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We present experimental evidence on the effects of status characteristics in problems involving the provision of public goods. According to Status Characteristics Theory (SCT), status differentials affect performance expectations, which in turn affect the power and prestige order in group tasks. Applied to problems of collective action, SCT suggests several intriguing hypotheses (cf. Simpson, Willer, and Ridgeway 2012). Most importantly, the theory proposes that high-status actors show a greater initiative in and also overall contribute more to the provision of public goods than low-status actors. We put this theoretical claim to a strict experimental test, in addition to other hypotheses and conjectures. In our experimental setup, the volunteer’s timing dilemma is used as the group task. Three experimental conditions are implemented, which differ with respect to the way status groups are formed on basis of the type of status characteristic. Our results validate the central hypothesis cited above and also lend support to a conjecture regarding the beneficial effects of heterogeneity in status.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Andreas Tutić: Institute of Sociology, Leipzig University
Email: andreas.tutic@sozio.uni-leipzig.de

Sascha Grehl: Institute of Sociology, Leipzig University
Email: sascha.grehl@uni-leipzig.de

Acknowledgements: Financial support by the German Research Foundation (DFG TU 409/1) and research assistance by Maximilian Lutz are gratefully acknowledged.

Citation: Tutić, Andreas, and Sascha Grehl. 2018. “Status Characteristics and the Provision of Public Goods: Experimental Evidence” Sociological Science 5: 1-20.
Received: October 30, 2017
Accepted: November 24, 2017
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Gabriel Rossman
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a1

Household Complexity and Change among Children in the United States, 1984 to 2010

By Parker Webservices on December 6, 2017 in Articles

Kristin L. Perkins

Sociological Science, December 6, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a29

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Research on family instability typically measures changes in coresident parents, but children also experience changes among other household members. The likelihood of experiencing these changes differs by race and ethnicity, family structure, and cohort. Analyses of the Survey of Income and Program Participation show that the cumulative proportion of children who gain or lose a household member is much higher than the proportion of children whose father or mother leaves the household. The share of children who experience a change in household composition involving a nonparent, nonsibling relative is greater among blacks and Hispanics than among whites and greater among children in single-parent families than in two-parent families. Overall, fewer children in the 1990s and 2000s experienced changes in household composition than in the 1980s. This study advances a broader definition of family instability by including others present in children’s households, better incorporating the changes in developmental environments children experience.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Kristin L. Perkins: Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University
Email: kristin_perkins@harvard.edu

Acknowledgements: I gratefully acknowledge Kathryn Edin, Paula Fomby, Alexandra Killewald, Robert J. Sampson, H. Luke Shaefer, Laura Tach, Bruce Western, and Alix S. Winter for their helpful comments and feedback. J. Bart Stykes generously shared Stata code at the outset of this project and Matthew Arck helped with formatting. Any errors are my own. This research has been supported by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University and a Harvard University grant from the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy. I also benefited from attending a workshop on the use of the SIPP at the University of Michigan as part of the NSF-Census Research Network (NCRN, NSF SES-1131500).

Citation: Perkins, Kristin L. 2017. “Household Complexity and Change among Children in the United States, 1984 to 2010.” Sociological Science 4: 701-724.
Received: September 21, 2017
Accepted: October 26, 2017
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen L. Morgan
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a29

The Persistent and Exceptional Intensity of American Religion: A Response to Recent Research

By Parker Webservices on November 27, 2017 in Articles

Landon Schnabel, Sean Bock

Sociological Science, November 27, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a28

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Recent research argues that the United States is secularizing, that this religious change is consistent with the secularization thesis, and that American religion is not exceptional. But we show that rather than religion fading into irrelevance as the secularization thesis would suggest, intense religion—strong affiliation, very frequent practice, literalism, and evangelicalism—is persistent and, in fact, only moderate religion is on the decline in the United States. We also show that in comparable countries, intense religion is on the decline or already at very low levels. Therefore, the intensity of American religion is actually becoming more exceptional over time. We conclude that intense religion in the United States is persistent and exceptional in ways that do not fit the secularization thesis.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Landon Schnabel: Department of Sociology, Indiana University Bloomington
Email: lpschnab@indiana.edu

Sean Bock: Department of Sociology, Harvard University
Email: seanbock@g.harvard.edu

Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful to Brian Powell and Clem Brooks for exceptional feedback. Direct correspondence to Landon Schnabel, Department of Sociology, Indiana University Bloomington, 744 Ballantine Hall, 1020 E. Kirkwood Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405.

