Getting Started in Sociology, 3rd Edition - Latest Downloads

Getting Started in: SOCIOLOGY
Third Edition
Edited by
Lisa Grey Whitaker
Arizona State University–Tempe
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Getting Started in Sociology, Third Edition
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Table of Contents
PART I: The Basics 1
PART II: Socialization and Culture 5
1: ABIDING FAITH 9
2: THE MCDONALDIZATION OF SOCIETY 13
3: WHAT MAKES YOU WHO YOU ARE 19
PART III: Stratification and Social Inequality 25
1: WORKING AND POOR IN THE USA 31
2: WHO RULES AMERICA?: The Corporate Community and the Upper Class 35
3: CIVILIZE THEM WITH A STICK 47
PART IV: Work and Organizations 53
1: SURVEYING THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE 61
2: YOUR ANXIOUS WORKPLACE: Staying Calm and Clearheaded in a Crazy Environment 65
3: THE TIME BIND: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work 77
PART V: Deviance and Crime 85
1: THE INFLUENCE OF SITUATIONAL ETHICS ON CHEATING 91
2: POLICE ACCOUNTS OF NORMAL FORCE 99
3: DISCLAIMERS AND ACCOUNTS IN CASES OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS ACCUSED OF PEDOPHILIA 111
PART VI: Close Ties 121
1: THE LIFE CYCLE OF FRIENDSHIP 129
2: NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND OUR FEELINGS: Romance on the Internet 147
3: THIS THING CALLED LOVE 157
4: DYSFUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT 165
PART VII: Social Problems and Solutions 169
1: SUSTAINABILITY AMID GLOBALIZATION 173
2: HUMAN TRAFFICKING 183
3: FOOD AND AGRICULTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Rethinking Our Paradigms 187
4: JUST YOUR AVERAGE SEX OFFENDER 195
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4: JUST YOUR AVERAGE SEX OFFENDER 195
Glossary 201
Subject and Name Index 215

PART I:
The Basics
FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS AND PERSPECTIVES
Before you begin the reading selections I want to introduce you to some basic sociological concepts. Please note, the
definitions of the concepts provided here are working definitions. Other sociologists may define the concepts somewhat
differently. Referring to these working definitions as you read will help you absorb and understand the material.
What Is Sociology?
Sociology is the study of what individuals and groups do, in relation to each other. Because of that in-relation-to-each-other
part, sociologists call the conduct they study interpersonal or social behavior. The other, referred to in the phrase “in relation to
each other,” could be one other person in direct physical contact with you. Or, other could refer to everyone else in the world,
whom you are considering in the abstract.
Sociologists say that all the social ‘relating’ or interaction you have engaged in thus far in your life will affect how you decide
to act in the here-and-now. For example, imagine you are in a room by yourself; deciding what to do with some alone-time you
have right now. A sociologist would say, you at least think about how other people would react if they were to see you engage
in the behavior you are contemplating. Because you have at least considered how others would react to what you are about to
do, even how you act in solitude is, in a sense, social.
Sociologists also study how and why people behave socially as they do; how and why their behavior changes (or doesn’t) over
time, and how changes—innovations—in social behavior spread from the few who “invented” the changes, to much larger
social groups.
Sociologists may study social behavior and group processes within a single society. Or, they may study these phenomena in
two or more societies, then compare the groups.
The size and scope of a sociologist’s research project, as well as the methods (s)he uses to do the research, will vary according
to the theoretical perspective (s)he adheres to, the types of behavior or processes (s)he is interested in studying and, of course,
realities like funding and staff resources.
Depending on the range of persons or groups studied, the length of time they are studied, and which tools a sociologist uses to
measure, record and analyze the data (s)he collects, a sociologist is said to ‘do’ either macro sociology or micro sociology.
Macro sociologists are like photographers who shoot their photos using a wide-angle lens. They would rather fit a lot of people
into each frame than get detailed images of just a few of them. By contrast, micro sociologists are like photographers who use
a zoom lens. They focus on only a few people at a time so they can capture a lot of detail about each person.
What Kinds of Theories Do Sociologists Use?
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What Kinds of Theories Do Sociologists Use?
Most sociological theories fall into one of three theoretical camps. We call these camps theoretical perspectives. Each
perspective offers its own view of what society is and how its parts operate vis à vis each other. The substance of each
perspective has changed over time due to historical events; political developments and so on. Too, each has sprouted ‘spin-off’
perspectives, like a hit TV show generates spin-off series.’
Each theoretical perspective houses many, more specific theories; concerning a variety of subject areas within Sociology, e.g.
Sociology of Adolescence. Because this is an introductory-course text and you may never take another sociology course again
in your life, I do not want to overwhelm you with a zillion different theories, which you would ultimately have to memorize
and be tested on. I am just sticking to the basics here; giving you a bare-bones description of each of the three perspectives.
Sociologists refer to these as the functionalist, conflict and interactionist perspectives.
Functionalism compares society to the human body. Sociologists call this the organic analogy. Functionalists study the parts
of society together, as an entire system. If they were to examine any of the parts separately, it would only be to understand how
that part contributes to the overall system. Because its unit of analysis is the system as a whole, functionalism is a macro
sociological perspective.
Functionalism offers a relatively static view of society. It suggests things must remain as they are—the status quo must be
maintained—in order for all parts of society to work together, in balance with each other. Persons or groups who engage in
social protest, or who otherwise work to effect social change, are seen as threats to the state of balance in the system. As an
example, take the fictional character Robin Hood. The Sheriff of Nottingham, obviously a functionalist, viewed Robin as a
threat to the status quo he (the Sheriff ) was part of. As the Sheriff saw it, Robin had to go.
The conflict perspective is also a macro sociological perspective. The primary focus of conflict theorists is the competition
between groups to control resources such as wealth, power and influence. According to conflict theorists, social change is not
only good, if not inevitable; it is the way a society progresses.
Earlier conflict theorists saw control of resources as an either-or proposition. Society’s members fell into one of two camps—
the haves, a minority who controlled societal resources, or the have-nots, who aspired to wrest control from the haves, while
scrambling to get what crumbs the ‘haves’ left behind. Occasionally the have-nots managed to displace the haves, as occurred
during the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Contemporary conflict theory starts with the notion of interest groups. Interest groups are persons who act in a cooperative,
coordinated fashion. The basis of their cooperation is a common goal. They seek to have an impact on some socio-political
issue, concerning which decision(s) are to be made. Examples of interest groups are the American Tobacco Association,
Greenpeace, the American Association of Retired Persons, and the Republican and Democratic parties.
Interest groups seek to dominate decision making and control resources related to the issue(s) they care about. At any given
point in time there are a number of socio-political issues in play, concerning which something is to be decided. For each of
these issues, there is a ‘haves’ group in charge of the issue and any related resource allocation. At the same time, for each issue
one or more ‘have-not’ groups seek to unseat the dominant group. In this more complicated conception, there exist a myriad of
little interest-group clusters. The member-groups that make up each cluster duke it out amongst themselves for whatever spoils
are to be had, related to ‘their’ issue.
From the interactionist point of view, the best way to understand what is going on in society is, to start at the ground level and
work up. The unit of analysis is the situation—in particular, any of the routine social situations that make up daily life in
society. Interactionists analyze the verbal and nonverbal communication between persons who come across one another in
everyday situations. They seek to understand the social structure that underlies the communication and makes it seem
‘routine.’ Because its unit of analysis is the situation rather than the whole social system, the interactionist perspective is a
micro-sociological perspective.

micro-sociological perspective.
What Is Society?
Sociologists use the term society in a narrower, more technical way than does the average citizen. To sociologists, a society is
the aggregate of persons who live within a specific, demarcated territory and share at least the basic elements of a single,
general culture. Here the word aggregate refers to individuals and groups of all sizes and types; living within the designated
region. On this same turf may reside individuals and/or groups who are not members of the society in question, because they
choose to not buy into the mainstream culture.
What Is Culture?
A society’s culture is the stock of knowledge that a resident of or traveler within the society must know and use, in order to
‘do’ daily life without attracting unwanted forms of attention, such as public ridicule or police contact. The basic building
blocks of culture are norms (rules of conduct), values (actions or ways of treating other people that are considered desirable,
appropriate and/or moral), language (verbal and non-verbal communication), beliefs (agreements between members about the
existence and makeup of each feature of their shared existence), the social statuses (positions) a person may occupy and the
role played by any person who occupies any one of those statuses.
What Are Social Institutions?
Social institutions are networks of persons whose coordinated, interdependent actions accomplish essential tasks for society’s
members. These tasks are essential because they enable members to do their lives in accordance with their culture’s core
values. For example, a principal social institution in most societies is the system of education. In U.S. society, the education
system as a social institution makes it possible for members to ‘live’ the cultural value, “getting a good education.”
Government, religion, the family, the education system and the mass media are some of the social institutions in our culture.
Essential tasks performed by social institutions include care of the young, socialization of new members, education and
training of the youth, dissemination of information, and creation and enforcement of a set of rules for members to live by, so
that their daily lives seem to proceed in a more or less orderly fashion.
What Is Social Structure?
PART I: The Basics
For many of you the word structure may evoke images of a building under construction; of a solid, tangible framework. For
our purposes, though, focus on the word social. Social structure is not tangible; it’s an idea. It’s an idea that is formulated
through social interaction and then experienced through individual perception and interpretation.
You are aware that social rules and meanings evolve through social interaction. Through discussion, debate, disagreement,
compromise and/or consensus, people formulate (and subsequently change or maintain) a collective sense of what type of
situation this or that piece of their daily lives is (e.g., “This is an elevator ride”) and of how to act (“Face forward and don’t
look too long at, or talk to, anyone you don’t know”) within it.
All sorts of social variables, such as gender, age, race or profession can affect the amount of influence an individual has on the
process of creating, maintaining or changing situational meanings and rules. Some individuals get to talk more than others
because of their relatively high status ranking. At the same time, the highest-ranking person may speak only once during a
discussion, yet exert great influence on its outcome. Because social variables can have such an impact on the outcome of
situation-defining and rule-making encounters, when studying them sociologists look not just at what is said but also, at who
(the status ranking of the person who) is saying it.
Each of us notices the behavior of those around us. To the extent you perceive that those around you are acting as if they buy
into existing ideas of what certain situations are and how to act within them, there is a seeming orderliness to the world, an
apparent structure to everyday existence. However behind that appearance, at any given moment in time, someone, somewhere
is chipping away at this or that little piece of the structure—modifying some rule, working to repeal and/or replace it, etc. Over
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apparent structure to everyday existence. However behind that appearance, at any given moment in time, someone, somewhere
is chipping away at this or that little piece of the structure—modifying some rule, working to repeal and/or replace it, etc. Over
time people may change all the rules that inform their everyday lives, but—incrementally. Social structure is a work-inprogress.
It’s a process.
Now you’re ready to start looking at the world around you as a sociologist. You will be looking beneath the surface of social
situations; watching and analyzing the interaction through which people give meaning and a sense of orderliness to their
existence.
REFERENCES
Berger, Peter L., Invitation to Sociology, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1963.
Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967.
Blumer, Herbert, Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method; Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1969.
Cooley, Charles Horton, Human Nature and the Social Order; New York: Schocken, 1964.
Dahrendorf, Ralf, Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1959.
Denzin, Norman K., Symbolic Interactionism and Cultural Studies: The Politics of Interpretation; Oxford: Blackwell,
1992.
Goffman, Erving, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959.
Mead, George Herbert, Mind, Self and Society; University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1934.
Merton, Robert K., Social Theory and Social Structure; New York: Free Press, 1968.
Mills, C. Wright, The Sociological Imagination; New York, Oxford University Press, 1959.
Parsons, Talcott, Sociological Theory and Modern Society; New York: Free Press, 1967.
Strauss, Anselm et. al., “The Hospital and its Negotiated Order,” in E. Freidson (ed.), The Hospital and Modern Society,
1963, pp. 147–169.
Weber, Max, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology; Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, Eds., New York, Oxford
University Press, 1946.

Socialization: Learning the Culture
PART II:
Socialization and Culture
RELATED CONCEPTS AND IDEAS
As mentioned in the previous chapter, a society’s culture is the stock of knowledge a person must have and regularly use in a
society, in order to get through daily life without attracting unwanted forms of attention such as public ridicule or police
contact. Newcomers to a society, whether infants, immigrants or temporary visitors, receive the information they need in order
to ‘do’ daily life in their new environment through socialization. Established members of society socialize new arrivals by
explaining to them the “who-what-when-where-why-and-how” of their general culture—i.e., the basic building blocks of the
culture, which are its norms, values, language(s), beliefs, statuses and roles.
Depending on the basis upon which a newcomer enters the society, (s)he will endeavor to soak up cultural know-how to a
greater or lesser degree, as befits his/her personal agenda. Thus an infant born to established members of society, in all
likelihood, will be inclined to absorb the culture in depth. An immigrant may fully embrace the new culture, hoping to achieve
citizenship in the fullness of time. Or, such an individual may remain faithful to the culture from whence (s)he came; observing
its traditions at home; raising his or her children in accordance with its tenets. In that case, an immigrant might elect to learn
and adhere to only enough of the host culture to accomplish daily life outside the home.
Persons and social entities who participate in your socialization at various points in time during your life are called agents of
socialization. Agents include parents and guardians, teachers, your peer group, religious officials, significant others, coaches,
bosses, role models, and the mass media including television, movies, the internet, newspapers and magazines.
Many times in the course of your life, you will begin learning how to perform the role that goes with a status you do not yet
have, but expect to have in the future. This kind of advance preparation is called anticipatory socialization. When young
children watch their mothers and fathers play ‘parent,’ they are soaking up information about how to be parents themselves,
someday. Even though they are not consciously training for the parent role, what they’re doing still counts as anticipatory
socialization.
For those of you who have declared a major, taking courses in your major field is a form of anticipatory socialization. Doing
an internship in an organization that is the sort of workplace you expect to work in, following graduation, is anticipatory
socialization. If your career goal is to become a dentist, working in a dentist’s office or just talking to a number of dentists
about how they feel about the work they do, are forms of anticipatory socialization. I’m sure you can think of many times in
your life so far, in which you have done this type of role preparation.
The Building Blocks of Culture
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The Building Blocks of Culture
A norm is a rule about how to act, with the word ‘act’ referring both to what you do and what you say. Norms can be formal or
informal. Formal norms are written-down; having been voted on and approved by a governing body, such as a state legislature,
and/or the public. Federal, state, or city government’s norms are usually called laws or statutes. The formal norms of a specific
organization are often called policies and procedures. Informal norms are rules guiding the more mundane aspects of everyday
social life. While these rules are not written-down, everyone is familiar with them; having been taught them by our parents and
others while we were growing up. An example of an informal norm is the rule about not picking your nose in public.
A value is a prospective course of action (e.g. “getting a good education”) or an element of the way you treat other people (e.g.
“honesty”) which members of a culture have generally assessed as good, right, appropriate and/or moral.
Language is the totality of verbal and non-verbal forms of communication a society’s members (or a subset of its members)
share and use to exchange ideas and information with each other. Language is the medium through which members accomplish
crucial processes like socialization, social control and social change, as well as the business of everyday life. Non-verbal forms
of language include facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice, posture, bearing, carriage, use of personal space, and general
body language. In culturally diverse societies such as ours, members will use a variety of verbal and non-verbal languages; in
accordance with their respective cultures of origin and life experiences.
Beliefs are agreements between members of a society about the existence and makeup of each and every feature of their shared
experience. Examples of beliefs range from “that thing over there is a tree,” to “driving drunk causes accidents,” to “the sun
will rise tomorrow.”
A status is a social position—a category, a pigeonhole—created by members of a society, as a way of getting a ‘fix’ on other
people; a way of making sense of who they are. We human beings are always categorizing things and people—defining them,
labeling them, evaluating them—as a way of bringing the jumble of everyday life to heel. We are a species determined to
create order out of chaos. Boxing people up in neat little categories is one way to do that. Each status carries with it a greater or
lesser amount of prestige, according to the values of the society in which it exists. For example, in American society having a
career as a physician is more prestigious than having a career as a telemarketer.
From the moment of your birth you have certain ascribed statuses—age, race, gender and ethnicity are examples of these. By
contrast, your achieved statuses are positions you obtain through your own efforts. Examples of achieved statuses you have or
may have right now are college student, employee, significant other, athlete, community volunteer or musician.
According to their cultural values, members of a society ascribe a greater or lesser amount of weight—significance—to each
status. Citizens of a community may change the weight or importance they assign to a specific status, depending on all sorts of
factors—for example, community history, concrete events, local politics or the local economy. Historical, economic and
political factors—in other words the larger context in which a set of social statuses exists—will always affect the content and
degree of importance that people assign to the statuses they make and use.
In fact, citizens may come to weight one specific status so heavily that once an individual is placed in it, that status overrides
any other statuses (s)he may have. Others perceive and interact with the individual only in terms of that one status. Such a
status is a master status. A master status can be positive (e.g. “Olympic Gold Medalist”) or negative (e.g. “child molester”).
Our gold medal winner may be conceited or a schmuck; the child molester may be a big-time community philanthropist, but
nobody cares. Whatever the individual’s additional statuses or attributes may be; however positive or negative, nobody will
care anymore—others will see and treat the individual as if (s)he were nothing but that status.
The role consists of the duties a status occupant is expected to perform, the mindset (willingness to comply with the norms,
values, beliefs, etc. that attach to the status) (s)he is supposed to have, and any privileges (s)he is due to receive, in return for
performing the duties. Examples of privileges are the amount of authority or influence (s)he can exercise over others and the
amount of prestige (s)he enjoys as an occupant of that status.

amount of prestige (s)he enjoys as an occupant of that status.
Each day you play the variety of roles, which accompany the statuses you occupy that day: daughter or son, sibling, pet owner,
commuter, college student, mentor, friend, employee, etc. If you step back and watch yourself one day, you will see there are
situations in which you are called upon to play two or more roles simultaneously. For example there you are, sitting in class,
trying to pay attention and take notes on the professor’s lecture. Right then your friend text-messages you. Playing your role as
a friend, to respond to his/her text message, requires a time-out from your student role; the role you are supposed to playing at
that moment. When performance of one role gets in the way of performing another—in other words, when two or more roles
collide—the dilemma you feel is called role conflict.
There are other occasions when you are playing only one role; however, what you have to do, to perform the role, makes you
emotionally uncomfortable. For example, have you ever had to tell your significant other, face-to-face, that you want to break
up? Or, have you ever worked as a manager or supervisor and had to tell some of your employees they were being laid off?
Any emotional discomfort you feel, out of doing what your role requires you to do, is called role strain.
There are times in your life when you finish with a status you have held, more or less for good. For example, you graduate
from college and begin a career. You get married. You buy your first house. Here you are leaving behind the statuses of
college student, apartment renter and single man or woman. Leaving a status and the role that goes with it is called,
imaginatively enough, role exit.
Cultures within Cultures: Subcultures and Countercultures
PART II: Socialization and Culture
Most of us go through multiple socialization processes during our lives. This occurs because even after you learn the basics of
your society’s general culture, you will enter additional, more specialized social arenas that are new to you. Such arenas are the
settings where members of specific groups within the general society carry out their activities. Such groups could be composed
of the members of a club or organization, such as a sports team or a religious organization, persons who practice a particular
profession, or just the employees who work at a particular place of business.
To become a full-fledged participant in a group you have just joined, you must absorb a body of knowledge—a culture—which
is unique to that group. The group’s culture is made of norms, values; any special skills, technical language, clothing or
equipment that is required; any belief system that is unique to that group; statuses and their accompanying roles, etc. In other
words, they the same building blocks as those which make up the general culture; only the group’s culture is specific to that
group. It exists as a ‘mini’-culture within our much larger, general culture. Sociologists call such mini-cultures either
subcultures or countercultures; depending on whether or not the group’s members buy into the norms, values and beliefs of the
general culture.
A subculture is a mini-culture made up of members who adhere to general culture’s norms and values, etc., who at the same
time also utilize the more specialized set of norms and values, etc. that inform their specific activities. A subculture’s members
are organized around an activity or set of activities in which they have a heightened level of interest, relative to the population
at large. Depending on the size of the social arena in which they operate and the type(s) of activity that have brought them
together, the members may or may not have face-to-face contact with each other. For example, the employees of a small,
mom-and-pop family restaurant, by interacting with each other face to face, day after day, form a subculture. At the same time,
all the professional ballet dancers in the world are also a subculture. Even though most of them will never meet, they share and
adhere to a body of knowledge related to their profession. It is their commitment to living in accordance with that body of
knowledge that, despite the distances between members, unites them as a subculture.
Sociologists also recognize groups within the general culture whose norms, values and beliefs directly conflict with those of
the general culture. Such groups, called countercultures by sociologists, reject the norms, values, etc. of the majority and
replace them with a set of their own making. The hippies of the 1960’s are an oft-cited example of a counterculture.
Many groups, however, do not fit so easily into one category or the other. For example, how do we classify street gangs?
Having worked in the justice system for a number of years, I’m aware that members of such gangs display properties of both.
Yes; they’re okay with killing to settle disputes. On the other hand, most of the gang members I met had very strongly-held
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Having worked in the justice system for a number of years, I’m aware that members of such gangs display properties of both.
Yes; they’re okay with killing to settle disputes. On the other hand, most of the gang members I met had very strongly-held
‘family values’ and religious faiths. How do we categorize groups that have characteristics of both subcultures and
countercultures? I suggest we discuss such groups in terms of “the extent to which . . .” they have subcultural and/or
countercultural properties.
REFERENCES
Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, Garden City, Doubleday, 1967.
Cicourel, Aaron V., “Basic and Normative Rules in the Negotiation of Status and Role,” in Hans Peter Dreitzel, Recent
Sociology, Number 2, 44 – 49.
Cooley, Charles Horton, Human Nature and the Social Order, New York: Schocken, 1964.
Denzin, Norman K., Symbolic Interactionism and Cultural Studies: The Politics of Interpretation, Oxford: Blackwell,
1992.
Mead, George Herbert, Mind, Self and Society, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What are some of the norms and values you feel are especially important to adhere to? If you become a parent
some day, which norms and values will be especially important to teach to your children?
2. What are some of the statuses you occupy at this point in your life? What is the role you play, as an occupant of
any one of your statuses?
3. At this point in your life, what agent of socialization influences you the most? Over the course of your whole life
to date, which agent has had the biggest effect on the person you have become?
4. What are some of the subcultures you have belonged to, at one time or another? Pick one of them and list the
characteristics of the group that identify it as a subculture.

MARK CHAVES
1:
ABIDING FAITH
God is dead—or God is taking over. Depending on the headlines of the day, soothsayers pronounce the end of religion or the
ascendancy of religious extremists. What is really going on? Taking stock of religion is almost as old as religion itself.
Tracking religious trends is difficult, however, when religion means so many different things. Should we look at belief in the
supernatural? Frequency of formal religious worship? The role of faith in major life decisions? The power of individual
religious movements? These different dimensions of religion can change in different ways. Whether religion is declining or not
depends on the definition of religion and what signifies a decline.
Perhaps the most basic manifestation of religious observance is piety: individual belief and participation in formal religious
worship. Recent research on trends in American piety supports neither simple secularization nor staunch religious resilience in
the face of modern life. Instead, Americans seem to believe as much but practice less.
Religious Belief
Conventional Judeo-Christian religious belief remains very high in the United States, and little evidence suggests it has
declined in recent decades. Gallup polls and other surveys show that more than 90 percent of Americans believe in a higher
power, and more than 60 percent are certain that God exists. Approximately 80 percent believe in miracles and in life after
death, 70 percent believe in heaven, and 60 percent believe in hell. Far fewer Americans—from two in three in 1963 to one
in three today—believe the Bible is the literal Word of God. The number who say the Bible is either the inerrant or the
inspired Word of God is still impressively high, however—four of every five.
Religious faith in the United States is more broad than deep, and it has been for as long as it has been tracked. Of Americans
who say the Bible is either the actual or the inspired Word of God, only half can name the first book in the Bible and only
one-third can say who preached the Sermon on the Mount. More than 90 percent believe in a higher power, but only onethird
say they rely more on that power than on themselves in overcoming adversity. People who claim to be born-again or
evangelical Christians are no less likely than others to believe in ideas foreign to traditional Christianity, such as
reincarnation (20 percent of all Americans), channeling (17 percent), or astrology (26 percent), and they are no less likely to
have visited a fortune teller (16 percent).
Despite the superficiality of belief among many, the percentage of Americans expressing religious faith is still remarkably
high. How should we understand this persistent religious belief? High levels of religious belief in the United States seem to
show that, contrary to widespread expectations of many scholars, industrialization, urbanization, bureaucratization, advances
in science and other developments associated with modern life do not automatically undermine religious belief. In part this
is because modernization does not immunize people against the human experiences that inspire religious sentiment. As
anthropologist Mary Douglas points out, scientific advances do not make us less likely to feel awe and wonder when we
ponder the universe and its workings. For example, our feelings of deference to physicians, owing to their experience and
somewhat mysterious scientific knowledge, may not be so different from the way other people feel about traditional healers
—even if the outcomes of treatment are indeed different. Likewise, bureaucracy does not demystify our world—on the
contrary, it may make us feel more helpless and confused in the face of powers beyond our control. When confronted with
large and complex bureaucracies, modern people may not feel any more in control of the world around them than a South
Pacific Islander confronted with the prospect of deep-sea fishing for shark. Modern people still turn to religion in part
because certain experiences—anthropologist Clifford Geertz emphasizes bafflement, pain, and moral dilemmas—remain
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Pacific Islander confronted with the prospect of deep-sea fishing for shark. Modern people still turn to religion in part
because certain experiences—anthropologist Clifford Geertz emphasizes bafflement, pain, and moral dilemmas—remain
part of the human condition.
That condition cannot, however, completely explain the persistence of religious belief. It is clearly possible to respond in
nonreligious ways to these universal human experiences, and many people do, suggesting that religiosity is a feature of some
responses to these experiences, not an automatic consequence of the experiences themselves. From this perspective,
attempting to explain religion’s persistence by the persistence of bafflement, pain and moral paradox sidesteps a key
question: Why do so many people continue to respond to these experiences by turning to religion?
Another, more sociological explanation of the persistence of religious belief emphasizes the fact that religion—like language
and ethnicity—is one of the main ways of delineating group boundaries and collective identities. As long as who we are and
how we differ from others remains a salient organizing principle for social movements and institutions, religion can be
expected to thrive. Indeed, this identity-marking aspect of religion may also explain why religious belief often seems more
broad than deep. If affirming that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God serves in part to identify oneself as part of the
community of Bible-believing Christians, it is not so important to know in much detail what the Bible actually says.
The modern world is not inherently inhospitable to religious belief, and many kinds of belief have not declined at all over
the past several decades. Certain aspects of modernity, however, do seem to reduce levels of religious observance. In a
recent study of 65 countries, Ronald Inglehart and Wayne Baker find that people in industrialized and wealthy nations are
typically less religious than others. That said, among advanced industrial democracies the United States still stands out for
its relatively high level of religious belief. When asked to rate the importance of God in their lives on a scale of 1 to 10, 50
percent of Americans say “10,” far higher than the 28 percent in Canada, 26 percent in Spain, 21 percent in Australia, 16
percent in Great Britain and Germany, and 10 percent in France. Among advanced industrial democracies, only Ireland, at
40 percent, approaches the U.S. level of religious conviction.
Religious Participation
Cross-national comparisons also show that Americans participate in organized religion more often than do people in other
affluent nations. In the United States, 55 percent of those who are asked say they attend religious services at least once a
month, compared with 40 percent in Canada, 38 percent in Spain, 25 percent in Australia, Great Britain, and West Germany,
and 17 percent in France.
The trends over time, however, are murkier. Roger Finke and Rodney Stark have argued that religious participation has
increased over the course of American history. This claim is based mainly on increasing rates of church membership. In
1789 only 10 percent of Americans belonged to churches, with church membership rising to 22 percent in 1890 and reaching
50 to 60 percent in the 1950s. Today, about two-thirds of Americans say they are members of a church or a synagogue.
These rising figures should not, however, be taken at face value, because churches have become less exclusive clubs than
they were earlier in our history. Fewer people attend religious services today than claim formal membership in religious
congregations, but the opposite was true in earlier times. The long-term trend in religious participation is difficult to discern.
Although we have much more evidence about recent trends in religious participation, it still is difficult to say definitively
whether religious-service attendance—the main way Americans participate collectively in religion—has declined or
remained stable in recent decades. The available evidence is conflicting. Surveys using the traditional approach of asking
people directly about their attendance mainly show stability over time, confirming the consensus that attendance has not
declined much.
New evidence, however, points toward decline. Drawing on time-use records, which ask individuals to report everything
they do on a given day, Stanley Presser and Linda Stinson find that weekly religious-service attendance has declined over
the past 30 years from about 40 percent in 1965 to about 25 percent in 1994. Sandra Hofferth and John Sandberg also find a
decline in church attendance reported in children’s time-use diaries. Time-use studies mitigate the over-reporting of
religious-service attendance that occurs when people are asked directly whether or not they attend. Also, these time-use
studies find the same lower attendance rates found by researchers who count the number of people who actually show up at

1: ABIDING FAITH
religious-service attendance that occurs when people are asked directly whether or not they attend. Also, these time-use
studies find the same lower attendance rates found by researchers who count the number of people who actually show up at
church rather than take them at their word when they say they attend.
Additional evidence of declining activity comes from political scientist Robert Putnam’s book on civic engagement in the
United States, Bowling Alone. Combining survey data from five different sources, Putnam finds some decline in religious
participation. Perhaps more important, because of the context they provide, are Putnam’s findings about a range of civic and
voluntary association activities that are closely related to religious participation. Virtually every type of civic engagement
declined in the last third of the 20th century: voting, attending political, public, and club meetings, serving as officer or
committee member in local clubs and organizations, belonging to national organizations, belonging to unions, playing sports
and working on community projects. If religious participation has indeed remained constant, it would be virtually the only
type of civic engagement that has not declined in recent decades. Nor did the events of September 11, 2001, alter attendance
patterns. If there was a spike in religious service attendance immediately following September 11, it was short-lived.
Overall, the following picture emerges from recent research: since the 1960s, Americans have engaged less frequently in
religious activities, but they have continued to believe just as much in the supernatural and to be just as interested in
spirituality. This pattern characterizes many other countries around the world as well. Inglehart and Baker’s data suggest
that American trends are similar to those in other advanced industrialized societies: declining religious activities, stability in
religious belief, and increasing interest in the meaning and purpose of life.
Important differences among subgroups remain nonetheless. Blacks are more religiously active than whites, and women are
more active than men. There is little reason to think, however, that the recent declines in participation vary among
subgroups.
New forms of religious participation are not replacing attendance at weekend worship services. When churchgoers are asked
what day they attended a service, only 3 percent mention a day other than Sunday. Perhaps more telling, when those who
say they did not attend a religious service in the past week are asked if they participated in some other type of religious
event or meeting, such as a prayer or Bible study group, only 2 percent say yes (although 21 percent of non-attendees say
they watched religious television or listened to religious radio). The vast majority of religious activity in the United States
takes place at weekend religious services. If other forms of religious activity have increased, they have not displaced
traditional weekend attendance.
Overall, the current knowledge of individual piety in the United States does not conform to expectations that modernity is
fundamentally hostile to religion. Many conventional religious beliefs remain popular, showing no sign of decline. That
said, research on individual piety neither points to stability on every dimension nor implies that social changes associated
with modernity leave religious belief and practice unimpaired. The evidence supports neither a simple version of
secularization nor a wholesale rejection of secularization. Moreover, focusing on levels of religious piety diverts attention
from what may be more important: the social significance of religion.
Of course, when many people are religiously active, religion can have more social influence. A society like the United
States, with more than 300,000 religious congregations, presents opportunities for political mobilization that do not exist in
societies where religion is a less prominent part of society. Witness the Civil Rights movement, the Religious Right and
other causes that mix religion and politics. Nonetheless, religion in the United States, as in most other advanced societies, is
organizationally separate from (even if occasionally overlapping) government, the economy and other parts of civil society.
This limits a religion’s capacity to change the world, even if it converts millions.
The social significance of religious belief and participation depends on the institutional settings in which they occur. This is
why the religious movements of our day with the greatest potential for increasing religion’s influence are not those that
simply seek new converts or spur belief and practice, no matter how successful they may be. The movements with the
greatest such potential are those that seek to expand religion’s authority or influence in other domains. In some parts of the
contemporary world, this has meant religious leaders seeking and sometimes achieving the power to veto legislation, dictate
university curricula, exclude girls from schooling and women from working in certain jobs, and determine the kinds of art or
literature offered to the public. In the United States, the most significant contemporary movement to expand religious
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university curricula, exclude girls from schooling and women from working in certain jobs, and determine the kinds of art or
literature offered to the public. In the United States, the most significant contemporary movement to expand religious
influence probably is the effort to shape school curricula concerning evolution and creationism. Wherever they occur, when
such movements succeed they change the meaning and significance of religious piety. Efforts like these reflect and shape
the abiding role of religion in a society in ways that go beyond the percentages of people who believe in God, pray, or attend
religious services.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
Chaves, Mark. “Abiding Faith.” Copyright © 2002 by American Sociological Association. Reprinted with
permission from Contexts, Vol. 1, Number 2, Summer 2002, pp. 19–26.
Chaves, Mark. 1994. “Secularization as Declining Religious Authority.” Social Forces (72), 749–74.
Gallup, George Jr. and D. Michael Lindsay. 1999. Surveying the Religious Landscape. Harrisburg, PA:
Morehouse Publishing.
Hofferth, Sandra L. and John F. Sandberg. (2001). “Children at the Millennium: Where Have We Come From,
Where Are We Going?” In Advances in Life Course Research, edited by T. Owens and S. Hofferth. New York:
Elsevier Science. Also available at www.ethno.isr.umich.edu/06papers/html/.
Inglehart, Ronald and Baker, Wayne E. (2000). “Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of
Traditional Values.” American Sociological Review (65), 19–51.
Presser, Stanley and Stinson, Linda. (1998). “Data Collection Mode and Social Desirability Bias in Self-Reported
Religious Attendance.” American Sociological Review (63), 134–135.
Putnam, Robert. (2000). “Religious Participation.” In Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Chaves observed that Americans are going to church less but continue to believe in God, and to be interested
in spirituality and the supernatural, as much as ever. How do the religious practices of your family, friends,
and acquaintances compare to Chaves’ observations?
2. Chaves suggests Americans remain religious because, not only do scientific and technological advances fail
to alleviate emotional adversity; in fact, most people see such advances as just one more part of life they
cannot understand or control. Thus people continue to believe in a higher power as sort of an emotional
anchor, and participate in religious organizations to feel a sense of belonging. In your opinion, why does
religiosity remain high in the U.S.?

GEORGE RITZER
2:
THE MCDONALDIZATION OF SOCIETY
Awide-ranging process of rationalization is occurring across American society and is having an increasingly powerful impact
in many other parts of the world. It encompasses such disparate phenomena as fast-food restaurants, TV dinners, packaged
tours, industrial robots, plea bargaining, and open-heart surgery on an assembly-line basis. As widespread and as important as
these developments are, it is clear that we have barely begun a process that promises even more extraordinary changes (e.g.,
genetic engineering) in the years to come. We can think of rationalization as a historical process and rationality as the end
result of that development. As a historical process, rationalization has distinctive roots in the Western world. Writing in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the great German sociologist Max Weber saw his society as the center of the ongoing
process of rationalization and the bureaucracy as its paradigm case. The model of rationalization, at least in contemporary
America, is no longer the bureaucracy, but might be better thought of as the fast-food restaurant. As a result, our concern here
is with what might be termed the “McDonaldization of Society.” While the fast-food restaurant is not the ultimate expression
of rationality, it is the current exemplar for future developments in rationalization.
A society characterized by rationality is one which emphasizes efficiency, predictability, calculability, substitution of
nonhuman for human technology, and control over uncertainty. In discussing the various dimensions of rationalization, we will
be little concerned with the gains already made, and yet to be realized, by greater rationalization. These advantages are widely
discussed in schools and in the mass media. In fact, we are in danger of being seduced by the innumerable advantages already
offered, and promised in the future, by rationalization. The glitter of these accomplishments and promises has served to distract
most people from the grave dangers posed by progressive rationalization. In other words, we are ultimately concerned here
with the irrational consequences that often flow from rational systems. Thus, the second major theme of this essay might be
termed “the irrationality of rationality.” . . .
Efficiency
The process of rationalization leads to a society in which a great deal of emphasis is placed on finding the best or optimum
means to any given end. Whatever a group of people define as an end, and everything they so define, is to be pursued by
attempting to find the best means to achieve the end. Thus, in the Germany of Weber’s day, the bureaucracy was seen as the
most efficient means of handling a wide array of administrative tasks. Somewhat later, the Nazis came to develop the
concentration camp, its ovens, and other devices as the optimum method of collecting and murdering millions of Jews and
other people. The efficiency that Weber described in turn-of-the-century Germany, and which later came to characterize
many Nazi activities, has become a basic principle of life in virtually every sector of a rational society.
Ritzer, George. “The McDonaldization of Society,” Journal of American Culture 6, no. 1 (1983): 100–107. Reprinted by
permission of Blackwell Publishing.
The modern American family, often with two wage earners, has little time to prepare elaborate meals. For the relatively few
who still cook such meals, there is likely to be great reliance on cookbooks that make cooking from scratch much more
efficient. However, such cooking is relatively rare today. Most families take as their objective quickly and easily prepared
meals. To this end, much use is made of prepackaged meals and frozen TV dinners.
For many modern families, the TV dinner is no longer efficient enough. To many people, eating out, particularly in a fastfood
restaurant, is a far more efficient way of obtaining their meals. Fast-food restaurants capitalize on this by being
organized so that diners are fed as efficiently as possible. They offer a limited, simple menu that can be cooked and served
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food restaurant, is a far more efficient way of obtaining their meals. Fast-food restaurants capitalize on this by being
organized so that diners are fed as efficiently as possible. They offer a limited, simple menu that can be cooked and served
in an assembly-line fashion. The latest development in fast-food restaurants, the addition of drive-through windows,
constitutes an effort to increase still further the efficiency of the dining experience. The family now can simply drive
through, pick up its order, and eat it while driving to the next, undoubtedly efficiently organized, activity. The success of the
fast-food restaurant has come full circle with frozen-food manufacturers now touting products for the home modeled after
those served in fast-food restaurants.
Increasingly, efficiently organized food production and distribution systems lie at the base of the ability of people to eat their
food efficiently at home, in the fast-food restaurant, or in their cars. Farms, groves, ranches, slaughterhouses, warehouses,
transportation systems, and retailers are all oriented toward increasing efficiency. A notable example is chicken production
where they are mass-bred, force-fed (often with many chemicals), slaughtered on an assembly line, iced or fast frozen, and
shipped to all parts of the country. Some may argue that such chickens do not taste as good as the fresh-killed, local variety,
but their complaints are likely to be drowned in a flood of mass-produced chickens. Then there is bacon which is more
efficiently shipped, stored, and sold when it is preserved by sodium nitrate, a chemical which is unfortunately thought by
many to be carcinogenic. Whatever one may say about the quality or the danger of the products, the fact remains that they
are all shaped by the drive for efficiency. . . .
One of the most interesting and important aspects of efficiency is that it often comes to be not a means but an end in itself.
This “displacement of goals” is a major problem in a rationalizing society. We have, for example, the bureaucrats who
slavishly follow the rules even though their inflexibility negatively affects the organization’s ability to achieve its goals.
Then there are the bureaucrats who are so concerned with efficiency that they lose sight of the ultimate goals the means are
designed to achieve. A good example was the Nazi concentration camp officers who, in devoting so much attention to
maximizing the efficiency of the camps’ operation, lost sight of the fact that the ultimate purpose of the camps was the
murder of millions of people.
Predictability
A second component of rationalization involves the effort to ensure predictability from one place to another. In a rational
society, people want to know what to expect when they enter a given setting or acquire some sort of commodity. They
neither want nor expect surprises. They want to know that if they journey to another locale, the setting they enter or the
commodity they buy will be essentially the same as the setting they entered or product they purchased earlier. Furthermore,
people want to be sure that what they encounter is much like what they encountered at earlier times. In order to ensure
predictability over time and place, a rational society must emphasize such things as discipline, order, systemization,
formalization, routine, consistency, and methodical operation.
One of the attractions of TV dinners for modern families is that they are highly predictable. The TV dinner composed of
fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green peas, and peach cobbler is exactly the same from one time to another and one city to
another. Home cooking from scratch is, conversely, a notoriously unpredictable enterprise with little assurance that dishes
will taste the same time after time. However, the cookbook cannot eliminate all unpredictability. There are often simply too
many ingredients and other variables involved. Thus the cookbook dish is far less predictable than the TV dinner or a wide
array of other prepared dishes.
Fast-food restaurants rank very high on the dimension of predictability. In order to help ensure consistency, the fast-food
restaurant offers only a limited menu. Predictable end products are made possible by the use of similar raw materials,
technologies, and preparation and serving techniques. Not only the food is predictable; the physical structures, the logo, the
“ambience,” and even the personnel are as well.
The food that is shipped to our homes and our fast-food restaurants is itself affected by the process of increasing
predictability. Thus our favorite white bread is indistinguishable from one place to another. In fact, food producers have
made great efforts to ensure such predictability.

made great efforts to ensure such predictability.
On packaged tours, travelers can be fairly sure that the people they travel with will be much like themselves. The planes,
buses, hotel accommodations, restaurants, and at least the way in which the sites are visited are very similar from one
location to another. Many people go on packaged tours because they are far more predictable than travel undertaken on an
individual basis.
Amusement parks used to be highly unpredictable affairs. People could never be sure, from one park to another, precisely
what sorts of rides, events, foods, visitors, and employees they would encounter. All of that has changed in the era of the
theme parks inspired by Disneyland. Such parks seek to ensure predictability in various ways. For example, a specific type
of young person is hired in these parks, and they are all trained in much the same way, so that they have a robot-like
predictability.
Other leisure-time activities have grown similarly predictable. Camping in the wild is loaded with uncertainties—bugs,
bears, rain, cold, and the like. To make camping more predictable, organized grounds have sprung up around the country.
Gone are many of the elements of unpredictability replaced by RVs, paved-over parking lots, sanitized campsites, fences
and enclosed camp centers that provide laundry and food services, recreational activities, television, and video games.
Sporting events, too, have in a variety of ways been made more predictable. The use of artificial turf in baseball makes for a
more predictable bounce of a ball. . . .
Calculability or Quantity Rather than Quality
2: THE MCDONALDIZATION OF SOCIETY
It could easily be argued that the emphasis on quantifiable measures, on things that can be counted, is the most defining
characteristic of a rational society. Quality is notoriously difficult to evaluate. How do we assess the quality of a hamburger,
or a physician, or a student? Instead of even trying, in an increasing number of cases, a rational society seeks to develop a
series of quantifiable measures that it takes as surrogates for quality. This urge to quantify has given great impetus to the
development of the computer and has, in turn, been spurred by the widespread use and increasing sophistication of the
computer.
The fact is that many aspects of modern rational society, especially as far as calculable issues are concerned, are made
possible and more widespread by the computer. We need not belabor the ability of the computer to handle large numbers of
virtually anything, but somewhat less obvious is the use of the computer to give the illusion of personal attention in a world
made increasingly impersonal in large part because of the computer’s capacity to turn virtually everything into quantifiable
dimensions. We have all now had many experiences where we open a letter personally addressed to us only to find a
computer letter. We are aware that the names and addresses of millions of people have been stored on tape and that with the
aid of a number of word processors a form letter has been sent to every name on the list. Although the computer is able to
give a sense of personal attention, most people are nothing more than an item on a huge mailing list.
Our main concern here, though, is not with the computer, but with the emphasis on quantity rather than quality that it has
helped foster. One of the most obvious examples in the university is the emphasis given to grades and cumulative grade
point averages. With less and less contact between professor and student, there is little real effort to assess the quality of
what students know, let alone the quality of their overall abilities. Instead, the sole measure of the quality of most college
students is their grade in a given course and their grade point averages. Another blatant example is the emphasis on a variety
of uniform exams such as SATs and GREs in which the essence of an applicant is reduced to a few simple scores and
percentiles.
Within the educational institution, the importance of grades is well known, but somewhat less known is the way quantifiable
factors have become an essential part of the process of evaluating college professors. For example, teaching ability is very
hard to evaluate. Administrators have difficulty assessing teaching quality and thus substitute quantitative scores. Of course
each score involves qualitative judgments, but this is conveniently ignored. Student opinion polls are taken and the scores
are summed, averaged, and compared. Those who score well are deemed good teachers while those who don’t are seen as
poor teachers. There are many problems involved in relying on these scores such as the fact that easy teachers in “gut”
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are summed, averaged, and compared. Those who score well are deemed good teachers while those who don’t are seen as
poor teachers. There are many problems involved in relying on these scores such as the fact that easy teachers in “gut”
courses may well obtain high ratings while rigorous teachers of difficult courses are likely to score poorly. . . .
In the work world we find many examples of the effort to substitute quantity for quality. scientific management was heavily
oriented to turning everything work-related into quantifiable dimensions. Instead of relying on the “rule of thumb” of the
operator, scientific management sought to develop precise measures of how much work was to be done by each and every
motion of the worker. Everything that could be was reduced to numbers, and all these numbers were then analyzable using a
variety of mathematical formulae. The assembly line is similarly oriented to a variety of quantifiable dimensions such as
optimizing the speed of the line, minimizing time for each task, lowering the price of the finished product, increasing sales
and ultimately increasing profits. The divisional system pioneered by General Motors and thought to be one of the major
reasons for its past success was oriented to the reduction of the performance of each division to a few, bottom-line numbers.
By monitoring and comparing these numbers, General Motors was able to exercise control over the results without getting
involved in the day-to-day activities of each division. . . .
Thus, the third dimension of rationalization, calculability or the emphasis on quantity rather than quality, has wide
applicability to the social world. It is truly central, if not the central, component of a rationalizing society. To return to our
favorite example, it is the case that McDonald’s expends far more effort telling us how many billions of hamburgers it has
sold than it does in telling us about the quality of those burgers. Relatedly, it touts the size of its product (the “Big Mac”)
more than the quality of the product (it is not the “Good Mac”). The bottom line in many settings is the number of customers
processed, the speed with which they are processed, and the profits produced. Quality is secondary, if indeed there is any
concern at all for it.
Substitution of Nonhuman Technology
In spite of Herculean efforts, there are important limits to the ability to rationalize what human beings think and do.
Seemingly no matter what one does, people still retain at least the ultimate capacity to think and act in a variety of
unanticipated ways. Thus, in spite of great efforts to make human behavior more efficient, more predictable, more
calculable, people continue to act in unforeseen ways. People continue to make home-cooked meals from scratch, to camp in
tents in the wild, to eat in old-fashioned diners, and to sabotage the assembly lines. Because of these realities, there is great
interest among those who foster increasing rationality in using rational technologies to limit individual independence and
ultimately to replace human beings with machines and other technologies that lack the ability to think and act in
unpredictable ways.
McDonald’s does not yet have robots to serve us food, but it does have teenagers whose ability to act autonomously is
almost completely eliminated by techniques, procedures, routines, and machines. There are numerous examples of this
including rules which prescribe all the things a counterperson should do in dealing with a customer as well as a large variety
of technologies which determine the actions of workers such as drink dispensers which shut themselves off when the cup is
full; buzzers, lights, and bells which indicate when food (e.g., french fries) is done; and cash registers which have the prices
of each item programmed in. One of the latest attempts to constrain individual action is Denny’s use of pre-measured
packages of dehydrated food that are “cooked” simply by putting them under the hot water tap. Because of such tools and
machines, as well as the elaborate rules dictating worker behavior, people often feel like they are dealing with human robots
when they relate to the personnel of a fast-food restaurant. When human robots are found, mechanical robots cannot be far
behind. Once people are reduced to a few robot-like actions, it is a relatively easy step to replace them with mechanical
robots. Thus, Burgerworld is reportedly opening a prototypical restaurant in which mechanical robots serve the food.
Much of the recent history of work, especially manual work, is a history of efforts to replace human technology with
nonhuman technology. scientific management was oriented to the development of an elaborate and rigid set of rules about
how jobs were to be done. The workers were to blindly and obediently follow those rules and not to do the work the way
they saw fit. The various skills needed to perform a task were carefully delineated and broken down into a series of routine
steps that could be taught to all workers. The skills, in other words, were built into the routines rather than belonging to
skilled craftspersons. Similar points can be made about the assembly line, which is basically a set of nonhuman technologies

steps that could be taught to all workers. The skills, in other words, were built into the routines rather than belonging to
skilled craftspersons. Similar points can be made about the assembly line, which is basically a set of nonhuman technologies
that have the needed steps and skills built into them. The human worker is reduced to performing a limited number of
simple, repetitive operations. However, the control of this technology over the individual worker is so great and omnipresent
that individual workers have reacted negatively manifesting such things as tardiness, absenteeism, turnover, and even
sabotage. We are now witnessing a new stage in this technological development with automated processes now totally
replacing many workers with robots. With the coming of robots we have reached the ultimate stage in the replacement of
humans with nonhuman technology.
Even religion and religious crusades have not been unaffected by the spread of nonhuman technologies. The growth of large
religious organizations, the use of Madison Avenue techniques, and even drive-in churches all reflect the incursion of
modern technology. But it is in the electronic church, religion through the TV screens, that replacement of human by
nonhuman technology in religion is most visible and has its most important manifestation. . . .
Control
This leads us to the fifth major dimension of rationalization — control. Rational systems are oriented toward, and structured
to expedite, control in a variety of senses. At the most general level, we can say that rational systems are set up to allow for
greater control over the uncertainties of life—birth, death, food production and distribution, housing, religious salvation, and
many, many others. More specifically, rational systems are oriented to gaining greater control over the major source of
uncertainty in social life—other people. Among other things, this means control over subordinates by superiors and control
of clients and customers by workers.
There are many examples of rationalization oriented toward gaining greater control over the uncertainties of life. The
burgeoning of the genetic engineering movement can be seen as being aimed at gaining better control over the production of
life itself. Similarly, amniocentesis can be seen as a technique which will allow the parents to determine the kind of child
they will have. The efforts to rationalize food production and distribution can be seen as being aimed at gaining greater
control over the problems of hunger and starvation. A steady and regular supply of food can make life itself more certain for
large numbers of people who today live under the threat of death from starvation.
At a more specific level, the rationalization of food preparation and serving at McDonald’s gives it great control over its
employees. The automobile assembly line has a similar impact. In fact, the vast majority of the structures of a rational
society exert extraordinary control over the people who labor in them. But because of the limits that still exist on the degree
of control that rational structures can exercise over individuals, many rationalizing employers are driven to seek to more
fully rationalize their operations and totally eliminate the worker. The result is an automated, robot-like technology over
which, barring some 2001 rebellion, there is almost total control.
In addition to control over employees, rational systems are also interested in controlling the customer/clients they serve. For
example, the fast-food restaurant with its counter, the absence of waiters and waitresses, the limited seating, and the drivethrough
windows all tend to lead customers to do certain things and not to do others.
Irrationality of Rationality
2: THE MCDONALDIZATION OF SOCIETY
Although not an inherent part of rationalization, the irrationality of rationality is a seemingly inevitable byproduct of the
process. We can think of the irrationality of rationality in several ways. At the most general level it can simply be seen as
an overarching label for all the negative effects of rationalization. More specifically, it can be seen as the opposite of
rationality, at least in some of its senses. For example, there are the inefficiencies and unpredictabilities that are often
produced by seemingly rational systems. Thus, although bureaucracies are constructed to bring about greater efficiency in
organizational work, the fact is that there are notorious inefficiencies such as the “red tape” associated with the operation
of most bureaucracies. Or take the example of the arms race in which a focus on quantifiable aspects of nuclear weapons
may well have made the occurrence of nuclear war more, rather than less, unpredictable.
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may well have made the occurrence of nuclear war more, rather than less, unpredictable.
Of greatest importance, however, is the variety of negative effects that rational systems have on the individuals who live,
work, and are served by them. We might say that rational systems are not reasonable systems. As we’ve already
discussed, rationality brings with it great dehumanization as people are reduced to acting like robots. Among the
dehumanizing aspects of a rational society are large lecture classes, computer letters, pray TV, work on the automobile
assembly line, and dining at a fast-food restaurant. Rationalization also tends to bring with it disenchantment leaving
much of our lives without any mystery or excitement. Production by a hand craftsman is far more mysterious than an
assembly-line technology where each worker does a single, very limited operation. Camping in an RV tends to suffer in
comparison to the joys to be derived from camping in the wild. Overall a fully rational society would be a very bleak and
uninteresting place.
Conclusions
Rationalization, with McDonald’s as the paradigm case, is occurring throughout America and, increasingly, other
societies. In virtually every sector of society, more and more emphasis is placed on efficiency, predictability,
calculability, replacement of human by nonhuman technology, and control over uncertainty. Although progressive
rationalization has brought with it innumerable advantages, it has also created a number of problems, the various
irrationalities of rationality, which threaten to accelerate in the years to come. These problems, and their acceleration,
should not be taken as a case for the return to a less rational form of society. Such a return is not only impossible but also
undesirable. What is needed is not a less rational society, but greater control over the process of rationalization involving,
among other things, efforts to ameliorate its irrational consequences.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. The author cites numerous examples of ways that everyday life has become “Mc-Donaldized.” Describe
one or more examples from your own life, of ways you have been or are subject to McDonaldization.
2. Describe a customer-service job you have had, e.g. restaurant server, in which performing your job meant
being a company robot—greeting customers in a certain way, giving them a sales pitch of some sort,
treating them courteously no matter how obnoxious they were to you. How difficult was it to stay “incharacter”
when you had to deal with such a difficult customer that you wanted to tell the individual what
you really thought of him/her?

MATT RIDLEY
3:
WHAT MAKES YOU WHO YOU ARE
Which is stronger—nature or nurture? The latest science says genes and your experience interact for your whole life.
The perennial debate about nature and nurture—which is the more potent shaper of the human essence?—is perennially
rekindled. It flared up again in the London Observer of Feb. 11, 2001. REVEALED: THE SECRET OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR, read the
banner headline. ENVIRONMENT, NOT GENES, KEY TO OUR ACTS. The source of the story was Craig Venter, the self-made man of
genes who had built a private company to read the full sequence of the human genome in competition with an international
consortium funded by taxes and charities. That sequence—a string of 3 billion letters, composed in a four-letter alphabet,
containing the complete recipe for building and running a human body—was to be published the very next day (the
competition ended in an arranged tie). The first analysis of it had revealed that there were just 30,000 genes in it, not the
100,000 that many had been estimating until a few months before.
Details had already been circulated to journalists under embargo. But Venter, by speaking to a reporter at a biotechnology
conference in France on Feb. 9, had effectively broken the embargo. Not for the first time in the increasingly bitter rivalry over
the genome project, Venter’s version of the story would hit the headlines before his rivals’. “We simply do not have enough
genes for this idea of biological determinism to be right,” Venter told the Observer. “The wonderful diversity of the human
species is not hard-wired in our genetic code. Our environments are critical.”
In truth, the number of human genes changed nothing. Venter’s remarks concealed two whopping nonsequiturs: that fewer
genes implied more environmental influences and that 30,000 genes were too few to explain human nature, whereas 100,000
would have been enough. As one scientist put it to me a few weeks later, just 33 genes, each coming in two varieties (on or
off), would be enough to make every human being in the world unique. There are more than 10 billion combinations that could
come from flipping a coin 33 times, so 30,000 does not seem such a small number after all. Besides, if fewer genes meant
more free will, fruit flies would be freer than we are, bacteria freer still and viruses the John Stuart Mill of biology.
Fortunately, there was no need to reassure the population with such sophisticated calculations. People did not weep at the
humiliating news that our genome has only about twice as many genes as a worm’s. Nothing had been hung on the number
100,000, which was just a bad guess.
But the human genome project—and the decades of research that preceded it—did force a much more nuanced understanding
of how genes work. In the early days, scientists detailed how genes encode the various proteins that make up the cells in our
bodies. Their more sophisticated and ultimately more satisfying discovery—that gene expression can be modified by
experience—has been gradually emerging since the 1980s. Only now is it dawning on scientists what a big and general idea it
implies: that learning itself consists of nothing more than switching genes on and off. The more we lift the lid on the genome,
the more vulnerable to experience genes appear to be.
This is not some namby-pamby, middle-of-the-road compromise. This is a new understanding of the fundamental building
blocks of life based on the discovery that genes are not immutable things handed down from our parents like Moses’ stone
tablets but are active participants in our lives, designed to take their cues from everything that happens to us from the moment
of our conception.
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of our conception.
Early Puberty
Girls raised in FATHERLESS HOUSEHOLDS experience puberty earlier. Apparently the change in timing is the reaction
of a STILL MYSTERIOUS set of genes to their ENVIRONMENT. Scientists don’t know how many SETS OF GENES act this
way.
For the time being, this new awareness has taken its strongest hold among scientists, changing how they think about everything
from the way bodies develop in the womb to how new species emerge to the inevitability of homosexuality in some people.
(More on all this later.) But eventually, as the general population becomes more attuned to this interdependent view, changes
may well occur in areas as diverse as education, medicine, law and religion. Dieters may learn precisely which combination of
fats, carbohydrates and proteins has the greatest effect on their individual waistlines. Theologians may develop a whole new
theory of free will based on the observation that learning expands our capacity to choose our own path. As was true of
Copernicus’s observation 500 years ago that the earth orbits the sun, there is no telling how far the repercussions of this new
scientific paradigm may extend.
To appreciate what has happened, you will have to abandon cherished notions and open your mind. You will have to enter a
world in which your genes are not puppet masters pulling the strings of your behavior but puppets at the mercy of your
behavior, in which instinct is not the opposite of learning, environmental influences are often less reversible than genetic ones,
and nature is designed for nurture.
Fear of snakes, for instance, is the most common human phobia, and it makes good evolutionary sense for it to be instinctive.
Learning to fear snakes the hard way would be dangerous. Yet experiments with monkeys reveal that their fear of snakes (and
probably ours) must still be acquired by watching another individual react with fear to a snake. It turns out that it is easy to
teach monkeys to fear snakes but very difficult to teach them to fear flowers. What we inherit is not a fear of snakes but a
predisposition to learn a fear of snakes—a nature for a certain kind of nurture.
Before we dive into some of the other scientific discoveries that have so thoroughly transformed the debate, it helps to
understand how deeply entrenched in our intellectual history the false dichotomy of nature vs. nurture became. Whether human
nature is born or made is an ancient conundrum discussed by Plato and Aristotle. Empiricist philosophers such as John Locke
and David Hume argued that the human mind was formed by experience; nativists like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel
Kant held that there was such a thing as immutable human nature.
It was Charles Darwin’s eccentric mathematician cousin Francis Galton who in 1874 ignited the nature-nurture controversy in
its present form and coined the very phrase (borrowing the alliteration from Shakespeare, who had lifted it from an Elizabethan
schoolmaster named Richard Mulcaster). Galton asserted that human personalities were born, not made by experience. At the
same time, the philosopher William James argued that human beings have more instincts than animals, not fewer.
In the first decades of the 20th century, nature held sway over nurture in most fields. In the wake of World War I, however,
three men recaptured the social sciences for nurture: John B. Watson, who set out to show how the conditioned reflex,
discovered by Ivan Pavlov, could explain human learning; Sigmund Freud, who sought to explain the influence of parents and
early experiences on young minds; and Franz Boas, who argued that the origin of ethnic differences lay with history,
experience and circumstance, not physiology and psychology.
Homosexuality
GAY MEN are more likely to have OLDER BROTHERS than either gay women or heterosexual men. It may be that a
FIRST MALE FETUS triggers an immune reaction in the mother, ALTERING THE EXPRESSION of key gender genes.

FIRST MALE FETUS triggers an immune reaction in the mother, ALTERING THE EXPRESSION of key gender genes.
Galton’s insistence on innate explanations of human abilities had led him to espouse eugenics, a term he coined. Eugenics was
enthusiastically adopted by the Nazis to justify their campaign of mass murder against the disabled and the Jews. Tainted by
this association, the idea of innate behavior was in full retreat for most of the middle years of the century. In 1958, however,
two men began the counterattack on behalf of nature. Noam Chomsky, in his review of a book by the behaviorist B.F. Skinner,
argued that it was impossible to learn human language by trial and error alone; human beings must come already equipped
with an innate grammatical skill. Harry Harlow did a simple experiment that showed that a baby monkey prefers a soft, cloth
model of a mother to a hard, wire-frame mother, even if the wire-frame mother provides it with all its milk; some preferences
are innate.
Fast-forward to the 1980s and one of the most stunning surprises to greet scientists when they first opened up animal genomes:
fly geneticists found a small group of genes called the hox genes that seemed to set out the body plan of the fly during its early
development—telling it roughly where to put the head, legs, wings and so on. But then colleagues studying mice found the
same hox genes, in the same order, doing the same job in Mickey’s world—telling the mouse where to put its various parts.
And when scientists looked in our genome, they found hox genes there too.
Hox genes, like all genes, are switched on and off in different parts of the body at different times. In this way, genes can have
subtly different effects, depending on where, when and how they are switched on. The switches that control this process—
stretches of DNA upstream of genes—are known as promoters.
Small changes in the promoter can have profound effects on the expression of a hox gene. For example, mice have short necks
and long bodies; chickens have long necks and short bodies. If you count the vertebrae in the necks and thoraxes of mice and
chickens, you will find that a mouse has seven neck and 13 thoracic vertebrae, a chicken 14 and seven, respectively. The
source of this difference lies in the promoter attached to HoxC8, a hox gene that helps shape the thorax of the body. The
promoter is a 200-letter paragraph of DNA, and in the two species it differs by just a handful of letters. The effect is to alter the
expression of the HoxC8 gene in the development of the chicken embryo. This means the chicken makes thoracic vertebrae in
a different part of the body than the mouse. In the python, HoxC8 is expressed right from the head and goes on being
expressed for most of the body. So pythons are one long thorax; they have ribs all down the body.
Divorce
If a FRATERNAL TWIN gets divorced, there’s a 30% CHANCE that his or her twin will get divorced as well. If the twins
are IDENTICAL, however, one sibling’s divorce BOOSTS THE ODDS to 45% that the other will split.
To make grand changes in the body plan of animals, there is no need to invent new genes, just as there’s no need to invent new
words to write an original novel (unless your name is Joyce). All you need do is switch the same ones on and off in different
patterns. Suddenly, here is a mechanism for creating large and small evolutionary changes from small genetic differences.
Merely by adjusting the sequence of a promoter or adding a new one, you could alter the expression of a gene.
In one sense, this is a bit depressing. It means that until scientists know how to find gene promoters in the vast text of the
genome, they will not learn how the recipe for a chimpanzee differs from that for a person. But in another sense, it is also
uplifting, for it reminds us more forcefully than ever of a simple truth that is all too often forgotten: bodies are not made, they
grow. The genome is not a blueprint for constructing a body. It is a recipe for baking a body. You could say the chicken
embryo is marinated for a shorter time in the HoxC8 sauce than the mouse embryo is. Likewise, the development of a certain
human behavior takes a certain time and occurs in a certain order, just as the cooking of a perfect souffle requires not just the
right ingredients but also the right amount of cooking and the right order of events.
How does this new view of genes alter our understanding of human nature? Take a look at four examples.
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How does this new view of genes alter our understanding of human nature? Take a look at four examples.
Language
Human beings differ from chimpanzees in having complex, grammatical language. But language does not spring fully
formed from the brain; it must be learned from other language-speaking human beings. This capacity to learn is written into
the human brain by genes that open and close a critical window during which learning takes place. One of those genes,
FoxP2, has recently been discovered on human chromosome 7 by Anthony Monaco and his colleagues at the Welcome
Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford. Just having the FoxP2 gene, though, is not enough. If a child is not exposed to
a lot of spoken language during the critical learning period, he or she will always struggle with speech.
Love
Crime Families
GENES may influence the way people respond to a “crimogenic” ENVIRONMENT. How else to explain why the
BIOLOGICAL children of criminal parents are more likely than their ADOPTED children to break the LAW?
Some species of rodents, such as the prairie vole, form long pair bonds with their mates, as human beings do. Others, such
as the montane vole, have only transitory liaisons, as do chimpanzees. The difference, according to Tom Insel and Larry
Young at Emory University in Atlanta, lies in the promoter upstream of the oxytocin-and vasopressin-receptor genes. The
insertion of an extra chunk of DNA text, usually about 460 letters long, into the promoter makes the animal more likely to
bond with its mate. The extra text does not create love, but perhaps it creates the possibility of falling in love after the right
experience.
Antisocial Behavior
It has often been suggested that childhood maltreatment can create an antisocial adult. New research by Terrie Moffitt of
London’s Kings College on a group of 442 New Zealand men who have been followed since birth suggests that this is true
only for a genetic minority. Again, the difference lies in a promoter that alters the activity of a gene. Those with high-active
monoamine oxidase A genes were virtually immune to the effects of mistreatment. Those with low-active genes were much
more antisocial if maltreated, yet—if anything—slightly less antisocial if not maltreated. The low-active, mistreated men
were responsible for four times their share of rapes, robberies and assaults. In other words, maltreatment is not enough; you
must also have the low-active gene. And it is not enough to have the low-active gene; you must also be maltreated.
Homosexuality
Ray Blanchard at the University of Toronto has found that gay men are more likely than either lesbians or heterosexual men
to have older brothers (but not older sisters). He has since confirmed this observation in 14 samples from many places.
Something about occupying a womb that has held other boys occasionally results in reduced birth weight, a larger placenta
and a greater probability of homosexuality. That something, Blanchard suspects, is an immune reaction in the mother,
primed by the first male fetus, that grows stronger with each male pregnancy. Perhaps the immune response affects the
expression of key genes during brain development in a way that boosts a boy’s attraction to his own sex. Such an
explanation would not hold true for all gay men, but it might provide important clues into the origins of both homosexuality
and heterosexuality.
TO BE SURE, EARLIER SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES HAD HINTED AT the importance of this kind of interplay between heredity and
environment. The most striking example is Pavlovian conditioning. When Pavlov announced his famous experiment a
century ago this year, he had apparently discovered how the brain could be changed to acquire new knowledge of the world
—in the case of his dogs, knowledge that a bell foretold the arrival of food. But now we know how the brain changes: by the
real-time expression of 17 genes, known as the CREB genes. They must be switched on and off to alter connections among

—in the case of his dogs, knowledge that a bell foretold the arrival of food. But now we know how the brain changes: by the
real-time expression of 17 genes, known as the CREB genes. They must be switched on and off to alter connections among
nerve cells in the brain and thus lay down a new long-term memory. These genes are at the mercy of our behavior, not the
other way around. Memory is in the genes in the sense that it uses genes, not in the sense that you inherit memories.
In this new view, genes allow the human mind to learn, remember, imitate, imprint language, absorb culture and express
instincts. Genes are not puppet masters or blueprints, nor are they just the carriers of heredity. They are active during life;
they switch one another on and off; they respond to the environment. They may direct the construction of the body and brain
in the womb, but then almost at once, in response to experience, they set about dismantling and rebuilding what they have
made. They are both the cause and the consequence of our actions.
Will this new vision of genes enable us to leave the nature-nurture argument behind, or are we doomed to reinvent it in
every generation? Unlike what happened in previous eras, science is explaining in great detail precisely how genes and their
environment—be it the womb, the classroom or pop culture—interact. So perhaps the pendulum swings of a now
demonstrably false dichotomy may cease.
It may be in our nature, however, to seek simple, linear, cause-and-effect stories and not think in terms of circular causation,
in which effects become their own causes. Perhaps the idea of nature via nurture, like the ideas of quantum mechanics and
relativity, is just too counterintuitive for human minds. The urge to see ourselves in terms of nature versus nurture, like our
instinctual ability to fear snakes, may be encoded in our genes.
From Time, June 2, 2003, pp. 54–63. © 2003 by Time Inc. Reprinted by permission.
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What experience(s) have you had which, in your opinion, have altered or had an impact on some trait(s) or
characteristic(s) you were born with?
2. The author cites research indicating the recipe for criminality is childhood abuse and/or neglect, plus a lowactive
monoamine oxidase A gene. What is your theory of criminal behavior?
3. The author cites research suggesting birth order, and the sex of a preceding sibling, may affect the
development of our sexual preferences. What factors do you think affect the development of our sexual
preferences?

