Sheldon Goldenberg

Measuring Patterns of Acquaintanceship [and Comments and Reply]

This paper examines some of the factors which determine how people know each other and is a preliminary attempt to discover the rules which govern such interactions. An informant-defined experiment was conducted to elicit the information about a person needed by individuals in a small U.S. university town to choose which of their acquaintances was most likely to know that person. We found, as with a previous experiment, that knowledge of the persons location, occupation, hobbies, organizations, age, sex, and marital status was sufficient for this task. These seven facts were then provided for 500 mythical persons spread evenly around the world except that 100 of them supposedly lived in the United States. Forty informants then told us, for each name on the list, whom they knew who was most likely to know that person and why. We found that the data differed little from those of our previous studies in other parts of the United States, suggesting that the instruments is reliable. Of the choices, 86% were friends, 64% male; choices were predominantly made on the basis of the listed persons location or occupation. Factor analysis of similarity matrices based on informant response has allowed categorization for world locations, occupations, and hobbies. Some 23 location categories, 12 ocupation categories, and 13 hobby categories were found. The implications of our findings are discussed in the framework of work in other cultures.

Ethnic identity: Myth and reality in Western Canada

Abstract The paper analyzes eleven research projects which have focused on the issue of ethnic identity. Each study addresses the question of how important ethnicity is to the individual. The results suggest that ethnicity, as measured in the present studies, is of little importance to Canadians. Ethnicity, however, should be viewed as an adaptive response to the conditions governing the context for acquisition of scarce and desired goods! What is clear is that assertions of the universal and constant import of ethnicity to Canadians are not true.

The study of aggressive pornography: The vicissitudes of relevance

This paper reviews some crucial experimental studies of the behavioral consequences of exposure to violent or aggressive pornography and evaluates their validity and relevance as support for censoring pornography in the aftermath of the Meese Commission. We find this research deficient on a number of grounds. Many designs confound the effects of the stimuli with the anger of the subjects. The theoretical models consistently do not explain the results, and, to the extent that they do, such models do not offer support for censorship policies. The evidence of aggression is ambiguous and subject to contradictory interpretations. Means in factorial designs are reported incompletely, scales constructed incredibly (particularly the Likelihood to Rape Scale), and the experimental procedures relate only questionably to everyday realities. Consequently, while censorship policies might have a sound basis on moral and ideological grounds, this particular strain of research does not constitute a scientific basis for s...

An Exploratory Study of Predicting Perceived Success and Survival of Small Businesses

This study examined a variety of predictors as they related to survival of small businesses and their perceived success. Specifically, we assessed the relationships of perceptions of success and survival of small businesses with the motivational sources to begin the business, the four requirements cited by Drucker (1985), marketing and business planning activity, financial base, handling of business problems and identified sources of assistance with those problems, and demographics or business backgrounds of the small business owners. 128 small business owners representing the service, manufacturing, and retail sectors were interviewed. The marketing variables were the only ones that were predictive of success, suggesting the need for a more comprehensive framework to assess success of small businesses.

Measuring the effects of public participation programs

Since public participation programs became fairly widely advocated in the late 1970s, there has been concern in industrial, government, and academic circles with the rationale for and the effects of such programs. While public participation effects are most often treated in the context of social impact assessment (SIA), the two phenomena are separable and do occur independently. Relatively few practitioners of impact assessment suggest public participation programs as the preferred methodology for SIA. It is far more common to find more quantitative systems analysis or a version of cost-benefit analysis utilized in this area (Sassone 1977). On the other hand, public participation programs are sometimes put in place in response to a perceived demand by the powerless to participate actively in the decisions that directly affect them, even where there is no SIA involved. In democratic systems it has proven difficult simply to ignore such a demand. However, it is also the case that public participation programs differ greatly (Goldenberg 1984). There is a wide variety of such programs, and some of the apparent disagreement concerning their effects is a product of the difficulty of comparing incommensurables that go by the same label (Shields 1977). Public participation programs, whether developed in the context of SIA or not, vary in their purposes and in the degree to which the public participates. Many critics have, in fact, suggested that there is an inverse relation between the extent of real participation (i.e., involvement of members of the public in a decision-making capacity) and the frequencies of programs of the kinds to be described here. Some critics have suggested that so-called public participation programs exist where they do only to satisfy either legal requirements or perceived ethical ones. In these instances, the existence of anything called a public participation program satisfies the requirement, exclusive of the content or effect of such a program. Obviously, in such instances the quality of the program is irrelevant. Most commonly, only a few of the public will participate to any

Rediscovering and Confronting Critical Ambiguities in the Determination of Causality

The demonstration of non-spuriousness is both critical in making causal statements and extremely difficult. Unfortunately this issue is often summarily dealt with in methodological treatments in which spuriousness is reduced to instances of “common cause”. It is argued here, among other things, that extraneous variables need not be prior to the independent nor necessarily causally related to either independent or dependent variable. This being so, spuriousness is a far more common theoretical problem than is often currently acknowledged, and we might do well today to listen again to the advice of an earlier generation of sociologists whose work on the topic deserves more careful attention than it appears to have received.