Comment Rejoinder

Citation: Schnabel, Landon, and Sean Bock. 2017. “The Persistent and Exceptional Intensity of American Religion: A Response to Recent Research.” Sociological Science 4: 686-700.
Received: October 19, 2017
Accepted: October 31, 2017
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a28

The White Working Class and Voter Turnout in U.S. Presidential Elections, 2004 to 2016

By Parker Webservices on November 20, 2017 in Articles

Stephen L. Morgan, Jiwon Lee

Sociological Science, November 20, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a27

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Through an analysis of the 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 Current Population Surveys as well as the 2004 through 2016 General Social Surveys, this article investigates class differences and patterns of voter turnout for the last four U.S. presidential elections. After developing some support for the claim that a surge of white, working-class voters emerged in competitive states in 2016, a portrait of class differences on political matters among white, non-Hispanic, eligible voters between 2004 and 2016 is offered to assess the electoral consequences of this surge. These latter results are consistent with the claim that racial prejudice, anti-immigrant sentiment, concerns about economic security, and frustration with government responsiveness may have led many white, working-class voters to support an outsider candidate who campaigned on these themes. However, these same results give no support to the related claim that the white working class changed its positions on these matters in response to the 2016 primary election campaign or in the months just before the general election.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Stephen L. Morgan: Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University
Email: stephen.morgan@jhu.edu

Jiwon Lee: Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University
Email: jiwonlee@jhu.edu

Acknowledgements: We thank the editors for their incisive suggestions for revisions.

Citation: Morgan, Stephen L., and Jiwon Lee. 2017. “The White Working Class and Voter Turnout in U.S. Presidential Elections, 2004 to 2016.” Sociological Science 4: 656-685.
Received: October 2, 2017
Accepted: October 12, 2017
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Delia Baldassarri
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a27

Better Estimates from Binned Income Data: Interpolated CDFs and Mean-Matching

By Parker Webservices on November 15, 2017 in Articles

Paul T. von Hippel, David J. Hunter, McKalie Drown

Sociological Science, November 15, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a26

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Researchers often estimate income statistics from summaries that report the number of incomes in bins such as $0 to 10,000, $10,001 to 20,000, …, $200,000+. Some analysts assign incomes to bin midpoints, but this treats income as discrete. Other analysts fit a continuous parametric distribution, but the distribution may not fit well. We fit nonparametric continuous distributions that reproduce the bin counts perfectly by interpolating the cumulative distribution function (CDF). We also show how both midpoints and interpolated CDFs can be constrained to reproduce the mean of income when it is known. We evaluate the methods in estimating the Gini coefficients of all 3,221 U.S. counties. Fitting parametric distributions is very slow. Fitting interpolated CDFs is much faster and slightly more accurate. Both interpolated CDFs and midpoints give dramatically better estimates if constrained to match a known mean. We have implemented interpolated CDFs in the “binsmooth” package for R. We have implemented the midpoint method in the “rpme” command for Stata. Both implementations can be constrained to match a known mean.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Paul T. von Hippel: Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin
Email: paulvonhippel.utaustin@gmail.com

David J. Hunter: Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Westmont College
Email: dhunter@westmont.edu

McKalie Drown: Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Westmont College
Email: mdrown@westmont.edu

Acknowledgements: Drown is grateful for support from a Tensor Grant of the Mathematical Association of America.

