Encyclopedia of sociology by Edgar F. Borgatta, Rhonda J. V. Montgomery (z-lib.org)

ANOMIE

techniques, although in certain circumstances the communities and the disruption of norms, values,
analysis of covariance can be used to statistically and a familiar way of life were major concerns of
control for possible extraneous sources of influence. nineteenth-century philosophers and sociologists.
For sociologists, anomie is most frequently associ-
Where analysis of variance and covariance are ated with Emile Durkheim, although others used it
more appropriate in sociological studies is: (1) differently even during his lifetime (Wolff 1988).
where the independent variable can be manipulat-
ed (e.g., field experiments investigating natural Durkheim ([1893] 1956) used the French word
reactions to staged incidences, or studies of the anomie, meaning ‘‘without norms,’’ to describe the
effectiveness of different modes of intervention or disruption that societies experienced in the shift
teaching styles); (2) analyses of typologies or global from agrarian, village economies to those based
variables that capture a set of unspecified, interre- on industry. Anomie is used to describe a state of
lated causes or stimuli (e.g., comparisons of indus- society, referring to characteristics of the social
trialized vs. nonindustrialized countries, or differ- system, not of individuals, although individuals
ences between white collar vs. blue collar workers); were affected by this force. Increasingly, this term
or (3) where independent (or predictor) variables has taken on a more social psychological meaning.
are used that have a limited number of discrete This is not to say that it no longer has uses consis-
categories (e.g., race, gender, religion, country, etc.). tent with the initial definition, but its meaning has
been broadened considerably, at times consistent
REFERENCES with Durkheim’s usage, at times at substantial
variance with it.
Blalock, Hubert M. 1972 Social Statistics, 2nd ed. New
York: McGraw-Hill. There are, no doubt, sociologists who cringe
at any expanded usage of this and other concepts,
Bornstedt, G. W., and D. Knoke 1995 Statistics for Social but the fact of the matter is that we have no more
Data Analysis. Itasca, Ill.: F. E. Peacock Publishers, Inc. control over its usage than Thomas Kuhn (1970)
has over abominable uses of the concept ‘‘para-
McClendon, M. J. 1994 Multiple Regression and Causal digm,’’ or than computer engineers have over
Analysis. Itasca, Ill.: F. E. Peacock Publishers, Inc. those who say ‘‘interface’’ when they mean ‘‘meet
with.’’ Although we cannot completely stop the
Nie, Norman H., C. Hadlai Hull, Jean G. Jenkins, Karin misappropriation of such terms as anomie we can
Steinbrenner, and Dale H. Bent 1975 SPSS: Statistical be careful that sociological extensions of anomie
Package for the Social Sciences, 2nd ed. New York: are logically derived from their early uses.
McGraw-Hill.
DURKHEIM ON ANOMIE
Scheffe, H. A. 1959 The Analysis of Variance. New
York: Wiley. According to Durkheim, village life based on agri-
culture had consistent, well-established norms that
Simmons, Roberta G., and Dale A. Blyth 1987 Moving governed the day-to-day lives of individuals. Norms
Into Adolescence: The Impact of Pubertal Change and prescribed patterns of behavior, obligation, and
School Context. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. expectations. Durkheim called this pattern of so-
cial life mechanical solidarity. Communities char-
Tabachnick, Barbara G., and Linda S. Fidell 1996 Using acterized by ‘‘mechanical solidarity’’ were self-con-
Multivariate Statistics, 3rd ed. New York: Harper- tained units in which the family and the village
Collins. provided for all of the needs of their members.
With the emergence of industrial capitalism and
RICHARD BULCROFT the beginnings of population shifts from the hin-
terland to cities, mechanical solidarity could not
ANDROGYNY successfully structure social life. Durkheim be-
lieved that a new, ‘‘organic solidarity’’ based on a
See Femininity/Masculinity. division of labor would emerge, with a regulating
normative structure that would be as functional as
ANOMIE mechanical solidarity. The emergence of organic

The concept anomie was used by early sociologists
to describe changes in society produced by the
Industrial Revolution. The demise of traditional

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solidarity would take time, however. The transi- within us, but were advanced by a widely held
tional period, characterized by normative disor- conception of what constitutes ‘‘the good life.’’
ganization, Durkheim described as anomic. By this
he did not mean to imply literal normlessness but, Durkheim believed that when a society was
rather, a state of relative normative disorder (Coser characterized by anomie, there were inadequate
1977). Compared with communities characterized normative constraints on the desires and expecta-
by mechanical solidarity, developing larger towns tions of people. Peasants could come to believe,
and cities would have a less regulated, less struc- even expect, that they could rise to live like the
tured, less ordered pattern of social life. aristocracy, or become captains of newly develop-
ing industry. Part of mechanical solidarity was the
Release from the restraining influence of norms norms that constrained these expectations, that
was not a liberating circumstance, according to ordered the intercourse between social classes,
Durkheim. In this state, without adequate norma- that checked the natural wellsprings of desires and
tive direction, people did not know what to expect encouraged peasants to be happy with their lot in
or how to behave. Many of the social problems that life. Without these checks, desires exceeded rea-
Durkheim witnessed in rapidly changing industri- sonable hope of attainment, producing frustration
alizing Europe, he blamed on inadequate norma- and potentially deviance.
tive regulation. In his classic Suicide, Durkheim
([1897] 1951) identifies ‘‘anomic suicide’’ as occur- Merton’s conception of anomie placed the
ring when the values and norms of the group cease society itself in the position of determining both
to have meaning or serve as anchors for the indi- the legitimate goals that people should aspire to
vidual, leading to feelings of isolation, confusion, and the legitimate means of pursuing these goals.
and personal disorganization. While this goal has often been expressed by re-
searchers as wealth attainment, Merton (1997)
CONTEMPORARY USES OF ‘‘ANOMIE’’ believed that wealth attainment was only one ex-
ample of many societal goals. Unfortunately, so-
Anomie continues to be used as defined by Durkheim, ciety frequently caused people to have grandiose
but it has also been extended during the twentieth expectations without providing all of its members
century. In addition to extensions similar to past with reasonable opportunities to pursue them le-
uses of this concept, social psychological concep- gitimately. This circumstance, where the goals and
tions of anomie have become widespread. Robert the means were not both universally available to
Merton’s use of ‘‘anomie’’ is very similar to that the members of a society, Merton called anomie.
described by Durkheim. His application (1949)
has been the core theoretical statement in one of When individuals were faced with anomie,
the twentieth century’s major criminological tradi- they had to choose whether to forgo the socially
tions. ‘‘Anomia’’ is a social psychological deriva- advanced goals, their society’s shared vision of the
tive used to represent a state of disaffection or good life, or to seek these objectives by means not
disconnectedness. defined as legitimate. Merton described five choices
available to these individuals. With ‘‘conformity,’’
Merton on Anomie. Merton (1949) used the the individual uses the socially prescribed means
concept anomie to describe how social structure to obtain the goals advanced by that society. ‘‘In-
produced individual deviance. According to Merton, novation’’ is the choice to use illegitimate means to
when there existed within a society a disjuncture achieve the legitimate goals; much criminal behav-
between the legitimate goals that members of a ior is an example of innovation. When a person
society were aspiring to and the legitimate means goes through the motions of using the legitimate
of achieving these goals, then that society was in a means, fully aware that the socially advanced goals
state of anomie. For both Durkheim and Merton, are beyond his reach, this is ‘‘ritualism.’’ ‘‘Retreatism’’
frustrated aspirations were an important cause of is the choice neither to use the legitimate means
norm violations, or deviance. They differed in nor to strive for the legitimate goals of a society.
what they saw as the source of aspirations. For Finally, ‘‘rebellion’’ is rejecting the society’s means
Durkheim, it was human nature to have limitless and goals and replacing them with ones defined by
desires, growing from a natural ‘‘wellspring’’ with- the individual as superior.
in. Merton argued that desires did not come from

165

ANOMIE

A common mistake is interpreting Merton as has proposed a micro-level theory; that ‘‘Adoles-
arguing that an individual chooses to live his or her cents are pressured into delinquency by the nega-
life as a conformist, or innovator, or retreatist. To tive affective states—most notably anger and relat-
the contrary, Merton’s position is that we all are ed emotions—that often result from negative
constantly making choices when faced with behav- relationships’’ (p. 48). His extension of traditional
ioral alternatives. At one point during the day one strain theories focuses on more than one form of
might choose to act as a conformist, but later, strain or anomie. Agnew (1992) suggests there are
when confronted with another choice, one may three major types of strain that can be experienced
choose to innovate. For example, a person who by individuals: strain (1) ‘‘as the failure to achieve
engages in robbery, innovation, is not always an positively valued goals,’’ (2) ‘‘as the removal of
innovator; he or she may also have a job, which positively valued stimuli,’’ and (3) ‘‘as the presenta-
indicates conformity. While one of these choices tion of negative stimuli.’’ This extension of anomie
may predominate with some people, they should or strain theories allows our understanding of the
be seen as alternatives that people choose from in creation of anomie to move even farther away
deciding how to act in a particular instance, not from that first misconception that it must be con-
identities that they assume. nected to wealth attainment.

In applying Merton’s perspective to Western Institutional Anomie Theory. Most research
nations, sociologists have argued that most of on anomie has been at the micro-level (Agnew and
these societies are characterized by some degree Passas 1997). For example, variations such as
of anomie, which manifests itself as a lack of equal Agnew’s general strain theory have ignored the
opportunity. The extent of anomie, the degree of theoretical implications at the macro-level (Agnew
disjuncture between goals and means in a society, and Passas 1997; see also Bernard 1987; Messner
can be used to predict the level of crime and 1988; Messner and Rosenfeld 1994; Rosenfeld
deviance that society will experience. The high 1989). Institutional anomie theory posits that in
crime rates of the United States can be linked to order to understand any social phenomena we
great inequalities in income, education, and job must understand the basics of social organization.
opportunities (Loftin and Hill 1974). To explain These basics are culture and social structure and
individual propensity to deviate from norms, one are best understood by their linking mechanism,
must consider the extent to which individuals have social institutions (Messner and Rosenfeld 1994;
accepted the society’s conception of ‘‘the good Rosenfeld and Messner 1997). Rosenfeld and
life,’’ and the legitimate means individuals can use Messner (1994, 1997) suggest that social institu-
to attain it (Cloward and Ohlin 1960). As an expla- tions are both interdependent and in conflict with
nation of crime, this theory has given way to one another, which leads to a constant, necessary
different approaches, but anomie has been ab- balancing of institutional demands. According to
sorbed into larger perspectives to explain the rela- Rosenfeld and Messner (1997) the economy is at
tionship between poverty and crime (Messner 1983). the center of this balancing act. Institutional ano-
mie theory helps explain the effect of the domina-
New Approaches to Anomie. Anomie saw a tion of the economy over other institutions by
theoretical resurgence in the late 1980s and 1990s suggesting that ‘‘economic dominance stimulates
(Agnew and Passas 1997), especially in criminological the emergence of anomie at the cultural level,
research. This resurgence first occurred with and. . . erodes the structural restraints against crime
Agnew’s (1985) general strain theory and later, with associated with the performance of institutional
macro-variations such as institutional anomie (Messner roles’’ (Rosenfeld and Messner 1997, p. 213). Insti-
and Rosenfeld 1994). tutional anomie theory which, up until this stage,
has been used to explain trends in crime, could
Strain Theory. While many have been critical successfully be extended to other social phenomena.
of anomie and strain theories of the past (Hirschi
1969; Kornhauser 1978), Agnew (1985, 1992) ar- Social Psychological Conceptions of Anomia.
gues that research in the areas of medical sociolo- Items designed to measure individual feelings of
gy, social psychology, and psychology can help anomia are now frequently included in surveys
create new directions for this theory. Agnew (1992) such as the General Social Survey, an annual na-
tional survey conducted by the National Opinion

166

ANOMIE

Research Center (NORC) at the University of Bjarnason, Thoroddur 1998 ‘‘Parents, Religion and Per-
Chicago. Examples of these items illustrate the ceived Social Coherence: A Durkheimian Frame-
current uses of the concept, as in the following work of Adolescent Anomie.’’ Journal for the Scientific
anomia items from the 1988 NORC survey (re- Study of Religion 37:742–755.
spondents were instructed to indicate the extent
of their agreement with each statement): ‘‘Most Cloward, Richard A., and Lloyd E. Ohlin 1960 Delin-
public officials (people in public office) are not quency and Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent Gangs.
really interested in the problems of the average New York: Free Press.
man,’’ and ‘‘It’s hardly fair to bring a child into the
world with the way things look for the future’’ Coser, Lewis A. 1977 Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas
(NORC 1988, pp. 215–216). (Nearly 40 percent of in Historical and Social Context, 2nd ed. New York:
the respondents to the second question agreed, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
and 68 percent agreed with the first.)
Deflem, Mathiew 1989 ‘‘From Anomie to Anomia and
IN SUMMARY Anomic Depression: A Sociological Critique on the
Use of Anomie in Psychiatric Research.’’ Social Sci-
Anomie has been and will continue to be a main- ence and Medicine 29:627–634.
stay concept in sociology. Papers discussing the
meanings and uses of this concept continue to be de Man, A.F., and L. Labreche-Gauthier 1993 ‘‘Corre-
written (see, for example, Adler and Laufer 1995; lates of Anomie in French-Canadian Adolescents.’’
Bjarnason 1998; Deflem 1989; de Man and Labreche- Journal of Social Psychology 133:141–146.
Gauthier 1993; Hackett 1994; Hilbert 1989; Menard
1995; Passas and Agnew 1997; Wolff 1988). The Durkheim, Emile (1897) 1951 Suicide. New York: Free Press.
basic meaning of the term anomie, though—both
in its initial usage as a description of society and in ——— (1893) 1956 The Division of Labor in Society. New
its modern extensions—is well established and York: Free Press.
widely understood within the discipline. Students
new to sociology should take care to understand Hackett, Edward J. 1994 ‘‘A Social Control Perspective
that the definitions of the word may not be as on Scientific Misconduct.’’ Journal of Higher Educa-
broad for sociologists as for the general public. tion 65:242–261.
The utility of the concept for the study of society is
best maintained by extending it in ways that are Hilbert, Richard A. 1989 ‘‘Durkheim and Merton on
consistent with its original definition. Anomie: An Unexplored Contrast and Its Deriva-
tives.’’ Social Problems 36:242–250.
REFERENCES
Hirschi, Travis 1969 Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley:
Adler, Freda, and William S. Laufer 1995 Advances in University of California Press.
Criminological Theory, vol. 6: The Legacy of Anomie.
New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction. Kornhauser, Ruth 1978 Social Sources of Delinquency.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Agnew, Robert 1992 ‘‘Foundations For a General Strain
Theory of Crime and Delinquency.’’ Criminology Kuhn, Thomas 1970 The Structure of Scientific Revolu-
30:47–87. tions, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

——— 1985 ‘‘A Revised Strain Theory of Delinquency.’’ Loftin, Colin, and Robert H. Hill 1974 ‘‘Regional Sub-
Social Forces 64:151–167. culture and Homicide.’’ American Sociological Review
39:714–724.
———, and Nikos Passas 1997 Introduction. In Nikos
Passas and Robert Agnew, eds., The Future of Anomie Menard, Scott 1995 ‘‘A Developmental Test of Mertonian
Theory, Boston: Northeastern University Press. Anomie Theory.’’ Journal of Research in Crime and
Delinquency 32:136–175.
Bernard, Thomas J. 1987 ‘‘Testing Structural Strain
Theories.’’ Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquen- Merton, Robert K. 1997 Forward. In Nikos Passas and
cy 24:262–280. Robert Agnew, eds., The Future of Anomie Theory.
Boston: Northeastern University Press.

——— 1949 Social Theory and Social Structure: Toward the
Codification of Theory and Research. New York: Free Press.

Messner, Steven F. 1988 ‘‘Merton’s ‘Social Structure
and Anomie’: The Road Not Taken.’’ Deviant Behav-
ior 9:33–53.

——— 1983 ‘‘Regional and Racial Effects on the Urban
Homicide Rate: The Subculture of Violence Revisit-
ed.’’ American Journal of Sociology 88:997–1007.

167

APPLIED SOCIOLOGY

———, and Richard Rosenfeld 1994 Crime and the Ameri- The nature of applied sociology can more
can Dream. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. easily be grasped by examining those characteris-
tics that distinguish it from basic sociology. Differ-
National Opinion Research Center 1988 General Social ent audiences are involved (Coleman 1972). Basic
Surveys, 1972–1988: Cumulative Codebook. Chicago: sociology is oriented toward those who have a
National Opinion Research Center, University of concern for the advancement of sociological knowl-
Chicago. edge. The quality of such work (quantitative or
qualitative,) is evaluated in accordance with agreed-
Passas, Nikos, and Robert Agnew 1997 The Future of upon standards of scientific merit. Applied soci-
Anomie. Boston: Northeastern University Press. ology is oriented more toward those who are
making decisions, developing or monitoring pro-
Rosenfeld, Richard 1989 ‘‘Robert Merton’s Contribu- grams, or concerned about the accountability of
tion to the Sociology of Deviance.’’ Sociological In- those who are making decisions and developing
quiry 59:453–466. programs. The quality of applied work is evaluated
in accordance with a dual set of criteria: (1) how
———, and Steven F. Messner 1997 ‘‘Markets, Morality, useful it is in informing decisions, revealing pat-
and an Institutional-Anomie Theory of Crime.’’ In terns, improving programs, and increasing ac-
Nikos Passas and Robert Agnew, eds., The Future of countability; and (2) whether its assumptions and
Anomie Theory. Boston: Northeastern University Press. methods are appropriately rigorous for the prob-
lems under investigation.
Wolff, Kurt H. 1988 ‘‘Anomie and the Sociology of
Knowledge, in Durkheim and Today.’’ Philosophy and If we were to imagine a continuum between
Social Criticism 14:53–67. pure research and pure practice, applied sociology
would occupy a space in the middle of this continu-
ROBERT CRUTCHFIELD um. This space is enlarged along one boundary
KRISTIN A. BATES when practitioners and applied sociologists col-
laborate to explain patterns of behavior or devel-
ANTI-SEMITISM op causal models for predicting the likely impact
of different courses of action. It is enlarged on the
See Discrimination; Prejudice; Race. other boundary when applied and basic sociolo-
gists collaborate in the elaboration of abstract
APARTHEID theory so as to make it more useful (Lazersfeld and
Reitz 1975). There is always tension between the
See African Studies; Discrimination; Race; Segre- two, however. In part, the tension is attributable to
gation and Desegregation. the analytic distance that should characterize so-
ciological analysis more generally (Lofland 1997).
APPLIED SOCIOLOGY In part, it is attributable to the infusion of an
ethical position in applied analysis, a posture which,
Applied sociology is sociology in use. It is policy- if nothing else, is sensitive to the operation of power.
oriented, action-directed, and intends to assist
people and groups to think reflectively about what The boundaries of applied sociology may also
it is they do, or how it is they can create more viable be specified by enumerating the activities that play
social forms capable of adapting to changing ex- a central role in what it is that applied sociologists
ternal and internal conditions. The roots of ap- do. Freeman and Rossi (1984) have suggested
plied sociology in the United States go back to the three activities: (1) mapping and social indicator
publication in 1883 of Lester Ward’s Dynamic research, (2) modeling social phenomena, and (3)
Sociology: or Applied Social Science, a text in which he evaluating purposive action. To this could be add-
laid the groundwork for distinguishing between ed at least one more activity: (4) conceptualizing,
an understanding of causal processes and how to studying, and facilitating the adaptability of alter-
intervene in them to foster social progress. Today native social forms. Examining these activities also
applied sociology has blossomed in every arena of permits considering some of the presumed trade-
sociological endeavor (Olsen and Micklin 1981). offs that are commonly thought to distinguish
basic from applied sociology.