Stratification
PART III:
Stratification and Social Inequality
RELATED CONCEPTS AND IDEAS
Stratification is the categorization and rank-ordering of people according to the amount of some valued personal attribute (e.g.
intelligence), social characteristic (e.g. occupation, race, ethnicity, gender), or material resource (referring to both goods and
services, e.g. income level, type of car they drive, social club membership) each has, relative to others in the society. Persons
who possess roughly the same amount of the valued commodity are placed in a category together. The categories are then
rank-ordered. Persons with the most of the valued commodity are in the category at the top; those with the least are in the
category at the bottom; those in-between are arranged accordingly.
Social Inequality
What “caused” members of the earliest human societies to develop systems of stratification in the first place? Harold Kerbo 1
has noted the human inclination to evaluate one’s individual attributes, or the social statuses one may have, as being superior
or inferior to those of others. Persons with the most highly valued attributes or statuses enjoy access to the most valued forms
of, or the largest chunks of, various resources. Once they have a lion’s share of resources that others want and/or need, such
persons may demand additional resources—goods and services—in return for providing the needy with life’s essentials, which
those higher up already have in goodly amounts. Out of such dynamics is born social inequality, i.e. the inequality of access to
valued goods and services, and/or inequality of opportunity to attain certain desirable social statuses; depending on where you
sit in our stratified system.
Obviously, most people would rather own a home than rent (or be homeless); would rather drive their own car to work than
take the bus; would rather work in a professional, “white-collar” position than work on the “kill floor” of a slaughterhouse.
Physicians, for example, earn way more than slaughterhouse workers; rendering them in a position to buy nice homes and
drive nice cars, especially compared to the means of housing and transportation a laborer can afford.
The norms and values of our culture support this unequal distribution of rewards. The average citizen who was raised in our
culture, who assimilated its norms and values, views the income differential between doctors and laborers not just as
appropriate, but as “obvious;” commonsensical. (S)he takes it as a given.
What determines who gets to the top and who is kept down? The functionalists would say the people at the top are there
because somehow they deserve to be there. This argument was used in the feudal era to keep the extant monarchies in power, à
la the “divine right of kings.” With respect to more recent societies, the functionalists would argue that those at the top got
there because of their superior intelligence, hard work, significant achievements or contributions; a the-cream-always-rises-tothe-top,
Protestant-work-ethic sort of argument.
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the-top, Protestant-work-ethic sort of argument.
Historically, major social institutions have contributed to systemic inequality. For example, religious systems have been part of
the power structure in certain societies. Religious leaders were thus in a position to suggest that the way things were—the
status quo—was God’s will. Thus citizens should be content with their portion and aspire neither to higher ground, nor to
change society such that the distribution of goods and services was more equitable.
Our system of education perpetuates inequality along gender and racial lines, for example through the use of tracking systems.
Earlier on, educators urged boys toward the “hard” sciences and math while detouring girls into home economics and
secretarial classes. Federal, state and local governments were for the longest time awash in a sea of white males—who
proceeded to allocate, among other things, less funding to school districts in poorer communities than to middle-class districts.
Having persisted for years, the inequality in our system became institutionalized.
Socialization and Inequality
During socialization, children learn the norms, values and other components of the general culture but also learn those
pertaining to particular subcultures, including the subculture of the socioeconomic class into which they are born. While being
socialized as a member of a certain socioeconomic class, a child will glean a sense not only of how to act or what to value but
also a sense of what goals are/are not appropriate to aspire to; how much/how little (s)he should be content to have.
Thus the very norms and values a child born into a lower socioeconomic class may learn, might teach him or her to not hope
for, aspire to or expect to have more of the good things in life than the portion (s)he was given at birth. At the same time a
child born into an affluent family is socialized to expect a much-expanded gamut of opportunities and privileges. Such
socialization at both levels, indeed at any level, only perpetuates the entrenchment of the inequality in our system.
With institutionalized inequality comes institutionalized discrimination and, for the poor, entrapment in a cycle of poverty.
Parents who are among the working poor may not be able to afford decent nutrition or decent medical care for themselves or
their children when they get sick—especially if their jobs do not yield benefits such as health insurance.
Poor children attend schools in districts with meager resources—outdated textbooks, no computers, etc. Their teachers do not
expect them to do well academically and give them that message through their interaction with the children, nonverbally if not
verbally. Consequently, many of the children indeed do not do well in school. The standardized achievement tests they take
assume a middle-class upbringing and education. Thus students from poorer districts tend to score badly on those tests. Later,
their parents cannot afford to put them through college and their academic performance is not sufficient to get them a
scholarship. With college not an option, they go to work in the same types of low-level jobs their parents have, without
benefits. The cycle continues.
Conflict theorists say the people who are at the top got there by being lucky enough to have been born into the ruling class, or
by being the leader of an interest group that wins a struggle for power. Aspirants should be skilled in the arts of persuasion,
motivation and manipulation, such that they can wheel and deal their way to the top. Too, their ascendancy can be greased by
the influence of powerful friends. Regarding the people who can never seem to get ahead, the conflict theorists would say they
are kept down deliberately by those higher up, because it serves the interests of the wealthy and/or powerful to keep them
down. Herbert Gans 2 notes that the poor:
! Provide a low-wage labor pool to do society’s “dirty” jobs
! Subsidize a variety of activities for the affluent, for example by serving as guinea pigs in medical research and
providing domestic workers (gardeners, housekeepers, servants) who cushion the flow of daily life for the well-to-do
! Create jobs for those in certain occupations which either serve the poor (e.g. pawnshop owners) or protect the rest of
society from them (e.g. prison guards)

society from them (e.g. prison guards)
! Subsidize merchants by buying products that others don’t want (e.g. dilapidated housing, produce that is past its prime)
! Serve as a group to be punished in order to reinforce conventional values
! Serve as guarantors of the status(es) of those who are higher up on the social ladder
! Serve as sacrificial lambs (last to be hired, first to be fired or laid off) for the sake of the national economy, in that a
certain level of unemployment helps to keep inflation down.
Gans goes on to note 3 that many of these purposes, currently served by the poor, could be served by means other than keeping
them poor. For example, paying decent wages to those who do the dirty jobs would raise them out of poverty. However, to do
so would mean those who employ low-wage workers, purchase the products they make or the services they provide would
have to shell out more money, which of course they don’t want to do. Thus poverty will not be eliminated unless and until it
ceases to serve the interests of the wealthy and/or powerful, or unless the have-nots, as an interest group, manage to acquire
enough (political) power to change the status quo.
Stereotyping, Prejudice and Discrimination
All too often, members of our society have their blinders on when they look at an individual. Despite all the uniqueness and
complexity that go into any individual’s makeup, others may see this person only in terms of the degree to which (s)he
possesses a particular attribute, social characteristic or resource. Those others may then assign a whole array of characteristics
to this individual, based only on the individual’s ranking with respect to this one social commodity. Based on this one factor,
the parties sitting in judgment decide the individual is that kind of person. Sociologists call such invalid generalizations
stereotyping.
On the basis of a stereotype others may feel prejudiced toward, and discriminate against, the targeted individual. Prejudice is
an unfavorable assessment of someone because of his or her assignment to some stereotypical category. Discrimination is
acting on that assessment by unfairly treating, maybe outright abusing the stereotyped person.
You learn stereotypes and acquire your prejudices through socialization and life experience. During your life a multitude of
socialization agents (including the internet and other media), along with your personal life experiences, will influence how you
define and evaluate everything in your world, including other people.
Once learned, why do individuals continue to operate according to their acquired prejudices? Perhaps fear of or discomfort
with what is not familiar to them, or with those who are not like them, is the key—or, insecurity within themselves. People
who are emotionally secure within themselves do not feel a need to put other people down.
Depending on how early, and from which agents a person acquires his or her prejudices, (s)he may or may not be able to later
unlearn them. One way to dismantle a prejudice is to have some new agent come into your life whom you respect and admire;
perhaps aspire to be like—a role model, for example. If this agent whom you so like and admire does not share your prejudice
at all, you may decide to re-think your prejudicial attitudes.
The Contact Hypothesis
PART III: Stratification and Social Inequality
Often, stereotypes and prejudices break down when a prejudiced person is required by circumstances to interact one-on-one,
over time, in a cooperative fashion, with a member of the group against whom (s)he is prejudiced. For example, an employer
may direct two employees who are prejudiced against each other to work on a project as a team. As they interact over time,
they get to know each other as individuals. Once they start to see each other’s individual qualities, especially the positive ones,
the stereotypes start to break down. Our work partners are unable to hang onto their prejudices, at least in regard to each other.
The experience starts each of them thinking: “Well . . . if this one is okay, maybe others in that category are okay, too . . .”
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the stereotypes start to break down. Our work partners are unable to hang onto their prejudices, at least in regard to each other.
The experience starts each of them thinking: “Well . . . if this one is okay, maybe others in that category are okay, too . . .”
Stereotypes and prejudices do not hold up well under reality-testing. Sociologists’ hunch, or expectation, that prejudices break
down once the prejudiced parties get to know each other, is called the contact hypothesis.
Each of the readings in this section provides a closer look at one specific stratum or group within our society, and at the issues
related to being in their place.
ENDNOTES
1 Harold Kerbo, Social Stratification and Inequality: Class Conflict in Historical, Comparative and Global Perspective, 5th
edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003, pp. 11–13.
2 Herbert Gans, “The Positive Functions of Poverty;” American Journal of Sociology, 78:275–279.
3 Herbert Gans, “The Uses of Power: The Poor Pay All;” Social Policy 2 (July–August 1971):20–24.
REFERENCES
Aguirre, Adalberto Jr. and David V. Baker, Structured Inequality in the United States: Discussions on the Continuing
Significance of Race, Ethnicity and Gender. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000.
Davis, Kingsley and Wilbert E. Moore, “Some Principles of Stratification,” American Sociological Review, 10 (April
1945): 242–249.
Gans, Herbert J., “The Positive Functions of Poverty,” American Journal of Sociology, 78: 275–279.
———, “The Uses of Power: The Poor Pay All;” Social Policy 2 (July–August 1971):20–24.
Harrington, Michael, The Other America: Poverty in the United States. Baltimore: Penguin, 1963.
———, The New American Poverty. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984.
Kerbo, Harold; Social Stratification and Inequality: Class Conflict in Historical, Comparative and Global Perspective, 5th
edition. NY: McGraw-Hill, 2003.
LeDuff, Charlie, “At a Slaughterhouse, Some Things Never Die,” in Susan Ferguson (ed.), Mapping the Social Landscape:
Readings in Sociology, 4th edition, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2005.
Lenski, Gerhard E.; Power and Privilege. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1966.
Tumin, Melvin M.; “Some Principles of Stratification,” American Sociological Review 18 (August 1953):387–393.
———, Patterns of Society. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Which individual attributes, social characteristics or material resources are used by students on your campus to
stratify each other?

stratify each other?
PART III: Stratification and Social Inequality
2. What stereotypes and prejudices did you pick up from childhood socialization? From your life experience to date?
Describe any experiences with the contact hypothesis you have had in regard to these, and the impact that contact
had on your stereotypes and/or prejudices.
29

BETH SHULMAN
A vast impoverished population languishes in the midst of our economy.
1:
WORKING AND POOR IN THE USA
For generations, Americans shared a tacit understanding that if you worked hard, you could earn a livable income and provide
basic security for yourself and your family. That promise has been broken. More than 30 million Americans—one in four
workers—are stuck in low-wage jobs that do not provide the basics for a decent life.
As we celebrate the fortieth anniversary of President Johnson’s declaration of the War on Poverty, we are reminded that
economic growth alone is not sufficient to combat the problem. Today, the war on poverty must be fought not on the margins
but in the very mainstream of our economy. It must be a war to restore the promise of work.
While the Democratic presidential contenders are vocal about general economic conditions, ill-advised tax cuts and continuing
unemployment, they have only recently begun to point out a fundamental economic failure—the failure of work to meet
people’s needs.
Finding ways to make sure that people who work hard can take care of their families would put the Democrats on the offensive
instead of their customary defensive position on family values. It would have broad appeal to working Americans, as millions
of middle-income jobs take on the characteristics of the low-wage economy—layoffs, outsourcing, unaffordable healthcare and
vanishing pension benefits. And it would have great potential to help those suffering in low-wage jobs—workers like Cynthia
Porter.
Cynthia Porter works full time as a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home in Marion, Alabama. When she comes on duty
at 11 PM, she makes rounds, checking the residents for skin tears and helping them go to the toilet or use a bedpan. She has to
make sure she turns the bedridden every two hours, or they will get bedsores. And if bedsores are left unattended, she tells me,
they can get so bad you can put your fist in them. But there aren’t enough people on her shift. Often only two nursing assistants
are on duty to take care of forty-five residents. And Cynthia must also wash the wheelchairs, clean up the dining rooms, mop
the floors and scrub out the refrigerator, drawers and closets during her shift. Before she leaves, she helps the residents get
dressed for breakfast.
For all this, Cynthia makes $350 every two weeks. She is separated from her husband, who gives her no child support. The
first two weeks each month she pays her $150 rent. The next two weeks, she pays her water and her electric bills. It is difficult
to afford Clorox or shampoo. Insuring that her children are fed properly is a stretch. She is still paying off the bicycles she
bought for them last Christmas.
Beth Shulman is a lawyer and consultant focusing on work-related issues. This article is adapted from The Betrayal of
Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans (New Press).
Reprinted by permission from the February 9, 2004 issue of The Nation, pp. 20–22. Copyright © 2004 by The Nation. For
subscription information, call 1-800-333-8536. Portions of each week’s Nation magazine can be accessed at
www.thenation.com.
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She can’t afford a car, so she pays someone to drive her the twenty-five miles to work. There have been a few days when she
couldn’t find a ride. “I walked at 12 o’clock at night,” she said. “I’d rather walk and be a little late than call in. I’d rather make
the effort. I couldn’t just sit here. I don’t want to miss a day—otherwise, I might be fired.” No public transportation is available
that could take her all the way to work.
Cynthia lives with her three children in a small maroon colored shack. It is miles from a main road. Inside, the plywood floor is
so thin and worn that the ground can be seen below. In the next room, a toilet sinks into the floor. There is no phone. A broken
heater sits against the wall; the landlord refuses to fix it.
Keeping her children’s clothes clean requires great effort because Cynthia has no washing machine. Instead, she fills her
bathtub halfway and gets on her hands and knees to scrub the clothes. Then she hangs them out to dry.
I first met Cynthia at a union meeting. She had a quiet, dignified presence with her dark suit and her hair pulled back in a bun.
She and twenty-five others from the nursing home—all eighty of her co-workers are African-American women, like her—
gathered in the little brick Masonic building outside of Marion to talk about having a union. None had ever gotten a raise of
more than 13 cents an hour. Some who had been there ten years were still making $6 an hour. But ultimately, it was the lack of
respect from their employer that motivated these women. They said they often told their supervisors something important
about patients, but no one listened. The home offered no promotions either. Cynthia said, “I knew it wouldn’t improve without
outside help.”
Despite the frustration and the difficult conditions, Cynthia beams when she talks about her job. “I like helping people,” she
says. “I like talking with them, and shampooing their hair. I like old people. If they are down, I can really make them feel
better. The patients say, ‘Nobody loves me or comes to see me.’ Sometimes I help the residents play dominoes. Sometimes
their hands shake, but I hold them. It’s a lot of fun for them. I tell them ‘I love you,’ and give them a hug. I like being a CNA.
I’m doing what I want to be doing.”
In 1962 Michael Harrington stirred the conscience of the nation with the publication of The Other America. He reminded a
country basking in the glow of postwar prosperity that poverty was alive and well. Harrington revealed the struggles of
invisible millions living in passed-over regions of the country and the economy—in Appalachia, the South, in rural America.
They were caught in dying towns and industries, shunted off the main tracks of the economy into unemployment, and left to
fester in idleness and despair. In a word, they were outlanders, watching as the rest of the country went to work and thrived.
The nation spent the remainder of the century wrestling with this sort of jobless poverty, expanding and then contracting the
welfare state as it experimented with different ways of dealing with a population cut off from the economic mainstream.
These forms of poverty persist, and the country is still arguing about what to do with its welfare recipients. But the great secret
of America is that a vast impoverished population has grown up in our midst. These are not Americans who have been
excluded from the world of work; in fact, they make up the core of much of the new economy. And it is estimated that lowwage
jobs will make up 30 percent of the economy by the end of this decade.
Thirty million Americans make less than $8.70 an hour, the official US poverty level for a family of four. (Most experts
estimate that it takes at least double this level for a family to provide for its basic needs.) Their low-wage, no-benefits jobs
translate into billions of dollars in profits, executive pay, high stock prices and low store prices.
Who are they? They are all around us in jobs essential to our lives. Low-wage workers are security guards and childcare
givers. They are nursing-home workers and retail clerks. They are hospital orderlies and teachers’ assistants. They are hotel
workers and pharmacy technicians. They bone the chicken that we eat, clean the office buildings where we work and handle
our questions and complaints at call centers.
Yet few express outrage about the plight of these workers. There is a reigning American mythology that blunts any concern:
that holding a low-wage job is a temporary situation, that mobility and education and time will solve whatever problem exists.

1: WORKING AND POOR IN THE USA
that holding a low-wage job is a temporary situation, that mobility and education and time will solve whatever problem exists.
The evidence, however, contradicts this myth. Most low-wage workers will never move up the ladder into the middle class.
Economics professors Peter Gottschalk of Boston College and Sheldon Danziger of the University of Michigan found that
about half of those whose family income ranked in the bottom 20 percent in 1968 were still in the same group in 1991. Of
those who had moved up, nearly three-fourths remained below the median income. The US economy provides less mobility for
low-wage earners, according to an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development study, than the economies of
France, Italy, Britain, Germany, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.
Inadequate wages are only part of the problem. Most of these workers lack basic job benefits. In 1995 less than half of workers
making under $20,000 a year were offered health insurance by their employer. Only one in five workers with incomes below
$20,000 has pension coverage. For low-wage parents with children under 6, one-third do not get paid vacations or paid
holidays. And most low-wage jobs fail to provide sick pay or disability pay. These jobs leave little flexibility to care for a sick
child or deal with an emergency at school—let alone the normal appointments and needs of everyday life. Quality childcare is
unaffordable for most, and many nighttime shifts and employers’ schedule changes make it harder and more expensive to
obtain.
Low-wage workplaces are often physically dangerous and emotionally degrading. High injury rates are common. Constant
surveillance, time clocks, drug testing and rigid rules reinforce the workers’ pervasive sense that employers do not trust them.
Fear is the chief motivator: Being five minutes late can mean losing a job. A few minutes too long in the bathroom can bring
punishment. It is consistent with this lack of respect from employers that these workers are half as likely to receive employersponsored
training as workers in higher-wage jobs.
These conditions are no accident. Over the past quarter-century, a variety of political, economic and corporate decisions have
undercut the bargaining power of workers, especially those at the lower end of the work force. Those decisions included the
push to increase global trade and open global markets, government efforts to deregulate industries that had been highly
unionized, tight monetary policies and a corporate ideological shift away from the postwar social contract with employees and
toward the principle of maximizing shareholder value. During the same period, the most vulnerable workers were deprived of
many of the institutions, laws and political allies that generally helped to counterbalance these forces. Liberal allies who
historically had championed their interests mostly sat silent. Unions were in decline. Minimum-wage, fair employment and
labor laws were weakened.
Today, Americans can make different choices. Democrats should call for a compact with working Americans that establishes
the mutual obligations and responsibilities of employers, workers and government. The compact would have a simple and clear
purpose: It would insure that if you work hard you will be treated fairly and have the resources to provide for yourself and your
family.
One place to start is raising the minimum wage to $8.70 and indexing it to inflation. The compact should require that industries
receiving public funds through contracts, tax abatements or other subsidies provide quality jobs with benefits and living wages.
Access to affordable healthcare must be provided to all workers and their families. Workers need to know they can get time off
to be with a sick child or an elderly parent without fear of losing their jobs or a day’s pay. Quality childcare and early
education should be made available to their children. And workers must have the right to organize without fear of intimidation,
harassment or being fired.
In the past, we have established standards and rights to insure that older Americans would not be impoverished or go without
healthcare, to prevent young children from working and to insure equal opportunity in employment regardless of race, religion,
national origin, sex or age. Now we must set standards to protect the well-being of all working families and the integrity of the
nation. It is urgent, both morally and politically, for the Democratic candidates to confront this critical issue.
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Getting Started in Sociology, 3rd Edition
34
nation. It is urgent, both morally and politically, for the Democratic candidates to confront this critical issue.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Consider the daily routines that make up an average week of your life. What types of low-wage workers have
some kind of impact on your routines? What is it that each of those workers does, in causing that impact?
2. Of the low-wage workers who affect your daily life, how many do you actually see? How many of them do you
talk to? How many of them do you actually know, as individuals?
3. Would you support legislation to raise minimum wage to the level of a “living wage” for low-wage workers
and/or to nationalize health insurance and other benefits for all workers? Why or why not?

2:
WHO RULES AMERICA?: The Corporate Community and
the Upper Class
G. WILLIAM DOMHOFF
Most Americans do not like the idea that there are social classes. Classes imply that people have relatively fixed stations in
life. They fly in the face of beliefs about equality of opportunity and seem to ignore the evidence of upward social mobility.
Even more, Americans tend to deny that social classes are based in wealth and occupational roles but then belie that denial
through a fascination with rags-to-riches stories and the trappings of wealth. . . .
If there is an American upper class, it must exist not merely as a collection of families who feel comfortable with each other
and tend to exclude outsiders from their social activities. It must exist as a set of interrelated social institutions. That is, there
must be patterned ways of organizing the lives of its members from infancy to old age that create a relatively unique style of
life, and there must be mechanisms for socializing both the younger generation and new adult members who have risen from
lower social levels. If the class is a reality, the names and faces may change somewhat over the years, but the social institutions
that underlie the upper class must persist with remarkably little change over several generations. This emphasis on the
institutionalized nature of the upper class, which reflects a long-standing empirical tradition in studies of it, is compatible with
the theoretical focus of the “new institutionalists” within sociology and political science.
Four different types of empirical studies establish the existence of an interrelated set of social institutions, organizations, and
social activities. They are historical case studies, quantitative studies of biographical directories, open-ended surveys of
knowledgeable observers, and interview studies with members of the upper-middle and upper classes. . . .
Prepping for Power
From infancy through young adulthood, members of the upper class receive a distinctive education. This education begins
early in life in preschools that frequently are attached to a neighborhood church of high social status. Schooling continues
during the elementary years at a local private school called a day school. During the adolescent years the student may
remain at day school, but there is a strong chance that at least one or two years will be spent away from home at a boarding
school in a quiet rural setting. Higher education will take place at one of a small number of heavily endowed private colleges
and universities. Large and well-known Ivy League schools in the East and Stanford in the West head the list, followed by
smaller Ivy League schools in the East and a handful of other small private schools in other parts of the country. Although
some upper-class children may attend public high school if they live in a secluded suburban setting, or go to a state
university if there is one of great esteem and tradition in their home state, the system of formal schooling is so insulated that
many upper-class students never see the inside of a public school in all their years of education.
From Who Rules America? Power and Politics in the Year 2000, Third Edition, by G. William Domhoff. Copyright ©
1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. Reprinted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies.
This separate educational system is important evidence for the distinctiveness of the mentality and lifestyle that exists within
the upper class because schools play a large role in transmitting the class structure to their students. Surveying and
summarizing a great many studies on schools in general, sociologist Randall Collins concludes: “Schools primarily teach
vocabulary and inflection, styles of dress, aesthetic tastes, values and manners.” 1 His statement takes on greater significance
for studies of the upper class when it is added that only 1 percent of American teenagers attend independent private high
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Getting Started in Sociology, 3rd Edition
36
vocabulary and inflection, styles of dress, aesthetic tastes, values and manners.” 1 His statement takes on greater significance
for studies of the upper class when it is added that only 1 percent of American teenagers attend independent private high
schools of an upper-class nature. 2
The training of upper-class children is not restricted to the formal school setting, however. Special classes, and even tutors,
are a regular part of their extracurricular education. This informal education usually begins with dancing classes in the
elementary years, which are seen as important for learning proper manners and the social graces. Tutoring in a foreign
language may begin in the elementary years, and there are often lessons in horseback riding and music as well. The teen
years find the children of the upper class in summer camps or on special travel tours, broadening their perspectives and
polishing their social skills.
The linchpins in the upper-class educational system are the dozens of boarding schools founded in the last half of the
nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries. Baltzell concludes that these schools became “surrogate families”
that played a major role “in creating an upper-class subculture on almost a national scale in America.” 3 The role of boarding
schools in providing connections to other upper-class social institutions is also important. As one informant explained to
Ostrander in her interview study of upper-class women: “Where I went to boarding school, there were girls from all over the
country, so I know people from all over. It’s helpful when you move to a new city and want to get invited into the local
social club.” 4
It is within these few hundred schools that are consciously modeled after their older and more austere British counterparts
that a distinctive style of life is inculcated through such traditions as the initiatory hazing of beginning students, the wearing
of school blazers or ties, compulsory attendance at chapel services, and participation in esoteric sports such as squash and
crew. Even a different terminology is adopted to distinguish these schools from public schools. The principal is a
headmaster or rector, the teachers are sometimes called masters, and the students are in forms, not grades. Great emphasis is
placed on the building of “character.” The role of the school in preparing the future leaders of America is emphasized
through the speeches of the headmaster and the frequent mention of successful alumni. Thus, boarding schools are in many
ways the kind of highly effective socializing agent that sociologist Erving Goffman calls “total institutions,” isolating their
members from the outside world and providing them with a set of routines and traditions that encompass most of their
waking hours. 5 The end result is a feeling of separateness and superiority that comes from having survived a rigorous
education. As a retired business leader told one of my research assistants: “At school we were made to feel somewhat better
[than other people] because of our class. That existed, and I’ve always disliked it intensely. Unfortunately, I’m afraid some
of these things rub off on one.” 6
Almost all graduates of private secondary schools go on to college, and almost all do so at prestigious universities.
Graduates of the New England boarding schools, for example, historically found themselves at one of four large Ivy League
universities: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia. . . . Now many upper-class students attend a select handful of smaller
private liberal arts colleges, most of which are in the East, but there are a few in the South and West as well.
Graduates of private schools outside of New England most frequently attend a prominent state university in their area, but a
significant minority go to Eastern Ivy League and top private universities in other parts of the country. . . . A majority of
private-school graduates pursue careers in business, finance, or corporate law. For example, a classification of the
occupations of a sample of the graduates of four private schools—St. Mark’s, Groton, Hotchkiss, and Andover—showed
that the most frequent occupation for all but the Andover graduates was some facet of finance and banking. Others became
presidents of medium-size businesses or were partners in large corporate law firms. A small handful went to work as
executives for major national corporations. 7 . . .
Although finance, business, and law are the most typical occupations of upper-class males, there is no absence of physicians,
architects, museum officials, and other professional occupations. This fact is demonstrated most systematically in Baltzell’s
study of Philadelphia: 39 percent of the Philadelphia architects and physicians listed in Who’s Who for the early 1940s were
also listed in the Social Register, as were 35 percent of the museum officials. These figures are close to the 51 percent for
lawyers and the 42 percent for businessmen, although they are far below the 75 percent for bankers—clearly the most

also listed in the Social Register, as were 35 percent of the museum officials. These figures are close to the 51 percent for
lawyers and the 42 percent for businessmen, although they are far below the 75 percent for bankers—clearly the most
prestigious profession in Philadelphia at that time. 8 . . .
From kindergarten through college, then, schooling is very different for members of the upper class and it teaches them to be
distinctive in many ways. In a country where education is highly valued and nearly everyone attends public schools, this
private system benefits primarily members of the upper class and provides one of the foundations for the old-boy and oldgirl
networks that will be with them throughout their lives.
Social Clubs
2: WHO RULES AMERICA?: The Corporate Community and the Upper Class
Just as private schools are a pervasive feature in the lives of upper-class children, so, too, are private social clubs a major
point of orientation in the lives of upper-class adults. These clubs also play a role in differentiating members of the upper
class from other members of society. According to Baltzell, “the club serves to place the adult members of society and their
families within the social hierarchy.” He quotes with approval the suggestion by historian Crane Brinton that the club “may
perhaps be regarded as taking the place of those extensions of the family, such as the clan and the brotherhood, which have
disappeared from advanced societies.” 9 Conclusions similar to Baltzell’s resulted from an interview study in Kansas City:
“Ultimately, say upper-class Kansas Citians, social standing in their world reduces to one issue: where does an individual or
family rank on the scale of private club memberships and informal cliques?” 10
The clubs of the upper class are many and varied, ranging from family-oriented country clubs and downtown men’s and
women’s clubs to highly specialized clubs for yacht owners, gardening enthusiasts, and fox hunters. Many families have
memberships in several different types of clubs, but the days when most of the men by themselves were in a half dozen or
more clubs faded before World War II. Downtown men’s clubs originally were places for having lunch and dinner, and
occasionally for attending an evening performance or a weekend party. But as upper-class families deserted the city for large
suburban estates, a new kind of club, the country club, gradually took over some of these functions. The downtown club
became almost entirely a luncheon club, a site to hold meetings, or a place to relax on a free afternoon. The country club, by
contrast, became a haven for all members of the family. It offered social and sporting activities ranging from dances, parties,
and banquets to golf, swimming, and tennis. Special group dinners were often arranged for all members on Thursday night
—the traditional maid’s night off across the United States.
Sporting activities are the basis for most of the specialized clubs of the upper class. The most visible are the yachting and
sailing clubs, followed by the clubs for lawn tennis or squash. The most exotic are the several dozen fox hunting clubs. They
have their primary strongholds in rolling countrysides from southern Pennsylvania down into Virginia, but they exist in
other parts of the country as well. Riding to hounds in scarlet jackets and black boots, members of the upper class sustain
over 130 hunts under the banner of the Masters of Fox Hounds Association. The intricate rituals and grand feasts
accompanying the event, including the Blessing of the Hounds by an Episcopal bishop in the Eastern hunts, go back to the
eighteenth century in the United States. 11
Initiation fees, annual dues, and expenses vary from a few thousand dollars in downtown clubs to tens of thousands of
dollars in some country clubs, but money is not the primary barrier in gaining membership to a club. Each club has a very
rigorous screening process before accepting new members. Most require nomination by one or more active members, letters
of recommendation from three to six members, and interviews with at least some members of the membership committee.
Names of prospective members are sometimes posted in the clubhouse, so all members have an opportunity to make their
feelings known to the membership committee. Negative votes by two or three members of what is typically a ten-to twentyperson
committee often are enough to deny admission to the candidate. The carefulness with which new members are
selected extends to a guarding of club membership lists, which are usually available only to club members. Older
membership lists are sometimes given to libraries by members or their surviving spouses, but for most clubs there are no
membership lists in the public domain.
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Getting Started in Sociology, 3rd Edition
38
membership lists in the public domain.
Not every club member is an enthusiastic participant in the life of the club. Some belong out of tradition or a feeling of
social necessity. One woman told Ostrander the following about her country club: “We don’t feel we should withdraw our
support even though we don’t go much.” Others mentioned a feeling of social pressure: “I’ve only been to [the club] once
this year. I’m really a loner, but I feel I have to go and be pleasant even though I don’t want to.” Another volunteered: “I
think half the members go because they like it and half because they think it’s a social necessity.” 12
People of the upper class often belong to clubs in several cities, creating a nationwide pattern of overlapping memberships.
These overlaps provide evidence for social cohesion within the upper class. An indication of the nature and extent of this
overlapping is revealed by sociologist Philip Bonacich’s study of membership lists for twenty clubs in several major cities
across the country, including the Links in New York, the Century Association in New York, the Duquesne in Pittsburgh, the
Chicago in Chicago, the Pacific Union in San Francisco, and the California in Los Angeles. Using his own original
clustering technique based on Boolean algebra, his study revealed there was sufficient overlap among eighteen of the twenty
clubs to form three regional groupings and a fourth group that provided a bridge between the two largest regional groups.
The several dozen men who were in three or more of the clubs—most of them very wealthy people who also sat on several
corporate boards—were especially important in creating the overall pattern. At the same time, the fact that these clubs often
have from 1,000 to 2,000 members makes the percentage of overlap within this small number of clubs relatively small,
ranging from as high as 20 to 30 percent between clubs in the same city to as low as 1 or 2 percent in clubs at opposite ends
of the country. 13
The overlap of this club network with corporate boards of directors provides evidence for the intertwining of the upper class
and corporate community. In one study, the club memberships of the chairs and outside directors of the twenty largest
industrial corporations were counted. The overlaps with upper-class clubs in general were ubiquitous, but the concentration
of directors in a few clubs was especially notable. At least one director from twelve of the twenty corporations was a
member of the Links Club, which Baltzell calls “the New York rendezvous of the national corporate establishment.” 14
Seven of General Electric’s directors were members, as were four from Chrysler, four from Westinghouse, three from IBM,
and two from U.S. Steel. In addition to the Links, several other clubs had directors from four or more corporations. A study I
did using membership lists from eleven prestigious clubs in different parts of the country confirmed and extended these
findings. A majority of the top twenty-five corporations in every major sector of the economy had directors in at least one of
these clubs, and several had many more. . . .
There seems to be a great deal of truth to the earlier-cited suggestion by Crane Brinton that clubs may function within the
upper class the way that the clan or brotherhood does in tribal societies. With their restrictive membership policies, initiatory
rituals, private ceremonials, and great emphasis on tradition, clubs carry on the heritage of primitive secret societies. They
create among their members an attitude of prideful exclusiveness that contributes greatly to an in-group feeling and a sense
of fraternity within the upper class.
In concluding this discussion of . . . [social clubs and] the intersection of the upper class and corporate community, it needs
to be stressed that the [social club] is not a place of power. No conspiracies are hatched there, nor anywhere else. Instead, it
is a place where powerful people relax, make new acquaintances, and enjoy themselves. It is primarily a place of social
bonding. The main sociological function of . . . [social] clubs is stated by sociologist Thomas Powell, based on his own
interview study of members in upper-class clubs:
The clubs are a repository of the values held by the upper-level prestige groups in the community and are a means by
which these values are transferred to the business environment. The clubs are places in which the beliefs, problems,
and values of the industrial organization are discussed and related to the other elements in the larger community.
Clubs, therefore, are not only effective vehicles of informal communication, but also valuable centers where views
are presented, ideas are modified, and new ideas emerge. Those in the interview sample were appreciative of this
asset; in addition, they considered the club as a valuable place to combine social and business contacts. 15

asset; in addition, they considered the club as a valuable place to combine social and business contacts. 15
The Female Half of the Upper Class
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women of the upper class carved out their own distinct roles within
the context of male domination in business, finance, and law. They went to separate private schools, founded their own
social clubs, and belonged to their own volunteer associations. As young women and party goers, they set the fashions for
society. As older women and activists, they took charge of the nonprofit social welfare and cultural institutions of the
society, serving as fund-raisers, philanthropists, and directors in a manner parallel to what their male counterparts did in
business and politics. To prepare themselves for their leadership roles, in 1901 they created the Junior League to provide
internships, role models, mutual support, and training in the management of meetings.
Due to the general social changes of the 1960s—and in particular the revival of the feminist movement—the socialization of
wealthy young women has changed somewhat in recent decades. Many private schools are now coeducational. Their women
graduates are encouraged to go to major four-year colleges rather than finishing schools. Women of the upper class are more
likely to have careers; there are already two or three examples of women who have risen to the top of their family’s
business. They are also more likely to serve on corporate boards. Still, due to its emphasis on tradition, there may be even
less gender equality in the upper class than there is in the professional stratum; it is not clear how much more equality will
be attained.
The female half of the upper class has been studied by several sociologists. Their work provides an important window into
the upper class and class consciousness in general as well as a portrait of the socialization of wellborn women. But before
focusing on their work, it is worthwhile to examine one unique institution of the upper class that has not changed very much
in its long history—the debutante party that announces a young woman’s coming of age and eligibility for marriage. It
contains general lessons on class consciousness and the difficulties of maintaining traditional socializing institutions in a
time of social unrest.
The Debutante Season
2: WHO RULES AMERICA?: The Corporate Community and the Upper Class
The debutante season is a series of parties, teas, and dances that culminates in one or more grand balls. It announces the
arrival of young women of the upper class into adult society with the utmost of formality and elegance. These highly
expensive rituals—in which great attention is lavished on every detail of the food, decorations, and entertainment—have a
long history in the upper class. They made their first appearance in Philadelphia in 1748 and Charleston, South Carolina,
in 1762, and they vary only slightly from city to city across the country. They are a central focus of the Christmas social
season just about everywhere, but in some cities debutante balls are held in the spring as well.
Dozens of people are involved in planning the private parties that most debutantes have before the grand ball. Parents,
with the help of upper-class women who work as social secretaries and social consultants, spend many hours with dress
designers, caterers, florists, decorators, bandleaders, and champagne importers, deciding on just the right motif for their
daughter’s coming out. Most parties probably cost between $25,000 and $75,000, but sometimes the occasion is so
extraordinary that it draws newspaper attention. Henry Ford II spent $250,000 on a debutante party for one of his
daughters, hiring a Paris designer to redo the Country Club of Detroit in an eighteenth-century chateau motif and flying in
2 million magnolia boughs from Mississippi to cover the walls of the corridor leading to the reception room. A Texas oil
and real estate family chartered a commercial jet airliner for a party that began in Dallas and ended with an all-night visit
to the clubs in the French Quarter of New Orleans. 16
The debutante balls themselves are usually sponsored by local social clubs. Sometimes there is an organization whose
primary purpose is the selection of debutantes and the staging of the ball, such as the Saint Cecelia Society in Charleston,
South Carolina, or the Allegro Club in Houston, Texas. Adding to the solemnity of the occasion, the selection of the
season’s debutantes is often made by the most prominent upper-class males in the city, often through such secret societies
as the Veiled Prophet in St. Louis or the Mardi Gras krewes in New Orleans.
39

Getting Started in Sociology, 3rd Edition
40
as the Veiled Prophet in St. Louis or the Mardi Gras krewes in New Orleans.
Proceeds from the balls are usually given to a prominent local charity sponsored by members of the upper class. “Doing
something for charity makes the participants feel better about spending,” explains Mrs. Stephen Van Rensselear Strong, a
social press agent in New York and herself a member of the upper class. 17 It also makes at least part of the expense of the
occasion tax deductible.
Evidence for the great traditional importance attached to the debut is to be found in the comments Ostrander received
from women who thought the whole process unimportant but made their daughters go through it anyhow: “I think it’s
passé, and I don’t care about it, but it’s just something that’s done,” explained one woman. Another commented: “Her
father wanted her to do it. We do have a family image to maintain. It was important to the grandparents, and I felt it was
an obligation to her family to do it.” When people begin to talk about doing something out of tradition or to uphold an
image, Ostrander suggests, then the unspoken rules that dictate class-oriented behavior are being revealed through ritual
behavior. 18
Despite the great importance placed on the debut by upper-class parents, the debutante season came into considerable
disfavor among young women as the social upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s reached their climax. This decline
reveals that the reproduction of the upper class as a social class is an effort that must be made with each new generation.
Although enough young women participated to keep the tradition alive, a significant minority refused to participate,
which led to the cancellation of some balls and the curtailment of many others. Stories appeared on the women’s pages
across the country telling of debutantes who thought the whole process was “silly” or that the money should be given to a
good cause. By 1973, however, the situation began to change again, and by the mid-1970s things were back to normal. 19
The decline of the debutante season and its subsequent resurgence in times of domestic tranquility reveal very clearly that
one of its latent functions is to help perpetuate the upper class from generation to generation. When the underlying values
of the class were questioned by a few of its younger members, the institution went into decline. Attitudes toward such
social institutions as the debutante ball are one indicator of whether adult members of the upper class have succeeded in
insulating their children from the rest of society.
The Role of Volunteer
The most informative and intimate look at the adult lives of traditional upper-class women is provided in three different
interview and observation studies, one on the East Coast, one in the Midwest, and one on the West Coast. They reveal the
women to be both powerful and subservient, playing decision-making roles in numerous cultural and civic organizations
but also accepting traditional roles at home vis-à-vis their husbands and children. By asking the women to describe a
typical day and to explain which activities were most important to them, sociologists Arlene Daniels, Margot McLeod,
and Susan Ostrander found that the role of community volunteer is a central preoccupation of upper-class women, having
significance as a family tradition and as an opportunity to fulfill an obligation to the community. One elderly woman
involved for several decades in both the arts and human services told Ostrander: “If you’re privileged, you have a certain
responsibility. This was part of my upbringing; it’s a tradition, a pattern of life that my brothers and sisters do too.” 20
This volunteer role is institutionalized in the training programs and activities of a variety of service organizations,
especially the Junior League, which is meant for women between 20 and 40 years of age, including some upwardly
mobile professional women. “Volunteerism is crucial and the Junior League is the quintessence of volunteer work,” said
one woman. “Everything the League does improves the situation but doesn’t rock the boat. It fits into existing
institutions.” 21
Quite unexpectedly, Ostrander found that many of the women serving as volunteers, fund-raisers, and board members for
charitable and civic organizations viewed their work as a protection of the American way of life against the further
encroachment of government into areas of social welfare. Some even saw themselves as bulwarks against socialism.
“There must always be people to do volunteer work,” one said. “If you have a society where no one is willing, then you
may as well have communism where it’s all done by the government.” Another commented: “It would mean that the

“There must always be people to do volunteer work,” one said. “If you have a society where no one is willing, then you
may as well have communism where it’s all done by the government.” Another commented: “It would mean that the
government would take over, and it would all be regimented. If there are no volunteers, we would live in a completely
managed society which is quite the opposite to our history of freedom.” Another equated government support with
socialism: “You’d have to go into government funds. That’s socialism. The more we can keep independent and under
private control, the better it is.” 22
Despite this emphasis on volunteer work, the women placed high value on family life. They arranged their schedules to be
home when children came home from school (thirty of the thirty-eight in Ostrander’s study had three or more children),
and they emphasized that their primary concern was to provide a good home for their husbands. Several wanted to have
greater decision-making power over their inherited wealth, but almost all wanted to take on the traditional roles of wife
and mother, at least until their children were grown.
In recent years, thanks to the pressures on corporations from the women’s movement, upper-class women have expanded
their roles to include corporate directorships. A study of women in the corporate community by former sociologist Beth
Ghiloni, now a corporate executive, found that 26 percent of all women directors had upper-class backgrounds, a figure
very similar to overall findings for samples of predominantly male directors. The figure was even higher, about 71
percent, for the one-fifth of directors who described themselves as volunteers before joining corporate boards. Many of
these women told Ghiloni that their contacts with male corporate leaders on the boards of women’s colleges and cultural
organizations led to their selection as corporate directors. 23
Women of the upper class are in a paradoxical position. They are subordinate to male members of their class, but they
nonetheless exercise important class power in some institutional arenas. They may or may not be fully satisfied with their
ambiguous power status, but they bring an upper-class, antigovernment perspective to their exercise of power. There is
thus class solidarity between men and women toward the rest of society. Commenting on the complex role of upper-class
women, feminist scholar Catherine Stimson draws the following stark picture: “First they must do to class what gender
has done to their work—render it invisible. Next, they must maintain the same class structure they have struggled to
veil.” 24
Marriage and Family Continuity
2: WHO RULES AMERICA?: The Corporate Community and the Upper Class
The institution of marriage is as important in the upper class as it is in any level of American society, and it does not differ
greatly from other levels in its patterns and rituals. Only the exclusive site of the occasion and the lavishness of the reception
distinguish upper-class marriages. The prevailing wisdom within the upper class is that children should marry someone of
their own social class. The women interviewed by Ostrander, for example, felt that marriage was difficult enough without
differences in “interests” and “background,” which seemed to be the code words for class in discussions of marriage.
Marriages outside the class were seen as likely to end in divorce. 25
The original purpose of the debutante season was to introduce the highly sheltered young women of the upper class to
eligible marriage partners. It was an attempt to corral what Baltzell calls “the democratic whims of romantic love,” which
“often play havoc with class solidarity.” 26 But the day when the debut could play such a role was long past, even by the
1940s. The function of directing romantic love into acceptable channels was taken over by fraternities and sororities,
singles-only clubs, and exclusive summer resorts.
However, in spite of parental concerns and institutionalized efforts to provide proper marriage partners, some upper-class
people marry members of the upper-middle and middle classes. Although there are no completely satisfactory studies, and
none that are very recent, what information is available suggests that members of the upper class are no more likely to marry
within their class than people of other social levels. The most frequently cited evidence on upper-class marriage patterns
appears as part of biographical studies of prominent families. Though these studies demonstrate that a great many marriages
take place within the class—and often between scions of very large fortunes—they also show that some marriages are to
sons and daughters of middle-class professionals and managers. No systematic conclusions can be drawn from these
41

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42
take place within the class—and often between scions of very large fortunes—they also show that some marriages are to
sons and daughters of middle-class professionals and managers. No systematic conclusions can be drawn from these
examples.
Wedding announcements that appear in major newspapers provide another source of evidence on this question. In a study
covering prominent wedding stories on the society pages on Sundays in June for two different years one decade apart, it was
found that 70 percent of the grooms and 84 percent of the brides had attended a private secondary school. Two-thirds of the
weddings involved at least one participant who was listed in the Social Register, with both bride and groom listed in the
Social Register in 24 percent of the cases. 27 However, those who marry far below their station may be less likely to have
wedding announcements prominently displayed, so such studies must be interpreted with caution.
A study that used the Social Register as its starting point may be indicative of rates of intermarriage within the upper class,
but it is very limited in its scope and therefore can only be considered suggestive. It began with a compilation of all the
marriages listed in the Philadelphia Social Register for 1940 and 1960. Since the decision to list these announcements may
be a voluntary one, a check of the marriage announcements in the Philadelphia Bulletin for those years was made to see if
there were any marriages involving listees in the Social Register that had not been included, but none was found. One in
every three marriages for 1940 and one in five for 1961 involved partners who were both listed in the Social Register. When
private-school attendance and social club membership as well as the Social Register were used as evidence for upper-class
standing, the rate of intermarriage averaged 50 percent for the two years. This figure is very similar to that for other social
levels. 28
The general picture for social class and marriage in the United States is suggested in a statistical study of neighborhoods and
marriage patterns in the San Francisco area. Its results are very similar to those of the Philadelphia study using the Social
Register. Of eighty grooms randomly selected from the highest-level neighborhoods, court records showed that 51 percent
married brides of a comparable level. The rest married women from middle-level neighborhoods; only one or two married
women from lower-level residential areas. Conversely, 63 percent of eighty-one grooms from the lowest-level
neighborhoods married women from comparable areas, with under 3 percent having brides from even the lower end of the
group of top neighborhoods. Completing the picture, most of the eighty-two men from middle-level areas married women
from the same types of neighborhoods, but about 10 percent married into higher-level neighborhoods. Patterns of
intermarriage, then, suggest both stability and some upward mobility through marriage into the upper class. 29
Turning now to the continuity of the upper class, there is evidence that it is very great from generation to generation. This
finding conflicts with the oft-repeated folk wisdom that there is a large turnover at the top of the American social ladder.
Once in the upper class, families tend to stay there even as they are joined in each generation by new families and by
middle-class brides and grooms who marry into their families. One study demonstrating this point began with a list of
twelve families who were among the top wealthholders in Detroit for 1860, 1892, and 1902. After demonstrating their high
social standing as well as their wealth, it traced their Detroit-based descendants to 1970. Nine of the twelve families still had
members in the Detroit upper class; members from six of the families were directors of top corporations in the city. The
study cast light on some of the reasons why the continuity is not even greater. One of the top wealthholders of 1860 had only
one child, who in turn had no children. Another family dropped out of sight after the six children of the original 1860
wealthholder’s only child went to court to divide the dwindling estate of $250,000 into six equal parts. A third family
persisted into a fourth generation of four great-granddaughters, all of whom married outside of Detroit. 30 . . .
Tracing the families of the steel executives into the twentieth century, John Ingham determined that most were listed in the
Social Register, were members of the most exclusive social clubs, lived in expensive neighborhoods, and sent their children
to Ivy League universities. He concludes that “there has been more continuity than change among the business elites and
upper classes in America,” and he contrasts his results with the claims made by several generations of impressionistic
historians that there has been a decline of aristocracy, the rise of a new plutocracy, or a passing of the old order. 31 . . .
It seems likely, then, that the American upper class is a mixture of old and new members. There is both continuity and social
mobility, with the newer members being assimilated into the lifestyle of the class through participation in the schools, clubs,
and other social institutions described [here]. There may be some tensions between those newly arrived and those of

mobility, with the newer members being assimilated into the lifestyle of the class through participation in the schools, clubs,
and other social institutions described [here]. There may be some tensions between those newly arrived and those of
established status—as novelists and journalists love to point out—but what they have in common soon outweighs their
differences. 32
ENDNOTES
1 Randall Collins, “Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational Stratification,” American Sociological Review 36
(1971): 1010.
2 “Private Schools Search for a New Role,” National Observer (August 26, 1968), p. 5. For an excellent account of
major boarding schools, see Peter Cookson and Caroline Hodge Persell, Preparing for Power: America’s Elite
Boarding Schools (New York: Basic Books, 1985).
3 E. Digby Baltzell, Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1958),
p. 339.
4 Susan Ostrander, Women of the Upper Class (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984), p. 85.
5 Erving Goffman, Asylums (Chicago: Aldine, 1961).
6 Interview conducted for G. William Domhoff by research assistant Deborah Samuels, February 1975; see also Gary
Tamkins, “Being Special: A Study of the Upper Class” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Northwestern University, 1974).
7 Steven Levine, “The Rise of the American Boarding Schools” (Senior Honors Thesis, Harvard University, 1975),
pp. 128–30.
8 Baltzell, Philadelphia Gentlemen, pp. 51–65.
9 Baltzell, Philadelphia Gentlemen, p. 373.
10 Richard P. Coleman and Lee Rainwater, Social Standing in America (New York: Basic Books, 1978), p. 144.
11 Sophy Burnham, The Landed Gentry (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1978).
12 Ostrander, Women of the Upper Class, p. 104.
13 Philip Bonacich and G. William Domhoff, “Latent Classes and Group Membership,” Social Networks 3 (1981).
14 G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America? (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967), p. 26; E. Digby Baltzell,
The Protestant Establishment, op. cit., p. 371.
15 Thomas Powell, Race, Religion, and the Promotion of the American Executive (Columbus: Ohio State University
Press, 1969), p. 50.
16 Gay Pauley, “Coming-Out Party: It’s Back in Style,” Los Angeles Times, March 13, 1977, section 4, p. 22; “Debs
Put Party on Jet,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 18, 1965, p. 2.
17 Pauley, “Coming-Out Party.”
18 Ostrander, “Upper-Class Women: Class Consciousness As Conduct and Meaning,” Women of the Upper Class, pp.
93–94; Ostrander, Women of the Upper Class, pp. 89–90.
2: WHO RULES AMERICA?: The Corporate Community and the Upper Class
19 “The Debut Tradition: A Subjective View of What It’s All About,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 29, 1976,
section 4, p. 13; Tia Gidnick, “On Being 18 in ‘78: Deb Balls Back in Fashion,” Los Angeles Times, November 24,
1978, part 4, p. 1; Virginia Lee Warren, “Many Young Socialites Want Simpler Debutante Party, or None,” New
York Times, July 2, 1972, p. 34; Mary Lou Loper, “The Society Ball: Tradition in an Era of Change,” Los Angeles
Times, October 28, 1973, part 4, p. 1.
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44
20 Ostrander, Women of the Upper Class, pp. 128–29. For three other fine accounts of the volunteer work of upperclass
women, see Arlene Daniels, Invisible Careers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); Margot
MacLeod, “Influential Women Volunteers” (paper presented to the meetings of the American Sociological
Association, San Antonio, August 1984); and Margot MacLeod, “Older Generation, Younger Generation:
Transition in Women Volunteers’ Lives” (unpublished manuscript, 1987). For women’s involvement in
philanthropy and on the boards of nonprofit organizations, see Teresa Odendahl, Charity Begins at Home:
Generosity and Self-Interest among the Philanthropic Elite (New York: Basic Books, 1990), and Teresa Odendahl
and Michael O’Neill, eds., Women and Power in the Nonprofit Sector (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994). For indepth
interviews of both women and men philanthropists, see Francie Ostrower, Why the Wealthy Give: The Culture
of Elite Philanthropy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
21 Ostrander, Women of the Upper Class, pp. 113, 115.
22 Ostrander, “Upper-Class Women,” p. 84; Ostrander, Women of the Upper Class, pp. 132–37.
23 Beth Ghiloni, “New Women of Power” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1986), pp. 122,
159.
24 Daniels, Invisible Careers, p. x.
25 Ostrander, Women of the Upper Class, pp. 85–88.
26 Baltzell, Philadelphia Gentlemen, p. 26.
27 Paul M. Blumberg and P. W. Paul, “Continuities and Discontinuities in Upper-Class Marriages,” Journal of
Marriage and the Family, vol. 37, no. 1 (February 1975):63–77; David L. Hatch and Mary A. Hatch, “Criteria of
Social Status As Derived from Marriage Announcements in the New York Times,” American Sociological Review
12 (August 1947): 396–403.
28 Lawrence Rosen and Robert R. Bell, “Mate Selection in the Upper Class,” Sociological Quarterly 7 (Spring 1966):
157–66. I supplemented the original study by adding the information on schools and clubs.
29 Robert C. Tryon, “Identification of Social Areas by Cluster Analysis: A General Method with an Application to the
San Francisco Bay Area,” University of California Publications in Psychology 8 (1955); Robert C. Tryon,
“Predicting Group Differences in Cluster Analysis: The Social Areas Problem,” Multivariate Behavioral Research 2
(1967):4 53–75.
30 T. D. Schuby, “Class Power, Kinship, and Social Cohesion: A Case Study of a Local Elite,” Sociological Focus 8,
no. 3 (August 1975): 243–55; Donald Davis, “The Price of Conspicuous Production: The Detroit Elite and the
Automobile Industry, 1900–1933,” Journal of Social History 16 (1982): 21–46.
31 John Ingham, The Iron Barons (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978), pp. 230–31. For the continuity of a more
general sample of wealthy families, see Michael Allen, The Founding Fortunes (New York: Truman Talley Books,
1987).
32 For further evidence of the assimilation of new members into the upper class, see the study of the social affiliations
and attitudes of the successful Jewish business owners who become part of the upper class by Richard L.
Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff, Jews in the Protestant Establishment (New York: Praeger, 1982).
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. As described in this selection, what sorts of social institutions have a hand in the socialization of upper-class
individuals, over the course of their lives?

individuals, over the course of their lives?
2: WHO RULES AMERICA?: The Corporate Community and the Upper Class
2. How does the set of socializing institutions for upper-class males differ in composition from the set that
socializes upper-class females?
3. According to the author, the upper class have managed to insulate themselves and their way of life from the rest
of us, despite the passage of a few hundred years and significant social changes therein; for example, in regard
to equal rights for women and minorities. In your opinion, can anything be done to dismantle the rigidity of the
class structure in our society? If “yes,” what sorts of social action do you recommend be taken to accomplish
this? If “no,” why are changes in the class structure impossible, in your view?
45

MARY CROW DOG • RICHARD ERDOES
. . . Gathered from the cabin, the wickiup, and the tepee,
partly by cajolery and partly by threats;
partly by bribery and partly by force,
they are induced to leave their kindred
to enter these schools and take upon themselves
the outward appearance of civilized life.
3:
CIVILIZE THEM WITH A STICK
—ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR, 1901
It is almost impossible to explain to a sympathetic white person what a typical old Indian boarding school was like; how it
affected the Indian child suddenly dumped into it like a small creature from another world, helpless, defenseless, bewildered,
trying desperately and instinctively to survive and sometimes not surviving at all. I think such children were like the victims of
Nazi concentration camps trying to tell average, middle-class Americans what their experience had been like. Even now, when
these schools are much improved, when the buildings are new, all gleaming steel and glass, the food tolerable, the teachers
well trained and well intentioned, even trained in child psychology—unfortunately the psychology of white children, which is
different from ours—the shock to the child upon arrival is still tremendous. Some just seem to shrivel up, don’t speak for days
on end, and have an empty look in their eyes. I know of an 11-year-old on another reservation who hanged herself, and in our
school, while I was there, a girl jumped out of the window, trying to kill herself to escape an unbearable situation. That first
shock is always there.
Although the old tiyospaye has been destroyed, in the traditional Sioux families, especially in those where there is no drinking,
the child is never left alone. It is always surrounded by relatives, carried around, enveloped in warmth. It is treated with the
respect due to any human being, even a small one. It is seldom forced to do anything against its will, seldom screamed at, and
never beaten. That much, at least, is left of the old family group among full-bloods. And then suddenly a bus or car arrives, full
of strangers, usually white strangers, who yank the child out of the arms of those who love it, taking it screaming to the
boarding school. The only word I can think of for what is done to these children is kidnapping.
Even now, in a good school, there is impersonality instead of close human contact; a sterile, cold atmosphere, an unfamiliar
routine, language problems, and above all the maza-skan-skan, that damn clock—white man’s time as opposed to Indian time,
which is natural time. Like eating when you are hungry and sleeping when you are tired, not when that damn clock says you
must. But I was not taken to one of the better, modern schools. I was taken to the old-fashioned mission school at St. Francis,
run by the nuns and Catholic fathers, built sometime around the turn of the century and not improved a bit when I arrived, not
improved as far as the buildings, the food, the teachers, or their methods were concerned.
From Dog, Mary Crow and Richard Erdoes, Lakota Woman, pp. 28 – 341. Copyright © 1990 by Mary Crow Dog and
Richard Erdoes. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
In the old days, nature was our people’s only school and they needed no other. Girls had their toy tipis and dolls, boys their toy
bows and arrows. Both rode and swam and played the rough Indian games together. Kids watched their peers and elders and
naturally grew from children into adults. Life in the tipi circle was harmonious—until the whiskey peddlers arrived with their
wagons and barrels of “Injun whiskey.” I often wished I could have grown up in the old, before-whiskey days.
47

Getting Started in Sociology, 3rd Edition
48
wagons and barrels of “Injun whiskey.” I often wished I could have grown up in the old, before-whiskey days.
Oddly enough, we owed our unspeakable boarding schools to the do-gooders, the white Indian-lovers. The schools were
intended as an alternative to the outright extermination seriously advocated by generals Sherman and Sheridan, as well as by
most settlers and prospectors overrunning our land. “You don’t have to kill those poor benighted heathen,” the do-gooders
said, “in order to solve the Indian Problem. Just give us a chance to turn them into useful farmhands, laborers, and
chambermaids who will break their backs for you at low wages.” In that way the boarding schools were born. The kids were
taken away from their villages and pueblos, in their blankets and moccasins, kept completely isolated from their families—
sometimes for as long as ten years—suddenly coming back, their short hair slick with pomade, their necks raw from stiff, high
collars, their thick jackets always short in the sleeves and pinching under the arms, their tight patent leather shoes giving them
corns, the girls in starched white blouses and clumsy, high-buttoned boots—caricatures of white people. When they found out
—and they found out quickly—that they were neither wanted by whites nor by Indians, they got good and drunk, many of
them staying drunk for the rest of their lives. I still have a poster I found among my grandfather’s stuff, given to him by the
missionaries to tack up on his wall. It reads:
1. Let Jesus save you.
2. Come out of your blanket, cut your hair, and dress like a white man.
3. Have a Christian family with one wife for life only.
4. Live in a house like your white brother. Work hard and wash often.
5. Learn the value of a hard-earned dollar. Do not waste your money on giveaways. Be punctual.
6. Believe that property and wealth are signs of divine approval.
7. Keep away from saloons and strong spirits.
8. Speak the language of your white brother. Send your children to school to do likewise.
9. Go to church often and regularly.
10. Do not go to Indian dances or to the medicine men.
The people who were stuck upon “solving the Indian Problem” by making us into whites retreated from this position only step
by step in the wake of Indian protests.
The mission school at St. Francis was a curse for our family for generations. My grandmother went there, then my mother,
then my sisters and I. At one time or other, every one of us tried to run away. Grandma told me once about the bad times she
had experienced at St. Francis. In those days they let students go home only for one week every year. Two days were used up
for transportation, which meant spending just five days out of 365 with her family. And that was an improvement. Before
grandma’s time, on many reservations they did not let the students go home at all until they had finished school. Anybody who
disobeyed the nuns was severely punished. The building in which my grandmother stayed had three floors, for girls only. Way
up in the attic were little cells, about five by five by ten feet. One time she was in church and instead of praying she was
playing jacks. As punishment they took her to one of those little cubicles where she stayed in darkness because the windows
had been boarded up. They left her there for a whole week with only bread and water for nourishment. After she came out she
promptly ran away, together with three other girls. They were found and brought back. The nuns stripped them naked and
whipped them. They used a horse buggy whip on my grandmother. Then she was put back into the attic—for two weeks.
My mother had much the same experiences but never wanted to talk about them, and then there I was, in the same place. The
school is now run by the BIA—the Bureau of Indian Affairs—but only since about 15 years ago. When I was there, during the
1960s, it was still run by the Church. The Jesuit fathers ran the boys’ wing and the Sisters of the Sacred Heart ran us—with the
help of the strap. Nothing had changed since my grandmother’s days. I have been told recently that even in the ‘70s they were
still beating children at that school. All I got out of school was being taught how to pray. I learned quickly that I would be

3: CIVILIZE THEM WITH A STICK
help of the strap. Nothing had changed since my grandmother’s days. I have been told recently that even in the ‘70s they were
still beating children at that school. All I got out of school was being taught how to pray. I learned quickly that I would be
beaten if I failed in my devotions or, God forbid, prayed the wrong way, especially prayed in Indian to Wakan Tanka, the
Indian Creator.
The girls’ wing was built like an F and was run like a penal institution. Every morning at five o’clock the sisters would come
into our large dormitory to wake us up, and immediately we had to kneel down at the sides of our beds and recite the prayers.
At six o’clock we were herded into the church for more of the same. I did not take kindly to the discipline and to marching by
the clock, left-right, left-right. I was never one to like being forced to do something. I do something because I feel like doing it.
I felt this way always, as far as I can remember, and my sister Barbara felt the same way. An old medicine man once told me:
“Us Lakotas are not like dogs who can be trained, who can be beaten and keep on wagging their tails, licking the hand that
whipped them. We are like cats, little cats, big cats, wildcats, bob-cats, mountain lions. It doesn’t matter what kind, but cats
who can’t be tamed, who scratch if you step on their tails.” But I was only a kitten and my claws were still small.
Barbara was still in the school when I arrived and during my first year or two she could still protect me a little bit. When Barb
was a seventh grader she ran away together with five other girls, early in the morning before sunrise. They brought them back
in the evening. The girls had to wait for two hours in front of the mother superior’s office. They were hungry and cold, frozen
through. It was wintertime and they had been running the whole day without food, trying to make good their escape. The
mother superior asked each girl, “Would you do this again?” She told them that as punishment they would not be allowed to
visit home for a month and that she’d keep them busy on work details until the skin on their knees and elbows had worn off. At
the end of her speech she told each girl, “Get up from this chair and lean over it.” She then lifted the girls’ skirts and pulled
down their underpants. Not little girls either, but teenagers. She had a leather strap about a foot long and four inches wide
fastened to a stick, and beat the girls, one after another, until they cried. Barb did not give her that satisfaction but just clenched
her teeth. There was one girl, Barb told me, the nun kept on beating and beating until her arm got tired.
I did not escape my share of the strap. Once, when I was 13 years old, I refused to go to Mass. I did not want to go to church
because I did not feel well. A nun grabbed me by the hair, dragged me upstairs, made me stoop over, pulled my dress up (we
were not allowed at the time to wear jeans), pulled my panties down, and gave me what they called “swats”—25 swats with a
board around which Scotch tape had been wound. She hurt me badly.
My classroom was right next to the principal’s office and almost every day I could hear him swatting the boys. Beating was the
common punishment for not doing one’s homework, or for being late to school. It had such a bad effect upon me that I hated
and mistrusted every white person on sight, because I met only one kind. It was not until much later that I met sincere white
people I could relate to and be friends with. Racism breeds racism in reverse.
The routine at St. Francis was dreary. Six A.M., kneeling in church for an hour or so; seven o’clock, breakfast; eight o’clock,
scrub the floor, peel spuds, make classes. We had to mop the dining room twice every day and scrub the tables. If you were
caught taking a rest, doodling on the bench with a fingernail or knife, or just rapping, the nun would come up with a dish towel
and just slap it across your face, saying, “You’re not supposed to be talking, you’re supposed to be working!” Monday
mornings we had cornmeal mush, Tuesday oatmeal, Wednesday rice and raisins, Thursday cornflakes, and Friday all the
leftovers mixed together or sometimes fish. Frequently the food had bugs or rocks in it. We were eating hot dogs that were
weeks old, while the nuns were dining on ham, whipped potatoes, sweet peas, and cranberry sauce. In winter our dorm was icy
cold while the nuns’ rooms were always warm.
I have seen little girls arrive at the school, first graders, just fresh from home and totally unprepared for what awaited them,
little girls with pretty braids, and the first thing the nuns did was chop their hair off and tie up what was left behind their ears.
Next they would dump the children into tubs of alcohol, a sort of rubbing alcohol, “to get the germs off.” Many of the nuns
were German immigrants, some from Bavaria, so that we sometimes speculated whether Bavaria was some sort of Dracula
country inhabited by monsters. For the sake of objectivity I ought to mention that two of the German fathers were great
linguists and that the only Lakota-English dictionaries and grammars which are worth anything were put together by them.
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linguists and that the only Lakota-English dictionaries and grammars which are worth anything were put together by them.
At night some of the girls would huddle in bed together for comfort and reassurance. Then the nun in charge of the dorm
would come in and say, “What are the two of you doing in bed together? I smell evil in this room. You girls are evil incarnate.
You are sinning. You are going to hell and burn forever. You can act that way in the devil’s frying pan.” She would get them
out of bed in the middle of the night, making them kneel and pray until morning. We had not the slightest idea what it was all
about. At home we slept two and three in a bed for animal warmth and a feeling of security.
The nuns and the girls in the two top grades were constantly battling it out physically with fists, nails, and hair-pulling. I
myself was growing from a kitten into an undersized cat. My claws were getting bigger and were itching for action. About
1969 or 1970 a strange young white girl appeared on the reservation. She looked about 18 or 20 years old. She was pretty and
had long, blond hair down to her waist, patched jeans, boots, and a backpack. She was different from any other white person
we had met before. I think her name was Wise. I do not know how she managed to overcome our reluctance and distrust,
getting us into a corner, making us listen to her, asking us how we were treated. She told us that she was from New York. She
was the first real hippie or Yippie we had come across. She told us of people called the Black Panthers, Young Lords, and
Weathermen. She said, “Black people are getting it on. Indians are getting it on in St. Paul and California. How about you?”
She also said, “Why don’t you put out an underground paper, mimeograph it. It’s easy. Tell it like it is. Let it all hang out.” She
spoke a strange lingo but we caught on fast.
Charlene Left Hand Bull and Gina One Star were two full-blood girls I used to hang out with. We did everything together.
They were willing to join me in a Sioux uprising. We put together a newspaper which we called the Red Panther. In it we
wrote how bad the school was, what kind of slop we had to eat—slimy, rotten, blackened potatoes for two weeks—the way we
were beaten. I think I was the one who wrote the worst article about our principal of the moment, Father Keeler. I put all my
anger and venom into it. I called him a goddam wasi"un son of a bitch. I wrote that he knew nothing about Indians and should
go back to where he came from, teaching white children whom he could relate to. I wrote that we knew which priests slept
with which nuns and that all they ever could think about was filling their bellies and buying a new car. It was the kind of
writing which foamed at the mouth, but which also lifted a great deal of weight from one’s soul.
On Saint Patrick’s Day, when everybody was at the big powwow, we distributed our newspapers. We put them on windshields
and bulletin boards, in desks and pews, in dorms and toilets. But someone saw us and snitched on us. The shit hit the fan. The
three of us were taken before a board meeting. Our parents, in my case my mother, had to come. They were told that ours was
a most serious matter, the worst thing that had ever happened in the school’s long history. One of the nuns told my mother,
“Your daughter really needs to be talked to.” “What’s wrong with my daughter?” my mother asked. She was given one of our
Red Panther newspapers. The nun pointed out its name to her and then my piece, waiting for mom’s reaction. After a while
she asked, “Well, what have you got to say to this? What do you think?”
My mother said, “Well, when I went to school here, some years back, I was treated a lot worse than these kids are. I really
can’t see how they can have any complaints, because we was treated a lot stricter. We could not even wear skirts halfway up
our knees. These girls have it made. But you should forgive them because they are young. And it’s supposed to be a free
country, free speech and all that. I don’t believe what they done is wrong.” So all I got out of it was scrubbing six flights of
stairs on my hands and knees, every day. And no boy-side privileges.
The boys and girls were still pretty much separated. The only time one could meet a member of the opposite sex was during
free time, between 4 and 5:30, in the study hall or on benches or the volleyball court outside, and that was strictly supervised.
One day Charlene and I went over to the boys’ side. We were on the ball team and they had to let us practice. We played three
extra minutes, only three minutes more than we were supposed to. Here was the nuns’ opportunity for revenge. We got 25
swats. I told Charlene, “We are getting too old to have our bare asses whipped that way. We are old enough to have babies.
Enough of this shit. Next time we fight back.” Charlene only said, “Hoka-hay!”. . .
In a school like this there is always a lot of favoritism. At St. Francis it was strongly tinged with racism. Girls who were nearwhite,
who came from what the nuns called “nice families,” got preferential treatment. They waited on the faculty and got to
eat ham or eggs and bacon in the morning. They got the easy jobs while the skins, who did not have the right kind of
background—myself among them—always wound up in the laundry room sorting out 10-bushel baskets of dirty boys’ socks

eat ham or eggs and bacon in the morning. They got the easy jobs while the skins, who did not have the right kind of
background—myself among them—always wound up in the laundry room sorting out 10-bushel baskets of dirty boys’ socks
every day. Or we wound up scrubbing the floors and doing all the dishes. The school therefore fostered fights and antagonism
between whites and breeds, and between breeds and skins. At one time Charlene and I had to iron all the robes and vestments
the priests wore when saying Mass. We had to fold them up and put them into a chest in the back of the church. In a corner,
looking over our shoulders, was a statue of the crucified Savior, all bloody and beaten up. Charlene looked up and said, “Look
at that poor Indian. The pigs sure worked him over.” That was the closest I ever came to seeing Jesus.
I was held up as a bad example and didn’t mind. I was old enough to have a boyfriend and promptly got one. At the school we
had an hour and a half for ourselves. Between the boys’ and the girls’ wings were some benches where one could sit. My
boyfriend and I used to go there just to hold hands and talk. The nuns were very uptight about any boy-girl stuff. They had an
exaggerated fear of anything having even the faintest connection with sex. One day in religion class, an all-girl class, Sister
Bernard singled me out for some remarks, pointing me out as a bad example, an example that should be shown. She said that I
was too free with my body. That I was holding hands which meant that I was not a good example to follow. She also said that I
wore unchaste dresses, skirts which were too short, too suggestive, shorter than regulations permitted, and for that I would be
punished. She dressed me down before the whole class, carrying on and on about my unchastity. . . .
We got a new priest in English. During one of his first classes he asked one of the boys a certain question. The boy was shy.
He spoke poor English, but he had the right answer. The priest told him, “You did not say it right. Correct yourself. Say it over
again.” The boy got flustered and stammered. He could hardly get out a word. But the priest kept after him: “Didn’t you hear?
I told you to do the whole thing over. Get it right this time.” He kept on and on.
I stood up and said, “Father, don’t be doing that. If you go into an Indian’s home and try to talk Indian, they might laugh at you
and say, ‘Do it over correctly. Get it right this time!’”
He shouted at me, “Mary, you stay after class. Sit down right now!”
3: CIVILIZE THEM WITH A STICK
I stayed after class, until after the bell. He told me, “Get over here!” He grabbed me by the arm, pushing me against the
blackboard, shouting, “Why are you always mocking us? You have no reason to do this.”
I said, “Sure I do. You were making fun of him. You embarrassed him. He needs strengthening, not weakening. You hurt him.
I did not hurt you.”
He twisted my arm and pushed real hard. I turned around and hit him in the face, giving him a bloody nose. After that I ran out
of the room, slamming the door behind me. He and I went to Sister Bernard’s office. I told her, “Today I quit school. I’m not
taking any more of this, none of this shit anymore. None of this treatment. Better give me my diploma. I can’t waste any more
time on you people.”
Sister Bernard looked at me for a long, long time. She said, “All right, Mary Ellen, go home today. Come back in a few days
and get your diploma.” And that was that. Oddly enough, that priest turned out okay. He taught a class in grammar,
orthography, composition, things like that. I think he wanted more respect in class. He was still young and unsure of himself.
But I was in there too long. I didn’t feel like hearing it. Later he became a good friend of the Indians, a personal friend of
myself and my husband. He stood up for us during Wounded Knee and after. He stood up to his superiors, stuck his neck way
out, became a real people’s priest. He even learned our language. He died prematurely of cancer. It is not only the good Indians
who die young, but the good whites, too. It is the timid ones who know how to take care of themselves who grow old. I am still
grateful to that priest for what he did for us later and for the quarrel he picked with me—or did I pick it with him?—because it
ended a situation which had become unendurable for me. The day of my fight with him was my last day in school.
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ended a situation which had become unendurable for me. The day of my fight with him was my last day in school.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. The authors use the word kidnapping to describe the forcible removal of Native American children from their
families and culture, by white “do-gooders.” What messages did this practice convey to the public at large? To
Native Americans generally? To the children interred in these boarding schools?
2. What forms of culture shock did Native American children experience upon entering these boarding schools, as
described in this selection?
3. Do you agree or disagree with the statement that “racism breeds racism in reverse”? What sort of observations
or experiences caused you to form that opinion?