Citation: von Hippel, Paul T., David J. Hunter, and McKalie Drown. 2017. “Better Estimates from Binned Income Data: Interpolated CDFs and Mean-Matching.” Sociological Science 4: 641-655.
Received: September 23, 2017
Accepted: October 8, 2017
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a26

Global Diversity and Local Consensus in Status Beliefs: The Role of Network Clustering and Resistance to Belief Change

By Parker Webservices on November 6, 2017 in Articles

André Grow, Andreas Flache, Rafael P. M. Wittek

Sociological Science, November 6, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a25

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Formal models of status construction theory suggest that beliefs about the relative social worth and competence of members of different social groups can emerge from face-to-face interactions in task-focused groups and eventually become consensual in large populations. We propose two extensions of earlier models. First, we incorporate the microlevel behavioral assumption of status construction theory that people can become resistant to belief change when a belief appears consensual in their local social environment. Second, we integrate the insight that the macro-level social structure of face-to-face interactions in large populations often is a clustered network structure. Computational experiments identify an outcome that was not anticipated by earlier formalizations. The combination of network clustering at the macrolevel and resistance to belief change at the microlevel can constrain the diffusion of status beliefs and generate regional variation in status beliefs. Further experiments identify conditions under which this outcome obtains.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

André Grow: Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven
Email: andre.grow@kuleuven.be

Andreas Flache: Department of Sociology/Interuniversity Centre for Social Science Theory and Methodology, University of Groningen
Email: a.flache@rug.nl

Rafael P. M. Wittek: Department of Sociology/Interuniversity Centre for Social Science Theory and Methodology, University of Groningen
Email: r.p.m.wittek@rug.nl

Acknowledgements: The first author conducted most of his research for this article as a PhD student at the Department of Sociology/Interuniversity Centre for Social Science Theory and Methodology of the University of Groningen. We thank the members of the department, in particular the members of the research group Norms and Networks, for their helpful feedback. Earlier versions of this article have been presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association and the 2013 Conference of the International Network of Analytical Sociologists.

Citation: Grow, André, Andreas Flache, and Rafael P. M. Wittek. 2017. “Global Diversity and Local Consensus in Status Beliefs: The Role of Network Clustering and Resistance to Belief Change.” Sociological Science 4: 611-640.
Received: July 30, 2017
Accepted: September 23, 2017
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Delia Baldassarri
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a25

Faking It Is Hard to Do: Entrepreneurial Norm Enforcement and Suspicions of Deviance

By Parker Webservices on October 25, 2017 in Articles

Minjae Kim, Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan

Sociological Science, October 25, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a24

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Recent research suggests that many norms may be upheld by closet deviants who engage in enforcement so as to hide their deviance. But various empirical accounts indicate that audiences are often quite sensitive to this ulterior motive. Our theory and experimental evidence identify when inferences of ulterior motive are drawn and clarify the implications of such inferences. Our main test pivots on two contextual factors: (1) the extent to which individuals might try to strategically feign commitment and (2) the contrast between “mandated” enforcement, where individuals are asked for their opinions of deviance, and “entrepreneurial” enforcement, where enforcement requires initiative to interrupt the flow of social interaction. When the context is one where individuals might have a strategic motive and enforcement requires entrepreneurial initiative, suspicions are aroused because the enforcers could have remained silent and enjoyed plausible deniability that they had witnessed the deviance or recognized its significance. Given that the mandate for enforcement might be rare, a key implication is that norms might frequently be underenforced.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Minjae Kim: Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email: minjae@mit.edu

Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan: Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email: ewzucker@mit.edu

Acknowledgements: We thank Ari Adut, Hannah Birnbaum, Ronald Burt, Vanessa Conzon, Daniel DellaPosta, Roberto Fernandez, Jae-Kyung Ha, Oliver Hahl, Kate Kellogg, Minkyung Kim, Josh Krieger, Aruna Ranganathan, Dawn Robinson, and Robb Willer; audiences in the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association session on attitudes, norms, and behaviors; and the Economic Sociology Working Group and Behavioral Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management for their helpful comments and feedback. All the usual disclaimers apply.

Citation: Kim, Minjae, and Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan. 2017. “Faking It Is Hard to Do: Entrepreneurial Norm Enforcement and Suspicions of Deviance” Sociological Science 4: 580-610.
Received: July 17, 2017
Accepted: September 13, 2017
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Mario Small
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a24

The Entrepreneur's Network and Firm Performance

By Parker Webservices on October 18, 2017 in Articles

Victor Nee, Lisha Liu, Daniel DellaPosta

Sociological Science, October 18, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a23

