James D. Montgomery

Equilibrium Wage Dispersion and Interindustry Wage Differentials

This paper develops a search-theoretic explanation of interindustry wage differentials. Given coordination problems in the labor market, the probability of filling a vacancy is an increasing function of the wage offered; in equilibrium, firms that find vacancies more costly will offer higher wages. The model thus explains the persistence of interindustry wage differentials and their correlation with industry-average capital-labor ratio and profitability. Additionally, the model predicts that high-wage firms will receive more applications per job opening and that wages in the labor market will behave as strategic complements.

Toward a role-theoretic conception of embeddedness

Attempting to formalize Granovetters embeddedness argument, rational choice theorists have viewed social relationships as repeated games. This article argues that role theory would provide a better metatheoretical perspective on embeddedness. A preliminary sketch of role theory suggests a promising theoretical methodology. To illustrate, I construct a repeated‐game model in which the players are not individuals but roles (a profit‐maximizing “businessperson” and nonstrategic “friend”); the businessperson role acts strategically in light of a metatule that governs intrapersonal role switching.

Weak Ties, Employment, and Inequality: An Equilibrium Analysis'

This article adds a simple social structure and pattern of social interaction to a Markov model of employment transitions. In the model, society is composed fo many small (two-person) groups. Unemployed individuals find jobs through strong ties (intragroup social interaction), weak ties (random intergroup interaction), and formal channels. Holding constant the total level of social interaction affects the steady-state equilibrium. An increase in weak-tie interactions reduces inequality, thereby creating a more equitable distribution of employment across groups. Moreover, an increase in weak-tie interactions increases the steady-state employment rate if inbreeding by employment status among weak ties is sufficiently low.

A formalization and test of the religious economies model

The religious economies argument maintains that religious pluralism promotes religious participation. Although this theory has been much debated by sociologists of religion, evaluation has been hindered by the lack of a formal model. This paper offers a formalization that builds on the product-differentiation framework from industrial-organization economics. The model suggests a new measure of religious competition and a new empirical test. One religious market may be regarded as more competitive than another religious market if the set of denominations present in the first contains the set of denominations present in the second. Given this partial order on the set of religious markets, the model predicts that more competitive markets will have higher religious participation. This prediction is examined for two data sets previously considered in the literature-New York towns in 1865 and U.S. counties in 1990. Although the analysis highlights an important theoretical ambiguity (regarding the strategic interdependence of denominational effort choices) and reports a negative empirical finding (that more competitive U.S. counties tend to have lower religious participation), the paper proceeds constructively, attempting to identify viable directions for future research within the religious economies paradigm

The Mathematics of MarriageThe Mathematics of Marriage: Dynamic Nonlinear Models, by GottmanJohn M.MurrayJames D.SwansonCatherine C.TysonRebeccaSwansonKristin R.. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. 403 pp.

esting about this are the ways that their conceptualizations of these heterogender practices at the same time reinforce and refute the traditional gendered dichotomy: male/ female, private/public, and activo/pasivo. What is fascinating about the analysis is the way that a secondary gender hierarchy, one that is linked most directly to a critical discussion of sexualities, is constructed around the variations in masculinities. The authors are careful to point out the differences in representation and the globalization of particularly modern (read Western) gay identities, and they conclude with an important discussion about the tension between paternalistic and liberal notions of the constructions of dependency that have become pervasive in this context, especially since the explosion of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Latin America. Their conclusion is built around stripping away two central fallacious theses: (1) that the modern, globalized world is saturated with egalitarianism and promise; and (2) that “community” and community-based organizations should be tied with nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) in order to import the promised fruits of globalization. The work concludes that these premises, although perhaps not illintentioned, have a net effect of denying the empirical realities and complexities of an ambiente that is decidedly non-Western and polytomous. The fieldwork and interviews were all conducted by Fernández-Alemany. Murray, the book’s coauthor, writes a brilliant Preface, grounding this work in the cross-cultural and anthropological literature on homosexuality and explicating his role as mentor and colleague to Fernández-Alemany. The strength of this book is its accessible theoretical grounding and strong ties to a developing body of literature on masculinities and sexualities in non-Western contexts. The only weakness is more stylistic than substantive. The contribution of this work would be magnified if the author had written into the text more of the context of his interactions. Beginning with his sociohistorical backdrop of San Pedro Sula and the richness with which he describes each individual’s definition of the situation among locas and hombres, the author leaves me wanting to read more of his experiences in the field. At times, I wish he had thickened his descriptions of life in the ambiente. The participatory nature and spirit within which this book was written and its fresh approach that moves away from the reliance on traditional, modern, and Western constructions of same-sex relations, makes it an invaluable contribution to the literature. It is an example of the strength of collaboration between authors and the value of reading and creating a text filtered through various lenses of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity.