Current Trends in the World of Work
PART IV:
Work and Organizations
RELATED CONCEPTS AND IDEAS
The world of work you will enter upon graduation is very different from that of your parents or grandparents. Past generations
of workers often stayed with one company their whole working lives. In return for their loyalty they got job and retirement
security.
You know what company loyalty will get you today? Squat! That is, loyalty alone is not enough. These days, the market an
organization targets is global. For example, the university where I teach pro-actively recruits students from around the world;
thus competing with other universities for students’ tuition dollars. Organizations must constantly look for new and better ways
to serve customers’ needs, to make the product they are selling (here, a college degree) more attractive to the customer than
their competitors’ goods and/or services. Thus organizations tend to make permanent only those employees whose work
directly benefits the clients they serve, thereby benefiting the company itself.
In the past, authority structures of organizations tended to be vertical, pyramid-shaped. There was one CEO or governing board
at the top, a large number of rank-and-file employees at the bottom level, and various levels of middle-managers in between.
Communication was from the top-down. Superiors assumed subordinates were not capable of making decisions on their own;
that they would not work steadily and productively unless they were closely monitored and told what to do. Successful
employees were thus those who did as they were told and did not try to outshine their superiors or otherwise “make waves.”
Today’s work environments are fast-paced, open systems, wherein employees have direct access to information. Any member
can succeed and grow professionally, assuming a certain caliber of performance. Employees have to take the initiative;
ongoingly learn new skills, step up to the plate when called to do so—in short, make a contribution. Authority structures are
more horizontal. Employees work in unsupervised teams, whose members are more or less equal in the status hierarchy. Each
team member has her or his own skills and expertise to contribute.
Your Status as an Employee
The number of core employees, i.e. full-time, permanent workers, in today’s organizations is shrinking. Increasingly,
organizations fill positions with various types of contingent workers. These could be temps, on-call or part-time employees,
job sharers or free agents who contract with employers to complete a specific project. Still others are concurrent workers—
persons who work in two fields at once; for example, someone who is a computer programmer by day and a musician by night.
Contingent and concurrent workers usually receive only wages; no employee benefits such as health insurance, sick or
vacation pay.
Characteristics of Bureaucracy
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Characteristics of Bureaucracy
Your first ‘real’ job after graduation is likely to be in an organization that is large and complex enough to be called a
bureaucracy. As conceived of by sociologists (Weber, 1947:329-341; Blau and Scott, 1962:32-33) bureaucracies are
composed of these essential elements:
! Clear-cut division of labor—Tasks are assigned to occupants of the various statuses as official duties; making possible
a high degree of specialization. Each position carries with it the authority to carry out the assigned duties or to see that
they are carried out by those who report to the position occupant.
! Hierarchy of authority—Even in the more horizontally-structured organizations of today, positions are still configured
into a status hierarchy, such that at least some of the status occupants are superior/subordinate relative to each other.
! Formalized rules and regulations—The rules and regulations that govern employees’ decisions and actions are writtendown;
probably in a handbook or manual that all employees get a copy of, when hired.
! Impersonal orientation—A role expectation for all employees is that they will leave their emotions out of their
interaction with each other and with clients; thus enabling them to be “level-headed,” to think and act rationally.
! Employment and promotions based on technical qualifications—No one gets hired or promoted unless (s)he truly
possesses the requisite job knowledge and/or experience. Personal, family and political connections do not enter into
decisions about whether or not to hire/promote a given individual.
As you can probably guess based on your own work experience, this conception of bureaucracy is an ideal type; i.e. a
prototype. Real-life bureaucracies will be more or less like the ideal laid out here. While the first three of the above
characteristics have been present in all the bureaucracies I’ve worked in to date, the last two were not always in evidence. At
one place I worked, there were individuals who got hired and/or promoted although they lacked the supposedly-necessary
qualifications, because they were related to or sleeping with the boss. It happens.
A lot of stuff goes on in any organization which, procedurally-speaking, is not at all by-the-book; not part of the organization’s
official or formal structure. Employees’ (some of them superiors’) emotions routinely play a part in the decisions they make
and the way they treat others during the daily conducting of business. Channels of communication and operating procedures
that are based on special competencies, friendship or other informal alliances, rather than on official policy, are part of the
organization’s informal structure.
Workplace Subculture
Like any other subculture, each workplace has its own set of norms, values, beliefs, statuses, unique vocabulary and
sometimes, clothing and equipment requirements for specific statuses. You can see the organization’s norms and values at
work, for example, in the way the chain of command is laid out, in the management style used by those in positions of
authority, the emphasis placed on teamwork, the type of work space each employee gets, the office dress code if any and the
importance or lack thereof attached to socializing with coworkers outside of work.
Norms concerning some aspects of a workplace’s subculture, for example the chain of command, are usually written-down, i.e.
formalized. Meanwhile, norms concerning other aspects of the subculture, such as the amount of flak you’ll catch for not going
to happy hour with your coworkers on Friday nights, are not written-down; they are created informally. The subculture of any
workplace partakes of both its formal and informal structures.
Power vs. Authority

Power vs. Authority
Sociologists have traditionally conceived of power as the ability to impose your will on others, despite their efforts to resist.
This definition of power is broad enough to include power in the sense of raw physical force which, with any luck at all, is not
used in the workplace these days to get compliance from subordinates!
More recently, Wartenberg (1990) has defined social power as a magnetic-type pull certain individuals have on others within
their sphere of influence. This ‘pull’ causes the subordinate individuals to orient themselves to the powerful person—
significantly weigh his/her opinions, acquiesce to his/her ‘requests/etc. In this conception, power is given(by the subordinates),
not taken (by the dominant individual).
Note that power does not necessarily entail respect. Subordinates may ‘give’ you the right to tell them what to do because, for
example, they fear you; not because they regard you as a legitimate performer of a leadership role. This is where the meanings
of power and authority diverge: Authority is legitimated power; i.e. power whose use is legitimated by those over whom it is
exercised. This is the kind of power we are talking about, when we’re talking about superior-subordinate relationships in
organizations.
Organizational Authority
Max Weber gave Sociology a way to talk about the bases upon which a leader or the leadership of a social system may govern.
Weber articulated his views on authority in the form of a three-fold typology.
The first type of authority Weber described was authority based in social tradition. In feudal societies, for example, it was
customary for the right to govern to be passed down through royal bloodlines, from one generation to the next. Charismatic
authority was the second type. A charismatic leader’s authority stems from the sheer force or magnetism of his/her personality.
Hitler is a good example of this type. The third type of authority discussed by Weber, rational-legal authority, applies to
official leadership within organizations. Here, the basis of the individual’s authority is the status (s)he occupies within the
organization, not qualities of personality or family heritage.
Each of these types of authority is an ideal type. Traditional, charismatic and rational-legal authority are prototypes;
conveniently distinct from one another in the abstract. In everyday life, though, the authority figures you see in the news or
answer to at your job may be mishmashes of two, maybe all three of these. For example, while Bill Clinton was president he
certainly had authority by virtue of his position, i.e. rational-legal authority. At the same time, he also had authority via his
personal magnetism (no; I don’t know Bill), i.e. charismatic authority.
In defining rational-legal authority (see previous page), I pointed out that it applies to official positions of leadership within
organizations. Authority given an individual by virtue of the position (s)he holds is formal authority. At the same time, other
employees may hold subordinate positions and yet, by virtue of their superior job knowledge, skills, overall job performance or
personal charisma, may be accorded unofficial or informal authority by their peers; sometimes even by their superiors.
Informal authority arrangements are, of course, part of the organization’s informal structure.
Ever worked at a place where the guy in charge was an idiot? As a result, when you needed help you sought out a coworker
who had real expertise, rather than go to the person who was the “authority” in name only. You went to your coworker
because you respected that individual on the basis of his/her superior knowledge and skills. You accorded your coworker
informal authority on that basis.
Management Styles
PART IV: Work and Organizations
Two approaches to organizational management predominate in the sociological literature; scientific management and the
human relations approach. The father of scientific management, Frederick Taylor (1911), believed there was only one best way
to perform a task. He advocated watching employees who were all performing the same task, determining which one of them
performed it the most efficiently; then establishing that worker’s method and/or pace as the standard against which the
performance of all workers should henceforth be measured. Films such as Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times and plays such as
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performed it the most efficiently; then establishing that worker’s method and/or pace as the standard against which the
performance of all workers should henceforth be measured. Films such as Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times and plays such as
David Mamet’s Glengarry, Glen Ross exemplify the type of high-pressure work environment this management style creates.
The human relations style of management is based on the idea that subordinates become more content and consequently, more
productive when their superiors pay attention to them in general and include them in organizational decision-making in
particular. The shop owner in the film Barbershop manages his employees using a human relations approach. Again, both of
these conceptions are ideal types; few workplaces operate purely on one or the other; indeed in some workplaces the
management style appears to be neither of these. Case in point: How would you characterize the management style of Tony
Soprano in The Sopranos?
Leadership Styles
As already noted, teamwork is huge in today’s workplaces. Because hierarchies of authority are now flatter—organizations are
increasingly composed of a variety of positions at more or less the same level—today’s work groups will not necessarily have
officially-appointed task leaders.
In the absence of an official designee, one member of the group is likely to emerge informally—by virtue of his/her job
knowledge or skills, or perhaps just by the force of his/her personality—as a task-oriented leader. The task leader’s job is to
assess the project or task at hand, then orchestrate the activities of group members so as to get the job done.
Because task leaders create stress for team members by putting demands on them, a second type of leader, called a socioemotional
leader, also emerges in many work groups. Socio-emotional leaders emerge by way of their interpersonal skill and
ability to empathize in particular. In the wake of the stress brought on by the task leader, the socio-emotional leader gets
everybody (including the task leader, hopefully) to chill. Thus the socio-emotional leader’s mission is to build esprit de corps,
i.e. solidarity, among group members.
Task-oriented leaders may employ an authoritarian leadership style. Authoritarian leaders make unilateral decisions; give stepby-step
instructions, assign specific tasks to members individually, give subjective praise and criticism but remain aloof from
group interaction. This leadership style produces high levels of frustration and hostility toward the task leader. If such a leader
leaves the work setting, work group productivity is likely to decline—and in today’s organization, at least in the private sector,
such a leader is likely to get fired if (s)he continues engaging in this heavy-handed routine.
Task leaders who operate with a democratic leadership style engage all team members to participate in any decision-making
that concerns the group. Such a leader provides general guidelines for the task at hand but leaves it to the members’ discretion
to work out the mechanics of their process for themselves. (S)he gives objective feedback and participates in group activities.
This type of leadership appears to maximize group productivity. Team members will stay productive even if the leader leaves
the work setting.
Laissez-faire task leaders are those who remain passive; relatively uninvolved. Such leaders limit their participation in the
group to providing members with necessary materials and making suggestions if asked. They do not get involved in group
activities, assist individual members or provide feedback unless specifically asked to do so. This style of leadership tends to
produce low levels of productivity and high levels of frustration and aggression (directed in particular toward the task leader!).
Again, these styles of leadership are ideal types. As you progress through your working life you will inevitably interact with
leaders who are amalgams of these, or who may use any one of these styles depending on his/her mood du jour. One of the
readings coming up in this section, Your Anxious Workplace, discusses how to cope with leaders who do not always act
rationally.
Career Planning as Impression Management

Career Planning as Impression Management
PART IV: Work and Organizations
Upon entering your first career, you want to be able to earn an adequate living and provide security for yourself and your loved
ones. The key to making that happen is to start your career planning now. At the very least, you should be choosing to act right
now in ways that maximize your life chances; the number of options that are open to you later.
You can deliberately sculpt—manage—the impression others form of you, by how you perform the role of college student.
Interactionists such as Erving Goffman (1959) refer to this proactive, impression-sculpting process as impression management.
Depending on what sort of reputation you earn in the eyes of your professors, coaches, employers, career advisors and
internship supervisors—positive, negative or you don’t even show up on the radar—they will be willing or not to help you
reach your goals, for example by writing strong letters of recommendation for you or talking to their associates about you;
networking on your behalf.
Others form their impressions of you on the basis of the information you give them about yourself through your verbal and
nonverbal communications to them. Think about the impression you want those persons to have, who will be in a position to
help you with your career aspirations later. How do you act when you’re around them? Do you shuffle into your classes with
your butt hanging out of your jeans, or with your sunglasses on and your ipod earphones in your ears (where they remain the
entire class period)? If so I hope your friends think you’re cool, because your professors sure won’t.
To give you an example that’s closer to home, do you usually attend this class or blow it off? Where do you usually sit? Are
you in the front row; paying attention and taking notes? Or are you in the back, talking on your cell or text-messaging your
friends? If you think those of us who stand up in front of the class are clueless about what’s going on out in the audience, blow
off this class a lot or show up but talk through the lectures, then try to get a letter of recommendation out of your instructor
sometime.
It takes years for most people to figure out what they’d like to do with their lives, work-wise. I didn’t figure it out until I was in
my late forties. Doug DeVoe (2003/2006), who gives lectures and workshops in my classes on the subject, says most people
have several different careers—not just job-changes, but entire career-changes—during their working lives. Thus you don’t
have to figure out what career you want for the rest of your life; you only have to figure out what sort of work you would like
to do as a first career.
Your parents and others have probably already started asking you what you plan to do with your life. I’m sure you’d like to
have an answer for them; in fact you’d like to know yourself! Being able to articulate what kind of work you would like to do
and why you would like to do it will be the first step in career planning.
You can begin to by writing down your own idea of the perfect work environment, the type of workplace subculture you’d be
most comfortable working within. Next, make a list of the skills you are strong in. Finally, make a list of your favorite
activities; the things you like doing so much that time flies when you do them. These activities may be, but do not have to be,
work-related.
Type up these lists and then make an appointment with a career advisor on your campus. Show your lists to the career advisor.
(S)he will be impressed to see you came to the meeting so prepared! Based on the information you provide, the advisor can
suggest career paths that relate to your skills, interests and ideal work environment.
The next step in career planning is to prepare your first resume, if you have not already done so. Your resume provides only
the information about yourself that you want the target audience to have. Work with your career advisor to draw up a basic
resume. Later, take your basic resume and ‘tweak’ it to fit each specific job or internship you apply for. By doing so, you can
effectively manage the impression the resume-reader has of you.
Career advisors can also show you how to construct cover letters to send along with your resume when you apply for jobs and
internships, or how to compose a personal statement, which you may need to apply for a scholarship or admission to a graduate
program. Both cover letters and personal statements constitute writing samples and tell the reader something about your
personality. Employers and graduate-program directors are not looking only for persons with the necessary on-paper
qualifications. They are also seeking individuals whose personalities appear to be a good ‘fit’ with the subculture of their
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personality. Employers and graduate-program directors are not looking only for persons with the necessary on-paper
qualifications. They are also seeking individuals whose personalities appear to be a good ‘fit’ with the subculture of their
organization. Remember what I said about the importance of the informal structure? Having a cover letter or personal
statement that grabs the attention of the reader(s) (who may have to read 100’s of these), along with a well-constructed resume,
enables you to stand out from the pack when it comes time to decide which applicants to call for an interview.
Career advisors can also teach you how to build and maintain a network of persons who can help with your career
development; how to prepare for and undergo a job interview and then once you get a job offer, how to negotiate your salary.
By managing the impression others of you in each of these arenas, you will maximize your chances for success in your chosen
career.
The readings that follow delve further into some of the aspects of work I have just touched on.
REFERENCES
Bales, Robert E, Personality and Interpersonal Behavior; New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.
Blau, Peter M. and W. Richard Scott, Formal Organizations; San Francisco: Chandler, 1962.
DeVoe, Douglas, lectures and workshops given at Arizona State University, 2003-2006.
Goffman, Erving; The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life; New York: Doubleday, 1959, pp. 208-212.
Harris-Tuck, Annette Price and Marilee Robertson, Career Patterns: A Kaleidoscope of Possibilities, Second Edition;
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2004.
Lewin, Kurt, Ronald O. Lippitt and Ralph K. White, “Patterns of Aggressive Behavior in Experimentally Created Social
Climates,” journal of Social Psychology, 10:271-299, 1939.
Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite, New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1956, 2000.
Taylor, Frederick Winslow, The Principles of Scientific Management; New York: Harper and Brothers, 1911.
Wartenberg, Thomas, The Forms of Power: From Domination to Transformation; Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1990, p. 74.
Weber, Max; From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology; Gerth, Hans H. and C. Wright Mills (trans, and eds.), New York:
Oxford University Press, 1947.
——Economy and Society; Totowa, NJ: Bedminster Press, 1921/1968.
White, Ralph K. and Ronald O. Lippitt, Autocracy and Democracy, New York: Harper and Row, 1960.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What values are important to you, as relate to your first career? Describe your ideal work environment, working
conditions and workplace subculture. Include in your description the size of the organization you would like to
work in, the physical layout of the place, (maybe you prefer to work outdoors?); and all the aspects of workplace
subculture noted in this section (relationships with coworkers, leadership styles, etc.).
2. What types of skills and experience do you have at this point in your life, which would be attractive to an
employer?
3. What activities do you like to do, so much that you lose track of time when you do them?

3. What activities do you like to do, so much that you lose track of time when you do them?
PART IV: Work and Organizations
4. What types of work can you think of, which would encompass the skills, interests and preferences you listed in
questions one through three?
59

MURRAY WEIDENBAUM
1:
SURVEYING THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE
“Half of Xerox’s employees work on foreign soil and less than half of Sony’s employees are Japanese. More than 50%
of IBM’s revenues originate overseas; the same is true for Citigroup, Exxon-Mobil, DuPont, Procter & Gamble, and
many other corporate giants.”
A FEW YEARS AGO, an overnight frost occurred in Brazil. What followed may remind us of the lyrics to the old song: “The
ankle bone is connected to the leg bone. The leg bone is connected to the knee bone.. ..” The global economy truly is
interconnected. An official in Brasilia that morning announced an expected decline in coffee production. The news instantly
reached the Chicago Options Exchange. The price of coffee futures began to rise. Traders in other agricultural products
responded by bidding up their futures prices. Forecasts of commodity prices jumped around the world, triggering concern over
rising inflation—and tightening by central banks. Traders started selling off bonds, driving yields and interest rates higher.
Finally, stock prices fell. Just another day in the global economy.
The global marketplace has been around since ancient times. The Greeks and the Phoenicians traded all over their known
world and invested abroad heavily. They called the results colonies. What is different today is more advanced technology and
more open economies. It took explorer Marco Polo years to travel to China and back. Today, one can fly the round trip in a
couple of days. Information can flow in a fraction of a second. In 1980, 3,000,000,000 minutes of international phone calls
were made into and out of the U.S. Currently, the annual total is over 30,000,000,000.
Globalization—the increased movement of goods, services, people, information, and ideas across national borders and around
the world—no longer is just a buzzword; it has arrived. There is substantial evidence for an increasingly global marketplace.
World trade is expanding much faster than world production and crossborder investments are growing at a more rapid rate than
trade. People in one country are more likely to be affected by economic actions in other nations in many capacities: as
customers, entrepreneurs and investors, managers and workers, taxpayers, and citizens.
An example of the global economy is illustrated in a cartoon of an auto show. The customer asks, “Is this car made in the
United States?” The dealer responds, “Which part?” The Pontiac with a General Motors nameplate was sold through the
Pontiac dealer network. However, the car was assembled in Korea using components made mainly in Asia. In contrast, Honda
models, produced in Marysville, Ohio, have many more U.S.-made parts—but they have a Japanese brand nameplate and are
sold through the Honda dealer network. Which is the American car? Another example of globalization is furnished by the
shipping label used by a U.S. firm: “Made in one or more of the following countries: Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore,
Taiwan, Mauritius, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines.” The label continues, “Exact country of origin is unknown.”
From USA Today Magazine, January 2004, pp. 26-27. Copyright © 2004 by Society for the Advancement of Education,
Inc. Reprinted by permission.
Yet another way of looking at the international marketplace is to examine the flow of imports and exports, not just in and out
of the U.S., but in and out of the European Union and Japan. Almost half of what we call foreign trade actually involves
transactions between different parts of the same company—between a domestic firm and its overseas subsidiaries or between a
foreign firm and its domestic subsidiaries. In a geopolitical sense, this is foreign commerce. To the company, however, these
international flows of goods and services are internal transfers.
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international flows of goods and services are internal transfers.
Globalization, though, does not mean a unified global economy. Not every product is “tradable” internationally. Cement and
haircuts are produced and consumed locally. Even most international trade stays in the region where it originates. Three vast
regions are now economically dominant and are likely to remain so far into the 21st century: North America, Europe, and East
Asia. In North America, Canada is the U.S.’s number-one customer and Mexico is number two. The integration of other
national economies is a continuing process. In the case of the European Union (EU), economic integration seems quite secure.
Nevertheless, the EU’s most important accomplishment is not economic. Rather, for the first time since the days of the
Frankish king Charlemagne, war between France and Germany is unthinkable. The EU is reducing restrictions on business,
trade, and labor. People as well as goods, services, and investments increasingly are able to move freely from one EU nation to
another. This trend makes European businesses more efficient as they achieve greater economies of scale.
For countries outside the EU, however, serious disadvantages result. The EU has reduced the internal trade barriers, but it has
common external trade restrictions against non-members. In 1960, before the European Common Market gained momentum,
more than 60% of the foreign trade of the 15 member nations was outside the EU. At present, about 70-80% stays in the EU.
This is not particularly good news for American companies that are trying to export to Europe.
Nevertheless, the EU is not a static concept. Originally, it comprised six countries: Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the
Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Gradually, it expanded to 15 nations to include the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark,
Greece, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Sweden, and Finland. Who is missing? Norway, Switzerland, and Eastern Europe. Ten
Eastern European countries are scheduled to join May 1, 2004—subject to national vote: Hungary, the Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Malta, and Cyprus. Poland, Slovenia, and Slovakia already have voted
yes. Add up all those gross domestic products and Europe becomes the world’s largest marketplace. Yet, there are limits to
economic unification. Each member nation retains its own tax system, language, and culture. Different national growth rates
place stress on the European Monetary System and not all EU countries have adopted the euro as their currency.
East Asian growth has come in three waves. First was Japan. Although its dominance over Asia is weakening, it still is a world
powerhouse. The second wave—albeit slowed by the 1997-98 financial crisis—included Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong,
Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. The new tier of rapidly developing nations—composed of low-cost industrial suppliers—is
dominated by China. However, most of East Asia’s “foreign” trade is with other Asian countries, as is most of the foreign
investment in the region.
Impact on Business
Globalization is producing fundamental changes in business. The consequences for many firms are profound. Half of
Xerox’s employees work on foreign soil and less than half of Sony’s employees are Japanese. More than 50% of IBM’s
revenues originate overseas; the same is true for Citigroup, Exxon-Mobil, DuPont, Procter & Gamble, and many other
corporate giants. Joint ventures no longer are merely a domestic decision. Coming obtains one-half of its profits from
foreign joint ventures with Samsung in Korea, Asahi Glass in Japan, and Ciba-Geigy in Switzerland. Strategic alliances
increasingly have shifted overseas. They now involve previously competitive companies on different continents.
The automotive and electronics industries provide numerous examples. Boeing and British Aerospace have teamed up for
military projects. Volkswagen produces cars with Ford for the Brazilian market, while General Motors and Toyota operate a
major joint venture in the U.S. In today’s global marketplace, the same companies often are suppliers, customers, and
competitors for and to each other. Whatever approach is used, becoming an internationally oriented company usually pays
off. Sales by American firms with no foreign activities grow at half the rate of those with international operations.
Companies with international business grow faster in every industry and their profits are higher.
While private enterprise increasingly is global, government policy often is extremely parochial. Voters care about their jobs
and locality, and politicians readily exploit those concerns. Consider Pres. Bush’s steel protection plan. It benefits steel
producing industries in a few states—but it hurts steel-using industries far more. However, the effects are spread out over all
50 states. Remember, consumers, who think more about price and quality than country of origin, vote every day—in dollars,
yen, euros, and pounds. They buy products and services made anywhere in the world. I recently saw a bumper sticker that

1: SURVEYING THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE
50 states. Remember, consumers, who think more about price and quality than country of origin, vote every day—in dollars,
yen, euros, and pounds. They buy products and services made anywhere in the world. I recently saw a bumper sticker that
proclaimed, “Save whales, boycott Japanese products.” It was on a Toyota.
The extremists on both sides of the debate should be ignored. Many proglobalization proponents are true believers, urging
government to get out of the way entirely, thus allowing the marketplace to work its magic. At the same time,
antiglobalization critics also are dedicated to their beliefs. They want to eliminate the entire capitalistic system. Let us try to
develop a high middle ground. The serious views on globalization can be divided into a bright side and a dark side. As to the
former, international cooperation increases economic growth and living standards—but not uniformly. It offers consumers
greater variety of products and lower prices while raising the number of jobs and wage levels. Improvements in overall
working conditions, however, do not occur for every worker.
Globalization keeps business on its toes, although firms unable to compete wind up on their backs. A global economy
encourages a greater exchange of information and use of technology. Yet, terrorists take advantage of that. Global economic
development provides wealth for environmental cleanup, but there is no guarantee that the resources will be used for that
purpose. The record shows it helps developing nations and lifts millions of people out of poverty by creating a new middle
class, although not every poor country develops. For example, globalization has bypassed central Africa. International
economic development extends business and political freedom, yet corruption can be rampant. Finally, the result of a more
global economy is longer life expectancy, improved health standards, and higher literacy rates.
On the dark side, widespread poverty occurs in the midst of global prosperity. The critics assert that is caused by
globalization. International income disparity tends to increase, but fewer people remain in poverty. On balance, the rich are
getting richer faster than the poor. In terms of geographical differences, eastern and southern Asia are developing much
faster than Africa and western Asia.
Critics contend that globalization moves jobs to low-wage factories that abuse workers’ rights. True, many children work in
sweatshops, but few of them are employed by the large multinational corporations. Overwhelmingly, the poor working
conditions are found in indigenous firms, producing goods for local markets. When we ask why children work, the response
is troublesome—because their families are in poverty. In many cases, the entire region has been left behind by globalization,
which is why low-income countries welcome foreign investment, a process that exerts an upward force on wages,
production, and national income. A basic economic principle is at work here: raise the demand for labor and wages will rise.
The puppet-parading protesters at the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle and Mexico were wrong. On balance,
globalization—warts and all—is working. Those “terrible” multinational enterprises are creating widespread wealth. In
recent years, the poorer countries have been growing at a 50% faster rate than the more developed nations. More people
have moved out of poverty in the last two decades than ever before. Economic development is far from complete, though.
Many societies are not participating in the world economy, especially in Africa. They need the opportunity to reap the
benefits achieved by other hitherto undeveloped economies, such as South Korea.
Finally, we should not ignore the challenges that arise in a dynamic global economy, notably, the development of China as
an industrial power and the rise of India as a major service center. Their growing economic strength is generating problems
as well as opportunities for business firms, workers, and consumers everywhere. History provides examples of such basic
changes. In the 19th century, Europe dominated the world economy. That monopoly ended with the rise of the U.S. as a
major industrial power. Europe’s share of world commerce declined, but the absolute results were very positive. Total world
trade rose. So did living standards in each nation. A similar situation is developing in Asia. Japan emerged as a major
economic power in the 20th century—and the pace of economic development accelerated. A comparable result occurred in
the 19th century. The American economy in effect was the new boy on the block. In the 21st century, we can expect China
and India to fill that role.
Much will depend on the policies they pursue. History demonstrates that six factors are key to global economic success: an
economy open to foreign trade and investment; minimal government controls over business, but the effective supervising of
financial institutions; an uncorrupt judicial system; economic information that is transparent and readily available; high
labor mobility; and easy entry into the marketplace by new businesses. These six points underscore an even more basic
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financial institutions; an uncorrupt judicial system; economic information that is transparent and readily available; high
labor mobility; and easy entry into the marketplace by new businesses. These six points underscore an even more basic
notion: Vigorous competition is the key to long-term international economic success.
Murray Weidenbaum, Ecology Editor of USA Today, is Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor, Washington
University, St. Louis, Mo.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Describe three ways in which globalization has affected you, e.g. as a consumer of goods and services, as a
traveler in other countries, as an employee or as an investor in the stock market.
2. Do you try to “buy American?” Why or why not?
3. Given the gains made by the European Union’s citizens as well as its businesses, should we form a similar
union with Canada and Mexico? What advantages and/or disadvantages would such a union yield?

HARRIET LERNER
2:
YOUR ANXIOUS WORKPLACE: Staying Calm and
Clearheaded in a Crazy Environment
Work—it’s a stressful business. That may not seem like big news to you, but the way anxiety plays out in the workplace is
more complex and intriguing than you might imagine. For starters, it’s not only individuals who get anxious. Systems get
anxious, too. When a workplace is under stress (which is almost always), it will develop an anxiety disorder of its very own.
Are you part of a work organization, large or small? If so, you are part of an anxious system. “There is no other kind,”
observes organizational consultant Jeffrey Miller. Indeed, he suggests that if you happen to find yourself in an anxiety-free
workplace, it won’t be in business for long, so you should send out your resume at once.
As Miller writes in The Anxious Organization, anxiety is “a force of nature, as elemental as wind and rain. It is what
organizations are made of, and what makes them tick.” Any system that doesn’t register and respond to anxiety won’t survive.
Nor will you survive (or at least not well) if you don’t know how to recognize the signs of an anxious workplace and figure out
how to manage your anxiety at a personal level.
In these days of corporate corruption and collapse, ruthless downsizing and instant terminations, it may seem like a luxury to
contemplate ways to identify and tame workplace anxiety. Many people live in fear of losing their jobs or not finding one to
begin with. It’s a wildly anxious time for economic survival. Nonetheless, most of us either work at some kind of job or are
looking hard for one. As current or future members of a workplace, we must realize that our livelihoods will depend partly on
how well we’re able to size up and negotiate the anxieties of our particular organization.
If you are not currently part of a work system, don’t skip this chapter. You can apply what you learn here to another system
you belong to—your family, school, volunteer organization, church, synagogue, mosque, or government. We all operate in
anxious systems a fair amount of the time. I’m reminded of novelist Mary Karr’s definition of a dysfunctional family as “any
family with more than one person in it.” Likewise, a dysfunctional organization is any organization that has more than one
person in it.
Going to Extremes
If, like many people, you are part of an organization that is struggling with anxiety about resources and survival, you may
know firsthand that it tends to behave just like a dysfunctional family under stress. All anxious systems have certain traits
and characteristics in common.
As we’ve seen, anxiety causes a loss of objectivity and balance in individuals, pushing people to extremes. When anxiety
and fear invade your workplace, your superiors will expect too little or too much, will underreact or overreact, be too
authoritarian and involved or too hands-off and withdrawn. They will overfocus on your mistakes in an unhelpful way, or
ignore your performance altogether. You will be denied the information and feedback necessary to do your job, or you will
be given more information than you can possibly process and manage. Your organization will have little spirit for adventure
and risk-taking, or it will plunge recklessly into high-risk ventures. There will be exaggerated calls to loyalty and sameness,
or not enough cohesiveness and togetherness. Does any of this sound familiar?
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or not enough cohesiveness and togetherness. Does any of this sound familiar?
Let me be clear: Anxiety is a good thing when it signals a problem and motivates a group to pull together to solve it
effectively. Without anxiety, a system wouldn’t register and respond to threats to its survival. But more frequently, this
signal value of anxiety is lost. Instead, anxiety revs up everyone to “do something,” even when the nature of the threat isn’t
clear. Even when it is clear, there may be no agreement about what to do. The lack of a coherent perspective and plan of
action generate additional anxiety, which often turns into chronic, underground anxiety. This results in poorly thought-out
behaviors, less objective thinking, and less creative problem solving. In addition, you can expect a steep decline in civility
and cooperation among participants in the system.
You can’t observe the actual anxiety in a system because anxiety is an invisible force that flows from one person (or
department) to another. But you can observe the symptoms and signs of an anxious system, just as you can observe the
symptoms and signs of your anxious self. Observation is the first step in changing your own anxiety-driven behaviors so that
you can become more comfortable and effective at work.
Is This Your Boss?
If you’re in a chronically anxious (read, dysfunctional) system, your boss or supervisor will probably do what anxious
people automatically do. When stress hits, she might angrily confront someone or go for the quick fix. She might give in
to the impulse to “do something,” like calling an emergency meeting or demanding that an employee meet a nearimpossible
deadline. Of course, any “solution” hatched in the overheated incubator of anxiety will almost surely be the
wrong one.
Other typical anxiety-driven behaviors might prevail. Your boss might become fixated on the “hot spots” in the
organization while ignoring the quieter problems that also need attention. He might participate in gossip, take sides, and
form cliques or triangles. He might apply personnel policies in an arbitrary or partial manner, or announce ambitious new
plans or initiatives—then suddenly abandon them. When employees got embroiled in seemingly unresolvable conflicts, he
might overfocus on certain “difficult personalities” (“Bob is passive-aggressive”) rather than staying task-oriented,
gathering facts, and clarifying policy and procedures.
What else? Your anxious boss might fail to ask clarifying questions, state clear expectations, give direct feedback about
performance, or listen well to the differing opinions of others. Instead, her communications might be vague,
contradictory, mystifying, or dictatorial. Or she might try to make her employees feel like “one big happy family” by
failing to take unpopular positions when need be, or by refusing to allow open expressions of dissent.
I’m not just making a laundry list of the regrettable qualities your lousy boss may have. We tend to think of an
individual’s behavior as reflecting fixed “personality characteristics.” But people are capable of varying levels of
competence, depending on their own level of stress and the level of anxiety in the system. If your boss were magically
free of anxiety and stress, he or she might behave with far more clarity and maturity.
But reality is reality. If your workplace is chronically anxious, your boss, as well as other people you interact with at
work, may drive you crazy a good bit of the time. You will be vulnerable to absorbing high levels of anxiety yourself
unless you know how to protect yourself by recognizing and modifying your own style of managing stress.
So put on your anthropologist hat and think of yourself as an observer of a fascinating culture. It is the culture of the
anxious system—your workplace system. Keep in mind that all systems are anxious a good deal of the time, to one degree
or another. Obviously, anxiety is highest when resources are scarce and the well-being or survival of your organization is
threatened. But it’s important to remember that any change can trigger anxiety in a system. So even when your workplace
has abundant resources, you can count on the fact that your work system, like your family system, will be regularly hit
with sources of stress from changes both inside and outside the organization.

with sources of stress from changes both inside and outside the organization.
Anxiety Travels!
When stress hits your workplace, anxiety will zoom through the system as everyone tries to get rid of their own by dumping
it on someone else. How you manage your own anxiety, no matter where you are in the work hierarchy, will either calm
things down or further rev things up.
From a systems perspective, there are five styles of managing anxiety. These are the patterned ways we move under stress:
! Underfunctioning
! Overfunctioning
! Blaming
! Distancing
! Gossip, gossip, gossip
These behaviors are a good barometer of the level of anxiety in any work (or family) system. Of course, there are an infinite
number of things that you might do to reduce your personal stress and get comfortable, like eating the bag of potato chips
that’s stashed in your desk or going for a walk around the block. But there are only five automatic patterned ways that we
behave in relationships under stress.
Each of these styles of managing anxiety bring short-term comfort with a long-term cost, like eating potato chips. Your style
of managing anxiety will interact with the other person’s style of managing anxiety, generating increasingly high levels of
tension. If you have an especially intense relationship with someone in your workplace, you know how hard it can be to
wake up in the morning, put your clothes on, and go to work. Let’s take a look at how anxiety travels, and how we can avoid
absorbing too much of it ourselves—or passing it along to others.
Whose Anxiety Are You Catching?
During my first job, I learned how quickly anxiety travels, and how easy it is to participate in a downward-spiraling process.
Actually, I didn’t learn a thing when I was in the system—except how miserable I was and how victimized I felt. It’s hard to
be objective when we’re in the soup. Plus, I knew nothing about systems theory at the time and viewed everything as a
matter of individual pathology—the other person’s pathology, of course. I was riveted on who was right and what was true,
rather than observing and modifying my style of managing anxiety and stress.
Here was my scenario:
SETTING: A large psychiatric hospital in San Francisco
PLAYERS (from the top down):
Dr. Pattel, director of the psychiatric hospital
Dr. White, chief psychologist (reports to Dr. Pattel) and my therapy supervisor
Me, psychology intern at the hospital
Ms. Walters, senior secretary
2: YOUR ANXIOUS WORKPLACE: Staying Calm and Clearheaded in a Crazy Environment
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Ms. Walters, senior secretary
Alice, nineteen-year-old daughter of Dr. Pattel
Plot: Alice called me for psychotherapy. I agreed to see her. Anxiety cascades down the system, at the expense of
everyone’s functioning.
SCENE I: FRIDAY AFTERNOON AT WORK
Alice called me at work and asked to see me in psychotherapy. She and I had been introduced at a party in Berkeley
a week earlier. I had time available so I agreed to meet with her.
SCENE II: SATURDAY AFTERNOON AT DR. PATTEL’S HOME
Alice told her father, Dr. Pattel, that she would be starting therapy with me next week. He became extremely
anxious. Understandably, he wanted Alice to be seen by a senior therapist with more status and experience than I
possessed. Also, he was not especially fond of me, which may have been why Alice chose me in the first place.
SCENE III: SATURDAY EVENING PHONE CALL
Dr. Pattel phoned my supervisor, Dr. White. He angrily demanded to know why Dr. White had allowed this to
happen. In fact, Dr. White knew nothing about the situation, because I planned to inform him during our supervision
meeting the following Monday. Indeed, I had no inkling that agreeing to see Alice was a big deal because I had
permission to pick up appointments if I had open hours. In fact, I was flattered that Alice had chosen me as her
therapist, and I naively thought that Dr. White would be pleased as well.
SCENE IV: MONDAY MORNING AT WORK
I arrived at work Monday to find a memo in my mailbox from Dr. White, typed by Ms. Walters, the senior secretary,
who sat at the front desk. Dr. White wrote that he was “dismayed and disappointed” that I had agreed to see Alice
without consulting him and noted that my failure to talk with him before the weekend had put him in a bad light with
Dr. Pattel. Dr. White said he wanted to meet with me “immediately” even though we had a scheduled supervision
meeting that afternoon. The tone of the memo was stern and admonishing. I was flooded with anxiety.
SCENE V: FROM BAD TO WORSE
Before I had even met with Alice for an initial appointment, the emotional climate surrounding the therapy process
was anxious and emotionally intense. Dr. Pattel had passed his anxiety along to Dr. White, who in turn had passed it
on to me.
The wisest course might have been to call Alice at this point and tell her that, unfortunately, I had been mistaken and
I couldn’t see her. In fact, she probably would have gotten better treatment outside of her father’s hospital. But Dr.
White informed me that he and Dr. Pattel had decided that I would see Alice, and that Dr. White would supervise my
work with her very closely.
And so he did. What developed was an excruciating overfunctioning-underfunctioning dance. Dr. White
micromanaged my work with Alice at the expense of paying attention to my work with other patients. As an
inexperienced therapist, I was anxious to begin with, but under Dr. White’s intense scrutiny, I had increasing
difficulty reaching for my competence and drawing on my creativity and intuition in my work with Alice. I
constantly feared saying the wrong thing to her, rather than simply viewing mistakes as an opportunity to learn.
Whenever I met with Alice, I felt Dr. White’s stern presence in the room. I’m quite sure Dr. White felt that Dr. Pattel

constantly feared saying the wrong thing to her, rather than simply viewing mistakes as an opportunity to learn.
Whenever I met with Alice, I felt Dr. White’s stern presence in the room. I’m quite sure Dr. White felt that Dr. Pattel
was looking over his shoulder, too.
Several months into the treatment process, I forgot a therapy session with Alice. She sat in the waiting room in her
father’s hospital, while I was nowhere in sight. It was the first time I had ever spaced out on a therapy appointment,
and I’m sure my anxiety (and tamped-down anger) contributed to my forgetting. To make matters worse, I had
neglected to give my weekly schedule to the secretary, Ms. Walters, as I was supposed to. She didn’t even know
where to look for me.
Ms. Walters jumped into the fray by calling Dr. White and informing him that Alice had an appointment with me and
I had gone AWOL. She added that I hadn’t filled out my schedule, and mentioned that I often neglected to give her a
completed schedule at the start of the week. While this was true, Ms. Walters had never spoken to me directly about
the problem. Dr. White’s reaction was immediate and intense: Everything must be done to locate me. Phones starting
ringing throughout the hospital, but I was nowhere to be found. Even now, decades later, I recall exactly where I was
during that hour. I was in a café down the street, happily eating a roast beef sandwich.
I walked back into a thrum of anxiety. There was a stack of memos and phone messages waiting for me, as well as
disapproving looks from the secretaries. Dr. Pattel passed me in the hall with averted eyes and no greeting. Even
before I took my coat off, several people told me that Dr. White was looking for me.
SCENE VI: FROM WORSE TO WORSER
En route to Dr. White’s office, my anxiety blossomed into anger. This was the first time I had forgotten a therapy
appointment. I regretted it, but it was not a huge deal. I knew of other psychology interns, and even senior staff
members, who had done the same. How could I function in this crazy goldfish bowl? I was enraged by the entire
situation, including Ms. Walters’s incendiary call to my supervisor, which was certainly not standard procedure.
I did exactly the wrong thing. I walked into Dr. White’s office and began, “I’m sorry I forgot the appointment with
Alice, but. . .” Then I proceeded to blame Dr. White for my situation, implying that he was partly responsible for my
spacing out on the session, because how could I possibly do good work with him breathing down my neck?
I believe I put it more tactfully than that, but as you might imagine, this conversation did not go well. Dr. White
responded to my defensiveness and blaming by becoming more defensive and blaming himself. He told me that even
the secretaries found me difficult and that my failure to fill out my weekly schedule reflected “a narcissistic sense of
entitlement.” He noted that my poor attitude would be reflected in my written evaluation. This infuriated me further
and made me sorry I had ever agreed to see Alice.
I thought things couldn’t get any worse, but I was wrong, I was late for my next therapy session with Alice! I took a
phone call five minutes before the appointment and didn’t watch the clock. Ah, the power of the unconscious! Ms.
Walters knew I was in my office, and she could have simply knocked on my door or buzzed me. Instead she called
Dr. White and announced that “Alice has been sitting in the waiting room for ten minutes while Harriet is on the
phone.” Dr. White banged on my office door, furious. “Why aren’t you with Alice?” he barked. Awash in anxiety, I
proceeded to do what anxious people do. I distanced, blamed, gossiped, and so forth.
The Postmortem
2: YOUR ANXIOUS WORKPLACE: Staying Calm and Clearheaded in a Crazy Environment
Only later did I understand that all the players in this drama had the same goals, which were to provide Alice with good
therapy, and to get comfortable themselves. In anxious situations, people rarely have bad intentions. In my workplace,
everyone was trying to make a difficult situation better, but responded in his or her automatic, patterned way of managing
anxiety. Unwittingly, everyone made it worse.
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anxiety. Unwittingly, everyone made it worse.
Perhaps you sympathize with one person more than another. At the time, I sympathized entirely with myself and blamed
everyone else. It’s easier to blame others than to observe how anxiety travels through a system and develop a plan to modify
one’s own anxiety-binding behaviors. Let’s consider how all the players could have managed their anxiety more
functionally—from the top down.
Dr. Pattel
The anxiety could have been contained right here. Dr. Pattel had the authority to tell Dr. White that I was not to see Alice.
Or, if he did want me to see his daughter in therapy, it was not constructive for Dr. Pattel to make an intense call to Dr.
White at home over the weekend. Dr. Pattel could have waited until Monday and calmly communicated that he was
concerned about my inexperience, but confident that Dr. White would do a good job supervising me. Then he could have
bowed out of the process. This would have helped to create a calmer emotional climate, which ultimately would have
given the therapy the best chance of succeeding.
Dr. White
Dr. White could have contained the anxiety that Dr. Pattel passed on to him, rather than passing it on down the pike.
When Dr. Pattel called him on Saturday, Dr. White could have stayed factual and calm. (“I’ll check with Harriet on
Monday, since I didn’t know about this. Would you like me to tell her to refer Alice to another therapist?”)
The critical memo that Dr. White left in my mailbox Monday morning also drove the intensity higher. He could have
waited to talk to me during our regular supervision hour later that day. He might have said lightly, “You know, Harriet,
what you did was totally understandable, since the policy is that you can accept patients who call you directly when you
have open hours. But since Alice is the daughter of the head of the department, you should have checked it out with me
before agreeing to see her.” Obviously, I would be more likely to be able to hear constructive criticism if it was delivered
calmly and respectfully.
Dr. White also could have gotten a grip on his own pattern of overfunctioning under stress. By focusing on me as “the
problem” in an intense and worried way, he only made the situation worse. Ditto for his supervising me too closely, and
focusing more on my incompetence than on my competence. Also, his comment on my personality (“You have a
narcissistic sense of entitlement”) was a form of blaming and one-upmanship that only drove the anxiety higher. It would
have been better if he had stayed with facts and expectations. (“Giving your schedule to Ms. Walters each week is part of
your job and you need to do it.”)
Ms. Walters
Ms. Walters escalated the anxiety further by overstepping boundaries. It was not standard procedure for a secretary to call
a therapist’s supervisor about a late or missed appointment. If she had first brought my problematic behavior to my
attention, her next step in the organization system would have been to go to my supervisor. But she had never talked
directly to me, whether the issue was Alice sitting in the waiting room or my failure to give her my schedule.
When we talk about a person being a problem, rather than directly to the person, we add to the underground anxiety and
make it harder for the talked-about person to behave with confidence and competence.
My Part in the Dance
I did most of the automatic things we do under stress. I underfunctioned, blamed, distanced, and gossiped—the whole
works! Let’s take a closer look at the five styles of managing anxiety, with an eye toward learning more about the
patterned ways we move under stress.

patterned ways we move under stress.
The Five Styles of Managing Anxiety
Underfunctioning
My sibling position (the younger sister of a sister) primed me for underfunctioning—doing too little. You don’t need to be
a youngest child to underfunction. But youngests are naturals, just as eldests are natural overfunctioners and can become
control freaks under stress.
Underfunctioning in the workplace can take many forms. You may not meet the requirements of the job. Or you may be
quite competent, but present yourself in a manner that invites people to see you as spacey, immature, or irresponsible.
You may project an image of helplessness and vulnerability, inviting others to take over for you. You may do brilliant
work, but underfunction in a specified area, such as not doing your paperwork, meeting deadlines, or showing up for
meetings on time.
In the youngest child’s quest to be a creative and charming free spirit, she may underestimate the importance of following
rules, respecting hierarchies, and attending to the more tedious requirements of the job. Youngests tend to be very critical
of authority, and quite certain they will do a better job—but may drop leadership like a hot potato if it’s actually offered
to them. Youngests may also underfunction by sharing personal information at work before taking enough time to test out
the maturity level of the individuals they take into their confidence.
I needed to get a grip on underfunctioning. It was my responsibility to figure out how I could do my best work with Alice.
It was also my responsibility to meet all the requirements of my job, including filling out my weekly schedule and getting
it to Ms. Walters in a timely fashion. If I had a lot of status, perhaps I could have gotten away with underfunctioning
around the edges. But as a junior person, I needed to do everything required of me, rather than thinking that my talent for
the “real work” of psychology excused, me from the parts of the job I disliked.
Here are the lessons I learned, if not on the job, then after the job.
Lesson #1: Take Responsibility
Meet all the requirements of your job before asking for a special project or privilege. Abide by the rules. Many details of
the job may seem trivial or tedious to you, like meeting all your paperwork deadlines or returning from lunch on time. If
they are important to your boss or supervisor, do them.
Underfunctioners often get labeled “a problem.” So in addition to meeting your job requirements, be cautious about
sharing personal problems and other sensitive information in your work setting. Take time to assess who is mature, kind,
trustworthy, and discreet—and who is not.
Blaming
2: YOUR ANXIOUS WORKPLACE: Staying Calm and Clearheaded in a Crazy Environment
It has always been my strength to speak openly and directly to authority when I am angry about injustice. But the
productive use of anger is different from nonproductive blaming that gets nowhere or even makes things worse. Dr. White
was already anxious himself, and my attempts to be “open” with him, especially when I had no consideration for such
matters as timing and tact, only raised the intensity higher.
Instead, I should have focused on my part of the problem and figured out how I could lower the negative intensity
between us. For example, it didn’t help matters when I criticized Dr. White for supervising my work with Alice too
closely. Instead, I might have said, “Dr. White, I appreciate your help with Alice, but I feel as though I’m neglecting some
of my other patients.” (This was true.) “I need to use this supervision hour to talk about Charles. I’m really stuck in my
work with him right now and I need your perspective.” That way, I would have related to his competence and I would not
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of my other patients.” (This was true.) “I need to use this supervision hour to talk about Charles. I’m really stuck in my
work with him right now and I need your perspective.” That way, I would have related to his competence and I would not
have been seen as a blamer and complainer.
Likewise, I could have found a diplomatic way to talk about my anxiety working with a VIP under such close supervision,
without implying that Dr. White was responsible for my feelings and behaviors. For example, “Dr. White, I appreciate
your help with Alice but it also makes me anxious to know that my work in this case is being watched so closely. Do you
have any advice on how I could deal with this anxiety, or work more collaboratively with you on helping Alice?”
Lesson #2: Think It Through
Blaming is an automatic response to anxiety. You overfocus on what the other person is doing to you (or not doing for
you) and under-focus on your own creative options to change your part in the problem. You lose your capacity to see two
sides of a problem, or better yet, six or seven sides.
Your anger may be totally legitimate, but as my friend Marianne Ault-Riché says, “It is when the other person is being the
biggest jerk that you are called upon to be your most mature self.” When anxiety is high, it’s far more important to be
strategic than spontaneous. When an organization is under stress, any one individual can easily become a candidate for the
position of “problem employee.” Don’t raise your hand and volunteer for the job by getting seen as a blamer or
complainer.
While clear and direct communication is always a good move, people confuse “honesty” and “clarity” with blaming (“I
told my boss he was sexist and threatened by strong women”). Blaming is the easiest way to ruin your career. It’s
surprising how many people blame when it never benefits the blamer. If you observe the best employees or bosses, they
don’t blame, they just talk about the facts of what happened with another person.
When you’re feeling angry or intense, take time out to calm down. Then consider what you want to accomplish and how
you can state your different views without getting critical or defensive yourself.
Distancing
When anxiety hits, we all withdraw from the people we find difficult. When I got sufficiently uncomfortable, I said to
myself, “Dr. White is so impossible that I am just going to stay in my office, shut the door, and speak to him only when
absolutely necessary in our weekly supervision meetings.” And “Ms. Walters and the other secretaries are gossiping about
me and I’m going to avoid them, too,” And “Dr. Pattel should be staying the hell out of this therapy process, and I don’t
want to see his face.”
So what’s wrong with that? As a family therapist friend says, “Thank God for distance and cutoff!” We do need to protect
ourselves when the feelings evoked by connecting are unmanageable or simply too painful. Withdrawal does relieve
anxiety and intensity. The flight response (like the fight response) is wired into us for good reason.
Here’s the problem: Other people’s misperceptions about you will only harden if you avoid showing your face. The more
you distance from people in your work group, the more you will become the target of other people’s inaccurate
perceptions and gossip. You will carry more underground tension in the long run if you avoid the short-term anxiety that
is evoked by making some contact.
Lesson # 3: Hang Out Rather Than Hide Out
Show up at events, office parties, and informal gatherings around the coffeepot. Look people in the eye, smile, and say
hello. Use humor, bantering, and small talk to lower the tension with difficult people. Try to move toward the person who
is most critical of you, show some interest in his work and ideas, and give the difficult people credit for good qualities
they have.

they have.
Temporary distance is crucial, especially when we need to calm down, think, and make a plan. Just don’t let it get
entrenched. Plus, if you don’t make regular contact and engage in bantering and small talk during calm times, there’s no
chance you’ll be heard when you try to address a controversial issue.
. . .
Emotional distancing is a subset of distancing: You may show up bodily, but withdraw emotionally. You fail to say what
you really think about important issues. You silence yourself because you don’t want to make waves, criticize, or draw
negative attention to yourself. Or maybe you’ve just “given up.” You may sit in meetings entertaining your own private
fantasies. Or you may try to pay attention, but you’re not an authentically engaged participant.
Emotional distancing isn’t my automatic style, or at least not my first line of defense. I tend to overtalk hot issues when
I’m anxious, rather than avoiding them. But I have been in work setting where emotional distance prevails—and boredom
and flatness result. Lifeless-ness; disengagement; fatigue; “burnout”; the loss of spontaneity, creativity, and vitality are
the hallmarks of a system where silence and secrecy prevail and anxiety is managed primarily by emotional distancing.
Lesson #4: Stay Present and Be Direct
That doesn’t mean you need to speak to every irritation that comes along. My automatic tendency to confront every
injustice in the workplace has often been unproductive. It’s an act of maturity to choose your battles and let other things
go. When an issue is important to you, you need to be able to ask clear questions, say what you think and believe, and
clarify where you stand. But choosing your battles is especially important because anyone who tries to change too much
of the organization is seen as a “problem person.”
Gossip! Gossip! Gossip!
What is “gossip”? We gossip when we talk about someone, rather than directly to him. Two people move closer to each
other at the expense of the gossiped-about party, who is focused on in a critical or worried way. You can measure the
amount of anxiety in any system by the amount of gossip going on.
When things got intense with Dr. White, I gossiped away! For example, I tried to get some sympathy from a bright young
psychiatrist by badmouthing Dr. White and telling her how impossible he was. I described him as “a nasty little ferret,”
zealously nosing around to uproot my imperfections. At first she was sympathetic. But Dr. White also supervised her, and
she needed to have a good relationship with him. She soon became Dr. White’s “golden girl” and distanced from me. As
the outsider in a triangle I had helped to create, I found that my anxiety increased further.
Can it ever be useful to involve a third party? Of course. When I was having trouble with Dr. White, it would have been
helpful for me to seek out a wise, clearheaded person for advice about better managing my relationship with him. But I
wasn’t looking for helpful coaching, which requires a focus on the self. I was looking for an ally—a perfectly normal
human impulse. So I grabbed anyone I thought might be sympathetic.
The higher my anxiety, the more I wanted to corner everyone and say, “Let me tell you what that horrid, intrusive little
ferret is doing now!” That would have been fine to do with my husband or best friends. But talking about Dr. White to
others in the workplace, and especially to the young psychiatrist who needed to have a good relationship with him, was
unwise. A good rule about gossip is to try not to say anything that you wouldn’t want to be overheard.
Lesson #5: Be Straightforward
2: YOUR ANXIOUS WORKPLACE: Staying Calm and Clearheaded in a Crazy Environment
When you are having a problem with someone at work, talk directly to that person. If you’re angry with Gregory, don’t
complain about Gregory to Sue, especially if Sue needs to have a viable work relationship with him. At best, gossiping
can only work short-term. If you stop Sue in the hallway to spout off about Gregory and she responds sympathetically,
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complain about Gregory to Sue, especially if Sue needs to have a viable work relationship with him. At best, gossiping
can only work short-term. If you stop Sue in the hallway to spout off about Gregory and she responds sympathetically,
your anxiety may diminish. Letting off steam this way may help you to calm down and manage things with Gregory in a
better way. We participate in this kind of transient gossip all the time, sometimes with no harm done.
Of course, it’s better to say, “Sue, I’m having some trouble working with Gregory. Do you have any advice on what I can
do to make this easier?” When you make gossiping a habit, it can back-fire big-time. If you keep up the negative focus on
Gregory, Sue may become more distant from Gregory or more reactive to him. If Gregory is underfunctioning, he will
have to work even harder to gain competence if he’s the subject of gossip. Or if Sue begins to like and respect Gregory,
she may begin to distance from you. Gossip creates insiders and outsiders. It makes it more difficult for all parties to
resolve the issues between them and to feel competent and included.
Overfunctioning
Overfunctioning—doing too much—takes several forms. It’s the natural province of firstborns, who tend to think they
know what’s best not only for themselves but for everyone else on the planet. Dr. White overfunctioned in typical
firstborn fashion, supervising my work too closely and failing to recognize that his hypervigilance only increased my
anxiety.
Overfunctioning was the one thing I did not do in my first workplace. But I did my share of it over the course of my long
career at the Menninger Clinic. My particular “youngest” style of overfunctioning was to act as though I had the truth of
the universe and to zealously try to convince my misguided colleagues of the error of their ways. I jumped into the center
of every hot issue, overtalking my point even after it was clear that my listeners had had enough. The combination of my
overfunctioning (trying to change, educate, and reform my colleagues) and underfunctioning (losing forms under piles on
my desk, ignoring administrative protocol) did not endear me to my superiors. In fact, I was told I had the “largest
personnel file” of any psychologist in the history of the institution. While my friend Stephanie considers this distinction
“a shiny badge of honor,” it caused me considerable pain to be the target of negative focus.
Lesson #6: Know When to Stop
To begin to let go of overfunctioning, it may help to consider how your sibling position may influence your style.
If you are the older sister of a sister, you may overfunction in a manner that gives you the reputation of being a bossy
control freak.
If you’re an older brother (or the first male in your sibling group), you’re in luck. Your overfunctioning may lead you to
be seen as a “natural leader” and a person who knows how to take charge. (If you think this might be sexist, you’re right.)
If you’re the older sister of a brother, you won’t ruffle feathers. But in your unassuming, tactful way of assuming
leadership, others may overlook your competence and contributions.
If you’re a middle sibling, you may be seen as a “good team player.” Your style of over-functioning may involve taking
on extra work and responsibilities, while ignoring your own career goals or failing to formulate them in the first place.
If you are a middle sister with brothers, you may be particularly dutiful, sensitive to the needs of others, as well as
conflict-avoidant. You may also be overly tolerant of the underfunc-tioning of others, and overfunction by picking up
slack for others who screw up or slack off.
Overfunctioning youngests, as I said earlier, can act like bossy know-it-alls but are typically more interested in feeling
included, appreciated, and understood, than in assuming leadership.

included, appreciated, and understood, than in assuming leadership.
Of course, a person in any sibling position can adopt any or all of the five styles in the same work context—and even on
the same day. All of these styles are normal and ordinary ways of navigating relationships under stress. The higher the
anxiety, the more we “overdo” these behaviors. This contributes to more anxious reactivity. So we need to calm down,
think clearly, and modify our own style of navigating relationships under stress.
Think Systems!
When my workplace drama (still painful after all these years) unfolded, I had no idea how to “think systems.” To understand
anxiety from a systems perspective, keep these key points in mind:
1. Anxiety is a characteristic of human systems, not something that exists only in the individuals who comprise the
group.
2. Everyone in a system is connected to everyone else. That means you will always be reacting to how other people
manage their anxiety, just as they will always be reacting to how you manage your anxiety.
3. Anxiety rarely stays contained within one or two individuals. Rather, it zooms through a system at high speed,
gathering steam at every point along the way.
4. Anxiety is contagious. Intensity and reactivity only breed more of the same.
5. Calm is also contagious. Nothing is more important than getting a grip on your own reactivity.
In an anxious system, someone will always be dumping his or her anxiety on you. It’s an automatic process, not anybody’s
villainous plan. Keep in mind that blaming, gossip, distancing, underfunctioning, and overfunctioning are normal
expressions of anxiety. As you learn to recognize the signs of an anxious system, you will begin to stop taking things so
personally and start observing people’s automatic style of managing anxiety—your own included. If you can learn to think
in terms of anxious systems, you will understand that anxiety makes nice people do obnoxious things. Or, as Jeffrey Miller
puts it in his gem of a book, The Anxious Organization, “anxiety makes smart organizations do stupid things.”
The challenge is always to observe, think about, and modify your part in the relational impasses that are causing you pain.
The only part of the system you can change is your own reaction to anxiety. You can learn to let other people’s anxiety float
by you, and to pass on less anxiety than you receive. When we can transmit less intensity than we receive in the systems we
belong to, we are not only moving in the direction of calming things down. We are also doing what the world desperately
needs: creating a more peaceable, open-hearted place to live.
What Anxieties Do You Bring to Work?
2: YOUR ANXIOUS WORKPLACE: Staying Calm and Clearheaded in a Crazy Environment
Your workplace is an anxious system that will pass anxiety along to you. But you also bring your personal anxieties to the
workplace. First, there are situational stresses that you currently face. If your house just flooded and your daughter’s illness
flared up, you won’t be in a very calm place when you go to work.
Then there are emotionally loaded issues that you carry with you from your past, including your place in your family of
origin. What meanings do success and failure have for you? How have your fears of succeeding and failing been influenced
by your parents’ hopes, fears, expectations, struggles, work histories, and unfulfilled longings? You may come from a
family where it was important to dazzle and shine. Or, by contrast, your parents may have considered it sinful to “have a
swelled head” or to draw attention to the fact that it was you who hit the winning home run. You may be especially anxious
about being unrecognized, or you may prefer invisibility and fear hurting others if you’re not perpetually dimming your
lights.
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lights.
You will also have particular emotional triggers that get activated at work, depending on your experience growing up in
your family. For example, your past may prime you to be especially reactive to being unappreciated, or feeling like “the
outsider,” or incurring other people’s anger and disapproval. Or your emotional trigger may be the thought of being laughed
at. You don’t necessarily need to go into therapy and root around in your past to explore all the factors that evoke your
anxiety in the world of work. But you do need to learn how to observe the five styles of managing anxiety in yourself and
others. When stress is high you will automatically fall back on one or more of the five styles—and so will everyone around
you.
Most important, you need to know that you can survive without a particular job, if need be. You must be prepared to leave.
Many people feel they can’t live without their jobs, but when they must, most manage to find a way to survive, and even to
generate creative new options they never knew existed. If you’re convinced you can’t live without your job, then you can’t
really act on your principles, say what you think and feel, and maintain a clear bottom line. You will be vulnerable to
anxiety, depression, and a host of stress-related physical ailments—all symptoms of helplessness. By contrast, when you
recognize that you will ultimately survive without any particular job, you gain enormous power.
A Caveat: Don’t Confuse Work and Family!
For the most part, work systems and family systems operate in pretty much the same way. That said, never confuse your
workplace with your family! There is one important difference. The family you grew up in might have been pretty crazy, but
when financially hard times hit they probably didn’t put you out on the street to fend for yourself. It is rare for a parent to
put a memo on a child’s desk, saying: “You’ve been with us for ten years, and you’ve always been a loyal family member,
but money is scarce now, so we have to terminate you. Please have your belongings cleared out by 3 P.M. Our very best
wishes for your future.” A work system will do just that.
Sometimes a workplace will pretend it’s a family. If an organization is thriving economically and does not feel threatened, it
can pay a great deal of attention to your professional goals and job satisfaction. My organization claimed to be “family”
when it saw itself as having unlimited resources and a future that stretched out forever. But as a family systems therapist
reminds me, organizations live, sicken, and die just like people do. When survival anxiety is high, you will discover just
how expendable you are. In fact, your “work family” may treat you in such an insensitive and uncaring manner that it will
take your breath away.
I say this not to demoralize you, but rather to encourage you to keep your expectations realistic and your options open. The
primary goal of a work organization is to ensure its own economic viability. Unlike a family, it does not exist to nurture your
growth, offer you intimacy, or make you happy, although it’s wonderful when those things happen. But work is work.
Family is family. Don’t confuse them—and you’ll have one less thing to be anxious about.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. The author relates that chronic anxiety in the workplace can lead to poorly thought-out behaviors, less
objective thinking, less creative problem-solving and/or a steep decline in civility and cooperation among
employees. How do you respond to chronic anxiety at your workplace?
2. According to this article, bosses who are experiencing anxiety tend to go to one extreme or the other in terms
of how they treat their employees. When your boss is stressed, how does it affect his behavior toward you
and your co-workers?
3. The author discusses five behavioral styles of managing anxiety—under functioning, over functioning,
blaming, distancing and gossip. Which of these predominates where you work? Which style do you
personally tend to engage in, when you have to deal with a lot of workplace anxiety?