168

APPLIED SOCIOLOGY

Mapping and social indicator research. Such need to understand how various interventions
studies are primarily descriptive, and designed to might increase the development and maintenance
provide estimates of the incidence and prevalence of adaptive strategies. In the case of drug net-
of phenomena that are social in nature. There may works, they might need to understand the relative
be interest in how these phenomena are distribut- effectiveness of different crime-control strategies
ed in different social categories (e.g., by ethnic in reducing the capacity of drug networks to pro-
group affiliation, lifestyles, or social classes) or are tect themselves.
changing over time. For example, corporations
may wish to know how consumption patterns for Just as with mapping and social indicator re-
various goods are changing over time for different search, while there are norms supporting rigor to
groups to facilitate the development of marketing which basic researchers should adhere in the de-
strategies. Federal and state agencies may wish to velopment of causal models, there is usually a
understand how the incidence and prevalence of sliding scale of rigor in applied research. There is
diseases for different social groups is changing not a necessary trade-off between doing applied
over time to develop more effective prevention work and levels of rigor. It usually happens, howev-
and treatment strategies. Neighborhood groups er, that applied problems are relatively more com-
may wish to know how citizen complaints regard- plex and tap into concepts that are less easy to
ing the police, high school graduation, or cervical quantify. In trying to capture more of the com-
cancer rates are distributed in relation to income plexity, precision in the specification of concepts
characteristics of neighborhoods. and elegance of form of the overall model may be
traded off against an understanding of dynamics
It is often assumed that applied sociology is that is sufficient to inform decisions.
less rigorous than basic sociology. Freeman and
Rossi (1984) suggest that it is more appropriate to For both basic and applied work it is impera-
argue that the norms governing the conduct of tive that the mechanisms by which controllable
basic sociological research are universally rigor- and uncontrollable concepts have an impact on
ous, while the norms governing the conduct of the phenomenon of interest are properly speci-
applied sociological research, of which mapping fied. Specification decisions must be made with
and social indicator research are but two exam- respect to three aspects of the dynamics of situa-
ples, have a sliding scale of rigor. For critical tions (Britt 1997). First, the nature of what con-
decisions, complex phenomena that are either cepts are (and what they are not) must be specified
difficult to measure or disentangle, or where pre- with regard to the contextually specific indicators
cise projections are needed, sophisticated quanti- that give them meaning. Second, the concepts that
tative or qualitative measures, or both, may be are considered sufficiently important to be includ-
required and sophisticated analytic techniques may ed in a model (as well as those that are deemed
be needed, or may need to be developed. But as sufficiently unimportant to be left out) must be
time and budget constraints increase, and the specified. Finally, the nature of relationships that
need for precision decreases, ‘‘quick and dirty’’ exist (and do not exist) among the included con-
measures might be more appropriate. The level of cepts must be specified. Since these specification
rigor in applied sociology, in short, is driven by the decisions interpenetrate one another (i.e., have
needs of the client and the situation as well as the implications for one another) over time, it may be
nature of the problem under investigation. prudent to think of models as vehicles for summa-
rizing what we think we know about the dynamics
Modeling social phenomena. The modeling of situations (Britt 1997).
of social phenomena is an activity common to both
basic and applied sociology. Sociologists of both The clients of applied researchers, however,
persuasions might be interested in modeling the are not interested in how elegant models are, but
paths by which adolescents develop adaptive or in how well the implications of these models assist
maladaptive coping strategies, or the mechanisms them in reducing the uncertainty associated with
by which social order is maintained in illicit drug decisions that must be made. As time and budget
networks. The applied sociologist would need to constraints increase, or researchers become more
go beyond the development of these causal mod- confident in their ability to understand which
els. For the adolescents, applied sociologists would controllable concepts are having the biggest (or

169

APPLIED SOCIOLOGY

most unanticipated) impact, less formal techniques sophisticated theoretical and methodological weap-
may be used to develop and evaluate the models ons in the sociological arsenal to the task of evalu-
under consideration. Elegance must be balanced ating the implications of the Coleman report.
against usability. Complexity must be balanced Similarly, econometric analyses initially conduct-
against communicability. Theoretical sophistica- ed to evaluate the impact of capital punishment on
tion must be balanced against the capacity of a the homicide rate spawned very painstaking and
model to interpret the lives of individuals and sophisticated applied research (e.g., Bowers and
groups living through situations. Pierce 1975) in an attempt to evaluate the robust-
ness of the conclusions. In these latter two cases, a
Evaluating purposive action. Evaluation re- high level of rigor by any standard was maintained.
search is an applied activity in which theories and
methods of the social sciences are used to ascer- Conceptualizing, studying, and facilitating
tain the extent to which programs are being imple- the adaptability of alternative social forms. A
mented, services are being delivered, goals are legitimate test of applied sociology is whether it
being accomplished, and these efforts are being can be used as a basis for designing and imple-
conducted in a cost-effective manner. These may menting better social institutions (Street and
be relatively small-scale efforts with finite and Weinstein 1975). An element of critical theory is
specific research questions. A manufacturing com- involved here that complicates the distinction be-
pany may be interested in evaluating the impact of tween basic and applied sociology, for it chal-
a new marketing program. A drug rehabilitation lenges applied sociologists and their clients to
center may be interested in evaluating the cost- imagine: (1) alternative social forms that might be
effectiveness of a new treatment modality. A move- more adaptive in the face of changing social, envi-
ment organization may be interested in the situa- ronmental, and technological trends; and (2) alter-
tional effectiveness of particular strategies for fos- native environments that must be sought if equita-
tering policies that are conducive to the reduction ble social forms are to exist. At the level of families,
in infant-mortality differentials or the production this may mean asking what new role relationships
of higher graduation rates in high-risk areas, or to could create more adaptive family structures. Al-
a more equitable allocation of tax revenues (Maines ternatively, it might mean asking in what norma-
and McCallion 2000). tive environments egalitarian family roles might
exist. Or perhaps, asking what the impact of pres-
These programs may or may not be of national sure for reproductive rights might be on the influ-
importance, may or may not have large sums of ence of women in families and communities. At
money contingent on the outcomes, and may or the level of work groups faced with changing
may not require an understanding of anything but technologies and dynamic environments, it is ap-
gross effects. It may be necessary to perform such propriate to ask whether flatter organizational
analyses with limited personnel, time, and money. structures and more autonomous work groups
Under such circumstances, relatively unsophisti- might better serve both organizational goals and
cated methods are going to be used to conduct the those of its members (e.g., Myers 1985). At the
evaluations and reanalysis will not be likely. community level, exploring the viability of alterna-
tive interorganizational relationships, or how com-
On the other hand, programs may involve the munities respond to the threat of drug dealing are
lives of many people, and deal with critical and among a host of legitimate questions. Whatever
complex social issues. The Coleman report on the the specific focus of such questions and the role of
equality of educational opportunity was presum- applied sociologists in working with clients to
ably intended to establish once and for all that answer them, questions of power and ethics should
gross differences in school facilities did exist for never be far away.
black and white children in the United States
(Coleman et al. 1966). The report, carried out by a In applied sociology, problems drive the de-
team of sophisticated social scientists in a relative- velopment of both theory and method. When
ly short time, unleashed a storm of reanalyses and problems and their dynamics cannot be explained
critiques (e.g., Mosteller and Moynihan 1972). by existing theories, new assumptions are added
These reanalyses attempted to apply the most (Lazerefeld and Reitz 1975), new ways of thinking
about concepts like adaptability are developed

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ART AND SOCIETY

(e.g., Britt 1989), or more fundamental theoretical REFERENCES
shifts take place in a manner described by Kuhn
(1961). When problems cannot be studied using Bowers, W., and G. Pierce 1975 ‘‘The Illusion of Deter-
existing methodological and statistical techniques, rence in Isaac Erlich’s Research on Capital Punish-
new techniques are developed. For example, the ment.’’ Yale Law Journal 85: 187–208.
computer was developed under a contract from
the Census Bureau so that the 1950 census could Coleman, J. G. 1972 Policy Research in the Social Sciences.
be conducted, and advances in area sampling theo- Morristown, N.J.: General Learning Press.
ry were stimulated by the Department of Com-
merce needing to get better unemployment esti- Coleman, J. S., E. Q. Campbell, C. J. Hobson, J.
mates (Rossi 1986). Ragin (1987) developed McPartland, A. M. Mood, F. D. Weinfield, R. L. York
qualitative comparative analysis to permit the rig- 1966 Equality of Educational Opportunity, 2 vols. Wash-
orous analysis of relatively rare events such as ington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
revolutions. Yet the applied implications of being
able to study the alternative combinations of con- Freeman, H. E., and P. H. Rossi 1984 ‘‘Furthering the
ditions that might give rise to particular outcomes Applied Side of Sociology.’’ American Sociological Re-
has immense applied value (Britt 1998). view 49:571–580.

The continuing pressure on applied sociology Lazersfeld, P. F., and J. G. Reitz 1975 An Introduction to
to adapt to the needs of clients has had two impor- Applied Sociology. New York: Elsevier.
tant second-order effects beyond the development
of theory and method. The nature of graduate Mosteller, F., and D. P. Moynihan 1972 On Equality of
training for applied sociologists is changing by Educational Opportunity. New York: Random House.
virtue of the wider repertoire of skills needed by
applied sociologists, and the dilemmas faced by Myers, J. B. ‘‘Making Organizations Adaptive to Change:
sociologists vis-à-vis their clients are being con- Eliminating Bureaucracy at Shenandoah Life.’’ Na-
fronted, and norms regarding the appropriate- tional Productivity Review, (Spring) 131–138.
ness of various courses of action are being developed.
Olsen, M.E., and M. Micklin 1981 Handbook of Applied
A universal component of graduate applied Sociology. New York: Praeger.
education is the internship. Learning by doing,
and experiencing the array of problems associated Rossi, P.H. 1986 ‘‘How Applied Sociology can Save
with designing and conducting research under Basic Sociology.’’ Journal of Applied Sociology 3:1–6.
time and budget constraints, while still having
supportive ties with the academic program, are Street, D., and E. Weinstein 1975 ‘‘Prologue: Problems
very important. The range and depth of coursework and Prospects of Applied Sociology.’’ The American
in qualitative and quantitative methods and statis- Sociologist 10:65–72.
tics is increasing in applied programs to prepare
students for the prospect of needing to employ Maives, D. R. and M. J. McCallion (2000) Urban Ine-
techniques as varied as structural equations, focus quality and the Possibilities of Church–based Inter-
groups, archival analysis, and participant observa- vention. Studies in Symbolic Interaction 23, (forthcoming).
tion in order to deal with the complexity of the
problems requiring analysis. DAVID BRITT

There have been corresponding changes in ART AND SOCIETY
the area of theory, with more emphasis given to
moving back and forth from theory to applied There is no consensus as to what art is nor, until
problem. And there have been increases in courses the 1970s, had sociologists expended much energy
designed to train students in the other skills re- on its study or on the development of a sociology
quired for successful applied work: networking, of the arts. While in Europe art had longer been of
problem decomposition, and dealing with client- interest to sociologists than in the United States,
sociologist dilemmas. even there it had not developed into an identifi-
able field with clear and internationally accepted
parameters. As recently as 1968 the term sociology
of art was not indexed in the International Encyclopaedia
of the Social Sciences, which sought to sum and
assess the thinking and accomplishments in the
rapidly expanding social sciences of the post-World
War II period. Yet by the end of the century the
study of art had moved into the mainstream of
sociological theory and was rapidly becoming a

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ART AND SOCIETY

favored subject for empirical investigation not studied within its social context, so too the grow-
only in the countries of Central and Western ing sociological interest in the arts reflects the
Europe but also in the United States. growing importance of the arts within American
society and the recognition of this importance by
Why should art, as a subject for sociological the government. Despite the concerted opposi-
study, have been so neglected as to have virtually tion of those who believe there is no role for
disappeared from mention in American textbooks government in funding the arts, at every level of
for half a century after World War I? In large part government—federal, state, and local—arrange-
this reflected the inherent tension between soci- ments for the support of grassroots arts have
ology and art, which, as noted by Pierre Bourdieu, become institutionalized.
make an ‘‘odd couple.’’ Artists, believing in the
uniqueness of the original creator, resented the A small but dedicated number of scholars can
social scientist’s attempt to demystify their achieve- be credited with sparking this postwar advance-
ments by dissecting the role of the artist in society, ment of theory and research in the sociology of
by questioning to what extent artists are ‘‘born’’ culture and, more specifically, in the sociology of
rather than ‘‘made,’’ by conceptualizing artistic the arts. The latter term, though not unknown
works as the products of collective rather than before then, began to surface with some frequency
individual action, by anthropologically approach- in the 1950s; thus, in 1954 a session on the sociolo-
ing art institutions, by studying the importance of gy of art was listed in the program of the annual
networks in artistic success, and by investigating meeting of the American Sociological Association.
the economic correlates of artistic productivity. In 1957 a symposium on the arts and human
Many scholars in the humanities were also skepti- behavior at the Center for Advanced Study in the
cal. For them the appeal of art is something of a Behavioral Sciences served as a catalyst for the
mystery and best left that way; they could hardly production of a book, based partially on papers
relate to the attempts of social scientists who, in presented there. In its preface, the editor, Robert
their quest for objectivity, sought to eliminate any N. Wilson, concluded that a sociology of art, though
evaluative component from their own research. in the early stages of its development, was not yet
This practice of disregarding one’s own personal ripe for formalization. Nonetheless, Wilson’s book
preferences and tastes hardly seemed legitimate to included a number of articles based on empirical
aestheticians. Moreover, in pursuing a rigorous research that attracted attention. In one, Cynthia
methodology, many sociologists chose to study White, an art historian, and Harrison White, a
only those problems that could yield readily to Harvard sociologist, reported on their investiga-
statistical analysis, and art did not seem to be one tion into institutional change in the French paint-
of those. They also preferred to focus on subjects ing world and how this affected artistic careers.
that were important in the solution of social prob- Later expanded and published in book form as
lems, and, in the United States, the arts were not Canvases and Careers (1965), this research provides
generally regarded as high on this list. a working example of how a changing art form
might best be studied and understood within its
Nonetheless, there has been—especially since historical and social context.
the late 1960s—a slow but steady movement to-
ward the development of a sociology of the arts. Perhaps the most important step toward the
This is due, in part, to a narrowing of the intellec- development of the field in these postwar years
tual gulf between the humanistic and sociological came with the publication of a collection of read-
approaches. On the one hand, art historians have ings edited by Milton Albrecht, James Barnett, and
legitimated the study of art within its social con- Mason Griff (1970). Clearly titled as to subject
text, and, on the other, mainstream sociology has matter—The Sociology of Art and Literature—it was
become more hospitable to the use of other than intended to serve a classroom purpose but also to
purely ‘‘scientistic’’ methodology. In part this prog- advance an institutional approach to its study. In
ress resulted from the expanded contacts of Ameri- one article, originally published in 1968, Albrecht
can sociologists after World War II with their oriented the reader to art as an institution, using
counterparts in other countries where art is re- art as a collective term for a wide variety of aesthet-
garded as a vital social institution and a public ic products, including literature, the visual arts,
good. And just as art must be understood and and music. In another (‘‘The Sociology of Art’’),

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ART AND SOCIETY

Barnett reprinted his state-of-the-field synthesis as on genres that are considered marginal to estab-
it stood in 1959, and, in yet another, Griff pub- lished categories of fine art, including such ‘‘out-
lished a seminal article on the recruitment and sider art’’ as that produced by asylum inmates,
socialization of artists, drawing in some part on his ‘‘naive artists,’’ African primitives, and Australian
earlier empirical studies of art students in Chica- aborigines. Others have researched the process
go. Though here, too, the editors spoke of the whereby ‘‘outsider artists’’ may make the transi-
sociology of art as being still in its infancy, they tion to being ‘‘insiders’’ while still others, extend-
helped it to take its first steps by including in their ing their interests to the politics of art, have con-
reader a large number of empirically grounded sidered what happens to ‘‘insiders’’ (and the art
articles—by scholars in the humanities as well as they have produced) when shifts in the political
the social sciences. Divided into six subjects— culture recast them as ‘‘outsiders.’’ Sociologists
forms and styles, artists, distribution and reward have also extended their inquiries to the econo-
systems, tastemakers and publics, methodology, mics of art as they have considered the influence of
history and theory—it served for many years as an funding and the structure of museums on the
exemplary resource both for those attempting to creation, production, preservation, and dissemi-
set up courses on the arts and society and those nation of art works; case studies of ‘‘arts manage-
embarking on research. ment’’ abound.

Beginning in the 1970s the sociology of art Some inquiries involving genres marginal to
moved toward formalization and started to come established categories of fine art have adopted
into its own. Speeding this development in the methodologically unusual approaches. These in-
new age of television dominance was a growing clude Wendy Griswold’s studies of the social fac-
sociological interest in the mass media, in visual tors influencing the revival of Renaissance plays
communications, and in the popular arts. The (1986); Robert Crane’s study of the transforma-
debate about mass versus popular culture was tion of art styles in post-World War II New York
revitalized by new fears about the effects of com- (1987); Liah Greenfeld’s study of taste, choice, and
mercialization, but some scholars began to won- success in the Israeli art worlds (1989); Vera
der about the terms in which the debate was being Zolberg’s studies of art patronage and new art
cast. The assumption that art forms could be forms (1990); and Gladys Lang and Kurt Lang’s
categorized as ‘‘high’’ or ‘‘low’’ or, put another study of the building and survival of artistic reputa-
way, as ‘‘mass’’ or ‘‘elite’’—an assumption that had tions (1990).
fueled the critiques of Theodor Adorno and other
members of the Frankfurt School—came into ques- These and other empirical studies that have
tion as reputable researchers looked more closely already appeared in print or are under way are
at the empirical evidence (Gans 1974). Howard S. helping to clarify what is meant by a sociology of
Becker’s conceptualization of art as collective ac- art. While there still may be no consensus as to
tion (1982) did not so much mute the debate as what art is—nor need there be—some consensus
turn attention away from the circumstances sur- is shaping up as to the direction in which the field
rounding the production of any particular work— should be moving. Leading theoreticians—Vera
that is, what kind of an artist produced work for Zolberg, Janet Wolff, Paul DiMaggio, Richard
what kind of audience under what system of re- Peterson, and Anne Bowler among them—agree
wards—toward the collective (cooperative) nature on the need to keep the art itself at the center of
of the activity whereby works regarded as art are theoretical concern but continue to disagree on
produced as well as to that collective process itself. the proper methodological approach to that ‘‘cen-
As attention turned to the production of culture, tering.’’ Essentially, this pits the case for focusing
the arts came to be widely regarded by sociologists on the institutions in which aesthetic objects are
as socially constructed entities whose symbolic produced and received—an analytical approach—
meanings reside not in the objects themselves but against one that emphasizes criticism and textual
change as circumstances change. interpretation of the objects themselves. Zolberg
has voiced the need to avoid the narrowness of
Recent American studies in the sociology of both social science and aesthetic disciplines, ac-
art have taken varied approaches, both as to sub- cepting the premise that art should be contextual-
ject matter and methodology. Some have focused ized in terms of time and place in a general sense as

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ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES

well as in a specific sense, that is, in terms of ——— 1996 ‘‘Banishing the Past: The German Avant-
institutional norms, professional training, reward, Garde.’’ Qualitative Sociology 19:323–343.
and patronage or other support. To approach art
as a part of society’s culture, Zolberg argues, is no Peterson, Richard A. (ed.) 1976 The Production of Cul-
more potentially reductionist than to treat it, as ture. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.
aestheticians do, as an activity that only restricted
groups with special interests and knowledge can Rueschemeyer, Marilyn 1993 ‘‘State Patronage in the
hope to comprehend. Literature in the field is German Democratic Republic.’’ In Judith Higgins
growing at a rapid rate as intellectual barriers Balfe, ed., Paying the Piper. Urbana: University of
between humanistic and social science approaches Illinois Press.
to the study of art begin to crumble.
White, Harrison C., and Cynthia A. White 1965 Canvasses
REFERENCES and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting
World. New York: Wiley.
Adorno, Theodor (1962) 1976 Introduction to the Sociolo-
gy of Music. New York: Seabury Press. Wilson, Robert N. (ed.) 1964 The Arts in Society. Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Albrecht, M. C., J. H. Barnett, and M. Griff (eds.) 1970
The Sociology of Art and Literature: A Reader. New Wolff, Janet 1992 ‘‘Excess and Inhibition: Interdisciplinarity
York: Praeger. in the Study of Art.’’ In Lawrence Grossberg, Cary
Wilson, and Paula A. Treichler, eds., Cultural Studies.
Alexander, Victoria D. 1996 Museums and Money: The New York: Routledge Press.
Impact of Funding on Exhibitions, Scholarship, and Man-
agement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Zolberg, Vera L. 1990 Constructing a Sociology of the Arts.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Balfe, Judith Huggins (ed.) 1993 Paying the Piper: Causes
and Consequences of Art Patronage. Urbana: University ———, and Charbo, Joni M. (eds.) 1997 Outsider Art.
of Illinois Press. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Becker, Howard S. 1982 Art Worlds. Berkeley: University GLADYS ENGEL LANG
of California Press.
ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES
Bourdieu, Pierre (1979) 1984 Distinction: A Social Cri-
tique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, Mass.: Har- The term Asian American is used in the United
vard University Press. States by federal, state, and local governments to
designate people of Asian descent, including Pa-
Bowler, Anne 1994 ‘‘Methodological Dilemmas in the cific Islanders (residents from the Pacific islands
Sociology of Art.’’ In Diana Crane, ed., Sociology of that are under U. S. jurisdiction, such as Guam,
Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. American Somoa, and the Marshall Islands). Al-
though historically relevant and geographically
Crane, Diana 1987 The Transformation of the AvantGarde: appropriate, inclusion of the Pacific islands in the
The New York Art World 1940—85. Chicago: Universi- generic term Asian American stemmed from ad-
ty of Chicago Press. ministrative convenience for the federal govern-
ment rather than from race or ethnic identifications.
Foster, Arnold W., and Judith R. Blau (eds.) 1989 Art
and Society: Readings in the Sociology of the Arts. Albany: Reflecting deep-seated prejudices against peo-
State University of New York Press. ple of color, in 1917 the Congress of the United
States created the Asiatic Barred Zone, which
Gans, Herbert J. 1974 Popular Culture and High Culture: stretched from Japan in the east to India in the
An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste. New York: Ba- west. People from within the zone were banned
sic Books. from immigration. The geographic concept was
incorporated into the Immigration Act of 1924
Greenfeld, Liah 1989 Different Worlds: A Sociological (Oriental Exclusion Act), a law that had a pro-
Study of Taste, Choice and Success in Art. Cambridge, found impact on the demographic structure of
England: Cambridge University Press. Asian-American communities as well as on U.S.
foreign policy. Although it is generally assumed
Griswold, Wendy 1986 Renaissance Revivals: City Comedy that the term Asian American has a racial basis,
and Revenge Tragedy in the London Theater, 1576–
1980. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lang, Gladys Engel, and Kurt Lang 1990 Etched in
Memory: The Building and Survival of Artistic Reputa-
tion. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

