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Social Psychology and Interaction Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social Psychology and Interaction

Moving Beyond The Emphasis On Bullying: A Generalized Approach To Peer Aggression In High School, Christopher Donoghue, Alicia Raia-Hawrylak Jan 2016

Moving Beyond The Emphasis On Bullying: A Generalized Approach To Peer Aggression In High School, Christopher Donoghue, Alicia Raia-Hawrylak

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Heightened attention to bullying in research and in the media has led to a proliferation of school climate surveys that ask students to report their level of involvement in bullying. In this study, the authors reviewed the challenges associated with measuring bullying and the implications they have on the reliability of school climate surveys. Then they used data from a sample of 810 students in a large public high school in New Jersey to evaluate the merits of using a more generalized definition of aggression in school climate research. Similar to national surveys of bullying, the authors found that boys …


Apologies Of The Rich And Famous: Cultural, Cognitive, And Social Explanations Of Why We Care And Why We Forgive, Janet M. Ruane, Karen Cerulo May 2014

Apologies Of The Rich And Famous: Cultural, Cognitive, And Social Explanations Of Why We Care And Why We Forgive, Janet M. Ruane, Karen Cerulo

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

In recent years, U.S. and other Western media have inundated the public with celebrity apologies. The public (measured via representative opinion polls) then expresses clear ideas about who deserves forgiveness. Is forgiveness highly individualized or tied to broader social, cultural, and cognitive factors? To answer this question, we analyzed 183 celebrity apologies offered between October 1, 2000, and October 1, 2012. Results are twofold and based in both cultural and social psychological perspectives. First, we found that public forgiveness is systematically tied to discursive characteristics of apologies—particularly sequential structures. Certain sequences appear to cognitively prime the public, creating associative links …


Professional Deceit: Normal Lying In An Occupational Setting, Janet M. Ruane, Karen Cerulo Nov 2012

Professional Deceit: Normal Lying In An Occupational Setting, Janet M. Ruane, Karen Cerulo

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Normal lies are those that social actors legitimate as appropriate means to desirable outcomes. Such lies have been acknowledged in the literature as tools for maintaining social order. Yet, little has been done to document the social structural sources of normal lying. This paper offers a first step in filling this research gap, examining aspects of occupational structure and their connection to the practice of normal lying. Specifically, we discuss four dimensions of occupational structure — occupational rewards and entry requirements, occupational loyalties, social control styles within an occupation, and an occupation's level of professionalization — and we explore the …


The Once And Future Information Society, James B. Rule, Yasemin Besen-Cassino Jan 2008

The Once And Future Information Society, James B. Rule, Yasemin Besen-Cassino

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

In the late twentieth century, many social scientists and other social commentators came to characterize the world as evolving into an “information society.” Central to these claims was the notion that new social uses of information, and particularly application of scientific knowledge, are transforming social life in fundamental ways. Among the supposed transformations are the rise of intellectuals in social importance, growing productivity and prosperity stemming from increasingly knowledge-based economic activity, and replacement of political conflict by authoritative, knowledge-based decision-making. We trace these ideas to their origins in the Enlightenment doctrines of Saint Simon and Comte, show that empirical support …


Women's Changing Attitudes Toward Divorce, 1974–2002: Evidence For An Educational Crossover, Steven P. Martin, Sangeeta Parashar Jan 2006

Women's Changing Attitudes Toward Divorce, 1974–2002: Evidence For An Educational Crossover, Steven P. Martin, Sangeeta Parashar

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This article examines trends in divorce attitudes of young adult women in the United States by educational attainment from 1974 to 2002. Women with 4‐year college degrees, who previously had the most permissive attitudes toward divorce, have become more restrictive in their attitudes toward divorce than high school graduates and women with some college education, whereas women with no high school diplomas have increasingly permissive attitudes toward divorce. We examine this educational crossover in divorce attitudes in the context of variables correlated with women's educational attainment, including family attitudes and religion, income and occupational prestige, and family structure. We conclude …


Actantial Analysis Greimas’S Structural Approach To The Analysis Of Self-Narratives, Yong Wang, Carl W. Roberts Jan 2005

Actantial Analysis Greimas’S Structural Approach To The Analysis Of Self-Narratives, Yong Wang, Carl W. Roberts

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper introduces a formal procedure for analyzing narratives that was developed by the French/Lithuanian structuralist, A. J. Greimas. The focus is on demonstrating the utility of Greimas's ideas for analyzing one aspect of personal narratives: identity-construction. Reconstructing the basic actantial structure from self-narratives is shown to provide cues to power differentials among actants as perceived by the narrator. Distinguishing narrated events along conflict versus communication axes helps the analyst determine whether an experiential or a discursive domain is of primacy for the narrator. Moreover, investigation of communicative outcomes can be used to validate (or invalidate) findings on power relations. …