Individual and Society

Sociological Social Psychology

Lizabeth A. Crawford, Katherine B. Novak

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351978668
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Soziologie

Unlike other texts for undergraduate sociological social psychology courses, this text presents the three distinct traditions in sociological social psychology—symbolic interactionism, social structure and personality, and group processes and structures—and emphasizes the different theoretical frameworks within which social psychological analyses are conducted within each research tradition. With this approach, the authors make clear the link between sociological social psychology, theory, and methodology. Students will gain a better understanding of how and why social psychologists trained in sociology ask particular kinds of questions; the types of research they are involved in; and how their findings have been, or can be, applied to contemporary societal patterns and problems.

This new, second edition includes the latest research on topics related to current events and changing societal patterns; more detailed discussions on intersectionality, social media, and contemporary social movements; as well as a new concluding chapter that asks students to reflect on what they have learned about sociological social psychology and its applicability to contemporary social issues. Engaging exercises and group activities are also embedded within in each chapter to enhance students' understanding of key concepts, theories, methods and research findings within the field and how they relate to everyday life.

Part I
Theoretical Perspectives and Research Methods in Sociological Social Psychology

Chapter 1
What Is Sociological Social Psychology?

The following letters are from Annie’s Mailbox, a “life advice” column published daily in newspapers across the country. They reflect the conflict over housework experienced by many couples today.

Dear Annie: I am fed up. Every time my family gets together, the women spend the entire time working while the men sit around and watch TV. I am so angry about this sexism that I am ready to stop attending these functions. I don’t believe that women who work full-time jobs should be expected to slave away in the kitchen doing prep and cleanup, while the men show up, eat a delicious meal, and then relax on the couch. I’ve voiced my objections to my mother and sister, but while they agree with me, they do nothing to back up my request for help from my father and brother. My brother-in-law will give us a hand, but his son plays on the computer. What advice do you have for me other than to stop participating?

—“On Strike”

Dear “On Strike”: If you want the menfolk to help out, you have to insist on it, since they obviously aren’t considerate enough to do it voluntarily. Hand your nephew the silverware, and tell him to set the table. Give your brother the plates. Enlist your brother-in-law as an ally. Ask him to inform the guys that they will be clearing the table and putting leftovers away. Tell him it is good training for his son. Your mother and sister may still choose to do most of the work, but it’s a start.

What Do You Think?

• ■ How do "On Strike's" family get-togethers compare with yours?
• ■ Do you think "On Strike's" family is the same as or different from most families in the United States? Explain.
• ■ How do women and men learn what their roles are (what's expected of them) in family get-togethers?
• ■ To what degree have these roles changed over time?
• ■ What advice would you give "On Strike"?

This book is an introduction to the field of social psychology from a sociological perspective. Social psychologists would say that the notion that men do not help with cooking and cleaning because they are inconsiderate is overly simplistic. Moreover, they would suggest that Annie’s advice is not likely to be effective on a long-term basis. We will discuss the reasons for this, and how roles in the United States have changed, in a later chapter. The point we want to make here is that the letter from “On Strike” presents the kind of social issue that social psychologists address in their research. Social psychological studies often provide substantial insights into the causes of common problems by placing them within the context of the larger society.

People rarely regard a particular individual’s problems as a reflection of broader societal patterns. They are not trained to do so. This is why we need social psychology.

What is Social Psychology?

Social psychology is a field of study that focuses on understanding two kinds of phenomena: (1) the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of individuals; and (2) the relationship of these feelings, thoughts, and behaviors to the social context in which they occur. It is a field that bridges two disciplines: sociology and psychology.

Box 1.1 Have You Ever Wondered?

Social psychologists trained as sociologists ask the following kinds of questions. The chapter in which we provide an answer, based on a review of the relevant research literature, is indicated in parentheses after each question.

1. Should high school students have jobs? Do teenagers who work have different characteristics and experiences than teens without jobs? (Chapter 1)
2. Why don’t college students talk more in class? (Chapter 3)
3. Most people don’t like housework, so why do women still do more of it than men? (Chapter 4)
4. As a college student you have probably worked on a number of group projects. Why do men talk more than women in these situations? (Chapter 5)
5. Whether people go to college is not necessarily related to how smart they are. What social factors make some high school students more likely than others to go on to college? (Chapters 4 and 6)
6. Have you ever done something that made you feel really guilty? When do people experience guilt, and how does this emotion influence our behaviors? (Chapter 8)
7. Do you know someone who partied a lot in high school? Why do some adolescents drink alcohol, use drugs, or skip school? (Chapters 1 and 9)
8. What causes stress? (Chapters 4 and 10)
9. Why does racial prejudice increase when the economy is bad? (Chapter 12)
10. What can people do to change the way society operates? (Chapter 13)

Note: The Sociological Abstracts, an electronic database with abstracts (summaries) of articles published in all national and some international sociology journals, is an excellent source of information on these and other topics of interest to social psychologists who are also sociologists. You should be able to access this database through your school’s library.

