The Nature of Social Theory

Table of contents

Motivating employees to give feedback on goals, objectives and operations of the organization. Developing a worker-advising program that provides ideas for motivating the workforce. Developing tutorial and training programs through dialogue, information sharing and feedback. We discuss the nature of social theory throughout this paper. Here, we simply note its foundational assumption that ‘there is potential for mischief when the interests of owners and 1 For example, many of the criticisms of appraisal interviews focus on the perceptual biases that people bring to them.

These include the halo error, the crony effect, the doppelganger effect and the Veblen effect. They are discussed by (Grint, 1993) and (Roberson et al 2007), among many others. We do not suggest that these problems can be explained primarily by the influence of agency theory  those of managers diverge.

In those circumstances managers may be able to extract higher rents than would otherwise be accorded them by owners of the firm’ (Dalton,, 2007). As this paper focuses on two types of employees temporary and Permanent. An employment situation, where an employee is expected to remain in a position for a certain period of time. Temporary employees may have the opportunity to achieve permanent employment status after the time period has lapsed; Temporary workers may also be referred to as seasonal employees or temps. Employment term may be based on the completion of a project, the availability of funding, or other circumstances (Bloch, 1995).

Many of the studies have different perceptions when defining of temporary employees. For example, temporary employees have been called as “flexible staffing employees” (Houseman, 2001), “contingent workers” (Blank, 1998), and “non-standard workers” (Kalleberg et al., 1997). A study by Feldman (1995) defines temporary employees as persons who are hired for a finite period on a needed basis.

Polivka and Nardone (1989: 11) provided more understanding on defining temporary employees: they classified temporary employees as “individuals who do not have an explicit or implicit contract for long-term employment or have one in which the minimum hours of work can different in non-systematic way”. A permanent employee differs from a term or temporary employee, both of which have a pre-determined period of employment (Gallagher, 2002). Permanent employees, regular employees or the directly employed, work for an employer and are paid directly by that employer. Permanent (regular) employees do not have a predetermined end date to employment.

In addition to their wages, they often receive benefits like subsidized health care, paid vacations, holidays, sick time, or contributions to a retirement plan. Permanent employees are often eligible to switch job positions within their companies. (Peck, 2000) Even when employment is “at will”, permanent employees of large companies are generally protected from abrupt job termination by severance policies, like advance notice in case of layoffs, or formal discipline procedures.

They may be eligible to join a union, and may enjoy both social and financial benefits of their employment (Cranford, 2003) Social Exchange Theories According to De Cuyper et al. (2008), there is no available theoretical framework to check the effects of short term employment. ON the other side, general psychological theories offer a good starting point for the analyses, although these have mostly been developed against the scenery of the permanent employment relationship.

These can be divided in two main groups: work stress models, and social comparison or social exchange theories. The social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) is the idea that there is a drive within individuals to look to outside images in order to evaluate their own opinions and abilities. These images may be a reference to physical reality or in comparison to other people. People look to the images portrayed by others to be obtainable and realistic, and subsequently, make comparisons among themselves, others and the idealized images. In his initial theory, Festinger hypothesized several things. He indicated that humans are compelled to appraise themselves by probing their opinions and abilities in assessment of others.

He further said that the inclination to evaluate oneself with some other specific other person decreases as the differentiation between his opinion or ability and the other’s own become more deviating. He also hypothesized that there was an upward drive towards achieving greater abilities, but that there are non-social restraints which make it nearly impossible to change them, and that this was largely absent in opinions (Festinger, 1954).

The individuals who are similar were better in generating accurate evaluations of abilities and opinions.Work stress models helps us to explain the consequences of short term employment by defining specific characteristics that make short term workers more vulnerable to suffer work related stress (see De Cuyper et al., 2008). There are three related variables. First, contractual employees are peripheral to the organization, meaning that they are not the main important concern of the employers regarding different aspects such as benefits, wages, promotion or further training. This thought is advanced in theories such as the Flexible Firm model (Atkinson, 1984, cited in Valverde et al., 2000) and the Dual Labour Market model.

The resulting bad working conditions for the contractual employees can cause a consequence, a decrease in the worker’s welfare and performance appraisal at the workplace (Rousseau & Libuser, 1997). Therefore contractual workers have fewer possibilities for deciding how to perform their work, to use specific skills or to make any other kind of decisions within the workplace (De Witte & Näswall, 2003).

In addition, since contractual employees are new members of the organization, they have to understand processes and aspects of the organization growing another potential source of stress (see De Cuyper et al., 2008). The lack of support from partners, supervisors or even the coworkers (De Witte & Näswall, 2003) can also be a part of stress and strain to wellbeing. The third component is the lack of control that contractual employees experience regarding the demands of the employer (or employers)

Gap Analysis

Built up conceptual model where two impacting components performance appraisal was the independent variable and perceived whereas the dependent variable was organization commitment. They have proposed that relationship of these influencing factors on is researched as empirically/quantitatively. They have utilized case study based approach to create this model. They have proposed that by utilizing the questionnaire on a Lickert Scale, data should be gathered and on the basis of the response from the respondents, results should be analyzed statistically so that the true outcome can be achieved.