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particularly from the perspective of U.S. immigra- continuous flow of Japanese farm workers to ease
tion history, the racial overtone is muted by the the labor shortage on the Hawaiian plantations,
inclusion in the 1980 census of people from India contractors turned to the Philippine Islands—
in the ‘‘Asian and Pacific Islander’’ category; they which had been a U.S. possession since 1898—for
had been classified as ‘‘white’’ prior to 1980. cheap labor. From 1906 to the independence of
the Republic of the Philippines in 1946, over
IMMIGRATION AND RESTRICTIONS OF 125,000 (predominantly single) Filipino males, the
ASIAN AMERICANS majority of them from the Ilocos region, labored
on Hawaiian sugar plantations.
Asian immigration can be divided into two peri-
ods: the old and the new. The old immigration The exclusions of Asians enacted into the
period was marked by nonoverlapping waves of National Origins Act of 1924 essentially remained
distinct Asian populations who came largely in in effect until 1965. By Act of Congress in 1943,
response to the sociopolitical conditions in their however, 105 Chinese were permitted to immi-
homelands and to the shortage of unskilled labor grate annually, and in 1952, under the McCarran-
experienced by special-interest groups in the Unit- Walter Act, a token one hundred persons from
ed States. The new immigration was characterized each Asian country were allowed entry. The sym-
by the simultaneous arrival of people from the bolic opening of immigration doors to Asians was
Asia-Pacific Triangle, spurred principally by the attributed to Walter Judd, a congressman from
1965 legislative reforms in U.S. immigration poli- Minnesota who had spent many years in China as a
cy, shortages of certain skilled and professional medical missionary. The provision of a quota of
labor, the involvement of United States in Asia, one hundred persons seemed to be an important
and the sociopolitical situations in Asia in the moral victory for those who wanted the elimina-
context of the Cold War. In between these two tion of the exclusion act, but it was in fact a
waves, there was another wave of Asian immi- restatement of the 1924 national origin quota
grants, who came between the end of World War basis for immigration.
II and the mid 1960s, though the number was
small and involved principally Filipinos and their The new stream of Asian immigrants to the
families because of their services in the US mili- United States reflected the 1965 legislative reform
tary. This group came outside the fifty-person that allowed an equal number of persons (20,000)
quota allowed for Filipinos as a result of the Tydings- from each country outside the Western Hemi-
McDuffie Act of 1935 when the Republic of the sphere to immigrate. Furthermore, family unifica-
Philippines was granted independence. tion and needed skills became the major admis-
sion criteria, replacing national origin. Besides
The year 1848 marked the beginning of Asian China and the Philippines, Korea and the Indian
immigration to the United States when the coastal sub-continent became, and continue to be, the
Chinese—mostly from Guangdong—responded to major countries of origin of many newly arrived
the California gold rush and failures in the rural Asian immigrants. Refugees from Vietnam, Cam-
economy of China. Within fewer than thirty-five bodia, and Laos began to enter the United States
years, the Chinese became the first group in U.S. in 1975, and by 1990, peoples from the former
history to be legally barred from becoming citizens Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) had
because of race. The 1882 Anti-Chinese Exclusion become the third-largest Asian group, following
Act was followed by an influx of immigrants from Chinese and Filipinos. In contrast, Japan’s immi-
the southern prefectures of Japan during the last gration to the United States practically ceased
decade of the nineteenth century—until that flow from 1945 to 1965, when it resumed at a much
ended abruptly with the so-called ‘‘Gentlemen’s lower rate than those reported for other Asian
Agreement’’ of 1907–1908. Unlike the termina- countries.
tion of Chinese immigration, and reflecting Ja-
pan’s position as a world power, cessation of entry SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF
by Japanese was accomplished through a diplo- IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONS
matic compromise between the two governments
rather than through an act of Congress. Without a Several distinct demographic characteristics illus-
trate most graphically past restrictions and the

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ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES

1965 revision of the immigration laws. Earlier certain Asian-American subpopulations: among
immigrants from China and the Philippines were Filipinos, for example, the highest sex ratio was
predominantly single males. As a result of racial found in those sixty-five and older.
prejudice that culminated in the passage of
antimiscegenation laws directed primarily against The demographic characteristics of Japanese
people of color in many western and southwestern Americans present yet another unusual feature.
states, the majority of these earlier Asian immi- Under the ‘‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’’ between
grants remained unmarried. The lack of family life Japan and the United States, Japanese women
caused unattached immigrants to depend on one were allowed to land on the West Coast to join
another, creating an apparent great solidarity their men though the immigration of male labor-
among people of the same ethnic group. Many of ers was curtailed. The majority of the women came
the earlier studies of Chinese and Filipino commu- as picture brides (Glenn 1986, pp. 31–35) within a
nities depicted themes of social isolation and lone- narrow span of time. Thus, the years following
liness, which did not apply to the Japanese com- 1910 were the decade of family building for the
munity. Paul Siu (1952) portrayed the extreme first (issei) generation of Japanese Americans. Since
social isolation of Chinese laundrymen in Chicago almost all issei were young and their brides were
in his doctoral dissertation, that was published at chosen from a cohort of marriageable applicants
the time only as a paper in the American Journal of of about the same age, it was not surprising that
Sociology, with the title ‘‘The Sojourner.’’ Although issei began their families at about the same time
Siu’s work was written under the direction of after marriage. The historical accident of con-
Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess, it was not trolled migration of brides resulted in a uniform
included in the Chicago School sociological series age cohort of the second-generation Japanese
published by the University of Chicago Press that Americans (nisei). The relatively homogeneous age
focused on urban and ethnic social structure of the group of the nisei generation meant that their
time allegedly because Siu argued that the Chinese children, the third generation (known as sansei),
immigrants did not fit the Park-Burgess assimila- were also of about the same age. The fourth gen-
tion model because of the ‘‘race factor.’’ Thus a eration followed the same pattern. The amazingly
major piece of Asian-American research, The Chi- nonoverlapping age and generational cohorts
nese Laundryman: A Study in Social Isolation (Siu among Japanese Americans is not known to have
1987) remained unpublished until after the au- had parallels in other population groups.
thor’s death in the mid-1980s.
Fourth, while Asian Americans in general con-
The existence of single-gender communities tinue to grow in number as a result of new immi-
of Filipinos and Chinese is clearly demonstrated in gration, the size of the Japanese American popula-
the U.S. censuses between 1860 and 1970. In 1860, tion increases primarily by the addition of new
the sex ratio for Chinese was 1,858 men for every generations of U.S.-born babies. It is generally
100 women. By 1890, following the peak of Chi- believed that the offspring of Japanese women
nese immigration during the previous decade, the who marry Caucasians have lost their Japanese
ratio was 2,678 males for every 100 females—the identity, even though there are no estimates of the
highest recorded. Skewed sex ratios for the Chi- impact of intermarriages upon the shrinkage of
nese population later declined steadily as the re- the Japanese-American community. An educated
sult of legislative revisions in 1930 (46 U.S. Stat. guess would be that about two-thirds of Japanese
581) and 1931 (46 U.S. Stat. 1511) that enabled Americans marry non-Japanese partners. Given
women from China to enter the United States. the fact that Japanese immigrants had lower fertili-
ty rates than women in Japan during the period
A second factor that helped to balance the sex prior to and shortly after World War II, and that
ratio in the Chinese community, particularly among the number of new immigrants since the war has
the younger age cohorts, was the presence of an remained small, Japanese communities have larg-
American-born generation. In 1900, U.S.-born per- er percentages of older people than do other
sons constituted only 10 percent of the Chinese- ethnic minority populations, including other Asian
American population. By 1970, the figure was 52 Americans. In short, Japanese Americans will be a
percent. Nevertheless, in the 1980 census, the sex much smaller ethnic minority in the future. The
ratio remained high for some age groups within

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ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES

plurality ranking for all Asian groups placed the In short, the sociodemographic and socioeco-
Japanese at the top of the list in 1970; they dropped nomic characteristics of all Asian American com-
to the third place in 1980, are expected to place munities since 1850 have been greatly influenced
fourth in 1990, and to be ranked last by the by federal immigration legislation. A clear grasp of
year 2000. the structure and change of Asian-American com-
munities must begin with an understanding of the
One more demographic fact is worthy of note. history of immigration legislation.
Hawaii and the West Coast states continue to draw
large numbers of new immigrants from Asia. ASIAN-AMERICAN RESEARCH
Through a process known as ‘‘chain migration,’’
relatives are likely to follow the immigrants soon Asian-American research may be divided into six
after their arrival. This leads to sudden increases in periods: (1) the early period before World War II,
population within the ethnic enclaves. The post- which was influenced by, and was a part of, the
1965 pattern of population growth in many Chicago School of Sociology that focused on the
Chinatowns, for instance, is an example of the emergence of a multiethnic urban America. (2)
renewal and revitalization of ethnic communities— the World War II period, which saw a preponder-
which prior to 1965 were experiencing a decline— ance of Japanese-American studies that also cen-
as are the formation and expansion of Koreantowns, tered around the University of Chicago; (3) the
Filipinotowns, and Little Saigons. Moreover, the postwar era, with a strong emphasis on culture and
settlement of post-1965 immigrants from Asia is personality studies related to Japanese and Japa-
more dispersed than that of the earlier groups, nese Americans; (4) a shift toward ‘‘ethnic’’ experi-
owing to the fact that the need for professional ence as a result of the civil rights movement; and
and skilled manpower is widely distributed through- the emergence of a new academic course of Asian-
out the United States. The emergence of Thai, American studies and finally (5) the integration of
Malaysian, and Vietnamese communities in major social science theories and concepts of ethnic
metropolitan areas has added a new dimension to inequalities and the changing Asian-American vis-
the ethnic composition of Asian Americans. ta in the 1980s and 1990s.

Two separate chains of immigration resulted The Early Period. The pioneer sociological
from the new immigration legislation of 1965. studies on the assimilation of immigrants in Ameri-
One chain, largely found in Chinese and Filipino can urban communities may be attributed to the
communities, is kin-selective in that the process of work of Robert E. Park. Although Park had done
settlement follows the family ties of earlier immi- little empirical investigation, he had supervised a
grants. The other process is occupation-selective, large number of graduate students and had formu-
based on skills and professional qualifications. lated what was known as the theory of race cycle,
These two processes created significantly different which stressed the unidirectional process of com-
immigrant populations, with clearly discerned petition, accommodation, and assimilation as the
bimodal distributions of status characteristics. It is basis of race relations in urban America. Park later
therefore common to find recent immigrants from led a group of researchers to study Chinese and
Asia among the high-income groups as well as Japanese communities on the Pacific Coast. The
among the families living below the poverty level; results failed to prove the race-cycle theory. In
some find their homes in the ethnic enclaves of defending his views, according to Lyman (1977,
central cities while others live in high-income sub- p.4), Park employed the Aristotelian doctrine of
urban communities. Any attempt to describe Asian ‘‘obstacles,’’ which suggests that among Chinese
Americans by using average measures of social and Japanese the assimilation progress in the hy-
status characteristics, such as income, education, pothesized direction was only delayed.
and occupation, can produce a distorted and mis-
leading profile that fits no particular group, which Early published sociological research on Asian
can be misused by researchers and planners. A Americans included the works of Bogardus (1928,
more useful description would be the use of stand- 1930), who attempted to delineate degrees of preju-
ard errors to show the polarities or deviations of dice against minorities through an operational
the immigrant group from the norm of the majority. concept of ‘‘social distance.’’ Other topics were

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ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES

chosen randomly such as ‘‘Oriental crime’’ in Cali- development in social science research that paral-
fornia (Beach 1932); school achievement of Japa- leled some of the classic work on the study of the
nese-American children (Bell 1935); and anti-Asian Polish peasant (Thomas and Znanieki 1946). As a
sentiments (Sandmeyer 1939; Ichihashi 1932). A result it increased the general knowledge base on
noted pioneer community study of Japanese Ameri- Japanese Americans, including their families and
cans conducted by Frank Miyamoto (1939) in Seattle communities, and their sacrifices and contribu-
in the late 1930s paved the way for the long and tions to America’s wartime efforts.
significant bibliography on Japanese-American stud-
ies that followed. Culture and Personality Studies in the Post-
war Era. During World War II, the U.S. govern-
Perhaps the most significant and ambitious ment had reason and the opportunity to question
piece of work during the prewar era was the study the suitability of Asians as American citizens in
of social isolation of Chinese immigrants, which regard to loyalty and civic responsibilities. It was
took more than a decade to complete. The author, also a time to test the myth that Asian immigrants
Paul Siu, working under a condition of extreme could not assimilate into American society. Social
poverty for a decade, observed the life of Chinese scientists were intrigued by the way culture shapes
laundrymen. The product of his research endeav- the personality. Ruth Benedict’s classic work on
ors offers a classic text in the study of ‘‘unmeltable’’ the Japanese personality and society (Benedict
immigrants, from which the concept of ‘‘sojourn- 1946) opened a new vista for research. A cohort of
er’’ independently complemented the earlier work young scholars at the University of Chicago, which
of G. Simmel (Siu 1952, 1987). included Japanese-American graduate students,
became known for their pioneer work in studying
World War II and Japanese-American Stud- Japanese behavioral patterns. It had a profound
ies. Large-scale systematic studies on Asian Ameri- effect on a generation of interested social scien-
cans began shortly after the Japanese attack on tists and resulted in the publication of many classic
Pearl Harbor, when the United States declared works on culture and personality (Caudill 1952;
war on Japan. The U.S. government stripped Japa- Jacobson and Rainwater 1953; Caudill and DeVos
nese Americans of their property, relocated them, 1956; DeVos 1955; Kitano 1961, 1962, 1964; Caudill
and housed them in internment camps for several and Scarr 1961; Babcock and Caudill 1958; Mere-
years. Alexander Leighton, a psychiatrist, recruit- dith 1966; and Vogel 1961). Similar studies on
ed nisei social science graduates to assist in his other Asian-American groups are conspicuous-
work in the camps, monitoring the morale and ly absent.
loyalty of internees; this perhaps was the pioneer
work in assessing their group cohesion and struc- Ethnic Studies and the Civil Rights Move-
ture. A few of Leighton’s nisei assistants complet- ment. In the 1960s, the civil rights movement,
ed their doctoral studies after the war, maintaining sparked by the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
a close and affectionate relationship with him. All contributed to the passage of an unprecedented
had made their own contributions as social scien- immigration-legislation reform. At the time there
tists and as Asian-American specialists. Leighton’s existed among Asian Americans on the Pacific
work on the internment of these civilians (both Coast, principally in California, a collective search
citizens and non citizens) resulted in the publica- for identity that shared many of the goals and
tion of a classic text on loyalty (Leighton 1945). rhetoric of the black movement. Research into the
ethnic (Asian) U.S. communities had added two
Thomas and Nishimoto (1946), Thomas (1952), dimensions. The first was the need to raise ethnic
and Broom and Kitsuse (1955) also carefully docu- consciousness as a part of the social movement.
mented the situation and the people of Japanese- Personal testimonials of experiences as members
American communities. The focus of these studies of an oppressed minority provided insight into the
was the question of loyalty on the part of Japanese- psychology of ethnic minorities. The emphasis on
American citizens and their offspring in spite of the cathartic, as well as the cathectic quality in
their brilliant wartime combat duties on behalf of much of the writings of the civil-rights era reflect-
their adopted country in Europe. It was the Ameri- ed the mood of the period: that there is a need for
can home front conditions had sparked an area of alternative theories against the early assimilation

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ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES

model in standard texts on racial and ethnic stud- The New Age of Asian-American Research:
ies. Second, consistent with the radical theme, was Emerging Theories and Concepts. Stanley Lyman
the apparent influence of Marxian views on race at the University of California at Berkeley, and S.
and ethnic relations, which posited that African- Frank Miyamoto at the University of Washington,
American and other minorities are victims of op- are generally acknowledged as pioneers in Asian-
pression in a capitalist society. American research. Through his numerous pa-
pers and books, Lyman has maintained a theoreti-
Expectedly, the civil rights movement began a cal relevance and has demonstrated an historical
renewed interest in research on the experiences of insight into the origin and growth of Asian-Ameri-
the earliest Asian Americans. With time the titles can communities, especially those of the Chinese
ranged from well-documented academic publica- and Japanese. As a social historian, he based his
tion to insightful popular readings for the lay research, by and large, on archival documents (see
public (Chen 1980; Daniels 1988; Choy 1979; Lyman 1970b). Miyamoto, on the other hand,
Ichioka 1988; Miller 1969; Nee and de Bary 1973; belongs to a founding generation of Japanese-
Saxton 1971; Sung 1971; Takaki 1989; Wilson and American researchers whose long-time associa-
Hosokawa 1980). tion with the University of Washington and his
training under Professor Herbert Blumer at the
Asian-American studies was established in the University of Chicago gave him a mix of symbolic
1970s as an academic discipline in a number of interactionist bend and logical positivist approach
institutions of higher learning, particularly in Cali- to the establishment of sound theoretical proposi-
fornia, at a time when there were only a few major tions in the study of Japanese Americans.
publications as sources of information for under-
graduates (e.g., Kitano 1961–1976; Lyman 1974; In the 1980s and 1990s, a few well-trained
Petersen 1971). The birth of an academic specialty sociologists began to emerge, many of them for-
was marked by the conspicuous absence of avail- eign born and foreign educated, with American
able materials, particularly on Filipinos, Koreans, postgraduate training—the ‘‘first-generation new
Vietnamese, and the peoples of the Indian sub immigrants’’—scholars who arrived at a time when
continent (Min 1989). In response to this void, the America had become sensitive to diverse cultures.
Asian-American Studies Center at the University The new breed of Asian-American researchers are
of California at Los Angeles published two collec- increasingly more vocal, questioning traditional
tions of papers (Roots and Counterpoint) and a sociological theories and concepts based on stud-
quarterly journal, The Amerasia. On the Atlantic ies of European immigrants in the early 1920s and
Coast, a group of U.S.-born professionals pub- 1930s. There is also a reflection of the postmodern
lished an intellectual nonacademic monthly, The and world community perspectives that have be-
Bridge, for nearly a decade. In the 1970s and 1980s, come influential intellectual trends of the time.
these publications were recommended as collater- These new studies of Asian-American communi-
al readings for college students interested in Asian- ties have added much to a field that had been
American studies. Amerasia has since become more underserved by the social sciences. In addition, as
academic in the 1980s and 1990s while Bridge, for Asian-American studies became a new academic
the lack of funds, quietly folded after nearly one discipline in line with the African-American and
decade. In its place, two new academic publica- other ethnic minority and gender studies, the
tions appeared in the 1990s: the Journal of Asian need grew for more social science information.
American Studies, which is a U.S. East Coast com- The lack of usable and more accurate estimates on
plement (at Cornell University) to Amerasia; and many attributes of Asian Americans based on
the Journal of Asian American Health, that serves adequate sample design and culturally appropri-
health research readers as well as the general ate survey instruments employed in federal sur-
public. In addition, funded research on health and veys has frustrated many Asian-American research-
mental health by the U. S. Department of Health ers, in spite of the special publication of information
and Human Services has greatly enhanced the on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the
research productivities on Asian Americans as well 1980 and 1990 censuses. Asian-American research-
as cumulative bibliographies. ers constructively point out how such statistics can

179

ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES

be improved to the advantage of both legislators The smaller number of Cambodian and Lao-
and research academicians (see Yu and Liu 1992). tian Hmong people, relative to the Vietnamese, is
a major reason why they remained as a part of the
Much information on Asian Americans, par- underserved Asian-American population in the
ticularly new immigrants, still depends on small Asian-American literature. Much of the writings
sample backyard research by individual investiga- on the Hmong people were based on clinical
tors. In the post–civil rights movement decades, interviews by practicing health providers and aca-
studies on ethnic identities and race and ethnic demic psychiatrists (Beiser 1987, 1988; Boehnlein
relations continue to flourish, adding new Asian 1987; Mollicca et al. 1987). There is also the reflec-
immigrants into the sample of observations and tion of a time when the concern was on wartime
analyses. The newly arrived Korean businessmen trauma, refugee experience, and cultural adjust-
and professionals gave birth to fresh topics in the ment (see Chan 1994). These publications tend to
research literature. Publications on Korean pro- leave an impression that Hmong people had the
fessionals and small businesses provided opportu- most difficult time in America, and are psychologically
nities to support the old ‘‘middleman’’ theory that maladjusted. A popular book that portrayed the
argued Asians succeded in finding business oppor- experience between American physicians and a
tunities by being middleman between white and Hmong child revealed how culture interfered in
black supplier and customer relations; (see Light clinical judgment, no matter how well intentioned
and Bonacich 1988) and also advanced an argu- (Fadiman 1997)
ment that newly emerged Asian-American eth-
nic business communities can best be understood There remained a scarcity of systematic stud-
in the context of a global business community ies, except for Agarwal’s (1991) work on Indian
(Min 1987, and 1988; Yu, E.Y. 1983, Light and immigrants. Agarwal’s survey on immigrant Asian
Sanchaz 1987). Indians in America was based on a rather small
sample of professionals. Available studies on im-
Newer research also includes a collection of migrant Americans from the Indian subcontinent,
refugee studies that involved Vietnamese, however, remained inadequate and woefully few.
Cambodians, and Laotian Hmongs. Publications
on the Vietnamese community centered largely on The arrival of voluminous publications on
the initial movement of refugees after the with- new immigrants from Asia did not slow down
drawal of American troops from Vietnam on April studies of prior to 1965 immigrants. A cumulative
25, 1975. Liu and his associates made a survey of bibliography began to focus on the aftermath of
the first wave of refugees who were brought in Japanese nisei resettlement (Ichioka 1989a; Miyamoto
directly from Vietnam to Camp Pendelton in Cali- 1989; Warren 1989), and sensei scholars began to
fornia (Liu, Lamanna, and Murata 1979). He di- search for the Japanese identity of their parents’
rected the reader’s attention to the special status generation (Ichioka 1989b ). A well-publicized book
of refugees vis-à-vis immigrants, and the pathway by Ronald Tataki (1989), Strangers from a Different
to becoming refugees from previously nonrefugee Shore: A History of Asian Americans, contained ver-
status as a result of both political and military batim recorded life histories. The book was well
decisions. The distinction between refugees and received by the public but was poorly reviewed in
immigrants was later further elaborated by Haines the social science literature because it lacks a new
(1989a, 1989b). Gold (1992) compared Vietnam- conceptual framework for an old topic. However,
ese with Jewish refugees’ adaptive experience, and it did arouse renewed interest in Asian Americans
showed commonalities of refugee experience in and their American experience, particularly at a
general. Freeman (1984) on the other hand, col- time of race consciousness.
lected life histories and reported refugees’ own
accounts of flight and adjustment. Taken togeth- While the third-generation Japanese Ameri-
er, studies on Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Lao- cans were busy finding their identities, nisei con-
tians focused more on their cohort experience as tinued to search for the meaning of ‘‘being Ameri-
refugees, rather than their transition to an emerg- can.’’ In September of 1987, on the campus at the
ing new ethnic community. University of California at Berkeley, a group of
scholars who belonged to the original Japanese
American Evacuation and Resettlement Study