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Diverse organizational forms coexist in China’s market economy, adapting and evolving in intensely competitive production markets. We examine the networks of founding chief executive officers of private manufacturing firms in seven cities of the Yangzi River Delta region in China. Through sequence analysis of ties that entrepreneurs relied on for help in the founding and critical events of their businesses, we identify three discrete forms of network governance: traditional kin-based, hybrid nonkin, and rational capitalist. We find that in traditional kin-based network governance, structural holes are linked to higher returns on assets and returns on equity. By contrast, in the rational capitalist form, structural holes and higher firm performance are not linked. We thus show that the content of the tie matters critically in the relationship between structural holes and firm performance.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Victor Nee: Department of Sociology, Cornell University
Email: victor.nee@cornell.edu

Lisha Liu: Department of Sociology, Cornell University
Email: ll733@cornell.edu.com

Daniel DellaPosta: Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State University
Email: djd78@psu.edu

Acknowledgements: Victor Nee gratefully acknowledges grants from the John Templeton Foundation (2005–2010; 2015–2018), research assistant support from the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University, and the Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Foundation (2011–2013). We thank Michael Macy, Anne Tsui, Brett de Bary, Rachel Davis, Mario Molina, Lucas Drouhot, and David Strang for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. Victor Nee received helpful feedback on his presentation of the article at the 2017 Conference of the International Network of Analytical Sociologists in Oslo, Norway, on June 5 and 6 and the Annual Meeting of the Academy of International Business in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from July 3 to 6. Lisha Liu and Daniel DellaPosta share equal responsibility in their contributions.

Citation: Nee, Victor, Lisha Liu, and Daniel DellaPosta. 2017. “The Entrepreneur’s Network and Firm Performance.” Sociological Science 4: 552-579.
Received: July 12, 2017
Accepted: September 5, 2017
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a23

Revisiting Broken Windows: The Role of Neighborhood and Individual Characteristics in Reaction to Disorder Cues

By Parker Webservices on October 11, 2017 in Articles

Beate Volker

Sociological Science, October 11, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a22

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The influential “broken windows” theory proposes that disorder cues in neighborhoods trigger littering and other antisocial behavior. Until now, the theory has been empirically tested only on a small scale and restricted to just one specific area. In this study, I investigated the effect of disorder cues on individual behavior once more, replicating and extending the original field experiments by Keizer, Lindenberg, and Steg (2008 and 2013). The data from 12,528 individuals were collected in 84 field experiments conducted in 33 neighborhoods. The results, based on multilevel techniques for binary data, show that the absolute effect of cues is smaller than originally thought and that neighborhood and individual characteristics moderate cue effects.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Beate Volker: Department of Sociology, University of Amsterdam
Email: b.volker@uva.nl

Acknowledgements: This study greatly benefitted from the seminar of the program group “Institutions, Inequalities, and Life Courses” at the University of Amsterdam; the participants of the symposium “Order in Context” at Utrecht University on March 31, 2016; and from comments by Henk Flap.

Citation: Volker, Beate. 2017. “Revisiting Broken Windows: The Role of Neighborhood and Individual Characteristics in Reaction to Disorder Cues” Sociological Science 4: 528-551.
Received: July 22, 2017
Accepted: August 8, 2017
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Mario Small
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a22

Motherhood, Sex of the Offspring, and Religious Signaling

By Parker Webservices on September 27, 2017 in Articles

Ozan Aksoy

Sociological Science, September 27, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a21

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Using Turkey’s 2013 Demographic and Health Survey, I find that among married women, having a single child as opposed to no children is associated with an approximately five-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of religious veiling. Furthermore, the likelihood of religious veiling increases as the number of a woman’s children increases. Robustness checks show that these associations are rather stable across the Muslim world. In addition, I use the sex of a woman’s first child as a natural experiment and find that in Turkey, having a son versus a daughter increases the likelihood of religious veiling by 2.2 percentage points. In contrast, having a child and the sex of the first child have no significant effects on unobservable religious behaviors, traditional values, and gender norms. These results are consistent with the hypothesis derived from signaling theory that women use veiling strategically to foster family reputation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Ozan Aksoy: Department of Quantitative Social Science, University College London
Email: ozan.aksoy@ucl.ac.uk

Acknowledgements: I thank Aron Szekely, Francesco Billari, Alex Bryson, Diego Gambetta, Bilal Nasim, Nikki Shure, David Voas, and the participants of the University College London Department of Quantitative Social Science seminar for helpful suggestions and comments.