摘要:

This dialectical method is built on the Principles of Expression and Differentiation. The first breaks with both logical and causal analysis, emphasizing relationships within a whole. The second stresses that development is often multilinear and discontinuous. Both principles deny the Aristotelian logic which deals with reality as built on abstract theoretical entities. Dialectics can be traced from Socrates through Hegel to pragmatism and contemporary general systems theory. The method is sensitive to linguistic, social, and cultural issues and is much more sociological than its critics have grasped. When applied to functionalism, the dialectical method demonstrates the inadequacy of ends-means logic. It also shows that functionalism has rested on a limited, social control viewpoint based on an identification of equilibrium with negative feedback models. A dialectical approach can subsume functionalism through a balanced perspective which stresses latent potentials as much as latent functions and treats equilibrium as homeorhesis rather than homeostasis.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/57.3.785

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1979

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Two differential equations modeling the diffusion of use of cultural forms are developed as alternatives to an earlier model based on exponential epochs of diffusion. Both new models are similar in that they incorporate imitation and desertion effects, but differ in the manner in which these effects operate over the course of the diffusion of use. The model which has a Gompertz curve as its integrated form fits data from 17 instances of use diffusion better than the model which has a logistic curve as its integrated form and, in addition, is more parsimonious than the original exponential epoch model. The relationship between the observed values of the parameters representing imitation and desertion is discussed in the context of the process of use diffusion.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/57.3.799

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1979

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Earlier work on the size-density hypothesis led to a theory of time-minimization from which the size-density relation could be derived. Subsequently, time-minimization theory was employed to derive expected relations between population and area for cities and urbanized areas, expectations which were empirically confirmed. The present paper derives three well-known and empirically supported relationships from the time-minimization assumption: the gravity model of interaction, the intra-urban density function, and the rank-size rule for cities.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/57.3.812

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1979

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Opinion differences between veterans and nonveterans among American men over age 21 in 1974–75 were investigated with data from three national cross-sectional surveys. The 37 dependent variables were classified into five issue areas: military affect, government affect, international affairs / cosmopolitanism, authoritarianism-related, and violence-related. Veteran status was positively related to the expression of favorable opinions about the military (“confidence” excepted) when the effects of age and education were partialled out, but was not consistently related to opinions in the other four issue areas, with or without controls, or for World War II-era and Vietnam-era respondents. Hence, except for military-related opinions, the data do not indicate enduring effects of military service in terms of systematic and significant opinion differences between veterans and nonveterans.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/57.3.824

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1979

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

It is generally assumed that widespread public confidence in the government is essential for political stability in the U.S. and other advanced capitalist democracies. This legitimacy-stability thesis implies that individuals with little confidence in the government would be particularly prone to support political protest. However, theoretical and empirical considerations suggest that this thesis must be revised to include a third, interacting factor—the preexistence of an organized protest movement: low confidence in the government is likely to translate into protest support only when such a movement is present. Using data from a 1972 national survey, only moderate associations are found between several indices of confidence in the government and support for political protest, and these associations are significantly reduced when salient structural factors (e.g., race, unemployment, community involvement) are taken into account. These results are not expected under the widely accepted, unrevised, legitimacy-stability thesis. However, consistent with a revised version of the thesis, it is found that low confidence in the government is strongly associated with protest support among those groups whose interests were being actively promoted by visible protest movements.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/57.3.840

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1979

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Dividing alienation into dimensions of reification and powerlessness, this paper attempts to examine the relationship between these dimensions and the satisfaction of department heads and subordinates in 44 administrative bureaucracies. Four dimensions of satisfaction were examined: satisfaction with work, with superiors, with co-workers and with salary. Beyond alienation, the relationships between meaninglessness and worker satisfaction and between meritocracy and worker satisfaction were also examined.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/57.3.853

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1979

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

This paper investigates the thesis that sex role definitions in the U.S. support a double standard in societal reactions to mental incompetence. Role expectations for women are such that females are generally expected to be less competent than males in a variety of instrumental tasks, although perhaps more expressive. Males in turn are expected to be more active and aggressive than females in their exercise of the greater power and responsibility ascribed to them. In light of these generalized expectations we suggest that incompetence in instrumental fields is more disturbing when demonstrated by males, and we hypothesize that societal reactions to the mental deficiencies of males are more prompt and severe. The paper supports this hypothesis with data suggesting that mentally retarded males are more likely to be institutionalized than retarded females, and that males tend to be institutionalized at earlier ages and for milder disorders. It is noted that these data are consistent with previously reported data on mental illness (Tudor et al.).

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/57.3.871

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1979

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Data from a fifteen-year panel study of males, age 17 in 1957 (N = 442) and age 32 in 1972 (N = 340), are adduced to examine a social psychological theory of the status attainment process. Estimates are compared with those based on conceptually similar though operationally nonidentical structural equation models reported in previous longitudinal research. The comparison generally provides strong evidence in support of the social psychological explanation. Research implications of the convergences and divergences of findings across studies are discussed as are the data requirements for more adequately specifying social psychological models of the status attainment process.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/57.3.887

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1979

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Ecological theory suggests that growth in the density of a population of organizations should give rise, through the mechanism of competition, to functional differentiation and within functions, size differentiation. Such theory also predicts that size differentiation will increase as a consequence of functional differentiation. Tests of these hypotheses based on measurements for 206 SMSAs support these propositions with the exception that no direct effect of organizational density on size differentiation is observed. Secondary hypotheses about the influences of community age, urbanization, and economic function are also advanced and empirically evaluated. This study is conceived as an exploration in the ecology of organizations and confronts issues identified as important by other recent writers on these topics.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/57.3.915

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1979

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Several factors are investigated that affect the use of annexation by central cities of Urbanized Areas to retain decentralized populations. A multi-variate model of the responses of central cities to over- and underboundedness is presented and evaluated. Two distinct patterns were suggested by the model, one for cities experiencing significant levels of annexation and the other for cities whose response to decentralization did not include annexation. The results suggest that expected predictors (e.g., central city density, extent of suburbanization, credit) of the extent to which cities recoup their dispersing populations do affect changes in boundary coincidence through their influence on both annexation and the level of out-movement.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/57.3.931

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1979

数据来源: OUP