Social Forces 88(4)

Culture, Emotions & Networks

The Durability of Collective Memory: Reconciling the "Greensboro Massacre"
David Cunningham, Colleen Nugent, Caitlin Slodden

While the general dynamics governing collective memory processes are well developed theoretically, our tool kit for systematically assessing how collective memory changes over time remains limited. Here, we focus on a particular tragic event - the killing of five participants in an anti-KKK march in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Nov. 3, 1979 - to assess continuity and change across accounts presented as part of a 1980 federally-sponsored investigation and a 2005 truth and reconciliation commission. Specifically, we employ a block modeling methodology to describe the structure of narrative themes shared across multiple accounts in each time period. We then analyze the sources of temporal variation in these narratives, and show how shifts in the range of actors participating in the 1980 and 2005 initiatives, as well as the institutional contexts within which accounts were offered, shaped how themes were strategically deployed to increase the resonance of specific positions. We find that, in the Greensboro case, the contours of these demographic and institutional dimensions resulted in a decrease in the polarization of competing narratives and an increased emphasis on key themes that contested elite "institutional" accounts.

Sex, Anger and Depression
Robin W. Simon, Kathryn Lively

A social problem that has preoccupied sociologists of gender and mental health is the higher rate of depression found among women. Although a number of hypotheses about this health disparity between men and women have been advanced, none consider the importance of subjectively experienced anger. Drawing on theoretical and empirical insights from the sociology of emotion, we hypothesize that: (1. intense and persistent anger are associated with more symptoms of depression, and (2. sex differences in the intensity and persistence of anger are involved in the sex difference in depressed affect. Analyses of data from the 1996 GSS Emotions Module provide support for these two hypotheses and strongly suggest that women's intense and persistent anger play a pivotal role in their high rate of depression. We discuss the extent to which sex differences in these emotions are a function of social factors, biological factors, or a complex interaction between them. We also comment on the implications of our findings for future theory and research on gender, emotion and mental health.

The Economics and Sociology of Religious Giving: Instrumental Rationality or Communal Bonding?
Jared L. Peifer

Religious individuals commonly make sizable monetary sacrifices by contributing to their congregations. This social action resides in the overlap of religious and economic realms of behavior, creating a certain tension. Following a Weberian approach to social inquiry, I treat religious giving as social action whereby individuals direct their value-rational and instrumental-rational behavior towards others. Using data from the American Congregational Giving Survey and the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, I test hypotheses derived from a rational choice perspective, the sense of solidarity one feels, and from the religious meaning of the giver. Rational choice hypotheses produce mixed results, the solidarity impact is confirmed, and high levels of religiosity have a strong impact on giving.

Can Cultural Worldviews Influence Network Composition?
Stephen Vaisey, Omar Lizardo

Most sociological research assumes that social network composition shapes individual beliefs. Network theory and research has not adequately considered that internalized cultural worldviews might affect network composition. Drawing on a synthetic, dual-process theory of culture and two waves of nationally-representative panel data, this article shows that worldviews are strong predictors of changes in network composition among U.S. youth. These effects are robust to the influence of other structural factors, including prior network composition and behavioral homophily. By contrast, there is little evidence that networks play a strong proximate role in shaping worldviews. This suggests that internalized cultural dispositions play an important role in shaping the interpersonal environment and that the dynamic link between culture and social structure needs to be reconsidered.

Cross-National & Comparative

Multidimensionality and Gravity in Global Trade, 1950-2000
Min Zhou

The expansion of global trade in the post-war period is subject to various interpretations. Some stress the trade-promoting role of the novel features in the world economy; some insist on the role of traditional factors, such as geographic distance, political difference and cultural dissimilarity, in continuously depressing trade flows; others even argue that the importance of these traditional factors has been on the rise. To adjudicate the divergence, this article applies the gravity model to a large data set on global bilateral trade from 1950 through 2000. Although the global institutional factor does promote bilateral trade and global economic activity indeed becomes more trade-generating, the trade-depressing effects of geographic distance, political difference and cultural dissimilarity remain strong. Moreover, geographic and cultural proximity actually generates greater gravity over time that draws countries together, which may trigger fragmentation in global trade along geo-cultural lines.

