Research on the importance of values often focuses primarily on one domain of social predictors (e.g., economic) or limits its scope to a single dimension of values. We conduct a simultaneous analysis of a wide range of theoretically important social influences and a more complete range of individuals' value orientations, focusing both on value…

The relative numbers of women and men are changing dramatically in China, but the consequences of these imbalanced sex ratios have received little empirical attention. We merge data from the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey with community-level data from Chinese censuses to examine the relationship between cohort- and community-specific sex…

We provide a test of the thesis that Protestantism influenced the development of modern capitalism by using quantitative data from 1500 through 1870. Results show that during this period the percentage of a country's population that is Protestant is unrelated to both its level of per capita GDP and the average rate of its annual growth in per…

We predict effects of behavior patterns and status on performance expectations and group inequality using an integrated theory developed by Fisek, Berger and Norman (1991). We next test those predictions using new experimental techniques we developed to control behavior patterns as independent variables. In a 10-condition experiment, predictions…

A long-standing debate questions whether homemakers or working wives are happier. Drawing on cross-national data for 28 countries, this research uses multi-level models to provide fresh evidence on this controversy. All things considered, homemakers are slightly happier than wives who work fulltime, but they have no advantage over part-time…

This article places the choice to claim welfare benefits in a social context by studying how neighborhood welfare receipt affects welfare receipt among couples in Stockholm, Sweden. It is expected that the propensity to claim welfare should increase with welfare use in the neighborhood, primarily through stigma reduction and increasing…

This article examines how suicides influence suicide risks of others within two interaction domains: the family and the workplace. A distinction is made between dyad-based social-interaction effects and degree-based exposure effects. A unique database including all individuals who ever lived in Stockholm during the 1990s is analyzed. For about 5.6…

Faced with high uncertainty, how do producers in the cultural economy make creative decisions? We present a case study of the fashion modeling industry. Using participant observation, interviews and network analysis of the Spring/Summer 2007 Fashion Week collections, we explain how producers select models for fashion shows. While fashion producers…

This research investigates one process through which deviance becomes legitimate and therefore expected of individuals within a group. On the one hand, the status of an individual initially suggesting deviance affects others' personal beliefs that deviance is proper, and in turn the likelihood that they will enact and transmit deviance to new…

A social problem that has preoccupied sociologists of gender and mental health is the higher rate of depression found among women. Although a number of hypotheses about this health disparity between men and women have been advanced, none consider the importance of subjectively experienced anger. Drawing on theoretical and empirical insights from…

We use the National Violence against Women (and Men) Survey to examine the effects of region and race on the tendency to carry weapons for protection. We find that Southern and Western whites are much more likely than Northern whites to carry guns for self-protection, controlling for their risk of victimization. The difference between Southern and…

Academic careers have traditionally been conceptualized as pipelines, through which young scholars move seamlessly from graduate school to tenure-track positions. This model often fails to capture the experiences of female Ph.D. recipients, who become tenure-track assistant professors at lower rates than do their male counterparts. What do these…

The sociology of knowledge, derived from research on the hard sciences, overlooks the potential for outsiders to determine the content of knowledge within professional disciplines. Using the case of the Sally Hemings affair, I introduce the concept of "knowledge advocacy" to analyze how outside groups shape historical knowledge. The Hemings…

Many Americans exhibit declining religiosity during early adulthood. There is no consensus about why this occurs, though longstanding assumptions suggest the secularizing effects of higher education, normative deviance and life course factors. We evaluate these effects on decreasing frequency of religious practice, diminished importance of…

Recent research suggests that racial residential segregation may be detrimental to health. This study investigates the influence of neighborhood racial isolation on obesity and considers the role of neighborhood disorder as a mediator in this relationship. For the city of Philadelphia, we find that residence in a neighborhood with high black…