3:
THE TIME BIND: When Work Becomes Home and Home
Becomes Work
ARLIE RUSSELL HOCHSCHILD
It’s 7:40 A.M. when Cassie Bell, 4, arrives at the Spotted Deer Child-Care Center, her hair half-combed, a blanket in one hand,
a fudge bar in the other. “I’m late,” her mother, Gwen, a sturdy young woman whose short-cropped hair frames a pleasant face,
explains to the child-care worker in charge. “Cassie wanted the fudge bar so bad, I gave it to her,” she adds apologetically.
“Pleeese, can’t you take me with you?” Cassie pleads.
“You know I can’t take you to work,” Gwen replies in a tone that suggests that she has been expecting this request. Cassie’s
shoulders droop. But she has struck a hard bargain—the morning fudge bar—aware of her mother’s anxiety about the long day
that lies ahead at the center. As Gwen explains later, she continually feels that she owes Cassie more time than she gives her—
she has a “time debt.”
Arriving at her office just before 8, Gwen finds on her desk a cup of coffee in her personal mug, milk no sugar (exactly as she
likes it), prepared by a co-worker who managed to get in ahead of her. As the assistant to the head of public relations at a
company I will call Amerco, Gwen has to handle responses to any reports that may appear about the company in the press—a
challenging job, but one that gives her satisfaction. As she prepares for her first meeting of the day, she misses her daughter,
but she also feels relief; there’s a lot to get done at Amerco.
Gwen used to work a straight eight-hour day. But over the last three years, her workday has gradually stretched to eight and a
half or nine hours, not counting the e-mail messages and faxes she answers from home. She complains about her hours to her
co-workers and listens to their complaints—but she loves her job. Gwen picks up Cassie at 5:45 and gives her a long,
affectionate hug.
At home, Gwen’s husband, John, a computer programmer, plays with their daughter while Gwen prepares dinner. To protect
the dinner “hour”—8:00-8:30 —Gwen checks that the phone machine is on, hears the phone ring during dinner but resists the
urge to answer. After Cassie’s bath, Gwen and Cassie have “quality time,” or “Q.T.,” as John affectionately calls it. Half an
hour later, at 9:30, Gwen tucks Cassie into bed.
There are, in a sense, two Bell households: the rushed family they actually are and the relaxed family they imagine they might
be if only they had time. Gwen and John complain that they are in a time bind. What they say they want seems so modest—
time to throw a ball, to read to Cassie, to witness the small dramas of her development, not to speak of having a little fun and
romance themselves. Yet even these modest wishes seem strangely out of reach. Before going to bed, Gwen has to e-mail
messages to her colleagues in preparation for the next day’s meeting; John goes to bed early, exhausted—he’s out the door by
7 every morning.
From Hochschild, Arlie Russell, The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work. Copyright © 1997
by Arlie Russell Hochschild. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC and Georges Borchardt, Inc. for
the author.
Nationwide, many working parents are in the same boat. More mothers of small children than ever now work outside the
home. In 1993, 56 percent of women with children between 6 and 17 worked outside the home full time year-round; 43 percent
of women with children 6 and under did the same. Meanwhile, fathers of small children are not cutting back hours of work to
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home. In 1993, 56 percent of women with children between 6 and 17 worked outside the home full time year-round; 43 percent
of women with children 6 and under did the same. Meanwhile, fathers of small children are not cutting back hours of work to
help out at home. If anything, they have increased their hours at work. According to a 1993 national survey conducted by the
Families and Work Institute in New York, American men average 48.8 hours of work a week, and women 41.7 hours,
including overtime and commuting. All in all, more women are on the economic train, and for many—men and women alike—
that train is going faster.
But Amerco has “family-friendly” policies. If your division head and supervisor agree, you can work part time, share a job
with another worker, work some hours at home, take parental leave or use “flex time.” But hardly anyone uses these policies.
In seven years, only two Amerco fathers have taken formal parental leave. Fewer than 1 percent have taken advantage of the
opportunity to work part time. Of all such policies, only flex time—which rearranges but does not shorten work time—has had
a significant number of takers (perhaps a third of working parents at Amerco).
Forgoing family-friendly policies is not exclusive to Amerco workers. A 1991 study of 188 companies conducted by the
Families and Work Institute found that while a majority offered part-time shifts, fewer than 5 percent of employees made use
of them. Thirty-five percent offered “flex place”—work from home—and fewer than 3 percent of their employees took
advantage of it. And an earlier Bureau of Labor Statistics survey asked workers whether they preferred a shorter workweek, a
longer one or their present schedule. About 62 percent preferred their present schedule; 28 percent would have preferred longer
hours. Fewer than 10 percent said they wanted a cut in hours.
Still, I found it hard to believe that people didn’t protest their long hours at work. So I contacted Bright Horizons, a company
that runs 136 company-based child-care centers associated with corporations, hospitals and Federal agencies in 25 states.
Bright Horizons allowed me to add questions to a questionnaire they sent out to 3,000 parents whose children attended the
centers. The respondents, mainly middle-class parents in their early 30s, largely confirmed the picture I’d found at Amerco. A
third of fathers and a fifth of mothers described themselves as “workaholic,” and 1 out of 3 said their partners were.
To be sure, some parents have tried to shorten their hours. Twenty-one percent of the nation’s women voluntarily work part
time, as do 7 percent of men. A number of others make under-the-table arrangements that don’t show up on surveys. But while
working parents say they need more time at home, the main story of their lives does not center on a struggle to get it. Why?
Given the hours parents are working these days, why aren’t they taking advantage of an opportunity to reduce their time at
work?
The most widely held explanation is that working parents cannot afford to work shorter hours. Certainly this is true for many.
But if money is the whole explanation, why would it be that at places like Amerco, the best-paid employees—upper-level
managers and professionals—were the least interested in part-time work or job sharing, while clerical workers who earned less
were more interested?
Similarly, if money were the answer, we would expect poorer new mothers to return to work more quickly after giving birth
than rich mothers. But among working women nationwide, well-to-do new mothers are not much more likely to stay home
after 13 weeks with a new baby than low-income new mothers. When asked what they look for in a job, only a third of
respondents in a recent study said salary came first. Money is important, but by itself, money does not explain why many
people don’t want to cut back hours at work.
A second explanation goes that workers don’t dare ask for time off because they are afraid it would make them vulnerable to
layoffs. With recent downsizings at many large corporations, and with well-paying, secure jobs being replaced by lowerpaying,
insecure ones, it occurred to me that perhaps employees are “working scared.” But when I asked Amerco employees
whether they worked long hours for fear of getting on a layoff list, virtually everyone said no. Even among a particularly
vulnerable group—factory workers who were laid off in the downturn of the early 1980s and were later rehired—most did not
cite fear for their jobs as the only, or main, reason they worked overtime. For unionized workers, layoffs are assigned by
seniority, and for nonunionized workers, layoffs are usually related to the profitability of the division a person works in, not to
an individual work schedule.

an individual work schedule.
3: THE TIME BIND: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work
Were workers uninformed about the company’s family-friendly policies? No. Some even mentioned that they were proud to
work for a company that offered such enlightened policies. Were rigid middle managers standing in the way of workers using
these policies? Sometimes. But when I compared Amerco employees who worked for flexible managers with those who
worked for rigid managers, I found that the flexible managers reported only a few more applicants than the rigid ones. The
evidence, however counterintuitive, pointed to a paradox: workers at the company I studied weren’t protesting the time bind.
They were accommodating to it.
Why? I did not anticipate the conclusion I found myself coming to: namely, that work has become a form of “home” and home
has become “work.” The worlds of home and work have not begun to blur, as the conventional wisdom goes, but to reverse
places. We are used to thinking that home is where most people feel the most appreciated, the most truly “themselves,” the
most secure, the most relaxed. We are used to thinking that work is where most people feel like “just a number” or “a cog in a
machine.” It is where they have to be “on,” have to “act,” where they are least secure and most harried.
But new management techniques so pervasive in corporate life have helped transform the workplace into a more appreciative,
personal sort of social world. Meanwhile, at home the divorce rate has risen, and the emotional demands have become more
baffling and complex. In addition to teething, tantrums and the normal developments of growing children, the needs of elderly
parents are creating more tasks for the modern family—as are the blending, unblending, reblending of new stepparents,
stepchildren, exes and former in-laws.
This idea began to dawn on me during one of my first interviews with an Amerco worker. Linda Avery, a friendly, 38-year-old
mother, is a shift supervisor at an Amerco plant. When I meet her in the factory’s coffee-break room over a couple of Cokes,
she is wearing blue jeans and a pink jersey, her hair pulled back in a long, blond ponytail. Linda’s husband, Bill, is a technician
in the same plant. By working different shifts, they manage to share the care of their 2-year-old son and Linda’s 16-year-old
daughter from a previous marriage. “Bill works the 7 A.M. to 3 P.M. shift while I watch the baby,” she explains. “Then I work
the 3 P.M. to 11 P.M. shift and he watches the baby. My daughter works at Walgreen’s after school.”
Linda is working overtime, and so I begin by asking whether Amerco required the overtime or whether she volunteered for it.
“Oh, I put in for it,” she replies. I ask her whether, if finances and company policy permitted, she’d be interested in cutting
back on the overtime. She takes off her safety glasses, rubs her face and, without answering my question, explains: “I get
home, and the minute I turn the key, my daughter is right there. Granted, she needs somebody to talk to about her day. . . . The
baby is still up. He should have been in bed two hours ago, and that upsets me. The dishes are piled in the sink. My daughter
comes right up to the door and complains about anything her stepfather said or did, and she wants to talk about her job. My
husband is in the other room hollering to my daughter, ‘Tracy, I don’t ever get any time to talk to your mother, because you’re
always monopolizing her time before I even get a chance!’ They all come at me at once.”
Linda’s description of the urgency of demands and the unarbitrated quarrels that await her homecoming contrast with her
account of arriving at her job as a shift supervisor: “I usually come to work early, just to get away from the house. When I
arrive, people are there waiting. We sit, we talk, we joke. I let them know what’s going on, who has to be where, what changes
I’ve made for the shift that day. We sit and chitchat for 5 or 10 minutes. There’s laughing, joking, fun.”
For Linda, home has come to feel like work and work has come to feel a bit like home. Indeed, she feels she can get relief from
the “work” of being at home only by going to the “home” of work. Why has her life at home come to seem like this? Linda
explains it this way: “My husband’s a great help watching our baby. But as far as doing housework or even taking the baby
when I’m at home, no. He figures he works five days a week; he’s not going to come home and clean. But he doesn’t stop to
think that I work seven days a week. Why should I have to come home and do the housework without help from anybody else?
My husband and I have been through this over and over again. Even if he would just pick up from the kitchen table and stack
the dishes for me, that would make a big difference. He does nothing. On his weekends off, he goes fishing. If I want any time
off, I have to get a sitter. He’ll help out if I’m not here, but the minute I am, all the work at home is mine.”
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off, I have to get a sitter. He’ll help out if I’m not here, but the minute I am, all the work at home is mine.”
With a light laugh, she continues: “So I take a lot of overtime. The more I get out of the house, the better I am. It’s a terrible
thing to say, but that’s the way I feel.”
When Bill feels the need for time off, to relax, to have fun, to feel free, he climbs in his truck and takes his free time without
his family. Largely in response, Linda grabs what she also calls “free time”—at work. Neither Linda nor Bill Avery wants
more time together at home, not as things are arranged now.
How do Linda and Bill Avery fit into the broader picture of American family and work life? Current research suggests that
however hectic their lives, women who do paid work feel less depressed, think better of themselves and are more satisfied than
women who stay at home. One study reported that women who work outside the home feel more valued at home than
housewives do. Meanwhile, work is where many women feel like “good mothers.” As Linda reflects: “I’m a good mom at
home, but I’m a better mom at work. At home, I get into fights with Tracy. I want her to apply to a junior college, but she’s not
interested. At work, I think I’m better at seeing the other person’s point of view.”
Many workers feel more confident they could “get the job done” at work than at home. One study found that only 59 percent
of workers feel their “performance” in the family is “good or unusually good,” while 86 percent rank their performance on the
job this way.
Forces at work and at home are simultaneously reinforcing this “reversal.” This lure of work has been enhanced in recent years
by the rise of company cultural engineering—in particular, the shift from Frederick Taylor’s principles of scientific
management to the Total Quality principles originally set out by W. Edwards Deming. Under the influence of a Taylorist
world view, the manager’s job was to coerce the worker’s mind and body, not to appeal to the worker’s heart. The Taylorized
worker was de-skilled, replaceable and cheap, and as a consequence felt bored, demeaned and unappreciated.
Using modern participative management techniques, many companies now train workers to make their own work decisions,
and then set before their newly “empowered” employees moral as well as financial incentives. At Amerco, the Total Quality
worker is invited to feel recognized for job accomplishments. Amerco regularly strengthens the familylike ties of co-workers
by holding “recognition ceremonies” honoring particular workers or self-managed production teams. Amerco employees speak
of “belonging to the Amerco family,” and proudly wear their “Total Quality” pins or “High Performance Team” T-shirts,
symbols of their loyalty to the company and of its loyalty to them.
The company occasionally decorates a section of the factory and serves refreshments. The production teams, too, have regular
get-togethers. In a New Age recasting of an old business slogan—“The Customer Is Always Right”—Amerco proposes that its
workers “Value the Internal Customer.” This means: Be as polite and considerate to co-workers inside the company as you
would be to customers outside it. How many recognition ceremonies for competent performance are being offered at home?
Who is valuing the internal customer there?
Amerco also tries to take on the role of a helpful relative with regard to employee problems at work and at home. The
education-and-training division offers employees free courses (on company time) in “Dealing With Anger,” “How to Give and
Accept Criticism,” “How to Cope With Difficult People.”
At home, of course, people seldom receive anything like this much help on issues basic to family life. There, no courses are
being offered on “Dealing With Your Child’s Disappointment in You” or “How to Treat Your Spouse Like an Internal
Customer.”
If Total Quality calls for “re-skilling” the worker in an “enriched” job environment, technological developments have long
been de-skilling parents at home. Over the centuries, store-bought goods have replaced homespun cloth, homemade soap and
home-baked foods. Day care for children, retirement homes for the elderly, even psychotherapy are, in a way, commercial
substitutes for jobs that a mother once did at home. Even family-generated entertainment has, to some extent, been replaced by
television, video games and the VCR. I sometimes watched Amerco families sitting together after their dinners, mute but cozy,
watching sitcoms in which television mothers, fathers and children related in an animated way to one another while the

3: THE TIME BIND: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work
television, video games and the VCR. I sometimes watched Amerco families sitting together after their dinners, mute but cozy,
watching sitcoms in which television mothers, fathers and children related in an animated way to one another while the
viewing family engaged in relational loafing.
The one “skill” still required of family members is the hardest one of all—the emotional work of forging, deepening or
repairing family relationships. It takes time to develop this skill, and even then things can go awry. Family ties are
complicated. People get hurt. Yet as broken homes become more common—and as the sense of belonging to a geographical
community grows less and less secure in an age of mobility—the corporate world has created a sense of “neighborhood,” of
“feminine culture,” of family at work. Life at work can be insecure; the company can fire workers. But workers aren’t so
secure at home, either. Many employees have been working for Amerco for 20 years but are on their second or third marriages
or relationships. The shifting balance between these two “divorce rates” may be the most powerful reason why tired parents
flee a world of unresolved quarrels and unwashed laundry for the orderliness, harmony and managed cheer of work. People are
getting their “pink slips” at home.
Amerco workers have not only turned their offices into “home” and their homes into workplaces; many have also begun to
“Taylorize” time at home, where families are succumbing to a cult of efficiency previously associated mainly with the office
and factory. Meanwhile, work time, with its ever longer hours, has become more hospitable to sociability—periods of talking
with friends on e-mail, patching up quarrels, gossiping. Within the long workday of many Amerco employees are great hidden
pockets of inefficiency while, in the far smaller number of waking weekday hours at home, they are, despite themselves,
forced to act increasingly time-conscious and efficient.
The Averys respond to their time bind at home by trying to value and protect “quality time.” A concept unknown to their
parents and grandparents, “quality time” has become a powerful symbol of the struggle against the growing pressures at home.
It reflects the extent to which modern parents feel the flow of time to be running against them. The premise behind “quality
time” is that the time we devote to relationships can somehow be separated from ordinary time. Relationships go on during
quantity time, of course, but then we are only passively, not actively, wholeheartedly, specializing in our emotional ties. We
aren’t “on.” Quality time at home becomes like an office appointment. You don’t want to be caught “goofing off around the
water cooler” when you are “at work.”
Quality time holds out the hope that scheduling intense periods of togetherness can compensate for an overall loss of time in
such a way that a relationship will suffer no loss of quality. But this is just another way of transferring the cult of efficiency
from office to home. We must now get our relationships in good repair in less time. Instead of nine hours a day with a child,
we declare ourselves capable of getting “the same result” with one intensely focused hour.
Parents now more commonly speak of time as if it is a threatened form of personal capital they have no choice but to manage
and invest. What’s new here is the spread into the home of a financial manager’s attitude toward time. Working parents at
Amerco owe what they think of as time debts at home. This is because they are, in a sense, inadvertently “Tay-lorizing” the
house—speeding up the pace of home life as Taylor once tried to “scientifically” speed up the pace of factory life.
Advertisers of products aimed at women have recognized that this new reality provides an opportunity to sell products, and
have turned the very pressure that threatens to explode the home into a positive attribute. Take, for example, an ad promoting
Instant Quaker Oatmeal: it shows a smiling mother ready for the office in her square-shouldered suit, hugging her happy son.
A caption reads: “Nicky is a very picky eater. With Instant Quaker Oatmeal, I can give him a terrific hot breakfast in just 90
seconds. And I don’t have to spend any time coaxing him to eat it!” Here, the modern mother seems to have absorbed the
lessons of Frederick Taylor as she presses for efficiency at home because she is in a hurry to get to work.
Part of modern parenthood seems to include coping with the resistance of real children who are not so eager to get their cereal
so fast. Some parents try desperately not to appease their children with special gifts or smooth-talking promises about the
future. But when time is scarce, even the best parents find themselves passing a system-wide familial speed-up along to the
most vulnerable workers on the line. Parents are then obliged to try to control the damage done by a reversal of worlds. They
monitor mealtime, homework time, bedtime, trying to cut out “wasted” time.
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monitor mealtime, homework time, bedtime, trying to cut out “wasted” time.
In response, children often protest the pace, the deadlines, the grand irrationality of “efficient” family life. Children dawdle.
They refuse to leave places when it’s time to leave. They insist on leaving places when it’s not time to leave. Surely, this is
part of the usual stop-and-go of childhood itself, but perhaps, too, it is the plea of children for more family time and more
control over what time there is. This only adds to the feeling that life at home has become hard work.
Instead of trying to arrange shorter or more flexible work schedules, Amerco parents often avoid confronting the reality of the
time bind. Some minimize their ideas about how much care a child, a partner or they themselves “really need.” They make do
with less time, less attention, less understanding and less support at home than they once imagined possible. They emotionally
downsize life. In essence, they deny the needs of family members, and they themselves become emotional ascetics. If they
once “needed” time with each other, they are now increasingly “fine” without it.
Another way that working parents try to evade the time bind is to buy themselves out of it—an approach that puts women in
particular at the heart of a contradiction. Like men, women absorb the work-family speed-up far more than they resist it; but
unlike men, they still shoulder most of the workload at home. And women still represent in people’s minds the heart and soul
of family life. They’re the ones—especially women of the urban middle and upper-middle classes—who feel most acutely the
need to save time, who are the most tempted by the new “time saving” goods and services—and who wind up feeling the most
guilty about it. For example, Playgroup Connections, a Washington-area business started by a former executive recruiter,
matches playmates to one another. One mother hired the service to find her child a French-speaking playmate.
In several cities, children home alone can call a number for “Grandma, Please!” and reach an adult who has the time to talk
with them, sing to them or help them with their homework. An ad for Kinder-care Learning Centers, a for-profit child-care
chain, pitches its appeal this way: “You want your child to be active, tolerant, smart, loved, emotionally stable, self-aware,
artistic and get a two-hour nap. Anything else?” It goes on to note that Kinder-care accepts children 6 weeks to 12 years old
and provides a number to call for the Kinder-care nearest you. Another typical service organizes children’s birthday parties,
making out invitations (“sure hope you can come”) and providing party favors, entertainment, a decorated cake and balloons.
Creative Memories is a service that puts ancestral photos into family albums for you.
An overwhelming majority of the working mothers I spoke with recoiled from the idea of buying themselves out of parental
duties. A bought birthday party was “too impersonal,” a 90-second breakfast “too fast.” Yet a surprising amount of lunchtime
conversation between female friends at Amerco was devoted to expressing complex, conflicting feelings about the lure of
trading time for one service or another. The temptation to order flash-frozen dinners or to call a local number for a homework
helper did not come up because such services had not yet appeared at Spotted Deer Child-Care Center. But many women
dwelled on the question of how to decide where a mother’s job began and ended, especially with regard to babysitters and
television. One mother said to another in the breakroom of an Amerco plant: “Damon doesn’t settle down until 10 at night, so
he hates me to wake him up in the morning and I hate to do it. He’s cranky. He pulls the covers up. I put on cartoons. That
way, I can dress him and he doesn’t object. I don’t like to use TV that way. It’s like a drug. But I do it.”
The other mother countered: “Well, Todd is up before we are, so that’s not a problem. It’s after dinner, when I feel like
watching a little television, that I feel guilty, because he gets too much TV at the sitter’s.”
As task after task falls into the realm of time-saving goods and services, questions arise about the moral meanings attached to
doing or not doing such tasks. Is it being a good mother to bake a child’s birthday cake (alone or together with one’s partner)?
Or can we gratefully save time by ordering it, and be good mothers by planning the party? Can we save more time by hiring a
planning service, and be good mothers simply by watching our children have a good time? “Wouldn’t that be nice!” one
Amerco mother exclaimed. As the idea of the “good mother” retreats before the pressures of work and the expansion of
motherly services, mothers are in fact continually reinventing themselves.
The final way working parents tried to evade the time bind was to develop what I call “potential selves.” The potential selves
that I discovered in my Amerco interviews were fantasy creations of time-poor parents who dreamed of living as time
millionaires.

millionaires.
3: THE TIME BIND: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work
One man, a gifted 55-year-old engineer in research and development at Amerco, told how he had dreamed of taking his
daughters on a camping trip in the Sierra Mountains: “I bought all the gear three years ago when they were 5 and 7, the tent,
the sleeping bags, the air mattresses, the backpacks, the ponchos. I got a map of the area. I even got the freeze-dried food.
Since then the kids and I have talked about it a lot, and gone over what we’re going to do. They’ve been on me to do it for a
long time. I feel bad about it. I keep putting it off, but we’ll do it, I just don’t know when.”
Banished to garages and attics of many Amerco workers were expensive electric saws, cameras, skis and musical instruments,
all bought with wages it took time to earn. These items were to their owners what Cassie’s fudge bar was to her—a substitute
for time, a talisman, a reminder of the potential self.
Obviously, not everyone, not even a majority of Americans, is making a home out of work and a workplace out of home. But
in the working world, it is a growing reality, and one we need to face. Increasing numbers of women are discovering a great
male secret—that work can be an escape from the pressures of home, pressures that the changing nature of work itself are only
intensifying. Neither men nor women are going to take up “family-friendly” policies, whether corporate or governmental, as
long as the current realities of work and home remain as they are. For a substantial number of time-bound parents, the strippeddown
home and the neighborhood devoid of community are simply losing out to the pull of the workplace.
There are several broader, historical causes of this reversal of realms. The last 30 years have witnessed the rapid rise of women
in the workplace. At the same time, job mobility has taken families farther from relatives who might lend a hand, and made it
harder to make close friends of neighbors who could help out. Moreover, as women have acquired more education and have
joined men at work, they have absorbed the views of an older, male-oriented work world, its views of a “real career,” far more
than men have taken up their share of the work at home. One reason women have changed more than men is that the world of
“male” work seems more honorable and valuable than the “female” world of home and children.
So where do we go from here? There is surely no going back to the mythical 1950s family that confined women to the home.
Most women don’t wish to return to a full-time role at home—and couldn’t afford it even if they did. But equally troubling is a
workaholic culture that strands both men and women outside the home.
For a while now, scholars on work-family issues have pointed to Sweden, Norway and Denmark as better models of workfamily
balance. Today, for example, almost all Swedish fathers take two paid weeks off from work at the birth of their
children, and about half of fathers and most mothers take additional “parental leave” during the child’s first or second year.
Research shows that men who take family leave when their children are very young are more likely to be involved with their
children as they grow older. When I mentioned this Swedish record of paternity leave to a focus group of American male
managers, one of them replied, “Right, we’ve already heard about Sweden.” To this executive, paternity leave was a good idea
not for the U.S. today, but for some “potential society” in another place and time.
Meanwhile, children are paying the price. In her book When the Bough Breaks: The Cost of Neglecting Our Children, the
economist Sylvia Hewlett claims that “compared with the previous generation, young people today are more likely to
underperform at school; commit suicide; need psychiatric help; suffer a severe eating disorder; bear a child out of wedlock;
take drugs; be the victim of a violent crime.” But we needn’t dwell on sledgehammer problems like heroin or suicide to realize
that children like those at Spotted Deer need more of our time. If other advanced nations with two-job families can give
children the time they need, why can’t we?
Author’s Note: Over three years, I interviewed 130 respondents for a book. They spoke freely and allowed me to follow them
through “typical” days, on the understanding that I would protect their anonymity. I have changed the names of the company
and of those I interviewed, and altered certain identifying details. Their words appear here as they were spoken.—A.R.H.
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and of those I interviewed, and altered certain identifying details. Their words appear here as they were spoken.—A.R.H.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. While you were growing up, were you and your parents in a time bind? What sort of daily routines did you and
your parents go through during the work/school week? How did you feel about those routines? In retrospect, did
you have adequate time with your parents? Was the family-oriented time referred to as quality time?
2. American companies seem reluctant to give their employees regular “parental leave” time, as is done in Norway
and Sweden to produce a better balance between work and family life. American workers tend to not take
advantage of such a benefit, even when it is offered. Given the value we assign to work and family respectively,
what type of balancing strategy would Americans accept, in your view?

PART V:
Deviance and Crime
RELATED CONCEPTS AND IDEAS
In general, sociologists define deviance as behavior that departs from the norm; i.e. departs from whatever standard is typical
within a given situation or in Society as a whole. Behavioral departures from the norm can be in either a positive or negative
direction (Heckert and Heckert, 2002). We can thus distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ deviance.
An example of positive or good deviance would be Olympic gold medalists; whose deviance is their decidedly-superior level
of athletic skill, compared to the rest of us. Because they deviate from the norm in a socially-approved, positive direction, we
aren’t going to arrest these athletes. In fact we give them medals and turn them into celebrities.
Negative or bad deviance is behavior that departs from the norm in a way that criticized or condemned by society. Examples of
this negative variety range from minimally offensive breaches of etiquette such as cutting in line or picking your nose in
public, to supremely unconscionable acts such as the human trafficking or child molesting. When sociologists write or talk
about “deviance,” you can assume they are talking about bad deviance unless they say otherwise.
Default deviance is not about assessments of behavior. Rather, it pertains to the overall physical functioning of an individual,
or any characteristics of appearance, which depart from the average human condition and which the average person would
regard as substantially undesirable. Significant physical injuries, disabilities or deformities would fall into this category. The
word default suggests a lack of something. Here, what is lacking is not only physical normalcy, but also willfulness. That is,
the individual’s condition is not elective, not willful. It was hardly something (s)he chose to have or make happen; nor is it
something (s)he can easily, perhaps ever, remedy. It is not a form of conduct (s)he previously chose to engage in and now can
simply stop doing.
Default deviance merits a category in its own right because in our culture we are all so terribly concerned with “fitting in;”
with being just like everybody else. And we want to be like everyone else in regard to appearance, at least as much if not more
so than in regard to behavior. Thus anyone who is on sight markedly different in appearance from others may be shunned,
ignored, stared at, looked through (treated as a non-person), pointed at, laughed at, verbally ridiculed and so on.
When I was twenty-nine I was biking home from work and was broadsided by a drunk driver on a motorcycle. He left me
sprawled in the middle of the busy thoroughfare and decamped. My left calf was pretty much reduced to jello. Miraculously
the bone did not break but most of the blood vessels, nerves and muscles were pulverized. Below the knee, my left leg swelled
up like a watermelon. My left foot and ankle disappeared. Then the liquid edema turned into a solid, gelatin-like substance.
Technically speaking I developed a large “subdural hematoma” inside my calf. I was told to expect amputation.
Once it was determined I would get to keep my leg, I underwent a year of physical therapy to reduce the size of the hematoma
and to re-learn how to walk. During that year I dragged my left leg, or rather the watermelon attached to the end of it, around
like a ball and chain. Usually a person who saw me for the first time looked horrified for a nanosecond, then shuddered and
looked away. I would like to say that it was only small children who pointed at me, laughed and called me names. However my
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like a ball and chain. Usually a person who saw me for the first time looked horrified for a nanosecond, then shuddered and
looked away. I would like to say that it was only small children who pointed at me, laughed and called me names. However my
adult coworkers, some of them anyway, did the same thing. Even some of my so-called friends were reticent to be around me
during this time.
It was quite a lesson to see how members of this culture stand ever-ready to devalue and ostracize anyone whose physical self
appears to be substandard, even when the causes of such ‘defects’ are completely beyond the individual’s control. My
experience of default deviance was temporary, in that eventually my leg healed and shrunk back to a normal size. The
impression it made on me, of how we stigmatize people with physical differences, endures.
Stigma is a discredit, a taint, a stain applied to an individual or to his/her character. The stain may be applied on the basis of
some act(s) of wrongdoing, an unwholesome lifestyle, or some radical departure of his/her person or presentation-of-self from
Society’s conceptions of what is physically or psychologically “normal.”
In his writings on stigma, Goffman (1963) distinguishes between already-stigmatized persons and those who have the potential
to be stigmatized, if their deviance ever becomes known about. Individuals who have voluntarily disclosed their own deviance,
who have had it disclosed by others against their will or who deviate from the norm in a way that cannot be concealed are the
discredited. Those whose departures from the norm are concealable and who manage to keep them concealed are the
discreditable.
Goffman, Davis (1961) and Turner (1972) have discussed various techniques of stigma management, available to the
discreditable and the discredited. The discreditable can try to “pass” for normal by employing disidentifiers—props, actions or
verbalizations that serve as a smoke screen to cover their deviance. An example of this would be a minister who sermonizes
(employs a verbalization) about the evils of adultery as part of a cover-up of his own extramarital affair. The discreditable may
also “pass” with the help of others, who are aware of his/her deviance and “cover” for the tainted individual by concealing the
truth about his/her past or by helping him/her to construct a cover story, e.g. saying one’s relative was traveling abroad when in
fact, said relative was in prison.
A different set of techniques is available to the already-discredited, to help them manage their stigmatization. For one, the
discredited can engage in deviance avowal—that is, they can raise the subject of their deviance in conversation with a ‘normal’
person, and then make a joke about it in order to “break the ice.” By showing that they can see their own deviance from a
‘normal’ person’s point of view; they are suggesting that they are not so different from the ‘normal’ person and thus, can be
treated as normal for all intents and purposes. Such activities, on the part of the deviant individual, constitute an effort to
normalize the way(s) in which (s)he is different from others.
Stigmatized (discredited) individuals can also achieve normalization through the proactive efforts of others. If I have an
unconcealable ‘watermelon’ attached to one of my legs below the knee, as I did after the hit-and-run accident I mentioned
earlier, but you politely disattend my deformity when talking to me, you are helping me pretend my deviance does not exist.
That is, between us we are establishing a shared reality in which my deformity does not exist. This technique is called deviance
disavowal.
Crime is behavior that has been defined as illegal by the government. The American legal system is predicated on the notion,
“nulle poena sine lege”—“no punishment without law.” It is equally true that there is no crime without law, because there
would be no such thing as crime if no sort of conduct was legally proscribed.
Each sociological perspective has its own view of the ‘causes’ of deviance and crime and/or of the roles these play in Society.
Depending on which perspective they adhere to, sociologists may study one or more of these dimensions of crime and/or
deviance: (a) why certain acts are defined as deviant or criminal while others are not, (b) why certain individuals are defined as
deviant or criminal while others, who engaged in the same behavior, escape such definition; (c) how individuals learn skills
and techniques needed to perform deviant/criminal acts and (d) strategies individuals use to try to explain away or manage
deviant or criminal labels they have already been stuck with, or are at risk to be stuck with, should they in fact proceed to do
what they are planning to do.

what they are planning to do.
PART V: Deviance and Crime
According to the functionalists, under ordinary circumstances there is a consensus among Society’s members about what
behaviors are good, right and correct and which behaviors are wrong, bad and inappropriate. Behaviors that are significantly
bad become “crimes” through legislative action or popular vote. Deviance and crimes are acts that challenge the status quo and
thus, threaten the stability of the society. These threats have to be neutralized to preserve the social order. Thus it is good and
right to catch and punish the wrong-doers.
One of the founding fathers of Sociology, Emile Durkheim (1897/1951) discussed why citizens break the rules when
circumstances arise that are outside the ordinary. For example, during periods of rapid social change such as those brought on
by wars, civil unrest or natural disasters, Durkheim hypothesized, it is no longer clear to the average citizen what the rules are,
or it appears the rules have been suspended. Such a state of affairs is called anomie, or normlessness. The looting that occurred
in New Orleans in 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, exemplifies this phenomenon.
Functionalists note that public identification and punishment of rule-violators serves a purpose for Society. Specifically, it
reminds everybody what the rules are and reinforces the importance of obeying them. It is no accident that criminal court
proceedings are open to the public. For those of us who are occupied nine-to-five, the media make sure we are aware of highprofile
cases and their dispositions. To the extent the public is made aware of various acts of wrongdoing and the consequences
that issue from them, deviance serves a boundary maintenance (Erickson, 1966) or rule-reinforcing function for society.
In contrast, the conflict view is that there is not a general consensus among Society’s members about what constitutes right and
wrong behavior. Thus, your ideas about what is deviant or criminal will depend on what group(s) you belong to; where you sit
in the social hierarchy. Those at the top have the wealth, power and/or influence to make the rules for the whole society and to
see that those rules are enforced (Quinney, 1975). Because this elite group has the power to do so, they define as deviant or
criminal those behaviors that threaten their interests, specifically. From the conflict perspective, the so-called “deviants” of a
Society may in fact be its “Robin Hoods;” social protesters or rebels violating the norms on behalf of the little people; ordinary
citizens.
To illustrate the conflict view, during the years I worked in the justice system I dealt with a number of “white-collar”
criminals. Their crimes often consisted of bilking senior citizens out of their life savings via some large-scale, phony land
development scheme. The losses sustained by their victims ranged from hundreds of thousands, to millions of dollars.
These criminals caused far more damage to victims than the average street-level thief, in terms of (a) the sheer number of
victims per offender, (b) the amount of the dollar loss per victim and (c) the emotionally and financially vulnerable position the
victims were left in. That senior citizen who bags your groceries at the local grocery store may not be working there just to
have something to do; (s)he may need the money.
Despite the havoc these criminals wrought in their victims’ lives, they rarely got jail time as a sentence. Instead, they were
placed on probation. Meanwhile, some guy who was out of work, who had a wife and hungry infant at home, went to jail for
stealing baby food and Pampers from a supermarket. This is conflict theory in action.
Functionalist and conflict views of deviance and crime are structural views in that they identify the cause of rule-breaking as
some sort of problem with the system as a whole. In articulating his strain theory of deviance, Robert Merton (1938) discussed
what happens when citizens from all levels of society are socialized to want the same “good things of life”—nice house, nice
car, good income, etc.—yet all do not get equal access to the means of legitimately (lawfully) attaining those items. He
suggested that when denied access to legitimate means of achieving goals, people will find alternative (deviant), perhaps
criminal ways to do so.
Other notions of deviance and crime are process conceptions. The interactionist conception falls in this category. According to
the interactionists, deviance and crime are neither products of some flaw in the overall system, nor are they inherent properties
of certain acts. Rather, deviance and crime are precipitates of social interaction.
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of certain acts. Rather, deviance and crime are precipitates of social interaction.
Interactionists such as Sutherland and Cressey (1992) have pointed out that the skills and techniques needed to commit certain
types of crimes, e.g. safe-cracking, are learned in the same way that any other skills are learned—through interaction, wherein
the teachers are usually significant others of the learners.
A number of interactionists, for example Becker (1963) and Goffman (1963), have focused their attentions on the interaction
through which certain individuals are labeled, or avoid being labeled as, deviant or criminal. Such interaction is a process of
negotiation—negotiation between the alleged wrongdoer and those who have accused him/her of wrongdoing.
Negotiations concerning allegations of deviance or of the perpetration of a crime usually begin when another person—the
victim, in the case of a “crime”—sees or hears (or is the target of) something (s)he perceives as wrongdoing. The accused party
can offer an alternative account of the behavior in question; thereby suggesting the accusers have misperceived and thus
misinterpreted his/her conduct.
Various social and interpersonal factors will of course enter into these negotiations; into the amount of credibility and social
clout assigned to each negotiating party. The bargaining chips may be such items as the respective socioeconomic statuses of
the offender and the offended-against; age, racial, ethnic or gender differences between accuser(s) and accused; the accused’s
adroitness at putting a positive spin on the problematic activity; any “attitude problem” the accused appears to have in
responding to authority figures and so on.
To give you an example of negotiation leading (or not) to a label, one afternoon I was driving home from work in rush-hour
traffic. Vehicles were crawling; bumper to bumper. I was a probation officer at that time and had really had a bad day at work.
The traffic congestion was making me crazy. Although I was alone in my vehicle, I decided to move into the carpool lane,
where traffic was moving along unhampered by congestion. I looked around and did not see any cops, so I figured I could get
away with using the lane illegitimately.
Not 10 seconds after I entered the carpool lane, there were flashing lights behind me. I had to pull over for a highway patrol
officer. When he asked for my license, I pulled out the wallet-type object that contained my badge as well as my license. I
flipped it open in a way that made sure he would see the badge.
“Oh—what agency are you with?” he asked. I told him where I worked and explained I had had a “really bad day at the office
—you know what I mean? A really bad day.” I uttered those words in a tone of voice, and with a facial expression, the
meaning of which is universal within the law enforcement community. The officer let me off with a, “Well, ok. Just watch it in
the future, will ya?” Had I been someone of a different profession, I would have gotten a ticket. In this case my bargaining
chips—my profession, badge, facial expression and tone of voice—caused the officer to define me as one of the brethren and
thus, served to get me off.
Depending on who prevails in these negotiations, the accused will or won’t be stuck with a deviant or criminal label. Even
after a label is applied, a tainted individual can still attempt to ‘explain’ his/her behavior and thereby throw off the yoke of
responsibility. The following example from my former employment will serve to illustrate:
One day, while working in the presentence investigations division of the probation department, I was interviewing a defendant
who was awaiting sentencing for raping his four-year-old stepdaughter. The DNA and other physical evidence had been
consistent with what the little girl told police, such that there was no doubt this individual was the perpetrator. Indeed, he had
been found guilty at trial on all counts of the indictment, by jury verdict. When I questioned the defendant about his behavior,
he asserted he had unintentionally penetrated this four-year-old one time, and that the little girl herself had caused it to happen.
Please note that the quotation marks indicate the offender’s exact words:
The defendant explained that his stepdaughter, despite her young age, was just “naturally sexually precocious.” All he had
been doing was “relaxing” on his double bed one afternoon. As it happened he had just showered, had not yet dressed and had
a “full erection” at that time. Right then his stepdaughter entered the room, took one look at his “big dick” and was unable to
control herself. She took a flying leap, spread her legs as she descended onto him and thereby impaled herself on his penis.

control herself. She took a flying leap, spread her legs as she descended onto him and thereby impaled herself on his penis.
Sykes and Matza (1957) outline five techniques of neutralization an individual can employ, either to legitimate a rule violation
(s)he is contemplating, or to justify his/her actions if called to account for them, after the fact. These “techniques” are (1)
denial of responsibility (e.g. portraying oneself as a victim of circumstances), (2) condemnation of the condemners (e.g.
asserting the prof writes “bad” test questions; plays favorites, etc.), (3) appeal to higher loyalties (pressures to conform to the
peer group), (4) denial of injury (e.g., everybody cheats on exams so no one is actually hurt by it) and (5) denial of victim (e.g.,
asserting “the system” is the real villain of the piece; the rule breaker is only revolting against an unfair policy). During my
interview with the child molester, described above, you can see that he was simultaneously portraying himself as a victim of
circumstances (denial of responsibility) and claiming the little girl brought the sexual conduct upon herself (denial of victim).
Scott and Lyman (1968) refer to such after-the-fact rationalizations of untoward behavior as accounts, which manifest as either
excuses or justifications. Accounts are roughly equivalent to Stokes and Hewitt’s (1976) aligning actions—verbalizations and/
or actions on the part of a rule breaker, to bring his/her conduct into alignment with cultural norms; i.e. to get the behavior
publicly defined as non-deviant.
An individual who offers an excuse is admitting to performing the mechanics of the act in question while denying
intentionality—that is, denying (s)he intended the result that precipitated from the act. By denying bad intent, (s)he is denying
responsibility. Excuses come in several forms: (a) appeals to accidents (“I know it’s due today, but I had my paper stored on
my hard drive and my computer crashed”), (b) appeals to defeasibility (“my roommate said he would turn my paper in”), (c)
appeals to biological drives (“it’s different for men; we have needs”) and (d) scapegoating (“I wouldn’t have done so bad on
the test, but my friend borrowed my notes and never returned them”).
An individual who justifies his/her actions admits intentionality, but claims special circumstances existed at that time, which
made the act legitimate. Justifications may come in the form of (a) sad tales (“I was abused as a child”) (“so I use drugs now”)
or (b) quests for self-fulfillment (“Using LSD brings me closer to God”).
REFERENCES
PART V: Deviance and Crime
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REFERENCES
Adler, Patricia A. and Peter Adler, “Shifts and Oscillations in Deviant Careers: The Case of Upper-Level Drug Dealers and
Smugglers,” Social Problems, 31(2) 1983.
Becker, Howard S., Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance; Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1963, pp.1-18.
Davis, Fred; “Deviance Disavowal: The Management of Strained Interaction by the Visibly Handicapped,” Social
Problems 9:120-132, 1961.
Durkheim, Emile, Suicide: A Study in Sociology; (G. Simpson, ed., J. Spaulding and G. Simpson, trans.), New York: Free
Press, 1951 [1897].
Erickson, Kai T., Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance; Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1966
Goffman, Erving; Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
Heckert, Alex and Druanna Maria Heckert, “A New Typology of Deviance: Integrating Normative and Reactivist
Definitions of Deviance,” Deviant Behavior; 23: 449-479, 2002.
Hewitt, John P. and Randall Stokes, “Disclaimers,” American Sociological Review 40(1):1-11, 1975.
Merton, Robert K., “Social Structure and Anomie,” American Sociological Review 3:672-682, 1938.
Quinney, Richard, Criminology; Boston: Little, Brown, pp.37-41, 1975.
Scott, Marvin, and Stanford Lyman, “Accounts,” American Sociological Review 33(1): 46-62, 1968.
Stokes, Randall and John P. Hewitt, “Aligning Actions,” American Sociological Review 41(5): 837-849, 1976.
Sutherland, Edwin H., Donald R. Cressey and David F. Luckenbill, Principles of Criminology, 11th Edition; Alta Mira
Press, 1992, pp.88-90
Sykes, Gresham M. and David Matza; “Techniques of Neutralization: A Theory of Delinquency,” American Sociological
Review; 22:6, pp.664-670, 1957.
Turner, Ralph H.; “Deviance Avowal as Neutralization of Commitment,” Social Problems 19 (Winter 1972), pp. 308-321.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Suppose for the moment that you are in favor of the death penalty, even if you are not. In your view, what other
crimes (if any), in addition to first degree murder, should be punishable by death? Why?
2. In your opinion, what types of behavior (if any), which our society views as deviant or criminal, should be
redefined as legitimate? Why?
3. Describe a time when you were confronted about your rulebreaking activity and tried (perhaps successfully) to
talk your way out of it.

1:
THE INFLUENCE OF SITUATIONAL ETHICS ON CHEATING
DONALD L. MCCABE
McCabe uses Sykes and Matza’s classic typology of “techniques of neutralization” to classify some of the
rationalizations college students use to legitimate their cheating behavior despite the long-standing presence of honor
codes at their schools. Based on a survey of over 6,000 students, McCabe shows which neutralization techniques were
more commonly used in various familiar situations. Readers will no doubt recognize some of these rationales as they
tie their everyday life surroundings to these deviance concepts.
Numerous studies have demonstrated the pervasive nature of cheating among college students (Baird 1980; Haines, Diekhoff,
LaBeff, and Clark 1986; Michaels and Miethe 1989; Davis et al. 1992). This research has examined a variety of factors that
help explain cheating behavior, but the strength of the relationships between individual factors and cheating has varied
considerably from study to study (Tittle and Rowe 1973; Baird 1980; Eisenberger and Shank 1985; Haines et al. 1986; Ward
1986; Michaels and Miethe 1989; Perry, Kane, Bernesser, and Spicker 1990; Ward and Beck 1990).
Although the factors examined in these studies (for example, personal work ethic, gender, self-esteem, rational choice, social
learning, deterrence) are clearly important, the work of LaBeff, Clark, Haines, and Diekhoff (1990) suggests that the concept
of situational ethics may be particularly helpful in understanding student rationalizations for cheating. Extending the arguments
of Norris and Dodder (1979), LaBeff et al. conclude
that students hold qualified guidelines for behavior which are situationally determined. As such, the concept of
situational ethics might well describe . . . college cheating [as having] rules for behavior [that] may not be considered
rigid but depend on the circumstances involved (1990, p. 191).
LaBeff et al. believe a utilitarian calculus of “the end justifies the means” underlies this reasoning process and “what is wrong
in most situations might be considered right or acceptable if the end is defined as appropriate” (1990, p. 191). As argued by
Edwards (1967), the situation determines what is right or wrong in this decision-making calculus and also dictates the
appropriate principles to be used in guiding and judging behavior.
From “The Influence of Situational Ethics on Cheating Among College Students” by Donald I. McCabe, from Sociological
Inquiry, 62:3, pp. 365-74. Copyright © 1992 by the University of Texas Press. All rights reserved. (Summer 1992).
Reprinted by permission of the University of Texas Press and the author.
Sykes and Matza (1957) hypothesize that such rationalizations, that is, “justifications for deviance that are seen as valid by the
delinquent but not by the legal system or society at large” (p. 666), are common. However, they challenge conventional
wisdom that such rationalizations typically follow deviant behavior as a means of protecting “the individual from self-blame
and the blame of others after the act” (p. 666). They develop convincing arguments that these rationalizations may logically
precede the deviant behavior and “[disapproval from internalized norms and conforming others in the social environment is
neutralized, turned back, or deflated in advance. Social controls that serve to check or inhibit deviant motivational patterns are
rendered inoperative, and the individual is freed to engage in delinquency without serious damage to his self-image” (pp. 666–
667).
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667).
Using a sample of 380 undergraduate students at a small southwestern university, LaBeff et al. (1990) attempted to classify
techniques employed by students in the neutralization of cheating behavior into the five categories of neutralization proposed
by Sykes and Matza (1957); (1) denial of responsibility, (2) condemnation of condemners, (3) appeal to higher loyalties, (4)
denial of victim, and (5) denial of injury. Although student responses could easily be classified into three of these techniques,
denial of responsibility, appeal to higher loyalties, and condemnation of condemners, LaBeff et al. conclude that “[i]t is
unlikely that students will either deny injury or deny the victim since there are no real targets in cheating” (1990, p. 196).
The research described here responds to LaBeff et al. in two ways; first, it answers their call to “test the salience of
neutralization ... in more diverse university environments” (p. 197) and second, it challenges their dismissal of denial of injury
and denial of victim as neutralization techniques employed by students in their justification of cheating behavior.
Methodology
The data discussed here were gathered as part of a study of college cheating conducted during the 1990-1991 academic year.
A seventy-two-item questionnaire concerning cheating behavior was administered to students at thirty-one highly selective
colleges across the country. Surveys were mailed to a minimum of five hundred students at each school and a total of 6,096
completed surveys were returned (38.3 percent response rate). Eighty-eight percent of the respondents were seniors, nine
percent were juniors, and the remaining three percent could not be classified. Survey administration emphasized voluntary
participation and assurances of anonymity to help combat issues of non-response bias and the need to accept responses
without the chance to question or contest them.
The final sample included 61.2 percent females (which reflects the inclusion of five all-female schools in the sample and a
slightly higher return rate among female students) and 95.4 percent U.S. citizens. The sample paralleled the ethnic diversity
of the participating schools (85.5 percent Anglo, 7.2 percent Asian, 2.6 percent African American, 2.2 percent Hispanic and
2.5 percent other); their religious diversity (including a large percentage of students who claimed no religious preference,
27.1 percent); and their mix of undergraduate majors (36.0 percent humanities, 28.8 percent social sciences, 26.8 percent
natural sciences and engineering, 4.5 percent business, and 3.9 percent other).
Results
Of the 6,096 students participating in this research, over two-thirds (67.4 percent) indicated that they had cheated on a test or
major assignment at least once while an undergraduate. This cheating took a variety of different forms, but among the most
popular (listed in decreasing order of mention) were: (1) a failure to footnote sources in written work, (2) collaboration on
assignments when the instructor specifically asked for individual work, (3) copying from other students on tests and
examinations, (4) fabrication of bibliographies, (5) helping someone else cheat on a test, and (6) using unfair methods to
learn the content of a test ahead of time. Almost one in five students (19.1 percent) could be classified as active cheaters
(five or more self-reported incidents of cheating). This is double the rate reported by LaBeff et al. (1990), but they asked
students to report only cheating incidents that had taken place in the last six months. Students in this research were asked to
report all cheating in which they had engaged while an undergraduate—a period of three years for most respondents at the
time of this survey.
Students admitting to any cheating activity were asked to rate the importance of several specific factors that might have
influenced their decisions to cheat. These data establish the importance of denial of responsibility and condemnation of
condemners as neutralization techniques. For example, 52.4 percent of the respondents who admitted to cheating rated the
pressure to get good grades as an important influence in their decision to cheat, with parental pressures and competition to
gain admission into professional schools singled out as the primary grade pressures. Forty-six percent of those who had
engaged in cheating cited excessive workloads and an inability to keep up with assignments as important factors in their
decisions to cheat.

decisions to cheat.
In addition to rating the importance of such preselected factors, 426 respondents (11.0 percent of the admitted cheaters)
offered their own justifications for cheating in response to an open-ended question on motivations for cheating. These
responses confirm the importance of denial of responsibility and condemnation of condemners as neutralization techniques.
They also support LaBeff et al.’s (1990) claim that appeal to higher loyalties is an important neutralization technique.
However, these responses also suggest that LaBeff et al.’s dismissal of denial of injury as a justification for student cheating
is arguable.
As shown in the table, denial of responsibility was the technique most frequently cited (216 responses, 61.0 percent of the
total) in the 354 responses classified into one of Sykes and Matza’s five categories of neutralization. The most common
responses in this category were mind block, no understanding of the material, a fear of failing, and unclear explanations of
assignments. (Although it is possible that some instances of mind block and a fear of failing included in this summary would
be more accurately classified as rationalization, the wording of all responses included here suggests that rationalization
preceded the cheating incident. Responses that seem to involve post hoc rationalizations were excluded from this summary.)
Condemnation of condemners was the second most popular neutralization technique observed (99 responses, 28.0 percent)
and included such explanations as pointless assignments, lack of respect for individual professors, unfair tests, parents’
expectations, and unfair professors. Twenty-four respondents (6.8 percent) appealed to higher loyalties to explain their
behavior. In particular, helping a friend and responding to peer pressures were influences some students could not ignore.
Finally fifteen students (4.2 percent) provided responses that clearly fit into the category of denial of injury. These students
dismissed their cheating as harmless since it did not hurt anyone or they felt cheating did not matter in some cases (for
example, where an assignment counted for a small percentage of the total course grade).
Detailed examination of selected student responses provides additional insight into the neutralization strategies they employ.
Denial of Responsibility
1: THE INFLUENCE OF SITUATIONAL ETHICS ON CHEATING
Denial of responsibility invokes the claim that the act was “due to forces outside of the individual and beyond his control
such as unloving parents” (Sykes and Matza 1957, p. 667). For example, many students cite an unreasonable workload
and the difficulty of keeping up as ample justification for cheating:
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and the difficulty of keeping up as ample justification for cheating:
Here at. . ., you must cheat to stay alive. There’s so much work and the quality of materials from which to learn,
books, professors, is so bad that there’s no other choice.
It’s the only way to keep up.
I couldn’t do the work myself.
The following descriptions of student cheating confirm fear of failure is also an important form of denial of responsibility:
. . . a take-home exam in a class I was failing.
. . . was near failing.
Some justified their cheating by citing the behavior of peers:
Everyone has test files in fraternities, etc. If you don’t, you’re at a great disadvantage.
When most of the class is cheating on a difficult exam and they will ruin the curve, it influences you to cheat so
your grade won’t be affected.
All of these responses contain the essence of denial of responsibility: the cheater has deflected blame to others or to a
specific situational context.
Denial of Injury
As noted in the table, denial of injury was identified as a neutralization technique employed by some respondents. A key
element in denial of injury is whether one feels “anyone has clearly been hurt by [the] deviance.” In invoking this defense,
a cheater would argue “that his behavior does not really cause any great harm despite the fact that it runs counter to the
law” (Sykes and Matza 1957, pp. 667-668). For example, a number of students argued that the assignment or test on
which they cheated was so trivial that no one was really hurt by their cheating.
These grades aren’t worth much therefore my copying doesn’t mean very much. I am ashamed, but I’d probably
do it the same way again.
If I extend the time on a take-home it is because I feel everyone does and the teacher kind of expects it. No one
gets hurt.
As suggested earlier, these responses suggest the conclusion of LaBeff et al. that “[i]t is unlikely that students will. . .
deny injury” (1990, p. 196) must be re-evaluated.
The Denial of the Victim
LaBeff et al. failed to find any evidence of denial of the victim in their student accounts. Although the student motivations
for cheating summarized in the table support this conclusion, at least four students (0.1% of the self-admitted cheaters in
this study) provided comments elsewhere on the survey instrument which involved denial of the victim. The common
element in these responses was a victim deserving of the consequences of the cheating behavior and cheating was viewed
as “a form of rightful retaliation or punishment” (Sykes and Matza 1957, p. 668).
This feeling was extreme in one case, as suggested by the following student who felt her cheating was justified by the

This feeling was extreme in one case, as suggested by the following student who felt her cheating was justified by the
realization that this school is a manifestation of the bureaucratic capitalist system that systematically keeps the
lower classes down, and that adhering to their rules was simply perpetuating the institution.
This “we” versus “they” mentality was raised by many students, but typically in comments about the policing of academic
honesty rather than as justification for one’s own cheating behavior. When used to justify cheating, the target was almost
always an individual teacher rather than the institution and could be more accurately classified as a strategy of
condemnation of condemners rather than denial of the victim.
The Condemnation of Condemners
Sykes and Matza describe the condemnation of condemners as an attempt to shift “the focus of attention from [one’s] own
deviant acts to the motives and behavior of those who disapprove of [the] violations. [B]y attacking others, the
wrongfulness of [one’s] own behavior is more easily repressed or lost to view” (1957, p. 668). The logic of this strategy
for student cheaters focused on issues of favoritism and fairness. Students invoking this rationale describe “uncaring,
unprofessional instructors with negative attitudes who were negligent in their behavior” (LaBeff et al. 1990, p. 195). For
example:
In one instance, nothing was done by a professor because the student was a hockey player.
The TAs who graded essays were unduly harsh.
It is known by students that certain professors are more lenient to certain types, e.g., blondes or hockey players.
I would guess that 90% of the students here have seen athletes and/or fraternity members cheating on an exam or
papers. If you turn in one of these culprits, and I have, the penalty is a five-minute lecture from a coach and/or
administrator. All these add up to a “who cares, they’ll never do anything to you anyway” attitude here about
cheating.
Concerns about the larger society were an important issue for some students:
When community frowns upon dishonesty, then people will change.
If our leaders can commit heinous acts and then lie before Senate committees about their total ignorance and
innocence, then why can’t I cheat a little?
In today’s world you do anything to be above the competition.
In general, students found ready targets on which to blame their behavior and condemnation of the condemners was a
popular neutralization strategy.
The Appeal to Higher Loyalties
1: THE INFLUENCE OF SITUATIONAL ETHICS ON CHEATING
The appeal to higher loyalties involves neutralizing “internal and external controls ... by sacrificing the demands of the
larger society for the demands of the smaller social groups to which the [offender] belongs. [Deviation from certain norms
may occur not because the norms are rejected but because other norms, held to be more pressing or involving a higher
loyalty, are accorded precedence” (Sykes and Matza 1957, p. 669). For example, a difficult conflict for some students is
balancing the desire to help a friend against the institution’s rules on cheating. The student may not challenge the rules,
but rather views the need to help a friend, fellow fraternity/sorority member, or roommate to be a greater obligation which
justifies the cheating behavior.
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justifies the cheating behavior.
Fraternities and sororities were singled out as a network where such behavior occurs with some frequency. For example, a
female student at a small university in New England observed:
There’s a lot of cheating within the Greek system. Of all the cheating I’ve seen, it’s often been men and women in
fraternities and sororities who exchange information or cheat.
The appeal to higher loyalties was particularly evident in student reactions concerning the reporting of cheating
violations. Although fourteen of the thirty-one schools participating in this research had explicit honor codes that
generally require students to report cheating violations they observe, less than one-third (32.3 percent) indicated that they
were likely to do so. When asked if they would report a friend, only 4 percent said they would and most students felt that
they should not be expected to do so. Typical student comments included:
Students should not be sitting in judgment of their own peers.
The university is not a police state.
For some this decision was very practical:
A lot of students, 50 percent, wouldn’t because they know they will probably cheat at some time themselves.
For others, the decision would depend on the severity of the violation they observed and many would not report what they
consider to be minor violations, even those explicitly covered by the school’s honor code or policies on academic honesty.
Explicit examination or test cheating was one of the few violations where students exhibited any consensus concerning
the need to report violations. Yet even in this case many students felt other factors must be considered. For example, a
senior at a woman’s college in the Northeast commented:
It would depend on the circumstances. If someone was hurt, very likely. If there was no single victim in the case, if
the victim was [the] institution . . ., then very unlikely.
Additional evidence of the strength of the appeal to higher loyalties as a neutralization technique is found in the fact that
almost one in five respondents (17.8 percent) reported that they had helped someone cheat on an examination or major
test. The percentage who have helped others cheat on papers and other assignments is likely much higher. Twenty-six
percent of those students who helped someone else cheat on a test reported that they had never cheated on a test
themselves, adding support to the argument that peer pressure to help friends is quite strong.
Conclusions
From this research it is clear that college students use a variety of neutralization techniques to rationalize their cheating
behavior, deflecting blame to others and/or the situational context, and the framework of Sykes and Matza (1957) seems
well-supported when student explanations of cheating behavior are analyzed. Unlike prior research (LaBeff et al. 1990),
however, the present findings suggest that students employ all of the techniques described by Sykes and Matza, including
denial of injury and denial of victim. Although there was very limited evidence of the use of denial of victim, denial of
injury was not uncommon. Many students felt that some forms of cheating were victimless crimes, particularly on
assignments that accounted for a small percentage of the total course grade. The present research does affirm LaBeff et al.’s
finding that denial of responsibility and condemnation of condemners are the neutralization techniques most frequently
utilized by college students. Appeal to higher loyalties is particularly evident in neutralizing institutional expectations that
students report cheating violations they observe.

students report cheating violations they observe.
The present results clearly extend the findings of LaBeff et al. into a much wider range of contexts as this research
ultimately involved 6,096 students at thirty-one geographically dispersed institutions ranging from small liberal arts colleges
in the Northeast to nationally prominent research universities in the South and West. Fourteen of the thirty-one institutions
have long-standing honor-code traditions. The code tradition at five of these schools dates to the late 1800s and all fourteen
have codes that survived the student unrest of the 1960s. In such a context, the strength of the appeal to higher loyalties and
the denial of responsibility as justifications for cheating is a very persuasive argument that neutralization techniques are
salient to today’s college student. More importantly, it may suggest fruitful areas of future discourse between faculty,
administrators, and students on the question of academic honesty.*
REFERENCES
1: THE INFLUENCE OF SITUATIONAL ETHICS ON CHEATING
Baird, John S. 1980. “Current Trends in College Cheating.” Psychology in Schools 17: 512-522.
Davis, Stephen E, Cathy A. Grover, Angela H. Becker, and Loretta N. McGregor. 1992. “Academic Dishonesty:
Prevalence, Determinants, Techniques, and Punishments.” Teaching of Psychology. In press.
Edwards, Paul. 1967. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, no, 3, Paul Edwards (ed.), New York: Macmillan
Company and Free Press.
Eisenberger, Robert, and Dolores M. Shank. 1985. “Personal Work Ethic and Effort Training Affect Cheating.”
journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49: 520-528.
Haines, Valerie J., George Diekhoff, Emily LaBeff, and Robert Clark. 1986. “College Cheating: Immaturity,
Lack of Commitment, and the Neutralizing Attitude.” Research in Higher Education 25: 342-354.
LaBeff, Emily E., Robert E. Clark, Valerie J. Haines, and George M. Diekhoff. 1990. “Situational Ethics and
College Student Cheating.” Sociological Inquiry 60:190-198.
Michaels, James W., and Terance Miethe. 1989. “Applying Theories of Deviance to Academic Cheating.” Social
Science Quarterly 70: 870-885.
Norris, Terry D., and Richard A. Dodder. 1979. “A Behavioral Continuum Synthesizing Neutralization Theory,
Situational Ethics and Juvenile Delinquency.” Adolescence 55: 545-555.
Perry, Anthony R., Kevin M. Kane, Kevin J. Bernesser, and Paul T. Spicker. 1990. “Type A Behavior,
Competitive Achievement-Striving, and Cheating Among College Students.” Psychological Reports 66: 459-465.
Sykes, Gresham M., and David Matza. 1957. “Techniques of Neutralization: A Theory of Delinquency.”
American Sociological Review 22: 664-670.
Tittle, Charles, and Alan Rowe. 1973. “Moral Appeal, Sanction Threat, and Deviance: An Experimental Test.”
Social Problems 20: 488-498.
Ward, David. 1986. “Self-Esteem and Dishonest Behavior Revisited.” journal of Social Psychology 123:
709-713.
Ward, David, and Wendy L. Beck. 1990. “Gender and Dishonesty.” journal of Social Psychology 130: 333-339.
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DISCUSSION QUESTION
1. Imagine that you are contemplating cheating on your next exam in this class, or engaging in some form of
plagiarism to prepare a required research paper. Which of the techniques of neutralization mentioned in this
reading would you be most likely to use, to rationalize your academic dishonesty?
* The author would like to acknowledge the support of the Rutgers Graduate School of Management Research
Resources Committee, Exxon Corporation, and First Fidelity Bancorporation.

