Ralph H. Turner

The Role and the Person

As a complement to the familiar idea of self-conception, the concept of role-person merger is proposed as a more behavioral approach to understanding the social construction of personality than has been taken previously. Person and role are said to be merged when there is a systematic pattern involving failure of role compartmentalization, resistance to abandoning a role in the face of advantageous alternative roles, and the acquisition of role-appropriate attitudes. Three principles concerning appearance, effect, and consistency provide the basis for a series of propositions concerning interactive determinants of merger. Three other principles-consensual frames of reference, autonomy and favorable evaluation, and investment- provide the basis for propositions concerning individual determinants of role-person merger.

The Real Self: From Institution to Impulse.

It is proposed that people variously recognize their real selves either in feelings and actions of an institutional and volitional nature, such as ambition, morality, and altruism, or in the experience of impulse, such as undisciplined desire and the wish to make intimake revelations to other people. A shift toward the impulse pole seems to be under way and might be plausibly explained by chaning cultural definitions of reality modified terms of social integration, shifting patterns of deprivation, or new opportunities and consequences. Many standard sociological assumptions about social control are incopatible with the new pattern of self-identification.

The public perception of protest

Collective acts of disruption and violence are sometimes viewed as expressions of social protest, and sometimes as crime or rebellion, leading to different community reactions. Five theoretical perspectives can be used to predict when the protest interpretation will be made: (1) events must be credible as protest; (2) an optimal balance is required between appeal and threat; (3) protest interpretation is often an aspect of conciliation to avoid full-scale conflict; (4) protest interpretation can be an invitation to form a coalition; and (5) protest interpretation can be a phase of bargaining by authorities.

Rumors : uses, interpretations, and images

Rumors may be the oldest medium of mass communication of information or ideas. Even before there were newspapers, radio, or television, rumors communicated by word-of-mouth made and shattered reputations, and set off riots and wars. Yet contrary to predictions, rumors continue to thrive, in spite of and parallel to mass media. What accounts for the puzzling persistence and continuing significance of this little-studied social phenomenon? Jean-NOel Kapferer examines the theory and practice of rumors, focusing on specific areas such as entertainment, criminal behavior, business and finance, and politics. He describes the kinds of conditions that give birth to rumors, why we believe them, and the hidden messages they convey. Kapferer points out that rumors frequently serve useful social purposes and present rich examples. He speculates about how rumors can be controlled, changed, and prevented. Drawing upon contributions of disciplines ranging from psychology to history, and integrating the insights of Europeans with the latest work of American researchers, this is the most comprehensive examination of rumors, gossip, and urban legends yet published. Translated into nine languages, this edition was updated with advances in theory and research since the books original French publication in 1987. Its brisk, accessible style makes the book of interest to psychologists, economists, political scientists, sociologists, and folklore analysts, as well as the general reader who is curious about the origins of this fascinating social phenomenon.

Some Aspects of Women's Ambition

Correlational analysis shows that several discrete measures of ambition express two latent types of ambition for both men and women, but are more highly differentiated in the case of women than men. Material ambition approximates one type, and womens career and mens eminence ambition the other. Degree of difference between level of mens and womens ambitions arrays on the same dimension. Since career-and non-career-choosers, with minimum acceptable husbands occupation controlled, do not differ in level of material ambition, the conclusion is suggested that women expect to leave the extrinsic rewards to the husband, while seeking intrinsic satisfactions from career and education. Comparisons between career-choosers and non-career-choosers with respect to value indorsements and sociometric characteristics round out a consistent picture.

Personality in Society: Social Psychology's Contribution to Sociology

A model of socialization process beginning and ending with society is proposed, featuring individual personalities as intervening variables in the maintenance, disruption, and modification of culture and social structure. Four integrative approaches to socialization are compared and assessed in relation to the model. Dominant values or themes, basic personality structure, generalization from interpersonal experience, and structure functionalist approaches all assume some pattern of integration in society and in personality, and all specify relationships between the two. However none is clear about all stages in the cycle from societal influence on socializing situations to personality and to the eventual return influence of personality on society. A modified functionalism emphasizing mutual accommodation rather than functional integration is proposed, incorporating the generalization from interpersonal experience approach to describe part of the socialization cycle.

Deviance Avowal as Neutralization of Commitment

In order to understand the special class of situations in which a potential deviant initiates the labeling process against himself, it is useful to conceive of deviance as a role rather than behavior thought to violate a single norm. Five important implications of role theory for deviance theory are specified. It is then explained and illustrated how deviance avowal can be adopted as the lesser evil in three kinds of situations: forced choice between group loyalties, the necessity to neutralize social pressures, and the necessity to neutralize personal commitment to conventional values. Deviance avowal is usually accompanied by deviant-role reorientation.

The Crowd in contemporary Britain

Foreword - Lord Scarman The Crowd in Context - George Gaskell and Robert Benewick Violent Disorders in Twentieth Century Britain - Eric Dunning, Patrick Murphy, Tim Newburn and Ivan Waddington Street Life, Ethnicity and Social Policy - John Edwards, Robin Oakley and Sean Carey Front Line Supervision in the British Police Service - Michael Chatterton Flashpoints of Public Disorder - David Waddington, Karen Jones and Chas Chritcher The Peaceful Crowd - Robert Benewick and Robert Holton Crowd Solidarity and the Popes Visit to Britain The Crowd and Community - Geraint Parry, George Moyser and Margaret Wagstaffe Context, Content and Aftermath Sources for the Study of Recent Crowd Events - John Stevenson

The Public Perception of the Watts Riot as Social Protest

This paper presents a test of several hypotheses regarding the conditions under which publics will identify a collective disturbance as a social protest. Data consist of reactions of white respondents to the Watts Riot. An Index of Protest Definition is presented. Findings indicate that protest definition is most strongly predicted by credibility based upon a predisposing experience or ideology. Forming subjective common cause with protestors appears to be related to protest definition only among those of higher SES. Protest definition is weakly related to belief in support from the group the protesters claim to represent. Perceiving the disturbance as an appeal for help is positively related to protest definition, while experience of threat does not independently predict protest definition. The relationship between conciliation and protest definition is inconclusive.

Ambiguity and Interchangeability in Role Attribution: The Effect of Alter's Response

An orienting hypothesis that the role attributed to ego by a third-party observer of interaction will be affected substantially by the response of alter to egos behavior is elaborated into more specific ambiguity and interchangeability hypotheses. Hypotheses are generally confirmed on the basis of interpretations of leader-follower and helperhelped dialogues by 688 college students using alternate questionnaire forms in a quasiexperimental design. Hypotheses are tested under three conditions of groupand roledesignation. Possible effects of role-adequacy judgments and variant role standpoints on role attribution are explored in a preliminary fashion.