76 research outputs found
Formalizing Foa’s Social Resource Theory of Exchange
No full textIn this chapter, Barry Markovsky and Ali Kazemi provide a formalization of SRT. They initially state that the common focus of social science activity remains on empirical analysis and hypothesis testing, with relatively little attention paid to the internal structures of the theories motivating those hypotheses. Markovsky and Kazemi provide a comprehensive and rigorous definition for theory and its components. Criteria for evaluating theories are also discussed along with a useful ten-step model for analyzing and improving theories. They then turn to a theoretical analysis resulting in a more parsimonious set of key terms, along with eighteen propositions revealing the structure of the theory. Diagramming the structure of the theory further reveals a dearth of complete logical arguments, indicating SRT’s lack of explanatory depth.</p
Assessing Fundamental Power Differences in Exchange Networks: Iterative GPI
No full textNetworks have been discovered for which Network Exchange Theory (NET Markovsky, Willer and Patton 1988; Lovaglia, Skvoretz, Willer and Markovsky 1995) fails to provide tenable predictions. Here we elaborate NET to create a more general method. We show not only when and where exchange networks break into simpler substructures, but propose rules to decisively classify networks and substructures as strong, weak, or equal power. In doing so, we advance general heuristics for power development in exchange networks and demonstrate the promise of an approach using reciprocal comparison of general heuristics, formal theory, and computer simulation
Power in Exchange Networks: Critique of a New Theory
No full textMarkovsky et al criticize Yamaguchi\u27s (1996) theory of power in social exchange networks, revealing internal theoretical contradictions. Yamaguchi responds to the criticisms
Graduate Training in Sociological Theory and Theory Construction
No full textNearly all of sociology\u27s top graduate training programs require their students to complete one or two courses on sociological theory. The instructors for these courses have an extraordinary opportunity to affect the perspectives and practices of future generations of scholars. This study assesses the backgrounds, attitudes, beliefs, and practices of those instructors regarding different approaches to theorizing, with particular attention paid to topics related to science and to theory construction. Sociologists who teach required theory courses in the discipline\u27s top fifty graduate training programs were asked a series of questions pertaining to their own training and to the courses they were teaching: attitudes toward different kinds of theorizing, perceptions of the role that theory plays in sociology and in science, and views on the nature of science. Results indicate a strong consensus on the most important classical theorists (Marx, Weber, and Durkheim). However, attitudes and practices varied widely in regard to other classical theorists, contemporary sociological theory, and the role of scientific standards in the development of sociological knowledge. The author explores some of the implications of these attitudes and practices
Comparing direct and indirect measures of just rewards : What have we learned?
No full text1. Jasso argued that her indirect method for inferring just rewards ispreferable to direct methods because the former is less susceptibleto biases. We pointed out that this claim was merely speculative andthat old and new evidence show both methods to be susceptible tosevere biases.2. Results from our research found that the two methods were uncorre-lated over the identical set of stimuli, and hence at least one of themethods must be very unreliable. Of the two methods, only the indi-rect method inferred just rewards that were implausibly extreme, astrong indication that it is the less reliable. This was evident inresults that Jasso reported in 2008 but did not address at that time.3. Direct and indirect methods both must assume that respondents havein mind just rewards for practically any set of contextual factors. This assumption is both unproven and implausible. The alternativeassumption is that respondents use contextual cues to help them ren-der fairness judgments but, as a consequence, their judgments arebiased by those cues.4. We noted that anchoring theory specifies conditions for the occur-rence of biases due to the presence of anchor information in thejudgment context. These conditions are satisfied in Jasso’s vignettemethod. Predictably, results both from prior research and from ournew research indicated strong anchoring biases for both direct andindirect justice vignette measures.5. The indirect method uses a statistical model whose specification dif-fers from the theoretical model that it ostensibly implements. Thisspecification error introduces biases of its own</p
- …