JENNIFER HUNT
2:
POLICE ACCOUNTS OF NORMAL FORCE
There are several ways to read this article. On the one hand, it instructs us about police behavior and how police
officers do their work. Another is to see the way bureaucracies and formal procedures are contradicted by informal
norms and group consensus. A third reading, and the one Jennifer Hunt intends, dissects the social construction of the
reality in which police officers make sense of their work and their actions. The accounts police provide for their actions
“normalize” an unpredictable and complex world. As you read this essay, think how you, too, normalize events in your
everyday world and what this means for those with whom you interact.
The police are required to handle a variety of peacekeeping and law enforcement tasks including settling disputes, removing
drunks from the street, aiding the sick, controlling crowds, and pursuing criminals. What unifies these diverse activities is the
possibility that their resolution might require the use of force. Indeed, the capacity to use force stands at the core of the police
mandate.
The bulk of the sociological literature on the use of force by police is concerned with analyzing the objective causes of
“excessive” force. Some social scientists, for example, suggest that the incidence of extra-legal force correlates with
characteristics of individual officers—in particular, their authoritarianism, age, or length of service. Others emphasize the
relevance of the behavior and characteristics of the target population, including demeanor, sex, race, and class. Still others
investigate the legal and organizational roots of force. They are concerned with how formal rules and/or subcultural norms
may influence the police officer’s decision to employ force.
Although representing diverse perspectives, these approaches share a similar underlying orientation to use of force by police.
First, they all specify, in advance of study, formal or legal definitions of permissible force, definitions of permissible force,
definitions that are then used to identify deviations legally classifiable as brutal or “excessive.” This procedure disregards the
understandings and standards police officers actively employ in using and evaluating force in the course of their work. Second,
these studies are primarily concerned with identifying the objective conditions held to determine “excessive” force defined in
this way. As a result, they minimize the active role of consciousness in police decisions to use force, tending to depict such
decisions as mere passive responses to external determinants.
In contrast, sociologists working within the symbolic interactionist tradition have displayed particular interest in the police
officer’s own assessment of what constitutes necessary force. This research has varied in how such assessments are
conceptualized. Rubinstein (1973: 302) for example, suggests that police use force instrumentally to control persons whom
they perceive as presenting a physical threat. In contrast, Van Maanen (1978) explores how police, in reacting to others, are
highly attentive to symbolic violation of their authority, dispensing harsh treatment to categories of persons who commit such
violations.
The following research departs from and seeks to extend the symbolic interactionist concern with police officers’ own
assessments of the use of force. It explores how police themselves classify and evaluate acts of force as either legal, normal, or
excessive. Legal force is that coercion necessary to subdue, control, and restrain a suspect in order to take him into custody.
Although force not accountable in legal terms is technically labelled excessive by the courts and the public, the police perceive
many forms of illegal force as normal. Normal force involves coercive acts that specific “cops” on specific occasions
formulate as necessary, appropriate, reasonable, or understandable. Although not always legitimated or admired, normal force
is depicted as a necessary or natural response of normal police to particular situational exigencies.
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is depicted as a necessary or natural response of normal police to particular situational exigencies.
Most officers are expected to use both legal and normal force as a matter of course in policing the streets. In contrast, excessive
force or brutality exceeds even working police notions of normal force. These are acts of coercion that cannot be explained by
the routine police accounting practices ordinarily used to justify or excuse force. Brutality is viewed as illegal, illegitimate, and
often immoral violence, but the police draw the lines in extremely different ways and at different points than do either the court
system or the public.
These processes of assessing and accounting for the use of force, with special reference to the critical distinction between
normal and excessive force as drawn by the police, will be explored in what follows. The study begins by examining how
rookie police learn on the street to use and account for force in a manner that contradicts what they were taught at the academy.
It then considers “normal force” and the accounting processes whereby police discriminatively judge when and how much
force is appropriate in specific situations and incidents. It concludes with a discussion of excessive force and peer reactions to
those who use it frequently.
The article is based on approximately eighteen months of participant observation in a major urban police department referred
to as the Metro City P.D. I attended the police academy with male and female recruits and later rode with individual officers in
one-person cars on evening and night shifts in high crime districts. 1 The female officers described in this research were among
the first 100 women assigned to the ranks of uniformed patrol as a result of a discrimination suit filed by the Justice
Department and a policewoman plaintiff.
100
Learning to Use Normal Force
The police phrase “it’s not done on the street the way that it’s taught at the academy” underscores the perceived
contradiction between the formal world of the police academy and the informal world of the street. This contradiction
permeates the police officer’s construction of his world, particularly his view of the rational and moral use of force.
In the formal world of the police academy, the recruit learns to account for force by reference to legality. He or she is issued
the regulation instruments and trained to use them to subdue, control, and restrain a suspect. If threatened with great bodily
harm, the officer learns that he can justifiably use deadly force and fire his revolver. Yet the recruit is taught that he cannot
use his baton, jack, or gun, unnecessarily to torture, maim, or kill a suspect.
When recruits leave the formal world of the academy and are assigned to patrol a district, they are introduced to an informal
world in which police recognize normal as well as legal and brutal force. Through observation and instruction, rookies
gradually learn to apply force and account for its use in terms familiar to the street cop. First, rookies learn to adjust their
arsenals to conform to street standards. They are encouraged to buy the more powerful weapons worn by veteran colleagues
as these colleagues point out the inadequacy of a wooden baton or compare their convoy jacks to vibrators. They quickly
discover that their department-issued equipment marks them as new recruits. At any rate, within a few weeks, most rookies
have dispensed with the wooden baton and convoy jack and substituted them with the more powerful plastic nightstick and
flat headed slapjack. 2
Through experience and informal instruction, the rookie also learns the street use of these weapons. In school, for example,
recruits are taught to avoid hitting a person on the head or neck because it could cause lethal damage. On the street, in
contrast, police conclude that they must hit wherever it causes the most damage in order to incapacitate the suspect before
they themselves are harmed. New officers also learn that they will earn the respect of their veteran coworkers not by
observing legal niceties in using force, but by being “aggressive” and using whatever force is necessary in a given situation.
Peer approval helps neutralize the guilt and confusion that rookies often experience when they begin to use force to assert
their authority. One female officer, for example, learned she was the object of a brutality suit while listening to the news on
television. At first, she felt so mortified that she hesitated to go to work and face her peers. In fact, male colleagues greeted
her with a standing ovation and commented, “You can use our urinal now.” In their view, any aggressive police officer
regularly using normal force might eventually face a brutality suit or civilian complaint. Such accusations confirm the

2: POLICE ACCOUNTS OF NORMAL FORCE
her with a standing ovation and commented, “You can use our urinal now.” In their view, any aggressive police officer
regularly using normal force might eventually face a brutality suit or civilian complaint. Such accusations confirm the
officer’s status as a “street cop” rather than an “inside man” who doesn’t engage in “real police work.”
Whereas male rookies are assumed to be competent dispensers of force unless proven otherwise, women are believed to be
physically weak, naturally passive, and emotionally vulnerable. Women officers are assumed to be reluctant to use physical
force and are viewed as incompetent “street cops” until they prove otherwise. As a result, women rookies encounter special
problems in learning to use normal force in the process of becoming recognized as “real street cops.” It becomes crucial for
women officers to create or exploit opportunities to display their physical abilities in order to overcome sexual bias and
obtain full acceptance from coworkers. As a result, women rookies are encouraged informally to act more aggressively and
to display more machismo than male rookies. Consider the following incident where a young female officer reflects upon
her use of force during a domestic disturbance:
And when I get there, if goddamn, there isn’t a disturbance going on. So Tom comes, the guy that I went to back up.
The male talks to him. I take the female and talk to her. And the drunk (cop) comes and the sergeant comes and
another guy comes. So while we think we have everything settled, and we have the guy calmed down, he turns
around and says to his sister, no less, that’s who it is, “Give me the keys to my car!” And with that, she rips them out
of her pocket and throws them at him. Now, he goes nuts. He goes into a Kung fu stance and says he’s gonna kill
her. The drunk cop says, “Yo, knock it off!” and goes to grab him and the guy punches him. So Mike (the drunk cop)
goes down. Tommy goes to grab him and is wrestling with him. And all the cops are trying to get in there. So I ran in
with my stick and I stick the guy in the head. But I just missed Tommy’s face and opened him (the suspect) up. So
all of a sudden everybody’s grabbin’ him and I’m realizing that if we get him down, he won’t hurt anybody. So I
pushed the sergeant out of the way and I got my stick under the guy’s legs and I pulled his legs out from under him
and I yelled, “Tommy, take him down.” I pulled his legs and he went down and I sat on him. So Tommy says, “Well,
cuff him.” And I says, “I can’t find my goddamned cuffs.” I molested my body trying to get my cuffs....
So, when I [finally] get my cuffs, we cuff him. And we’re sitting there talking. And Tommy, he has no regard for me
whatsoever. . . . The guy’s opened up and he bled all over Tommy’s shirt. And I turned around and said, “Tommy,
look at your shirt. There’s blood all over your shirt.” He said, “Who the hell almost clobbered me?” I said, “I’m
sorry Tom, that was me.” He said, “You’re the one that opened him up? And I said, “Yeh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to
get so close to you.” ...
So when the sergeant came out he said, “And you, what do you mean telling me to get outta the way.” He said, “Do
you know you pushed me outta your way. . . .” And I said, “I didn’t want you to get hurt. . . and I was afraid he was
gonna kick one of you.” And he says, “I still can’t believe you pushed me outta your way. You were like a little
dynamo.” And I found after that I got respect from the sergeant. He doesn’t realize it but he treated me differently
after that.
Her colleagues’ reactions provided informal instruction in the use of normal force, confirming that her actions under these
circumstances were reasonable and even praiseworthy.
For a street cop, it is often a graver error to use too little force and develop a “shaky” reputation than it is to use too much
force and be told to calm down. Thus officers, particularly rookies, who do not back up their partners in appropriate ways or
who hesitate to use force in circumstances where it is deemed necessary are informally instructed regarding their aberrant
ways. If the problematic incident is relatively insignificant and his general reputation is good, a rookie who “freezes” one
time is given a second chance before becoming generally known as an untrustworthy partner. However, such incidents
become the subject of degrading gossip, gossip that pressures the officer either to use force as expected or risk isolation.
Such talk also informs rookies about the general boundaries of legal and normal force.
For example, a female rookie was accused of “freezing” in an incident that came to be referred to as a “Mexican standoff.”
A pedestrian had complained that “something funny is going on in the drugstore.” The officer walked into the pharmacy
where she found an armed man committing a robbery. Although he turned his weapon on her when she entered the premises,
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A pedestrian had complained that “something funny is going on in the drugstore.” The officer walked into the pharmacy
where she found an armed man committing a robbery. Although he turned his weapon on her when she entered the premises,
she still pulled out her gun and pointed it at him. When he ordered her to drop it, claiming that his partner was behind her
with a revolver at her head, she refused and told him to drop his. He refused, and the stalemate continued until a sergeant
entered the drugstore and ordered the suspect to drop his gun.
Initially, the female officer thought she had acted appropriately and even heroically. She soon discovered, however, that her
hesitation to shoot had brought into question her competence with some of her fellow officers. Although many veterans
claimed that “she had a lot a balls” to take her gun out at all when the suspect already had a gun on her, most contended “she
shoulda shot him.” Other policemen confirmed that she committed a “rookie mistake”; she had failed to notice a “lookout”
standing outside the store and hence had been unprepared for an armed confrontation. Her sergeant and lieutenant,
moreover, even insisted that she had acted in a cowardly manner, despite her reputation as a “gung-ho cop,” and cited the
incident as evidence of the general inadequacy of policewomen.
In the weeks that followed, this officer became increasingly depressed and angry. She was particularly outraged when she
learned that she would not receive a commendation, although such awards were commonly made for “gun pinches” of this
nature. Several months later, the officer vehemently expressed the wish that she had killed the suspect and vowed that next
time she would “shoot first and ask questions later.” The negative sanctions of supervisors and colleagues clearly
encouraged her to adopt an attitude favorable to using force with less restraint in future situations.
Reprimand, gossip, and avoidance constitute the primary means by which police try to change or control the behavior of
coworkers perceived as unreliable or cowardly. Formal accusations, however, are discouraged regardless of the seriousness
of the misconduct. One male rookie, for example, earned a reputation for cowardice after he allegedly had to be “dragged”
out of the car during an “assist officer.” Even then, he apparently refused to help the officers in trouble. Although no formal
charges were filed, everyone in the district was warned to avoid working with this officer.
Indeed, to initiate formal charges against a coworker may discredit the accuser. In one incident a male rookie, although
discouraged by veteran officers and even his district captain, filed charges of cowardice against a female rookie. The rookie
gained the support of two supervisors and succeeded in having the case heard before the Board of Inquiry. During the trial
he claimed the woman officer failed to aid him in arresting a man who presented physical resistance and had a knife on his
person. In rebuttal, the woman testified that she perceived no need to participate in a physical confrontation because she saw
no knife and the policeman was hitting the suspect. In spite of conflicting testimony, she was found guilty of “Neglect of
Duty.” Although most veterans thought the woman was “flaky” and doubted her competence, they also felt the male rookie
had exaggerated his story. Moreover, they were outraged that he filed formal charges and he quickly found himself
ostracized.
At the same time that male and female rookies are commended for using force under appropriate circumstances, they are
reprimanded if their participation in force is viewed as excessive or inappropriate. In this way, rookies are instructed that
although many acts of coercion are accepted and even demanded, not everything goes. They thereby learn to distinguish
between normal and brutal force. In the following incident, for example, a policewoman describes how she instructed a less
experienced officer that her behavior was unreasonable and should be checked. Here, the new officer is chastised for
misreading interactional cues and overreacting to minor affronts when treating a crazy person involved in a minor dispute as
if he were a serious felon.
But like I said, when I first heard about it (another fight) I’d wondered if Mary had provoked it any because we’d
gone on a disturbance and it was a drunk black guy who called to complain that the kid who lived upstairs keeps
walking through his apartment. The kid to me looks wacky. He’s talking crazy. He’s saying they shoulda sent men.
What are you women going to do. Going on and on. And to me it was a bullshit job. But Mary turns around and says,
“We don’t have to take that from him. Let’s lock him up.” I said, “Mary forget it.” And the kid has numchuck sticks
on him and when he turned his back... he had them in his back pocket. So, as he’s pulling away saying you’re scared,
like a little kid, I turned around and said, “I’ve got your sticks.” And I go away. Mary ... so Mary was ... I looked at
her and she was so disappointed in me... like I’d turned chicken on her. So I tried to explain to her, I said, “Mary, all

like a little kid, I turned around and said, “I’ve got your sticks.” And I go away. Mary ... so Mary was ... I looked at
her and she was so disappointed in me... like I’d turned chicken on her. So I tried to explain to her, I said, “Mary, all
we have is disorderly conduct. That’s a summary offense. That’s bullshit.” I said, “Did you want to get hurt for a
summary offense?” I said, “The guy was drunk who called to complain. It wasn’t even a legit complaint.” I said,
“It’s just. . . You’ve got to use discretion. If you think I’m chicken think of the times when a ‘man with a gun’ comes
over the air and I’m the first car there.” I said, “When it’s worth it, I’ll do anything. When it’s not worth it, I’ll back
off.” And I think she tries to temper herself some because Collette and her, they finally had a talk about why they
hated each other. And Collette said to her, “I think you’re too physical. I think you look for fights.” And I think
maybe Mary hearing it twice, once from me and once from Collette, might start to think that maybe she does
provoke. Instead of going up ... I always go up to them friendly and then if they act shitty I get shitty.
In summary, when rookies leave the academy, they begin to familiarize themselves with street weapons and to gain some
sense of what kinds of behavior constitute too little or too much force. They also begin to develop an understanding of street
standards for using and judging appropriate and necessary force. By listening to and observing colleagues at work and by
experiencing a variety of problematic interactions with the public, newcomers become cognizant of the occasions and
circumstances in which to use various degrees and kinds of force. But at the same time, they are learning not only when and
how to use force, but also a series of accounting practices to justify and to legitimate as “normal” (and sometimes to
condemn) these acts of coercion. Normal force is thus the product of the police officers’ accounting practices for describing
what happened in ways that prefigure or anticipate the conclusion that it was in some sense justified or excusable and hence
“normal.” It is to a consideration of the ways in which officers learn to provide such accounts for normal force that I now
turn.
Accounting for Normal Force
Police routinely normalize the use of force by two types of accounts: excuses and justifications. Excuses deny full
responsibility for an act of force but acknowledge its inappropriateness. Acts of force become excusable when they are
depicted as the natural outcome of strong, even uncontrollable emotions normally arising in certain routine sorts of police
activities. Through such accounts, officers excuse force by asserting that it is a “natural,” “human” reaction to certain
extreme, emotionally trying situations. Justifications accept responsibility for the coercive act in question but deny that the
act was wrongful or blameworthy.
Police justify force through two analytically distinct kinds of accounts: situational and abstract. In the former, the officer
represents force as a response in some specific situation needed to restore immediate control or to reestablish the local order
of power in the face of a threat to police authority. In contrast, abstract accounts justify force as a morally appropriate
response to certain categories of crime and criminals who symbolize a threat to the moral order. As an account, abstract
justification does not highlight processes of interactional provocation and threats to immediate control, but rather legitimates
force as a means of obtaining some higher moral purpose, particularly the punishment of heinous offenders.
None of these accounts are mutually exclusive, and are often combined in justifying and excusing the use of force in any
specific instance. For example, police consider it justifiable to use force to regain control of someone who has challenged an
officer’s authority. However, an officer may also excuse his behavior as an “overreaction,” claiming he “snapped out” and
lost control, and hence used more force or different kinds of force than were required to regain control. Mixed accounts
involving situational and abstract justifications of force are also frequent: force may be depicted as necessary to regain
control when an officer is physically assaulted; but at the same time it may also be justified as punishment appropriate to the
kind of morally unworthy person who would challenge an officer’s authority.
Excuses and Normal Force
2: POLICE ACCOUNTS OF NORMAL FORCE
Excuses are accounts in which police deny full responsibility for an act but recognize its inappropriateness. Excuses
therefore constitute socially approved vocabularies for relieving responsibility when conduct is questionable. Police most
often excuse morally problematic force by referring to emotional or physiological states that are precipitated by some
circumstances of routine patrol work. These circumstances include shootouts, violent fights, pursuits, and instances in which
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often excuse morally problematic force by referring to emotional or physiological states that are precipitated by some
circumstances of routine patrol work. These circumstances include shootouts, violent fights, pursuits, and instances in which
a police officer mistakenly comes close to killing an unarmed person.
Policework in these circumstances can generate intense excitement in which the officer experiences the “combat high” and
“adrenaline rush” familiar to the combat soldier. Foot and car pursuits not only bring on feelings of danger and excitement
from the chase, but also a challenge to official authority. As one patrolman commented about a suspect: “Yeh, he got tuned
up (beaten)... you always tune them up after a car chase.” Another officer normalized the use of force after a pursuit in these
terms:
It’s my feeling that violence inevitably occurs after a pursuit. . . . The adrenaline . . . and the insult involved when
someone flees increases with every foot of the pursuit. I know the two or three times that I felt I lost control of
myself ... was when someone would run on me. The further I had to chase the guy the madder I got.... The funny
thing is the reason for the pursuit could have been for something as minor as a traffic violation or a kid you’re
chasing who just turned on a fire hydrant. It always ends in violence. You feel obligated to hit or kick the guy just for
running.
Police officers also excuse force when it follows an experience of helplessness and confusion that has culminated in a
temporary loss of emotional control. This emotional combination occurs most frequently when an officer comes to the brink
of using lethal force, drawing a gun and perhaps firing, only to learn there were no “real” grounds for this action. The officer
may then “snap out” and hit the suspect. In one such incident, for example, two policemen picked up a complainant who
positively identified a suspect as a man who just tried to shoot him. Just as the officers approached the suspect, he suddenly
reached for his back pocket for what the officers assumed to be a gun. One officer was close enough to jump the suspect
before he pulled his hand from his pocket. As it turned out, the suspect had no weapon, having dropped it several feet away.
Although he was unarmed and under control, the suspect was punched and kicked out of anger and frustration by the officer
who had almost shot him.
Note that in both these circumstances—pursuit and near-miss mistaken shootings—officers would concede that the ensuing
force is inappropriate and unjustifiable when considered abstractly. But although abstractly wrong, the use of force on such
occasions is presented as a normal, human reaction to an extreme situation. Although not every officer might react violently
in such circumstances, it is understandable and expected that some will.
Situational Justifications
Officers also justify force as normal by reference to interactional situations in which an officer’s authority is physically or
symbolically threatened. In such accounts, the use of force is justified instrumentally—as a means of regaining immediate
control in a situation where that control has become tenuous. Here, the officer depicts his primary intent for using force as a
need to reestablish immediate control in a problematic encounter, and only incidentally as hurting or punishing the offender.
Few officers will hesitate to assault a suspect who physically threatens or attacks them. In one case, an officer was punched
in the face by a prisoner he had just apprehended for allegedly attempting to shoot a friend. The incident occurred in the
stationhouse and several policemen observed the exchange. Immediately, one officer hit the prisoner in the jaw and the rest
immediately joined the brawl.
Violations of an officer’s property such as his car or hat may signify a more symbolic assault on the officer’s authority and
self, thus justifying a forceful response to maintain control. Indeed, in the police view, almost any person who verbally
challenges a police officer is appropriately subject to force. In the following extract, a female officer accounts in these ways
for a colleague’s use of force against an escaping prisoner:

for a colleague’s use of force against an escaping prisoner:
And so Susan gets on the scene (of the fight). They cuff one of the girls, and she throws her in the back seat of the
car. She climbs over the back seat, jumps out of the car with cuffs on and starts running up the stairs. Susan and Jane
are trying to cuff the other girl and all of a sudden Susan looks up and sees her cuffs running away. She (Jane) said
Susan turned into an animal. Susan runs up the steps grabs the girl by the legs. Drags her down the five steps. Puts
her in the car. Kicks her in the car. Jane goes in the car and calls her every name she can think of and waves her stick
in her face. 3
On rare occasions, women officers encounter special problems in these regards. Although most suspects view women in the
same way as policemen, some seem less inclined to accord female officers de facto and symbolic control in street
encounters, and on a few occasions seem determined to provoke direct confrontations with such officers, explicitly denying
their formal authority and attempting none too subtly to sexualize the encounter. Women officers, then, might use force as a
resource for rectifying such insults and for establishing control over such partially sexualized interactions.
Abstract Justifications
Police also justify the use of extreme force against certain categories of morally reprehensible persons. In this case, force is
not presented as an instrumental means to regain control that has been symbolically or physically threatened. Instead, it is
justified as an appropriate response to particularly heinous offenders. Categories of such offenders include: cop haters who
have gained notoriety as persistent police antagonizers; cop killers or any person who has attempted seriously to harm a
police officer; sexual deviants who prey on children and “moral women”; child abusers; and junkies and other “scum” who
inhabit the street. The more morally reprehensible the act is judged, the more likely the police are to depict any violence
directed toward its perpetrator as justifiable. Thus a man who exposes himself to children in a playground is less likely to
experience police assault than one who rapes or sexually molests a child.
“Clean” criminals, such as high level mafiosi, white-collar criminals, and professional burglars, are rarely subject to abstract
force. Nor are perpetrators of violent and nonviolent street crimes who prey on adult males, prostitutes, and other categories
of persons who belong on the street. 4 Similarly, the “psycho” or demented person is perceived as so mentally deranged that
he is not responsible for his acts and hence does not merit abstract, punitive force.
Police justify abstract force by invoking a higher moral purpose that legitimates the violation of commonly recognized
standards. In one case, for example, a nun was raped by a 17-year-old male adolescent. When the police apprehended the
suspect, he was severely beaten and his penis put in an electrical outlet to teach him a lesson. The story of the event was told
to me by a police officer who, despite the fact that he rarely supported the use of extra-legal force, depicted this treatment as
legitimate. Indeed, when I asked if he would have participated had he been present, he responded, “I’m Catholic. I would
have participated.”
Excessive Force and Peer Responses
2: POLICE ACCOUNTS OF NORMAL FORCE
Although police routinely excuse and justify many incidents where they or their coworkers have used extreme force against
a citizen or suspect, this does not mean that on any and every occasion the officer using such force is exonerated. Indeed, the
concept of normal force is useful because it suggests that there are specific circumstances under which police officers will
not condone the use of force by themselves or colleagues as reasonable and acceptable. Thus, officer-recognized
conceptions of normal force are subject to restrictions of the following kinds:
(1) Police recognize and honor some rough equation between the behavior of the suspect and the harmfulness of the force to
which it is subject. There are limits, therefore, to the degree of force that is acceptable in particular circumstances. In the
following incident, for example, an officer reflects on a situation in which a “symbolic assailant” (Skolnick, 1975: 45) was
mistakenly subject to more force than he “deserved” and almost killed:
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mistakenly subject to more force than he “deserved” and almost killed:
One time Bill Johnson and I, I have more respect for him than any other policeman He and I, we weren’t particularly
brutal. If the guy deserved it, he got it. It’s generally the attitude that does it. We had a particularly rude drunk one
day. He was really rude and spit on you and he did all this stuff and we even had to cuff him lying down on the hard
stretcher, like you would do an epileptic We were really mad at this guy. So, what you normally do with drunks is
you take them to the district cell.... So we were really mad. We said let’s just give him one or two shots . . .
slamming on the brakes and having him roll. But we didn’t use our heads. He’s screaming and hollering “You lousy
cops” and we slammed on the brakes and we didn’t use our heads and we heard the stretcher go nnnnnnBam and
then nothing. We heard nothing and we realized we had put this man in with his head to the front so when we
slammed on the brakes this stretcher.... I guess it can roll four foot. Well, it was his head that had hit the front of it
and we heard no sounds and my God, I’ve never been so scared. Me and Bill we thought we killed him. So I’m
saying “Bill, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna explain this one.” The guy’s still saying nothing. So, we
went to Madison Street and parked. It’s a really lonely area. And we unlocked the wagon and peeked in. We know
he’s in there. We were so scared and we look in and there’s not a sound and we see blood coming in front of the
wagon and think “Oh my God we killed this man. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna tell my family?” And to
make a long story short, he was just knocked out. But boy was I scared. From then on we learned, feet first.
(2) Although it is considered normal and natural to become emotional and angry in highly charged, taut encounters, officers
nonetheless prefer to minimize the harmful consequences of the use of force. As a result, officers usually acknowledge that
emotional reactions that might lead to extreme force should be controlled and limited by coworkers if at all possible. In the
following account, for example, an officer justified the use of force as a legitimate means to regain situational control when
physically challenged. Nonetheless, he expressed gratitude to his partner for stopping him from doing serious harm when he
“snapped out” and lost control:
Well, I wasn’t sure if she was a girl until I put my hand on her shoulder and realized it was a woman’s shoulder. I
was trying to stop her. But it happened when she suddenly kicked me in the balls. Then everything inside of me
exploded and I grabbed her and pushed her against the car and started pressing her backwards and kept pressing her
backwards. All of a sudden something clicked inside of me because I noticed her eyes changed and her body caved
in and she looked frightened because she knew that I was gonna kill her. And I stopped. I think I stopped because
Susan was on the scene. She must have said something. But anyway she (Susan) told me later that I should calm
down. And I snapped at her and told her to mind her own business because she didn’t know what happened. The girl
kicked me in the balls. But she was right about it. I mean it was getting to me. I’d never hit a woman before.
(3) Similarly, even in cases where suspects are seen as deserving some violent punishment, this force should not be used
randomly and without control. Thus, in the following incident, an officer who “snapped out” and began to beat a child
abuser clearly regarded his partner’s attempt to stop the beating as reasonable.
We get a call “meet complainant” and I drive up and there’s a lady standing out in front of the house and she’s
saying, “Listen officer, I don’t know what the story is but the neighbors in there. They’re screaming and hollering
and there’s kicking going on in there and I can’t take it. I can’t sleep. There’s too much noise.” Nothing unusual
about that. Just a typical day in the district. So the next thing you do is knock on the door and tell them to please
keep the noise down or whatever you do. You say to yourself it’s probably a boy friend-girl friend fight. So I knock
on the door and a lady answers just completely hysterical. And I say, “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on in here,”
but then I hear this, just this screeching. You know. And I figure well I’m just going to find out what’s going on so I
just go past the lady and what’s happening is that the husband had.... The kid was being potty trained and the way
they were potty training this kid, this two-year-old boy, was that the boyfriend of this girl would pick up this kid and
he would sit him down on top of the stove. It was their method of potty training. Well, first of all you think of your
own kids. I mean afterwards you do. I mean I’ve never been this mad in my whole life. You see this little two-yearold
boy seated on top of the stove with rings around it being absolutely scalding hot. And he’s saying “I’ll teach you

2: POLICE ACCOUNTS OF NORMAL FORCE
own kids. I mean afterwards you do. I mean I’ve never been this mad in my whole life. You see this little two-yearold
boy seated on top of the stove with rings around it being absolutely scalding hot. And he’s saying “I’ll teach you
to go. . . .” It just triggered something. An uncontrollable. . . . It’s just probably the most violent I ever got. Well you
just grab that guy. You hit him ten, fifteen times . . . you don’t know how many. You just get so mad. And I
remember my partner eventually came in and grabbed me and said, “Don’t worry about it. We got him. We got him.”
And we cuffed him and we took him down. Yeah that was bad.
Learning these sorts of restrictions on the use of normal force and these informal practices of peer control are important
processes in the socialization of newcomers. This socialization proceeds both through ongoing observation and experience
and, on occasion, through explicit instruction. For example, one veteran officer advised a rookie, “The only reason to go in
on a pursuit is not to get the perpetrator but to pull the cop who gets there first offa the guy before he kills him.”
It is against this background that patrol officers identify excessive force and the existence of violence-prone peers. Some
officers become known for recurrently committing acts of coercion that exceed working notions of normal force and that
cannot be excused or justified with routine accounting practices. In contrast to the officer who makes a “rookie mistake” and
uses excessive force from inexperience, the brutal cop does not honor the practices of normal force. Such an officer is also
not effectively held in check by routine means of peer control. As a result, more drastic measures must be taken to prevent
him from endangering the public and his colleagues.
One rookie gained a reputation for brutality from frequent involvement in “unnecessary” fights. One such incident was
particularly noteworthy: Answering a call on a demented male with a weapon, he came upon a large man pacing the
sidewalk carrying a lead pipe. The officer got out of the patrol car and yelled in a belligerant tone of voice, “What the fuck
are you doing creep?” At this point “the creep” attacked the officer and tried to take away his gun. A policewoman arrived
on the scene, joined the fight, called an assist, and rescued the patrolman. Although no one was hurt, colleagues felt the
incident was provoked by the officer who aggressively approached a known crazy person who should have been assumed to
be unpredictable and nonresponsible.
When colleagues first began to doubt this officer’s competence, he was informally instructed to moderate his behavior by
veteran and even rookie partners. When his behavior persisted, confrontations with fellow officers became explosive. When
peers were unable to check his behavior, complaints were made to superiors. Officially, colleagues indicated they did not
want to work with him because of “personality problems.” Informally, however, supervisors were informed of the nature of
his provocative and dangerous behavior. The sergeant responded by putting the rookie in a wagon with a responsible partner
whom he thought might succeed in controlling him. When this strategy proved unsuccessful, he was eventually transferred
to the subway unit. Such transfers to “punishment districts,” isolated posts, “inside units,” or the subway are typical means
of handling police officers deemed dangerous and out of control.
As this discussion indicates, the internal control of an exceptionally or inappropriately violent police officer is largely
informal. With the exception of civilian complaints and brutality suits, the behavior of such officers rarely becomes the
subject of formal police documents. However, their reputations are often well known throughout the department and the
rumors about their indiscretions educate rookies about how the line between normal force and brutality is drawn among
working police officers.
It takes more than one incident of excessively violent behavior for a police officer to attain a brutal reputation. The violent
officer is usually involved in numerous acts of aggressive behavior that are not accountable as normal force either because
of their frequency or because of their substance. However, once identified as “brutal,” a “head beater,” and so on, an
officer’s use of force will be condemned by peers in circumstances in which competent officers would be given the benefit
of the doubt. For example, one officer gained national notoriety during a federal investigation into a suspicious shooting.
Allegedly, a local resident had thrown an axe at the patrol wagon. According to available accounts, the police pursued the
suspect inside a house and the officer in question shot him in the head. Although witnesses claimed the victim was unarmed,
the officer stated that he fired in self defense. The suspect reportedly attacked him with a metal pipe. This policeman had an
established reputation for being “good with his hands,” and many colleagues assumed he had brutally shot an unarmed man
in the aftermath of a pursuit.
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in the aftermath of a pursuit.
Conclusion
The organization of policework reflects a poignant moral dilemma: for a variety of reasons, society mandates to the police
the right to use force but provides little direction as to its proper use in specific, “real life” situations. Thus, the police, as
officers of the law, must be prepared to use force under circumstances in which its rationale is often morally, legally, and
practically ambiguous. This fact explains some otherwise puzzling aspects of police training and socialization.
The police academy provides a semblance of socialization for its recruits by teaching formal rules for using force. It is a
semblance of socialization because it treats the use of force as capable of rationalization within the moral and legal
conventions of the civilian world. The academy also, paradoxically, trains recruits in the use of tools of violence with
potential for going far beyond the limitations of action imposed by those conventions. Consequently, the full socialization of
a police officer takes place outside the academy as the officer moves from its idealizations to the practicalities of the street.
This movement involves several phases: (1) a decisive, practical separation from the formal world established within the
academy; (2) the cultivation of a working distinction between what is formally permissible and what is practically and
informally required of the “street cop”; and (3) the demonstration of competence in using and accounting for routine street
practices that are morally and legally problematic for those not working the street.
The original dilemma surrounding the use of force persists throughout the socialization process, but is increasingly dealt
with by employing accounts provided by the police community that reduce and neutralize the moral tension. The
experienced “street cop” becomes an expert at using techniques of neutralization to characterize the use of force on the
streets, at judging its use by others, and at evaluating the necessity for using force by standards those techniques provide.
Use of these techniques also reinforces the radical separation of the formal and informal worlds of policework, duplicating
within the context of the organization itself the distinction between members and outsiders. This guarantees that members
will be able to distinguish between those who can and cannot be trusted to use force and to understand the conditions under
which its use is reasonable.
As accounts neutralizing the use of force, justifications and excuses both serve—though each in a different way—to manage
the tension inherent in situations fraught with moral insecurity. They conventionalize but do not reform situations that are
inherently charged and morally ambiguous. In this way they simultaneously preserve the self-image of police as agents of
the conventional order, provide ways in which individual officers can resolve their personal doubts as to the moral status of
their action and those of their colleagues, and reinforce the solidarity of the police community.
ENDNOTES
1 Nonetheless masculine pronouns are generally used to refer to the police in this article, because the Metro P.D.
remained dominated by men numerically, in style and in tone.
2 Some officers also substitute a large heavy duty flashlight for the nightstick. If used correctly, the flashlight can
inflict more damage than the baton and is less likely to break when applied to the head or other parts of the body.
3 Note that this account employs both the justifications of reestablishing real and symbolic control, and the excuse of
emotionally snapping out in response to this symbolic challenge and to the resulting pursuit.
4 The categories of persons who merit violence are not unique to the police. Prisoners, criminals, and hospital
personnel appear to draw similar distinctions between morally unworthy persons; on the latter, see Sudnow
(1967:105).
REFERENCES
Emerson, R. M. (1969) Judging Delinquents: Context and Process in juvenile Court. Chicago: Aldine.

Rubinstein, J. (1973) City Police. New York: Ballentine.
Skolnick, J. (1975) Justice Without Trial. New York: John Wiley.
Sudnow, D. (1967) Passing On: The Social Organization of Dying. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Van Maanen, J. (1978) “The asshole,” in P. K. Manning and J. Van Maanen (eds.) Policing: A View From the
Street. Santa Monica, CA: Goodyear.
DISCUSSION QUESTION
2: POLICE ACCOUNTS OF NORMAL FORCE
1. Describe an offense scenario (describe the offense and the offender) to which, as you see it, it would most likely
be viewed as legitimate (a) for a police officer to respond using “excessive” force and also (b) for him/her to
defend his/her actions with an “abstract justification.”
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3:
DISCLAIMERS AND ACCOUNTS IN CASES OF CATHOLIC
PRIESTS ACCUSED OF PEDOPHILIA
JAMES G. THOMSON, JOSEPH A. MAROLLA, AND DAVID G. BROMLEY
The scandal of child sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy rocked America with a series of wide-ranging
accusations and revelations in the early 21st century. Thomson, Marolla, and Bromley gathered data from trials,
victims’ accounts, and newspaper stories to assemble a record of accounts offered by priests for their behavior. Like
the rapists in the previous chapter, they offered excuses and justifications to enhance their legitimacy. But they also
offered disclaimers, accounts given in advance of behavior to forestall the application of the deviant label. The authors
noted that with disclaimers, coming in advance, priests used their religious authority to legitimate their sexual access
to children in their charge, whereas with excuses, coming after the fact, priests tended to shift blame to the Church, and
with justifications they shouldered individual responsibility yet focused on discussing their personal failings.
The priest abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States began to surface in 1983. Over the last decade the
scandal has broadened, with a seemingly endless string of pedophilia cases involving scores of young children discovered and
disclosed. In a number of instances priests have been criminally prosecuted and sentenced to long prison terms; others have
been remanded for mental health treatment. Although sexual violations of various kinds have occurred across a number of
religious groups (e.g., Jacobs 1989; Shupe 1995), what distinguishes the current Catholic cases analyzed here is that they
involve sexual encounters between priests and children under the age of majority, often in their teen and preteen years. Most of
the abuse has involved young boys, but there have been cases of abuse of young girls as well. 1 Scattered reports have surfaced
of similar incidents involving clergy in other churches, but incidents involving non-Catholic clergy most often consist of
extramarital affairs between adult women and ministers.
The child sexual abuse scandal constitutes an extreme case of deviance. The priests involved have violated their personal vows
of celibacy and chastity; they have engaged in predatory homosexual activity in many cases, against which the Church they
represent preaches; they have deliberately concealed the sexual violations that they committed; and they have violated the
moral trust reposed in them by the Church, their fellow priests, and the families whose children they exploited. Most centrally
to the analysis here, these priests have engaged in sexual activity with children (see Beal 1992; Provost 1992). Moral
condemnation of pedophilia is virtually universal and impassioned, and efforts by individuals or groups to rationalize or defend
such behavior meets strenuous resistance (de Young 1984, 1988, 1989). In addition to the nature of the acts themselves, the,
significance of these priests’ actions is compounded by the status they occupy within the Catholic tradition. Priests are the
immediate intermediaries between parishioners and the Church, trustees responsible for parishioners’ spiritual lives and
spiritual welfare.
Thomson, James G., Joseph A., Marolla, and David G. Bromley, “Disclaimers and Accounts in Cases of Catholic Priests
Accused of Pedophilia,” Wolves Within the Fold, edited by Anson Shupe, Copyright © 1998 by Rutgers, the State
University. Reprinted by permission of Rutgers University Press.
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Disclaimers and Accounts in Contemporary Priest Abuse Cases
In this chapter we examine the types of narratives priests construct in initiating sexual relationships with children and in
explaining their conduct when the violations are exposed. Given the number and seriousness of norms that these priests are
violating and their lofty moral standing, the ways they explain their conduct becomes an interesting sociological issue. We
divide the narratives that priests and their spokespersons develop into two broad types. First, priests must formulate
prospective interpretations, or disclaimers, for their behavior toward the children with whom they are sexually involved.
These explanations are constructed within the perpetrator-victim relationship and are concealed from others by various
means. Second, upon public exposure of the sexual relationships, priests and their spokespersons are compelled to offer
retrospective interpretations, or accounts, for their conduct. As we look at both types of explanations and the relationship
between them, we find that retrospective accounts are significantly influenced by and must be understood in the context of
prospective disclaimers.
Not surprisingly the data on priest abuse cases are limited. Many local cases are not nationally reported, journalistic reports
often are fragmentary or focus on issues other than defendant disclaimers and accounts, and the Catholic Church routinely
has demanded sealed records as a precondition for out-of-court settlements. We gathered most of the narratives presented
here from four recent books and 257 press reports on priest abuse cases. The most fruitful sources were books authored by
journalists, which were based on cases that had reached a conclusion and contained considerable detail about events and
explanations. In some cases, however, we find disclaimers and accounts in other sources, such as news conferences, trial
testimonies, and victims’ accounts. Journalistic narratives in particular are biased in favor of public statements that yield
sensational stories; they systematically exclude stories that are handled privately or are more mundane and unexceptional.
Given the nature of the sources, we must exercise caution in generalizing broadly from these data. At the same time, we
have conducted an extensive review of scholarly and journalistic sources, which constitute virtually the only accessible data
sources. We should also note that narratives constructed over a period of time typically are more complex than the analytic
account categories employed here, and actors are likely to use multiple disclaimer and account types (Schoenbach 1990).
Disclaimers
A disclaimer is “a verbal device employed to ward off and defeat in advance doubts and negative typifications which may
result from intended conduct. Disclaimers seek to define forthcoming conduct as not relevant to the kind of identity
challenge or re-typification for which it might ordinarily serve as the basis” (Hewitt and Stokes 1975, 3). Disclaimers, in
other words, are offered to “cushion” an anticipated reaction when some behavior is about to be discovered. There are five
types of disclaimers. Persons use hedging disclaimers when they have a tentative commitment to a forthcoming line of
action and are uncertain about the probable response to their actions. In this circumstance they express willingness to
consider and negotiate alternative perspectives. People use credentialing disclaimers when they are committed to a line of
action that they know will be discrediting. They thus offer qualifications or credentials that legitimate the line of action they
are proposing. Similarly, people use sin license disclaimers when they are committed to a line of action that they anticipate
will evoke a negative response, but in this case they seek to depict a situation in which generally recognized rules may be
suspended without discrediting themselves. People come up with cognitive disclaimers when they anticipate that others may
doubt that there is a shared understanding of the “facts of the situation” on which they are operating; they use such
disclaimers to reassure others of such agreement. Finally, people issue appeals for the suspension of judgment when they
anticipate that their statements or actions may produce a negative emotional reaction. They ask others to suspend their
response until the meaning of the line of action is clarified.
Virtually all of the explanations priests offered to children in the incidents we examined are credentialing disclaimers. In
most cases their authoritative statements take the form of simply asserting divine approval for the proposed relationship. For
example, “Sex is okay,” a priest told one girl. “This is the way God would have it” (Burkett and Bruni 1993, 74). In some
instances divine approval is paired with a stipulation that the relationship should remain secret: “Father Jay told the boy;
‘This is between you and me. This is something special. God would approve’” (Burkett and Bruni 1993, 67). Children
clearly are often shocked when priests first approach them. The credentialing disclaimers provide a means for moving

‘This is between you and me. This is something special. God would approve’” (Burkett and Bruni 1993, 67). Children
clearly are often shocked when priests first approach them. The credentialing disclaimers provide a means for moving
beyond this disorientation and potential resistance. One victim recounts: “One day he went into the bedroom and all of a
sudden he came out with his pants down around his knees and I freaked out... I was shakin’. He said, ‘It’s not wrong. God
made the body to be beautiful—for each of us to share it’” (Berry 1994, 128). Some episodes do involve considerably more
planning and complex interpretations. One victim remembers that the priest organized the sexual encounters with him and
another boy named Morris as therapeutic penance:
Ed’s abuse began as a condition of absolution. The youth confessed to impure thoughts and to the sin of pride. Father
Terrence directed him to learn self-control. The lesson was simple, Ed alleges: the priest would masturbate Morris,
or lie on top of him rubbing their groins together, but would stop just shy of Ed’s ejaculation. “Desensitization,”
Father Terrence called this penance. “No matter how you go to the altar, as a priest or to marry, this will help you,”
Ed remembers Father Terrence telling him. “You are special. You are pleasing to God. But you have a corruptible
side you must learn to control.” (Burkett and Bruni 1993, 76)
In one case the priest employed a sin license. According to a December 12, 1993, story in the Fort Wayne [Indiana]
Journal-Gazette by Ron French, “Shattered Trust: Pain Endures for Victim of Alleged Clergy Abuse”:” ‘He’d talk about
unconditional love/Schrader [the victim] said. ‘He said too many people love conditionally.’ And so although Schrader was
uncomfortable with the sexual relationship, he felt that ‘it fit with what he [the priest] was saying about unconditional
love, ... if you’re going to unconditionally love, you need to express it.’” Finally, in one incident credentialing was combined
with a sin license disclaimer. In this case the priest not only asserts that his female partner has been chosen by God but also
seeks to suspend the relevant normative context by asserting that he needs assistance because he is ignorant of sexual
matters. “She recalled the beginning of the abuse ... ‘I was told that I had been chosen by God to help him with his studies of
sex because he was responsible for helping adults and he didn’t know anything about it/” (Berry 1994, 128)
It is not surprising that credentialing disclaimers predominate in priests’ constructions of sexual relationships to their
youthful partners. Proposing sexual relations and offering to negotiate the relationship, attempting to reach agreement on the
nature of the situation in which they are involved, or asking the children to suspend judgment would each probably cause
confusion or resistance that the priest would then have to surmount through some other disclaimer or line of action. The
credentialing strategy places the priest firmly in control of the situation; it asserts a legitimate basis for the connection that
then can be veiled from outside observation. That illicit sexual relationships with children have occurred in substantial
numbers over a long period of time without being discovered outside the Church hierarchy suggests that this strategy has
generally succeeded.
Accounts
Numerous typologies of accounts have been formulated (Sykes and Matza 1957; Schoenbach, 1980, 1990; Tedeschi and
Reiss 1981; Semin and Manstead 1983). We base the analysis here on Scott and Lyman’s widely used typology, which
defines an account as “a statement made by a social actor to explain unanticipated or untoward behavior—whether the
behavior is his own or that of others, and whether the proximate cause for the statement arises from the actor himself or
from someone else” (1968, 46). Scott and Lyman divide accounts into two broad types, excuses and justifications. From
their perspective, “An excuse is an admission that the act in question was bad, wrong, or inept, coupled with a denial of full
responsibility. A justification is an admission of full responsibility for the act in question, coupled with a denial that it was
wrongful” (1970, 93). Excuses thus are accounts constructed with the objective of mitigating the actor’s responsibility for
the act in question; justifications are intended to normalize the act in question.
Justifications
3: DISCLAIMERS AND ACCOUNTS IN CASES OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS ACCUSED OF PEDOPHILIA
Scott and Lyman define six types of justification. Denial of injury accounts construct events so as to minimize the
negative and maximize the positive consequences of contested behavior. Denial of victim accounts define victims as
deserving harm as a result of having injured the actor, being enemies of the actor, or holding membership in devalued
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negative and maximize the positive consequences of contested behavior. Denial of victim accounts define victims as
deserving harm as a result of having injured the actor, being enemies of the actor, or holding membership in devalued
groups. Condemnation of condemners accounts rationalize contested actions by comparing them to uncensured acts by
others that are equal to or greater than the actor’s own normative violations. Appeal to loyalties accounts deem contested
conduct appropriate in terms of higher allegiances to which the actor is committed. Sad tale accounts reconstruct the
actor’s biography in highly disadvantaged terms that explain current behavior. Finally, self-fulfillment accounts lay claim
to personal growth, health, or conscience as a legitimate rationale for contested conduct.
In the priest abuse cases we examined, almost every instance involved denial of injury accounts. 2 In one case a priest
included in his account a statement referring to self-fulfillment. Father Ritter asserted his right to personal fulfillment,
avowing that even divine disapproval would not override his right to pursue his own identity. He stated: “You know, I
decided twenty years ago, if God didn’t like me the way I was, that’s His problem” (Sennott 1992, 30). However, this
account differs markedly from virtually every other justificatory statement.
The priests or their spokespersons have employed several strategies to elevate the moral standing of the deviant behavior.
One approach insists that the sexual contact is consensual. For example, a therapist/columnist specializing in treatment of
priests accused of sexual abuse wrote in a Catholic magazine: “We are not involved with the dynamics of rape but with
the far subtler dynamics of persuasion by a friend. As we speak to and about the victims we must be aware the child
sometimes retains a loving memory of the offender” (Connors 1992). In this account the denial of injury is buttressed by
characterizing the incident as involving persuasion rather than coercion and by further asserting that the child involved in
fact harbors no hostility toward the priest.
In another account, journalist Jason Berry (1994, 11) records the statement of a diocesan vicar responsible for the conduct
of priests. The vicar makes a comparable characterization of the sexual relationship as “misguided affection” but seeks to
mitigate the damage by juxtaposing indiscretion or poor judgment in this incident with the catastrophic consequences for
the priest’s career. “The diocese had received a report some time ago, Larroque continued, terming it ‘a case of misguided
affection. . . . We’re talking about ruining a man’s career/said Larroque, referring to the implication of charges against a
priest.”
A third strategy is to moderate claimsmaking by emphasizing the “extraordinary importance” of the work in which the
priest and his colleagues are involved, a mission that should not be jeopardized by a single behavioral “failure”: “It is
probably better to say I failed. If I had to give a reason for my own personal failure it is probably hubris. . . . What
happens to me, ladies and gentlemen, is not really very important. I decided long ago that I did not care about that. What
happens to the kids is very important. The work we do here is of extraordinary importance” (Sennott 1992, 273). Justice
for the victims and the vital mission of the institution thus are placed in opposition. Vigorously prosecuting the offender
might cripple or destroy the institution, thereby sacrificing “the kids.”
Finally, the harm involved in sexual abuse may be minimized by shifting the behavior to a category with at least
subcultural legitimacy and by carefully distinguishing the traits of acceptable and unacceptable sexuality. For instance, in
a legal statement one priest distinguishes between sexual intercourse and what he calls a “reserved embrace”:” ‘I may
have had a reserved embrace/he admitted in a deposition in 1992.... Sexual intercourse, he said, doesn’t occur unless a
man clutches a woman with passion and ejaculates into her. Yes, he had lain atop Susan. Yes, he put his penis in her
vagina. But there was, ‘no passion, no kissing, no nothing/he said. And he had not ejaculated” (Burkett and Bruni 1993,
87-88).
What is most striking about justification accounts, of course, is their clustering in the denial of injury category. Other
types of justification accounts apparently are unavailable or difficult to construct for this type of violation. Priests and
their allies can hardly accuse the young boys with whom they have sexual liaisons of deserving harm. They would also be
understandably reluctant to group themselves with the other categories of deviants with which comparisons are most
likely to be drawn, such as incestuous fathers, sexual predators, and homosexuals. Likewise, given the high moral calling
to which priests are pledged, it would be difficult to rationalize sexual relationships with children with an appeal to higher
principles. Even were priests to make a case for the “sexual liberation” of children, they could not be the liberators. Given
priests’ pledge to the spiritual welfare of their parishioners and to sacrificial lifestyles, self-fulfillment could not be

principles. Even were priests to make a case for the “sexual liberation” of children, they could not be the liberators. Given
priests’ pledge to the spiritual welfare of their parishioners and to sacrificial lifestyles, self-fulfillment could not be
accorded a higher priority than the welfare of children. Priests might conceivably reconstruct their biographies to explain
their conduct, an accounting strategy often employed by psychotherapists accused of inappropriate sexual intimacy
(Pogrebin, Poole, and Martinez 1992). However, since priests’ personal lives are so completely enmeshed in the Church,
such a strategy would almost inevitably involve an attack on the Church or admission of their own incompatibility with
the priestly role. Priests seeking to mitigate claimsmaking against them seem to have few justification options beyond
damage control. Asserting that the acts they have committed are not as heinous as public depictions of them in the media
or prosecutorial rhetoric may be their best available option.
Excuses
3: DISCLAIMERS AND ACCOUNTS IN CASES OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS ACCUSED OF PEDOPHILIA
Scott and Lyman identify four types of excuse accounts. Accident accounts seek to mitigate responsibility by asserting
that the actor cannot control environmental events. Actors may misinterpret events, be unable to foresee impending
events, become distracted, lack skills and abilities requisite to deal successfully with occurrences, or have insufficient
time to respond. Defeasibility accounts aver impairment of mental capacity as a result of mental disorder, intoxication/
addiction, or psychological duress. Biological drives accounts identify biological attributes such as sexual passion, sexual
orientation, or criminogenic tendencies as the source of contested behavior. Finally, scapegoating accounts seek to shift
responsibility for contested behavior to the participation, duress, or provocation of another actor.
Three types of excuse accounts dominate in the cases we examined. Accident accounts usually are presented by Church
representatives with the objective of defending the Church rather than the individual priests. These accounts assert the
impossibility of absolutely preventing individuals with psychological disorders from entering the priesthood. In some
cases these errors are blamed on the absence of effective screening techniques. In this effort Church officials are
supported by Church-affiliated clinicians responsible for treating offenders (e.g., Berry 1994, 208). For instance, the
bishop of Baton Rouge blamed his ignorance on the priest’s deliberate, skillful deception:” ‘My mistake/said Frey, ‘[was]
not being able to recognize the depth of [Gauthe’s] mental illness. His personality was such that he skillfully masked his
condition’” (Frey 1986).
A second type of excuse account is scapegoating, also largely employed by Church administrators. In these accounts
Church officials imply, with varying degrees of specificity, that individuals or groups are using the abuse scandal for their
own nefarious purposes. The issues of responsibility and harm are turned around, with the accused presented as a victim
of a kind of conspiracy to discredit the offender. The controversy thus results not from the actions of the accused but from
the evil intentions of named or unnamed enemies, calling the motives of the accusers into question. In some cases the
alleged enemies remain anonymous. For example, an editorial in the Lafayette [Indiana] Sunday Advertiser for June 16,
1985, issued this advice under the headline “In the Gauthe Affair: The Catholic Church Is Not on Trial!”: “Let’s offer a
special prayer for the resolution of the affair that has rocked the Acadiania community and ask the forgiveness of any
unscrupulous individuals who for one reason or other attempt to blacken the reputation of our entire religious
community.”
Sometimes enemies are more clearly defined. In the now famous Covenant House case, one of Fr. Bruce Ritter’s staff said
to a reporter, “I think it was outrageous and disgusting for the District Attorney to outfit this kid with a wire to try to
entrap Father Ritter” (Sennott 1992, 265).
Another strategy for scapegoating involves alleging that the charges against the Church are being pursued so vigorously
precisely because of the Church’s high moral standards. A letter from Pat Hayes to the editor of the Springfield [Illinois]
State Journal-Register on December 13, 1993, published under the headline “Priests Should Not Be Stigmatized by the
Few,” blames the problem on the low moral character of the public in general and the mass media in particular: “[H]Jow
the media glorifies scandalous stories, but they do so because of the public’s love affair with dirt. . . . I have to wonder
about the potential contagiousness of allegations, a contagiousness that is only being encouraged by sensationalistic media
and a ‘let’s sue’ atmosphere that is cheered on by some of the most ridiculous and inciteful advertising I’ve ever seen.”
Attacking the Church through the conduct of wayward priests becomes a cynical means for undermining its calls for
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116
and a ‘let’s sue’ atmosphere that is cheered on by some of the most ridiculous and inciteful advertising I’ve ever seen.”
Attacking the Church through the conduct of wayward priests becomes a cynical means for undermining its calls for
moral standards to which the larger society does not wish to adhere: “Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk [said] ‘I think our
culture in general sees this as a chance to get a little bit even with the Church in the context of unpopular prophetic things
the Church says about society. Maybe it’s really a kind of implicit acknowledgment of the relevance that people, even
unconsciously, find in the Church’” (Burkett and Bruni 1993, 199). In this account the vendetta is portrayed as part of a
larger conflict, with the individuals accused merely victims of the Church’s crusade to foster sexual morality.
Condemnation of the priests helps undermine the Church as a bastion of morality.
In some instances Church spokespersons even question the motives of the victims making claims against the Church. A
bishop wrote in a newspaper column: “[O]jne can ask: if the victims were adolescents, why did they go back to the same
situation once there had been one ‘pass’ or suggestion? Were they cooperating in the matter, or were they true
victims?’” (Harris 1990, 16). However, in most instances accounts simply assert psychological disorder, often in rather
perfunctory terms. This was the tack taken by North America’s most notorious priest-pedophile, Fr. James Porter: His
illness made him abuse a minimum of several hundred victims, many repeatedly (Burkett and Bruni 1993, 18). One
source of defeasibility specified, which fits with current explanations for abusive behavior, is the priest’s own abuse as a
child: “A certain proportion of priests . . . abuse children not because they are sexually starved, but because their ‘lovemaps’—their
objects of sexual desire—have been vandalized in childhood experiences of their own” (Greeley 1993, 45).
In these defeasibility accounts priests tend to emphasize the potency of their emotional feelings, which often become
more powerful once they are expressed. One priest refers to the “enormous stress on him, which is why, he believes, his
desires caught him so off guard. Horsing around with a parish altar boy for a Mass well done, he patted him on the
rear. . . . The more he touched them, the harder it became to control his gestures. ‘It opened up a hunger/he says. ‘Now
fantasy was not enough. It’s like—how does a person go back to masturbation when he’s had intercourse?’” (Burkett and
Bruni 1993, 93). The offender’s experience of desire is depicted as an inexorable progression from thought to physical
satisfaction. The overpowering nature of the feelings and their growing strength are important in these accounts, for
priests frequently abused a succession of children over an extended period of time. Loss of control may account for a
single episode; a more elaborate accounting is necessary for extended abuse. The potency of his feelings becomes such an
explanation to the extent that the priest is unable to resist them.
Church-affiliated professionals offer support for this interpretation. For example, in a professional paper both a canon and
a civil lawyer use anecdotal evidence to argue that offenders have no control and therefore accrue a lower level of
personal liability: “We are dealing with compulsive sexual habits which the priest may temporarily suspend in the face of
legal or canonical pressure, but not in all instances. There are many examples wherein sexual abuse took place very soon
after the confrontation between the priest and his Ordinary (bishop) had taken place. The priest must clearly be seen as
one suffering from a psychiatric disorder that is beyond his ability to control” (Mouton and Doyle 1985). Making sexual
abuse a psychological disorder offers the Church an explanation that relieves the individual priest of responsibility and
avoids the stain on the Church’s reputation that accompanies a moral interpretation (Freidson 1970). Thus to the extent
that pedophilia is an undetectable disorder, this account reduces the responsibility of both priest and Church.
One more development of the defeasibility account mitigates priest responsibility even further. Using the medical model,
Church psychiatrists separate behavior from character:
Diagnosing a person as a pedophile says something about the nature of his sexual desires and orientation. It says
nothing about his temperament, or about traits of character (such as kindness vs. cruelty, caring vs. uncaring,
sensitive vs. insensitive, and so on). Thus a diagnosis of pedophilia does not necessarily mean that a person is
lacking in conscience, diminished in intellectual capabilities, or somehow “characterologically flawed.” One needs
to evaluate independently the nature of an individual’s sexual drives and interests, as opposed to what the person
is like in terms of character, intellect, temperament, and other mental capacities. (Berlin and Krout 1986, 14).

is like in terms of character, intellect, temperament, and other mental capacities. (Berlin and Krout 1986, 14).
Separating behavior from character is important to both the Church and the priest. The stigma for both is reduced if
conduct rather than moral essence is at issue. The Church is less culpable for failing to detect behavioral disorders than
for failing to recognize low moral character, and priests can be treated for specific disorders but not for flawed moral
essence.
As with justification accounts, excuse accounts sometimes have several themes. For example, one priest who asserts longterm
defeasibility bordering on biological drives argues that the Church’s structure caused his condition to manifest itself,
mitigating his own guilt by transferring responsibility to the institution and his peers: “I sought that feeling out after that. I
began to look for and depend upon affection from younger persons. There had been so many needs that had been unmet
and so many disappointments and so many pains and so many rejections that it didn’t matter. . . . After 20 years of parish
life, I guess I felt that nobody gave a damn about me” (Burkett and Bruni 1993, 85).
Excuse accounts vary more than justification accounts. Accident and scapegoating accounts are employed primarily by
Church officials who use them to defend the institution rather than individual priests. The Church improves its moral
positioning by arguing that it cannot possibly detect every case of behavioral disorder, particularly when priests
deliberately conceal such attributes, and by contending that opponents are using the few incidents that have escaped
detection to discredit an institution that in fact is a moral exemplar. For their part, priests appear most likely to choose
related biological and defeasibility accounts that attribute their conduct to loss of control. Where they offer more than
perfunctory illness accounts, priests tend to emphasize a process of spiraling out of control after the initial transgression,
which offers an interpretation that explains a pattern of long-term violation.
ENDNOTES
1 Although we will probably never know the true extent of such activity, Sipe (1991) estimates that 2 percent of U.S.
priests suffer from pedophilia and another 6 percent are attracted to older minor children.
2 This analysis focuses on priest-pedophile behavior. However, there have been cases of nuns engaging in similar
activities, and they have resorted to comparable accounts.
REFERENCES
3: DISCLAIMERS AND ACCOUNTS IN CASES OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS ACCUSED OF PEDOPHILIA
Beal, John. 1992. “Doing What One Can: Canon Law and Clerical Sexual Misconduct.” The Jurist 52:642-683.
Berlin, Fred S., and Edgar Krout. 1986. “Pedophilia: Diagnostic Concepts.” American Journal of Forensic
Psychiatry 7 (l):13-30.
Berry, Jason. 1994. Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children. New York:
Doubleday.
Burkett, Eleanor, and Frank Bruni. 1993. Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse, and the Catholic Church. New
York: Viking.
Connors, Canice. 1992. “Priests and Pedophilia: A Silence that Needs Breaking?” America 166 (May 9): 400-401.
de Young, Mary. 1989. “The World According to NAMBLA: Accounting for Deviance.” Journal of Sociology and
Social Welfare 16(1):111-126.
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118
_____. 1988. “The Indignant Page: Techniques of Neutralization in the Publications of Pedophile Organizations.”
Child Abuse and Neglect 12:583-591.
_____. 1984. “Ethics and the ‘Lunatic Fringe’: The Case of Pedophile Organizations.” Human Organization 43(l):
72-74.
Freidson, Eliot. 1970. Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Frey, Gerard. 1986. “Bishop Denied Gauthe Cover-up, Won’t Give up Job.” Lafayette [Ind.] Sunday Advertiser
(February 2). Quoted in Berry 1994, 145.
Greeley, Andrew. 1993. “A View from the Priesthood.” Newsweek (August 16):45.
Harris, Michael. 1990. Unholy Orders: Tragedy at Mount Cashel. New York: Viking.
Hewitt, John P., and Randall Stokes. 1975. “Disclaimers.” American Sociological Review 40:1-11.
Jacobs, Janet. 1989. Divine Disenchantment: Deconverting from New Religions. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Mouton, F. Ray, and Thomas P. Doyle. 1985. The Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman Catholic Clergy:
Meeting the Problem in a Comprehensive and Responsible Manner. Internal report to the National Council of
Catholic Bishops. Washington, D.C.
Pogrebin, Mark, Eric Poole, and Amos Martinez. 1992. “Psychotherapists’ Accounts of Their Professional
Misdeeds.” Deviant Behavior 13:229-252.
Provost, James. 1992. “Some Canonical Considerations Relative to Clerical Sexual Misconduct.” The Jurist
52:615-6A1.
Schoenbach, Peter. 1990. Account Episodes: The Management or Escalation of Conflict. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
_____. 1980. “A Category System for Account Phases.” European Journal of Social Psychology 10:195-280.
Scott, Marvin B., and Stanford M. Lyman. 1970. “Accounts, Deviance, and Social Order.” In Deviance and
Respectability: The Social Construction of Moral Meanings, edited by Jack Douglas. New York: Basic.
_____. 1968. “Accounts.” American Sociological Review 33(l):46-62.
Semin, A. S., and S. R. Manstead. 1983. The Accountability of Conduct: A Social Psychological Analysis. New
York: Academic.
Sennott, Charles M. 1992. Broken Covenant. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Shupe, Anson. 1995. In the Name of All That’s Holy: A Theory of Clergy Malfeasance. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.

Sipe, A. W. Richard. 1991. The Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
Sykes, Gresham, and David Matza. 1957. “Techniques of Neutralization: A Theory of Delinquency.” American
Sociological Review 22:664-670.
Tedeschi, J. T., and M. Reiss. 1981. “Verbal Strategies in Impression Management.” In The Psychology of Ordinary
Explanations of Social Behavior, edited by Charles Antaki. New York: Academic.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
3: DISCLAIMERS AND ACCOUNTS IN CASES OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS ACCUSED OF PEDOPHILIA
1. Describe a time when you used a “sin license” disclaimer to avoid getting a negative response—anything from
nonverbal disapproval to being physically prevented from doing the behavior—to something you were planning
to do, which you knew was a violation of the rules. Did your disclaimer enable you to proceed with your rulebreaking
plans? Explain.
2. Describe a time when you used a “defeasibility” excuse to avoid a negative response—anything from nonverbal
disapproval to outright punishment—for something you did that was a violation of the rules. Did your excuse
enable you to avoid negative consequences? Explain.
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Friendship
PART VI:
Close Ties
RELATED CONCEPTS AND IDEAS
Fehr (1996, p. 7) has defined friendship as “a voluntary, personal relationship, typically providing intimacy and assistance, in
which the two parties like each other and seek each other’s company.” While certainly that’s accurate, I prefer the definition I
saw once in a greeting card: “Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.”
How do you make friends with another person? What factors are involved? Research by Hays (1985) suggests that first-year
college students form friendships on the basis of residential proximity, availability (a meshing of daily schedules) and the
degree of shyness or outgoingness of the individuals involved.
More generally, a number of factors are involved. First, individuals differ in the type of friendship they want; depending on
whether they are high or low self-monitors (Miller, Perlman and Brehm, 2007, p. 237). High self-monitors seek broad
networks of friends with whom they share interests and participation in specific activities, but not much else. Low selfmonitors
have fewer friends but have more in common with, and get closer to, each of them.
In developing a friendship with somebody, proximity initially weighs in. The pool of individuals available to make friends with
is delimited to a certain extent by geography—who you live near, who you have classes with, who you work with, who your
friends and relatives introduce you to. Mere exposure—the effect of encountering someone over and over, on a regular basis—
facilitates friendship development. These days, of course, you can also meet people via the internet—but it won’t be unlessand-until
you meet them in person that you will know for sure whether or not they are who they have portrayed themselves to
be.
The next filter someone destined to be your friend must pass through is responsiveness. You are more likely to perceive, as
friendship material, those who respond positively to your words and actions—i.e., those who respond with interest,
appreciation of your sense of humor, agreement with your point of view, etc—than those whose responses are lukewarm or
negative.
At some point you will have interacted with a friend-prospect enough to have a sense of how similar his/her values, opinions,
attitudes, world view, etc. are to yours. Assuming the two of you do are in sync at that level, you will have found someone who
validates your own views of things. It appears that merely the rewards of interaction (Berscheid and Walster, 1978; Burleson,
1994) with a similar other makes friendship development more likely.
All that said, you might encounter the greatest friend-prospect in the world, but at a time when you simply do not have the time
and energy it takes to develop a new friendship with anyone. If your friendship budget does not at the time permit expenditure
of the requisite amount of time and energy to develop a new friend, you may not do so.
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of the requisite amount of time and energy to develop a new friend, you may not do so.
General attributes of friendship include: equality, acceptance, respect, loyalty, responsiveness, support, commitment and
capitalization; i.e. getting excited about your friend’s successes and celebrating them. College students (Hays, op. cit.) judged
how close of a friend someone was by the degree to which their friendship with that person provided companionship (sharing
activities), consideration (providing help and support), communication (in particular, self-disclosure) and affection.
Argyle and Henderson (1985) did a cross-cultural study on friendship norms. They enumerated a large set of expectations that
friends might have of each other; then asked citizens of England, Italy, Hong Kong and Japan which ones seemed most valid.
Based on the responses they received, they concluded these rules of friendship were universal:
! Volunteer help in time of need
! Respect the friend’s privacy
! Keep confidences
! Trust and confide in each other
! Stand up for the other person in their absence
! Don’t criticize each other in public
! Show emotional support
! Look him/her in the eye during conversation
! Strive to make him/her happy while in the other’s company
! Don’t be jealous or critical of each other’s relationships
! Be tolerant of each other’s friends
! Share news of success with the other
! Ask for personal advice
! Don’t nag
! Engage in joking or teasing with the friend
! Seek to repay debts and favors and compliments
! Disclose personal feelings or problems to the friend
How does this list compare to American cultural norms regarding friendship?
In general, one could say that friendships and romantic relationships differ in emotional intensity, degree of exclusivity,
(presence or absence of) sexual intimacy and stringency of standards of conduct. Muddying the waters a little is the
phenomenon of friendships “with benefits;” popularized in the mid-90’s by Alanis Morrissette in her song, “Head over Feet.”
Friends with benefits are two people who consider themselves good friends, who additionally have sex. They engage in sex
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phenomenon of friendships “with benefits;” popularized in the mid-90’s by Alanis Morrissette in her song, “Head over Feet.”
Friends with benefits are two people who consider themselves good friends, who additionally have sex. They engage in sex
for fun and/or to get their sexual needs met, without any intention of entering into a monogamous, committed relationship.
What factors contributed to the friends-with-benefits phenomenon? Why has this type of relationship become popular? One
could argue it is an efficient way to meet one’s sexual needs, for those who don’t have the time and energy to invest in a
conventional relationship, or simply aren’t interested in one. For some, the no-strings-attached nature of the relationship may
provide a sense of security—involvement in a relationship without expectations of exclusivity may obviate the prospect of
feeling hurt or rejected if the relationship should end.
Dating
Q: What do most people do on a date?
! A: Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have
something to say if you listen long enough. (Lynnette, age 8)
! A: On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a
second date. (Martin, age 10)
Q: What would you do on a first date that was turning sour?
! A: I’d run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote
about me in all the dead columns. (Craig, age 9)
Q: When is it okay to kiss someone?
! A: When they’re rich. (Pam, age 7)
! A: The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn’t want to mess with that. (Curt, age 7)
PART VI: Close Ties
Dating emerged in the early 20th century as a distinctly-American phenomenon. A variety of factors were catalysts for its
development: the Industrial Revolution and accompanying rural-to-urban migration; the invention of the telephone; the
increase in the number of free, public, coed high schools; women’s entry into the work force as of WWI and the invention of
the automobile, to name a few.
As of WWI, dating was relatively structured—men did the asking, activity-planning and paying. By WWII, the phenomenon
of “steady dating”—dating one person exclusively—emerged and served to bridge the gap between casual dating and
engagement.
Toward the end of the 20th century, opportunities for even more casual relationships increased; spurred in part by the
increasing prevalence of coed housing and increasingly equal enrollment in degree programs which, historically, had for the
most part been populated by one sex or other. The structured pattern of relationship-development (dating # going steady
#“pinning” # engagement # marriage) disintegrated (DeGenova, 2007, pp. 117-118).
If you are dating someone exclusively, you expect her/him to comply with certain monogamous-relationship norms. When
Baxter (1986) studied the breakups of college-age (monogamous, dating) couples, she found that failing to meet your
boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s expectations in any of these eight areas placed you at risk to be ‘dumped’:
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boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s expectations in any of these eight areas placed you at risk to be ‘dumped’:
Relationship Area:
Autonomy
Similarity
Supportiveness
Openness
Fidelity
Togetherness
Equity
Romance (“Magic”)
Norm Violation:
Possessiveness, smothering
Different or conflicting values, interests, attitudes
Criticism, thoughtlessness, lack of consideration
Guardedness, secrecy
Cheating
Avoidance, rationing of accessibility
Selfishness, dominance, exploitation
Routinization of the relationship, lack of spontaneity,
special treats or surprises
Some (e.g. Harris, 2003), feel the U.S. dating system is undesirable for these reasons: It is based on romantic attraction (more
volatile) rather than friendship (more stabilizing). Dating couples may mistake sex for love and/or see love and romance as
solely recreational pursuits. Dating takes young adults’ time and energy away from other important relationships (with close
friends and family) and from essential pursuits (preparing for their futures). What do you think?
These days, you have the option of hooking up—meeting someone, finding there is ‘chemistry’ between the two of you, and
proceeding to some degree of a sexual encounter (anything from kissing to intercourse), without emotional involvement or
future expectations. In your view, what are the pros and cons of this option?
124
Mate Selection
Q: Is it better to be single or married?
! A: I don’t know which is better, but I’ll tell you one thing. I’m never going to have sex with my wife. I
don’t want to be all grossed out. (Theodore, age 8)
Q: How do you decide who to marry?
! A: You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you
like sports and she should keep the chips and dip coming. (Alan, age 10)
! A: No person really decides before they grow up who they’re going to marry. God decides it all way
before, and you get to find out later who you’re stuck with. (Kirsten, age 10)
Q: What is the right age to get married?
! A: Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then. (Camille, age 10)
! A: No age is good to get married at. You got to be a fool to get married. (Freddie, age 6)
Q: How can a stranger tell if two people are married?