Sex Characteristic Stereotypes or Congruence: Do Either Matter Any More to Ratings of Performance?

The present study examines students’ expectations of the teaching abilities of hypothetical university professors in an attempt to assess the effect of gender stereotypes on ratings of occupational performance. Undergraduate sociology students were presented with a brief description of a hypothetical professor (either male or female) and then indicated their expectations of his/her teaching abilities on a list of positive and negative teaching attributes. Three possible outcomes were anticipated: the male professor receiving a more positive rating than the female professor; the female professor receiving a more positive rating; or no gender differences in the ratings. Two separate tests were conducted, the second with a revised instrument, and the data were analyzed using ANOVA. Neither the initial test (n = 80), nor the retest (n = 61) resulted in any ratings difference due to the gender of the professors or students. However, caution is necessary in interpreting the results as evidence that students no longer use gender stereotypes as guides for their expectations of teaching performance. RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS Note: The International ,Journal of Comparative Sociology invites communications in the form of short articles and reports about ongoing research, not exceeding 5,000 words, both in the empirical and theoretical fields.

Ecology, Social Structure, and Blood Feud1

Cross-cultural research has indicated a correlation between social structural indicators of close-knit networks and feud. It has been argued by other investigators that such a relationship is spurious and that ecological variables account for the covariation. This spuriousness hypothesis is tested, employing ecological measures from the Ethno graphic Atlas and two foraging indicators derived from theoretical ecology. A conditional model is found to account for the relationship between ecology, feud, and social structure.

An Empirical Test of Bott's Network Hypotheses, Based on Analysis of Ethnographic Atlas Data

Elizabeth Botts Family and Social Network (1957) has stimulated much research in the area of kinship networks and network analysis in general. Her hypotheses have been tested and criticized, refined and modified. And still they remain provocative and controversial. Thepresentpaper is an attempt to test Bott, using the international data on 1,170 societies gathered by fieldworkers over the years and summarized in the Ethnographic Atlas materials (Murdock 1967). While there are no direct measures of Botts key variables, it ispossible tofind useful indicators to represent them. This being the case, Botts model can be tested, indirectly, on a far larger body of data than has ever been tested before. The data analysis supports Botts linkages in the main, if only weakly. Network connectedness is related to sex-role segregation. Various factors, includingphysical mobility, economic interdependence, and the opportunity to make contacts outside the local area are related to network connected ness. In Bottsfull model, network connectedness is an intervening variable; whereas this data analysis finds network connectedness to be a conditional variable, at the societal level of analysis.

American and European Citations in the Feud Literature

While these rooms appear to have been constructed with techniques similar to those used in the construction of the large hall-like room, their uneven flooring, rough foundations, and wide entrances suggest that they may have been stables. This would help to explain the large quantities of carbonized oats found in one of them. In an effort o determine the possible extent of the landholdings of the Phase II villa rustica, an intensive survey was conducted on the 2.5 km2 immediately surrounding the site, a naturally demarcated block of land bounded by the villages of Zipariello and Ruoti to the north and south, a large ravine to the east, and a high ridge to the west. With the exception of four small surface scatterings of sherds found within a few hundred meters of the site, the villa is the only site in the area. The nearest other sites of similar magnitude are near the villages. It appears, then, that the area could have been controlled by the villa. Forests and possible villages probably limited control of land to the south and north, but control could have extended farther east and west. Using the water-flotation method, we have collected and analyzed seeds from soil samples from selected localities throughout the site and from all phases (see table 1). Seeds of wheat (Triticum) and barley (Hordeum) have been recovered from all phases. Grape seeds (Vitis) have been recovered from Phases 1 and III. Only one sample containing olive seeds (Olea) was found, indicating that olive trees were probably not extensively cultivated on the site. (The area today is climatically unsuitable for large-scale olive production.) Beans (Vicia) occur in Phases I and II and peas (Pisum) in Phases II and III. While the assignment of samples to particular phases is only provisional, some trends in cultivation preferences may be discernible. For instance, a variety of wheats, including emmer wheat, was grown on the site during Phase I, but during Phases II and III bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) was dominant. Barley and oats appear to have been more commonly cultivated or utilized during Phase III than during Phases I and II. The faunal remains at the site have been systematically collected, and various collecting and sampling techniques have