Effects of Inequality, Family and School on Mathematics Achievement: Country and Student Differences
Ming Ming Chiu

Inequality, family and school characteristics were linked to student achievement as shown by multi-level analyses of 107,975 15 year olds' mathematics tests and questionnaires in 41 countries. Equal distribution of country and school resources were linked to higher mathematics scores. Students scored higher in families or schools with more resources (SES, native born, two parents, more educational materials, higher SES schoolmates, female schoolmates, class time, educated teachers) or beneficial intangible processes (communication, discipline, teacher-student relationships). Students living with grandparents or siblings (especially older ones) scored lower. Physical family resource variables showed similar results across countries, supporting the social reproduction hypothesis for physical resources. In richer countries, intangible processes had stronger links with mathematics achievement, suggesting that greater availability of public physical resources raises the value of complementary intangible processes, which can help explain the Heyneman-Loxley effect of stronger family effects in richer countries.

Understanding Economic Justice Attitudes in Two Countries: Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
Azamat K. Junisbai

Analyzing data from the 2007 Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan Inequality Survey, I identify and compare the determinants of economic justice attitudes in two formerly similar majority-Muslim nations that are now distinguished almost exclusively by their dissimilar economic circumstances following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Kazakhstan, where the economy is growing rapidly, the important factors predicting economic egalitarianism are connected to people's perceived ability to do well in the future. In contrast, in Kyrgyzstan, which has stagnated in the post-Soviet era, people's immediate economic vulnerability predicts egalitarianism, while their economic prospects are irrelevant. Finally, the effect of several factors on support for egalitarianism appears impervious to the prevailing economic winds: religious orthodoxy, the urban vs. rural divide, and membership in a historically privileged ethnic group. These patterns reflect both the commonalities in the two countries' histories, demography, and religion and their divergent economic trajectories since the collapse of the USSR.

Survivalism and Public Opinion on Criminality: A Cross-National Analysis of Prostitution
Steven Stack, Amy Adamczyk, Liqun Cao

Explanations of variability in public opinion on crime have drawn disproportionately from the literature on specific symbolic orientations including religious fundamentalism and racial prejudice. In contrast, this article hypothesizes that public opinion is linked to the strength of a general cultural axis of nations: survivalism vs. self-expressionism. Data are from the fourth wave of the World Values Survey. Hierarchical modeling techniques are used to sort out the bi-level effects of survivalist culture on the approval of prostitution. Controlling for all other predictors, the personal survivalism index was the most powerful predictor of prostitution acceptability, followed by the country-level survivalism index. Unlike previous investigations, which relied on specific symbolic orientations, the present results suggest that attitudes about criminality are linked to a generalized cultural axis.

Military Spending and Economic Well-Being in the American States: The Post-Vietnam War Era
Casey Borch, Michael Wallace

Using growth curve modeling techniques, this research investigates whether military spending improved or worsened the economic well-being of citizens within the American states during the post-Vietnam War period. We empirically test the military Keynesianism claim that military spending improves the economic conditions of citizens through its use by politicians as a countercyclical tool to reduce the negative effects of economic downturns. However, due to deindustrialization and the emergence of the "new military," there are reasons to believe that military spending will not effectively improve economic well-being during the post-Vietnam War era. Using longitudinal data we find that states with high levels of military spending are better equipped to stave off the deleterious effects of economic recession than are states with lower levels of military spending.

Social Stratification & Mobility

Is the United States Experiencing a "Matrilineal Tilt?": Gender, Family Structures and Financial Transfers to Adult Children
Shelley Clark, Catherine Kenney

Furstenberg et al. (1995) suggested that one unanticipated consequence of current high levels of divorce might be a "matrilineal tilt" in intergenerational wealth flows. This research uses six waves of the Health and Retirement Survey (1992 to 2002) to investigate this possibility with respect to financial transfers from parents to their adult children. We find that although divorced single fathers continue to make transfers to their adult biological children, remarriage substantially reduces fathers' transfers while it increases mothers' transfers to their biological children. Our findings are consistent with both socio-evolutionary and exchange theories predicting women's vs. men's investments in biological vs. stepchildren.

