Structural social psychology and the micro-macro problem

Sociological Theory 11 (3):268-290 (1993)
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Abstract

A unique multilevel perspective-structural social psychology-is explicated to help build theoretical bridges between micro and macro levels of analysis in sociology. The perspective portrays actors (human or corporate) as having minimal properties of purposiveness and responsiveness, encounters as interaction episodes between multiple actors, microstructures as local patterns of interaction emerging from and subsequently influencing encounters, and macrostructures as networks of social positions. These levels of analysis are connected via mutually contingent processes. Applying these assumptions, we illustrate the ability of the framework to strengthen the macrosociological import of micro theories of power, status, and justice. We argue that structural social psychology is an important metatheoretical strategy for developing testable connections between individual and collective units of sociological analysis

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Citations of this work

The mechanisms of emergence.R. Keith Sawyer - 2004 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34 (2):260-282.
Emotion and social structures: Towards an interdisciplinary approach.Christian von Scheve & Rolf von Luede - 2005 - Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 35 (3):303–328.
On the limits of sociological theory.John Levi Martin - 2001 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 31 (2):187-223.
Social explanation and computational simulation.R. Keith Sawyer - 2004 - Philosophical Explorations 7 (3):219-231.

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