180

ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES

(JERS) at the Berkeley campus convened, and As more practicing professionals took part in
reminisced about lost valuable information of that studying Asian immigrants, there appeared in the
period (see JERS 1989). Among those who attend- 1970s and 1980s a bifurcation of writings on Asian
ed include Ichioka, Miyamoto, L.R and J.H. Americans: those that catered to an academic
Hirabayashi, Suzuki, Spencer, Kikuchi, Takagi, and audience and those that served as ‘‘voices’’ of the
Sakoda. Later researchers learned from discussion grassroots community (see Radhakrishnan 1996).
notes that there was a diary kept by Charles Kikuchi, It is understandable that, when more and more
known as the Kikuchi Diary, but it was destroyed. A publications contained a whole spectrum of top-
manuscript entitled American Betrayed by Profes- ics, the quality of writings would also vary widely.
sor Morton Grodzin was suppressed from being At the conceptual level, there remained in these
published. Furthermore, another manuscript re- writings a contrast between neo-Marxian and neo-
portedly written by Violet de Christoforo described classical economic approaches to status attain-
internees’ refusal to leave camps as camps were ment, income, and employment opportunities for
closed. The book also exposed the harshness of Asian Americans.
expulsion. The existence of this manuscript, if
true, shed additional light on similar experiences For example, the censuses of 1980 and 1990
reported in Camp Pendelton as the Vietnamese confirmed the fact that U.S.-born Japanese and
camps were closed, when refugees were labeled as Chinese men came closest to parity with white
suffering from campetitis by the federal administra- men with respect to individual income. Japanese
tor in charge of closing all camps that housed and Chinese women have significantly lower in-
refugees from Indochina (see Liu et al. 1979). come than white women. The rest of those Asian
men and women continued to have lower incomes
Clearly Asian-American research could not be than those of whites, Japanese, and Chinese. One
separated from the general field of race and ethnic explanation seemed to have suggested that Asians
studies. In the 1980s and 1990s, researchers con- as a group valued education and scholastic achieve-
tinued to be fascinated by Asians who had mutual ment or individual effort, known as the human
ill feelings in their home countries because of capital theory (Becker 1975). But within various
neighboring dominations and the World War II Asian subgroups, the disturbing question is why
experience, but appeared to be united behind a some Asian immigrants attained higher income
cause of advancing the status of Asian-Americans than others in the same ethnic group. Here both
as a group. Whether there is a single identity of all Becker’s human capital and the labor market segmen-
Asian-Americans, or multiple subidentities of sepa- tation explanations are applicable. The Lahei sug-
rate entities depends, of course, on issues. But the gests a two tier wage system prevail (see Cabezas,
persistence of a multiple subidentities seem to be Shinagawa, and Kawaguchi 1986–1987; Bonacich
present not only among the first-generation immi- 1975, 1988, 1992).
grants, which is understandable, it also appears to
be real among second- or third-generation ethnics. Perhaps a third explanation of the differential
Fugita and O’Brien’s (1991) volume on Japanese pace of status attainment came from some writ-
Americans is a good illustration; they seemed to ings about the Filipino immigrant-labor market
have suggested that a single identity of Asian structure that related to the manner in which
Americans is but an abstract rather than a reality. newcomers came to join their kin-relatives. The so-
Among the Asian-American professionals, perhaps called ‘‘network recruitment’’ tended to form clus-
this issue is more complex and deep than is com- ters in the same occupation area, resembling the
monly expected (see Espirita 1992). earlier immigration patterns of Chinese in Califor-
nia (who came from four or five villages in Guangdong
There also had begun some long-awaited new Province) and Japanese farm workers (who were
social science contributions to the literature on recruited from southern prefectures of Japan).
Filipino immigrants in the 1980s that were absent
in the earlier generation. These studies includ- Unlike blacks and Native Americans, Asian
ed Filipino-American income levels (Cabezas, Americans varied significantly in terms of lan-
Shinagawa, and Kawaguchi 1986–1987), Filipino guage proficiency, which had an enormous impact
assimilation (Pido 1986), and Filipino health prac- on income and the kinds of occupations in which
tices (Montepio 1989). they tended to cluster together. Barry Chiswick

181

ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES

(1974) has demonstrated that English proficiency good and important descriptive studies of an earli-
is a major factor in income parity. P.G. Min (1986) er era, both before and after World War II. A good
showed that Filipino and Korean immigrants, an example is the analysis of the Korean rotating
even match for income, engage in quite different credit associations in Los Angeles (Light, Kwuon,
occupations. Koreans engage in business but Fili- and Zhong 1990), in which the authors examined
pinos do not. Min pointed out that the language the functions of financing and savings groups
barrier forces Koreans to be self-employed, no based on informal trust in Korean business
matter how hazardous their business turns out to communities.
be. Furthermore, it was Korean immigrants’ link-
age to industrial development in Korea that led to The most noticeable achievement of the Asian-
the development of some of the Korean communi- American Studies programs in the 1970s through
ties in the United States. Filipino communities, on the 1990s is the abundant effort to compile impor-
the other hand, did not develop similar enter- tant bibliographies, by searching for research ma-
prises to form a visible ethnic enclave in America. terials that are normally scattered through scientif-
Instead, they depended more on ethnic profes- ic journals, unpublished files, doctoral and masters’
sional societies and trade associations as basis of dissertations, working papers, diaries, and confer-
ethnic cohesion. ence proceedings. The federal government is credit-
ed with making bibliographies on Indochinese
The same rationale was also applied in the refugees, either through the U.S. Government
case of ‘‘new’’ Chinatown studies. The earlier de- Printing Office, or at the University of Minnesota
scriptive studies of Chinatown either over-roman- Southeast Asian Refugee Studies Project (see ref-
ticized the exotic quality of an ethnic enclave, or erences at the end of this section). Finally, the rise
highlighted the worst side of humanity. To see of Asian-American Studies programs increased
Chinatown as a unique economic system is per- efforts to establish libraries and documentation
haps a new approach that is not without controver- centers in a number of universities throughout the
sy. Zhou (1992), herself a new immigrant scholar country.
from China, took the conceptual framework of her
major advisor A. Portes, and wrote and published REFERENCES
her dissertation on New York’s Chinatown. She
ably showed how a separate economic system had Agarwal, Priya 1991 Passage from India: Post 1965 Indian
developed and embedded in urban America. Zhou’s Immigrants and Their Children. Palos Verdes, Calif.:
book on Chinatown is refreshingly different from Yavati Publishers.
several other volumes on the same topic published
between the latter part of the 1970s to the early Becker, G. S. 1975 Human Capital. Chicago: University
part of the 1990s that continued to portray pat- of Chicago Press.
terns of conflict and cleavage (Wong 1977; Kuo
1977; Kwon 1987; Kinkead 1992). Beiser, Morton 1987, ‘‘Changing Time Perspective and
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or as an independent program, certainly has been ——— 1988 ‘‘Influence of Time, Ethnicity, and Attach-
instrumental in the increasing research and num- ment on Depression in Southeast Asian Refugees.’’
ber of publications that deal with Asian-American American Journal of Psychiatry 145(1):46–51.
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of the field, the multitudes of topics to be covered, Boehnlein, J. K. 1987 ‘‘Clinical Relevance of Grief and
and the unusual personal experiences of writers, Mourning Among Cambodian Refugees.’’ Social Sci-
the uneven quality of these publications is expect- ence and Medicine 25:765–772.
ed and sometimes unavoidable. Among studies on
new communities, on income and status attain- Cabezas, A. L., H. Shinagawa, and G. Kawaguchi 1986–
ment, and on racial and ethnic relations, there 1987 ‘‘New Inquiries into the Socioeconomic Status
appeared to be a genuine effort to formulate of Filipino Americans in California. Amerasia 12(1):21.
theoretically applicable concepts, and to use exist-
ing theories and models, which compared to fairly Caces, Fe Immigrant Recruitment into the Labor Force:
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Chan, Sucheng (ed.) 1994 Hmong Means Free: Life in Laos
and America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

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Chiswick, Barry 1974 Income Inequality. Light, I. M., J. Kwuon, and D. Zhong ‘‘Korean Rotat-
ing Credit Association in Los Angeles.’’ Amerasia
Chuong, Chung Hoang 1987 The Vietnam Conflict and 16(2):35–54.
the Vietnamese in the U.S.: A Bibliography. Berkeley
Calif: University of California Press. Light, I., and A. A. Sanchez 1987 ‘‘Immigrant Entre-
preneurs in 272 SMSAs.’’ Sociological Perspectives
ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education 1988 ‘‘Asian/ 30(4):373–399.
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March, 1988. Liu, William T., Maryanne Lamanna, and Alice Murata
1979 Transitions to Nowhere: Vietnamese Refugees in
Espirita, Yen Le 1922 Asian American Panethnicity: Bridg- America. Nashville, Tenn: The Charter House Publishers.
ing Institutions and Identities. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press. Marston, J. 1987 An Annotated Bibliography of Cambodia
and Cambodian Refugees. Minneapolis: University of
Fadiman, Anne The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Minnesota Center for Urban and Regional Affairs.
New York: The Noonday Press.
Min, Pyong Gap 1989 ‘‘Textbooks for Asian American
Freeman, James M. 1984 Hearts of Sorrow: Vietnamese Studies: A Review Essay.’’ Amerasia 15(1):259–266.
American Lives. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Universi-
ty Press. ——— 1988 Ethnic Business Enterprise: Korean Small
Business in Atlanta. New York: Center for Migration
Fugita, S., and J. O’Brien Japanese American Ethnicity: Studies.
The Persistence of a Community. Seattle: The University
of Washington Press. ——— 1986–1987 ‘‘Filipino and Korean Immigrants in
Small Business: A Comparative Analysis.’’ Amerasia
Gold, Steven J. 1992 Refugee Communities: A Comparative 12:53–71.
Study. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications.
Miyamoto, A. S. 1988 ‘‘Problems of Interpersonal Style
Haines, D.W. 1989 ‘‘Southeast Asian Refugee Resettle- Among Nisei: From Self Restraint to Self Expres-
ment in the United States and Canada.’’ Amerasia sion.’’ Amerasia 13:29–45.
Journal 15(2):141–156.
Mollicca, R. F., G. Wyshak, and J. Lavelle 1987 ‘‘The
——— (ed) 1989b Refugees as Immigrants: Cambodians, Psychosocial Impact of War Trauma and Torture on
Laotians, and Vietnamese in America. Totowa, N.J.: Southeast Asian Refugees.’’ American Journal of Psy-
Rowman and Littlefield. chiatry 144(12):1567–1572.

Hammond, R. E., and G. L. Hendricks 1988 Southeast Montepio, S. N. 1989 ‘‘Folk Medicine in the Filipino
Refugee Youth: An Annotated Bibliography. Minneapo- American Experience.’’ Amerasia 13(1):151–162.
lis University of Minnesota Center for Urban and
Regional Affairs. ——— 1987–1988 ‘‘Magical Medicine and the Filipino
Healer: Floklore and Mythology Studies. 11, 12:36–46.
Ichioka, Juji ‘‘Coming of Age: From Rural 30s to Cities.’’
Amerasia Journal. National/Pacific Asian Resources Center 1988 On Ag-
ing: Annotated Bibliography. Seattle: National Pacific
——— ‘‘A Study in Dualism: Japanese American Couri- Asian Resources Center.
er: 1928–1942’’ Amerasia Journal.
Pido, Antonio J. A. 1986 Center for Migration Studies:
Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study New York. The Filipinos in America: Macro/Micro Di-
1989 Views from Within. Los Angeles: UCLA Asian mensions of Immigration and Integration.
American Studies Center.
Radhakrishnan R. 1996 Diasporic Mediations: Between
Kim, Hyung-chan 1989 Asian American Studies: An Anno- Home and Location. St. Paul: University of Minneso-
tated Bibliography and Research Guide. Westport, Conn.: ta Press.
Greenwood Press.
Sawada, Mitziko ‘‘After the Camps: Seabrook Farms,
Kinkead, Gwen 1992 Chinatown: A Portrait of a Closed N.J. and the Resettlement of Japanese Americans,
Society. 1944–1947. Amerasia.

Kuo, Chia-liong 1977 Social and Political Change in New Shin, H. E., and K. S. Chang 1988 ‘‘Peripherization of
York’s Chinatown. New York: New York Universi- Immigrant Professionals: The Case of Korean Physi-
ty Press. cians in the United States.’’International Migration
Review 22:4 609–626.
Kwong, Peter 1987 New Chinatown.
Smith, J. C. 1988 The Hmong, An Annotated Bibliography,
Light, Ivan, and Edna Bonacich 1988 Immigrant Entre- 1983–1987. Minneapolis University of Minnesota
preneurs: Koreans in Los Angeles, 1965–1982. Berkeley, Southeast Asian Refugee Studies Project.
Calif.: University of California Press.

183

ATTITUDES

Southeast Asian Asian Refugee Studies Project 1983 of books and thousands of articles have been
Bibliography of Hmongs. Minneapolis: University of published on the topic. A review of this literature
Minnesota Press. may be found in Eagly and Chaiken (1998). De-
spite this popularity, there is considerable disa-
U.S. Government Printing Office 1989 An Annotated greement about such basics as terminology. Sever-
Bibliography on Refugee Mental Health. Washington, al terms are frequently used as synonyms for
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. attitude, including opinion and belief. Contempo-
rary writers often distinguish attitudes from cognitions,
Warren, W. H. 1989 ‘‘Maps: A spacial Approach to which is broader and includes attitudes as well as
Japanese American Communities in Los Angeles.’’ perceptions of one’s environment. Most analysts
Amerasia 13:137–151. distinguish attitude from value, the latter referring
to a person’s ultimate concerns or preferred modes
Wong, Bernard 1987 ‘‘The Role of Ethnicity in Enclave of conduct.
Enterprises: A Study of the Chinese Garment Fac-
tories in New York City.’’ Human Organization An attitude is a learned predisposition to re-
46(2):120–130. spond to a particular object in a generally favor-
able or unfavorable way. Every attitude is about an
——— 1988 Patronage, Brokerage, Entrepreneurship and object, and the object may be a person, product,
the Chinese Community of New York. New York: AMS Press. idea, or event. Each attitude has three compo-
nents: (1) a belief, (2) a favorable or unfavorable
——— 1977 Chinese American Community. evaluation, and (3) a behavioral disposition. This
Wong, Paul, Meora Manvi, and Takeo Hirota Wong definition is used by most contemporary writers.
However, a small minority define attitude as con-
1998 ‘‘Asiacentrism and Asian American Studies?’’ sisting only of the positive or negative evaluation
Amerasia. 21 (1, 2):137–147. of an object.
Yochum, G., and V. Agarwal 1988 ‘‘Permanent Labor
Certifications for Alien Professionals, 1975–1982’’. A stereotype is one type of attitude. Originally,
International Migration Review 22(2):365–381. the term referred to a rigid and simplistic ‘‘picture
——— 1983 ‘‘Korean Communities in America: Past, in the head.’’ In current usage, a stereotype is a
Present, and Future.’’ Amerasia 10(2):23–51. belief about the characteristics of members of
Yu, Elena, and William T. Liu 1992 ‘‘U.S. National some specified social group. A stereotype may be
Health Data on Asian/Pacific Islanders: A Research positive (Asian Americans are good at math) or
Agenda for the 1990s.’’ American Journal of Public negative (women are bad at math). Most stereo-
Health 82:12. types are resistant to change.
Zhou, M. 1992 Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potentials of
An Urban Enclave. Philadelphia: Temple Universi- Attitudes link the person to other individuals,
ty Press. groups, and social organizations and institutions.
Each person has literally hundreds of attitudes,
WILLIAM T. LIU one for each significant object in the person’s
ELENA S. H. YU physical and social environment. By implication,
the individual’s attitudes should reflect his or her
ASSIMILATION location in society. Thus, attitudes are influenced
by gender, race, religion, education, and social
See Ethnicity. class. Considerable research on the relationship
between social position and attitudes has been
ATHEISM carried out; this literature is reviewed by Kiecolt
(1988).
See Religious Orientations.

ATTITUDES ATTITUDE FORMATION

Attitude ‘‘is probably the most distinctive and indis- Many attitudes are learned through direct experi-
pensable concept in contemporary American so- ence with the object. Attitudes toward one’s school,
cial psychology’’ (Allport 1985, p. 35). Hundreds job, church, and the groups to which one belongs

184

ATTITUDES

are examples. Attitudes toward the significant per- in society. The amount and quality of media cover-
sons in one’s life are also learned in this way. More age of people and events reflects the interests of
often, attitudes are learned through interactions particular groups in society. Through these mecha-
with others. Socialization by parents, explicit teach- nisms, the individual’s attitudes reflect the society,
ing in educational and religious settings, and inter- institutions, and groups of which she or he is
actions with friends are important sources of atti- a member.
tudes. Research shows that children’s attitudes
toward a variety of objects, including gender roles Each attitude fulfills one or more of four
and political issues, are similar to those held by functions for the individual. First, some attitudes
their parents. serve an instrumental function: An individual de-
velops favorable attitudes toward objects that aid
Another source of attitudes is the person’s or reward the individual and unfavorable attitudes
observations of the world. A topic of continuing toward objects that thwart or punish the individu-
interest is the impact of mass media on the atti- al. For example, a person who earns a large salary
tudes (and behavior) of users. A thorough review will have a positive attitude toward the job. Sec-
of the literature on this topic (Roberts and Maccoby ond, attitudes often serve a knowledge function.
1985) concludes that television viewing affects They provide the person with a meaningful and
both children’s and adolescents’ attitudes about structured environment. Third, some attitudes ex-
gender roles. Further, the viewing of programs press the individual’s basic values and reinforce
intentionally designed to teach positive attitudes self-image. Whites’ attitudes toward black Ameri-
toward racial or ethnic minorities does increase cans reflect the importance that whites place on
children’s acceptance of such persons. With re- the values of freedom and equality. Fourth, some
gard to adults, evidence supports the ‘‘agenda attitudes protect the person from recognizing cer-
setting’’ hypothesis; the amount and quality of tain thoughts or feelings that threaten his or her
coverage by the media (press, radio, and televi- self-image or adjustment.
sion) of an issue influences the public’s perception
of the importance of that issue. The effects of mass Stereotypes also serve several functions. The
media exposure on aggression are discussed by act of classifying oneself as a member of a group
Felson (1996) and Geen (1998). (males, Republicans, whites) elicits the image of a
contrasting group (females, Democrats, Latinos).
Stereotypes are also learned. A stereotype Thus, stereotypes contribute to social identity.
may arise out of direct experience with a member They also reduce the demands on the perceiver to
of the stereotyped group, for example, a person process information about individual members of
who encounters a musically talented black person a stereotyped group; instead, one can rely on a
may create a stereotype by overgeneralizing, infer- stereotype. Finally, stereotypes may be used to
ring that all African Americans are gifted musical- justify the political and economic status quo.
ly. More often, however, stereotypes are learned
from those with whom we interact such as parents. ATTITUDE MEASUREMENT
Other stereotypes may be acquired from books,
television, or film. Research indicates that televi- Because attitudes are mental states, they cannot be
sion programming portrays women, the elderly, directly observed. Social scientists have developed
and members of some ethnic minorities in nega- a variety of methods for measuring attitudes, some
tive ways and that these portrayals create (or rein- direct and some indirect.
force) misperceptions and negative stereotypes in
viewers (McGuire 1985). Direct Methods. These methods involve ask-
ing the person questions and recording the an-
Social institutions influence the attitudes one swers. Direct methods include various rating scales
learns in several ways. Adults’ ties to particular and several sophisticated scaling techniques.
ethnic, religious, and other institutions influence
the attitudes they teach their children. The instruc- The three most frequently used rating scales
tion given in schools reflects the perspectives of are single item, Likert scales, and the semantic
the dominant political and economic institutions differential. The single-item scale usually consists of

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ATTITUDES

a direct positive or negative statement about the the latter group are returned, it suggests people
object, and the respondent indicates whether he have prolife attitudes. Another indirect measure
or she agrees, disagrees, or is unsure. Such a of attitude is pupil dilation, which increases when
measure is easy to score, but is not precise. A Likert the person observes an object she or he likes and
scale typically involves several statements, and the decreases when the object is disliked.
respondent is asked to indicate the degree to
which she or he agrees or disagrees with each. By Some indirect measures involve deceiving re-
analyzing differences in the pattern of responses spondents. A person may be asked to sort a large
across respondents, the investigator can order number of statements into groups, and the indi-
individuals from greatest agreement to greatest vidual’s attitude may be inferred from the number
disagreement. Whereas Likert scales assess the or type of categories used. Similarly, a respondent
denotative (literal) meaning of an object to a re- may be asked to write statements characterizing
spondent, the semantic differential technique as- other people’s beliefs on an issue, and the content
sesses the connotative (personal) meaning of the and extremity of the respondent’s statements are
object. Here, an investigator presents the respon- used to measure his or her own attitude. A third
dent with a series of bipolar adjective scales. Each technique is the ‘‘bogus pipeline.’’ This involves
of these is a scale whose poles are two adjectives attaching the person with electrodes to a device
having opposite meanings, for example, good– and telling the person that the device measures his
bad, exciting–boring. The respondent rates the or her true attitudes. The respondent is told that
attitude object, such as ‘‘my job,’’ on each scale. some signal, such as a blinking light, pointer, or
After the data are collected, the researcher can buzzer, will indicate the person’s real attitude,
analyze them by various statistical techniques. then the person is asked direct questions.

A variety of more sophisticated scaling tech- While these techniques may reduce inaccu-
niques have been developed. These typically in- rate reporting, some of them yield measures whose
volve asking a series of questions about a class of meaning is not obvious or is of questionable validi-
objects, for example, occupations, crimes, or po- ty. Does mailing a letter reflect one’s attitude
litical figures, and then applying various statistical toward the addressee or the desire to help? There
techniques to arrive at a summary measure. These is also evidence that measures based on these
include magnitude techniques (e.g., the Thurstone techniques are not reliable. Finally, some research-
scale), interlocking techniques (e.g., the Guttman ers believe it is unethical to use techniques that
scale), proximity techniques (e.g., smallest space involve deception. Because of the importance of
analysis), and the unfolding technique developed obtaining reliable and valid measures, research
by Coombs. None of these has been widely used. has been carried out on how to ask questions. This
research is reviewed by Schuman and Presser
Indirect Methods. Direct methods assume that (1996).
people will report honestly their attitudes toward
the object of interest. But when questions deal For a comprehensive discussion of attitude
with sensitive issues, such as attitudes toward mem- measurement techniques and issues, see Dawes
bers of minority groups or abortion, respondents and Smith (1985).
may not report accurately. In an attempt to avoid
such reactivity, investigators have developed vari- ATTITUDE ORGANIZATION
ous indirect methods.
An individual’s attitude toward some object usual-
Some methods involve keeping respondents ly is not an isolated psychological unit. It is embed-
unaware of what is being measured. The ‘‘lost ded in a cognitive structure and linked with a
letter’’ technique involves dropping letters in pub- variety of other attitudes. Several theories of atti-
lic areas and observing the behavior of the person tude organization are based on the assumption
who finds it. The researcher can measure attitudes that individuals prefer consistency among the ele-
toward abortion by addressing one-half of the ments of cognitive structure, that is, among atti-
letters to a prochoice group and the other half to a tudes and perceptions. Two of these are balance
prolife group. If a greater percentage of letters to theory and dissonance theory.

