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"Employing three methods of assessing meaning, this book demonstrates that the thousands of human identities in English coalesce into groups that are recognizable as role sets in the contemporary social institutions of economy, kinship, religion, polity, law, education, medicine, sport, and arts. After establishing a theoretical and a methodological framework for his empirical work, David Heise presents the results obtained when meanings are assessed via dictionary definitions, collocates, and word associations. A close comparison of the results reveals that similar outcomes are obtained through each of these three different approaches of defining meaning. The final chapter summarizes the study, considers the benefits and limitations of studying society via language, and applies the results to describing how individuals operate social institutions via their daily social interactions. Aspects of this book will be of interest to social psychologists, sociologists, and linguists."--Publisher description

"Surveying Cultures explores the traditional and the emerging methods used for surveying cultures. This volume is the first book to deal explicitly with cultural surveys and survey methodology, uniquely combing survey methods, anthropological studies, and psychometric theory. Including a list of highlights in each chapter, this resource introduces a theory of measurement for ethnographic studies that employs the consensus-as-culture model. As one of the first in methodology to accurately collect and decipher data on cultural norms and sentiments, this textbook is essential for students in this field of study"--Provided by publisher.

This book introduces affect control theory to lay readers of sociology, and additionally guides sociology specialists into the theory's deep structure. It is the most comprehensive available introduction to affect control theory, an important and expanding framework in sociology. The book describes in plain language how sociology's best developed cybernetic model can be used to interpret actions and emotions that arise in everyday life.

This essay presents theoretical constructs for characterizing the causal structure of social actions and developing a multi-level theory of action relating to accomplishment of goals via social organizations. Focal concepts include: action schemes, mobilization, internal and external fulfillments, power schemes, macroactions, effective actions, and purposeful actions. Additionally, an overview is provided of a methodological procedure for analyzing narratives in order to specify causal linkages among actions and thereby delineate action schemes. Some possibilities for future developments are noted.