarizing what is known about a problem area and making predictions or a torch that illuminates the counterintuitive causal force underlying a variety of disparate phenomena. I propose a third vision of critical-historical theory. From this perspective, theories should be committed to deep interdisciplinarity and historical validity claims—understanding individual and group experiences as part of historically contingent forces. Theories also should be critical, containing an awareness of the researcher as implicated in the social process and committed to actively improving society. To demonstrate its viability, I review classic works from the history of the discipline that exemplify critical-historical theory and offer concrete implications for theorists interested in employing this approach in their own work.

The Social Origins and Provenance of the English Bishops during the Reign of Edward II

1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
K. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Early Career ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complete Study ◽  
History Of

During the last twenty or twenty-five years medieval historians have been much interested in the composition of the English episcopate. A number of studies of it have been published on periods ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A further paper might well seem superfluous. My reason for offering one is that most previous writers have concentrated on analysing the professional circles from which the bishops were drawn, and suggesting the influences which their early careers as royal clerks, university masters and students, secular or regular clergy, may have had on their later work as bishops. They have shown comparatively little interest in their social background and provenance, except for those bishops who belonged to magnate families. Some years ago, when working on the political activities of Edward II's bishops, it seemed to me that social origins, family connexions and provenance might in a number of cases have had at least as much influence on a bishop's attitude to politics as his early career. I there fore collected information about the origins and provenance of these bishops. I now think that a rather more careful and complete study of this subject might throw further light not only on the political history of the reign, but on other problems connected with the character and work of the English episcopate. There is a general impression that in England in the later middle ages the bishops' ties with their dioceses were becoming less close, and that they were normally spending less time in diocesan work than their predecessors in the thirteenth century.

Providing Freshmen with a Good “Starting-Block”

2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 69-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikaël De Clercq ◽  
Charlotte Michel ◽  
Sophie Remy ◽  
Benoît Galand
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Student Adjustment ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Pivotal Phase ◽  
Study Program ◽  
Study Task ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Belonging ◽  
Intention To Persist

Abstract. Grounded in social-psychological literature, this experimental study assessed the effects of two so-called “wise” interventions implemented in a student study program. The interventions took place during the very first week at university, a presumed pivotal phase of transition. A group of 375 freshmen in psychology were randomly assigned to three conditions: control, social belonging, and self-affirmation. Following the intervention, students in the social-belonging condition expressed less social apprehension, a higher social integration, and a stronger intention to persist one month later than the other participants. They also relied more on peers as a source of support when confronted with a study task. Students in the self-affirmation condition felt more self-affirmed at the end of the intervention but didn’t benefit from other lasting effects. The results suggest that some well-timed and well-targeted “wise” interventions could provide lasting positive consequences for student adjustment. The respective merits of social-belonging and self-affirmation interventions are also discussed.

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