Research Gap

Shockingly very little examination has been on performance appraisal politics and organizational commitment A little work is done to characterize connection among organizational commitment and performance appraisal politics but work is done on performance appraisal that incorporate fairness element (Linde, 2015).

In fast changing environment and economy, performance appraisal is very essential component. Our studies can be conducted on other industries in Pakistan to explore the effects of PAP on OC that attract to understand the employment relationship (Arshad, Masood,Amin 2013).

Surprisingly, very a few researches have been done study on how this performance appraisal effects on long term and short term employees. Early studies on performance appraisal were only directed towards the whole employees without focusing on segmentation of both the long and short term employees.

Hypotheses

  • H1 : Performance appraisal politics has insignificant impact on permanent employee’s organizational commitment.
  • H2 : Performance appraisal politics has insignificant impact on contractual employee’s organizational commitment.

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Social Theory

Midterm Exam

Q1: My dorm roommate Angelica is a psychology major and she disagrees with my major on Sociology. Angelica insists that psychology is the real deal for studying people and that sociology is completely clueless subject. I disagree with her on that since I was looking into the different examples of sociology applied to human behavior. I looked into the class textbook, “Introducing Social Theory” in the first section was individualistic theory.

Individualism means an individual’s personal attributes. I started seeing how sociology could describe people based on their personalities reflecting on their actions towards social interactions with others (Jones, Bradbury, and Le Boutillier, 1). I also showed Angelica an example on people having a controlling persona was an example of individualism based on individuals own ways of behavior. I told her, “Not everything is explained in psychology. Sociology gets more into a society realm perspective.”

Q3: Garfinkel was a colleague of Goffman. He was a believer of symbolic interactionism, and wanted to study close proximity behavior amongst people. He wanted to teach students how to use different tactics in order to learn more about the ordinary social atmosphere. In “Introducing Social Theory,” Ethnomethodology was based on the methods people do based on getting a reaction and using that reaction to embark that the action from the person is a true fact. Garfinkel’s brought into gender interaction based on conversations.

For instance, there is a radio station that picks on the second caller for a trivial questionnaire. The caller answers all of the questions correctly and gets a free trip to Disneyland for a weekend getaway; the caller is enthusiastic. The host asks the caller’s name and the response is: Devon. The host gets an idea based on Devon’s tone of voice and believes that Devon is a young woman since her tone of voice is medium pitched.

Ethnomethodology also goes for the experiment on race. For example, I remember watching a YouTube video on a teenage boy that was questioned constantly about what his racial identity was. He said that people cannot understand that he is mixed race. When it comes to ethnomethodology, the aspect of race is an idea that people are assumed the things associated with identity is the real traits of someone based on their culture.

Q5: W.E.B. Du Bois and C. Wright Mills are sociologists that bring in the study of people and the struggles that they face. Du Bois focuses his theory on ethnic struggles amongst African Americans and their impressions amongst living with Caucasians in “Spiritual Strivings”. His main theory involves looking at the social spectrum of society in general and a realm of the treatment of African Americans (Du Bois, 2). C. Wright Mills’ “The Sociological Imagination” goes into depth about people facing personal problems and feeling very down about being stuck in a difficult circumstance and feeling internal conflict (Mills, 3).

Goffman was a symbolic interactionist that believed in the fact that people would act in front of a stage and back stage in order to give off an impression from performing from a script. In his own book, “The Presentation of Self,” Goffman goes into how an individual will go into feeling like making the first impression is difficult based on making a perfect impression once group interaction takes place (Goffman, 12). This also applies with going into social roles in order to understand what the interactions are and the types of conversation taking place.

Du Bois would analyze Goffman by underlining the fact that based on Caucasians are racist amongst African Americans simply for being different and the ideas of what race is that it is nothing but a mere idea of African Americans treated as outcasts. Goffman makes a point about the actor that can make up a believable statement to others while being on stage.

He says, “A cynical individual may delude his audience for what he considers to be their own good, or for the good of the community, etc.” (Goffman, 18). Goffman makes the statement that an actor can cover up a default while performing in order to make a lasting impression. C. Wright Mills makes a demonstration at looking at the biography of an individual to analyze an inflicted social problem.

Q7: My social problem that I chose is the high cost of living in the Bay Area. For Weber, this problem is analyzed based on social class dividing people. In “Class, Status and Social Stratification,” Weber’s point of view on class has to deal with people in a group that share the same struggles and the same views of acquire basic necessities (Weber, 1).

Weber would approach this problem looking at which class could easily pay for the rental costs and analyze that only middle-income people would be moderately struggling while the upper class would have no trouble for paying rent. There would be another approach when it comes to earning money and the actions that people do in order to pay the rent on time. Another approach Weber would do is analyzing the high rental costs based on capitalism.