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ATTITUDES

Balance Theory. Balance theory, developed between any two cognitions. Cognitions are con-
by Heider, is concerned with cognitive systems sistent, or consonant, if one naturally or logically
composed of two or three elements. The elements follows from the other; they are dissonant when
can be either persons or objects. Consider the one implies the opposite of the other. The logic
statement ‘‘I will vote for Mary Sweeney; she sup- involved is psycho logic—logic as it appears to the
ports parental leave legislation.’’ This system con- individual, not logic in a formal sense. Two cogni-
tains three elements—the speaker, P; another per- tive elements may also be irrelevant; one may have
son (candidate Mary Sweeney), O; and an impersonal nothing to do with the other.
object (parental leave legislation), X. According to
balance theory, two types of relationships may Cognitive dissonance is a state of psychological
exist between elements. Sentiment relations refer to tension induced by dissonant relationships be-
sentiments or evaluations directed toward objects tween cognitive elements. There are three situa-
and people; a sentiment may be either positive tions in which dissonance commonly occurs. First,
(liking, endorsing) or negative (disliking, oppos- dissonance occurs following a decision whenever
ing). Unit relations refer to the extent of perceived the decision is dissonant with some cognitive ele-
association between elements. For example, a posi- ments. Thus, choice between two (or more) attrac-
tive unit relation may result from ownership, a tive alternatives creates dissonance because knowl-
relationship (such as friendship or marriage), or edge that one chose A is dissonant with the positive
causality. A negative relation indicates dissocia- features of B. The magnitude of the dissonance
tion, like that between ex-spouses or members of experienced is a function of the proportion of
groups with opposing interests. A null relation elements consonant and dissonant with the choice.
exists when there is no association between elements. Second, if a person engages in a behavior that is
dissonant with his or her attitudes, dissonance will
Balance theory is concerned with the elements be created. Third, when events disconfirm an im-
and their interrelations from P’s viewpoint. In the portant belief, dissonance will be created if the
example, the speaker favors parental leave legisla- person had taken action based on that belief. For
tion, perceives Mary Sweeney as favoring it, and example, a person who buys an expensive car in
intends to vote for her. This system is balanced. By anticipation of a large salary increase will experi-
definition, a balanced state is one in which all three ence dissonance if she or he does not receive the
relations are positive or in which one is positive expected raise.
and the other two are negative. An imbalanced state
is one in which two of the relationships between Since dissonance is an unpleasant state, the
elements are positive and one is negative or in theory predicts that the person will attempt to
which all three are negative. For example, ‘‘I love reduce it. Usually, dissonance reduction involves
(+) Jane; Jane loves (+) opera; I hate (-) opera’’ is changes in the person’s attitudes. Thus, following
imbalanced. a decision, the person may evaluate the chosen
alternative more favorably and the unchosen one
The theory assumes that an imbalanced state more negatively. Following behavior that is disso-
is unpleasant and that when one occurs, the per- nant with his or her prior attitude, the person’s
son will try to restore balance. There is consider- attitude toward the behavior may become more
able empirical evidence that people do prefer positive. An alternative mode of dissonance reduc-
balanced states and that attitude change often tion is to change the importance one places on one
occurs in response to imbalance. Furthermore, or more of the attitudes. Following a decision, the
people maintain consistency by responding selec- person may reduce the importance of the cognitions
tively to new information. There is evidence that that are dissonant with the choice; this is the well-
people accept information consistent with their known ‘‘sour grapes’’ phenomenon. Following
existing attitudes and reject information inconsis- disconfirmation of a belief, one may increase the
tent with their cognitions. This is the major mecha- importance attached to the disconfirmed belief. A
nism by which stereotypes are maintained. third way to reduce dissonance is to change behav-
ior. If the dissonance following a choice is great,
Dissonance Theory. Dissonance theory as- the person may decide to choose B instead of A.
sumes that there are three possible relationships Following disconfirmation, the person may change
behaviors that were based on the belief.

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Numerous books and hundreds of articles Thus, it is no accident that magazine and television
about dissonance theory have been published since commercials feature young, attractive models. Mes-
it was introduced by Festinger in 1957. There is a sage variables include the extent of discrepancy
substantial body of research evidence that sup- from the target’s attitude, whether it arouses fear,
ports various predictions from and elaborations of and whether it presents one or both sides. Under
the theory. Taken together, this literature has certain conditions, highly discrepant, fear-arous-
produced a detailed taxonomy of situations that ing, and one-sided messages are more effective.
produce dissonance and of preferred modes of Target factors include intelligence, self-esteem,
dissonance reduction in various types of situations. and prior experience and knowledge. The most
researched contextual factor is mood. For a review
ATTITUDE STABILITY AND ATTITUDE of this research, see Perloff (1993).
CHANGE
In the 1990s considerable work built upon the
Both balance and dissonance theories identify the elaboration–likelihood model proposed by Petty and
desire for consistency as a major source of stability Cacioppo (1986). This model identifies two basic
and change in attitudes. The desire to maintain routes through which a message may change a
consistency leads the individual either to interpret target’s attitudes: the central and the peripheral.
new information as congruent with his or her Persuasion via the central route occurs when a
existing cognitions (assimilation) or to reject it if it target scrutinizes the arguments contained in the
would challenge existing attitudes (contrast). This message, interprets and evaluates them, and inte-
process is very important in preserving stability in grates them into a coherent position. This process
one’s attitudes. At the same time, the desire for is termed elaboration. In elaboration, attitude change
consistency will lead to attitude change when im- occurs when the arguments are strong, internally
balance or dissonance occurs. Dissonance theo- coherent, and consistent with known facts. Persua-
ry explicitly considers the link between behav- sion via the peripheral route occurs when, instead of
ior and attitudes. It predicts that engaging in elaborating the message, the target pays attention
counterattitudinal behavior may indirectly affect primarily to extraneous cues linked to the mes-
attitudes. This is one mechanism by which social sage. Among these cues are characteristics of the
influences on behavior may indirectly affect atti- source (expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness),
tudes. This mechanism comes into play when the superficial characteristics of the message such as
person experiences changes in roles and the re- length, or characteristics of the context such as
quirements of the new role are inconsistent with response of other audience members. Several fac-
his or her prior attitudes. tors influence whether elaboration occurs. One is
the target’s involvement with the issue; if the target
The classic perspective in the study of attitude is highly involved with and cares about the issue
change is the communication–persuasion paradigm, addressed by the message, he or she is more likely
which grew out of the work by Hovland and his to elaborate the message. Other factors include
colleagues at Yale University. Persuasion is defined whether the target is distracted by noise or some
as changing the beliefs or attitudes of a person other aspect of the situation, and whether the
through the use of information or argument. At- target is tired. Which route a message elicits in
tempts at persuasion are widespread in everyday attitude change is important. Attitudes established
interaction, and the livelihood of advertisers and by the central route tend to be more strongly held
political consultants. According to the paradigm, and more resistant to change because the target
each attempt involves source, message, target, and has thought through the issue in more detail.
context. Thousands of empirical studies, many of
them experiments done in laboratory settings, The literature on attitude change flourished
have investigated the influence of variations in in the 1990s. The effects of many variables have
these four components on the outcome of an been studied experimentally. A review of the re-
attempt. In general, if the source is perceived as an search conducted in 1992 to 1995 concluded that
expert, trustworthy, or physically attractive, the any one variable may have multiple effects, de-
message is more likely to produce attitude change. pending upon other aspects of the persuasion
attempt (Petty, Wegener, and Fabrigar 1997). For

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example, consider the effect of mood on attitude from memory into conscious awareness. An atti-
change. Assuming that happy people are more tude is usually activated by a person’s exposure to
open to new information, one might predict that the attitude object. Attitudes vary in accessibility,
persuasive messages would lead to greater attitude the ease with which they are activated. The more
change in happy persons than in sad ones. Howev- accessible an attitude is, the more likely it is to
er, research indicates that happy people spend less guide future behavior (Kraus 1995). Another vari-
time processing persuasive messages than persons able is the source of the attitude. Attitudes based
in neutral moods, and so may be less influenced by on direct experience with the object are more
them. The hedonic contingency hypothesis states predictive of behavior. The certainty or confi-
that the effect of mood depends upon the hedonic dence with which the person holds the attitude
tone of the message. Happy people want to main- also moderates the attitude–behavior relationship.
tain their happy mood, so they are likely to scruti-
nize and process happy messages but not sad ones. The attitude–behavior relation is also influ-
Sad people often want to change their mood, and enced by situational constraints—the social norms
most messages will improve it, so their processing governing behavior in a situation. An attitude is
is not affected by messages’ hedonic tone. The more likely to be expressed in behavior when the
results of two experiments support the hypothesis behavior is consistent with these norms.
(Wegener, Petty, and Smith 1995). Thus, the effect
of mood on persuasion depends on whether the An important attempt to specify the relation-
message is uplifting or depressing. ship between attitude and behavior is the theory of
reasoned action, developed by Fishbein and Ajzen
ATTITUDE–BEHAVIOR RELATION (1975). According to this theory, behavior is deter-
mined by behavioral intention. Behavioral inten-
The attitude–behavior relation has been the focus tion is determined by two factors: attitude and
of considerable research since the early 1970s. subjective norm. Attitude is one’s beliefs about the
This research has identified a number of variables likely consequences of the behavior and one’s
that influence the extent to which one can predict evaluation—positive or negative—of each of those
a person’s behavior from his or her attitudes. outcomes. Subjective norm is the person’s belief
about other important persons’ or groups’ reac-
Some of these variables involve the measure- tions to the behavior and the person’s motivation
ment of the attitude and of the behavior. The to comply with the expectations of each. One of
correspondence of the two measures is one such the strengths of the theory is this precise specifica-
variable: one can predict behavior more accurately tion of the influences on behavioral intention. It is
if the two measures are at the same level of speci- possible to measure quantitatively each of the four
ficity. An opinion poll can predict the outcome of components (likely consequences, evaluation, likely
an election because there is high correspondence reactions, motivation to comply) and use these to
between the attitude (’’Which candidate do you make precise predictions of behavior. Many em-
prefer for mayor in next month’s election?’’) and pirical studies report results consistent with such
the behavior (voting for a candidate in that elec- predictions. The theory applies primarily to behav-
tion). The length of time between the measure of ior that is under conscious, volitional control.
attitude and the occurrence and measure of the
behavior is also an important variable. The shorter On the other hand, researchers have shown
the time, the stronger the relationship. The longer that attitudes can affect behavior without being
the elapsed time, the more likely the person’s brought into conscious awareness (Bargh 1996).
attitude will change, although some attitudes are Attitudes toward objects influence our judgments
stable over long periods, for example, twenty years. and behavior toward those objects without con-
scious awareness or intent. Stereotypes of social
The characteristics of the attitude also influ- groups are often activated automatically, as soon
ence the degree to which one can predict behavior as an individual is perceived as a member of the
from it. In order for an attitude to influence group. Automatic processing is more likely when
behavior, it must be activated, that is, brought the individual experiences information overload,
time pressures, or is not interested in engaging in
effortful processing.

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ATTITUDE AS INDICATOR A major source of such data is the General
Social Survey (GSS), an annual survey of a proba-
Increasingly, attitudes are employed as indicators. bility sample of adults. The GSS repeats a core set
Some researchers use attitude measures as indica- of items on a roughly annual basis, making possi-
tors of concepts, while others study changes in ble the study of changes over a period of thirty
attitudes over time as indicators of social change. years. Many of these items were drawn directly
from earlier surveys, making comparisons over a
Indicators of Concepts. Measures of specific forty- or fifty-year timespan possible. A published
attitudes are frequently used as indicators of more book describes these items and presents the re-
general concepts. For example, agreement with sponses obtained each time the item was used
the following statement is interpreted as an indica- (Niemi, Mueller, and Smith 1989). Other sources
tor of powerlessness: ‘‘This world is run by the few of such data include the National Election Studies
people in power, and there is not much the little and the Gallup Polls.
guy can do about it.’’ Powerlessness is considered
to be a general orientation toward the social world This use of attitude items reflects a general
and is a sense that one has little or no control over concern with social change at the societal level.
events. Feelings of powerlessness may be related The investigator uses aggregate measures of atti-
to such varied behaviors as vandalism, not voting tudes in the population as an index of changes in
in elections, and chronic unemployment. cultural values and social institutions. Two areas of
particular interest are attitudes toward race and
Attitude measures have been used to assess gender roles. In both areas, efforts have been
many other concepts used in the analysis of politi- made to improve access to educational programs,
cal attitudes and behavior. These include the liber- jobs, and professions, increase wages and salaries,
alism–conservatism dimension, political tolerance and provide greater opportunity for advancement.
(of radical or unpopular groups), trust in or disaf- The availability of responses to the same attitude
fection with national institutions, and relative dep- items over time allows us to assess the consistency
rivation. (For a review of this literature, see Kinder between these social changes and attitudes in the
and Sears 1985.) Attitude measures are used to population. Consider the question ‘‘Do you think
assess many other characteristics of persons. In the civil rights leaders are trying to push too fast, are
realm of work these include occupational values, going too slowly, or are moving at about the right
job satisfaction, and leadership style. speed?’’ This question was asked in surveys of
national samples every two years from 1964 to
A major concern when attitudes are employed 1976 and in 1980. The percentage of whites reply-
as indicators is construct validity, that is, whether ing ‘‘too fast’’ declined from 74 percent in 1964 to
the specific items used are valid measures of the 40 percent in 1980 (Bobo 1988), suggesting in-
underlying concept. In the powerlessness exam- creased white support for the black movement. In
ple, the connection between the content of the general, research indicates that both racial and
item and the concept may seem obvious, but even gender-role attitudes became more liberal between
in cases like this it is important to demonstrate 1960 and 1990, and this finding is consistent with
validity. A variety of analytic techniques may be the social changes in these areas. Other topics that
used, including interitem correlations, factor analy- have been studied include attitudes toward abor-
sis, and LISREL. tion, social class identification, and subjective quali-
ty of life.
Indicators of Social Change. Two methodo-
logical developments have made it possible to use There are several issues involved in this use
attitudes to study social change. The first was the of attitude items. The first is the problem of
development of probability sampling techniques, ‘‘nonattitudes.’’ Respondents may answer survey
which allow the investigator to make inferences questions or endorse statements even though they
about the characteristics of a population from the have no attitude toward the object. In fact, when
results obtained by surveying a sample of that respondents are questioned about fictional ob-
population. The second is the use of the same jects or organizations, some of them will express
attitude measures in surveys of representative sam- an opinion. Schuman and Kalton (1985) discuss
ples at two or more points in time.

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ATTITUDES

this issue in detail and suggest ways to reduce the G. Lindzey, eds., Handbook of Social Psychology, 4th ed.
extent to which nonattitudes are given by respondents. New York: McGraw-Hill.

The second issue involves the interpretation Felson, Richard B. 1996 ‘‘Mass Media Effects on Violent
of responses to items. In the example above, the Behavior.’’ In J. Hagen and K. Cook, eds., Annual
analyst assumes that white respondents who reply Review of Sociology, vol. 22. Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual
‘‘Too fast’’ feel threatened by the movement. How- Reviews.
ever, there is evidence that small changes in the
wording of survey items can produce substantial Festinger, Leon 1957 A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance.
changes in aggregate response patterns. This evi- Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
dence and guidelines for writing survey items are
discussed in Schuman and Presser (1996). Fishbein, Martin, and Icek Ajzen 1975 Belief, Attitude,
Intention, and Behavior. Reading, Mass.: Addision-Wesley.
Finally, there is the problem of equivalence in
meaning over time. In order to make meaningful Geen, Russel 1998 ‘‘Aggression and Antisocial Behav-
comparisons across time, the items need to be the ior.’’ In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, and G. Lindzey,
same or equivalent. Yet over time the meaning of eds., Handboook of Social Psychology, 4th ed. New York:
an item may change. Consider the item ‘‘Are you McGraw-Hill.
in favor of desegregation, strict segregation, or some-
thing in between?’’ This question was asked of Kiecolt, K. Jill 1988 ‘‘Recent Developments in Attitudes
national samples in 1964 and every two years from and Social Structure.’’ In W. R. Scott and J. Blake.
1968 to 1978. From 1964 to 1970, the percentage eds., Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 14. Palo Alto,
of white, college-educated adults endorsing deseg- Calif.: Annual Reviews.
regation increased; from 1970 to 1978, the per-
centage decreased steadily. Until 1970, desegrega- Kinder, Donald R., and David O. Sears 1985 ‘‘Public
tion efforts were focused on the South; after 1970, Opinion and Political Action.’’ In G. Lindzey and E.
desegregation efforts focused on school integra- Aronson, eds., Handbook of Social Psychology, 3rd ed.
tion in northern cities. Evidence suggests that New York: Random House.
endorsement of desegregation changed because
the meaning of the question for white adults Kraus, S.J. 1995 ‘‘Attitudes and the Prediction of Behav-
changed (Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo 1985). ior: A Meta-Analysis of the Emperical Literature.’’
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 18:152–162.
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McGuire, William J. 1985 ‘‘Attitudes and Attitude
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Niemi, Richard G., John Mueller, and Tom W. Smith
Bargh, John A. 1996 ‘‘Automaticity in Social Psycholo- 1989 Trends in Public Opinion: A Compendium of Sur-
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The Guilford Press. Perloff, R. M. 1993 The Dynamics of Persuasion. Hillsdale,
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Bobo, Lawrence 1988 ‘‘Attitudes toward the Black Po-
litical Movement: Trends, Meaning, and Effects on Petty, Richard, and John Cacioppo 1986 ‘‘The Elabora-
Racial Policy Preference.’’ Social Psychology Quarterly tion–Likelihood Model of Persuasion.’’Advances in
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Dawes, Robyn M., and Tom L. Smith 1985 ‘‘Attitude Petty, Richard, Duane Wegener, and Leandre Fabrigan
and Opinion Measurement.’’ In G.Lindzey and E. 1997 ‘‘Attitudes and Attitude Change.’’Annual Re-
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Roberts, Donald F., and Nathan Maccoby 1985 ‘‘Effects
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Schuman, Howard 1995 ‘‘Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behav-
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———, and Stanley Presser 1996 Questions and Answers
in Attitude Surveys. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage
Publications.

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ATTRIBUTION THEORY

Schuman, Howard, and Graham Kalton 1985 ‘‘Survey only of cause but also of blame and responsibility.
Methods.’’ In G. Lindzey and E. Aronson, eds., Hand- Although these types of attributions are closely
book of Social Psychology, 3rd ed. New York: Ran- related, they are not conceptually identical. Fur-
dom House. thermore, because personality characteristics con-
stitute a major category of potential causes of
Schuman, Howard, Charlotte Steeh, and Lawrence Bobo behavior, attributions about individuals’ traits (both
1985 Racial Attitudes in America. Cambridge, Mass.: one’s own traits and those of others) have received
Harvard University Press. explicit theoretical attention.

