Michael Schwalbe

• North Carolina State University

Herbert Blumer did not offer textbook‐style instructions for how to do research. What he offered, in his classic 1969 essay “The Methodological Position of Symbolic Interactionism,” is a broad account of what research must entail to accord with symbolic interactionist premises that human social life depends on meanings, interpretation, and interact...

If what sociologists call "social structures" are understood to be recurrent patterns of joint action, then the charge that interactionism suffers from an astructural bias falls apart, because such patterns of joint action are what interactionists routinely study. The problem, then, is not that interactionism fails to grasp structure, but that much...

Purpose: We examine collective responses to identity threats in organizations, conceptualizing these responses as identity contests in which members of opposing groups share an identity and strive to protect the social psychological rewards derived from that identity. Methodology/approach: We present an argument for the importance of identity as a...

In Manhood Acts Michael Schwalbe offers a new perspective on the social construction of manhood and its relationship to male domination. Schwalbe argues that study of masculinity has lost touch with its feminist roots and has been seduced by the politically safe notion of 'multiple masculinities'. Manhood Acts delineates the practices males use to...

This chapter uses the perspective of dramaturgical social psychology, associated with the work of Erving Goffman, to examine the processes through which inequalities are created, reproduced, and resisted. We show how cognitive presuppositions, normative and procedural rules, rituals, and self-protective expressive behavior reflect and reinforce rel...

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In the 1980s research on men shifted from studying the "male sex role" and masculinity as a singular trait to studying how men enact diverse masculinities. This research has examined men's behavior as gendered beings in many contexts, from intimate relationships to the workplace to global politics. We consider the strengths and weaknesses of the mu...

The meaning of a photograph depends on the story we tell about it. In the case of portraits, these narrative frames shape the self we impute to the sitter. The interiority of the portrait subject, the inner character we imagine is revealed in the photograph, is a result of what we know about photographic portraits, about the sitter, about the photo...

L'A. propose la pensee de G. H. Mead comme une alternative a la sociologie des " roles " pour laquelle les individus s'inserent dans la societe a partir des roles qu'ils s'attribuent ainsi qu'a des individus representatifs| il montre que la notion d'acte social chez Mead permet de donner une conception de l'action sociale fondee sur l'imagination d...

The disease AIDS has given rise to a host of social dilemmas. Here we explore the rhetoric that affects people's reasoning about actions taken in the face of such dilemmas. We presented a group of 514 undergraduates with vignettes depicting dilemmas having to do with the distribution of sexually explicit educational material to high school students...

By the term “identity stakes” I mean all the side bets (Becker, 1960) that ride on being able to convince an audience that we are who and what we claim to be. These stakes are both material and psychic. Getting a monthly paycheck from my university depends on having convinced a host of people in that organization that I am indeed Michael Schwalbe,...

The relationship between work experience and self-esteem is an important one for social psychologists interested in how social structure affects personality. Research on this relationship has consistently documented the importance of autonomy in work for self-esteem. This research has failed, however, to closely examine the meaning of autonomy with...

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The study of inequality has been largely defined as the study of its measurable extent, degree, and consequences. It is no less important, however, to understand the interactive processes through which inequalities are created and reproduced in concrete settings. The qualitative research that bears on understanding these processes has not yet been...

My contention is that we can't meet our aims and responsibilities as qualitative sociologists by writing poetry. I propose that our responsibilities include creating access to social worlds by exposing and analyzing the frameworks of meaning that uphold those worlds; writing as clearly and accessibly as we can; and making the rules of our craft kno...

Goffman has been read as arguing that selves are no more than images created in conformity with situational expectations. I read Goffman as saying that the reality of selfhood is not an image, but a psychobiological proces shaped by signs and symbols. Seen in this way, the reality of the self is evident, as Goffman suggested, not in conformity but...

List of tables Preface 1. Restructuring the ecology of the self: a framework for self-concept change 2. Method considerations for an ecological approach 3. Relocation and changes in commitment: a cross-sectional study over the first year 4. Implications of recent research in cognitive social psychology for self-concept change 5. Social psychologica...

Marx's analysis of alienated labor still explains much about how the capitalist labor process shapes the thoughts and feelings of direct producers. But Marx's analysis fares less well in explaining how the work people actually do with their hands and minds leads to specific psychological consequences. This weakness stems from an inadequate social p...

We explore gender differences in the importance of reflected appraisals, self-perceived competence, and social comparisons as sources of self-esteem. Gender differences are expected for several reasons: sex role socialization may lead men and women to develop abilities to exploit different sources of self-esteem; men and women may learn to embrace...

Snyder's original theory of self-monitoring implies that high self-monitors use role taking to control their expressive behavior and to align their conduct with others. But the evidence for this is mixed; it is not clear what kind of social cognition is associated with the alignment strategies used by high and low self-monitors. This issue is explo...

Recent developments in social cognition could enhance sociological social psychologists' understanding of the mind as both a social product and a social force; yet this work in social cognition has received little attention. Conversely, social cognition has not fulfilled its promise to show what is truly social about cognition. We argue that more a...

Social psychologists and sociologists of work have documented the importance of numerous aspects of work experience for adult self-esteem. The social psychological dynamics of many of these work and self-esteem relationships remain, however, to be explored fully. The research reported here probes these dynamics by examining various sources of self-...

Social-psychological theory regarding self-esteem formation posits three primary sources of self-evaluative information: reflected appraisals, social comparisons, and self-perceptions. This article explores how characteristics of the situation and of the individual affect the importance attached to each of these potential sources of self-esteem in...

This paper develops a Marxist analysis of the relationships between class position, work experience, the psychological effects of this experience, and subsequent health outcomes. Specifically, it is argued that the structural imperatives of capitalist production make work for those in working-class positions subject to greater routinization and les...

In this study we examine the relationship between parental behavior as reported by parents, children's perceptions of parental behavior, and the effects of each on various aspects of children's self-evaluations—specifically, self-worth, self-efficacy, and general self-esteem. The study is based on a sample of 128 families, each consisting of a moth...

This study examines the relationship between social stratification and self-esteem by focusing on aspects of stratification and self-esteem formation processes ignored in previous research. An analysis of theoretical developments and empirical research reveals that the exclusive focus on occupational status and self-esteem derived from interpersona...

Language and the self are two of the most important elements in Mead's account of human development and action. Despite the importance of language and the self to symbolic interactionism, little attention has been devoted to exploring their interrelationhip, either theoretically or empirically. Some reasons for this neglect are suggested. By mergin...

The "looking-glass self" has been the dominant metaphor within sociology for the development of self-conception and has contributed to an overly passive and oversocialized view of human beings. The major theme in this paper is that our self-conceptions are also based upon our actions in the world, especially efficacious actions. The notions of huma...