Psychology focuses on the characteristics and behaviors of individuals. Social psychologists trained in psychology study individuals in group settings when trying to understand social behavior. Social psychologists trained in sociology also study individuals in groups, but they locate these groups within the context of the larger society. This shapes the kind of questions they ask about people and their social experiences (see Box 1.1). Sociologists, in general, focus on the ways that society influences our perceptions and behaviors.

Sociological Social Psychology and Sociology

Don’t worry if you haven’t had a class in sociology. We cover what you need to know in the next page or so. We give a brief overview of the focus of the discipline of sociology and define some important concepts before we talk more in depth about sociological social psychology.

The Sociological Perspective

The sociological perspective is a way of viewing the world that places people’s experiences within their social and historical context. Sociologists believe that forces outside of the individual (e.g., common patterns of thought and behavior within a given society) play a much larger role than idiosyncratic individual characteristics (e.g., personality) do in shaping behavior. The French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1895) called these broader societal patterns social facts. Social facts are properties of the collective environment that are not dependent upon the perceptions or behaviors of any one individual. Nonetheless, they shape people’s behaviors. Social norms and stratification are important social facts in every society.

Social Norms

Social norms tell individuals how to behave, or not to behave, in specific situations. For example, social norms concerning the appropriate style of dress within a society are not dependent on any one person’s action, but they affect what people wear on any given day. Look around you. The students on your campus probably dress in somewhat unique ways. Some wear jeans and sweatshirts, whereas others prefer somewhat more formal attire, but probably not too formal. No one wears a ball gown or tuxedo to class. No one appears in public in underwear or naked. We don’t even see these as options.

Social Stratification

Social stratification is another social fact that shapes people’s lives in important ways. The concept of social stratification is based on the work of Karl Marx and others who have focused on conflict between different groups within society. Sociologists use the term social stratification to refer to the rank ordering of groups from low to high in terms of their access to important societal resources such as money, power, and prestige. Social stratification affects people’s opportunities, perceptions, and behaviors. Contemporary sociologists are especially interested in the causes and consequences of social stratification.

The important dimensions of stratification in the United States and most other societies are social class, race and ethnicity, and gender. Social class reflects individuals’ access to resources, including money and power. Social class is typically measured as socioeconomic status, or SES, using indicators of education, occupational prestige, and income.

A race is a group perceived as genetically distinct. We use the term perceived because race is not really a biological construct.

You might be thinking, but racial groups differ in visible physical characteristics (e.g., skin color, hair texture, and eye shape). How can you say that race is not biologically based when this is the case?

The answer is that these physical characteristics are not what defines race or makes it important within a society. What constitutes different racial groups, and the salience of race in people’s lives, changes across social and historical contexts. Thus, who is considered a member of a particular racial group, and what this means, is socially rather than biologically determined (Bobo et al. 2012). Because they are socially constructed, definitions of race have changed substantially in the United States over time.

Take a Break

Go to the following Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) website for a timeline (Go Deeper: Race Timeline) showing changes in definitions of race in the United States: www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_03_b-godeeper.htm. (Search Terms: PBS and explore the evolution of an idea)

Whereas race reflects perceived biological differences, ethnicity is rooted in perceived cultural differences. An ethnic group is a category of individuals perceived as distinct due to cultural characteristics, including customs, language, and a shared heritage.

Gender refers to how males and females are perceived within a given society. This is in contrast to sex, which refers to biological differences between males and females. Note that even though sex is biologically based, what criteria (e.g., genitalia) are used to establish sex and an individual’s placement into the sex category male or female is socially determined (West and Zimmerman 1987).

Similarly, gender is a social construction because what it means to be male or female is tied to a particular cultural and historical context. The characteristics people associate with being male or female, and men’s and women’s respective duties and responsibilities (e.g., work outside of the home or housework), vary significantly across societies and over time within a given society.

Sociological social psychologists have argued that it is also useful to think of gender as an interactional accomplishment or production. When people act in a social encounter in a manner th...