Wegener, Duane T., Richard E. Petty, and Stephen M. MAJOR THEORIES OF ATTRIBUTION
Smith 1995 ‘‘Positive Mood can Increase or Decrease
Message Scrutiny: The Hedonic Contingency View Even though attribution has been one of the most
of Mood and Message Processing.’’ Journal of Person- popular social psychological research topics in the
ality and Social Psychology 69:5–15. social sciences, only a few theories of attribution
have been developed. The study of attribution
JOHN D. DELAMATER began with Fritz Heider’s (1958) original attempt
to provide a systematic, conceptual explanation of
ATTRIBUTION THEORY ‘‘naive’’ psychology. Heider maintained that peo-
ple strive to understand, predict, and control events
Attribution is a cognitive process that entails link- in their everyday lives in much the same way as
ing an event to its causes. Attribution is one of a scientists do in their professional lives. On the
variety of cognitive inferences that are included basis of observation, individuals form theories
within social cognition, which is one of several about their social worlds, and new observations
theoretical models within social psychology. Social then serve to support, refute, or modify these
cognition has been the most dominant social psy- theories. Because people act on the basis of their
chological perspective within psychology since the beliefs, Heider argued that it is important to un-
1960s, and this is evident in the popularity of derstand this layperson’s psychology. Although
research on attribution. In the mid-1970s, as much Heider did not develop an explicit theory of attri-
as 50 percent of the articles in major social psy- bution, he did assert several principles that have
chology journals concerned attributional process- guided all subsequent theorizing on this topic.
es, in part because attribution theory is relevant to
the study of person perception, event perception, Primary among these principles is the notion
attitude change, the acquisition of self-knowledge, that people are inclined to attribute actions to
and a host of applied topics including therapeutic stable or enduring causes rather than to transitory
interventions, close relationships, legal and medi- factors. Heider also stressed the importance of
cal decision making, and so forth. Although the distinguishing unintentional from intentional be-
proportion of published research that focused on havior, a distinction that has been particularly
this topic declined during the 1980s, attribution influential in theories of the attribution of respon-
remains one of the more popular fields of social sibility. He identified environmental and personal
psychological research. factors as two general classes of factors that pro-
duce action and hypothesized that an inverse rela-
DEFINITION tionship exists between these two sets of causes.
He also suggested that the ‘‘covariational princi-
An attribution is an inference about why an event ple’’ is fundamental to attribution: An effect is
occurred. More generally, ‘‘attribution is a process attributed to a factor that is present when the
that begins with social perception, progresses effect is present and to a factor that is absent when
through a causal judgment and social inference, the effect is absent. Heider’s early analyses of
and ends with behavioral consequences’’ (Crittenden social perception represent a general conceptual
1983, p. 426). Although most theories of and framework about common sense, implicit theories
research on attribution focus on causal inference, people use in understanding events in their daily
empirical research has dealt with attributions not lives. The two most influential theories of attribu-
tion are based on Heider’s work but go beyond it

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in the development of more systematic statements attributions for behavior. Women, on the other
about attributional processes. hand, made less use of these variables and intro-
duced the variable of ‘‘foreseeability’’ into their
Covariational model. Harold Kelley’s (1967, analyses.
1973) covariational model of attribution addresses
the question of whether a given behavior is caused Correspondent inference. The theory of cor-
by an actor or, alternatively, by an environmental respondent inference (Jones and Davis 1965; Jones
stimulus with which the actor engages. According and McGillis 1976) addresses the attribution of
to this model, the attribution of cause is based on personality traits to actors on the basis of their
three types of information: consensus, distinctiveness, behavior and focuses on attributions about per-
and consistency. Consensus refers to the similarity sons in greater depth than does Kelley’s covariational
between the actor’s behavior and the behavior of model. These two theories thus address different
other people in similar circumstances. Distinctiveness questions. Kelley asks: When do we attribute an
refers to the generality of the actor’s behavior: event to an actor or to some stimulus in the
Does she or he behave in this way toward stimuli in environment? Edward Jones asks: When do we
general, or is the behavior specific to this stimulus? attribute a trait to an actor on the basis of her or his
Consistency refers to the actor’s behavior toward behavior? The theory of correspondent inference
this stimulus across time and modality. There are focuses more narrowly on the actor but also yields
many possible combinations of these three types more information about the actor in that it speci-
of information, but Kelley makes explicit predic- fies what it is about the actor that caused the
tions about just three. The combination of high behavior. Jones and his coauthors predict that two
consensus, high distinctiveness, and high consis- factors guide attributions: (1) the attributer’s prior
tency supports an attribution to the environmen- expectancies for behavior, specifically, expectancies
tal stimulus, whereas a profile of low consensus, based either on knowledge of earlier behaviors of
low distinctiveness, and high consistency supports the actor (target-based) or on the actor’s social
an attribution to the actor. When the behavior is category memberships (category-based), and (2)
inconsistent, regardless of the level of consensus the profile of effects that follow from the behavior-
or distinctiveness, an attribution to circumstances al choices available to the actor.
is predicted.
Edward Jones and Daniel McGillis propose
Empirical tests of Kelley’s model have focused that expectancies determine the degree of confi-
either on the effects of a particular type of infor- dence with which a particular trait is attributed;
mation or, more in keeping with his formulation, the lower the expectancy of behavior, the more
on the effects of particular patterns of information confident the attribution. The profile of effects
(McArthur 1972). In an innovative analysis, Miles helps the attributer identify what trait might have
Hewstone and Jos Jaspars (1987) proposed a dif- produced the behavior in question. Noncommon
ferent logic (although one consistent with Kelley’s effects—effects that follow from only one of the
model), suggesting that potential attributers con- behavioral options—provide information about
sider whether different causal loci are necessary the particular disposition. The fewer the noncommon
and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of an effects, the clearer the attribution. Thus, behavior
effect. They conclude that the notion of causality is that contradicts prior expectancies and a profile of
flexible and thus assert that there may be some behavioral choices with few noncommon effects
advantage to conceiving of situation-specific no- combine to maximize the possibility of attributing
tions of causality. More recent work has examined a disposition to the actor (a correspondent infer-
the universality and external validity of Kelley’s ence). Empirical research generally has supported
model. Irina Anderson and Geoffrey Beattie (1998), these predictions.
for example, analyzed actual conversations be-
tween men and women talking about rape. They These two models share some attributional
found that men tended to use the reasoning out- principles. Expectancy variables (target-based and
lined in Kelley’s model by making reference to category-based) are analogous to Kelley’s types of
consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency, as well information. Although the predicted effects of
as by using these types of information to formulate consensus information and its analogue, category-
based expectancies, are compatible, the predicted

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ATTRIBUTION THEORY

effects of consistency and distinctiveness informa- attribution process (Ross 1977). Prominent among
tion and their analogue, target-based expectancies, these is what has been called the ‘‘fundamental
present some incompatibilities. This contradic- attribution error,’’ the tendency of perceivers to
tion has been evaluated both conceptually and overestimate the role of dispositional factors in
empirically (Howard and Allen 1990). shaping behavior and to underestimate the impact
of situational factors. One variant of this bias has
Attribution in achievement situations. Ber- particular relevance for sociologists. This is the
nard Weiner (1974) and his colleagues have ap- general tendency to make inadequate allowance
plied attributional principles in the context of for the role-based nature of much social behavior.
achievement situations. According to this model, That is, perceivers fail to recognize that behavior
we make inferences about an individual’s success often derives from role memberships rather than
on the basis of the individual’s ability to do the task from individual idiosyncrasy. Again, cross-cultural
in question, how much effort is expended, how research has called into question the generalizability
difficult the task is, and to what extent luck may of this bias. Joan Miller (1984) shows that the
have influenced the outcome. Other possible caus- tendency to attribute behavior to persons is mark-
al factors have since been added to this list. More edly more prominent in the United States, among
important perhaps is Weiner’s development of, both adults and children, whereas a tendency to
first, a structure of causal dimensions in terms of attribute behavior to situational factors is more
which these causal factors can be described and, prominent among Indian Hindus, both adults and
second, the implications of the dimensional stand- children, calling into question the ‘‘fundamentalness’’
ing of a given causal factor (Weiner, Russell, and of this attributional pattern.
Lerman 1978). The major causal dimensions are
locus (internal or external to the actor), stability or A second systematic pattern is the actor-ob-
instability, and intentionality or unintentionality server difference, in which actors tend to attribute
of the factor. Thus, for example, ability is inter- their own behavior to situational factors, whereas
nal, stable, and unintentional. The stability of a observers of the same behavior tend to attribute it
causal factor primarily affects judgments about to the actor’s dispositions. A third pattern con-
expectancies for future behavior, whereas locus cerns what have been called self-serving or egocen-
and intentionality primarily affect emotional re- tric biases, that is, attributions that in some way
sponses to behavior. This model has been used favor the self. According to the false consensus
extensively in educational research and has guided bias, for example, we tend to see our own behav-
therapeutic educational efforts such as attribution ioral choices and judgments as relatively common
retraining. Cross-cultural research has explored and appropriate whereas those that differ from
the cultural generalizability of these models. Paul ours are perceived as uncommon and deviant.
Tuss, Jules Zimmer, and Hsiu-Zu Ho (1995) and There has been heated debate about whether these
Donald Mizokawa and David Rickman (1990) re- biases derive from truly egotistical motives or
port, for instance, that Asian and Asian American reflect simple cognitive and perceptual errors.
students are more likely to attribute academic
failure and success to effort than are European METHODOLOGICAL AND
American students, who are more likely to attrib- MEASUREMENT ISSUES
ute performance to ability. European American
students are also more likely to attribute failure to The prevalent methodologies and measurement
task difficulty. Interestingly, as Asian Americans strategies within attributional research have been
spend more time in the United States, they place vulnerable to many of the criticisms directed more
less emphasis on the role of effort in performance. generally at social cognition and to some directed
specifically at attribution. The majority of attributional
Attribution biases. The theoretical models research has used structured response formats to
described above are based on the assumption that assess attributions. Heider’s original distinction
social perceivers follow the dictates of logical or between person and environmental cause has had
rational models in assessing causality. Empirical a major influence on the development of these
research has demonstrated, not surprisingly, that structured measures. Respondents typically are
there are systematic patterns in what has been asked to rate the importance of situational and
variously conceived of as bias or error in the

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ATTRIBUTION THEORY

dispositional causes of events. These ratings have The great majority of attribution studies use
been obtained on ipsative scales as well as on stimuli of highly limited social meaning. General-
independent rating scales. Ipsative measures pose ly, the behavior is represented with a brief written
these causes as two poles on one dimension; thus, vignette, often just a single sentence. Some re-
an attribution of cause to the actor’s disposition is searchers have shifted to the presentation of visual
also a statement that situational factors are not stimuli, typically with videotaped rather than actu-
causal. This assumed inverse relationship between al behavioral sequences, in order to ensure
situational and dispositional causality has been comparability across experimental conditions. Rec-
rejected on conceptual and empirical grounds. In ognizing the limitations of brief, noncontextualized
more recent studies, therefore, respondents as- stimuli, a few researchers have begun to use a
sign each type of causality separately. (Ipsative greater variety of more extended stimuli including
measures are appropriate for answering some ques- newspaper reports and published short stories.
tions, however, such as whether the attribution of Most of these stimuli, including the videotaped
cause to one actor comes at the expense of attribu- behavioral sequences, rely heavily on language to
tion to another actor or to society.) In theory, then, convey the meaning of behavior. Conceptual at-
both dispositional and situational variables could tention has turned recently to how attribution
be identified as causal factors. relies on language and to the necessity of consider-
ing explicitly what that reliance means. Some re-
The breadth of these two categories has also searchers (Anderson and Beattie 1998; Antaki and
been recognized as a problem. Dispositional causes Leudar 1992) have attempted to use more natural-
may include a wide variety of factors such as stable istic approaches, incorporating into the study the
traits and attitudes, unstable moods and emotions, analysis of spontaneous conversations among study
and intentional choices. Situational cause is per- participants.
haps an even broader category. It is quite possible
that these categories are so broad as to render a WHEN DO WE MAKE ATTRIBUTIONS?
single measure of each virtually meaningless. Thus,
researchers often include both general and more Long after attribution had attained its popularity
specific, narrower responses as possible choices in social psychology, a question that perhaps should
(e.g., choices of attributing blame to an assailant or have been raised much earlier began to receive
to the situation might be refined to the assailant’s attention: When do we make attributions? To what
use of a weapon, physical size, and psychological extent are the attributions in this large body of
state, on the one hand, and the location, time of research elicited by the experimental procedures
day, and number of people nearby, on the other). themselves? This is a question that can be directed
to any form of social cognition. It is particularly
Structured measures of attributions are vul- relevant, however, to attribution. Most people,
nerable to the criticism that the categories of confronted with a form on which they are to
causes presented to respondents are not those answer the question ‘‘Why?,’’ do so. There is no
they use in their everyday attributions. Recogniz- way of knowing, within the typical experimental
ing this limitation, a few researchers have used paradigm, whether respondents would make
open-ended measures. Comparative studies of the attributions on their own. In a sense there are two
relative utility of several different types of meas- questions: Do people make attributions spontane-
ures of causal attributions conclude that scale ously, and if they do, under what circumstances do
methods perform somewhat better in terms of they do so?
their inter-test validity and reliability, although
open-ended measures are preferable when research- In response to the first question, Weiner (1985)
ers are exploring causal attributions in new situa- has marshaled impressive evidence that people do
tions. Some researchers have attempted to over- indeed make attributions spontaneously. Inven-
come some of the limitations of existing scales; tive procedures have been developed for assessing
Curtis McMillen and Susan Zuravin (1997), for the presence of attributional processing that is not
example, have developed and refined ‘‘Attributions directly elicited. This line of evidence has dealt
of Responsibility’’ and ‘‘Blame Scales’’ for use in almost entirely with causal attributions. Research
clinical research that may be useful for other kinds
of attributional situations.

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suggests that trait attributions may be made spon- are less likely than men to make self-serving dispo-
taneously much more often than causal attributions. sitions. In a study of academics’ accounts of their
In response to the second question, a variety of success in the profession, Mary Glenn Wiley and
studies suggest that people are most likely to make Kathleen Crittenden (1992) argue that women
attributions when they encounter unexpected explain their success in a more modest manner
events or events that have negative implications in order to preserve a feminine identity, at the
for them. expense of their professional identities. This
attributional style may make it more likely for
SOCIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF women to blame themselves for various types of
ATTRIBUTION negative situations. Consistent with this reason-
ing, Bernice Andrews and Chris Brewin (1990)
Attribution is a cognitive process of individuals; found that female victims of marital violence tend-
much of the extant research on attribution is, ed to blame themselves for their experience of
accordingly, highly individualistic. In the 1980s, violence. Childhood experiences of physical or
however, researchers began to pay increasing at- sexual abuse increased women’s chances of
tention to the sociological relevance of attribu- characterological self-blame when, as adults, they
tion. The process of attribution itself is fundamen- found themselves in abusive relationships. (Other
tally social. Attribution occurs not only within research, however, notes that the relationship be-
individuals but also at the interpersonal, inter- tween attributions and adjustment is complex and
group, and societal levels. Moreover, the process not always so straightforward; see McMillen and
of attribution may underlie basic sociological phe- Zuravin 1997.)
nomena such as labeling and stratification.
Race and class characteristics also create dis-
Interpersonal attribution. At the interperson- tinct attributional patterns; research on these fac-
al level, attribution is basic to social interaction. tors has been more likely than research on gender
Interpersonal encounters are shaped in many ways to consider possible interactive effects on attributions.
by attributional patterns. Behavioral confirmation, In a study conducted by Fathali Moghaddam and
or self-fulfilling prophecies, illustrate the behav- colleagues (1995) on attributional styles of whites,
ioral consequences of attribution in social interac- blacks, and Cubans in Miami, for example, middle-
tion; attribution of specific characteristics to social class black respondents were more likely to blame
actors creates the expectancies that are then con- negative outcomes on discrimination than were
firmed in behavior. Considering attribution at this lower-class blacks. Lower-class whites were the
interpersonal level demonstrates the importance only group to attribute failure to themselves
of different social roles and perspectives (actors vs. personally.
observers) as well as how attribution is related to
evaluation. The self is also important to the attri- The great preponderance of research on so-
bution process; the evidence for attributional ego- cial interaction has been based on relationships
tism (self-esteem enhancing attributional biases), between strangers in experimental contexts, which
self-presentation biases, and egocentrism is per- may seem to undermine the claim that attribution
suasive. Attributions also affect social interaction is significant for interpersonal interaction. The
through a widespread confirmatory attribution best evidence of this significance, then, is the
bias that leads perceivers to conclude that their increasingly large body of research on the role of
expectancies have been confirmed in social attribution in the formation, maintenance, and
interaction. dissolution of close relationships. There is sub-
stantial evidence that attributions are linked to
Research has challenged the universality of relationship satisfaction and behaviors such as
egocentric biases by examining differences in conflict resolution strategies. There is also evi-
attributional styles according to race, class, and dence that distressed and nondistressed couples
gender. Several studies (Reese and Brown 1995; make differing attributions for significant events
Wiley and Crittenden 1992; Broman 1992; An- in their relationships; these patterns may actually
drews and Brewin 1990) have shown that women serve to maintain marital distress among troubled

196

ATTRIBUTION THEORY

couples, thus ultimately influencing marital satis- membership on attributions about success are not
faction. Attributions also play an important role in as strong. Interestingly, there is also some evi-
relationship dissolution. Attributions are a critical dence of outgroup-favoring and/or ingroup-dero-
part of the detailed accounts people provide for gating attributions among widely recognized low-
the dissolution of their relationships, and these er-status, dominated groups such as migrant labor
accounts go beyond explanation to rationalize and populations (Hewstone 1989). A third form of
justify the loss of relationships. evidence of intergroup attribution is provided by
studies of attributions about social positions occu-
Research on interpersonal attribution extends pied by existing groups. In general, these studies,
the intrapersonal approach in several ways. When like those cited above, show higher ratings of
people who interact have substantial knowledge of ingroup-serving as opposed to outgroup-serving
and feelings about each other, the attribution attributions.
process involves evaluation as well as cognition.
Issues of communication, and hence potential Societal attribution. At the societal level, those
changes in preexisting attributions for recurrent beliefs shared by the members of a given society
relationship events, also become salient at the form the vocabulary for social attributions. The
interpersonal level. There is very little research on concept of social representations, which has its
how attributions change through interaction and origins in Durkheim’s concept of ‘‘representation
relationships, but this is clearly a significant topic. collectives,’’ was developed by Serge Moscovici
Attributions at the interpersonal level also entail (1976) to represent how knowledge is shared by
greater concern with accountability for action; societal members in the form of common-sense
causality at this level also raises issues of justification. theories about that society. Social representations
are intimately connected to the process of attribu-
Intergroup attribution. Intergroup attribution tion. Not only are explanation and accountability
refers to the ways in which members of different part of a system of collective representations, but
social groups explain the behavior of members of such representations determine when we seek ex-
their own and other social groups. At this level, planations. Social representations serve as catego-
social categorization has a direct impact on attri- ries that influence the perception and processing
bution. Studies using a variety of subjects from of social information; moreover, they underscore
different social groups and often different coun- the emphasis on shared social beliefs and knowl-
tries show consistent support for an ingroup-serv- edge. Social representations are useful in inter-
ing attributional pattern, for example, a tendency preting research on laypersons’ explanations of
toward more dispositional attributions for posi- societal events such as poverty and wealth, unem-
tive as opposed to negative behavior for ingroup ployment, and racial inequality. Poverty tends to
actors. The evidence for the converse pattern, be attributed to individualistic factors, for exam-
more dispositional attributions for negative as ple, whereas unemployment tends to be attributed
opposed to positive behavior for outgroup actors, to societal factors. Not surprisingly, these patterns
is not as strong. (Moreover, these patterns are may be qualified by attributors’ own class back-
stronger in dominant than in dominated groups.) grounds; although middle-class people attribute
Social desirability biases can counteract this pat- poverty more often to internal factors, those who
tern; Steven Little, Robert Sterling, and Daniel are themselves poor attribute poverty more often
Tingstrom (1996), for example, found that white to external factors such as governmental policies
respondents held black actors less responsible for (Singh 1989). Gender and racial stereotyping can
participating in a bar fight than did black respon- also shape attributions. Cynthia Willis, Marianne
dents. The authors suggest that this finding may be Hallinan, and Jeffrey Melby (1996), for example,
due to the desire of the white sample—under- found that respondents with a traditional sex-role
graduates from a suburban area—to appear racial- orientation showed a favorable bias toward the
ly progressive. male perpetrator in domestic violence situations.
When the female victim was African American and
Parallel studies of a group’s success and failure married, both egalitarians and traditionalists were
show a consistent pattern of ingroup protection. less likely to attribute blame to the man.
Outgroup failure is attributed more to lack of
ability than is ingroup failure. Effects of group

197

ATTRIBUTION THEORY

Moving away from an emphasis on normative directly analogous to attribution. They report that
stereotyping, research has considered possible ef- the relationships between attribution information
fects of counter-stereotyping on attributional pat- and jury verdicts are consistent with predictions
terns, and of attributions on changes in stereo- based on a labeling perspective.
types. Portrayals of structurally subordinate groups
that counter stereotypical expectations can increase Richard Della Fave (1980) demonstrates the
the perceived credibility of members of those importance of attribution for understanding a key
groups (Power, Murphy, and Coover 1996). Moreo- but neglected aspect of stratification, namely, how
ver, an attribution of counterstereotypic behavior it is that stratification systems become legitimated
to dispositional factors of clearly typical outgroup and accepted by those disadvantaged as well as by
members can modify outgroup stereotypes (Wild- those advantaged by those systems. He draws heavily
er, Simon, and Faith 1996). on attribution theory in developing a theory of
legitimation and in identifying possible sources of
Cross-cultural research illustrates another as- delegitimation.
pect of societal attributions. This work compares
the extent and type of attributional activity across Attribution is a significant social process that
cultures. Although there has been some support ranges widely from cognitive processes to collec-
for the applicability of Western models of attribu- tive beliefs. The field is still imbalanced; more
tion among non-Western cultures, most of this work has been done at the intrapersonal and
research has demonstrated in a variety of ways the interpersonal levels. There is evidence for both
cultural specificity of particular patterns of attribu- intergroup and societal attributions, however, and
tion (Bond 1988). As noted above, for example, research at these two levels is steadily increasing
Joan Miller (1984) provides cross-cultural empiri- (Hewstone 1989). Recent research has demon-
cal evidence that the fundamental attribution er- strated connections across areas as diverse as so-
ror, the tendency to attribute cause more to per- cial cognition, social interaction, intergroup rela-
sons than to situations, is characteristic of Western tions, and social representations; these connections
but not non-Western societies. Attributions about provide increasing evidence of the importance of
the self also vary across cultures; members of some attribution for sociological phenomena. Indeed,
non-Western cultures attribute performance more in the next decade it may be that the fruits of
to effort than to ability; the opposite pattern has attribution theories will be evident more in re-
been found in the United States. Cultural patterns search on these other topics, than in research on
also shape responsibility attributions; V. Lee Ham- attribution alone.
ilton and Shigeru Hagiwara (1992) found that U.S.
(and male) respondents were more likely to deny REFERENCES
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JUDITH A. HOWARD
DANIELLE KANE

200

B

BALANCE THEORY Most such methods, however, work to the advan-
tage only of the first creditor or the most aggres-
See Attitudes; Cognitive Consistency Theories. sive creditor to demand payment. Bankruptcy, as
used in the United States and a number of other
BANKRUPTCY AND CREDIT countries, provides a means for resolving not only
the debtor-creditor conflict but also the potential
Every society must resolve the tension between conflict among creditors.
debtors and creditors, especially if the debtors
cannot pay or cannot pay quickly enough. Many of Bankruptcy is a very old concept. The word
the world’s religions have condemned lending itself comes from an Italian phrase meaning
money for interest, at least among co-religionists. ‘‘broken bench,’’ because a bankrupt merchant’s
In traditional societies, money lenders, although work bench would be broken by his creditors if he
necessary for ordinary commerce, were often could not repay the debt. In the United States,
viewed as morally suspect. The development of a each state has laws governing debtor-creditor rela-
robust capitalism was based upon raising capital tions, but the enactment of bankruptcy statutes is
by paying interest or dividends, and so it has been reserved to the Congress by the U.S. Constitution.
important for capitalist societies to develop insti- United States bankruptcy occurs in the federal
tutions and mechanisms for handling debt and credit. courts and is regulated by statutes enacted by
Congress. Special bankruptcy courts are located in
The inherent tension between creditors and each federal judicial district, and specially appoint-
debtors turns upon the creditor’s claim to justice ed bankruptcy judges oversee the caseload. Bank-
as the property owner and the debtor’s interest in ruptcy decisions may be appealed to the federal
fairness in the terms of repayment. To be sure, district court and subsequently to the federal ap-
lenders sometimes used their position to create peals court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
social control mechanisms such that debtors often
could never work their way out of debt. Such Bankruptcy is technically different from insol-
arrangements as sharecropping and the use of the vency. Insolvency refers to a financial situation in
company store often tied laborers to employers which a person or business has liabilities that
through the bonds of debt. With some exceptions, exceed assets. To be bankrupt, the debtor must file
states and legal regimes upheld property rights for bankruptcy protection in the federal court.
against the claims of the debtors. Although the overwhelming majority of individu-
als filing for bankruptcy are also insolvent, occa-
Through the years, societies have sanctioned sionally a solvent business will file for bankruptcy
creditors’ use of slavery, debt-prison, transporta- because of anticipated liabilities that will exceed its
tion to debtors’ colonies, debt-peonage, seizure of assets. An example of such a bankruptcy is that of
assets or garnishment of wages to control debtors. pharmaceutical manufacturer A. H. Robbins, whose

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Dalkon Shield intrauterine device (a contracep- funeral plots. There is a recent trend toward sub-
tive) was judged the cause of many injuries and stituting dollar limitations for exemptions instead
some deaths among women who used it. As the of listing specific items of property.
financial judgments against the company mount-
ed, its management sought the protection of the The state exemption is the principal determi-
bankruptcy courts. Bankruptcy allowed the com- nant of the resources a bankrupt debtor will have
pany to hold its creditors at bay for a period of following the bankruptcy. The rest of the debtor’s
time to allow the company to propose a financial postbankruptcy status depends upon the type of
settlement. bankruptcy the debtor declares.