Q: How can a stranger tell if two people are married?
! A: You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids. (Derrick, age 8)
Q: How would the world be different if people didn’t get married?
! A: There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn’t there? (Kelvin, age 8)
For those who choose to get married, mate selection is a filtering process. You gradually weed out unsuitable others by
applying an increasingly stringent set of standards to your pool of eligibles.
As with developing a friendship, in mate selection the first criterion (filter) you will apply is proximity. Next you will narrow
the field according to attraction; selecting out those whose looks, personality and social characteristics (ethnicity, education,
socioeconomic status, religion, etc.) are what you are looking for. Most people make these decisions based on homogamy—
focusing on persons who are similar to oneself in social characteristics and perceived attractiveness. Others, however, seek
mates on the basis of heterogamy; focusing on persons who are different from themselves in those areas.
Once you have an established girlfriend or boyfriend, you assess that person’s compatibility—the degree to which her/his
temperament, needs, habits, values, etc. are a good ‘fit’ with your own. Family members may be pressuring you to go in the
direction of endogamy; marrying someone within your ‘group/be it a religious, ethnic, or social class grouping. In some
cultures, family members apply the opposite sort of pressure—to get the individual to marry outside of his/her social group
(exogamy). As a final test of compatibility, you may decide go through a period of engagement, and/or try living with your
prospective spouse for awhile, before deciding for certain to marry.
Love
Ann Landers characterized love as “friendship that has caught fire” (1982, p. 12). All of us at one time or another have
probably mistaken sexual craving for love. However, lust by itself isn’t love; it’s just (as Landers put it) “... one set of glands
calling to another (p. 2).”
During the 1998 ABC News 20/20 program, “Love, Lust and Marriage: Why We Stay and Why We Stray,” host John Stossel
discusses with guests the notion that lasting love progresses through three stages: lust (sexual craving), infatuation (thinking
about the person all the time; can’t wait to talk to them on the phone or see them, etc.) and attachment (your life has become so
intertwined with your mate’s that you cannot imagine life without her or him). Sternberg (1987) suggests the type of love that
is viable over time has three components: emotional intimacy, passion and commitment. Emotional intimacy entails
communication, warmth, understanding, support and sharing. The passion component may have to do with sexual passion, or
with other strong emotional needs that you and your partner fulfill for each other. Commitment refers to your decision to
devote yourself to the relationship and to work to maintain it.
Couple ‘Styles’
PART VI: Close Ties
McCarthy and McCarthy (2004) discuss four common marital ‘styles’ for couples—complimentary, conflict minimizing, best
friend and emotionally expressive. These conceptualizations, of how couple-members relate to each other, seem useful for
describing established but unmarried couples, as well.
The complimentary couple style is the most popular style, because it blends autonomy and coupleness. There is less emotional
closeness than the best friend style, but that is preferred. The couple members have and value their autonomy and have the
freedom to pursue their individual interests. Each has his/her own domains of competence and influence. A major strength is
each member’s contribution. The communication pattern is asking about each other’s day and experiences, listening, providing
emotional support and offering help when asked. The focus is on working together and maintaining a compatible, functional
relationship. Arguments and conflicts are addressed and dealt with, as both parties are eager to reach understandings and
agreements. Sex is positive and functional, but is not made into a ‘big production/The dangers that accompany this style are
that the relationship may become routine and stagnant; roles each member plays may become rigid, and the parties may grow
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agreements. Sex is positive and functional, but is not made into a ‘big production/The dangers that accompany this style are
that the relationship may become routine and stagnant; roles each member plays may become rigid, and the parties may grow
apart and feel less involved in each other’s lives.
The conflict-minimizing couple style is the most stable. They often follow traditional religious and gender norms so that there
is less conflict, less need for negotiation. Communication is supportive and non-adversarial. Such couples maintain strong
personal boundaries. They share activities with other couples and families; the extended family in particular. Affection and sex
are valued within the confines of traditional roles. The biggest trap for these couples is that some problems and conflicts are
substantial and cannot be avoided and when they occur, these couples are not equipped to handle them. They have been so
intent on avoiding problems; just smoothing things over, that by the time a problem can no longer be avoided and must be
addressed, disaster may be looming or a problem may have become chronic. Personal growth is inhibited to the extent the
parties fear that any form of change could damage the relationship. To keep such relationships viable, the couple must guard
against complacency, stay vigilant as to the health of the relationship and address problems openly and in a timely fashion.
At its core, the relationship of a best friend couple is a trusting, respectful, best-friendship. The couple shares numerous
interests and activities as well as household chores. They deal with problems and conflicts frankly, constructively and without
delay. Sex is creative. Each partner is free to initiate sex and make requests. Potential traps for these couples are: losing
autonomy and individuality for the sake of ‘coupleness.’ They stop growing as individuals and the relationship stagnates. They
may stop making healthy individual or couple changes and instead, settle for lukewarm compromises. To keep their
relationship healthy, couples must take care to maintain personal and emotional boundaries and guard against complacency.
For emotionally-expressive couples, life is never dull. Of all the couple styles, this one yields the richest emotional experience
and the least security. Such couples are highly emotionally engaged and share the gamut of feelings, from joy to anger. While
this is a strength, its benefits are somewhat neutralized by the fact that empathetic listening and moral support are not highly
valued. Partner A’s expressions of feelings, perceptions and opinions are intertwined with efforts to persuade B to see things
his/her way and act the way (s)he wants B to act. Healthy emotionally expressive couples do not sucker-punch each other in an
argument or threaten retaliation if wronged. There is little complacency in these relationships. Such partners view individual
and couple changes as positive; routinization of the relationship as detrimental. The biggest trap an emotionally expressive
couple can fall into is that of conflict becoming a juggernaut; steamrolling over the couple and crushing the bond between
them. Arguments can become power struggles resulting in unilateral, self-defeating decisions. If the relationship is to remain
healthy, the couple must take care in the event of an argument not to wield such weapons as humiliation, threats or betrayal.
Relationship Maintenance Strategies
Q: How do you make a marriage work?
! A: Tell your wife she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck. (Ricky, age 10)
Q: What do you think your mom and dad have in common?
! A: Both don’t want any more kids. (Lori, age 8)
Couples who are committed to keeping their relationship healthy and viable over time think and (inter)act differently than do
less committed couples (Reesing & Cate, 2004). They speak in terms of we, us and ours instead of I, me and mine (Agnew et.
al, 1998). They ignore others who try to lure them into an ‘extracurricular’ relationship. Each works to achieve a balance
between having it his/her own way and allowing the partner’s preferences to prevail, whether in the arena of recreational
activities (e.g. which restaurant to go to) or household projects and tasks (e.g. what color to paint the living room). They
encourage and support each other’s pursuit of personal and professional goals. They tolerate each other’s occasional bad
moods and thoughtless acts. Each responds constructively to any criticisms or provocations from the other, rather than ‘biting’
back. They forgive each others’ minor wrongdoings and betrayals.
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ack. They forgive each others’ minor wrongdoings and betrayals.
Via his study of married couples, Olson (2000) found qualitative differences between happy and unhappy couples in five
important areas: communication, flexibility, emotional closeness, personality compatibility and constructive handling of
conflicts. He noted five additional areas that impact relationship happiness: the couple’s sexual relationship, choice of leisure
activities, influence of family and friends, ability to manage finances and sharing of religious beliefs.
Based on his own research, Gottman (1994) found the best predictors of relationship unhappiness, breakups and divorce were
what he called “The Tour Horsemen of the Apocalypse:”
! Criticism—attacking the partner’s personality or character rather than identifying specific behaviors that are of concern
! Contempt—insults, mockery, hostile humor
! Defensiveness—making excuses or counter-attacking
! Stonewalling—listener withdrawal; clamming up, “the silent treatment”
Additional studies (Gottman, Coan, Carrére & Swanson, 1998) indicate that belligerence—the in-your-face sort of taunts
designed to escalate rather than resolve a conflict, e.g. “Whaddya gonna do about it? Just try and stop me!”—have an equally
corrosive effect on relationships.
It appears, in short, that couples who are open and constructive with each other; who share tasks and recreational activities,
who have friends in common, who take the time to assure each other of their love and commitment and who are typically in
good spirits, are likely to be happy together over time (Canary et. al, 2002; Dainton, 2000).
REFERENCES
PART VI: Close Ties
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REFERENCES
128
ABC News 20/20 (August 30, 1998). Love, lust and marriage: Why we stay and why we stray. Host: John Stossel.
Agnew, C. R., Van Lange, P. A. M., Rusbult, C. E. & Langston, C. A. (1998). Cognitive interdependence: commitment
and the mental representation of close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 939-954.
Argyle, M., & Henderson, M. (1985). The anatomy of friendships. London: Penguin.
Baxter, L. A. (1986) Gender differences in the heterosexual relationship rules embedded in breakup accounts. Journal of
Social and Personal Relationships, 3, 289-306.
Berscheid, E., & Walster, E., (1978). Interpersonal Attraction. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Burleson, B.R. (1994). Comforting messages: Features, functions, and outcomes. In J. A. Daly & J. M. Wiemann (Eds.),
Strategic interpersonal communication (pp. 135-162). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Canary, D. J. Stafford, L. & Semic, B. A. (2002). A panel of the associations between maintenance strategies and relational
characteristics. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 64, 395-406.
Dainton, M. (2000). Maintenance behaviors, expectations for maintenance and satisfaction: Linking comparison levels to
relational maintenance strategies, journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 17, 827-842.
Fehr, B. (1996). Friendship processes. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce? The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes.
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
Gottman, J. M., Coan, J., Carrére, S. & Swanson, C. (1998). Predicting marital happiness and stability from newlywed
interactions. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60, 5-22.
Harris, J. (2003). I kissed dating goodbye. Sisters, OR: Multnomah.
Hays, R. B. (1985). A longitudinal study of friendship development. Journal of Personal and Social Psychology, 48,
909-924.
Landers, A. (1982). Love or sex.. . and how to tell the difference. Chicago: Field Enterprises.
McCarthy, B. & McCarthy, E. (2004). Getting it right the first time: creating a healthy marriage (pp. 25-46). Florence,
KY: Routledge.
Miller, R. S., Perlman, D. & Brehm., S. S. (2007). Intimate Relationships. New York: McGraw-Hill.
National Public Radio (June 10, 2004). Talk of the Nation broadcast. Host: Neal Conan.
Olson, D. (2000). Empowering Couples: Building on Your Strengths. Minneapolis: Life Innovations.
Reesing, A. L. & Cate, R. M. (July 2004). Relationship commitment and its association with relationship maintenance: an
application of the commitment framework. Paper presented at a metting of the International Association for Relationship
Research, Madison, WI.
Sternberg, R. J. (1987). The triangle of love: Intimacy, passion, commitment. New York: Basic Books.

BEVERLEY FEHR
1:
THE LIFE CYCLE OF FRIENDSHIP
Friendships weave in and out of people’s lives. Although their significance often is overlooked, friendships are an important
source of meaning, happiness, enjoyment, and love. This chapter charts the life cycle of friendships, including their formation,
closeness, preservation, and maintenance. Friendship deterioration, dissolution, and restoration are also discussed. The focus is
on adult friendships, predominantly same-sex friendships. Gender differences are noted in cases where women’s and men’s
friendship experiences diverge. Finally, many of the topics discussed in this chapter are given more extensive coverage in Fehr
(1996).
Friendship Formation
For a friendship to develop, environmental, individual, situational, and dyadic factors must converge.
Environmental Factors
Day-to-day contact is conducive to the formation of friendships. Five decades ago, a landmark study revealed that
friendships are likely to develop when individuals come into contact with one another through residential proximity.
Festinger, Schachter, and Back (1950) asked residents of a married students’ housing complex to name the three people in
the complex with whom they socialized most. The person who lived next door was named most frequently, followed by
the person who lived two doors down, and so on. These findings have been replicated in a number of residential settings
including dormitories, condominium complexes, and naval bases.
The workplace is another avenue through which potential friends are brought into contact with one another. A large-scale
survey of nearly 1,000 men found that the workplace was the most common source of friendships (26% of respondents’
friendships), followed by the neighborhood (23%) (Fischer et al., 1977). The role of the workplace in the formation of
women’s friendships is less clear. For women who have family responsibilities, the demands of combining paid work
with domestic work might prohibit the cultivation of friendships in the workplace (Allan, 1989). For women who are not
employed outside the home, the neighborhood can play the same role in friendship formation as the workplace does for
men (Jerrome, 1984).
Finally, other friends and relatives are an important source of new friendships (Parks & Eggert, 1991). Thus, the seeds of
friendship are sown when people are in physical proximity, although recent developments in computer-mediated
communication (e.g., e-mail) are enabling people to form friendships in the absence of face-to-face contact (Lea &
Spears, 1995).
Individual Factors
Although contact might be a necessary condition for the formation of friendships, it is not sufficient. For a friendship to
develop, the potential friends must exhibit qualities such as physical attractiveness, social skills, and responsiveness.
Physical attractiveness is weighed more heavily in attraction to romantic partners than to friends (Sprecher, 1998a).
Nevertheless, looks do play a role in the formation of same-and other-sex friendships (Aboud & Mendelson, 1996)
because people tend to assume similarity (e.g., in terms of personality or attitudes) between themselves and attractive
people (Patzer, 1985).
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people (Patzer, 1985).
Social skills also are important. In Riggio’s (1986) research, socially skilled university students reported a greater number
of acquaintances and close friends than did less skilled students. In a follow-up laboratory study involving actual
interactions, the most socially skilled students also were liked best. Social skills are a particularly valuable asset during
the early stages of friendship formation (Buhrmester, Furman, Wittenberg, & Reis, 1988).
Finally, it is well documented that individuals who behave in responsive ways (e.g., showing interest or concern) are liked
more by their interaction partners and form closer friendships than do unresponsive individuals (Berg & Archer, 1980;
Godfrey, Jones, & Lord, 1986; Guerrero, 1997). In short, people tend to cultivate friendships with those who are
physically attractive, socially skilled, and responsive.
Situational Factors
Situational factors affecting the formation of friendships include the probability of future interaction, the frequency of
interactions, and how available each person is for a new relationship. With regard to the first factor, there is evidence that
people respond more positively to others when they anticipate ongoing interactions rather than a single isolated encounter
(Darley & Berscheid, 1967). They tend to emphasize the positive and downplay the negative so that future interactions
will be pleasant and enjoyable.
Research on the mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968; see also Bornstein, 1989) shows that people actually report more
positive feelings the more frequently they interact with others. However, even if two people are enjoying frequent
pleasant contact, a friendship will not develop unless each person has sufficient time, energy, and other resources to
devote to a new relationship. Middle-aged women interviewed by Gouldner and Strong (1987; see also Allan, 1989) were
keenly aware of the practical limitations on the number of friendships that they could develop. A respondent’s “friendship
budget” depended on the number of new friendships she felt could be sustained given existing friendships and the
demands of family and employment. Thus, the situations in which people find themselves can either hinder or facilitate
the development of friendships.
Dyadic Factors
Research on the role of dyadic factors in friendship formation has identified similarity, reciprocity of liking, and intimate
self-disclosure as important variables. With regard to similarity, Byrne (1971) developed a laboratory paradigm in which
participants were led to believe that a stranger (either real or hypothetical) held attitudes that were either similar or
dissimilar to their own. Eventually, the focus shifted to the study of actual relationships. This research shows that people
form friendships with those who are similar to them in terms of demographic characteristics such as age, gender,
education level, income, race, ethnicity, marital status, and religiosity (Blieszner & Adams, 1992; Crandall,
Schiffenhauer, & Harvey, 1997; for a review, see Fehr, 1996). Friends also tend to be similar in terms of academic
interests, achievements, attitudes (Kandel, 1978a), and values (Curry & Kenny, 1974).
By contrast, there is little evidence that friends are more similar than nonfriends in terms of personality (Curry & Kenny,
1974; Werebe, 1987). However, research on personal construct similarity shows that people who view the world in a
similar way are more likely to become friends (Duck, 1973b; Neimeyer & Neimeyer, 1983). Finally, people also are
attracted to, and form friendships with, those who hold similar leisure or activity preferences (Fink & Wild, 1995;
Sprecher, 1998a; Werner & Parmelee, 1979). In fact, in some studies, these effects have been stronger than similarity
effects in the domains of attitudes (Kandel, 1978a; Werner & Parmelee, 1979) and political views (Davis, 1981).
The most commonly accepted explanations for similarity effects are that interactions with similar others serve to validate
people’s views and confirm that they are correct in their thinking and that it is more rewarding and enjoyable to interact
with similar others than with dissimilar others (Berscheid & Walster, 1978). The rewards-of-interaction interpretation
recently has received increased attention from Burleson (1994; see also Burleson, Samter, & Lucchetti, 1992), whose
research shows that friends are more similar than nonfriends in terms of communication and social skills.

esearch shows that friends are more similar than nonfriends in terms of communication and social skills.
We also tend to like people who like us (Backman & Secord, 1959). Interestingly, if a person expects to be liked by
another person, then he or she might actually behave in ways that confirm that expectation. In a study by Curtis and
Miller (1986), participants who believed that they were liked by their interaction partners showed fewer distancing
behaviors, were more pleasant, and engaged in more intimate self-disclosure than did those who believed that they were
disliked. These behaviors served to produce liking in their interaction partners.
According to social penetration theory (Altman & Taylor, 1973), as relationships develop toward greater intimacy, selfdisclosure
will increase in breadth (the number of topics discussed) and depth (more personal and intimate disclosure).
The greatest attraction occurs when someone begins with relatively nonpersonal disclosure and progresses to more
intimate disclosure later in the interaction (Archer & Burleson, 1980). During the early stages of a relationship, it also is
important that disclosures are reciprocated to establish a sense of trust (Berg & Archer, 1980). Although most of the
research on the role of self-disclosure in relationship development is based on interactions between strangers in a
laboratory setting, these studies mirror the real-life process of friendship formation. For example, when Miell and Duck
(1986) asked respondents to describe the process of developing a friendship, the patterns of self-disclosure that were
reported were consistent with those identified in laboratory studies (e.g., starting with relatively nonpersonal topics and
then progressing to more intimate disclosure if the friendship seemed promising, reciprocating the other person’s
disclosures).
The central thesis of this section has been that friendship development occurs when there is a convergence of
environmental, individual, situational, and dyadic factors. Studies of friendship formation typically focus on only one of
these factors. However, these factors were examined in conjunction in Hays’s (1984,1985) longitudinal research on
friendship development among 1st-year university students. He found that an environmental factor, residential proximity,
was correlated positively with friendship development. An individual factor, shyness, showed a weak and negative
relation. The situational factor of availability (e.g., changes in students’ schedules that increased the convenience of
getting together) was positively associated with friendship development. At the dyadic level, students rated the intimacy
of their friendships in four areas: companionship (e.g., sharing activities), consideration (e.g., providing help and support),
communication (e.g., self-disclosure), and affection. The greater the number of areas in which intimacy had been
achieved, the closer the friendship. Thus, the formation of a friendship is a complex process in which a number of factors,
both internal and external to the relationship, must converge.
Achieving Closeness
To discover how friends become close, researchers generally have compared acquaintanceships with close and intimate
friendships in terms of self-disclosure, similarity, interaction differences, fun and relaxation, and so on. This research
provides insight into the process by which a relationship develops from an acquaintanceship into a close friendship.
Self-Disclosure
1: THE LIFE CYCLE OF FRIENDSHIP
As would be expected based on social penetration theory, friends disclose more intimate and personal information than do
acquaintances (Hays, 1984,1985; Hornstein & Truesdell, 1988; see also Dolgin & Minowa, 1997). Planalp and colleagues
(Planalp, 1993; Planalp & Benson, 1992) found that people could identify whether tape-recorded conversations were
between friends or between acquaintances with 80% accuracy by relying on the nature of self-disclosure between the
interactants. Friends displayed greater knowledge of one another’s lives as well as greater mutual knowledge of other
people, places, and events. They also exchanged more intimate, emotional, and detailed information (i.e., greater depth of
disclosure) and self-disclosed on a greater number of topics (i.e., greater breadth). By contrast, acquaintances tended to
exchange more superficial (frequently demographic) information.
Thus, intimate and personal self-disclosure continues to increase as a friendship becomes close. Rubin and Shenker
(1978) suggested that the relation between intimate self-disclosure and closeness of friendships is a reciprocal one; people
are more likely to reveal intimate information to close, as opposed to less close, friends, and these intimate disclosures can
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(1978) suggested that the relation between intimate self-disclosure and closeness of friendships is a reciprocal one; people
are more likely to reveal intimate information to close, as opposed to less close, friends, and these intimate disclosures can
produce even greater closeness.
Similarity
Superficial similarity (e.g., demographic characteristics) may be used as a criterion for selecting (or rejecting) friends, but
as a friendship becomes close, the partners must be similar in deeper and more meaningful ways (Aboud & Mendelson,
1996; Crandall et al., 1997; Johnson, 1989). Duck and his colleagues (Duck, 1973a; Duck & Craig, 1978; Lea & Duck,
1982; see also Neimeyer & Neimeyer, 1983) proposed that at the beginning of a friendship, similarity in terms of
superficial observable personality dimensions would be the strongest predictor of attraction. A few months later,
similarity in values, especially important values (Lea, 1994), should emerge as the most important predictor, followed by
similarity in personal constructs (i.e., how an individual construes the world). Research generally has supported these
predictions.
In conclusion, friendships are formed on the basis of various types of similarity including similarity in rather superficial
domains. A friendship will become close only if the partners are similar in more meaningful ways including similarities in
important values and personal constructs. It should be noted that people not only form friendships because they are
similar to one another but also become more similar as the friendships develop (Aboud & Mendelson, 1996; Kandel,
1978b). This increase in similarity may serve to further cement the relationship.
Interaction Differences
Most of the research in which the interactions of acquaintances and friends have been compared has been conducted with
children. For example, studies of prosocial behavior typically involve giving children opportunities to share snacks, toys,
or crayons with acquaintances or friends (for a review, see Fehr, 1996). These studies show that prosocial behavior
generally is greater in interactions with friends than with acquaintances. A recent study suggests that this conclusion also
might generalize to adults. Halpern (1997) constructed scenarios involving various economic transactions between friends
and strangers. She found that participants were more likely to benefit friends (e.g., request a lower price when selling,
offer a higher price when buying). Participants also demanded higher prices when selling friends’ commodities.
Finally, observational research shows that people are more fully engaged in interactions with friends than with
acquaintances and show more positive communicative behaviors such as smiling, making eye contact, talking, and
laughing (Planalp & Benson, 1992). These behaviors might account for the finding that friends frequently outperform
acquaintances on problem-solving and memory tasks (Anderson & Ronnberg, 1997; Newcomb & Brady, 1982).
Fun and Relaxation
Although researchers have documented the activities in which people engage with friends (see the next section on
maintaining friendships), they rarely ask whether people are having fun with their friends. However, the amount of fun
and relaxation experienced might be an important indication of whether a relationship has progressed from an
acquaintanceship to a friendship. When Planalp and Benson (1992) asked participants to describe the bases on which they
discriminated between friends’ and acquaintances’ conversations, two unexpected dimensions emerged: The interactions
of friends were more relaxed, friendly, and casual than those of acquaintances, and friends used more informal language
that included joking and teasing. Similarly, a salient feature of the interactions of middle-aged and older women in a
friendship group observed by Jerrome (1984) was the amount of joking and laughing. These women valued the
opportunities for fun that were afforded by belonging to the group. Finally, based on interview data, Swain (1989)
concluded that for men, the degree of comfort and relaxation experienced serves as a barometer of the closeness of samesex
friendships. These findings are reinforced by research showing that fun and relaxation are strong predictors of
intimacy (Hays & Oxley, 1986) and satisfaction (Jones, 1991) in both women’s and men’s friendships.

intimacy (Hays & Oxley, 1986) and satisfaction (Jones, 1991) in both women’s and men’s friendships.
Maintaining Friendships
According to Duck (1994; see also Canary & Stafford, 1994), there are two paths to relationship maintenance: explicit
strategic maintenance and implicit maintenance, described as “the breezy allowance of the relationship to continue by means
of the routine everyday interactions and conversations that make the relationship what it is” (p. 46).
Implicit Maintenance Strategies
For decades, friendship scholars have documented how time with friends is spent. This research shows that the activities
that are performed (particularly with same-sex friends) and the conversation topics that are discussed depend on the
friends’ gender. Overall, there is evidence that men prefer engaging in activities (e.g., participating in sports) with friends,
whereas women prefer talking (Parker & de Vries, 1993; for a review, see Fehr, 1996). For example, when Caldwell and
Peplau (1982) asked undergraduates their preference between these options, more than three times as many women as
men chose “just talking” with a same-sex friend; nearly twice as many men as women chose engaging in an activity.
(Even when women engage in activities with friends, talk remains a central focus [Johnson & Aries, 1983].) Although this
gender difference is well established in the literature, its magnitude has been questioned recently. There are arguments
both that women are more activity oriented and that men are more talk oriented than has been thought (Walker, 1994;
Wright & Scanlon, 1991). Duck and Wright (1993) have suggested that gender differences still might exist, however, in
the topics discussed with friends.
Indeed, there is evidence that women and men discuss rather different topics with friends. Women tend to talk about
personal and relationship matters, whereas men tend to talk about nonpersonal matters (e.g., sports, vehicles, work,
computers) (for a review, see Fehr, 1996). In Caldwell and Peplau’s (1982) study, participants were asked to list three
topics that were commonly discussed with their best (same-sex) friends. Personal topics such as feelings and problems
were mentioned twice as often by women than by men, whereas men’s conversations centered on sports, work, and
vehicles. Findings such as these have been obtained in more recent research as well. For example, when Martin (1997)
asked participants to classify transcribed conversations between same-sex friends according to gender, they reported that
men’s conversations were identifiable by the topics they discussed—women, sports, fighting, being trapped in
relationships, and bars or drinking. Women’s conversations focused on relationships, men, clothing, problems with
roommates, and needs/feelings. In several other studies, however, evidence of gender similarities in the content and
structure of conversations with friends has been as strong as, if not stronger than, evidence of differences (Dolgin &
Minowa, 1997; Freed & Greenwood, 1996; Leaper & Holliday, 1995). Conclusions about gender differences in
conversation topics also must be tempered in light of research showing that these differences are most pronounced in
same-sex interactions (Fehr, 1996) and in interactions with good, as opposed to casual, friends (Clark, 1998).
Regardless of the form that activities and conversations might take for each gender, these are the types of interactions that
serve to maintain and sustain friendships for both women and men. Harré (1977), for example, discussed friendship
maintenance in terms of shared mundane activities (e.g., socializing over food and drink, giving rides). In Duck’s (1994)
view, everyday talk is the essence of relationship maintenance because the mere occurrence of talk, regardless of its
content, signifies to the partners that the relationship exists and is important. Thus, friendships are maintained through the
types of activities and conversations in which people naturally engage with friends, even though these interactions were
not motivated by the explicit goal of relationship maintenance.
Explicit Maintenance Strategies
1: THE LIFE CYCLE OF FRIENDSHIP
The explicit strategies that people use to maintain relationships vary, depending on the nature of the relationship and the
stage of its development (Canary & Stafford, 1994). Canary, Stafford, Hause, and Wallace (1993) asked participants to
list the strategies (and provide behavioral examples) that they used to maintain romantic, friendship, and familial
relationships. The most frequent strategy, labeled openness, was exemplified by the behavior of self-disclosure. The
second most frequent strategy, assurance, involved communicating that the relationship was important. The most
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relationships. The most frequent strategy, labeled openness, was exemplified by the behavior of self-disclosure. The
second most frequent strategy, assurance, involved communicating that the relationship was important. The most
common behavioral manifestation of this strategy was supportiveness. The strategy of spending time together as a way of
maintaining relationships (labeled joint activities) was listed next, followed by positivity (trying to make interactions
pleasant), cards/letters/calls, and avoidance (of relationship issues or the partner). Generally, these strategies were more
likely to be used in romantic or familial relationships than in friendships.
Researchers who have focused exclusively on friendships have tended to compare the strategies used to maintain different
types of friendships. For example, Matthews (1986) differentiated friendships on the basis of commitment. Her interviews
with elderly women and men revealed that highly committed friendships were characterized by active maintenance
including taking long trips to visit one another, letter writing, and telephone calls. By contrast, friendships that were low
in commitment were maintained on a circumstantial basis (e.g., residential proximity, involvement in formal groups or
clubs). If circumstances changed, then few efforts were made to continue these relationships.
Rose (1985) asked undergraduate and graduate students (single and married) to describe how they maintained same-and
other-sex close friendships. The strategies of acceptance, effort, time, communication, and common interests were listed
more frequently for same-sex than for other-sex friendships, whereas “no maintenance” and affection were listed more
frequently for other-sex friendships. Maintenance strategies also differed depending on the participants’ gender and life
stage (e.g., marital status, student status). For example, unmarried participants were more likely than married participants
to list spending time together as a strategy for maintaining same-sex friendships. Women were more likely than men to
respond with “no maintenance” when asked about other-sex friendships.
Finally, Rose and Seráfica (1986) compared the strategies used to maintain casual, close, and best same-sex friendships.
Responses to the question “How do two people stay friends?” were categorized as either proximity, affection, interaction,
or self-maintaining. Casual friendships were perceived as requiring more proximity and less affection than were close or
best friendships. Close and best friends did not differ on any of the maintenance categories: “Both required little
proximity, some affection, and considerable interaction to maintain” (p. 280).
In summary, the literatures on the implicit and explicit maintenance of friendships point to a number of strategies that
facilitate the continuation of friendships. Of these, three seem particularly important: self-disclosure, supportiveness, and
spending time together. Self-disclosure, as the behavioral manifestation of openness, was the most frequently mentioned
explicit maintenance strategy in Canary et al.’s (1993) study (see also Rose, 1985). Self-disclosure in the form of
everyday talk also was considered a primary implicit maintenance strategy. Thus, it appears that relationship maintenance
is a byproduct of self-disclosure as it naturally occurs in friendships. However, there also is evidence that people,
especially women (Afifi, Guerrero, & Egland, 1994; Honeycutt & Patterson, 1997), consciously use self-disclosure as a
means of maintaining and improving their friendships.
Friendships also are maintained through the provision of social support. This was the second most frequent maintenance
strategy reported in Canary et al.’s (1993) research. The importance of supportiveness has surfaced in other research as
well (Afifi et al., 1994; Argyle & Henderson, 1984; Honeycutt & Patterson, 1997; Walker, 1995). Like self-disclosure,
social support also can be conceptualized as an implicit maintenance strategy. According to Burleson and Samter (1994),
close friends are the primary source of social support for most young adults, and this has implications for the maintenance
of friendships: “To maintain a close friendship, partners are thus obligated to provide comfort, help solve problems ...
celebrate victories, offer encouragement... and so on” (p. 74). Those authors suggest that deliberate maintenance rarely is
the motivation for the provision of support. Rather, there is a tacit understanding that providing support is simply “what
friends do.”
Finally, research on the everyday activities and conversations of friends suggests that one of the least obvious avenues to
friendship maintenance might be one of the most crucial, that is, simply spending time together. This point was
underscored in the subsection on explicit maintenance, where strategies such as interaction, joint activities, spending time
together, and cards/letters/calls were commonly mentioned (see also Afifi et al., 1994; Honeycutt & Patterson, 1997). As
Duck (1994) argued, seemingly mundane interactions communicate that the relationship exists and is important enough

together, and cards/letters/calls were commonly mentioned (see also Afifi et al., 1994; Honeycutt & Patterson, 1997). As
Duck (1994) argued, seemingly mundane interactions communicate that the relationship exists and is important enough
that the partners have taken the time to be together.
In conclusion, friendships can be sustained in myriad ways. However, based on the literatures on implicit and explicit
maintenance, it appears that friendships are most likely to thrive when friends spend time together, engage in selfdisclosure,
and provide support to one another.
Deterioration and Dissolution
Friendships that are not maintained tend to deteriorate and dissolve. However, even friendships that are actively maintained
might encounter difficulties that lead to the deterioration, and possible termination, of the relationships.
Conflict and Anger in Friendships
As a friendship develops and becomes more intimate, people report not only increased benefits but also increased anger
and conflict (Hays, 1985; Hays & Oxley, 1986). Although many causes of anger and conflict have been identified in
marital and romantic relationships (e.g., rebuff or rejection, being mocked, cumulative annoyances, personal criticism,
betrayal of trust) (Fehr, Baldwin, Collins, Patterson, & Benditt, 1999), only one of these, betrayal of trust, has received
significant attention in the friendship literature (Jones & Burdette, 1994; Shackelford & Buss, 1996). Betrayal by a friend
is not a rare event; only spouses/romantic partners (and for men, co-workers) exceed friends as perpetrators and targets of
betrayal (Jones & Burdette, 1994; Shackelford & Buss, 1996). In a study by Davis and Todd (1985), more than one third
of the participants reported having experienced violations or betrayals in their best and closest friendships, and 37%
admitted to having committed betrayals. According to Shackelford and Buss (1996), the strongest feelings of betrayal in
same-sex friendships are elicited by a friend’s sexual or emotional involvement with one’s romantic partner, followed by
a friend’s failure to come to one’s defense when criticized by others. Women also feel betrayed when a close same-sex
friend fails to engage in intimate self-disclosure. Other research has identified breaches of confidence as a significant
betrayal event in friendships (e.g., Wiseman, 1986).
The effects of betrayals on friendships are uniformly negative. In Davis and Todd’s (1985) study, participants who had
been betrayed rated their friendships as lower in viability (e.g., trust, respect, acceptance) and success than did
participants who had not been betrayed. Those who had perpetrated betrayals rated their friendships as lower in intimacy,
support, stability, and success. The literature on dealing with conflict and anger in friendships suggests a reason why
betrayals have such negative effects. This research shows that when friends encounter difficulties, the most common
response is passive avoidance as opposed to explicit constructive discussions of problematic issues (see Fehr, 1996,
although there are exceptions to this finding [Samp & Solomon, 1998]). For example, Sillars (1980a, 1980b) found that
integrative strategies (explicit constructive discussions) were least likely to be used by friends in conflict situations, even
though they were most likely to produce satisfactory resolutions. Moreover, the use of integrative tactics was negatively
correlated with both the frequency and duration of conflicts. Thus, it appears that when friends experience anger and
conflict, the most likely response is one that is least likely to lead to a positive outcome.
Dissolution of Friendships
1: THE LIFE CYCLE OF FRIENDSHIP
The four categories of variables that must converge for a friendship to develop (environmental, individual, situational, and
dyadic) also are implicated in the dissolution of friendships. Research on each of these factors is discussed, followed by
research on the strategies that people use to terminate friendships.
Environmental factors. Frequent contact is necessary for a friendship to develop. Conversely, the loss of proximity is
associated with friendship termination. Loss of proximity occurs when people move away, attend different schools,
change jobs, retire, or even move within the same city (Blieszner & Adams, 1998; Matthews, 1986; Rose & Seráfica,
1986). In Rose’s (1984) study of college students (17-22 years of age), more than half of the participants (57.4%) had
experienced the dissolution of close friendships during the previous 5 years, usually during the transition to college. (If
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1986). In Rose’s (1984) study of college students (17-22 years of age), more than half of the participants (57.4%) had
experienced the dissolution of close friendships during the previous 5 years, usually during the transition to college. (If
Rose’s sample had not consisted primarily of local residents, then the loss of friendships might have been even greater
given claims that the majority of friendships do not survive changes such as geographic mobility [Allan, 1989].)
Thus, environmental factors such as reduced proximity contribute to the termination of friendships. It is possible that
technological developments such as e-mail will mitigate these effects. So far, however, the benefits of these developments
for friendship maintenance have not been demonstrated empirically.
Individual factors. For a friendship to develop, each person must find the other person’s qualities attractive.
Unfortunately, negative characteristics such as possessiveness and being demanding, moody, or boring might become
apparent only after the relationship is established (Wiseman, 1986). In LaGaipa’s (1987) program of research, a frequent
reason given for the dissolution of a friendship was the discovery of character flaws that undermined admiration for the
friend (see also Blieszner & Adams, 1998; Matthews, 1986). Thus, as Duck (1982) observed, “New, surprising, and
significantly negatively charged information about the other can hasten the relationship’s death” (p. 7).
Situational factors. The situational factors that play a role in friendship formation also play a role in the dissolution of
friendships. For example, friendships might dissolve when the availability of one or both partners is reduced, either by the
types of environmental factors discussed earlier (e.g., moving away) or by changes in other life circumstances. In a study
of friendships among middle-aged adults, Rawlins (1994) observed,
The interviews were riddled with accounts of how vulnerable friendships were to altered circumstances ... shifting
schedules, changing jobs, moving away, developing new interests. It felt like valued friendships were continually
slipping away from these adults, in most cases due to events that transcended the friendships, (p. 287)
Availability also is undermined when new friendships are formed as people discover that they lack the resources (e.g.,
time, energy) to maintain a roster of old and new friendships (Wilmot & Stevens, 1994). Romantic relationships pose an
even greater threat to friendships. Simply put, the greater the involvement with a romantic partner, the lesser the
involvement with friends. Johnson and Leslie (1982), for example, found that the number of friends decreased from an
average of 4.13 for occasional daters to 1.06 for married respondents. Moreover, romantic involvement was associated
with a reduction in the quality and quantity of interactions with the few friends who were retained. Women’s same-sex
friendships are especially likely to be sacrificed on the altar of romantic involvement given that couple-based socializing
tends to occur primarily with the male partner’s friends (Rose & Seráfica, 1986).
In conclusion, it appears that any event that leads to decreased interactions between friends is likely to put the relationship
in peril. This is not surprising given evidence presented earlier that frequent interactions are crucial for both the formation
and maintenance of friendships.
Dyadic factors. One of the best predictors of friendship formation and maintenance is similarity. It follows that if friends
become dissimilar, then their relationship might be threatened. Indeed, when asked why friendships had ended, people
frequently report that they no longer had anything in common with their friends, often because they followed different life
paths (Matthews, 1986; Rawlins, 1994; Wiseman, 1986). An example is the loss of friendships with other homemakers
experienced by women who embark on university studies in midlife (Levy, 1981). Longitudinal studies of friendship
dissolution also point to the deleterious effects of loss of similarity, particularly in meaningful domains (Duck & Allison,
1978; Kandel, 1978b).
Reciprocity of liking was another factor identified as important in the formation of friendships. Conversely, decreased
liking is associated with the dissolution of friendships (Rose, 1984; Rose & Serafica, 1986). As discussed earlier,
decreased liking can occur when friends reveal undesirable traits.
Finally, the unraveling of friendships also is reflected in patterns of self-disclosure. According to research by Baxter
(1979,1982), personal and intimate self-disclosure that is associated with friendship development and maintenance is
avoided when a friendship is deteriorating. For example, in a scenario study, participants indicated less willingness to

(1979,1982), personal and intimate self-disclosure that is associated with friendship development and maintenance is
avoided when a friendship is deteriorating. For example, in a scenario study, participants indicated less willingness to
disclose, particularly on high intimacy and openness topics, when a desire for disengagement rather than maintenance of
the friendship, was depicted (Baxter, 1979). In a subsequent diary study, disengaging friendships were characterized by
less effective and less personal communication than were growing friendships (Baxter & Wilmot, 1986).
To summarize, in the same way that environmental, individual, situational, and dyadic factors must coalesce to form a
friendship, friendships are likely to dissolve when all four of these factors conspire against them. The importance of this
constellation of factors is highlighted in research by Rose (1984). When she asked college students to describe the decline
of a closest same-sex friendship, nearly half (47%) mentioned an environmental factor, namely physical separation (e.g.,
moving to another city, attending different schools). The situational factor of reduced availability also was evident, as
18% of the participants reported that old friends had been replaced by new friends and 12% attributed dissolution to one
or both friends’ romantic involvement. An individual-level factor (mentioned by 22% of the respondents), labeled dislike,
included a variety of attitudes and behaviors that undermined liking for the friend (e.g., betrayal, criticism, religious
differences). Rose and Seráfica (1986) subsequently conducted a more finely grained analysis by soliciting dissolution
accounts for different types of friendship (casual, close, and best). Participants’ responses were categorized as either less
proximity (e.g., friend moved), less affection (e.g., decrease in liking, commitment, or acceptance), less interaction (e.g.,
decrease in quantity or quality of time spent together), and interference (e.g., romantic involvement). Interestingly,
different causes were identified for the dissolution of the different types of friendships. For example, casual friendships
were more likely to end because of reduced proximity, whereas close and best friendships were more likely to end
because of interference or decreased interaction. These findings raise the intriguing possibility that environmental,
individual, situational, and dyadic factors might have differential impacts on friendship dissolution, depending on the
stage of the relationship.
Termination strategies. Earlier, research was presented suggesting that friends are most likely to respond to conflict and
anger with passive avoidance. Passivity also appears to be the modus operandi when people attempt to terminate
friendships; the strategy of withdrawal/avoidance is among the most frequently reported in this literature (Baxter,
1979,1982). In one study, 72% of the strategies that participants had used to end friendships were classified as indirect
(Baxter, 1979). Passivity is also reflected in the tendency to use phrases such as “drifting apart” and “fading away” to
describe the dissolution of friendships (Rawlins, 1994). Indeed, friendships generally end in this way, in contrast to the
formal explicit breaking up process that characterizes romantic relationships.
Restoring Friendships
1: THE LIFE CYCLE OF FRIENDSHIP
Friendship has been described as the most fragile relationship (Wiseman, 1986). Unlike institutionalized relationships such
as marriage, when a friendship deteriorates, mechanisms to assist in reconciliation and repair generally are not available.
Instead, people are left to their own devices. Recently, Wilmot and his colleagues (Wilmot, 1994; Wilmot & Shellen, 1990)
have begun to document the ways in which people attempt to restore broken friendships. Wilmot and Stevens (1994) asked
respondents to describe the decline of a relationship (friendship, romantic, marital, or familial) and the turning points that
resulted in its rejuvenation. For friendships, the most common event (reported by 33% of participants) was a change in the
behavior of one or both partners including giving the other more “space,” spending more time together, being more
independent, and talking more. (Rejuvenation behaviors generally were related to the perceived cause of decline. For
example, the behavior of giving more space was a response to the relationship difficulty of one partner feeling “smothered.”)
The second rejuvenation event (31%) was labeled have big relationship talk. These talks served the explicit function of
restoring the relationship and entailed apologies, arguments, setting ground rules, and the like. The third rejuvenation event
(19%) involved gestures of reconciliation, followed by reassessment of the importance of the relationship (8%) and
accepting or forgiving the partner (8%). Finally, a mere 2% of respondents reported that they had restored a relationship by
seeking third-party help (e.g., seeing a counselor, talking to other social network members).
The relatively low rates with which these rejuvenation events were endorsed for friendships suggest that when this type of
relationship deteriorates, people might not take active steps to restore it. Consistent with this conjecture, Rose (1984)
reported that a number of her participants expressed regret that they had allowed friendships to deteriorate past the point
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relationship deteriorates, people might not take active steps to restore it. Consistent with this conjecture, Rose (1984)
reported that a number of her participants expressed regret that they had allowed friendships to deteriorate past the point
where they could be salvaged. As already discussed, this passivity is a theme that also emerges in the literatures on conflict
in friendships and dissolution strategies. Although the passive approach to conflict management has deleterious effects on
friendships, ironically, this same approach to termination can have positive effects on the restoration of friendships. Rawlins
(1994) reported that the middle-aged respondents in his sample used terms such as “drifting apart” as a means of leaving the
door open to possible resumption of their relationships in the future. Similarly, some of Matthews’ (1986) elderly
respondents regarded “faded” friendships as relationships that could be revived. Reconciliation was perceived as much more
difficult if the relationship had explicitly been terminated. Such perceptions might well be accurate. In a study by Davis and
Todd (1985), friendships that had drifted apart were rated as higher in intimacy, enjoyment, viability, and the like than those
that had been terminated due to violations (see also Adams & Blieszner, 1998).
In conclusion, the passive approach that people generally take to the termination of friendships can have the positive effect
of leaving open the possibility of reconciliation. However, the research on rejuvenation strategies suggests that friends are
relatively unlikely to engage in explicit restoration attempts. Thus, it is not clear whether people act on opportunities for
friendship restoration or merely take comfort in the possibility of restoration. Perhaps most important, the literature on
dealing with conflict and anger suggests that if friends would engage in more open and constructive discussion of conflict
issues as they arise, then they would be much less likely to need a repertoire of rejuvenation strategies.
Conclusions and Applications
The research discussed in this chapter was conducted with the purpose of illuminating the processes by which people
develop, maintain, lose, and restore friendships. Valuable practical lessons can be extracted from these findings for people
who wish to enrich their friendship lives. For those who are lacking in friendships, the literature suggests that an important
first step is to seek out environments that bring them into contact with potential friends, particularly environments in which
interactions with others are frequent and pleasant. Within this pool of candidates, friendships should be pursued with those
who appear to have room in their lives for new friends and who are similar to themselves (e.g., in terms of demographic
characteristics, attitudes, and/or leisure preferences). It also is important to cultivate the types of qualities that are desired in
friends. These qualities generally revolve around social competencies (e.g., social skills, responsiveness) that can be
improved through therapeutic intervention (Adams & Blieszner, 1993). Finally, during interactions with potential friends,
self-disclosures should be reciprocated and progress gradually from nonintimate to intimate topics.
Research on friendship also is relevant for people seeking to increase the closeness or intimacy of their friendships. In
choosing which friendships to intensify, the literature suggests that an important consideration is similarity in meaningful
domains (e.g., important values, personal construct similarity). During interactions, recommendations for achieving
closeness include increasing intimate self-disclosure, engaging in prosocial behavior (particularly social support), and
(perhaps less obvious) simply having fun together. These also are the types of behavior that serve to maintain friendships
once they have become close.
Finally, it should be noted that friendships are not exempt from anger and conflict. In such situations, people generally react
with passive avoidance. However, it has been demonstrated that explicit constructive discussion of difficult issues is most
likely to result in a satisfactory outcome. Constructive discussions also are recommended for people wishing to restore
lapsed friendships (along with strategies such as communicating a willingness to change problematic behaviors). Such
strategies might have greater success if aimed at friendships that have faded away rather than friendships that were explicitly
terminated.
In conclusion, this chapter has shown that friendships are an important source of meaning, love, happiness, enjoyment, and
excitement in people’s lives. The effort required to form, maintain, and restore these relationships seems a small price to pay
in light of these benefits.

in light of these benefits.
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(Monograph Suppl. No. 2, Pt. 2.)
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1: THE LIFE CYCLE OF FRIENDSHIP
1. What has to happen for you to (want to) transform a relatively casual friendship in to a close one? Describe
the importance to you of each of the four factors mentioned in the “Achieving Closeness” section of this
article. What other factors, not mentioned in this article, increase the likelihood that you will become close
friends with a particular individual?
2. Among the factors mentioned in the “Deterioration and Dissolution” section of this article, which one of
them for you is the single factor most likely to cause you to end a friendship with someone? Describe a
situation in your life where this has occurred.
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2:
NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND OUR FEELINGS: Romance on
the Internet
CHRISTINE ROSEN
When Samuel F. B. Morse sent his first long-distance telegraph message in 1844, he chose words that emphasized both the
awe and apprehension he felt about his new device. “What hath God wrought?” read the paper tape message of dots and dashes
sent from the U.S. Capitol building to Morse’s associates in Baltimore. Morse proved prescient about the potential scope and
significance of his technology. In less than a decade, telegraph wires spread throughout all but one state east of the Mississippi
River; by 1861, they spanned the continent; and by 1866, a transatlantic telegraph cable connected the United States to Europe.
The telegraph, and later, the telephone, forever changed the way we communicate. But the triumph wrought by these
technologies was not merely practical. Subtly and not so subtly, these technologies also altered the range of ways we reveal
ourselves. Writing in 1884, James Russell Lowell wondered a bit nervously about the long-term consequences of the “trooping
of emotion” that the electric telegraph, with its fragmented messages, encouraged. Lowell and others feared that the
sophisticated new media we were devising might alter not just how we communicate, but how we feel.
Rapid improvement in communication technologies and the expansion of their practical uses continue unabated. Today, of
course, we are no longer tethered to telegraph or telephone wires for conversation. Cell phones, e-mail, Internet chatrooms,
two-way digital cameras—we can talk to anyone, anywhere, including those we do not know and never see. The ethical
challenges raised by these new communication technologies are legion, and not new. Within a decade of the invention of the
telephone, for example, we had designed a way to wiretap and listen in on the private conversations flourishing there. And
with the Internet, we can create new or false identities for ourselves, mixing real life and personal fantasy in unpredictable
ways. The “confidence man” of the nineteenth century, with his dandified ruses, is replaced by the well-chosen screen name
and false autobiography of the unscrupulous Internet dater. Modern philosophers of technology have studied the ethical
quandaries posed by communication technologies—questioning whether our view of new technologies as simply means to
generally positive ends is naive, and encouraging us to consider whether our many devices have effected subtle
transformations on our natures.
But too little consideration has been given to the question of how our use of these technologies influences our emotions. Do
certain methods of communication flatten emotional appeals, promote immediacy rather than thoughtful reflection, and
encourage accessibility and transparency at the expense of necessary boundaries? Do our technologies change the way we feel,
act, and think?
Love and E-Mail
There is perhaps no realm in which this question has more salience than that of romantic love. How do our ubiquitous
technologies—cell phones, e-mail, the Internet—impact our ability to find and experience love? Our technical devices are of
such extraordinary practical use that we forget they are also increasingly the primary medium for our emotional expression.
The technologies we use on a daily basis do not merely change the ways, logistically, we pursue love; they are in some cases
transforming the way we think and feel about what, exactly, it is we should be pursuing. They change not simply how we
find our beloved, but the kind of beloved we hope to find. In a world where men and women still claim to want to find that
one special person—a “soul mate”—to spend their life with, what role can and should we afford technology and, more
broadly, science, in their efforts?
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broadly, science, in their efforts?
Love after Courtship
The pursuit of love in its modern, technological guise has its roots in the decline of courtship and is indelibly marked by
that loss. Courtship as it once existed—a practice that assumed adherence to certain social conventions, and recognition of
the differences, physical and emotional, between men and women—has had its share of pleased obituarists. The most
vigorous have been feminists, the more radical of whom appear to take special delight in quelling notions of romantic
love. Recall Andrea Dworkin’s infamous equation of marriage and rape, or Germaine Greer’s terrifying rant in The
Female Eunuch: “Love, love, love—all the wretched cant of it, masking egotism, lust, masochism, fantasy under a
mythology of sentimental postures, a welter of self-induced miseries and joys, blinding and masking the essential
personalities in the frozen gestures of courtship, in the kissing and the dating and the desire, the compliments and the
quarrels which vivify its barrenness.” Much of this work is merely an unpersuasive attempt to swaddle basic human
bitterness in the language of female empowerment. But such sentiments have had their effect on our culture’s
understanding of courtship.
More thoughtful chroniclers of the institution’s demise have noted the cultural and technological forces that challenged
courtship in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, eroding the power of human chaperones, once its most
effective guardians. As Leon Kass persuasively argued in an essay in The Public Interest, the obstacles to courtship
“spring from the very heart of liberal democratic society and of modernity altogether.” The automobile did more for
unsupervised sexual exploration than many technologies in use today, for example, and by twentieth century’s end, the
ease and availability of effective contraceptive devices, especially the birth control pill, had freed men and women to
pursue sexual experience without the risk of pregnancy. With technical advances came a shift in social mores. As
historian Jacques Barzun has noted, strict manners gave way to informality, “for etiquette is a barrier, the casual style an
invitation.”
Whether one laments or praises courtship’s decline, it is clear that we have yet to locate a successful replacement for it—
evidently it is not as simple as hustling the aging coquette out the door to make way for the vigorous debutante. On the
contrary, our current courting practices—if they can be called that—yield an increasing number of those aging coquettes,
as well as scores of unsettled bachelors. On college campuses, young men and women have long since ceased formally
dating and instead participate in a “hooking up” culture that favors the sexually promiscuous and emotionally
disinterested while punishing those intent on commitment. Adults hardly fare better: as the author of a report released in
January by the Chicago Health and Social Life Survey told CNN, “on average, half your life is going to be in this single
and dating state, and this is a big change from the 1950s.” Many men and women now spend the decades of their twenties
and thirties sampling each other’s sexual wares and engaging in fits of serial out-of-wedlock domesticity, never finding a
marriageable partner.
In the 1990s, books such as The Rules, which outlined a rigorous and often self-abnegating plan for modern dating, and
observers such as Wendy Shalit, who called for greater modesty and the withholding of sexual favors by women,
represented a well-intentioned, if doomed, attempt to revive the old courting boundaries. Cultural observers today,
however, claim we are in the midst of a new social revolution that requires looking to the future for solutions, not the past.
“We’re in a period of dramatic change in our mating practices,” Barbara Dafoe Whitehead told a reporter for U.S. News &
World Report recently. Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, is the author of
Why There are No Good Men Left, one in a booming mini-genre of books that offer road maps for the revolution.
Whitehead views technology as one of our best solutions—Isolde can now find her Tristan on the Internet (though
presumably with a less tragic finale). “The traditional mating system where people met someone in their neighborhood or
college is pretty much dead,” Whitehead told CBS recently. “What we have is a huge population of working singles who
have limited opportunities to go through some elaborate courtship.”
Although Whitehead is correct in her diagnosis of the problem, neither she nor the mavens of modesty offer a satisfactory
answer to this new challenge. A return to the old rules and rituals of courtship—however appealing in theory—is neither
practical nor desirable for the majority of men and women. But the uncritical embrace of technological solutions to our

answer to this new challenge. A return to the old rules and rituals of courtship—however appealing in theory—is neither
practical nor desirable for the majority of men and women. But the uncritical embrace of technological solutions to our
romantic malaise—such as Internet dating—is not a long-term solution either. What we need to do is create new
boundaries, devise better guideposts, and enforce new mores for our technological age. First, however, we must
understand the peculiar challenges to romantic success posed by our technologies.
Full Disclosure
Although not the root cause of our romantic malaise, our communication technologies are at least partly culpable, for they
encourage the erosion of the boundaries that are necessary for the growth of successful relationships. Our technologies
enable and often promote two detrimental forces in modern relationships: the demand for total transparency and a bias
toward the over-sharing of personal information.
To Google or Not to Google
2: NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND OUR FEELINGS: Romance on the Internet
With the breakdown of the old hierarchies and boundaries that characterized courtship, there are far fewer opportunities to
glean information about the vast world of strangers we encounter daily. We can little rely on town gossips or networks of
extended kin for background knowledge; there are far fewer geographic boundaries marking people from “the good part of
town”; no longer can we read sartorial signals, such as a well-cut suit or an expensive shoe, to place people as in earlier
ages. This is all, for the most part, a good thing. But how, then, do people find out about each other? Few self-possessed
people with an Internet connection could resist answering that question with one word: Google. “To google”—now an
acceptable if ill-begotten verb—is the practice of typing a person’s name into an Internet search engine to find out what the
world knows and says about him or her. As one writer confessed in the New York Observer, after meeting an attractive man
at a midtown bar: “Like many of my twenty-something peers in New York’s dating jungle, I have begun to use Google.com,
as well as other online search engines, to perform secret background checks on potential mates. It’s not perfect, but it’s a
discreet way of obtaining important, useless and sometimes bizarre information about people in Manhattan—and it’s proven
to be as reliable as the scurrilous gossip you get from friends.”
That is—not reliable at all. What Google and other Internet search engines provide is a quick glimpse—a best and worst list
—of a person, not a fully drawn portrait. In fact, the transparency promised by technologies such as Internet search engines
is a convenient substitute for something we used to assume would develop over time, but which fewer people today seem
willing to cultivate patiently: trust. As the single Manhattanite writing in the Observer noted, “You never know. He seemed
nice that night, but he could be anyone from a rapist or murderer to a brilliant author or championship swimmer.”
In sum, transparency does not guarantee trust. It can, in fact, prove effective at eroding it—especially when the expectation
of transparency and the available technological tools nudge the suspicious to engage in more invasive forms of investigation
or surveillance. One woman I interviewed, who asked that her name not be revealed, was suspicious that her live-in
boyfriend of two years was unfaithful when her own frequent business trips took her away from home. Unwilling to
confront him directly with her doubts, she turned to a technological solution. Unbeknownst to him, she installed a popular
brand of “spyware” on his computer, which recorded every keystroke he made and took snapshots of his screen every three
minutes—information that the program then e-mailed to her for inspection. “My suspicions were founded,” she said,
although the revelation was hardly good news. “He was spending hours online looking at porn, and going to ‘hook-up’
chatrooms seeking sex with strangers. I even tracked his ATM withdrawals to locations near his scheduled meetings with
other women.”
She ended the relationship, but remains unrepentant about deploying surveillance technology against her mate. Considering
the amount of information she could find out about her partner by merely surfing the Internet, she rationalized her use of
spyware as just one more tool—if a slightly more invasive one—at the disposal of those seeking information about another
person. As our technologies give us ever-greater power to uncover more about each other, demand for transparency rises,
and our expectations of privacy decline.
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and our expectations of privacy decline.
The other destructive tendency our technologies encourage is over-sharing—that is, revealing too much, too quickly, in the
hope of connecting to another person. The opportunities for instant communication are so ubiquitous—e-mail, instant
messaging, chatrooms, cell phones, Palm Pilots, BlackBerrys, and the like—that the notion of making ourselves unavailable
to anyone is unheard of, and constant access a near-requirement. As a result, the multitude of outlets for expressing
ourselves has allowed the level of idle chatter to reach a depressing din. The inevitable result is a repeal of the reticence
necessary for fostering successful relationships in the long term. Information about another person is best revealed a bit at a
time, in a give-and-take exchange, not in a rush of overexposed feeling.
The Bachelor
Perhaps the best example of this tendency is reality TV and its spawn. Programs like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, as
well as pseudo-documentary shows such as A Dating Story (and A Wedding Story and A Baby Story) on The Learning
Channel, transform the longings of the human heart into top Nielsen ratings by encouraging the lovelorn to discuss in depth
and at length every feeling they have, every moment they have it, as the cameras roll. Romances begin, blossom, and
occasionally end in the space of half an hour, and audiences—privy to even the most excruciatingly staged expressions of
love and devotion—nevertheless gain the illusion of having seen “real” examples of dating, wedding, or marriage.
On the Internet, dating blogs offer a similar sophomoric voyeurism. One dating blogger, who calls himself Quigley, keeps a
dreary tally of his many unsuccessful attempts to meet women, peppering his diary with adolescent observations about
women he sees on television. Another dating blogger, who describes herself as an “attractive 35-year old,” writes “A Day in
the Life of Jane,” a dating diary about her online dating travails. Reflecting on one of her early experiences, she writes: “But
what did I learn from Owen? That online dating isn’t so different from regular dating. It has its pros and cons: Pros—you
learn a lot more about a person much more quickly, that a person isn’t always what they seem or what you believe them to
be, that you have to be really honest with yourself and the person you are communicating with; Cons—uh, same as the
pros!”
BadXPartners.com
Successful relationships are not immune to the over-sharing impulse, either; a plethora of wedding websites such as
Sharethe-Moments.com and TheKnot.com offer up the intimate details of couples’ wedding planning and ceremonies—right
down to the brand of tie worn by the groom and the “intimate” vows exchanged by the couple. And, if things go awry, there
are an increasing number of revenge websites such as BadXPartners.com, which offers people who’ve been dumped an
opportunity for petty revenge. “Create a comical case file of your BadXPartners for the whole world to see!” the website
urges. Like the impulse to Google, the site plays on people’s fears of being misled, encouraging people to search the
database for stories of bad exes: “Just met someone new? Think they are just the one for you? Well remember, they are
probably someone else’s X. . . . Find out about Bill from Birmingham’s strange habits or Tracy from Texas’ suspect
hygiene. Better safe than sorry!”
Like the steady work of the wrecking ball, our culture’s nearly-compulsive demand for personal revelation, emotional
exposure, and sharing of feelings threatens the fragile edifice of newly-forming relationships. Transparency and complete
access are exactly what you want to avoid in the early stages of romance. Successful courtship—even successful flirtation—
require the gradual peeling away of layers, some deliberately constructed, others part of a person’s character and personality,
that make us mysteries to each other.
Among Pascal’s minor works is an essay, “Discourse on the Passion of Love,” in which he argues for the keen “pleasure of
loving without daring to tell it.” “In love,” Pascal writes, “silence is of more avail than speech . . . there is an eloquence in
silence that penetrates more deeply than language can.” Pascal imagined his lovers in each other’s physical presence,
watchful of unspoken physical gestures, but not speaking. Only gradually would they reveal themselves. Today such a
tableau seems as arcane as Kabuki theater; modern couples exchange the most intimate details of their lives on a first date

watchful of unspoken physical gestures, but not speaking. Only gradually would they reveal themselves. Today such a
tableau seems as arcane as Kabuki theater; modern couples exchange the most intimate details of their lives on a first date
and then return home to blog about it.
“It’s difficult,” said one woman I talked to who has tried—and ultimately soured on—Internet dating. “You’re expected to
be both informal and funny in your e-mails, and reveal your likes and dislikes, but you don’t want to reveal so much that
you appear desperate, or so little so that you seem distant.” We can, of course, use these technologies appropriately and
effectively in the service of advancing a relationship, but to do so both people must understand the potential dangers. One
man I interviewed described a relationship that began promisingly but quickly took a technological turn for the worse. After
a few successful dates, he encouraged the woman he was seeing, who lived in another city, to keep in touch. Impervious to
notions of technological etiquette, however, she took this to mean the floodgates were officially open. She began
telephoning him at all hours, sending overly-wrought e-mails and inundating him with lengthy, faxed letters—all of which
had the effect not of bringing them closer together, which was clearly her hope, but of sending him scurrying away as fast as
he could. Later, however, he became involved in a relationship in which e-mail in particular helped facilitate the courtship,
and where technology—bounded by a respect on the part of both people for its excesses—helped rather than harmed the
process of learning about another person. Technology itself is not to blame; it is our ignorance of its potential dangers and
our unwillingness to exercise self-restraint in its use that makes mischief.
The Modern-Day Matchmaker
Internet dating offers an interesting case study of these technological risks, for it encourages both transparency and oversharing,
as well as another danger: it insists that we reduce and market ourselves as the disembodied sum of our parts. The
woman or man you might have met on the subway platform or in a coffee shop—within a richer context that includes
immediate impressions based on the other person’s physical gestures, attire, tone of voice, and overall demeanor—is
instead electronically embalmed for your efficient perusal online.
And it is a booming business. Approximately forty percent of American adults are single, and half of that population
claims to have visited an online dating site. Revenue for online dating services exceeded $302 million in 2002. There is,
not surprisingly, something for the profusion of tastes: behemoth sites such as Match.com, Flirt.com, Hypermatch.com,
and Matchmaker.com traffic in thousands of profiles. Niche sites such as Dateable.org for people with disabilities, as well
as sites devoted to finding true love for foot fetishists, animal lovers, and the obese, cater to smaller markets. Single
people with religious preferences can visit Jdate.com (for Jewish dates), CatholicSingles.com, and even
HappyBuddhist.com to find similarly-minded spiritual singles. As with any product, new features are added constantly to
maintain consumer interest; even the more jaded seekers of love might quail at Match.com’s recent addition to its menu of
online options: a form of “speed dating” that offers a certain brutal efficiency as a lure for the time-challenged modern
singleton.
A Case Study
2: NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND OUR FEELINGS: Romance on the Internet
One woman I interviewed, an attractive, successful consultant, tried online dating because her hectic work schedule left her
little time to meet new people. She went to Match.com, entered her zip code, and began perusing profiles. She quickly
decided to post her own. “When you first put your profile on Match.com,” she said, “it’s like walking into a kennel with a
pork chop around your neck. You’re bombarded with e-mails from men.” She received well over one hundred solicitations.
She responded to a few with a “wink,” an electronic gesture that allows another person to know you’ve seen their profile and
are interested—but not interested enough to commit to sending an e-mail message. More alluring profiles garnered an e-mail
introduction.
After meeting several different men for coffee, she settled on one in particular and they dated for several months. The
vagaries of online dating, however, quickly present new challenges to relationship etiquette. In her case, after several
months of successful dating, she and her boyfriend agreed to take their Match.com profiles down from the site. Since they
were no longer “single and looking,” but single and dating, this seemed to make sense—at least to her. Checking Match.com
a week later, however, she found her boyfriend’s profile still up and actively advertising himself as available. They are still
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were no longer “single and looking,” but single and dating, this seemed to make sense—at least to her. Checking Match.com
a week later, however, she found her boyfriend’s profile still up and actively advertising himself as available. They are still
together, although she confesses to a new wariness about his willingness to commit.
The rapid growth of Internet dating has led to the erosion of the stigma that used to be attached to having “met someone on
the Internet” (although none of the people I interviewed for this article would allow their names to be used). And Internet
dating itself is becoming increasingly professionalized—with consultants, how-to books, and “expert” analysis crowding out
the earlier generation of websites. This February, a “commonsense guide to successful Internet dating” entitled I Can’t
Believe I’m Buying This Book hit bookstores. Publishers Weekly describes the author, an “Internet dating consultant,” as “a
self-proclaimed online serial dater” who “admits he’s never sustained a relationship for more than seven months,” yet
nevertheless “entertainingly reviews how to present one’s self on the Web.”
Designing the “dating software” that facilitates online romance is a science all its own. U.S. News & World Report recently
described the efforts of Michael Georgeff, who once designed software to aid the space shuttle program, to devise similar
algorithms to assess and predict people’s preferences for each other. “Say you score a 3 on the introvert scale, and a 6 on
touchy-feely,” he told a reporter. “Will you tend to like somebody who’s practical?” His weAttract.com software purports to
provide the answer. On the company’s Web site, amid close-ups of the faces of a strangely androgynous, snuggling couple,
weAttract—whose software is used by Match.com—encourages visitors to “Find someone who considers your quirks
adorable.” Fair enough. But the motto of weAttract—”Discover your instinctual preferences”—is itself a contradiction. If
preferences are instinctual, why do you need the aid of experts like weAttract to discover them?
We need them because we have come to mistrust our own sensibilities. What is emerging on the Internet is a glorification of
scientific and technological solutions to the challenge of finding love. The expectation of romantic happiness is so great that
extraordinary, scientific means for achieving it are required—or so these companies would have you believe. For example,
Emode, whose pop-up ads are now so common that they are the Internet equivalent of a swarm of pesky gnats, promotes
“Tickle Matchmaking,” a service promising “accurate, Ph.D. certified compatibility scores with every member!”
EHarmony.com
The apotheosis of this way of thinking is a site called eHarmony.com, whose motto, “Fall in love for the right reasons,”
soothes prospective swains with the comforting rhetoric of professional science. “Who knew science and love were so
compatible?” asks the site, which is rife with the language of the laboratory: “scientifically-proven set of compatibility
principles,” “based on 35 years of empirical and clinical research,” “patent-pending matching technology,” “exhaustively
researched” methods, and “the most powerful system available.” As the founder of eHarmony told U.S. News & World
Report recently, we are all too eager—desperate, even—to hustle down the aisle. “In this culture,” he said, “if we like the
person’s looks, if they have an ability to chatter at a cocktail party, and a little bit of status, we’re halfway to marriage.
We’re such suckers.” EHarmony’s answer to such unscientific mating practices is a trademarked “Compatibility Matching
System” that promises to “connect you with singles who are compatible with you in 29 of the most important areas of life.”
As the literature constantly reminds the dreamy romantics among us, “Surprisingly, a good match is more science than art.”
EHarmony’s insistence that the search for true love is no realm for amateurs is, of course, absurdly self-justifying. “You
should realize,” their Web site admonishes, after outlining the “29 dimensions” of personality their compatibility software
examines, “that it is still next to impossible to correctly evaluate them on your own with each person you think may be right
for you.” Instead you must pay eHarmony to do it for you. As you read the “scientific” proof, the reassuring sales pitch
washes over you: “Let eHarmony make sure that the next time you fall in love, it’s with the right person.”
In other words, don’t trust your instincts, trust science. With a tasteful touch of contempt, eHarmony notes that its purpose is
not merely dating, as it is for megasites such as Match.com. “Our goal is to help you find your soul mate.” Four pages of
testimonials on the website encourage the surrender to eHarmony’s expertise, with promises of imminent collision with
“your” soul mate: “From the minute we began e-mailing and talking on the phone, we knew we had found our soul mate,”
say Lisa and Darryl from Dover, Pennsylvania. “It took some time,” confessed Annie of Kansas City, Missouri, “but once I
met John, I knew that they had made good on their promise to help me find my soul mate.”

met John, I knew that they had made good on their promise to help me find my soul mate.”
Some observers see in these new “scientific” mating rituals a return to an earlier time of courtship and chaperoned dating.
Newsweek eagerly described eHarmony as a form of “arranged marriage for the digital age, without the all-powerful
parents,” and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead argues that the activities of the Internet love seeker “reflect a desire for more
structured dating.” Promoters of these services see them as an improvement on the mere cruising of glossy photos
encouraged by most dating sites, or the unrealistic expectations of “finding true love” promoted by popular culture. Rather,
they say, they are like the chaperones of courtship past—vetting appropriate candidates and matching them to your
specifications.
Not Real Matchmakers
As appealing as this might sound, it is unrealistic. Since these sites rely on technological solutions and mathematical
algorithms, they are a far cry from the broader and richer knowledge of the old-fashioned matchmaker. A personality quiz
cannot possibly reveal the full range of a person’s quirks or liabilities. More importantly, the role of the old-fashioned
matchmaker was a social one (and still is in certain communities). The matchmaker was embedded within a community that
observed certain rituals and whose members shared certain assumptions. But technological matchmaking allows courtship to
be conducted entirely in private, devoid of the social norms (and often the physical signals) of romantic success and failure.
Finally, most Internet dating enthusiasts do not contend with a far more alarming challenge: the impact such services have
on our idea of what, exactly, it is we should be seeking in another person. Younger men and women, weaned on the Internet
and e-mail, are beginning to express a preference for potential dates to break down their vital stats for pre-date perusal, like
an Internet dating advertisement. One 25-year old man, a regular on Match.com, confessed to U.S. News & World Report
that he wished he could have a digital dossier for all of his potential dates: “It’s, ‘OK, here’s where I’m from, here’s what I
do, here’s what I’m looking for. How about you?’” One woman I spoke to, who has been Internet dating for several years,
matter-of-factly noted that even a perfunctory glance at a potential date’s resume saves valuable time and energy. “Why
trust a glance exchanged across a crowded bar when you can read a person’s biography in miniature before deciding to
strike up a conversation?” she said. This intolerance for gradual revelation increases the pace of modern courtship and
erodes our patience for many things (not the least of which is commencement of sexual relations). The challenge remains the
same—to find another person to share your life with—but we have allowed the technologies at our disposal to alter
dramatically, even unrecognizably, the way we go about achieving it.
The Science of Feeling
2: NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND OUR FEELINGS: Romance on the Internet
This impulse is part of a much broader phenomenon—the encroachment of science and technology into areas once
thought the province of the uniquely intuitive and even the ineffable. Today we program computers to trounce human
chess champions, produce poetry, or analyze works of art, watching eagerly as they break things down to a tedious
catalog of techniques: the bishop advances, the meter scans, the paintbrush strokes across the canvas. But by enlisting
machines to do what once was the creative province of human beings alone, we deliberately narrow our conceptions of
genius, creativity, and art. The New York Times recently featured the work of Franco Moretti, a comparative literature
professor at Stanford, who promotes “a more rational literary history” that jettisons the old-fashioned reading of texts in
favor of statistical models of literary output. His dream, he told reporter Emily Eakin, “is of a literary class that would
look more like a lab than a Platonic academy.”
Yet this “scientific” approach to artistic work yields chillingly antiseptic results: “Tennyson’s mind is to be treated like
his intestines after a barium meal,” historian Jacques Barzun noted with some exasperation of the trend’s earlier
incarnations. Critic Lionel Trilling parodied the tendency in 1950 in his book, The Liberal Imagination. By this way of
thinking, Trilling said, the story of Romeo and Juliet is no longer the tragic tale of a young man and woman falling in
love, but becomes instead a chronicle of how, “their libidinal impulses being reciprocal, they activated their individual
erotic drives and integrated them within the same frame of reference.”
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erotic drives and integrated them within the same frame of reference.”
What Barzun and Trilling were expressing was a distaste for viewing art as merely an abstraction of measurable,
improvable impulses. The same is true for love. We can study the physiological functions of the human heart with
echocardiograms, stress tests, blood pressure readings, and the like. We can examine, analyze, and investigate ad nauseum
the physical act of sex. But we cannot so easily measure the desires of the heart. How do you prove that love exists? How
do we know that love is “real”? What makes the love of two lovers last?
There is a danger in relying wholly or even largely on science and technology to answer these questions, for it risks
eroding our appreciation of the ineffable things—intuition and physical attraction, passion and sensibility—by reducing
these feelings to scientifically explained physiological facts. Today we catalog the influence of hormones, pheromones,
dopamine, and serotonin in human attraction, and map our own brains to discover which synapses trigger laughter, lying,
or orgasm. Evolutionary psychology explains our desire for symmetrical faces and fertile-looking forms, even as it has
little to tell us about the extremes to which we are taking its directives with plastic surgery. Scientific study of our
communication patterns and techniques explains why it is we talk the way we do. Even the activities of the bedroom are
thoroughly analyzed and professionalized, as women today take instruction from a class of professionals whose arts used
to be less esteemed. Prostitutes now run sex seminars, for example, and a recent episode of Oprah featured exotic pole
dancers who teach suburban housewives how to titillate their husbands by turning the basement rec room into a
simulacrum of a Vegas showgirl venue.
Science continues to turn sex (and, by association, love and romance) into something quantifiable and open to
manipulation and solution. Science and technology offer us pharmaceuticals to enhance libido and erectile function, and
popular culture responds by rigorously ranking and discussing all matters sexual—from the disturbingly frank talk of
female characters on Sex and the City to the proliferation of “blind date” shows which subject hapless love-seekers to the
withering gaze of a sarcastic host and his viewing audience. “What a loser!” cackled the host of the reality television
program Blind Date, after one ignominious bachelor botched his chance for a good night kiss. “The march of science,”
Barzun wrote, “produces the feeling that nobody in the past has ever done things right. Whether it’s teaching or
copulation, it has ‘problems’ that ‘research’ should solve by telling us just how, the best way.”
Test-Driving Your Soul Mate
Why is the steady march of science and technology in these areas a problem? Shouldn’t we be proud of our expanding
knowledge and the tools that knowledge gives us? Not necessarily. Writing recently in the journal Techné, Hector Jose
Huyke noted the broader dangers posed by the proliferation of our technologies, particularly the tendency to “devalue the
near.” “When a technology is introduced it, presumably, simply adds options to already existing options,” he writes. But
this is not how technology’s influence plays out in practice. In fact, as Huyke argues, “as what is difficult to obtain
becomes repeatedly and easily accessible, other practices and experiences are left out—they do not remain unchanged.”
The man who sends an e-mail to his brother is not merely choosing to write an e-mail and thus adding to his range of
communication options; he is choosing not to make a phone call or write a letter. A woman who e-mails a stranger on the
Internet is choosing not to go to a local art exhibit and perhaps meet someone in person. “Communications technologies
indeed multiply options,” says Huyke. “An increase in options, however, does not imply or even serve an advance in
communications.” Technologies, in other words, often make possible “what would otherwise be difficult to obtain.” But
they do so by eliminating other paths.
Personal Ads
Love and genuine commitment have always been difficult to attain, and they are perhaps more so today since it is the
individual bonds of affection—not family alliance, property transfer, social class, or religious orthodoxy—that form the
cornerstone of most modern marriages. Yet there remains a certain grim efficiency to the vast realm of love technologies at
our disposal. After a while, perusing Internet personal ads is like being besieged by an aggressive real estate agent hoping to
unload that tired brick colonial. Each person points out his or her supposedly unique features with the same banal
descriptions (“adventurous,” “sexy,” “trustworthy”) never conveying a genuine sense of the whole. Machine metaphors,

unload that tired brick colonial. Each person points out his or her supposedly unique features with the same banal
descriptions (“adventurous,” “sexy,” “trustworthy”) never conveying a genuine sense of the whole. Machine metaphors,
tellingly, crop up often, with women and men willingly categorizing themselves as “high maintenance” or “low
maintenance,” much as one might describe a car or small kitchen appliance. As an executive of one online dating service
told a reporter recently, “If you want to buy a car, you get a lot of information before you even test-drive. There hasn’t been
a way to do that with relationships.”
But we have been “test driving” something: a new, technological method of courtship. And although it is too soon to deliver
a final verdict, it is clear that it is a method prone to serious problems. The efficiency of our new techniques and their
tendency to focus on people as products leaves us at risk of understanding ourselves this way, too—like products with
certain malfunctioning parts and particular assets. But products must be constantly improved upon and marketed. In the
pursuit of love, and in a world where multiple partners are sampled before one is selected, this fuels a hectic culture of selfimprovement—honing
the witty summary of one’s most desirable traits for placement in personal advertisements is only the
beginning. Today, men and women convene focus groups of former lovers to gain critical insights into their behavior so as
to avoid future failure; and the perfection of appearance through surgical and non-surgical means occupies an increasing
amount of people’s time and energy.
Our new technological methods of courtship also elevate efficient communication over personal communication. Ironically,
the Internet, which offers many opportunities to meet and communicate with new people, robs us of the ability to deploy one
of our greatest charms—nonverbal communication. The emoticon is a weak substitute for a coy gesture or a lusty wink.
More fundamentally, our technologies encourage a misunderstanding of what courtship should be. Real courtship is about
persuasion, not marketing, and the techniques of the laboratory cannot help us translate the motivations of the heart.
The response is not to retreat into Luddism, of course. In a world where technology allows us to meet, date, marry, and even
divorce online, there is no returning to the innocence of an earlier time. What we need is a better understanding of the risks
of these new technologies and a willingness to exercise restraint in using them. For better or worse, we are now a society of
sexually liberated individuals seeking “soul mates”—yet the privacy, gradualism, and boundaries that are necessary for
separating the romantic wheat from the chaff still elude us.
Alchemy
Perhaps, in our technologically saturated age, we would do better to rediscover an earlier science: alchemy. Not alchemy in
its original meaning—a branch of speculative philosophy whose devotees attempted to create gold from base metals and
hence cure disease and prolong life—but alchemy in its secondary definition: “a power or process of transforming
something common into something precious.” From our daily, common interactions with other people might spring
something precious—but only if we have the patience to let it flourish. Technology and science often conspire against such
patience. Goethe wrote, “We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful, for the Useful encourages itself.” There is an
eminent usefulness to many of our technologies—e-mail and cell phones allow us to span great distances to communicate
with family, friends, and lovers, and the Internet connects us to worlds unknown. But they are less successful at encouraging
the flourishing of the lasting and beautiful. Like the Beautiful, love occurs in unexpected places, often not where it is being
sought. It can flourish only if we accept that our technologies and our science can never fully explain it.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
2: NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND OUR FEELINGS: Romance on the Internet
1. In your opinion, what are the advantages and disadvantages of online dating? To describe your point of view,
use at least two each of the pros and cons mentioned in this article.
2. In your opinion, what are the pros and cons of “hooking up”? Under what circumstances would/do you feel it
is appropriate—and safe—to get together with someone in this relatively casual way?
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is appropriate—and safe—to get together with someone in this relatively casual way?
CHRISTINE ROSEN is a senior editor of The New Atlantis and resident fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy
Center. Her book Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement was just
published by Oxford University Press.
From The New Atlantis, Winter 2004, pp. 3-16. Copyright © 2004 by Ethics & Public Policy Center. Reprinted
by permission.