The Skinny on Success: Body Mass, Gender and Occupational Standing Across the Life Course
Christy M. Glass, Steven A. Haas, Eric N. Reither

Several studies have analyzed the impact of obesity on occupational standing. This study extends previous research by estimating the influence of body mass on occupational attainment over three decades of the career using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. In a series of covariance structure analyses, we considered three mechanisms that may alter the career trajectories of heavy individuals: (1. employment-based discrimination, (2. educational attainment, and (3. marriage market processes. Unlike previous studies, we found limited evidence that employment-based discrimination impaired the career trajectories of either men or women. Instead, we found that heavy women received less post-secondary schooling than their thinner peers, which in turn adversely affected their occupational standing at each point in their careers.

Stymied Mobility or Temporary Lull?: The Puzzle of Lagging Hispanic College Degree Attainment
Sigal Alon, Thurston Domina, Marta Tienda

We assess the intergenerational educational mobility of recent cohorts of high school graduates to consider whether Hispanics' lagging post-secondary attainment reflects a temporary lull due to immigration of low education parents or a more enduring pattern of unequal transmission of social status relative to whites. Using data from three national longitudinal studies, a recent longitudinal study of Texas high school seniors and a sample of students attending elite institutions, we track post-secondary enrollment and degree attainment patterns at institutions of differing selectivity. We find that group differences in parental education and nativity only partly explain the Hispanic-white gap in college enrollment, and not evenly over time. Both foreign-and native-born college-educated Hispanic parents are handicapped in their abilities to transmit their educational advantages to their children compared with white parents. We conclude that both changing population composition and unequal ability to confer status advantages to offspring are responsible for the growing Hispanic-white degree attainment gap.

The Declining Relative Status of Black Women Workers, 1980-2002
Raine Dozier

During the 1980s and 1990s, industrial restructuring led to a marked increase in wage inequality. Women, however, were not as negatively affected by declining manufacturing employment because their pay was relatively low within the industry, and their already high representation in the service sector provided access to newly created opportunities. However, black and white women did not fare equally and the black-white wage gap more than doubled. As both black and white women increased their representation as professionals and managers, black women became more likely to earn low wages within these occupations. Black degree holders also lost ground as they were unable to keep pace with the remarkable gains made by white women degree holders. The growth in black-white wage inequality, then, was not due to black women's relegation to "bad jobs." Instead, as women increased their share of "good jobs," white women disproportionately benefitted.

Other Articles

Societal Responses to Endemic Terror: Evidence from Driving Behavior in Israel
Guy Stecklov, Joshua R. Goldstein

In this article, using data on traffic volume and fatal accident rates in Israel from 2001 to 2004–a period spanning much of the Second Intifada–we examine the population-level responses to endemic terror to uncover whether societies become habituated so that the response weakens following repeated attacks or whether they become increasingly sensitized so subsequent attacks have a greater impact. Our analysis, using distributed-lag time series models, supports earlier findings while highlighting the persistence of the response to terror attacks even several years into the violence. There are, however, signs that the reaction to terror has accelerated. This shift, which is not naturally seen as evidence for either habituation or sensitization, is suggestive of social learning of norms over time.

Explaining Late Life Urban vs. Rural Health Discrepancies in Beijing
Zachary Zimmer, Toshiko Kaneda, Zhe Tang, Xianghua Fang

Social characteristics that differ by place of residence are consequential for health. To study implications of this among older adults in rural vs. urban China, this study employs data from the Beijing municipality, a region that has witnessed growth and gaps in development. Life and active life expectancy is assessed using a multistate life table technique that estimates hazard rates and subsequent expected years in various health states. Hazards are estimated for a model that adjusts regional differences for age and sex and for a series of other models including additional covariates. Results indicate urban residents have an advantage. Specific factors show socio-economic status and access to health service account for a large part, social support and health behaviors for little, while disease is a suppressor.

Social Forces, June 2010: Volume 88, Issue 4