THE ROLE OF THE STATES TYPES OF BANKRUPTCY

Although bankruptcy is a federal matter, states Bankruptcy may be entered either on a voluntary
also have laws to govern debtor-creditor relations. or on an involuntary basis. U.S. bankruptcy law
Each state’s debtor-creditor laws are affected by its arranges several ways by which debtors may volun-
history and by the debt conventions that are part tarily declare bankruptcy. Either individuals or
of its history. Before becoming a state, for exam- corporate actors, including incorporated and
ple, Georgia was a debtor’s colony. Before the unincorporated businesses, not-for-profit agencies,
Civil War, debtors in such southern states often and municipalities may declare bankruptcy. The
fled harsh debt-collection laws by going to Texas, law makes special provision for the bankruptcies
indicated by ‘‘G.T.T.’’ in sheriffs’ records. Texas of railroads and stockbrokers. Creditors may in
has traditionally retained pro-debtor statutory provi- some circumstances initiate an involuntary bank-
sions, especially its generous exemption. ruptcy. Only a small proportion of all bankruptcies
is involuntary, and nearly all of those cases are
An exemption is the property that a debtor targeted toward a business.
may keep despite bankruptcy or a judgment for
nonpayment. The federal bankruptcy statutes rec- The Clerk of the Bankruptcy Court classifies
ognize the right of state law to prescribe exemp- each case filed as a business bankruptcy or a
tions. There is also a federal exemption, but state nonbusiness bankruptcy. These distinctions are
legislatures may require their citizens to claim only not always clear-cut. As many as one in every five
the state exemption, which in some states is small- ‘‘nonbusiness’’ debtors reports currently owning a
er than the federal exemption. State exemption business or having recently owned a business.
laws vary widely, with some states allowing a sub- Moreover, many of the ‘‘business’’ bankruptcies
stantial exemption and other states exempting are small family-owned enterprises. Whether clas-
very little property. Even a generous exemption sified as business or nonbusiness, the bankruptcy
law, however, is not a guarantee that a debtor will of a small business owner typically affects the
keep a lot of property. A home is not exempt if family’s welfare as well as that of the business.
there is a mortgage on the home, and other goods
are similarly not protected from a secured creditor Individual, noncorporate debtors typically have
if they have been used as collateral for a debt. two choices in bankruptcy: Chapter 7 liquidation or
a Chapter 13 repayment plan. In a Chapter 7 case,
The states with a Spanish heritage often fol- the debtor’s assets over and above the exempt
lowed the Spanish tradition that a bankrupt’s fami- property will be sold and the creditors will be paid
ly should have the means to continue to make a pro rata. Creditors with secured debts (those debts
living. Thus, the state laws of Florida, Texas, and with collateral) will be allowed to have the collater-
California, for example, have traditionally been al. All remaining debt will be discharged, or wiped
liberal in permitting debtors to keep their home- away by the court. The debtor will not be able to
steads and some other assets, such as the tools of file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy again for six years.
their trade and current wages. Other states ex-
empt items that are believed necessary for the The Chapter 13 repayment plan is available
family’s well being, such as children’s school books, only to individual debtors with a regular source of
certain farm equipment, sewing machines, and income. There are also other legal limitations,

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such as maximum limits on the amount of debt For persons with substantial assets and for
owed. The debtor files with the court a plan for businesses there is an additional choice, Chapter
repaying debts over a three-to-five year schedule. 11, also called a reorganization. In Chapter 11, a
The debtor must report all income to the court, debtor business seeks the protection of the court
and must also include a budget that provides the to reorganize itself in such a way that its creditors
necessities of rent, food, clothing, medical treat- can be repaid (although perhaps not one hundred
ment, and so on. The difference between the cents on the dollar). Creditors are given an oppor-
budgeted amount and the monthly income is the tunity to review the plan and to vote on its accepta-
disposable income, which becomes the amount of bility. If a sufficient number of creditors agree, the
the monthly payment. others may be forced to go along. In large cases, a
committee of creditors is often appointed for the
The Chapter 13 petitioner must pay to a trus- duration of the Chapter 11. Reorganizations may
tee, who is appointed by the court, all disposable provide a means to save jobs while a business
income for the period of the plan. The debtor gets reorganizes.
to keep all property. The trustee disburses the
funds to the creditors. For a judge to confirm a In recent years, critics have charged that undo-
Chapter 13 plan, the unsecured creditors must ing business obligations has become an important
receive more money through the plan payments motive for companies to reorganize under Chap-
than they would have received in a Chapter 7 ter 11. Various companies have been accused of
liquidation. At the conclusion of the plan, any trying to avoid labor contracts, to avoid product
remaining debt is discharged. Following this dis- liability, or to insulate management from chal-
charge, the Chapter 13 petitioner is also barred lenges. These strategic uses of bankruptcy are
from further Chapter 7 bankruptcies for six years. potentially available to solvent companies. Although
strategic uses of bankruptcies by individuals prob-
About two of every three Chapter 13 filers do ably occur, most studies have found that the indi-
not complete the proposed plan. Although the viduals in bankruptcy are in poor financial condi-
Chapter 13 may provide some benefits to the tion, often with debts in excess of three years’ income.
debtor—for example, he might have time to reor-
ganize his finances—once plan payments are missed There is also Chapter 12 bankruptcy, another
the court may dismiss the Chapter 13 and the type of reorganization specifically for farmers. It
debtor loses the protection of bankruptcy. Repay- was introduced in 1986 and in most years between
ment plans such as Chapter 13 were begun by one and two thousand cases are filed in Chapter 12.
bankruptcy judges in northern Alabama before
Congress wrote them into law. Even today, Chap- Federal law permits the fact of a bankruptcy to
ter 13 is disproportionately popular in some judi- remain on a credit record for ten years, but the law
cial districts in the South. About one-third of all also prohibits discrimination against bankrupt debt-
nonbusiness bankruptcies are filed in Chapter 13. ors by governments or private employers.

Some debts survive bankruptcy, regardless of BANKRUPTCY TRENDS
the chapter in which the bankruptcy is filed. Child
support, alimony, federally-backed educational The number of business bankruptcies remains
loans, and some kinds of taxes are among those relatively small, usually fewer than 75,000 in a
effectively nondischargeable in Chapter 7. Credi- year, with exceptions in a few years. The number
tors may also object to the discharge of a specific of nonbusiness bankruptcies, however, has gener-
debt if the debt arose from certain misbehavior, ally risen for about two decades, from about 313,000
including fraud and drunkenness. Creditors may in 1981 to 811,000 in 1991. Nonbusiness bank-
also object to the discharge generally on the grounds ruptcies passed the millionmark in 1996, and by
of debtor misbehavior, including hiding assets, 1998 there were more than 1.4 million nonbusiness
disposing of assets before the bankruptcy, and bankruptcies in the United States.
lying to the court. A judge may object to a debtor
filing in Chapter 7 if the judge believes that the Embedded within the general increase in bank-
filing represents a ‘‘substantial abuse.’’ A Chapter ruptcy are substantial regional variations in filing
13 plan must be filed in ‘‘good faith.’’

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rates that seem to follow the business cycle. Some debtors are ashamed of their bankruptcies, and
analysts believe that bankruptcy is a lagging indica- because American debtor populations are geo-
tor; that is, some months after an economic slow- graphically mobile, interview studies often have
down, bankruptcies begin to rise as laid-off work- somewhat low response rates. For learning the
ers run out of resources or small business owners cause of a bankruptcy, however, there is probably
find they cannot remain in business. no substitute for asking the debtor.

Each bankruptcy affects at least one house- Debtors often report ‘‘inability to manage mon-
hold, and one estimate puts the average number of ey’’ or ‘‘too much debt’’ as the reason for their
creditors affected at eighteen. Some creditors, bankruptcy. In probing a little deeper, however,
such as credit card issuers, are affected by numer- researchers have found five major issues involved
ous bankruptcies within a single year. Some bank- in a large fraction of all bankruptcies: job prob-
ruptcies initiate a chain of events: The bankruptcy lems, divorce and related family problems, medi-
of a single business may lead later to the bankrupt- cal problems, homeowner problems, and credit
cies of employees who lost their jobs, of creditors card debts.
whose accounts receivable were never received,
and of suppliers who could not find new custom- Many debtors have been laid off completely,
ers. Creditors often argue that the rising numbers lost overtime, or had their hours of work or their
of bankruptcies cause them costs that are then pay rates reduced. Some debtors have had long
passed on to all consumers in the form of higher periods of unemployment; others have lost their
interest rates. jobs because of the closure of the plant or the store
where they worked. The job loss causes an unplanned
A bankruptcy may be filed either by a single loss of income, and this fact in turn often creates a
individual or jointly by a couple. Since the early mismatch between the petitioner’s debt obliga-
1980s, there has been a sharp increase in the tions and the ability to meet those obligations.
proportion of bankruptcies filed by adult women. During the recession of the early 1990s, when
Several studies indicate between one-third and many industries were downsizing and otherwise
one-half of bankruptcies are now filed by women. restructuring their labor forces, about two in every
Over half of bankrupt debtors are between the five bankrupt debtors reported a job-related rea-
ages of thirty and fifty. Their mean occupational son for bankruptcy.
prestige is approximately the same as that of the
labor force as a whole, and their educational level Divorce and other family problems may result
is also similar to that of the adult population. The in lower incomes for the two ex-spouses (especially
proportion of immigrants in the bankrupt popula- the ex-wife). Moreover, in most divorce settle-
tion is approximately the same as their proportion ments the debts are also divided, and the debt
in the general population. There are conflicting burden may be too great for one of the ex-spouses.
findings about the extent to which minority popu- Sometimes an ex-spouse will file bankruptcy know-
lations are overrepresented or underrepresented ing that any jointly-incurred debts discharged by
in bankruptcy. Despite their educational and occu- the bankrupt spouse will have to be paid by the
pational levels, however, the median incomes of other ex-spouse. Although alimony and child sup-
bankrupt debtors are less than half the median port cannot be discharged as debts, for custodial
income of the general population. parents who do not receive the payments the
financial consequences may be grave. Similarly,
CAUSES OF BANKRUPTCY for parents who must make the payments, a reduc-
tion in other debts may make the payments more
Much of what social scientists know about bank- possible. Finally, it is harder to support two house-
ruptcy comes from reviewing the bankruptcy peti- holds on the income that used to support just one
tions filed in courts, and from interviewing judges, household. For all of these reasons, the recently
lawyers, clerks, and others who work in the bank- divorced may find themselves in bankruptcy.
ruptcy courts. Information about the causes of
bankruptcy, however, typically comes from inter- Medical problems may lead to higher debts if
views with the debtors themselves. Because many the debtor is uninsured or if insurance is insuffi-
cient to pay for needed medical procedures, phar-
maceuticals, and professional services. Medical

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problems may at the same time lead to lower being extended to a number of other situations,
incomes if a person is too ill or injured to work. including college loans and credit cards, with the
Either way, a spell of illness or an automobile result that many Americans are risking their homes,
accident may push a previously solvent person often without realizing it.
into a situation in which debts are no longer
manageable. Medical problems rise in frequency A final reason for bankruptcy is large credit
as a reported cause of bankruptcy for adults aged card debts, often at high rates of interest. All-
fifty-five to sixty-four, years in which medical prob- purpose cards (such as Visa, MasterCard, and
lems may increase but before Medicare coverage American Express) are now used for many con-
becomes available. sumption purposes, including payment of federal
income taxes, payment of college tuition, and
Earlier efforts to examine medical debts as an many goods and services, with the result that
indicator of the causes of bankruptcy showed medi- credit card debt is assumed for many different
cal debt to be a fairly insignificant cause, whereas purposes. Most ordinary living expenses can now
direct interviews of debtors are more likely to be charged with a credit card, so that interpreting
reveal medical issues as causative. There are rea- a high credit card debt is difficult. High rates of
sons to believe that the debt indicators underesti- interest accelerate the credit card debt quickly.
mate this reason for bankruptcy. Insurance will Credit card debt is the fastest-growing reason for
often pay medical providers but will not replace bankruptcy being given by debtors.
income, so that debts to hospitals or physicians
might not appear in the records even though the BANKRUPTCY MYTHS
illness or injury is nevertheless the reason that the
debtor cannot repay debts. Moreover, some medi- Empirical studies have refuted a number of myths
cal providers accept credit cards, so that the medi- about bankruptcy. One such myth is that some
cal expenses are hidden within credit card debt. people file for bankruptcy again and again. Several
And some debtors will make efforts to pay off their studies have been unable to confirm this myth, but
medical creditors first for fear of being denied there are a number of people who are unsuccess-
services. On the other hand, there may be some ful at Chapter 13 who eventually file Chapter 7.
overestimate of the impact of medical issues in These people have not really repeated bankruptcy,
interviews, because respondents may believe a because they have never received a discharge from
medical reason may be seen as a socially accept- their debts in their Chapter 13 filings.
able cause for bankruptcy.
Another myth is that large numbers of bank-
Bankrupt debtors are somewhat less likely to rupt debtors have high debts because of alcohol-
be homeowners than the general population, but a ism, drug abuse, and gambling. Although most
substantial number of homeowners file for bank- empirical studies have identified a few isolated
ruptcy, often to prevent the foreclosure of their cases in which one of these problems plays a role,
mortgage. Chapter 13 permits homeowners to pay the great increase in bankruptcy numbers cannot
the arrearages (missed payments) on their mort- be attributed to a great increase in addictive
gage along with their current payments. Home behavior.
ownership may also be an issue for a worker who is
transferred to a different city and buys a second A third myth is that there is widespread abuse
home before the first home is sold. Equity is the of the bankruptcy process because many debtors
portion of the home’s value for which the home- could allegedly pay all of their debts. Most studies
owner has made payment. The recent prolifera- of the repayment possibilities for the debtors find
tion of home-equity loans, which allow homeown- that the debtors are unable to repay their debts,
ers to use the equity in their homes as collateral, even if their families live on very modest budgets
has also put homes at risk even if the payments on (such as the model low-income budget of the U.S.
the principal mortgage are current. Small business Bureau of Labor Statistics). The few studies that
owners are often required to use their homes as have found debtors able to repay have often elimi-
collateral for business loans, which means that a nated from repayment whole categories of debt
failing business may also entail the threat of the that the debtors themselves cannot eliminate. There
family losing its home. Home-equity lending is are, however, documented cases of fraudulent or

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abusive use of bankruptcy, some of which are the large interest payments made the lending prof-
prosecuted by the government as criminal matters. itable. Credit cards are now extensively marketed
to young people, especially college students, who
STRUCTURAL SOURCES OF BANKRUPTCY are relatively unfamiliar with financial matters.

Several changes in American financial life have Third, credit devices proliferated to include
contributed to the imbalance of debt with income gold and platinum levels, cash advances, and many
and may have increased the numbers of people other features that were both profitable to card
who file for bankruptcy. issuers and attractive to card holders. Sometimes
card holders did not understand how these fea-
Consumer credit has been available for dec- tures worked; for example, many card holders did
ades, principally as a means to help households not realize that there is no grace period for repay-
finance a large purchase over a period of time. ing a cash advance, and the interest rate on a cash
Individual sellers extended credit, often on the advance is often higher than the rate for purchases.
basis of personal knowledge of the borrower and
the borrower’s ability to repay. Later, banks, credit Fourth, merchants who accepted credit cards
unions, and personal finance companies helped enjoyed increased business because the buyers did
finance the purchase of homes, cars, and small not have to carry a large supply of cash. Advertis-
appliances. These institutional arrangements of- ing by stores and restaurants increasingly empha-
fered more protection to the seller and made a sized the acceptability of credit cards, so that the
personal acquaintanceship less important in the advertising for goods and services reinforced the
lending decision. advertising of the credit card issuers. Meanwhile,
the credit card issuers provided protection against
The development of credit cards, with nonpayment to the merchant who accepted a cred-
preapproved credit limits, allowed consumers to it card, and they also provided some protection for
buy a large variety of goods or services on credit, the card-holder against the fraudulent use of
not just large or expensive items. It was not just the the cards.
invention of the credit card, however, but some
later developments in its use that have changed Fifth, a major restructuring of the U.S. econo-
consumer financial patterns in a way that may have my occurred at the beginning of the 1990s, in
influenced higher bankruptcy rates. which millions of workers were laid off or could
find only contingent jobs. Many of these workers
First, beginning in the late 1970s, most states found credit cards to be a convenient way to
repealed their laws making usury an offense, and maintain consumption levels and their family’s
Congress made state usury laws largely ineffective. lifestyle even though their expected income stream
Usury, the charging of excessive interest, was for- was interrupted.
merly regulated by the states, most of which set
limits on the maximum amount of interest that These trends contributed to an increase in the
could be charged to borrowers. With the repeal of numbers of people who had high debt-to-income
these laws, high rates of interest—some as high as ratios. Some people incurred high levels of debt,
20 percent or more—could legally be charged. often at high interest rates, and simultaneously
Prior to this time, such high rates of interest were experienced declining or stagnant income. While
usually defined as criminal and were associated not every person with a high debt-to-income ratio
with loan-sharking and the lending practices of filed for bankruptcy, those who did file for bank-
organized crime. ruptcy had very high ratios. Changes in the Ameri-
can economy during the decade of the 1990s
Second, credit cards became a major profit probably influenced the increase in the number of
center for many banks, especially because of the bankruptcies. In particular, the increasing indebt-
high interest rates that could be charged. Market- edness of Americans closely tracked the rise in
ing of credit cards mushroomed. New markets, bankruptcies.
including relatively low-income families, became
the targets of sophisticated mail and telephone Rising Indebtedness. The economic changes
campaigns. Even though many of the families of the 1990s, in addition to the well-entrenched
might not be able to repay everything they charged, borrowing for home mortgages, car purchases,

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and college expenses, have resulted in an increase become a serious problem. And although facing
in consumer credit outstanding from 298 billion this problem can be postponed by making small
dollars in 1980 to 1,025 billion in 1995. Thus, monthly payments, the balance can quickly be-
while the U.S. population increased by 16 percent, come too large ever to be handled on most salaries.
indebtedness increased by 244 percent. These are
nominal dollars, but even accounting for inflation The ubiquity and convenience of credit cards
(constant dollars) the debt burden doubled. Dur- has led to their growing use for additional purpos-
ing this same time frame, mortgage lending in- es: as a form of identification, as security for
creased by 223 percent, from 1,463 billion dollars returning rented cars and videotapes, and—per-
in 1980 to 4,724 billion dollars in 1995. Credit card haps ironically—as an indicator of creditworthi-
debt, which was only 81.2 billion dollars in 1980, ness for additional extensions of credit.
had increased by 351 percent to 366.4 dollars in
1995. Thus, while there was an increase in all INTERNATIONAL CREDIT ISSUES
forms of indebtedness, credit card debt—which
began from a smaller base—showed the largest Besides the indebtedness of the individuals in a
percentage increase. population, there is also growing concern about
other forms of indebtedness. Many countries, es-
Industry sources estimate that in 1990 there pecially those with less developed economies, have
were 1.03 billion credit cards in circulation in the borrowed large sums of money from more devel-
United States, and that by 2000 a projected 1.34 oped countries. The repayment of these loans, and
billion cards will be in circulation. In 1990, these the terms that are demanded, have provided a
cards accounted for 466 billion dollars of spend- source of tension between the richer nations and
ing and resulted in 236 billion dollars of debt. By the poorer nations. International agencies such as
2000, the projected spending is 1,443 billion dol- the International Monetary Fund often prescribe
lars, with 661 billion dollars as debt. austerity measures to help a country meet its
repayment obligations.
In its survey of how consumers use credit
cards, the Board of Governors of the Federal The development of transnational corpora-
Reserve System reported that 54.5 percent of the tions has also raised issues of which set of debtor-
sample always paid off the balance on their credit creditor laws govern transactions that may span
cards each month. Another 19.1 percent some- several countries. Debtor-creditor laws and the
times pay off the balance, and the remaining 26.4 laws of insolvency and bankruptcy vary dramatical-
percent hardly ever pay off the balance. It is from ly from country to country, and an important issue
this latter group that the credit card issuers run the in international commerce is how to handle prob-
greatest risk of eventual nonpayment but also have lems of nonpayment. Many of these issues remain
the possibility of earning the greatest amount of highly contested and largely unsettled.
interest. About 30 percent of the consumers earn-
ing less than $50,000 a year ‘‘hardly ever’’ pay off REFERENCES
the balance, compared with only 10.5 percent of
those who earn more than $100,000. Over 35 Caplovitz, David 1974 Consumers In Trouble: A Study of
percent of the consumers under the age of thirty- Debtors in Default. New York: Free Press.
five hardly ever pay off their balance, compared
with 10.5 percent of people over the age of sev- Delaney, Kevin J. 1992 Strategic Bankruptcy: How Corpora-
enty-five. tions and Creditors Use Chapter 11 to Their Advantage.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Credit cards alone do not pose a major finan-
cial problem for most people, even for those who Jacob, Herbert 1969 Debtors in Court; The Consumption of
maintain a balance; the median balance is about Government Services. Chicago: Rand McNally.
$1,000, with a median charge of $200 a month. For
those people with larger balances, however, and Ritzer, George 1995 Expressing America: A Critique of the
with interest charges and sometimes penalties and Global Credit Card Society. Thousand Oaks, Calif.:
late fees added to the principal, indebtedness may Pine Forge Press.

Ryan, Martin 1995 The Last Resort: A Study of Consumer
Bankrupts. Aldershot, Eng.: Avebury.