42.95 cloth. ISBN: 0-262-07226-2.: Dynamic Nonlinear Models

This paper shows how the socialization process (viewed by role theorists as a “role-person merger”) can be represented and analyzed as a fuzzy (dynamical) system. Given a self-concept (a fuzzy set of roles) and social norms (logical implications from roles to actions), an individual infers actions (through approximate reasoning). Given these actions, alters make biased attributions (about the roles in the individuals self-concept) that are gradually internalized by the individual. This feedback loop creates a fuzzy system (a role-space vectorfield) that generates a set of stable long-run selves (role-space attractors). I illustrate this general “endogenous-self” framework with a model based loosely on Tallys Corner; the analysis examines how the individuals long-run self-concept is influenced by a constraint on employment opportunity.

The Self As A Fuzzy Set of Roles, Role Theory As A Fuzzy System

In this article, I develop a formal model of underclass behavior based explicitly on Tallys Corner, Elliot Liebows classic ethnography of streetcorner men. In the model, a social norm requires husbands to provide a minimum level of family support. Disobedience to the norm generates cognitive dissonance, which induces a change in the husbands altruism toward his family. The analysis highlights the interdependence of “mainstream values” and underclass behavior: an increase in mainstream values may actually decrease the level of family support provided by low-income men.

Revisting Tally's Corner Mainstream Norms, Cognitive Dissonance, and Underclass Behavior

Abstract Non-monotonic logic offers a useful framework for modeling human reasoning in social settings where role conflict arises from contradictions among roles, norms, and constraints. This paper uses non-monotonic logic to specify the processes by which an individual chooses actions (based on self-concept and norms) and observers then make attributions about the individual (based on actions and norms). By linking the choice and attribution processes together with the assumption that the individual gradually internalizes attributions, we obtain a feedback loop governing change in the self-concept. Analysis of this feedback loop reveals that the self-concept may reach a stable long-run state–an “absorbing self” – only if the normative system is logically consistent.

THE LOGIC OF ROLE THEORY: ROLE CONFLICT AND STABILITY OF THE SELF-CONCEPT

The Forum consists of comments on previously published papers and responses by authors. Unlike the Comment section in many other academic journals, the Forum includes solicited as well as unsolicited contributions. We encourage debates by actively seeking points of view contrary to those expressed in articles published in the journal. The Forum is intended to promote an open and critical debate that contributes to the intellectual vitality and further development of rational-choice-based theory and research. Forum contributions should follow the form used by Rationality and Society and should not exceed five double-spaced pages.

Pascal's Wager and the Limits of Rational Choice A Comment on Durkin and Greeley

In this paper, we reformulate balance theory by allowing actors to possess incomplete awareness of the evaluations held by other actors, and by adopting balance closure (modified to allow incomplete awareness) as an equilibrium concept. Our treatment highlights psychological mechanisms, maintains a clear distinction between actors and objects, emphasizes the effects of self-awareness and self-evaluations of actors, and permits actors to hold ambivalent (simultaneously positive and negative) evaluations. Our analysis extends previous results linking the imbalance of a signed graph to ambivalence in its balance closure and reveals that an actors “indirect awareness” of imbalance is necessary but not sufficient for that actors ambivalence in the balance closure.