LAUREN SLATER
3:
THIS THING CALLED LOVE
My husband and I got married at eight in the morning. It was winter, freezing, the trees encased in ice and a few lone
blackbirds balancing on telephone wires. We were in our early 30s, considered ourselves hip and cynical, the types who
decried the institution of marriage even as we sought its status. During our wedding brunch we put out a big suggestion box
and asked people to slip us advice on how to avoid divorce; we thought it was a funny, clear-eyed, grounded sort of thing to
do, although the suggestions were mostly foolish: Screw the toothpaste cap on tight. After the guests left, the house got quiet.
There were flowers everywhere: puckered red roses and fragile ferns. “What can we do that’s really romantic?” I asked my
newly wed one. Benjamin suggested we take a bath. I didn’t want a bath. He suggested a lunch of chilled white wine and
salmon. I was sick of salmon.
What can we do that’s really romantic? The wedding was over, the silence seemed suffocating, and I felt the familiar
disappointment after a longed-for event has come and gone. We were married. Hip, hip, hooray. I decided to take a walk. I
went into the center of town, pressed my nose against a bakery window, watched the man with flour on his hands, the dough as
soft as skin, pushed and pulled and shaped at last into stars. I milled about in an antique store. At last I came to our town’s
tattoo parlor. Now I am not a tattoo type person, but for some reason, on that cold silent Sunday, I decided to walk in. “Can I
help you?” a woman asked.
“Is there a kind of tattoo I can get that won’t be permanent?” I asked.
“Henna tattoos,” she said.
She explained that they lasted for six weeks, were used at Indian weddings, were stark and beautiful and all brown. She
showed me pictures of Indian women with jewels in their noses, their arms scrolled and laced with the henna markings. Indeed
they were beautiful, sharing none of the gaudy comic strip quality of the tattoos we see in the United States. These henna
tattoos spoke of intricacy, of the webwork between two people, of ties that bind and how difficult it is to find their beginnings
and their elms. And because I had just gotten married, and because I was feeling a post wedding letdown, and because I
wanted something really romantic to sail me through the night, I decided to get one.
“Where?” she asked.
“Here,” I said. I laid my hands over my breasts and belly.
She raised her eyebrows. “Sure,” she said.
I am a modest person. But I took off my shirt, lay on the table, heard her in the back room mixing powders and paints. She
came to me carrying a small black-bellied pot inside of which was a rich red mush, slightly glittering. She adorned me. She
gave me vines and flowers. She turned my body into a stake supporting whole new gardens of growth, and then, low around
my hips, she painted a delicate chain-linked chastity belt. An hour later, the paint dry, I put my clothes back on, went home to
film my newly wed one. This, I knew, was my gift to him, the kind of present you offer only once in your lifetime. I let him
undress me.
“Wow,” he said, standing back.
I blushed, and we began.
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I blushed, and we began.
We are no longer beginning, my husband and I. This does not surprise me. Even back then, wearing the decor of desire, the
serpentining tattoos, I knew they would fade, their red-clay color bleaching out until they were gone. On my wedding day I
didn’t care.
I do now. Eight years later, pale as a pillowcase, here I sit, with all the extra pounds and baggage time brings. And the
questions have only grown more insistent. Does passion necessarily diminish over time? How reliable is romantic love, really,
as a means of choosing one’s mate? Can a marriage be good when Eros is replaced with friendship, or even economic
partnership, two people bound by bank accounts?
Let me be clear: I still love my husband. There is no man I desire more. But it’s hard to sustain romance in the crumb-filled
quotidian that has become our lives. The ties that bind have been frayed by money and mortgages and children, those little
imps who somehow manage to tighten the knot while weakening its actual fibers. Benjamin and I have no time for chilled
white wine and salmon. The baths in our house always include Big Bird.
If this all sounds miserable, it isn’t. My marriage is like a piece of comfortable clothing; even the arguments have a feel of
fuzziness to them, something so familiar it can only be called home. And yet...
In the Western world we have for centuries concocted poems and stories and plays about the cycles of love, the way it morphs
and changes over time, the way passion grabs us by our flung-back throats and then leaves us for something saner.
If Dracula—the frail woman, the sensuality of submission—reflects how we understand the passion of early romance, the
Flintstones reflects our experiences of long-term love: All is gravel and somewhat silly, the song so familiar you can’t stop
singing it, and when you do, the emptiness is almost unbearable.
We have relied on stories to explain the complexities of love, tales of jealous gods and arrows. Now, however, these stories—
so much a part of every civilization—may be changing as science steps in to explain what we have always felt to be myth, to
be magic. For the first time, new research has begun to illuminate where love lies in the brain, the particulars of its chemical
components.
Anthropologist Helen Fisher may be the closest we’ve ever come to having a doyenne of desire. At 60 she exudes a sexy
confidence, with corn-colored hair, soft as floss, and a willowy build. A professor at Rutgers University, she lives in New York
City, her book-lined apartment near Central Park, with its green trees fluffed out in the summer season, its paths crowded with
couples holding hands.
Fisher has devoted much of her career to studying the biochemical pathways of love in all its manifestations: lust, romance,
attachment, the way they wax and wane. One leg casually crossed over the other, ice clinking in her glass, she speaks with
appealing frankness, discussing the ups and downs of love the way most people talk about real estate. “A woman
unconsciously uses orgasms as a way of deciding whether or not a man is good for her. If he’s impatient and rough, and she
doesn’t have the orgasm, she may instinctively feel he’s less likely to be a good husband and father. Scientists think the fickle
female orgasm may have evolved to help women distinguish Mr. Right from Mr. Wrong.”
One of Fisher’s central pursuits in the past decade has been looking at love, quite literally, with the aid of an MRI machine.
Fisher and her colleagues Arthur Aron and Lucy Brown recruited subjects who had been “madly in love” for an average of
seven months. Once inside the MRI machine, subjects were shown two photographs, one neutral, the other of their loved one.
What Fisher saw fascinated her. When each subject looked at his or her loved one, the parts of the brain linked to reward and
pleasure—the ventral tegmental area and the caudate nucleus—lit up. What excited Fisher most was not so much finding a
location, an address, for love as tracing its specific chemical pathways. Love lights up the caudate nucleus because it is home
to a dense spread of receptors for a neurotransmitter called dopamine, which Fisher came to think of as part of our own
endogenous love potion. In the right proportions, dopamine creates intense energy, exhilaration, focused attention, and
motivation to win rewards. It is why, when you are newly in love, you can stay up all night, watch the sun rise, run a race, ski
fast down a slope ordinarily too steep for your skill. Love makes you bold, makes you bright, makes you run real risks, which
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motivation to win rewards. It is why, when you are newly in love, you can stay up all night, watch the sun rise, run a race, ski
fast down a slope ordinarily too steep for your skill. Love makes you bold, makes you bright, makes you run real risks, which
you sometimes survive, and sometimes you don’t.
I first fell in love when I was only 12, with a teacher. His name was Mr. McArthur, and he wore open-toed sandals and sported
a beard. I had never had a male teacher before, and I thought it terribly exotic. Mr. McArthur did things no other teacher dared
to do. He explained to us the physics of farting. He demonstrated how to make an egg explode. He smoked cigarettes at recess,
leaning languidly against the side of the school building, the ash growing longer and longer until he casually tapped it off with
his finger.
What unique constellation of needs led me to love a man who made an egg explode is interesting, perhaps, but not as
interesting, for me, as my memory of love’s sheer physical facts. I had never felt anything like it before. I could not get Mr.
McArthur out of my mind. I was anxious; I gnawed at the lining of my cheek until I tasted the tang of blood. School became at
once terrifying and exhilarating. Would I see him in the hallway? In the cafeteria? I hoped. But when my wishes were granted,
and I got a glimpse of my man, it satisfied nothing; it only inflamed me all the more. Had he looked at me? Why had he not
looked at me? When would I see him again? At home I looked him up in the phone book; I rang him, this in a time before
caller ID. He answered.
“Hello?” Pain in my heart, ripped down the middle. Hang up.
Call back. “Hello?” I never said a thing.
3: THIS THING CALLED LOVE
Once I called him at night, late, and from the way he answered the phone it was clear, even to a pre-pubescent like me, that he
was with a woman. His voice fuzzy, the tinkle of her laughter in the background. I didn’t get out of bed for a whole day.
Sound familiar? Maybe you were 30 when it happened to you, or 8 or 80 or 25. Maybe you lived in Kathmandu or Kentucky;
age and geography are irrelevant. Donatella Marazziti is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pisa in Italy who has
studied the biochemistry of lovesickness. Having been in love twice herself and felt its awful power, Marazziti became
interested in exploring the similarities between love and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
She and her colleagues measured serotonin levels in the blood of 24 subjects who had fallen in love within the past six months
and obsessed about this love object for at least four hours every day. Serotonin is, perhaps, our star neurotransmitter, altered by
our star psychiatric medications: Prozac and Zoloft and Paxil, among others. Researchers have long hypothesized that people
with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have a serotonin “imbalance.” Drugs like Prozac seem to alleviate OCD by
increasing the amount of this neurotransmitter available at the juncture between neurons.
Marazziti compared the lovers’ serotonin levels with those of a group of people suffering from OCD and another group who
were free from both passion and mental illness. Levels of serotonin in both the obsessives’ blood and the lovers’ blood were 40
percent lower than those in her normal subjects. Translation: Love and obsessive-compulsive disorder could have a similar
chemical profile. Translation: Love and mental illness may be difficult to tell apart. Translation: Don’t be a fool. Stay away.
Of course that’s a mandate none of us can follow. We do fall in love, sometimes over and over again, subjecting ourselves,
each time, to a very sick state of mind. There is hope, however, for those caught in the grip of runaway passion—Prozac.
There’s nothing like that bi-colored bullet for damping down the sex drive and making you feel “blah” about the buffet. Helen
Fisher believes that the ingestión of drugs like Prozac jeopardizes one’s ability to fall in love—and stay in love. By dulling the
keen edge of love and its associated libido, relationships go stale. Says Fisher, “I know of one couple on the edge of divorce.
The wife was on an antidepressant. Then she went off it, started having orgasms once more, felt the renewal of sexual
attraction for her husband, and they’re now in love all over again.”
Psychoanalysts have concocted countless theories about why we fall in love with whom we do. Freud would have said your
choice is influenced by the unrequited wish to bed your mother, if you’re a boy, or your father, if you’re a girl, Jung believed
that passion is driven by some kind of collective unconscious. Today psychiatrists such as Thomas Lewis from the University
of California at San Francisco’s School of Medicine hypothesize that romantic love is rooted in our earliest infantile
experiences with intimacy, how we felt at the breast, our mother’s face, these things of pure unconflicted comfort that get
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of California at San Francisco’s School of Medicine hypothesize that romantic love is rooted in our earliest infantile
experiences with intimacy, how we felt at the breast, our mother’s face, these things of pure unconflicted comfort that get
engraved in our brain and that we ceaselessly try to recapture as adults. According to this theory we love whom we love not so
much because of the future we hope to build but because of the past we hope to reclaim. Love is reactive, not proactive, it
arches us backward, which may be why a certain person just “feels right.” Or “feels familiar.” He or she is familiar. He or she
has a certain look or smell or sound or touch that activates buried memories.
Love and obsessive-compulsive disorder could have a similar chemical profile. Translation: Love and mental
illness may be difficult to tell apart. Translation: Don’t be a fool. Stay away.
When I first met my husband, I believed this psychological theory was more or less correct. My husband has red hair and a soft
voice. A chemist, he is whimsical and odd. One day before we married he dunked a rose in liquid nitrogen so it froze,
whereupon he flung it against the wall, spectacularly shattering it. That’s when I fell in love with him. My father, too, has red
hair, a soft voice, and many eccentricities. He was prone to bursting into song, prompted by something we never saw.
However, it turns out my theories about why I came to love my husband may be just so much hogwash. Evolutionary
psychology has said good riddance to Freud and the Oedipal complex and all that other transcendent stuff and hello to simple
survival skills. It hypothesizes that we tend to see as attractive, and thereby choose as mates, people who look healthy. And
health, say these evolutionary psychologists, is manifested in a woman with a 70 percent waist-to-hip ratio and men with
rugged features that suggest a strong supply of testosterone in their blood. Waist-to-hip ratio is important for the successful
birth of a baby, and studies have shown this precise ratio signifies higher fertility. As for the rugged look, well, a man with a
good dose of testosterone probably also has a strong immune system and so is more likely to give his partner healthy children.
Perhaps our choice of mates is a simple matter of following our noses. Claus Wedekind of the University of Lausanne in
Switzerland did an interesting experiment with sweaty T-shirts. He asked 49 women to smell T-shirts previously worn by
unidentified men with a variety of the genotypes that influence both body odor and immune systems. He then asked the women
to rate which T-shirts smelled the best, which the worst. What Wedekind found was that women preferred the scent of a T-shirt
worn by a man whose genotype was most different from hers, a genotype that, perhaps, is linked to an immune system that
possesses something hers does not. In this way she increases the chance that her offspring will be robust.
It all seems too good to be true, that we are so hard-wired and yet unconscious of the wiring. Because no one to my knowledge
has ever said, “I married him because of his B.O.” No. We say, “I married him (or her) because he’s intelligent, she’s
beautiful, he’s witty, she’s compassionate.” But we may just be as deluded about love as we are when we’re in love. If it all
comes down to a sniff test, then dogs definitely have the edge when it comes to choosing mates.
Why doesn’t passionate love last? How is it possible to see a person as beautiful on Monday, and 364 days later, on another
Monday, to see that beauty as bland? Surely the object of your affection could not have changed that much. She still has the
same shaped eyes. Her voice has always had that husky sound, but now it grates on you—she sounds like she needs an
antibiotic. Or maybe you’re the one who needs an antibiotic, because the partner you once loved and cherished and saw as
though saturated with starlight now feels more like a low-level infection, tiring you, sapping all your strength.
Studies around the world confirm that, indeed, passion usually ends. Its conclusion is as common as its initial flare. No wonder
some cultures think selecting a lifelong mate based on something so fleeting is folly. Helen Fisher has suggested that
relationships frequently break up after four years because that’s about how long it takes to raise a child through infancy.
Passion, that wild, prismatic insane feeling, turns out to be practical after all. We not only need to copulate; we also need
enough passion to start breeding, and then feelings of attachment take over as the partners bond to raise a helpless human
infant. Once a baby is no longer nursing, the child can be left with sister, aunts, friends. Each parent is now free to meet
another mate and have more children.
Biologically speaking, the reasons romantic love fades may be found in the way our brains respond to the surge and pulse of
dopamine that accompanies passion and makes us fly. Cocaine users describe the phenomenon of tolerance: The brain adapts
to the excessive input of the drug. Perhaps the neurons become desensitized and need more and more to produce the high—to
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dopamine that accompanies passion and makes us fly. Cocaine users describe the phenomenon of tolerance: The brain adapts
to the excessive input of the drug. Perhaps the neurons become desensitized and need more and more to produce the high—to
put out pixie dust, metaphorically speaking.
Maybe it’s a good thing that romance fizzles. Would we have railroads, bridges, planes, faxes, vaccines, and television if we
were all always besotted? In place of the ever evolving technology that has marked human culture from its earliest tool use, we
would have instead only bonbons, bouquets, and birth control. More seriously, if the chemically altered state induced by
romantic love is akin to a mental illness or a drug-induced euphoria, exposing yourself for too long could result in
psychological damage. A good sex life can be as strong as Gorilla Glue, but who wants that stuff on your skin?
Once upon a time, in India, a boy and a girl fell in love without their parents’ permission. They were from different castes,
their relationship radical and unsanctioned. Picture it: the sparkling sari, the boy in white linen, the clandestine meetings on
tiled terraces with a fat, white moon floating overhead. Who could deny these lovers their pleasure, or condemn the force of
their attraction?
Their parents could. In one recent incident a boy and girl from different castes were hanged at the hands of their parents as
hundreds of villagers watched. A couple who eloped were stripped and beaten. Yet another couple committed suicide after
their parents forbade them to marry.
Anthropologists used to think that romance was a Western construct, a bourgeois byproduct of the Middle Ages. Romance was
for the sophisticated, took place in cafés, with coffees and Cabernets, or on silk sheets, or in rooms with a flickering fire. It was
assumed that non-Westerners, with their broad familial and social obligations, were spread too thin for particular passions.
How could a collectivist culture celebrate or in any way sanction the obsession with one individual that defines new love?
Could a lice-ridden peasant really feel passion?
Easily, as it turns out. Scientists now believe that romance is panhuman, embedded in our brains since Pleistocene times. In a
study of 166 cultures, anthropologists William Jankowiak and Edward Fischer observed evidence of passionate love in 147 of
them. In another study men and women from Europe, Japan, and the Philippines were asked to fill out a survey to measure
their experiences of passionate love. All three groups professed feeling passion with the same searing intensity.
But though romantic love may be universal, its cultural expression is not. To the Fulbe tribe of northern Cameroon, poise
matters more than passion. Men who spend too much time with their wives are taunted, and those who are weak-kneed are
thought to have fallen under a dangerous spell. Love may be inevitable, but for the Fulbe its manifestations are shameful,
equated with sickness and social impairment.
In India romantic love has traditionally been seen as dangerous, a threat to a well-crafted caste system in which marriages are
arranged as a means of preserving lineage and bloodlines. Thus the gruesome tales, the warnings embedded in fables about
what happens when one’s wayward impulses take over.
Today love marriages appear to be on the rise in India, often in defiance of parents’ wishes. The triumph of romantic love is
celebrated in Bollywood films. Yet most Indians still believe arranged marriages are more likely to succeed than love
marriages. In one survey of Indian college students, 76 percent said they’d marry someone with all the right qualities even if
they weren’t in love with the person (compared with only 14 percent of Americans). Marriage is considered too important a
step to leave to chance.
Studies around the world confirm that, indeed, passion usually ends. No wonder some cultures think selecting a
lifelong mate based on something so fleeting is folly.
Renu Dinakaran is a striking 45-year-old woman who lives in Bangalore, India. When I meet her, she is dressed in Westernstyle
clothes—black leggings and a T-shirt. Renu lives in a well-appointed apartment in this thronging city, where cows sleep
on the highways as tiny cars whiz around them, plumes of black smoke rising from their sooty pipes.
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on the highways as tiny cars whiz around them, plumes of black smoke rising from their sooty pipes.
Renu was born into a traditional Indian family where an arranged marriage was expected. She was not an arranged kind of
person, though, emerging from her earliest days as a fierce tennis player, too sweaty for saris, and smarter than many of the
men around her. Nevertheless at the age of 17 she was married off to a first cousin, a man she barely knew, a man she wanted
to learn to love, but couldn’t. Renu considers many arranged marriages to be acts of “state-sanctioned rape.”
Renu hoped to fall in love with her husband, but the more years that passed, the less love she felt, until, at the end, she was
shrunken, bitter, hiding behind the curtains of her in-laws’ bungalow, looking with longing at the couple on the balcony across
from theirs. “It was so obvious to me that couple had married for love, and I envied them. I really did. It hurt me so much to
see how they stood together, how they went shopping for bread and eggs.”
Exhausted from being forced into confinement, from being swaddled in saris that made it difficult to move, from resisting the
pressure to eat off her husband’s plate, Renu did what traditional Indian culture forbids one to do. She left. By this time she
had had two children. She took them with her. In her mind was an old movie she’d seen on TV, a movie so strange and enticing
to her, so utterly confounding and comforting at the same time, that she couldn’t get it out of her head. It was 1986. The movie
was Love Story.
“Before I saw movies like Love Story, I didn’t realize the power that love can have,” she says.
Renu was lucky in the end. In Mumbai she met a man named Anil, and it was then, for the first time, that she felt passion.
“When I first met Anil, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. He was the first man I ever had an orgasm with. I was high,
just high, all the time. And I knew it wouldn’t last, couldn’t last, and so that infused it with a sweet sense of longing, almost as
though we were watching the end approach while we were also discovering each other.”
When Renu speaks of the end, she does not, to be sure, mean the end of her relationship with Anil; she means the end of a
certain stage. The two are still happily married, companionable, loving if not “in love,” with a playful black dachshund they
bought together. Their relationship, once so full of fire, now seems to simmer along at an even temperature, enough to keep
them well fed and warm. They are grateful.
“Would I want all that passion back?” Renu asks. “Sometimes, yes. But to tell you the truth, it was exhausting.”
From a physiological point of view, this couple has moved from the dopamine-drenched state of romantic love to the relative
quiet of an oxytocin-induced attachment. Oxytocin is a hormone that promotes a feeling of connection, bonding. It is released
when we hug our long-term spouses, or our children. It is released when a mother nurses her infant. Prairie voles, animals with
high levels of oxytocin, mate for life. When scientists block oxytocin receptors in these rodents, the animals don’t form
monogamous bonds and tend to roam. Some researchers speculate that autism, a disorder marked by a profound inability to
forge and maintain social connections, is linked to an oxytocin deficiency. Scientists have been experimenting by treating
autistic people with oxytocin, which in some cases has helped alleviate their symptoms.
In long-term relationships that work—like Renu and Anil’s—oxytocin is believed to be abundant in both partners. In long-term
relationships that never get off the ground, like Renu and her first husband’s, or that crumble once the high is gone, chances
are the couple has not found a way to stimulate or sustain oxytocin production.
“But there are things you can do to help it along,” says Helen Fisher. “Massage. Make love. These things trigger oxytocin and
thus make you feel much closer to your partner.”
Well, I suppose that’s good advice, but it’s based on the assumption that you still want to have sex with that boring windbag of
a husband. Should you fake-it-till-you-make-it?
“Yes,” says Fisher. “Assuming a fairly healthy relationship, if you have enough orgasms with your partner, you may become
attached to him or her. You will stimulate oxytocin.”
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attached to him or her. You will stimulate oxytocin.”
This may be true. But it sounds unpleasant. It’s exactly what your mother always said about vegetables: “Keep eating your
peas. They are an acquired taste. Eventually, you will come to like them.”
But I have never been a peas person.
It’s 90 degrees on the day my husband and I depart, from Boston for New York City, to attend a kissing school. With two kids,
two cats, two dogs, a lopsided house, and a questionable school system, we may know how to kiss, but in the rough and tumble
of our harried lives we have indeed forgotten how to kiss.
The sky is paved with clouds, the air as sticky as jam in our hands and on our necks. The Kissing School, run by Cherie Byrd,
a therapist from Seattle, is being held on the 12th floor of a rundown building in Manhattan. Inside, the room is whitewashed; a
tiled table holds bottles of banana and apricot nectar, a pot of green tea, breath mints, and Chapstick. The other Kissing School
students—sometimes they come from as far away as Vietnam and Nigeria—are sprawled happily on the bare floor, pillows
and blankets beneath them. The class will be seven hours long.
Byrd starts us off with foot rubs. “In order to be a good kisser,” she says, “you need to learn how to do the foreplay before the
kissing.” Foreplay involves rubbing my husband’s smelly feet, but that is not as bad as when he has to rub mine. Right before
we left the house, I accidentally stepped on a diaper the dog had gotten into, and although I washed, I now wonder how well.
“Inhale,” Byrd says, and shows us how to draw in air.
“Exhale,” she says, and then she jabs my husband in the back. “Don’t focus on the toes so much,” she says. “Move on to the
calf.”
Byrd tells us other things about the art of kissing. She describes the movement of energy through various chakras, the
manifestation of emotion in the lips; she describes the importance of embracing all your senses, how to make eye contact as a
prelude, how to whisper just the right way. Many hours go by. My cell phone rings. It’s our babysitter. Our one-year-old has a
high fever. We must cut the long lesson short. We rush out. Later on, at home, I tell my friends what we learned at Kissing
School: We don’t have time to kiss.
A perfectly typical marriage. Love in the Western world.
3: THIS THING CALLED LOVE
Luckily I’ve learned of other options for restarting love. Arthur Aron, a psychologist at Stony Brook University in New York,
conducted an experiment that illuminates some of the mechanisms by which people become and stay attracted. He recruited a
group of men and women and put opposite sex pairs in rooms together, instructing each pair to perform a series of tasks, which
included telling each other personal details about themselves. He then asked each couple to stare into each other’s eyes for two
minutes. After this encounter, Aron found most of the couples, previously strangers to each other, reported feelings of
attraction. In fact, one couple went on to marry.
Novelty triggers dopamine in the brain, which can stimulate feelings of attraction. So riding a roller coaster on a
first date is more likely to lead to second and third dates.
Fisher says this exercise works wonders for some couples. Aron and Fisher also suggest doing novel things together, because
novelty triggers dopamine in the brain, which can stimulate feelings of attraction. In other words, if your heart flutters in his
presence, you might decide it’s not because you’re anxious but because you love him. Carrying this a step further, Aron and
others have found that even if you just jog in place and then meet someone, you’re more likely to think they’re attractive. So
first dates that involve a nerve-racking activity, like riding a roller coaster, are more likely to lead to second and third dates.
That’s a strategy worthy of posting on Match.com. Play some squash. And in times of stress—natural disasters, blackouts,
predators on the prowl—lock up tight and hold your partner.
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predators on the prowl—lock up tight and hold your partner.
In Somerville, Massachusetts, where I live with my husband, our predators are primarily mosquitoes. That needn’t stop us
from trying to enter the windows of each other’s soul. When I propose this to Benjamin, he raises an eyebrow.
“Why don’t we just go out for Cambodian food?” he says.
“Because that’s not how the experiment happened.”
As a scientist, my husband is always up for an experiment. But our lives are so busy that, in order to do this, we have to make a
plan. We will meet next Wednesday at lunchtime and try the experiment in our car.
On the Tuesday night before our rendezvous, I have to make an unplanned trip to New York. My husband is more than happy
to forget our date. I, however, am not. That night, from my hotel room, I call him.
“We can do it on the phone,” I say.
“What am I supposed to stare into?” he asks. “The keypad?”
“There’s a picture of me hanging in the hall. Look at that for two minutes. I’ll look at a picture I have of you in my wallet.”
“Come on,” he says.
“Be a sport,” I say. “It’s better than nothing.”
Maybe not. Two minutes seems like a long time to stare at someone’s picture with a receiver pressed to your ear. My husband
sneezes, and I try to imagine his picture sneezing right along with him, and this makes me laugh.
Another 15 seconds pass, slowly, each second stretched to its limit so I can almost hear time, feel time, its taffy-like texture,
the pop it makes when it’s done. Pop pop pop. I stare and stare at my husband’s picture. It doesn’t produce any sense of
startling intimacy, and I feel defeated.
Still, I keep on. I can hear him breathing on the other end. The photograph before me was taken a year or so ago, cut to fit my
wallet, his strawberry blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. I have never really studied it before. And I realize that in this
picture my husband is not looking straight back at me, but his pale blue eyes are cast sideways, off to the left, looking at
something I can’t see. I touch his eyes. I peer close, and then still closer, at his averted face. Is there something sad in his
expression, something sad in the way he gazes off?
I look toward the side of the photo, to find what it is he’s looking at, and then I see it: a tiny turtle coming toward him. Now I
remember how he caught it after the camera snapped, how he held it gently in his hands, showed it to our kids, stroked its
shell, his forefinger moving over the scaly dome, how he held the animal out toward me, a love offering. I took it, and together
we sent it back to the sea.
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DISCUSSION QUESTION
1. Is finding a mate through online dating really any different than finding a mate via the arranged-marriage
tradition? In one case the computer picks your mate; in the other, your parents or other relatives select the
individual. Explain (a) which of these mate-selection methods, in your opinion, is more likely to provide you
with a compatible partner and (b) why you feel the method you indicated is more likely to succeed in this
endeavor.
From National Geographic, Vol. 209, no. 2, February 2006, pp. 34–35, 38–39, 44–45, 48–49. Copyright © 2006 by
National Geographic Society. Reprinted by permission.

4:
DYSFUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION AND WHAT TO DO
ABOUT IT
ROWLAND S. MILLER, DANIEL PERLMAN, AND SHARON S. BREHM
As we’ve seen, the more open and self-disclosing spouses are to one another, the more happily married they tend to be (Meeks
et al, 1998). But not all our efforts to speak our minds and communicate with our partners have positive results. More often
than we realize, we face an interpersonal gap that causes misunderstanding or confusion in those who hear what we have to
say. And the nature and consequences of miscommunication are very apparent in relationships in which the partners are
distressed and dissatisfied. The verbal communications of unhappy partners often just perpetuate their discontent and make
things worse instead of better.
Miscommunication
Indeed, we can gain valuable insights about what we shouldn’t do when we talk with others by carefully comparing the
communicative behaviors of happy lovers to those of unhappy partners. John Gottman and his colleagues at the University
of Washington have been doing this for over 30 years, and they have observed several important patterns. First, unhappy
people do a poor job of saying what they mean (Gottman, 1994b). When they have a complaint, they are rarely precise;
instead, they’re prone to kitchen-sinking, in which they tend to address several topics at once (so that everything but the
“kitchen sink” gets dragged into the conversation). This usually causes their primary concern to get lost in the barrage of
frustrations that are announced at the same time. If they’re annoyed by late fees at the video store, for instance, they may
say, “It’s not just your carelessness, it’s those friends you hang out with, and your lousy attitude about helping out around
the house.” As a result, their conversations frequently drift off-beam, wandering from topic to topic so that the conversation
never stays on one problem long enough to resolve it: “You never do what I ask. You’re just as hard-headed as your mother,
and you always take her side.” Flitting from problem to problem on a long list of concerns makes it almost certain that none
of them will be fixed.
Second, unhappy partners do a poor job of hearing each other. They rarely try to patiently double-check their understanding
of their partners’ messages. Instead, they jump to conclusions (often assuming the worst) and head off on tangents based on
what they presume their partners really mean. One aspect of this is mindreading, which occurs when people assume that
they understand their partners’ thoughts, feelings, and opinions without asking. All intimate couples mindread to some
extent, but distressed couples do so in critical and hostile ways; they tend to perceive unpleasant motives where neutral or
positive ones actually exist: “You just said that to make me mad, to get back at me for yesterday.” Unhappy partners also
interrupt each other in negative ways more than contented couples do. Not all interruptions are obnoxious. People who
interrupt their partners to express agreement or ask for clarification may actually be communicating happily and well. But
people who interrupt to express disagreement or to change the topic are likely to leave their partners feeling disregarded and
unappreciated (Daigen & Holmes, 2000).
Distressed couples also listen poorly by finding something wrong or unworkable with anything their partners say. This is
yes-butting, and it communicates constant criticism of the others’ points of view: “Yeah, we could try that, but it won’t
work because . . .” Unhappy partners also engage in cross-complaining that fails to acknowledge others’ concerns; instead
of expressing interest in what their partners have to say, they just respond to a complaint with one of their own:
“I hate the way you let the dishes pile up in the sink.”
“Well, I hate the way you leave your clothes lying around on the floor.”
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166
“I hate the way you let the dishes pile up in the sink.”
“Well, I hate the way you leave your clothes lying around on the floor.”
Finally, unhappy partners too often display negative affect when they talk with each other (Gottman & Levenson, 1992).
They often react to their partner’s complaints with sarcastic disregard that is demeaning and scornful, and instead of
mending their problems, they often make them worse. Damaging interactions like these typically begin with criticism that
attacks a partner’s personality or character instead of identifying a specific behavior that is causing concern. For instance,
instead of delineating a particular frustration (“I get annoyed when you leave your wet towels on the floor”), a critic may
inflame the interaction by making a global accusation of a character flaw (“You are such a slob!”). Contempt in the form of
insults, mockery, or hostile humor is often involved as well. The partners’ common response to such attacks is
defensiveness; instead of treating the clumsy complaint as legitimate and reasonable, the partners seek to protect themselves
from the perceived attack by making excuses or by cross-complaining, hurling counterattacks of their own. Stonewalling
may follow, particularly in men, as a partner “clams up” and reacts to the messy situation by withdrawing into a stony
silence (Heavy, Layne, & Christensen, 1993). People may believe they’re helping the situation by refusing to argue further,
but their lack of responsiveness can be infuriating (Zadro & Williams, 2000). Instead of demonstrating appropriate
acknowledgement and concern for a partner’s complaints, stonewalling typically communicates “disapproval, icy distance,
and smugness” (Gottman, 1994b, p. 94). Ultimately, destructive belligerence may occur, with one partner aggressively
rejecting the other altogether (“So what? What are you gonna do about it?”).
When communication routinely degenerates into these contentious patterns, the outlook for the relationship is grim
(Gottman et al, 1998). In fact, videotapes of just the first three minutes of a marital conflict enable researchers to predict
with 83 percent accuracy who will be divorced six years later (Carrére & Gottman, 1999). Couples whose marriages are
doomed display noticeably more contempt, defensiveness, and belligerence than do those who will stay together. And
among those who stay together, spouses who communicate well are happier and more content than those who suffer
frequent misunderstanding (Feeney, 1994).
The challenge, of course, is that it’s not always easy to avoid these problems. When we’re angry, resentful, or anxious, we
may find ourselves cross-complaining, kitchen-sinking, and all the rest. How can we avoid these traps? Depending on the
situation, we may need to send clearer, less inflammatory messages, listen better, or stay polite and calm, and sometimes we
need to do all three.
Saying What We Mean
Complaints that criticize a partner’s personality or character disparage the partner and often make mountains out of
molehills, portraying problems as huge, intractable dilemmas that cannot be easily solved. (Given some of the broad
complaints we throw at our partners, it’s no wonder that they sometimes get defensive.) It’s much more sensible—and
accurate—to identify as plainly and concretely as possible a specific behavior that annoyed us. This is behavior
description, and it not only tells our partners what’s on our minds, it focuses the conversation on discrete, manageable
behaviors that, unlike personalities, can often be readily changed. A good behavior description specifies a particular event
and does not involve generalities; thus, words such as always or never should never be used. This is not a good behavior
description: “You’re always interrupting me! You never let me finish!”
We should also use I-statements that specify our feelings. I-statements start with “I” and then describe a distinct emotional
reaction. They force us to identify our feelings, which can be useful both to us and our partners. They also help us to “own”
our feelings and acknowledge them instead of keeping the entire focus on the partner. Thus, instead of saying, “You really
piss me off,” one should say, “I feel pretty angry right now.”
A handy way to use both behavior descriptions and I-statements to communicate more clearly and accurately is to integrate
them into XYZ statements. Such statements follow the form of “When you do X in situation Y” (that’s a good behavior
description), “I feel Z” (an I-statement). Listen to yourself next time you complain to your partner. Are you saying
something like this:

something like this:
“You’re so inconsiderate! You never let me finish what I’m saying!”
Or, are you being precise and accurate and saying what you mean:
“When you interrupted me just now, I felt annoyed.”
There’s a big difference. One of those statements is likely to get a thoughtful, apologetic response from a loving partner, but
the other probably won’t.
Active Listening
We have two vital tasks when we’re on the receiving end of others’ messages. The first is to accurately understand what our
partners are trying to say, and the second is to communicate that attention and comprehension to our partners so that they
know we care about what they’ve said. Both tasks can be accomplished by paraphrasing a message, repeating it in our own
words and giving the sender a chance to agree that that’s what he or she actually meant. When people use paraphrasing, they
don’t assume that they understood their partners and issue an immediate reply. Instead, they take a moment to check their
comprehension by rephrasing the message and repeating it back. This sounds awkward, but it is a terrific way to avoid
arguments and conflict that would otherwise result from misunderstanding and mistakes. Whenever a conversation begins to
get heated, paraphrasing can keep it from getting out of hand. Look what’s wrong here:
WILMA: (sighing) I’m so glad your mother decided not to come visit us next week.
FRED: (irate) What’s wrong with my mother? You’ve always been on her case, and I think you’re an ungrateful witch!
Perhaps before Fred flew off the handle, some paraphrasing would have been helpful:
WILMA: (sighing) I’m so glad your mother decided not to come visit us next week.
FRED: (irate) Are you saying you don’t like her to be here?
WILMA: (surprised) No, she’s always welcome. I just have my paper due in my relationships class and won’t have much
time then.
FRED: (mollified) Oh.
Another valuable listening skill is perception checking, which is the opposite of min-dreading. In perception checking,
people assess the accuracy of their inferences about a partner’s feelings by asking the partner for clarification. This
communicates one’s attentiveness and interest, and it encourages the partner to be more open: “You seem pretty upset by
what I said, is that right?”
Listeners who paraphrase and check their perceptions make an active effort to understand their partners, and that care and
consideration is usually much appreciated. Active listening is also likely to help smooth the inevitable rough spots any
relationship encounters. Indeed, people who practice these techniques typically report happier marriages than do those who
simply assume that they understand what their partners mean by what they say (Markman, Stanley, & Blumberg, 1994).
REFERENCES
4: DYSFUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
Carrère, S. & Gottman, J. M. (1999). Predicting divorce among newlyweds from the first three minutes of a
marital conflict discussion. Family Process, 38, 293-301.
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168
Daigen, V. & Holmes, J. G. (2000). Don’t interrupt! A good rule for marriage? Personal Relationships, 7,
185-201.
Feeney, J. A. (1994). Attachment style, communication patterns and satisfaction across the life cycle of marriage.
Personal Relationships, 1, 333-348.
Gottman, J. M. (1994b). Why marriages succeed or fail. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Gottman, J. M. & Levenson, R. W. (1992). Marital processes predictive of later dissolution: Behavior,
physiology and health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 221-233.
Gottman, J. M., Coan, J., Carrére, S. & Swanson, C. (1998). Predicting marital happiness and stability from
newlywed interactions. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60, 5-22.
Heavy, C. L., Layne, C. & Christensen, A. (1993). Gender and conflict structure in marital interaction: A
replication and extension. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61, 16-27.
Markman, H., Stanley, S. & Blumberg, S. L. (1994). Fighting for your marriage: Positive steps for preventing
divorce and preserving a lasting love. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Meeks, B. S., Hendrick, S. S. & Hendrick, C. (1998). Communication, love and relationship satisfaction. Journal
of Personal and Social Relationships, 15, 755-773.
Zadro, L. & Williams, K. D. (June 2000). The silent treatment: Ostracism in intimate relationships. Paper
presented at the meeting of the International Society for The Study of Personal Relationships, Brisbane.
DISCUSSION QUESTION
1. Among the types of “Miscommunication” discussed in this article, which type are you most likely to resort to
during conflicts in your own relationships? Describe a situation in which you used this miscommunication
form.

Personal Troubles vs. Public Issues
PART VII:
Social Problems and Solutions
RELATED CONCEPTS AND IDEAS
A social problem is altogether different from a personal problem. In distinguishing between the two, C. Wright Mills
(1959/2000) noted that personal problems have to do with the individual and his/her immediate milieu; whereas social
problems are located at the social-structural level. Social problems are thus problems within major social institutions. Such
problems thus affect the society as a whole.
Some issues are, or can be, both personal and social problems. For example, if you are unemployed and are your own sole
source of support, that’s a definite personal problem. If the rate of unemployment were to rise to the level it was at during the
Depression of the 1930’s, that would be a clear-and-present social problem.
Resolving Social Problems
To resolve a social problem, there must be change at the institutional level; changes that are implemented society-wide. Social
change begins when a subset of society’s members interact and decide that a problem exists, about which something must be
done. Any proposed resolution to a social problem will have to be one that a majority of citizens, or a majority of politically
powerful persons, view as both sensible and effective. A majority of persons, or a majority of the ‘right’ persons, must be
willing to get behind the idea and promote it within their own spheres of influence.
To understand the complexity of the change process, you have to look at the historical and cultural contexts in which a given
social change occurs. Change in one area of society may itself cause change in other areas. For example, Americans’ addition
of online activities to their daily routines has caused a shift in cultural values, particularly among the members of the ‘net’
generation.
Social change may occur through the activities of a social movement. A movement forms when people identify a problem in
their society and decide it is of sufficient magnitude and importance that they need to organize, to find a way to resolve it.
Through ongoing interaction, members define the problem as they see it, then discuss and agree upon a course of action to
remedy the problem.
A movement’s membership must work out a strategy for selling their conception of the problem and proposed remedy to
others, in order to accomplish their change goals. Movements need to expand their membership base, to do the various types of
work that are vital to the organization’s cause. Too, in order to get those with political power to make any necessary changes in
the law or public policy, so that the path to change is cleared, the movement’s members will have to persuade a majority of
society’s members that their position is valid. Once a majority of citizens get behind the movement’s cause, they can press
their legislators to “do something” about the problem.
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their legislators to “do something” about the problem.
Movements of the past disseminated their messages by word-of-mouth, by holding public rallies and through the social
linkages of friendship and family networks. In the 20th century, movements got their messages out through the news media
which, proactively or by invitation, covered movements’ activities and interviewed their spokespersons. The Hippie movement
of the 1960’s received such media coverage. Today, movement members buy promotional time on television, hire political
lobbyists and manage their own websites.
Most social movements begin as aggregates of persons engaging in what sociologists call collective behavior. Collective
behavior is usually transitory; arising to ‘do something’ about a perceived problem, fulfill a perceived need; then disbanding
once the group accomplishes their mission.
All of us engage in many forms of collective behavior over our lifetimes. Crowd behavior, such as is fueled by the emotional
momentum that builds among fans at a football game; gossip and rumor-spreading, dressing or wearing your hair in
accordance with the latest fad or fashion; even crowd behavior in panic situations, are all forms of collective behavior.
Typically, collective behavior ensues among persons who do not know each other. A collective forms to fill a gap in
information or services which, according to its members, urgently need to be filled. While members of most collectives never
get to know each other or form lasting social bonds, there are exceptions. Under extreme conditions, such as wartime combat
or havoc wrought by a natural or manmade disaster, strangers will pull together to survive until help arrives. During an ordeal
wherein emotions run high and deep; surviving by their cooperative actions, strangers may well become bonded for life.
Collective behavior may ensue to fill a gap in information that is making everyone concerned anxious. For example, among
employees of a company that, according to the morning newspaper, is in serious financial trouble, collective action may take
the form of rumors and gossip around the break room. Once the immediate need is taken care of—the company owner meets
with and assures her employees that both the company and their jobs are on solid ground—the employees disband and go
about their business.
Collective behavior can lead to social change without enduring to the point of becoming a social movement. The Watts Riots
of 1965, in Los Angeles, are a case in point. However destructive those riots and subsequent looting activity were in the
immediate sense, for the people who lived there, as a historical event they were catalysts for social reforms that benefited the
people of Watts, as well as minorities and the socioeconomically deprived generally. In the wake of such a manifestation of
rage and frustration, even more complacent if not comatose members of the legislature and public were awakened to the reality
that something had to be done.
Collectives that endure over time will develop a set of goals, norms, values, beliefs, special vocabulary and perhaps, some sort
of uniform and/or a publicly articulated mission that identifies them as a unique social unit. At this stage the collective has
become a social movement. Given its makeup and its agenda, a social movement is also a subculture and an interest group.
Collectives that morph into social movements, perhaps even into bureaucracies in the fullness of time, do so to address a need
that is recurrent, as in the case of a region’s annual hurricane or tornado ‘season,’ or to address an ongoing social problem,
such as the destruction of the Earth’s ozone layer or social inequality. By acting cooperatively over time they will develop a
social organization, division of labor, status hierarchy, chain of command, and strategies to produce or acquire resources
necessary for the group’s continued operation.
In the selections that follow, experts in their chosen fields describe current social problems and the solutions they and their
associates have developed thus far.
170
REFERENCES

REFERENCES
Conot, Robert; Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness; New York: Morrow, 1968.
Marx, Gary T. and Douglas McAdam, Collective Behavior and Social Movements: Process and Structure; Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994.
Mills, C. Wright; “The Promise,” from Sociological Imagination; New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.
Turner, Ralph H. and Lewis M. Killian, Collective Behavior, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Second Edition, 1972.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
PART VII: Social Problems and Solutions
1. What sorts of troubles are you or your friends dealing with personally which, on the society-wide level, constitute
social problems?
2. If you were to contribute to finding a solution for one of today’s social problems, which problem would you like
to work on, and what sort of activities would you like to be involved in, as your contribution?
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Introduction
1:
SUSTAINABILITY AMID GLOBALIZATION
Many of society’s critical challenges involve environmental issues. Scientists and policymakers acknowledge that nowhere
on the planet is untouched by human influence once we take into consideration the influence of processes such as global
warming (Vitousek et al., 1997). Society affects the environment, and in turn, environmental change affects society.
Researchers are trying to uncover the complex relationships between these two-way processes.
Sociology is a crucial element of this research given the need to understand how different societal attitudes, values,
perceptions, and beliefs influence environmental policy at the local, regional, national and international levels. This chapter
consists of two parts—an introduction to the concepts of sustainable development and sustainability, and the related process
of globalization; and two examples of applied research in Phoenix, Arizona, on transportation and water.
Sustainable Development and Sustainability: Global Trends
Over the past several decades three trends have increased demands on ecosystems. First, global population has surged to
over six billion people, stimulated by medical advancements that have dramatically reduced infant mortality rates and
increased life expectancy. Second, unprecedented rural to urban migration has led to over half the world’s population living
in cities, and the creation of many ‘mega-cities’ that lack adequate infrastructure or resources to cope with the rapid
urbanization that has taken place (Barredo and Demicheli, 2003). Third, global development is spurring dramatic increases
in demand for natural resources, particularly nonrenewable resources such as fossil fuels. Changes, whether economic,
ecological, social, or a combination of all three, have been rapid, profound, and in many cases, irreversible. How processes
such as global warming and events such as species extinction affect ecosystems, and how these in turn affect society, are
difficult to predict (Grimm et al, 2000; Redman et al., 2004).
Concern about the ability of both societies and the natural environment to adapt to changes has led to an increasing focus on
the concept of sustainable development, or sustainability (Clark and Dickson, 2003). While many definitions of this term
exist, the most well-known came from the 1987 UN-sponsored World Commission on Environment and Development
(WCED) report, “Our Common Future.” According to this report, sustainable development is “development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs.” While the definition may sound
straightforward, basic starting points such as identifying people’s needs as opposed to wants, how to value the environment,
and establishing mechanisms to achieve a sustainable society, have been intensely debated. The matter is by no means
settled. What has emerged, though, is general agreement that sustainability can be thought of as having three pillars—
society, economics, and environment—that interact with each other 1 .
Society, Environment, Economics and Globalization
Society, ecology, and economics are heavily intertwined. Globalization, which we define in its simplest terms as the
increasing degree of connectedness between places and the people in them, is arguably increasing both the strength and
extent of connections across the globe. To illustrate this, we use the example of food production. An increasing amount of
the food consumed in the United States is imported from developing countries that produce much of the world’s agricultural
products. Developing countries have been encouraged by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to specialize
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the food consumed in the United States is imported from developing countries that produce much of the world’s agricultural
products. Developing countries have been encouraged by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to specialize
in what they are best at in order to compete in the global economic system 2 .
For many developing countries, this has translated into increasing efficiency in their agricultural sectors by shifting to largescale
production of a narrower range of crops, increasing mechanization at the expense of labor, and increasing the use of
fertilizers, pesticides, and modified species. Impacts within developing countries are threefold. First, economies with more
of a ’monocrop culture’ are vulnerable to prices set by the global commodity markets and can experience cycles of “boom
or bust.” Second, increased mechanization by some producers impacts the ability of smaller producers to compete in the
marketplace, resulting in structural and likely permanent change in local labor markets, and fundamental social changes such
as rural to urban migration, and emigration. Third, changes in the scale and type of agricultural production have
environmental repercussions.
Changes in global agricultural practices also register in developed economies. Agricultural production has become
economically inefficient to such an extent that most farms in the United States are heavily subsidized. Farming communities
are eroding, spurring more rural to urban migration in developed countries. The globalization of agriculture raises many
contentious social questions, examples of which are: How does society rationalize protecting agricultural sectors in
developed countries while at the same time advocating free trade in developing economies? What are the short-and longterm
local environmental repercussions of moving to large-scale agriculture? What are the short-and long-term social
repercussions of ongoing rural to urban migration in both developing and developed countries, and flows of people from
developing to developed countries?
The above example shows how globalization and issues relating to sustainability are intricately intertwined and complex.
The contentious nature of some of the questions raised hints at the fact that solutions are not straightforward. Building
consensus about optimal solutions is extremely difficult because of different attitudes and power differentials within and
between societies, and because impacts cut across many political boundaries.
Social Divides
The fundamental tensions that surround the idea of sustainable development arise from differences of opinion relating to the
need for economic growth, and the impact that this growth has on the environment and on social equity. Looking first at the
environmental perspective, there is a wide range in people’s belief systems that differ across cultures and societies. Some
people believe that the earth’s ecosystems are fragile and that actions such as cutting down rainforests will lead to the
elimination of species that will have unknown consequences on ecosystems, but that could potentially damage the earth’s
ability to support us. In very broad terms, this belief-set is considered to be “environmentalism.” Others believe that the
earth is a resource for people to be used in whatever manner they wish, and that people will come up with technological
solutions to any problems that arise. There are many other sets of beliefs that relate to the environment.
The single economic paradigm of neoliberalism became dominant after the collapse of communism in the late 1980s. This
economic model, sometimes known as the Washington Consensus, emphasizes the free flow of goods and capital and the
privatization of services and industries. Adopting the model has, however, proven to be problematic in some cases; in others
disastrous. While neoliberalism advocates the free flow of goods, capital, and participation in global markets, competition is
taking place on a highly uneven playing field.
As the above-mentioned example on agricultural products shows, free markets rarely exist in practice and the free flow of
goods and capital is not accompanied by a free flow of people. Furthermore, a series of financial crises across Asia, Central
and Eastern Europe, and Latin America since the collapse of communism have repeatedly underscored the challenges of
coping with volatility in global financial capital. Problems of economic adjustment have caused some scholars to question
whether or not globalization has “gone too far” (Rodrik, 1997). Others have expressed concern that neoliberalism’s
emphasis on individualist consumerism combined with the myth of equal opportunity is fundamentally changing social
structures, bifurcating society into the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots,’ and eroding the sense of community needed to support

emphasis on individualist consumerism combined with the myth of equal opportunity is fundamentally changing social
structures, bifurcating society into the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots,’ and eroding the sense of community needed to support
environmental protection (Sachs, 2005).
Environmental Justice and Vulnerability
An important issue that continually arises in considering issues relating to sustainability is the fact that the actions of some
segments of society can have a negative affect on other segments of society, or other societies in different places. Formally
defined as the socialization of negative externalities, problems of this nature relate to environmental justice, vulnerability,
and social equity. Basic questions address who bears a disproportionately higher cost of society’s actions, what form these
costs take, and how society chooses either to rationalize or compensate for this inequity.
One obvious example is the location within cities of ‘disamenities’ such as incinerators in poorer neighborhoods that may
cause health problems. Another example operating at a different geographic scale is the increasing tendency for corporations
to shift polluting industries to developing countries with lower levels of environmental regulation. A less obvious example
relates to transportation. Vehicle emissions have been shown to trigger asthma and other respiratory illnesses. Groups most
adversely affected are those with weak immune systems, children, and the elderly. Dealing with health issues is especially
problematic for those who lack access to health insurance.
Vehicle emissions also feature very prominently in the debate about global warming and the likelihood that greenhouse
gases contribute to an increase in extreme weather events. Effects may be experienced far away from the sites of production.
Examples include mud slides in Colombia and severe flooding in Bangladesh. However, extreme weather events are also
prominent in the United States. A significant amount of research has attributed the greater frequency of Category 5
hurricanes such as Hurricane Katrina that caused widespread social and environmental devastation in New Orleans in 2005
to an increase in sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, thought to be the result of global warming.
The most vulnerable members of society are disproportionately affected by extreme weather events. Impacts are magnified
by the fact that they have the least amount of resources to deal with the repercussions of disasters. In the example of
Hurricane Katrina, those who were arguably worst affected were the people who lacked the economic or physical means to
evacuate from the City. Numerous stories emerged from the disaster about a lack of transportation, or—for those people
who may have had cars—a lack of money to buy gas. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, there has been a considerable
amount of debate about the response of the emergency management teams, and the future role of the government and other
social institutions in dealing with future situations of this type.
Key questions relating specifically to the rebuilding of New Orleans are whether or not the city should be rebuilt in the same
place where it may be subject to flooding in the future. Should the levees be built higher and stronger (a technological fix)?
Or, should the city be rebuilt on higher ground (a behavior-changing solution)? Who should pay for the rebuilding? Should
society as a whole pay for rebuilding costs via federal taxes, or should individual states bear the cost? Should disasters of
this type reoccur, say if there is a large earthquake in California, should the US government pay for this too? If disaster relief
causes federal budget pressures, is the priority funding foreign policy initiatives such as the war in Iraq and the “war on
terror,” or domestic items such as education and welfare? Ultimately, decisions of this type will be made through the
political process.
Solutions
1: SUSTAINABILITY AMID GLOBALIZATION
Solutions to issues of sustainability generally fall into one of two groups—behavior modification (by either raising
awareness through education/public outreach or by policies that increase the tangible costs of certain behavior) or
technological solution, providing some type of an alternate means for people in certain societies to continue to act the same
way. While the end objective may be similar, these two approaches stem from radically different fundamental philosophies.
They raise very challenging questions, such as the following: What role should the government play in society? How much
control should government have over societies in other countries? Should governments from across the globe cooperate to
address environmental and economic problems at the global level? Does society have any responsibility to its most
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control should government have over societies in other countries? Should governments from across the globe cooperate to
address environmental and economic problems at the global level? Does society have any responsibility to its most
vulnerable members? If so, are the geographic boundaries of social responsibility global, local, or otherwise defined?
In this section, we use the everyday examples of transportation and water as integrating themes for considering social
aspects of the process of sustainability. The Phoenix metropolitan area, which comprises twenty separately governed
municipalities, has consistently been one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States in the past two decades
(GPEC, 2006). The population increased 10-fold between 1950 and 2005, to approximately 3.7 million people. Despite the
rapid population growth city leaders maintain an avidly pro-growth stance, instead seeking ways to “grow smarter.” In the
interim, there have been considerable discussions as to whether water availability and air quality will act as limits to growth.
Transportation and the American Dream
The stereotypical construct of the American Dream comprising a single family home and an automobile provides an
everyday case study for considering the complicated issue of sustainability in urban environments. Automobiles are widely
considered to create sprawl (Squires, 2002). Suburbia has become virtually synonymous with urban sprawl and has come to
represent the antithesis of sustainability. The suburbs, especially gated communities, have been condemned as promoting
antisocial tendencies and civic disengagement (Blakely and Snyder, 1997), while others have labeled suburbia as “racist,
ugly, wasteful or just plain boring” (Fishman, 1987; Jackson, 1985). Despite these criticisms, (Donaldson, 1969; Mumford,
1968, 2), the suburbs still represent the location of choice for over 70% of Americans (Fannie-Mae-Foundation, 1997).
New Urbanism as Antidote
Many movements, inspired by planning and environmental design, offer antidotes to the problems associated with urban
sprawl. New urbanism, for example, focuses on the creation of ‘more livable communities’ on the spine of light rail transit
(Downs, 1992). The basic idea of transit-oriented development is to promote policies that encourage the clustering of jobs,
housing, and amenities such as shopping, entertainment, child-care facilities, and education, within the light rail
transportation corridor.
One objective of rearranging employment and housing in this way is to reduce the amount of travel by automobile in order
to reduce vehicle emissions and improve air pollution and traffic congestion. Another objective is to increase population
density—and hence more efficient land use—by encouraging more compact housing that provides an alternative to the
single family home on its individual lot. A third objective of light rail is to provide a catalyst to revitalize inner cities. In
practice, however, it is difficult to isolate which changes in the urban environment result from new urbanist policies, as
opposed to other initiatives.
New urbanist policies raise three important social questions. One, what factors govern whether or not people will use transit
as opposed to automobiles? Two, what are social attitudes toward people who are displaced by higher rents along the
alignment when neighborhoods become more upscale? Three, who benefits most and who pays the highest cost for new
urbanist policies?
The process of obtaining public support for policies to fund light rail systems sheds light on some of the above-mentioned
social questions. Debates reflect the tension between urban versus suburban lifestyles in the following way. Libertarians
argue that today’s growth patterns reflect market demand, but ignore decades of government intervention in planning and
government subsidization of highways and automobiles. In contrast, smart growth advocates overstate the effectiveness of
planning remedies and ignore the very real and persistent appeal to the detached single-family home in a suburb with good
schools, and entrenched lifestyles and habits. The following is an account of the debate surrounding Proposition 400, a
Maricopa County-wide vote in November 2004 to fund extensions to the light rail system in Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, and
subsequently Glendale.

subsequently Glendale.
Proposition 400: A Case Study
Over the past fifty years, the Phoenix metropolitan area has more or less expanded outward, largely uninhibited by physical
barriers. During that time, despite some back and forth about freeway development, transportation policy in the area was
focused almost entirely on the automobile. Public transit was not seriously considered until the late 1990s, when the area
had moved into serious non-attainment of Federal Air Quality standards, and commute times and traffic congestion had
worsened. The light rail initiative was spearheaded by the then mayor of Phoenix, who put Proposition 2000 on the city
ballot to obtain funding for Phoenix’s share of the cost of a light rail system. When the measure was approved, the adjacent
cities of Tempe and Mesa joined forces to craft a system that would join the three downtown areas. Public support for the
measure was helped by the promise that the Federal government would provide approximately half of the $1.2 billion cost of
the 20 mile starter segment.
Further funding was needed to expand the system by way of a county-wide vote to approve the extension of a half-cent sales
tax to go toward transportation funding. Persuading municipalities to pay for a measure that would not directly benefit them
proved problematic. A deal was eventually struck between the various cities in the form of an integrated regional
transportation plan of which light rail funding was only one part. Other initiatives included constructing new freeways and
adding lanes to existing freeways.
Packaging the transportation vote in this way—as a dual issue—did not mute the public debate. Two campaigns emerged
ahead of the vote: one in favor of light rail strategically named “Finish our Freeways”; the other was “Stop Light Rail in its
Tracks.” That the campaign to get funding approved for light rail focused almost entirely on the issue that the vote was
packaged alongside (freeways) speaks volumes about the lack of general support for public transit. The following excerpts
come from the publicity pamphlet for the ballot.
Arguments “For” Proposition 400
“Prop 400 creates opportunity. By creating thousands of jobs, Proposition 400 will help carry us—economically—well into
the future.”
“Anyone who has lived in Arizona for even a short time has witnessed a dramatic increase in the population evidenced by
the expansive neighborhoods that are being erected everywhere there used to be sprawling desert landscape. As a result of
the increase in population, residents are experiencing the frustration that comes with the realization that the transportation
system lacks the ability to accommodate all of its motorists.”
“In 20 years, over 6 million more people will call this Region home. As we grow, the consumers and workforce will
continue to broaden in social and cultural diversity. Our transportation system will need to keep pace with these changes
ensuring an improved quality of life and a wide range of transportation options for the future. Proposition 400 is essential to
our Region’s role in the expanding economy.”
Arguments “Against” Proposition 400
1: SUSTAINABILITY AMID GLOBALIZATION
“For years, light rail proponents have claimed that implementation of light rail would improve air quality in the Phoenix
metropolitan region by reducing air pollution. The naked truth is that light rail will actually increase air pollution, along with
lengthening the time commuters spend in traffic!
This astounding pollution discovery should have made front-page news in every major publication and garnered prominent
coverage on the air. It did not. The media deliberately chose to keep the public in the dark and to prevent voters from
learning information that could affect the passage of this seriously flawed transportation plan. The American Lung
Association of Arizona, which strongly advocates for cleaner air, has been strangely silent since finding out that air pollution
will increase if this Plan passes.
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will increase if this Plan passes.
Don’t take my word for it. The data are hidden on page 4-51 of the Central Phoenix/East Valley Light Rail Project: Final
Environmental Statement prepared by Valley Metro experts. Table 4-16 shows that carbon monoxide levels would increase
and make our air quality worse if the light rail trolley system is built than if it is not built . . . Why would anyone spend $2.3
billion to buy himself or herself more air pollution?” (original emphases).
“The light rail plan included in Proposition 400 would waste $2.3 billion on an inefficient and ineffective trolley system, a
system that would be a net loser for almost all of the people in Maricopa County. Aside from a handful of rail riders, the
only people who would benefit from the trolley system would be developers and speculators with property in the narrow
corridor along the rail line. With politically connected businessmen stealing money from workers, investors, and retired
persons, no wonder people distrust capitalism.”
“Most voters know that they will almost never ride light rail, other than once a year to a baseball game. But many support
light rail because they hope that other people will ride light rail. As Mayor Neil Guiliano told a reporter, ‘Even some people
who might not use it themselves will support it to get the people in front of them on the freeway out of their cars.’
But the reality is that you’re probably not going to ride light rail, and almost no one else will either. According to Valley
Metro’s projections, light rail will remove less than one car in 1,000 from traffic in the Valley, and transit as a whole will
make up only one percent of vehicle miles traveled in the Valley over the next 20 years. And if Phoenix is like most cities,
80 percent of light rail riders will be former bus riders.”
Synthesis
The above captions underscore the fundamental tension that exists in implementing environmental policies—the need to
accommodate economic growth while at the same time protecting the environment. This has been referred to as the inherent
contradiction embedded in the concept of sustainable development. The excerpts also highlight how politics, the media, and
scientific uncertainty regarding outcomes become inserted into the public policy process and potentially influence social
attitudes and decisions. For this case study, the initiative passed, with opponents of light rail claiming that they were
outspent by supporters, but the bottom line is that few people bothered to vote on this issue.
Perhaps the most pertinent social questions that this case study raises are ones of civic engagement. Why are voting rates so
low, not only for local issues but also for presidential elections? Are some social groups more likely to vote than others and
why? What effect does this have on society? What do low voter turnout rates say about how engaged society is in issues that
relate to sustainability specifically and politics in general?
Water
Phoenix exists in the northern extent of the Sonoran Desert, where the average annual rainfall is about 7 inches. Intuition
might suggest there is not a sufficient amount of water to support the growing population. Yet, rain alone does not supply
water to the region. There are three major sources of water for the metropolitan area: surface water from the Salt and Verde
River systems, local groundwater, and Colorado River water. More recently, reclaimed water is being put to use for
landscaping and farming needs. Regardless, the question still remains: Will there be enough water in the face of growth?
Water Pressure
Aside from growth, drought and the quality of water add pressures to the available supply. Currently, the daily per capita use
of water in Phoenix is about 200 gallons. This includes water used for landscaping purposes and allows for a very
comfortable quality of life. In 2030, the population is projected to be more than 6 million, twice as large as it was in 2000
which will certainly increase demand. Access to water will be needed in geographic areas yet to be developed. So, the
supply needs to be available, infrastructure needs to be built, and energy will be required to move the water to all the new
places considered necessary.

places considered necessary.
Climatologists and water managers are beginning to discuss the possibility that drought may be the normal condition for the
region, with occasional periods of increased precipitation. The water portfolio for the region is diverse and each major
source is geographically distinct. The Colorado River is impacted by conditions as far away as Wyoming, while the Salt and
Verde Rivers are impacted by the conditions in the mountains of eastern Arizona, and groundwater reflects conditions in the
metropolitan area. The benefit to this is that drought does not necessarily occur in all three areas at the same time. The
possibility does exist of drought occurring simultaneously. If this is the case, drought management strategies may need to
consider instituting conservation measures as a way of life, instead of a temporary behavioral modification.
Groundwater in the Phoenix region is abundant, but its quality both natural and anthropogenic, makes some of it unusable,
and some of it expensive to treat. Salts and other minerals naturally occur in the groundwater to a degree that it may not be
acceptable for human consumption without expensive treatment. Like most urban areas, chemicals from industrial processes
also contaminate the groundwater aquifer. In the Phoenix region, several contamination plumes have been identified, and
cleanup efforts are underway. The possibility of pumping groundwater to meet demand in times of surface water shortages
might cause the plumes to move, making cleanup and management efforts more difficult and expensive. Technological
solutions might fix these problems, but energy and money will be needed.
What about energy? Water and energy are partners in supporting growth in Arizona. Electricity moves water and water
creates energy. There is a significant amount of hydroelectric dams that supply power to the region. A shortage of water will
threaten the power supply.
Creative Solutions
Achieving a sustainable water supply may be possible as a result of a century of intense water management brought about
through compromise and negotiation. A common phrase in the water management community is “paper water;” referring to
the legislation and judicial outcomes that provide water to the region. It reflects the understanding that water is supposed to
be available, even if the supply does not reflect this legal fact. The reliance on Colorado River water exposes this, as seven
states in the west and Mexico have agreements in place to share an amount that was determined during a very wet period in
history, which has never been the case since.
In Arizona, the Central Arizona Project built a pipeline to send water more than 160 miles to Phoenix and further to Tucson.
Is this sustainable? This can be seen as a technological solution to sustaining growth in Phoenix. Since the canal was built
and operational, the use of groundwater in the metropolitan area has decreased. In order to rely on this supply, many
safeguards must be monitored to ensure an uninterrupted flow of water. The legal issues further complicate this.
In spite of the growing population, water is expected to be available due to a shift in demand from the agricultural to the
municipal sector. Historically, the majority of the water use has been agricultural. As the population grows farmland is being
converted into residential neighborhoods (Gober, 2006). Individuals use much less water than what farming requires, so this
land use transition actually is serving to buffer water concerns during population growth.
Conclusion
1: SUSTAINABILITY AMID GLOBALIZATION
Growth will continue and there will be water, but the amount of water each person uses and the source of it is likely to
change. Managing the water supply is a complex issue that will continue to be so in the face of pressures. The tradeoffs are
likely to include the loss of agricultural lifestyles that define the history of the place. Additionally, comforts such as pools
and lush landscaping may become less abundant, suggesting a shift in the quality of life. Conservation strategies and
technology appear to be successful approaches to keeping this city in the desert “wet.” But, will it be enough to allow the
status quo, or will growth have to acknowledge water as a limiting factor?
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status quo, or will growth have to acknowledge water as a limiting factor?
ENDNOTES
1 While this classification has been criticized for privileging the economy by separating it from society, it is
nonetheless the dominant ‘Western’ model.
2 Known as “Riccardian Specialization,” this is based on the Economic Theory of Comparative Advantage.
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predicting future urban growth in Lagos. Cities, 20(5): 297-310.
Clark, W. C. and Dickson, N. M., 2003. Sustainability science: The emerging research program. Proceedings of The
National Academy of Sciences of The United States of America, 100(14): 8059-8061.
Donaldson, 1969. Suburban Myth. Columbia University, New York.
Downs, A., 1992. Remedies that increase residential densities, Stuck in Traffic. Brookings Institute, Washington
D.C.
Fannie-Mae-Foundation, 1997. Downtown Housing as an Urban Redevelopment Tool: Hope or Hype (Panel
Discussion). Housing Policy Debate, 10(2): 477-505.
Fishman, R., 1987. Borgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia. Basic Books, New York.
Gober, P. 2006. Metropolitan Phoenix: Place Making and Community Building in the Desert. University of
Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
GPEC, 2006. http://www.gpec.org/InfoCenter/Topics/ Demographics/HistoricalPopulation.html. Greater Phoenix
Economic Council, Phoenix, Arizona.
Grimm, N. B., Grove, J. M., Pickett, S. T. A. and Redman, C. L., 2000. Integrated approaches to long-term studies
of urban ecological systems. Bioscience, 50(7): 571-584.
Jackson, K., 1985. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. Oxford University Press, New
York.
Mumford, L., 1968. A Brief History of Urban Frustration, The Urban Prospect. Harcourt Brace, New York.
Redman, C. L., Grove, J. M. and Kuby, L. H., 2004. Integrating social science into the long-term ecological
research (LTER) network: Social dimensions of ecological change and ecological dimensions of social change.
Ecosystems, 7(2): 161-171.
Rodrik, D., 1997. Has Globalization gone too far? International Institute for Economics, Washington D.C.
Sachs, J., 2005. The end of poverty: economic possibilities for our time. Penguin Publishers, New York.