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Stanley, David T., and Marjorie Girth 1971 Bankruptcy: exchange transactions that involve reciprocal rein-
Problem, Process, Reform. Washington, D.C.: The forcement by the partners increase in frequency
Brookings Institution. or probability; those transactions that are not mu-
tually reinforcing or are costly to the partners
Sullivan, Teresa A., Elizabeth Warren, and Jay Lawrence decrease in frequency over time. There is a grow-
Westbrook 2000 The Fragile Middle Class. New Ha- ing body of research literature supporting social
ven, Conn.: Yale University Press. exchange theory as a way of understanding a
variety of social relationships.
——— 1999 As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy and
Consumer Credit in America. Reprint. Chevy Chase, SOME BASIC ISSUES
Md.: Beard Books.
The roots of behaviorism lie in its philosophical
——— 1995 ‘‘Bankruptcy and the Family.’’ Marriage and debate with introspectionism—the belief that the
Family Review 21, 3/4 (1995):193–215. mind can be revealed from a person’s reports of
thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. Behaviorists
——— 1994 ‘‘Consumer Debtors Ten Years Later: A opposed the use of introspective reports as the
Financial Comparison of Consumer Bankrupts 1981– basic data of psychology. These researchers ar-
1991.’’ American Bankruptcy Law Journal 68,2 gued for a natural-science approach and showed
(Spring):121–154. how introspective reports of consciousness were
inadequate. Reports of internal states and experi-
——— 1994 ‘‘The Persistence of Local Legal Culture: ences were said to lack objectivity, were available
Twenty Years of Evidence from the Federal Bank- to only one observer, and were prone to error.
ruptcy Courts.’’ Harvard Journal of Law and Public Some behaviorists used these arguments and also
Policy 17,3 (Summer):801–865. others to reject cognitive explanations of behavior
(Skinner 1974; Pierce and Epling 1984; but see
TERESA A. SULLIVAN Bandura 1986 for an alternative view).

BEHAVIORISM The natural-science approach of behaviorism
emphasizes the search for general laws and princi-
Behaviorism is the conceptual framework underly- ples of behavior. For example, the quantitative law
ing the science of behavior. The science itself is of effect is a mathematical statement of how the rate
often referred to as the experimental analysis of of response increases with the rate of reinforce-
behavior or behavior analysis. Modern behaviorism ment (Herrnstein 1970). Under controlled condi-
emphasizes the analysis of conditions that main- tions, this equation allows the scientist to predict
tain and change behavior as well as the factors that precisely and to regulate the behavior of organ-
influence the acquisition or learning of behavior. isms. Behavior analysts suggest that this law and
Behaviorists also offer concepts and analyses that other behavior principles will eventually account
go well beyond the common-sense understand- for complex human behavior (McDowell 1988).
ing of reward and punishment. Contemporary
behaviorism provides an integrated framework Contemporary behaviorists usually restrict
for the study of human behavior, society, and themselves to the study of observable responses
culture. and events. Observable events are those that are
directly sensed or are made available to our senses
Within the social sciences, behaviorism has by instruments. The general strategy is to manipu-
referred to the social-learning perspective that late aspects of the environment and measure well-
emphasizes the importance of reinforcement prin- defined responses. If behavior reliably changes
ciples in regulating social behavior (McLaughlin with a manipulated condition, the researcher has
1971). In addition, sociologists such as George established an environment-behavior relationship.
Homans and Richard Emerson have incorporated Analysis of such relationships has often resulted in
the principles of behavior into their theories of behavioral laws and principles. For example, the
elementary social interaction or exchange (Emer- principle of discrimination states that an organism
son 1972; Homans 1961). The basic idea in social
exchange approaches is that humans exchange
valued activities (e.g., giving respect and getting
help) and that these transactions are ‘‘held togeth-
er’’ by the principle of reinforcement. That is,

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BEHAVIORISM

will respond differently to two situations if its about mental states or physiological processes.
behavior is reinforced in one setting but not in the Although most behaviorists emphasize the impor-
other. You may talk about politics to one person tance of biology and physiological processes, they
but not to another, because the first person has focus on the interplay of behavior and environment.
been interested in such conversation in the past
while the second has not. The principle of dis- In order to maintain this focus, behaviorists
crimination and other behavior principles account examine the evolutionary history and physiologi-
for many aspects of human behavior. cal status of an organism as part of the context for
specific environment-behavior interactions. For
Although behaviorism usually has been treat- example, a biological condition that results in
ed as a uniform and consistent philosophy and blindness may have profound behavioral effects.
science, a conceptual reconstruction indicates that For a newly sightless individual, visual events, such
there are many branches to the behavioral tree as watching television or going to a movie no
(Zuriff 1985). Most behavior analysts share a set of longer support specific interactions, while other
core assumptions; however, there are internal dis- sensory events become salient (e.g., reading by
putes over less central issues. To illustrate, some braille). The biological condition limits certain
behaviorists argue against hypothetical constructs kinds of behavioral interactions and, at the same
(e.g., memory) while others accept such concepts time, augments the regulation of behavior by oth-
as an important part of theory construction. er aspects of the environment. Contemporary
behaviorism therefore emphasizes what organisms
Throughout the intellectual history of are doing, the environmental conditions that regu-
behaviorism, a variety of assumptions and con- late their actions, and how biology and evolu-
cepts has been presented to the scientific commu- tion constrain or enhance environment-behavior
nity. Some of these ideas have flourished when interactions.
they were found to further the scientific analysis of
behavior. Other formulations were interesting varia- Modern behaviorists are interested in volun-
tions of behavioristic ideas, but they became ex- tary action, and they have developed a way of
tinct when they served no useful function. For talking about purpose, volition, and intention within
instance, one productive assumption is that a per- a natural-science approach. They note that the
son’s knowledge of emotional states is due to a language of intention was pervasive in biology
special history of verbal conditioning (Bem 1965, before Darwin’s functional analysis of evolution.
1972; Skinner 1957). Self-perception and attributional Although it appears that giraffes grow long necks
approaches to social psychology have built on this in order to obtain food at the tops of trees, Darwin
assumption, although researchers in this field sel- made it clear that the process of evolution in-
dom acknowledge the impact. In contrast, the volved no plan, strategy of design, or purpose.
assumption that thinking is merely subvocal speech Natural variation ensures that giraffes vary in neck
was popular at one time but is now replaced by an size. As vegetation declines at lower heights, ani-
analysis of problem solving (Skinner 1953, 1969). mals with longer necks obtain food, survive to
In this view, thinking is behavior that precedes and adulthood, and reproduce; those with shorter necks
guides the final performance of finding a solution. starve to death. In this environment (niche), the
Generally, it is important to recognize that frequency of long-necked giraffes increases over
behaviorism continues to evolve as a philosophy of generations. Such an increase is called natural
science, a view of human nature, and an ideology selection. Contemporary behaviorists insist that
that recommends goals for behavioral science and selection, as a causal mode, also accounts for the
its applications. form and frequency of behavior during the life-
time of an individual. A person’s current behavior
THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOR is therefore composed of performances that have
been selected in the past (Skinner 1987).
Behaviorism requires that a scientist study the
behavior of organisms for its own sake. Behaviorists An important class of behavior is selected by
do not study behavior in order to make inferences its consequences. The term operant refers to behav-
ior that operates upon the environment to pro-
duce effects, outcomes, or consequences. Operant

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behavior is said to be emitted because it does not Behavior analysts continue to use the cumula-
depend on an eliciting stimulus. Examples of tive recorder to provide an immediate report on a
operant behavior include manipulation of objects, subject’s behavior in an experimental situation.
talking with others, problem solving, drawing, read- However, most researchers are interested in com-
ing, writing, and many other performances. Con- plex settings where there are many alternatives
sequences select this behavior in the sense that and multiple operants. Today, microcomputers
specific operants occur at high frequency in a collect and record a variety of behavioral measures
given setting. To illustrate, driving to the store is that are later examined by complex numerical
operant behavior that is likely to occur when there analysis. Researchers also use computers to ar-
is little food in the house. In this situation, the range environmental events for individual behav-
operant has a high probability if such behavior has ior and provide these events in complex patterns
previously resulted in obtaining food (i.e. the store and sequences.
is open). Similarly, the conversation of a person
also is selected by its social consequences. At the CONTINGENCIES OF REINFORCEMENT
pub, a student shows high probability of talking to
his friends about sports. Presumably, this behavior Behaviorists often focus on the analysis of environ-
occurs at high frequency because his friends have ment-behavior relationships. The relationship be-
previously ‘‘shown an interest’’ in such conversa- tween operant behavior and its consequences de-
tion. The behavior of an individual is therefore fines a contingency of reinforcement. In its simplest
adapted to a particular setting by its history of form, a two-term contingency of reinforcement
consequences. may be shown as R(Sr. The symbol R represents
the operant class, and Sr stands for the reinforcing
A specific operant, such as opening a door, stimulus or event. The arrow indicates that ‘‘if R
includes many performance variations. The door occurs, then Sr will follow.’’ In the laboratory, the
may be opened by turning the handle, pushing behavior analyst arranges the environment so that
with a foot, or even by asking someone to open it. a contingency exists between an operant (e.g.,
These variations in performance have a common pecking a key) and the occurrence of some event
effect upon the environment in the sense that each (e.g., presentation of food). If the presentation of
one results in the door being opened. Because the event increases operant behavior, the event is
each variation produces similar consequences, defined as a positive reinforcer. The procedure of
behaviorists talk about an operant as a response repeatedly presenting a positive reinforcer contin-
class. Operants such as opening a door, talking to gent on behavior is called positive reinforcement
others, answering questions, and many other ac- (see Pierce and Epling 1999).
tions are each a response class that includes a
multitude of forms, both verbal and nonverbal. A contingency of reinforcement defines the
probability that a reinforcing event will follow
In the laboratory, the study of operant behav- operant behavior. When a person turns the igni-
ior requires a basic measure that is sensitive to tion key of the car (operant), this behavior usually
changes in the environment. Most behaviorists use has resulted in the car starting (reinforcement).
an operant’s rate of occurrence as the basic data Turning the key does not guarantee, however, that
for analysis. Operant rate is measured as the fre- the car will start; perhaps it is out of gas, the battery
quency of an operant (class) over a specified peri- is run down, and so on. Thus, the probability of
od of time. Although operant rate is not directly reinforcement is high for this behavior, but rein-
observable, a cumulative recorder is an instru- forcement is not certain. The behavior analyst is
ment that shows the rate of occurrence as changes interested in how the probability of reinforcement
in the slope (or rise) of a line on moving paper. is related to the rate and form of operant behav-
When an operant is selected by its consequences, ior. For example, does the person continue to
the operant rate increases and the slope becomes turn the ignition key even though the car doesn’t
steeper. Operants that are not appropriate to the start? Qualities of behavior such as persistence,
requirements of the environment decrease in rate depression, and elation reflect the probability of
of occurrence (i.e., decline in slope). Changes in reinforcement.
operant rate therefore reflect the basic causal
process of selection by consequences (Skinner 1969).

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Reinforcement may depend on the number of the highest rate occurring just before the bus
responses or the passage of time. A schedule of arrives. Thus, the rate of response is initially zero
reinforcement is a procedure that states how con- but gradually rises to a peak at the moment of
sequences are arranged for behavior. When rein- reinforcement. This response pattern is called
forcement is delivered after each response, a con- scalloping and is characteristic of fixed-interval re-
tinuous schedule of reinforcement is in effect. A inforcement. In order to eliminate such patterning,
child who receives payment each time she mows a variable-interval schedule may be stipulated. In
the lawn is on a continuous schedule of reinforce- this case, the first response after a variable amount
ment. Continuous reinforcement produces a very of time is reinforced. If a person knows by experi-
high and steady rate of response, but as any parent ence that bus arrivals are irregular, looking for the
knows, the behavior quickly stops if reinforcement next bus will occur at a moderate and steady rate
no longer occurs. because the passage of time no longer signals
reinforcement (i.e., arrival of the bus).
Continuous reinforcement is a particular form
of ratio schedule. Fixed-ratio schedules state the The schedules of reinforcement that regulate
number of responses per reinforcement. These human behavior are complex combinations of
schedules are called fixed ratio since a fixed num- ratio and interval contingencies. An adjusting sched-
ber of responses are required for reinforcement. ule is one example of a more complex arrange-
In a factory, piece rates of payment are examples ment between behavior and its consequences (Zeiler
of fixed-ratio schedules. Thus, a worker may re- 1977). When the ratio (or interval) for reinforce-
ceive $1 for sewing twenty pieces of elastic wrist- ment changes on the basis of performance, the
band. When the ratio of responses to reinforce- schedule is called adjusting. A math teacher who
ment is high (value per unit output is low), fixed- spends more or less time with a student depending
ratio schedules produce long pauses following on the student’s competence (i.e., number of cor-
reinforcement: Overall productivity may be low, rect solutions) provides reinforcement on an ad-
leading plant managers to complain about ‘‘slack- justing-ratio basis. When reinforcement is arranged
ing off’’ by the workers. The problem, however, is by other people (i.e., social reinforcement), the
the schedule of reinforcement that fixes a high level of reinforcement is often tied to the level of
number of responses to payment. behavior (i.e., the greater the strength of response
the less the reward from others). This adjustment
Reinforcement may be arranged on a variable, between behavior and socially arranged conse-
rather than fixed, basis. The schedule of payoff for quences may account for the flexibility and varia-
a slot machine is a variable-ratio schedule of rein- bility that characterize adult human behavior.
forcement. The operant involves putting in a dol-
lar and pulling the handle, and reinforcement is Human behavior is regulated not only by its
the jackpot. The jackpot occurs after a variable consequences. Contingencies of reinforcement al-
number of responses. Variable-ratio schedules pro- so involve the events that precede operant behav-
duce a high rate of response that takes a long time ior. The preceding event is said to ‘‘set the occa-
to stop when reinforcement is withdrawn. The sion’’ for behavior and is called a discriminative
gambler may continue to put money in the ma- stimulus or Sd. The ring of a telephone (Sd) may set
chine even though the jackpot rarely, if ever, oc- the occasion for answering it (operant), although
curs. Behavior on a variable-ratio schedule is said the ring does not force one to do so. Similarly, a
to show negative utility since people often invest nudge under the table (Sd) may prompt a new
more than they get back. topic of conversation (operant) or cause the per-
son to stop speaking. Discriminative stimuli may
Behavior may also be reinforced only after an be private as well as public events. Thus, a head-
interval of time has passed. A fixed-interval sched- ache may result in taking a pill or calling a physi-
ule stipulates that the first response following a cian. A mild headache may be discriminative stimu-
specified interval is reinforced. Looking for a bus lus for taking an aspirin, while more severe pain
is behavior that is reinforced after a fixed time set sets the occasion for telephoning a doctor.
by the bus schedule. If you just missed a bus, the
probability of looking for the next one is quite low. Although discriminative stimuli exert a broad
As time passes, the rate of response increases with range of influences over human behavior, these

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BEHAVIORISM

events do not stand alone. These stimuli regulate availability of one of these reinforcers alters the
behavior because they are an important part of the effectiveness of the other (Pierce, Epling, and
contingencies of reinforcement. Behaviorism has Boer 1986). It is possible that many reinforcers are
therefore emphasized a three-term contingency of biologically interrelated. People commonly believe
reinforcement, symbolized as Sd:R(r)Sr. The nota- that sex and aggression go together in some un-
tion states that a specific event (Sd) sets the occa- specified manner. One possibility is that the availa-
sion for an operant (R) that produces reinforce- bility of sexual reinforcement alters the reinforc-
ment (Sr). The discriminative stimulus regulates ing effectiveness of an opportunity to inflict harm
behavior only because it signals past consequences. on others.
Thus, a sign that states ‘‘Eat at Joe’s’’ may set the
occasion for your stopping at Joe’s restaurant CHOICE AND PREFERENCE
because of the great meals received in the past. If
Joe hires a new cook, and the meals deteriorate in The emphasis on context and reinforcement con-
quality, then Joe’s sign will gradually lose its influ- tingencies has allowed modern behaviorists to
ence. Similarly, posted highway speeds regulate explore many aspects of behavior that seem to
driving on the basis of past consequences. The defy a scientific analysis. Most people believe that
driver who has been caught by a radar trap is more choice and preference are basic features of human
likely to observe the speed limit. nature. Our customary way of speaking implies
that people make decisions on the basis of their
CONTEXT OF BEHAVIOR knowledge and dispositions. In contrast, behavior-
al studies of decision making suggest that we choose
Contingencies of reinforcement, as complex ar- an option based on its rate of return compared
rangements of discriminative stimuli, operants, with alternative sources of reinforcement.
and reinforcements, remain a central focus of
behavioral research. Contemporary behaviorists Behaviorists have spent the last thirty years
are also concerned with the context of behavior, and studying choice in the laboratory using concurrent
how context affects the regulation of behavior by schedules of reinforcement. The word concurrent
its consequences (Fantino and Logan 1979). Im- means ‘‘operating at the same time.’’ Thus, con-
portant aspects of context include the biological current schedules are two (or more) schedules
and cultural history of an organism, its current operating at the same time, each schedule provid-
physiological status, previous environment—be- ing reinforcement independently. The experimen-
havior interactions, alternative sources of rein- tal setting is arranged so that an organism is free to
forcement, and a history of deprivation (or satia- alternate between two or more alternatives. Each
tion) for specific events or stimuli. To illustrate, in alternative provides a schedule of reinforcement
the laboratory food is used typically as an effective for choosing it over the other possibilities. A per-
reinforcer for operant behavior. There are obvi- son may choose between two (or more) response
ous times, however, when food will not function as buttons that have different rates of monetary pay-
reinforcement. If a person (or animal) has just off. Although the experimental setting is abstract,
eaten a large meal or has an upset stomach, food concurrent schedules of reinforcement provide an
has little effect upon behavior. analogue of choice in everyday life.

There are less obvious interrelations between People are often faced with a variety of alter-
reinforcement and context. Recent research indi- natives, and each alternative has its associated
cates that depriving an organism of one reinforcer benefits (and costs). When a person puts money in
may increase the effectiveness of a different behav- the bank rather than spending it on a new car,
ioral consequence. As deprivation for food in- television, or refrigerator, we speak of the indi-
creased, animals worked harder to obtain an op- vidual choosing to save rather than spend. In
portunity to run on a wheel. Additionally, animals everyday life, choice often involves repeated selec-
who were satiated on wheel running no longer tion of one alternative (e.g. putting money in the
pressed a lever to obtain food. These results imply bank) over the other alternatives considered as a
that eating and running are biologically interrelat- single option (e.g. buying goods and services).
ed. Based on this biological history, the supply or Similarly, the criminal chooses to take the proper-
ty of others rather than take the socially acceptable

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BEHAVIORISM

route of working for a living or accepting social absolute rate of reinforcement for going to school
assistance. The arrangement of consequences for has increased, the relative rate of reinforcement
crime and legitimate ways of making a living is has remained the same or decreased. The overall
conceptually the same as concurrent schedules of effect may be no change in school attendance or
reinforcement (Hamblin and Crosbie 1977). even further decline. In order to deal with the
problem, the matching law implies that interven-
Behaviorists are interested in the distribution tions must increase reinforcement for attendance
or allocation of behavior when a person is faced and maintain or reduce reinforcement for skip-
with different rates of reinforcement from two (or ping, possibly by turning up the cost of this behav-
more) alternatives. The distribution of behavior is ior (e.g., withdrawal of privileges).
measured as the relative rate of response to, or
relative time spent on, a specific option. For exam- The matching law has been tested with human
ple, a student may go to school twelve days and and nonhuman subjects under controlled condi-
skip eight days each month (not counting week- tions. One interesting study assessed human per-
ends). The relative rate of response to school is the formance in group discussion sessions. Subjects
proportion of the number of days at school to the were assigned to groups discussing attitudes to-
total number of days, or 12/20 = 0.60. Expressed ward drug abuse. Each group was composed of
as a percentage, the student allocates 60 percent of three confederates and a subject. Two confeder-
her behavior to school. In the laboratory, a person ates acted as listeners and reinforced the subject’s
may press the left button twelve times and the talk with brief positive words and phrases, provid-
right button eight times each minute. ed on the basis of cue lights. Thus, the rate of
reinforcement by each listener could be varied
The distribution of reinforcement may also be depending on the number of signals arranged by
expressed as a percentage. In everyday life, it is the researchers. A third confederate asked ques-
difficult to identify and quantify behavioral conse- tions but did not reinforce talking. Results were
quences, but it is easily accomplished in the labora- analyzed in terms of the relative time subjects
tory. If the reinforcement schedule on the left spent talking to the two listeners. Speakers matched
button produces $30 an hour and the right button their distribution of conversation to the distribu-
yields $20, 60 percent of the reinforcements are tion of positive comments from the listeners. Ap-
on the left. There is a fundamental relationship parently, choosing to speak to others is behavior
between relative rate of reinforcement and rela- that is regulated by the matching law (Conger and
tive rate of response. This relationship is called the Kileen 1974).
matching law. The law states that the distribution of
behavior to two (or more) alternatives matches Researchers have found that exact matching
(equals) the distribution of reinforcement from does not always hold between relative rate of
these alternatives (Herrnstein 1961; de Villiers 1977). reinforcement and relative rate of response. A
more general theory of behavioral matching has
Although it is difficult to identify rates of been tested in order to account for the departures
reinforcement for attending school and skipping, from perfect matching. One source of deviation is
the matching law does suggest some practical solu- called response bias. Bias is a systematic preference
tions (Epling and Pierce 1988). For instance, par- for an alternative, but the preference is not due to
ents and the school may be able to arrange positive the difference in rate of reinforcement. For exam-
consequences when a child goes to school. This ple, even though two friends provide similar rates
means that the rate of reinforcement for going to of reinforcement, social characteristics (e.g., status
school has increased, and therefore the relative and equity) may affect the distribution of behavior
rate of reinforcement for school has gone up. (Sunahara and Pierce 1982). Generalized match-
According to the matching law, a child will now ing theory is able to address many social factors as
distribute more behavior to the school. sources of bias that affect human choice and pref-
erence (Baum 1974; Pierce and Epling 1983;
Unfortunately, there is another possibility. A Bradshaw and Szabadi 1988).
child may receive social reinforcement from friends
for skipping, and as the child begins to spend more A second source of deviation from matching is
time at school, friends may increase their rate of called sensitivity to differences in reinforcement.
reinforcement for cutting classes. Even though the

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