Squires, G. (Editor), 2002. Urban Sprawl: Causes, consequences, and policy responses. The Urban Institute Press,
Washington D.C.
Vitousek, P. M., Mooney, H. A., Lubchenco, J. and Melillo, J. M., 1997. Human domination of Earth’s ecosystems.
Science, 277(5325): 494-499.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1: SUSTAINABILITY AMID GLOBALIZATION
1. What responsibility does society in developed countries such as the United States have toward poorer countries?
More broadly, where do we draw the geographic boundaries of social responsibility? Should the concept of the
free flow of goods and capital contained in neoliberalism be extended to the free flow of people? What are the
social costs and benefits of restricting immigration?
2. Which social groups are more likely to vote than others? What factors account for the wide gap in voting rates
between older and younger members of society? What are the social repercussions of some members of society
being more engaged in the political process than others?
3. What are people’s attitudes toward air pollution and their role in causing it? How does society justify the fact
that some social groups (children and the elderly) are more vulnerable to respiratory problems caused by vehicle
emissions?
4. What image do you have of the suburbs? Why do you think that most Americans choose to live there? What
factors do you think would influence people to move from the suburbs to a downtown setting?
5. What social factors do you think influence whether or not people will use light rail as opposed to driving their
cars? Why do people drive SUVs instead of more fuel efficient vehicles? Can you suggest any policies at the
federal level to encourage the development of alternative fuel vehicles? What would encourage society to
support these policies?
6. How much water do you use on a daily basis? Where does your water supply come from? Where does bottled
water come from? Do you think access to water is a basic human right?
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2:
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
If told that slavery was still active, that people were being bought and sold into forced labor or sexual servitude; most people
would respond that it was terrible that such things still go on in third world countries. If told that it was happening in the
United States, in your state and most likely in your town; how would you respond? The fact that it is happening anywhere is
unconscionable and that it is happening here is intolerable. This modern day slavery is the second most lucrative criminal
activity following illegal drugs and tied with illegal firearms sales. The “slave trade” accounts for 12 billion dollars a year in
profits for organized crime. Every year, 18 to 20 thousand men, women and children are trafficked into the United States.
Human trafficking is slavery and it is here.
The Problem
Human trafficking is often confused with human smuggling. This misconception at all levels of government, law
enforcement and social service providers results in missed opportunities to rescue the victims of this heinous crime. Simply
put, human smuggling is a crime against the state while human trafficking is a crime against the person. Human smuggling
is the consensual movement of a person, across a border for a fee. Human trafficking is obtaining forced labor or sexual
services from a person using force, fraud or coercion against that person’s will. For purposes of establishing a violation of
the Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, force, fraud or coercion need not be proven if the victim is less than
eighteen years old.
The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that 800,000 plus people enter the United States without documentation every
year. The number of human trafficking victims account for less than three percent of that total. Therefore, it is all too easy
for these victims to go unnoticed.
The data provided by the Human Rights Center indicates that forty-six percent of those trafficked into the United States end
up in the sex industry i.e. prostitution, escort, pornography, etc. Of that number, four percent, or roughly eight hundred
children, are sexually exploited for commercial purposes. Thirty four percent are found in the domestic service field, i.e.
residential or commercial housekeeping and child care. Thirteen percent are in agriculture, with the remainder involved in
food services, sweatshop manufacturing and the entertainment industry. Some of these victims find themselves involved in
multiple trafficking scenarios.
Human Trafficking victims come from Asia, Latin America, Africa and the former Soviet Countries. Many are duped into
leaving their home countries by promises of steady work, a new life and the opportunity to send much needed money to the
family members they left behind. Some of these people pay to be smuggled into the United States. Some of these people sell
themselves into debt bondage with the hope of working off their debt once they arrive in America. However, all of them are
in a vulnerable position and are exploited by the slave traders. Their possessions, freedom, dignity and sense of self are
systematically stripped away. They are ultimately reduced to “units” to be bought, sold, moved or traded at the discretion of
their “owners.”
This dehumanization saps the victims’ will to fight, attempt escape or resist the circumstances forced upon them. The slave
trader will take steps to impose a sense of isolation by not allowing the victims access to local services or the opportunity to
learn the local language to any extent other than what is necessary to conduct business. Outside of clients, the victims will
only be allowed contact with the handlers or other trafficking victims. Any news or entertainment allowed by the traffickers
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learn the local language to any extent other than what is necessary to conduct business. Outside of clients, the victims will
only be allowed contact with the handlers or other trafficking victims. Any news or entertainment allowed by the traffickers
will be in keeping with their ethnic background and designed to reinforce the feeling of isolation.
In many instances the traffickers will lie to the victims; telling them the local police are brutal and corrupt or are working
with the traffickers. The victims will be given cover stories and forced to rehearse those stories to be given to law
enforcement officers or social workers. Any contact with government officials will be handled by the trafficker in the guise
of a friend or sponsor of the trafficking victim.
In most cases, the value of the human livestock is determined by their intended use. Anecdotal information provided by the
Western States Vice Investigators’ Association indicates that a teenage girl in rural Korea can be sold by her family into
servitude for as much as forty thousand dollars depending on her appearance and marketability. This constitutes a debt of
honor and she is obligated to fulfill the terms of the sale in order to maintain her family’s honor.
A common theme in many countries, where crushing poverty is a way of life, is the concept of “honor,” added to the
“barter” economy found in such nations. Maintaining the honor of the family or individual can be a motivating factor of
such enormous power that a person would suffer almost anything to maintain it. This would include serving as a prostitute in
a brothel or massage parlor trying to work off a debt. When coupled with a barter economy or favor-for-favor scenario, the
victim’s perceived obligation is paramount.
The human trafficking market is driven by supply and demand as is any business. The Human Rights Center’s statistics
indicates approximately thirty-five percent of the victims of human trafficking are from Mexico with an additional thirty-six
percent from other Latin American countries. Therefore, due to the relative abundance of Latin American “units,” their
pricing is substantially lower than a “unit” of like age and appearance from the Ukraine or Central Asia. A “unit” from
Mexico or Honduras would cost between five hundred and a thousand dollars for use in the sex industry while a “unit” from
the Ukraine or Thailand could bring upwards of ten thousand dollars for use in the sex industry.
It should be remembered that each “unit” will turn a profit for the buyer of ten to twenty times their original cost. As with
the tangible assets of any business, these “units” can be bought, sold or traded as their use to the business declines. In plain
English, as the sex worker (male, female or child) ages and their desirability diminishes, they are sold off.
The most readily identified venue for human trafficking in an urban setting is the sex industry i.e. prostitution, massage
parlors, escorts, etc. Recent investigations involving “Asian Massage Parlors” have supported the established methods used
by human traffickers and have given insights into additional tactics.
Phoenix, Arizona: A Case Study
An undercover investigation was conducted at a north Phoenix, Arizona massage parlor. One of the licensed massage
therapists offered the undercover detective sexual favors for a fee over and above the cost of the massage. In conjunction
with this undercover investigation, a compliance inspection of the massage business was conducted. While the inspection
team was entering the business, two of the therapists ran out the back door and scaled a ten foot fence topped with razorribbon
in an effort to avoid contact with the police. These two women were found in a neighboring business and were
returned to the massage parlor for interviews.
During the course of the massage inspection, it was obvious that the three women working as massage therapists were living
in the business. Sleeping quarters, bulk food supplies and food preparation areas were found in the business. Additionally,
each of the women appeared to have all of their clothing and personal effects with them in the business. All three were able
to provide valid out-of-state drivers’ licenses. None of the three women were able to either speak, read or write English,
however they claimed United States citizenship. The manager kept all licenses and identification for the three women and
was anxious to translate. All three had the same cover story, all three received their massage training at the same health and
healing institute in China, all three had been at this location for a week and were due to go back to California the following
day.

day.
The one woman that was arrested for the prostitution deal with the undercover officer was booked into jail. She was bonded
out the next morning by the massage business manager. There were no charges on any of the other women and they were
allowed to return to work. A follow-up visit was conducted a week later. The manager and the three massage therapists were
gone. A new manager and three new massage therapists were in place. The new therapists had received their training at the
same health and healing institute in China.
Another undercover investigation was conducted a short time later at a central Phoenix massage parlor. The undercover
detective was offered a sex act following the completion of a thirty minute massage. In exchange for a forty dollar tip, the
massage therapist would masturbate the detective. A compliance inspection was conducted and it was again obvious that the
manager and three massage therapists were living in the business. While checking the identification and massage licenses of
the therapists, the manager called the owner of the business and he arrived while we were interviewing the manager who
was the only English speaker.
After explaining the situation to the owner, he became involved in a very heated argument with the therapist who had made
the prostitution deal. Once again with no probable cause to believe any additional crimes were involved, the massage
therapist that had made the prostitution deal was booked into jail. She was bailed out by the massage parlor owner and was
on the first available plane to Japan and then on to China.
Subsequent investigations into the activities at these massage parlors indicated two different owners with an identical
method for running the business. Both owners claimed they were just a “poor business owner” trying to make an honest
dollar in an industry where prostitution is rampant. As a result of those investigations and the prostitution activity that was
revealed, both business owners’ licenses were revoked. The lack of information that could rise to the level of Probable
Cause, coupled with the language barrier and transient nature of less than willing victims result in a very difficult
investigation. Due to the poor likelihood of a successful court action, the prosecutorial agencies at the Federal, State and
Local level have historically been reluctant to charge the owners.
It is important to note that not all trafficking victims are foreign nationals. United States citizens, who have not been moved
across any state or international borders, are nonetheless trafficking victims by law if the conditions under which they work
meet the necessary criteria. Federal Human Trafficking charges have been successfully brought against domestic traffickers
in several jurisdictions.
The Phoenix Police Department Vice Enforcement Unit is currently involved in four different domestic trafficking
investigations involving seven different traffickers engaged in separate prostitution rings. The victims range in age from
thirteen to twenty-three years old. These victims have been moved from state to state with numerous arrests as adults based
on fraudulent identification given them by the traffickers. These victims have been beaten, flogged with a water-soaked
leather belt, threatened with death or the death of their families.
Some of these victims are willing participants in the prostitution lifestyle but, as a result of their young age, they are legally
defined as trafficking victims. Many victims are either unwilling or unable to fully disclose the extent of their involvement,
for fear of retaliation or misplaced loyalty given to the trafficker. All of these victims have given false or deliberately
misleading information during police interviews. As a result of this issue, the lack of truthfulness will be a challenge when
these cases go to court.
Solutions
2: HUMAN TRAFFICKING
All levels of law enforcement have adopted a more victim centered approach that is more concerned with the rescue of the
victims of human trafficking. The past practice of focus on the victim as a suspected illegal alien is actively discouraged.
Law enforcement has come to grips with the fact that the only way to successfully investigate human trafficking is with the
active participation and assistance of the victim. The victim is now recognized as a key factor in the apprehension and
prosecution of the traffickers; thus preventing the victimization of others.
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prosecution of the traffickers; thus preventing the victimization of others.
With the advent of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act and state laws designed to mirror the federal laws, law
enforcement has been given new tools and partners to deal with the human trafficking industry. The availability of special
visas allowing foreign victims continued presence in the United States providing they assist law enforcement, will be a
deciding factor for many human trafficking victims to assist in prosecuting their traffickers. Policy and procedural changes
within Immigration and Customs Enforcement has given them a more victim-centered approach to investigating instances of
human trafficking.
Federal grants and assistance programs have provided nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with the ability to advocate
for and provide real time aid to trafficking victims. Law enforcement has partnered with these NGOs; enabling victims to be
rescued from their traffickers and immediately provided with safe housing, food, medical attention and psychological
counseling. The victim centered approach has helped federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to better assist each
other with resources and investigative expertise. The availability of T-Visas, U-Visas and Continued Presence Status has
given trafficking victims the opportunity to start the new life they were originally seeking, before falling prey to the
traffickers.
The reality of the human trafficking pandemic is that as more law enforcement efforts are directed at the sale of illegal drugs
and firearms, human trafficking becomes the next available funding option for organized crime. As human trafficking
investigations proceed, the traffickers will develop countermeasures to investigative techniques and will increase the
incentive for victims to refuse to cooperate with law enforcement.
Continued public awareness programs and vigorous enforcement of anti-trafficking laws will help minimize the effect.
Ultimately, the public will choose to either tacitly allow the continuation of human trafficking by using the services of its
victims—those who work in prostitution, slavish domestic service or another form of cheap labor—or, they will choose to
conduct themselves so as to make the trafficking of humans economically unfeasible for organized crime.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Consider your own community. What types of industry does the local economy depend on? What types of
work are human slaves most likely to be forced into, in your area?
2. In addition to partnering with federal agencies and local social service entities, what other specific steps
could law enforcement agencies take, in your view, to rescue and assist trafficking victims?

GRAHAM T. T. MOLITOR
3:
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY:
Rethinking Our Paradigms
Squabbles over genetically modified food and pork-barrel subsidies for farmers are just the tip of the iceberg for policy
makers grappling with increasingly complex agricultural problems.
Rarely do truly giant jumps in the applied sciences occur. When they do, they drastically alter the entire foundation—the
paradigm—on which society and leaders must base their choices for the future. We are at a point in history where
breakthroughs in life sciences are throwing our old paradigms into chaos.
Beginning in the 1940s, the Green Revolution dramatically boosted agricultural productivity and changed the fate and survival
of untold billions of lives. Far surpassing that extraordinary advance in agricultural productivity is the New Green Revolution
based on the surging momentum of biotechnologies enabling humans to control all forms of life, including plants and animals.
Agricultural biotechnologies—agbiotech—will boost productivity increases to the point that food output will sate rapidly
growing population needs worldwide.
By tracking economic development over millions of years, we can see clearly the trend toward doing more with less. Tens of
thousands of complex agricultural pursuits reveal a litany of evolutionary improvements that increase productivity by
enormous measure. Over the millennia, selective breeding, hybridization, and now genetic modification (GM) changed the
cornucopian farmland output. Ancient ears of corn were diminutive, measuring about the size of the little finger. Wild
tomatoes were once the size of a grape. Heads of early wild wheat hefted a mere two rows of kernels, compared with today’s
varieties boasting six rows.
Genetic engineers are on the verge of converting annual (single growing season) plants into perennials, which thrive all year
long, year after year. This development would drastically reduce planting regimens and delays, lower seed costs, and enable
farm operators to cull and concentrate production on plants proven to be the most productive. Biotech already has altered citrus
trees that normally require six years to reach maturity to yield fruit in a single year.
But even these advances will pale before the overwhelming changes that agbiotech promises to deliver. Synthetic citrus, for
instance, would eliminate the need for citrus orchards, freeing thousands of acres of land but at the loss of fragrant orchards of
citrus blossoms. Sterile bioreactors in factories could be directed to produce nothing but the substance that customers want,
without any waste. End products might be engineered to yield only the most useful and valuable component, such as orange
juice sacs that eliminate the need for roots, trunk, branches, leaves, rinds, or seeds.
From The Futurist, September/October 2003, pp. 40-46. Copyright © 2003 by World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont
Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814. Telephone: 301/656-8274; Fax: 301/951-0394; http://www.wfs.org. Used with
permission from the World Future Society.
Foods produced in sterile bioreactors may not be aesthetically appealing, but this scenario is not far removed from current
reality: Witness the giant tankers shipping citrus juices or concentrate for reconstitution and repackaging at destination points.
From the standpoint of actual human consumption, food production will become increasingly far removed from billowing
fields and blossoming orchards.
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fields and blossoming orchards.
The new paradigm—nudged by steadily increasing numbers of people to feed worldwide—must, sooner or later, take account
of these changes.
Agricultural potentials inherent in the biotech revolution are truly extraordinary. Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture John R.
Block asserted in 1999 that agricultural output in developing nations could be boosted by 25% simply by resorting to
agbiotech. Yet that may be an overly conservative estimate: Technological optimists believe that productivity for some
modified crops could be higher by orders of magnitude in the tens of thousands compared with the traditional crops they
replace. Biosynthesized sweeteners, although they may not supplant crop-based ones, possess hundreds to thousands of times
the sweetness. A massive switchover to sweeteners would free up millions of acres and alter millions of jobs worldwide.
Genetically engineered crops will reach a turning point by 2020 when more acres will be devoted to GM crops than to
“natural” commercial crops. By the end of this century, some commentators predict, genetically engineered plants could
account for 100% of all crops. That may be overly optimistic, but over the very long term—certainly long before the year 3000
and perhaps as early as 2300—I anticipate biotech-enhanced agricultural production may be so prodigious that “utopian
plenty” prevails. Providing basic essentials—food foremost among them—will become so much a part of affluent societies that
hardly a second thought will be given to assuring that all people everywhere get enough of the right kinds of foods to sustain
themselves in good health. Government will no longer need to confer special bounties, subsidies, or financial benefit on food
providers at any level of production along the chain to consumers.
A major obstacle to this utopian scenario is the current lack of public acceptance of GM foods. Genetic engineering is unlikely
to gain widespread acceptance worldwide until sometime around 2030 —an awfully long time to wait for the benefits it could
bring. Acceptance could be accelerated by public-policy encouragement, however. Go-slow attitudes toward many new things
waylay their rapid introduction.
188
Farm Workforce Decline
Agribusiness generally includes food, fiber, fisheries, and forestry. These pursuits occupied 90% of the entire U.S.
workforce during Colonial times, but a mere 2%–3% today. That enormous shift in workforce allocation was the result of
innumerable advances, for despite this enormous reduction of labor, U.S. agriculture produces more food with less land. So
prodigious is current productivity that overall output far exceeds domestic needs. Farming no longer is a dominant way of
life in the United States or in other postindustrial countries.
By 2010, a minuscule 1% of workers will be directly engaged in agricultural operations. Despite the small number of
workers, productivity has become so prodigious that as much as 50%–60% of some key U.S. crops are exported.
Measures of the workforce and economic productivity are somewhat arbitrary because they depend on how and what is
counted. True, workers directly engaged as farmers constitute a radically shrunken proportion of overall U.S. employment.
Counts limited to farm workers, however, represent only a fraction of the industry picture. Within the agribusiness sector
overall, downstream workers involved in getting food to consumers are a huge number.
Farm employment in 1960 accounted for 6.3 million jobs, dwarfing all of the combined downstream sectors of
agribusiness. Among downstream activities, food manufacturers dominated, employing 1.8 million workers, followed by
food services (1.7 million), retailers (1.4 million), and wholesalers (0.8 million).
But the dominance of farm operators waned as the chain of goods and services provided beyond the farm gate began to grow
by leaps and bounds. By 1980, grocery retail jobs in the United States surpassed those for manufacturers, and food service
providers (an economic sector comprising leisure, hospitality, recreation, entertainment, and similar undertakings)
employed far more workers than food manufacturers and grocery retailers combined: 4.5 million for food services,
compared with 3.8 million for food manufacturers and grocery retailers. By 2000, this relative dominance of job distribution
became more pronounced, with 8.1 million workers in the hospitality sector (eating and drinking places) compared with 1.8
million growing food on farms, 1.5 million in food manufacturing, and 3.0 million in grocery retailing and wholesaling.

ecame more pronounced, with 8.1 million workers in the hospitality sector (eating and drinking places) compared with 1.8
million growing food on farms, 1.5 million in food manufacturing, and 3.0 million in grocery retailing and wholesaling.
Obviously, jobs have shifted away from and far beyond farm gates.
How Big Is Agribusiness?
Most people think of “agribusiness” as just growing and selling crops, but there is a broader view. Agribusiness embraces a
far greater and more significant part of the U.S. economy than one might expect. Included with the obvious food processing
and manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing, and food services are things like the manufacturing equipment used for food
processing, printing, and so on. There’s also leather products (gloves, luggage, footwear); textiles, fabrics, and furs; and
even household appliances such as refrigerators, stoves, and microwave ovens, all embraced in the economic measures of
agribusiness. Add in related consumer goods such as silverware and cooking utensils; fertilizers and a huge range of
agricultural chemicals; household and office furnishings made from forestry products; upholstery and carpeting made with
natural fibers (jute, cotton, wool, lambskin, furs); alcoholic beverages and tobacco products (and even illegal drugs);
resources such as water and energy supplies for cooking; and garbage collection and recycling activities.
Demography
Trends in Food and Agriculture
• World population is expected to approach 9 billion by mid-century, requiring more food and other resources
generally, but most particularly in developing countries, where the largest population increases are expected.
• Developed countries are expected to experience declining birthrates but also longer life spans, suggesting that
their population growth will also exert rising pressure on food supplies.
• Overconsumption in developed countries has led to obesity. As the lesser-developed countries make economic
gains, people may follow the consumption and lifestyle patterns set by the affluent. For instance, they may eat
more meat, which is more resource-intensive than vegetarian diets.
Economics
• Agriculture has grown increasingly efficient throughout history, as new technologies and techniques enable
higher food production with fewer workers and less land.
• “Agribusiness,” broadly defined to include all related economic activities—from glove making to garbage
collection—represents some 30%-35% of the U.S. GDP.
• Agriculture and food production are big business, but most of the economic activity related to agribusiness
happens far from farms. There are at present about 1.8 million workers growing food on U.S. farms, but more
than 8 million working in eating and drinking establishments.
• Americans spend about half of their food budgets eating away from home.
Environment
3: FOOD AND AGRICULTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Rethinking Our Paradigms
• Less land is now needed to produce the same amount of food, thanks to technological advances. As populations
in urban areas spread out further into the hinterlands, zoning and other land-use policies will need to be
rethought.
• More land could be freed from food production and dedicated to meeting other important needs, such as energy
production. Sugar cane and corn, for example, could be used as feedstocks for fuel.
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production. Sugar cane and corn, for example, could be used as feedstocks for fuel.
• Water is likely to increase in importance as an environmental and political issue. Battles over water rights may
lead to full-fledged wars. Technologies such as genetic modification to improve drought resistance, plus waterconservation
techniques such as drip irrigation, may help alleviate water problems.
Government
• Governments are largely responsible for choosing which economic, research, and development activities to
support, weighing the needs and desires of sometimes competing constituencies. High food prices to support
family farmers may hurt many consumers, for instance. Taxpayers and voters may revolt against any policy
they oppose, such as genetic engineering research, foreign aid, or subsidies on specific crops.
• International trading partners often disagree on regulations (such as the labeling of genetically modified foods),
creating restrictions that can be perceived as unfair and antithetical to free trade.
• Terrorism by groups opposed to agbiotech is a growing threat. Fields of crops have been decimated.
Laboratories have been raided, ransacked, and destroyed. Governments have enhanced activities to detect and
discourage possible terrorist assaults on food supplies.
Society
• Food consumption comprises a major portion of leisure time activities, which will gain importance in an
increasingly leisure-based economy: By 2015, Americans may devote half their lifetimes engaging in leisure
activities.
• Values come into conflict in many food-related areas, such as the consumption of meat: Vegetarians oppose
meat on health, environmental, and moral grounds, and animal-rights activists oppose the killing or
mistreatment of animals destined for food production. Similarly, many people oppose the use of genetically
modified or chemically enhanced foods, creating a demand for organic production, labeling, and compliance.
Technology
• Agricultural biotechnology (agbiotech) promises to boost crop yields without depleting other precious
resources. For example, the useful components of oranges could be grown in bioreactors and eliminate the need
for land-intensive orchards.
• Genetic engineering can enhance the health and safety of foods, such as increasing their shelf life by delaying
decay. Improved sensors and testing devices can also quickly identify pathogens and other food impurities.
• One possible use of biotech that may gain acceptance among those opposed to it for health reasons is as a
substitute for animal testing in food and drug safety research. Quite possibly, geneticists may be able to come
up with alternative testing methods that sidestep the issue altogether.
—Graham T. T. Molitor and FUTURIST staff
The grand total of what could be embraced as “agribusiness” is about 30%-35% of GDP. Agriculture is and will be very big
business. Yet, agriculture and manufacturing, which once constituted dominant shares of jobs and livelihoods, are waning in
relative importance in the Knowledge Age.

elative importance in the Knowledge Age.
Food Services Dominate The Leisure Era
The leisure sector will begin to acquire economic dominance in the United States in 2015, when every American will spend
half of his or her lifetime directly or indirectly engaged in leisure-time pursuits.
By about 2000, American consumers began spending more than 50% of their food budgets away from home. That
proportion will continue to grow. As it does, the question of controlling commodity prices and farm-level cost of foodstuffs
will be nearly totally eclipsed by the host of value-added services required to get food to consumers. New governmental
controls might never go so far as to regulate menu prices to lower costs to consumers. Food policy is likely to focus more on
“food chits” and food stamps, which almost certainly will become a larger and more important component of social welfare
programs. Domestic food assistance programs will continue to be important until the essential economic needs of every
citizen are met.
Life Science Era: Farmland Importance Wanes
The movement toward a biotech-dominated agricultural sector will likely follow several stages. Early forays into agbiotech
emphasized enhancing the agronomic capabilities and potentials of crops, such as the development of herbicide-resistant
crop varieties. Work in this area also focused on protecting crops against the full array of pathogens and predators. The next
stage was to improve quality, such as extending the shelf life, improving taste and texture, increasing sweetness, and so on.
Then came a new rash of GM foods that honed in on adding new attributes to certain dietary staples. Developed nations got
“nutraceuticals,” foods that delivered much higher levels of desired nutrients. Poorer nations focused more on “pharmfoods”
that provided vaccines and other life-enhancing drugs and nutrients. One result of this latest move has been the melding of
farming with drug manufacturing, two business sectors that previously were separate and distinct. Food producers (from
farm gate to final consumption), pharmaceutical companies, and purveyors of natural remedies increasingly occupy much
the same business terrain.
Extending this trend line further yet into the future, we can speculate that the food sector may be shaped increasingly by
developments in materials research as well as automation. In the coming Meta-Materials Age (around 2100-2300), there
will be synthesized foods that are customized to meet the unique food and fiber needs of particular individuals. Food will
not be grown but rather replicated using robotic nanotechnologies that assemble foodstuffs on demand.
Far into the distant future, a New Space Age (around 2500-3000) may see agribusiness drawing its needs from
extraterrestrial materials and resources produced on orbiting space stations or on other planets. Around-the-clock solar
radiation, shorter crop-maturation cycles, and continuous multiple cropping will increase yield potentials at a cost. These
speculations are mentioned here merely to hint at how changing waves of economic activity will sweep across and alter the
character of agriculture as we know it.
Too Much Food?
3: FOOD AND AGRICULTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Rethinking Our Paradigms
American agriculture suffers from a surfeit of riches. The United States achieved “food security” long ago—taking the term
to mean domestic self-sufficiency, not global sufficiency. The nub of the farm problem is no longer income-assurance and
shoring up a weak economic sector. U.S. agriculture is an overachiever, creating a land of cornucopian plenty from fewer
and fewer farm operators.
“If population doubles and more people move up the food ladder, crop output may have to do much more than
merely double.”
U.S. agricultural exports are big business, totaling $55 billion in 2001. A majority of the country’s largest-volume crops are
exported, including wheat, corn, and soybeans. The United States supplies approximately 50% of world corn and soybean
exports. Overall, about 20% of all U.S. agricultural commodities were exported in 1999. If the United States continues
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exported, including wheat, corn, and soybeans. The United States supplies approximately 50% of world corn and soybean
exports. Overall, about 20% of all U.S. agricultural commodities were exported in 1999. If the United States continues
sending huge proportions of its output abroad, export markets must figure prominently in any agricultural paradigm for the
future.
The key question for U.S. policy makers is whether taxpayers should assume this responsibility for sharing agricultural
abundance with the less fortunate, at home and globally. Government handouts will constitute a part of this global income
redistribution effort, but the private sector could also develop commercially viable means to fulfill these humanitarian goals.
If world starvation and hunger are ever to be solved, economic development policies and programs in the less-developed
nations are imperative. Economic wherewithal, not continuing handouts, provide the long range and permanent solutions to
world hunger.
Demographic Issues: Population Growth, Development
Population assumptions exert an enormous influence upon estimates of future food-supply needs. Currently, demographers
assume population growth will level off (zero growth) or even experience negative rates (population declines) in developed
nations. Theoretically, this would relieve the pressure to meet continuously escalating food needs. On the other hand, we
could see dramatic and continuing population growth aided by life-science advances that increase longevity. This would
continue to exert pressure on food supply, some analysts fear. Offsetting the pessimists are cornucopians, the prophets of
plenty, who count on agbiotech to boost food output to previously unimaginable levels.
Another demographic issue to weigh is that increasing affluence tends to encourage diet upgrading—that is, eating more
animal proteins. This choice has economic, environmental, and health implications that all must be considered by policy
makers. Meat production requires high inputs of grain; for example, eight to 20 pounds of grain may be required for every
pound of beef produced. Even one gallon of milk requires 2.8 pounds of grain feed. Growing populations of people gaining
more affluence and demanding these grain-intensive foods will mean a need for ever-higher levels of grain production. If
population doubles and more people move up the food ladder, crop output may have to do much more than merely double.
Resource Issues: Water and Land
As an environmental, nutritional, agricultural, and political issue, water will dominate policy makers’ agendas for decades to
come. Some doomsayers anticipate that full-fledged wars will be fought over water rights in the near future. Tax breaks or
other incentives could encourage water-conserving innovations, such as drip irrigation, as well as R&D for genetic
modification to produce more drought-resistant plants.
Conflicts between sprawling urban areas and their adjacent hinterlands have led to policies such as the creation of
agricultural preserves of various sorts, in which governments purchase land or create zoning arrangements to reduce landdevelopment
density. As highspeed transport systems enable longer commutes, populations will spread out even more
geographically. Land dedicated to farm use will wane. But land-based policy may become an anachronism as technological
advances continue to allow farmers to grow more with less land and labor. Land-use policies—including favorable tax
treatment, subsidized loans, and so on—will become less and less important.
Farming Off the Land: Fisheries and the Blue Revolution
The Blue Revolution of mariculture—farming of marine crops and animals—also must be included in the new policy
paradigm for food and agriculture. Mariculture could become bigger than open-water commercial fisheries by 2020,
according to one forecast. Already, as much as 20% of fish in the United States comes from fish-farming operations.
Biotechnologies hold enormous promise for reversing depletion of world fish stocks, although critics deride genetically
altered species as “Frankenfish.” Recently, breakthroughs in cloning have enabled researchers to replicate fish flesh in
bioreactors. Policy makers need to consider whether supporting such promising but controversial developments is in the

altered species as “Frankenfish.” Recently, breakthroughs in cloning have enabled researchers to replicate fish flesh in
bioreactors. Policy makers need to consider whether supporting such promising but controversial developments is in the
public interest.
Farms without Food
Agricultural advances into nonfood areas include GM corn, wheat, and tree stocks that can be used to create plastics.
Bacterial fermentation of corn stocks produces lactic acid that can be fashioned into biodegradable plastics. Burgeoning
energy demands also may be met by agbiotech. Sugar cane and corn are among the crops that can all be used as feed stocks
for fuels for internal-combustion engines. These efforts, though, have required hefty government subsidies.
Pharmaceutical production could also occupy a significant part of farming operations. Genetic engineering of animals to
create compatible organs for humans (xenotransplantation) will also become common and widely available. Genetically
modified animals have also been transformed into biofactories for producing chemicals, pharmaceuticals, manufactured
goods, energy, and so on. Such developments must be considered in any comprehensive new agricultural paradigm.
Agbiotech ushers in the time when actually vanquishing age-old scourges may become a reality. Bioengineered crops not
only will boost yields, but they will also create new varieties that thrive in hostile environments, survive without irrigation,
resist drought and heat, flourish in brackish/arid soils, withstand frost, tolerate herbicides, boost nutritional content, fend off
viruses, rebuff parasites, minimize fertilizer, reduce pesticide use, cut agri-chemical needs, heft plant stems (enabling crops
to better withstand ravaging weather conditions), tolerate ultraviolet radiation, and diminish energy inputs and land
requirements overall. Benefits bestowed simply will become too great to be ignored or discouraged.
Short-term solutions over the next 10 years will continue to be largely based on humanitarian aid and assistance.
Intermediate solutions of the next 10 to 90 years will be based on technological advances, capital investments aimed at
increasing productivity, lowering food costs, enhancing economic development in lesser-developed areas, and raising
income levels. Long-range solutions—beyond 100 years from now—will come about by cornucopian advances in food
output, including GM crops that endure and thrive in harsh conditions. Perspectives in the very long range—beyond 1,000
years—are utopian: abundant and cheap food for everyone.
Consumers may not take fondly to biotech foods—at least at first. Over time, however, they will become well accepted.
Former President Carter put it aptly: “Responsible biotechnology is not the enemy; starvation is.”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
3: FOOD AND AGRICULTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Rethinking Our Paradigms
1. As you see it, what are the pros and cons of using genetic modification (GM) on crops and animals? List the
advantages and disadvantages you perceive.
2. Why do people object to or resist buying biotech foods? What cultural values or beliefs do GM foods
challenge?
3. What will it take, in your opinion, for social values and public policy to catch up with agricultural
technology? What actions can proponents of ‘agritech’ take to gain public and political approval? What
challenges will they confront in their quest for acceptance?
Graham T. T. Molitor is vice president and legal counsel for the World Future Society and president of Public
Policy Forecasting, 9208 Wooden Bridge Road, Potomac, Maryland 20854. Telephone and fax 1-301-762-5174;
e-mail gttm-olitor@aol.com.
His last article for THE FUTURIST, “Five Forces Transforming Communications,” appeared in September-
October 2001.
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STEVEN R. GRAY
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JUST YOUR AVERAGE SEX OFFENDER
My name is Steve Gray. I’m a psychologist. I’ve been practicing in the state of Arizona for 28 years. I specialize in the
assessment and treatment of sexual offenders and victims of sexual assault. Most of my work has been with child molesters,
some of whom are pedophiles.
You have to be careful when you use a word like pedophile, which refers to a specific, clinical diagnosis. 1 To be diagnosed as
a pedophile, a person who is 16 years old or older has to have had recurring, sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or has to
have engaged in sexual activities with a pre-pubescent child (one who has not yet developed secondary sex characteristics—
pubic hair, etc.) who is at least five years younger than the pedophile him or herself, for a period of at least six months. The
fantasies or urges are usually intense enough that, even if the pedophile has not yet acted on them, (s)he is distressed by them.
One problem when talking about child molesters or pedophiles is that, like any other type of sex offender (rapist, etc.), they
have other paraphilic (sexually deviant) interests as well, which they may also act upon or have acted upon. Exposing oneself
to another person without his/her permission in order to get aroused, “peeping,” and sexually assaulting an adult female are
examples of other types of paraphilias.
Whenever I talk to college classes or other groups of lay people, there are certain questions that always seem to come up: What
causes ‘it’? Can ‘it’ be cured? What is the ‘average’ child molester or pedophile like? How many of ‘them’ are out there? What
can I do to protect my children? Based on my training, experience and research done by myself and colleagues, with data
collected on approximately 40,000 child molesters or pedophiles, here are my best answers to those questions.
The Causes of ‘It’
Child molestation and pedophilia are very complex phenomena. Rather than give you just the explanation du jour, I will tell
you about several hypotheses commonly found in the research literature.
The nature-nurture argument seems to have something to say here. Are people born to be child molesters or pedophiles; do
certain types of environments create sex offenders who target children, or is it both? The answer probably lies somewhere
in-between. In all likelihood, some people are born with the potential to act out sexually with kids. Then with time, the
environment they are raised in either enlivens or discourages that potential.
Genetic expert Steven O. Molden 2 notes, “Despite methodological differences, adoption studies have been very consistent in
supporting the influence of genetic factors on adult antisocial behavior and criminality.” However, Mark Leppert 3 , a
geneticist with a history of suecess in finding genes for colon cancer, epilepsy, etc. emphasizes that “the links between
genetic causes of psychiatric disorders (in this case paraphilias) are not currently established.”
Our environment influences us from birth. Having a mother who drinks to excess (leading to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or
Affect in her child), who is emotionally and/or cognitively dysfunctional, or who has poor relationships with others in her
environment; or any blunt force trauma or serious illness a child may sustain—any of these could set a child up to be
sexually deviant. There is a host of information, both research-based and of an anecdotal nature, to indicate that once born, a
child who does not get adequate nurturing, whose life space contains no one who role-models pro-social behavior, or who is
exposed to traumatic events, is at an increased risk to become a child molester or pedophile during adolescence and
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child who does not get adequate nurturing, whose life space contains no one who role-models pro-social behavior, or who is
exposed to traumatic events, is at an increased risk to become a child molester or pedophile during adolescence and
thereafter.
A number of investigators 4 have demonstrated that poor-quality parent-child relationships, including rejecting and abusive
behavior, render children unable to attach emotionally to others. Because the attachment between child and parent has been
damaged or broken, once the child grows into an adult, (s)he is unable to develop emotionally intimate relationships with
other adults. These are the individuals who may become pedophiles.
The prospect of emotional intimacy with someone his/her own age arouses emotional distress in the burgeoning pedophile—
feelings of anxiety, fear, etc. At the same time, (s)he has matured physically and is interested in sex. Where can (s)he take
that interest, if not to an age peer? Who feels ‘safe’ to get involved with? You got it—children, or other ‘safe’ targets such
as animals, inanimate objects, or remote acts such as peeping. Sex offenders turn to deviant sexual activities as a way to
‘manage’ (in fact, mismanage) the distress they feel at the prospect of a normative relationship.
Sex offenders mistake sex for emotional intimacy. Over time and with an accumulation of experiences, this misconception
becomes ‘hard-wired’ within the offender. Sexual arousal, possibly deviant, becomes a way to avoid dealing with and
resolving his/her emotional issues.
Classical conditioning theory posits that child molesters, including pedophiles, often increase their sexually deviant interests
or preferences by linking—at or around pubescence—their sexual arousal with images of children, then masturbating to
these images. They then develop a sexual attraction to children. 5 However, in studies where men’s erections were measured
in response to stimuli that included prepubertal children and developed persons, only about half of the nonfamilial offenders
and one-fourth of the incest offenders showed sexually deviant interest in children.
Some investigators and clinicians believe alcohol and certain drugs ‘cause’ child molestation. Indeed, many offenders are
under the influence of such disinhibitors when they act out. Drugs and alcohol certainly facilitate sexually abusive behavior,
but the offender’s desire to do such things precedes his/her ingestión of intoxicants. Or, an offender may drink or take drugs
after abusing a child, to manage (mismanage) any guilt or remorse (s)he may feel. Others hypothesize that sex offenders
target children because they are addicted to sex. 6 Neither view enjoys broad-based support within the professional
community.
Some researchers and clinicians believe personality ‘deficiencies’ yield sexual misconduct, including child molestation and
pedophilia. However a host of research studies 7 conducted using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI),
have not revealed any particular personality profiles or deficiencies that can be linked to child molestation or pedophilia.
Empathy deficits are thought by some to contribute to sexual abuse of children. This view presupposes that if you have the
ability to put yourself in a child’s shoes, in particular to imagine how awful it must feel to a child to be molested, you
wouldn’t molest kids because you wouldn’t want to put any child through that. Little evidence exists to support this idea.
Many professionals believe cognitive distortions play a substantial role in sexual misconduct. A variety of constructs and
tests are available to measure distortions in thinking. 8 Offenders do, in fact, distort the reality of what their conduct does to
kids; using rationalizations, minimizations, denials and/or projections of blame onto the kids themselves. Offenders who get
treatment are not nearly as likely to twist, in their minds, the reality of what their victims experience; in particular, that their
victims want to be sexual with them and actually do what they can to make these encounters happen. There is limited
research to support the notion that a reduction in distorted thinking will decrease recidivism. 9
Your Average Sex Offender
Gene Abel, 10 a noted national researcher and psychiatrist, has collected data on over 38,000 sexual offenders to this point.
His data indicate most molesters start molesting at about 12.5 years of age. Nearly 50% of all child molesters procure their
first child victim during their teenage years. Indeed, over half the people who act out sexually in any fashion have their first

His data indicate most molesters start molesting at about 12.5 years of age. Nearly 50% of all child molesters procure their
first child victim during their teenage years. Indeed, over half the people who act out sexually in any fashion have their first
deviant fantasy or impulse before age 18.
Based on the responses of 21,570 sex offenders from North America to the Abel Questionnaire, 11 we can profile the
‘average’ sex offender (offenders of all types, not just child molesters): 96% of all sex offenders are male, 87% are
heterosexual, 69% are married or have been married, 72% are religious, 69% are Caucasian, 40% are college-educated.
About 33% of this population has molested children. Around 20% have engaged in voyeurism (“peeping tom” behavior).
Thirteen percent have exposed their genitals to others without their permission. An additional 10% have publicly
masturbated. Twelve percent have used someone else’s (primarily women’s) undergarments for sexual purposes. Another
10% have engaged in frottage (purposely rubbed their genitals against others in crowded public places for sexual arousal).
As you can see, Abel’s sample indicates the population of sex offenders consists largely of child molesters, many of whom
have other deviant interests as well. Child molesters typically don’t ‘get’ that their desire for kids is inappropriate. They
think it’s just fine. However, they certainly ‘get’ that Society doesn’t think it’s just fine. Consequently, offenders tend to lie
about what they are doing, in order to continue pursuing their sexual interests in children. The pleasant, socially-responsible
persona they present to the public conceals their deviant interests.
How Many of ‘Them’ Are Out There?
Underreporting and other types of data-collection problems make it hard for us to nail down the extent to which offenders
victimize children. Different research samples yield different results. For example, if you were to sample a group of
mental health patients, you would expect to see a higher percentage of them had been victims of sex offenders at some
point in their lives, compared to the percentage you would find amongst a sample of college students from a major
university.
Too, as you can imagine, some people refuse to participate in research studies. Out of all the questionnaires an
investigator sends out, (s)he typically gets back 67%-90% of them. Who are the people who are not responding? Do they
differ significantly from those who do respond, in any way that would be important for us to know about?
Based on the data we do get, somewhere between one-fourth and one-half of the children in our society get sexually
abused. Whatever the exact figure may be, it is clear that many children are victimized and relatively few of these crimes
are reported.
The population of the state of Arizona, about six million people, includes 11,000 registered sex offenders. About 20% of
the criminals incarcerated in the state’s prison system are ‘in’ for a sex offense. A review of the inmates’ histories reveals
that roughly one-third have a sexually violent history. In Maricopa County, Arizona, where two-thirds of Arizona’s
citizens reside, over 1500 sex offenders are out of custody, being supervised on probation.
Community Supervision and Treatment
4: JUST YOUR AVERAGE SEX OFFENDER
Under the auspices of the Bureau of Justice, the Center for Sex Offender Management (C-SOM) developed a model
supervision and treatment program—the containment approach. 12 At present, 20-plus communities across the United States
are participating in this collaborative approach. Each offender’s oversight team is involved—his (most offenders are men; I
intend no insult to women) therapist, probation officer, polygraph examiner and in some cases a victim advocate.
Offenders agree to become involved in such containment programs by being processed through the justice system for their
sex offenses. The Court offers the offender the option of participating in such a program as an alternative to incarceration. In
court, the judge spells out everything the offender is agreeing to submit to via the ‘containment;’ including mandatory
treatment for his sexually deviant behaviors.
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treatment for his sexually deviant behaviors.
To treat sex offenders, most therapists use a cognitive-behavioral approach, known as cognitive behavioral intervention. 13
This treatment model assumes that offenders’ behavior and feelings are driven by mistaken beliefs and thinking errors
(cognitive distortions).
The goal of cognitive behavioral intervention is first, to identify the offender’s invalid beliefs and thinking errors. Once
identified, the therapist confronts the offender about his cognitive distortions; personalizing them to the offender. The
therapist then challenges the offender to replace his distorted thinking patterns with alternative patterns that are more
objective, more rational. To the extent therapy is successful, the offender engages in less abusive behavior; hopefully
eliminating it altogether, and more pro-social behavior.
In an effort to reduce or eliminate backsliding (reoffending), most cognitive behavioral intervention programs contain a
relapse-prevention feature. Relapse prevention planning entails identification of internal, interpersonal and environmental
stimuli that may increase the offender’s risk to relapse, i.e. reoffend. These stimuli, or triggers, include feelings of loneliness
or isolation, emotional difficulties at work, use of pornography, being around young children, etc.
Once the therapist determines what sorts of stimuli are triggers for a particular offender, (s)he encourages him to avoid any
situations, eliminate use of any materials, and/or work to alter any thinking or feelings, which place him at risk to reoffend.
Various support persons are enlisted and trained to help the offender remain abuse-free.
Since offenders usually lie about their thoughts, their own interpersonal dynamics and about the environments in which they
place themselves, assessment and supervision strategies are developed and implemented to help the offender refrain from
relapse. Such strategies include intensive probation supervision, polygraphy and plethysmography; the measurement of an
offender’s sexual arousal (erections) to both deviant and nondeviant stimuli. Tests like the Multiphasic Sex Inventory II
(MSI II) are given to assess an offender’s behavior patterns and strategies he uses to target, engage (establish a relationship
with), groom (make amenable to sexual activity with the offender, through seemingly harmless activity like wrestling,
tickling, etc.) and eventually act out sexually with the victim. Finally, the offender’s mental health status is assessed through
various interview techniques, rating sheets, as well as formal psychological and psychiatric tests.
An August 2005 article in USA Today 14 reported a dramatic drop in sexual assault cases. Cases involving victims age 12-17
decreased 79% between 1993 and 2003. Sex cases generally, involving kids of all ages as victims, dropped 39% during the
same interval. Increased incarceration of offenders, more widespread use of appropriate therapy and medication, economic
improvement during the 1990’s, and heightened public concern were cited as apparent reasons for the decline.
Megan’s Law 15 was named after Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old girl who was lured into a house that the perpetrators—two
sex offenders who had been released from custody—were renting in a New Jersey suburb. These men sexually assaulted and
killed young Megan. The community was outraged that Megan’s parents and others on the block had not been told these
released sex offenders lived in their neighborhood and posed a threat to their children. Since enactment of Megan’s Law,
states must make sure all sex offenders register with their local law enforcement agencies. In Arizona this includes an
internet site that details the sex offender’s history, location and for the more serious offenders, a photograph. There is a
movement to have states’ internet sites nationalized.
How Can I Protect My Kids?
The best way to protect your children is to never leave them alone with a male. Male abusers outnumber female abusers
by over 20:1. By having only females (without a male cohort) supervise your children, you can reduce your child’s risk of
being sexually abused by 95%.
The second best way to protect your children is to be involved with them. Never allow your child to go on overnight
activities unsupervised by yourself. While it is an excellent idea to have your kids engaged in a number of activities, do
not simply send them to those activities. Go with them. At the least, and without being domineering or abusive, be an
active observer while your child is participating in the activities. Better yet, be actively involved in your child’s activities

not simply send them to those activities. Go with them. At the least, and without being domineering or abusive, be an
active observer while your child is participating in the activities. Better yet, be actively involved in your child’s activities
as a coach, referee or mentor.
These days, it is also essential to monitor your child’s use of information technology—computers (especially the internet),
phones, instant messaging and so on. Child predators’ use of these media to target, engage, groom and sexually assault
children has increased dramatically in the last decade. If you are not comfortable in the realm of information technology
you can hire someone, who does have the necessary expertise, to create supervision strategies for you.
In short, by never leaving your kids alone with a male, actively involving yourself in their activities and overseeing their
use of information technology, you can go a long way toward making sure your children are safe from predators.
ENDNOTES
1 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, Text Revision.
2 Jeffrey R. Botkin, William M. McMahon and Leslie Pickering Francis; Genetics and Criminality, American
Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., 2002, p. 130.
3 Ibid., p.95.
4 William R. Marshall, Dana Anderson and Yolanda Fernandez, Cognitive Behavioural Treatment of Sex Offenders,
New York: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 1999, pp. 36-98.
5 D. Richard Laws, William O’Donohue (eds.), Sexual Deviance Theory, Assessment and Treatment. The Guilford
Press, 1997, p.159
6 P Carnes, The Sexual Addiction, Comp Care, 1983.
7 W. L. Marshall, and G. C. Hall, “The Value of the MMPI in Deciding Forensic Issues in Accused Sex Offenders,”
Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 9 (1995), pp. 205-219.
8 H.R. Nichols and llene Molinder; Multiphasic Sex Inventory II. Nichols and Molender Assessments, 437 Bowes
Drive, Tacoma, WA 98466-7047, p. 26.
9 D. Richard Laws, William O’Donohue (eds.), Sexual Deviance Theory, Assessment and Treatment. The Guilford
Press, 1997, p.164.
10 Gene Abel, M. D.; President, Abel Screening, Inc., Atlanta, GA (1-800-806-ABEL).
11 Abel Questionnaire for Men; Copyright 1995 by Gene G. Abel, M.D., all rights reserved; distributed exclusively by
Abel Screening, Inc., Atlanta, GA.
12 Kim English, “The Containment Approach: An Aggressive Strategy for the Community Management of Adult Sex
Offenders;” Psychology, Public Policy and Law, published by the American Psychological Association, Inc.,
Washington, D.C., Vol.4, issue 1/2, pp. 218-235.
13 William Marshall, Dana Anderson and Yolanda Fernandez, Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Sex Offenders,
Chichester, England: Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 1999.
14 Wendy Koch, “Despite High-Profile Cases, Sex-Offense Crimes Decline,” USA Today, August 24, 2005.
15 Bruce Winick and John Q. Lafond, “Protecting Society from Sexually Dangerous Offenders: Justice Law and
Therapy;” American Psychological Association, 2002; pp. 85-86.
4: JUST YOUR AVERAGE SEX OFFENDER
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. With regard to the nature-nurture controversy, which do you believe bears the greater responsibility for an
individual’s development into a child molester-nature (genetics) or nurture (socialization)? And in the case of
rapists whose victims are adults (age peers)? Where the victims are significantly older than the offender (e.g.
senior citizens)? In each case, relate the basis of your opinion.
2. The author describes a strategy for managing sex offenders in the community, which includes therapy sessions
and probation supervision. What sort of community supervision program for sex offenders exists in your area?
(Phoning or checking the website of the probation department in your area should give you this information.) In
your opinion, what specific rules, regulations or restrictions should sex offenders who are out of custody be
required to abide by?

Accounts
Glossary
Socially approved vocabularies of motive, used to neutralize the badness in, or harm resulting from, a deviant act.
Achieved status
A social position you acquire through your own efforts.
Agents of Socialization
Individuals, groups, organizations and other entities (e.g., the media), which contribute to your socialization over the
course of your life.
Agribusiness
The food, fiber, fish, and forestry industries (“the four F’s”); plus the industries that produce the materials needed to
operate the four F’s, plus the industries that produce goods made from the products of the four F’s.
Aligning actions
Verbalizations and/or actions on the part of a rule violator, in an effort to normalize rulebreaking activity; i.e. bring it
into alignment with cultural norms.
Anomie
Normlessness; the apparent absence of rules for guiding conduct.
Anticipatory socialization
Learning how to perform a role that goes with a status you do not yet have, but expect to have or aspire to have in the
future.
Ascribed status
A status assigned to you from the moment of your birth, e.g., gender.
Authority
Power, the use of which is legitimated by those over whom it is exercised.
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Behavior description
Identification of a specific behavior that annoys you, in simple and concrete terms.
Belief
An agreement between members of a society about the existence and makeup of some feature of their shared
experience.
Bureaucracy
The ideal type created by Max Weber to describe today’s formal organizations. A bureaucracy is characterized by its
clear-cut division of labor, hierarchy of authority, formalized rules and regulations, impersonal orientation to
conducting business, and its policy of hiring and promoting individuals based on their qualifications rather than their
personal connections.
Capitalization
Enhancement of a friend’s enjoyment of his/her own successes or good fortune by expressing genuine happiness for
your friend.
Charismatic authority
Authority held by an individual on the basis of his/her personal magnetism, or the perception on the part of his/her
followers that (s)he has extraordinary powers.
Collective behavior
The relatively transitory and disorganized actions of a group of people in response to a specialized set of
circumstances, which produce among them a common sentiment and appear to call for a particular type of response.
Concurrent worker
A person who works in two fields at once; e.g., someone who works as a computer programmer by day and a musician
by night.
Contingent worker
An individual who works for an organization in other than a full-time, permanent capacity; e.g., someone who
“temps,” works part-time, shares a job with another employee or does contract work.

Conflict perspective
The macro-sociological perspective based on the idea that societies change and more specifically, progress, through
the inevitable and ongoing conflict and competition between groups for valued resources.
Conflict hypothesis
The sociological hunch that stereotypes and prejudices will break down once two parties, who are prejudiced against
each other’s “kind,” are required by circumstances to interact one-on-one, over time, in a cooperative fashion. By
getting to know each other as individuals, they find it impossible to hold onto the stereotypes they have had of, and
prejudices they have felt toward, each other.
Core employee
A full-time, permanent employee of an organization.
Counterculture
A group of persons within the general culture who reject the norms, values, etc. of the majority and replace them with
a set of their own making; e.g., the Hippies of the 1960’s.
Couple style
A set of patterns of interaction a couple engages in, based on each partner’s personality; the norms, values, beliefs and
attitudes each adheres to, plus external factors such as the influence of family and friends.
Crime
Conduct that has been made illegal by the government.
Cross-complaining
Failing to acknowledge your partner’s concerns—rather than expressing interest in what is bothering your partner
about your own behavior, you respond with a complaint about his/her behavior.
Culture
The stock of knowledge a person must have and regularly use in a society, in order to get through daily life without
attracting unwanted forms of attention such as public ridicule or police contact.
Glossary
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Culture shock
The emotional distress, discomfort and/or sense of isolation you feel, upon finding yourself in a culture that is so
different from your own, you do not know what the rules are or how to act. You feel you stick out like a sore thumb.
Debt bondage
Enslavement of one person to another, on the basis of a debt owed to the slave owner, who has “purchased” the slave
from his or her impoverished family, for a sum of money which the family desperately needs. The enslaved person is
forced to work in an unsavory and/or arduous occupation such as prostitution or farm labor, on the pretext of repaying
the debt. However, because the owner charges the slave for the necessities of life (food, etc.) which (s)he provides, the
slave never “nets” enough of a sum to buy back his/her freedom.
Deviance
Any significant departure from what is considered “normal” or normative.
Disamenities
Objects, (human) activities or (mechanical) processes, the existence or operation of which diminishes the quality of
life of those who must work or reside in their vicinity.
Discrimination
Treating someone unfairly or in general, badly, based on the individual’s membership in a group against which you
have a prejudice.
Division of labor
A system of interrelated but distinctive positions within a group or organization, wherein each position carries a
unique set of role requirements.
Drifting off-beam
Wandering from topic to topic during a discussion of relationship issues with your partner, without spending enough
time on any one of the problems to resolve it.
Esprit de corps
Group solidarity; a feeling of cohesion among group members, who are united around a common purpose.

Excuse
(To avoid consequences for rule breaking) Admitting you carried out the mechanics of some rule-breaking act, while
denying you intended the result that precipitated from your act.
Formal norm
An official, written-down, publicized standard of conduct for all of a group’s members to abide by. The fact of its
formalization suggests the conduct the norm pertains to is important and that violating the norm could yield serious
consequences.
Formalization
An organization’s creation of official, written-down policies and procedures to govern its operations. Formalization
entails the creation of a mission statement, hierarchy of authority and a division of labor, wherein the qualifications,
duties and privileges are specified for each position.
Formal structure
The official, written-down description of an organization’s mission statement, hierarchy of authority, division of labor,
the specific qualifications, duties and privileges pertaining to each position, and the general policies and procedures
which govern the overall operation.
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Four ways of speaking to and acting toward your partner which, to the extent they are present in a relationship, are
likely to cause a breakup or divorce: criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. A fifth “horseman”—
belligerence—has recently been added to the original four.
Friendship budget
Your assessment of how many new friendships you can handle, based on the demands already placed on you by
existing friendships, family and work.
Friends with benefits
Good friends who have a sexual relationship without romantic feelings, exclusivity or expectations of commitment.
Functionalism
The macro sociological perspective that conceives of society as an integrated whole, wherein the various social
institutions have unique yet complimentary roles to play; thus contributing to the well-being of the system as a whole.
Glossary
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Genome
A genetic “recipe” for development of a certain human behavior.
Globalization
The increased movement of goods, services, people, information and ideas across national borders and around the
world.
Hierarchy of authority
A configuration of positions within an organization, located at various levels from ground to top; where the positions
at each level carry more authority than those at the level below them, but less authority than the positions at the next
level up from them.
Hooking up
Meeting up with someone for sexual activity—anything from kissing to intercourse—without expectations of a
continuing relationship.
Hox genes
A small group of genes that set up the body plan; how the body will be physically formed.
Human relations
The approach to managing employees that suggests workers are more productive when they are treated fairly, decently
and democratically by their superiors.
Human smuggling
The consensual movement of a person across a national border for a fee.
Human trafficking
The purchase and sale of human beings as if they were property; in order to obtain a profit from the labor (including
sexual services) they are forced to perform, accomplished through the use of physical force, deception or emotional
coercion (threatening to harm family members, etc.).
Ideal type
A prototype; the idealized conception of a specific social position, an element of a social position (e.g., authority), a
specific role-player or a configuration of various positions and role players (e.g., bureaucracy).

Impression management
Selecting and presenting some parts of yourself (a certain appearance, demeanor, mood, opinions, etc.) to other
people, while keeping other aspects of yourself hidden, in order to convince your audience you are a certain kind of
person.
Informal norm
An unofficial yet well-known-about standard of conduct for all of a group’s members to abide by. The fact it remains
unofficial suggests the behavior the norm pertains to is relatively inconsequential; thus violating the norm will yield
relatively minor consequences.
Informal structure
Within an organization, any channels of communication and operating procedures that are based on special
competencies, friendship or other informal alliances, rather than on official policy.
Interactionist perspective
The micro sociological perspective, for which the unit of analysis is the situation; in particular, any of the routine
social situations that make up daily life in society. Within the situation, the focus is on the verbal and nonverbal forms
of communication via which people give meaning and a sense of orderliness to their activities and experiences.
Interest group
An aggregate of persons who act in a coordinated, cooperative fashion, based on the common goal of having an
impact on some socio-political issue, concerning which decisions are to be made, or the goal of securing control of
valued resources such as power, influence or material resources.
I-statement
An utterance that begins with “I,” then goes on to describe your exact emotions.
Justification
(To avoid consequences for rule breaking) Admitting to breaking the rules and intending the results you obtained,
while claiming you had to contend with special circumstances at the time, which legitimated the act in that instance.
Kitchen-sinking
Reciting to your partner a litany of grievances against him or her, rather than limiting yourself to a description of the
specific utterance or action that is bothering you at that moment.
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Language
The totality of verbal and nonverbal forms of communication a (subset of a) society’s members share and use, in order
to exchange ideas and information with each other.
Macro sociology
The study of people in relation to each other, where the unit of analysis is an entire social system.
Master status
A status held by an individual, which is held to be so significant that others perceive the individual only in terms of
that status, while ignoring everything that makes him/her an individual—all the other statuses (s)he may have, his or
her “personality” and his/her assorted positive and negative qualities, etc.
McDonaldization
The constitution or reconstitution of an organization or an entire society, based on the maxims of efficiency,
predictability, calculability, control and substitution of non-human technology for human judgment and labor.
Mere exposure effect
An increase in liking for another person that stems from simply being around him or her regularly over time.
Micro sociology
The study of people in relation to each other, where the unit of analysis is the situation.
Mind-reading
Making the assumption that you understand your partner’s thoughts, feelings and/or opinions without asking your
partner about them, to verify your perceptions.
Monocrop culture
A culture, the economic survival of which depends on the proceeds from production and marketing of a single
agricultural product.
New urbanism
A development plan to accommodate explosive urban growth in which density is increased by building up (rather than
out, which would create further urban sprawl) and clustering a mixture of jobs, housing, shopping, schools, child care
and entertainment, etc. around a light-rail transportation system.

Nonverbal communication
The set of all facial expressions, gestures and mannerisms, body language, use of personal space, voice intonation and
pitch, via which people communicate meaning without using words.
Norm
A rule about how to act, with the word act referring to both words and actions.
Nulla poena sine lege—
“No punishment without law.”
Outlanders
Unemployed persons, who live in areas containing dying towns and/or industries, especially in rural America, the
South, Appalachia and other impoverished areas.
Outsiders
A special kind of person as perceived by those around him or her; specifically, a person who cannot be trusted to live
by the rules agreed upon by the group.
Paper water
Legislation and judicial rulings which provide water to a designated region.
Pedophile
A person who is at least 16 years old, who has had recurring, sexually-arousing fantasies, urges or activities for at least
six months with a pre-pubescent child who is at least five years younger than him or herself.
Perception-checking
Assessing the accuracy of your perception of your partner’s thoughts and/or feelings by asking him/her outright for
clarification. This is the opposite of “mind-reading.”
Power
The ability to impose your will on others despite their efforts to resist.
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Prejudice
An unfavorable assessment of attitude toward someone, due to his/her membership within a stereotyped group.
Proximity
Ease of access to interaction with another person, based on either geographic nearness or accessibility via the web.
Rational-legal authority
Authority held by a person by virtue of his/her occupancy of a certain social position. The authority is vested in the
position, not in the individual who occupies it.
Responsiveness
The degree to which one person displays interest in what is going on with another person.
Rewards of interaction
The validation of your views that you receive by interacting with someone who holds the same views on matters of
mutual interest.
Riccardian specialization
Specialization, by developing countries, in producing the products they are strongest in (best at producing) in order to
compete in the global marketplace.
Role
The set of expectations that goes with occupancy of a social position. Expectations pertain to the duties to be
performed, the mindset the occupant is to have (in particular, a willingness to carry out the expectations) and the
privileges (e.g., a certain measure of prestige and/or authority) to be received, in return for performing the duties.
Role conflict
Interference with your ability to perform one of your roles, which stems specifically from playing another of your
roles.
Role exit
The relinquishing of a social position.

Role strain
Emotional discomfort you feel in performing one of your roles, because of what that role requires you to do.
Scientific management
The approach to managing employees wherein employees are viewed as interchangeable parts—as automatons who
exist to serve the corporate machine—not as human beings with feelings and needs. Under such management,
employees have no say in the decisions that are made regarding them. They must perform up to a certain standard or
be replaced.
Social inequality
Inequality of access to valued goods and services, and/or inequality of opportunity to attain certain desirable social
statuses.
Social institution
A network of persons whose coordinated, interdependent actions accomplish one or more essential tasks for society’s
members.
Social movement
A relatively stable, organized group of persons who act collectively and over time; working toward a common goal,
which often is to promote or bring about some form of social change.
Social penetration theory
The theory that self-disclosure between two people increases as their friendship develops and as they feel increasingly
closer to one another.
Social power
The magnetic-pull effect a certain individual has on others, which causes those others to orient themselves to the
powerful person—significantly weigh his/her opinions, be inclined to acquiesce to his/her “requests,” etc.
Social problem
A system-wide problem, which affects one or more major social institutions and thus affects all members of the
society directly or indirectly.
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Social structure
The appearance of orderliness in everyday life, created by a majority of persons, at any given moment, acting as if
they bought into preconstructed notions of how certain situations are defined, and of how to act within those
situations.
Socialization
Transmission, from established members of a culture to newcomers, of the stock of knowledge any member needs to
have and use in order to accomplish daily life in the society and “fit in” with the group.
Society
The aggregate of persons who live within a specific, demarcated territory and share at least the basic elements of a
single, general culture.
Status
A specifically defined social position, to which a greater or lesser amount of prestige is attached.
Stereotype
An invalid generalization about the ‘kind’ of person someone is, based on his/her membership within a certain group
or his/her possession of a specific attribute, characteristic or material resource; while ignoring the unique set of
characteristics that make him/her an individual.
Stonewalling
Reacting to problems in your relationship by clamming up and emotionally withdrawing; giving your partner the
“silent treatment.”
Stratification
The categorization and rank-ordering of people according to the amount of some valued personal attribute, social
status or material resource each has, relative to others in the society.
Subculture
A subset of the society’s members, who are organized around an activity or set of activities in which they have a
higher level of interest than does the average citizen. A subculture’s members adhere to the norms and values of the
general culture, but at the same time utilize a more specialized set of norms and values, which applies to their groupspecific
activities.

Sustainability, sustainable development
Using land in a way that meets the needs of present generations without compromising future generations’ ability to
meet their needs.
Techniques of neutralization
Strategies for preventing your completed or prospective conduct from being defined as some type of norm violation.
Traditional authority
Authority that is passed down from one generation to the next on the basis of bloodlines and/or long-standing social
customs.
Three pillars of sustainability
Society, economics and the environment.
Units
Victims of trafficking, aka property or cattle.
Value
A prospective course of action (e.g., “getting a good education”) or an element of the way you treat other people (e.g.,
“honesty”), which members of a culture have generally assessed as good, right, appropriate and/or moral.
Working poor
Low-wage workers, who typically receive no employee benefits or work-schedule flexibility, whose duties are
emotionally degrading and/or physically dangerous.
X-Y-Z statement
A statement that specifies how you feel when your friend or partner acts a certain way: “When you do X in situation
Y, I feel Z.”
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