Since the rental costs are going up, people ask their bosses for a raise in order to keep their jobs without relocating or quit. Capitalism was once seen as a religious duty to preserve money and wealth was subject to be cautious. While wealth was taken seriously, living in poverty was not an excuse because of being a sign of struggle (“The Spirit of Capitalism and The Iron Cage”, 4). Capitalism amongst the Bay Area is all about paying the rent on time and making everyone work overtime in order to stay in their residential area.

Durkheim would take on a different approach where he would make a positivism tactic. He would claim that the rental costs are not the problem, but it is the people that are able to survive without cracking under pressure. Durkheim goes into the fact that there are people that need strategic discipline in order to pay their rent, overlooking the high cost and more on the functions of people (“Suicide”, 3). Durkheim would be mainly about social order and categorizing the statistics of financial restraint versus bankruptcy. These two different approaches contradict Weber and Durkheim on the social problem for high cost rent in the Bay Area.

References

  1. Du Bois, W.E.B. 1903. Pp. 1-12 in The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago, Il: A.C. McClurg and Co.
    Durkheim, Emile. 1897. “Suicide.” Excerpts from pp. 246, 247-249, 250-51, 252-254, 256, and 257-258 in Suicide: A Study in Sociology, edited by G. Simpson, translated by J.A. Spaulding and G. Simpson. New York: Free Press.
  2. Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City: New York. Double Day Action Books.
    Jones, Pip. Liz Bradbury, and Shaun Le Boutillier. 2011. Introducing Social Theory. Cambridge, U.K: Polity Press.
    Mills, Wright, C. 1959. Pp. 5-15 and 130 in The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
  3. Weber, Max. 1902 [1996]. Pp. 17-24, 166-174, and 180-183 in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury Publishing.
  4. Weber, Max. 1909-1920. [1946]. “Class, Status, Party.” Pp. 180-195 in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited and translated by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Travis Hirschi Social Bond Theory

People with diminished capacity to give consent Mentally or physically challenged individuals.  Examples include, but are not limited to: Information relating to an individual’s psychological well being or mental health Information relating to sexual attitudes, preferences, or practices Information relating to the use of alcohol or drugs Information relating to illegal behavior

Information that if released could reasonably place the individual at risk of criminal or civil liability or be damaging to the individual’s financial standing, employability, or reputation Information that would normally be recorded in a patient’s medical record and the disclosure could reasonably lead to discrimination, stigmatization, etc. There are several categories of protected subjects. Children – Subpart D of the federal regulations protecting human subjects, incorporated in Georgetown’s policies, provides additional protections for children.

Research with children as subjects can be exempt in only two instances:  Prisoners – Subpart C to the governing regulations provides additional safeguards for prisoners as research subjects. Essentially, the regulations are designed to discourage the use of prisoners as subjects unless the research will materially affect the lives of prisoners. They are not, in other words, to be used as a captive population. An IRB that reviews a protocol with prisoners as subjects must have a prisoner representative on the committee.

Children are considered to be protected because their youth may make full understanding of the risks and benefits of a study impossible, making them unable to make a truly informed decision. Recognizing that regulations may vary from state to state and country to country, the IRB defines a child as any individual under the age of 18. If a study will occur in an area where different legal definitions exist, the researcher should incorporate this information into the proposal if he or she is seeking a waiver of requirements for this protected population.

If the subjects of a study will be children, the researcher is expected to respect each child as an autonomous being. Consequently, the researcher must secure the assent of each child as well as the consent of the child’s parents / guardians or legal representatives. If a child cannot read, the consent process will need to be adapted to provide the information orally. Documentation of the child’s assent and the consent of parents or guardians must follow the guidelines for informed consent.

Each class of subjects that one might consider to be incompetent, such as young children, should be considered on their own terms. “Respect” requires giving them the opportunity to choose whether to participate to the extent they are able to make a decision. Researchers are not required to obtain a child’s assent if the child is incapable of providing it. Each individual child’s ability to assent must be determined. In other words, researchers cannot assume that all children below a certain age are unable to assent.

Even a very young child may be capable of understanding what is proposed and thus can agree or decline to participate. In rare instances, a child’s assent may not be required if the intervention or procedure is likely to benefit the well-being of the child directly and is available only in the context of the research. This situation occurs most frequently in biomedical research. In determining whether children are capable of assenting, the IRB will take into account the ages, maturity, and psychological state of the children involved.

This judgment may be made for all children to be involved in research under a particular protocol, or for each child, as the IRB deems appropriate. When interacting with children, use language the child can understand and present concepts in a way the child can grasp. Researchers should also take care that the child does not feel pressured by the researcher as an adult (authority figure) or by the child’s parent, guardian, or legal representative—other authority figures.

In studies that involve more than minimal risk, obtain consent from both parents, if possible. (See “Studies with *Children*—More than Minimal Risk. “) For minimal risk studies, consent from one parent is sufficient. Consent from one parent is also permitted if a parent is deceased, unknown, incompetent, or not reasonably available, or if one parent has legal responsibility for the care and custody of the child. In the absence of a parent or parents able to give consent, consent may be given by a child’s legal guardian or legal representative.

Children who are wards of the state or of any agency, institution, or other entity may participate in research only if the study is related to the children’s status as wards, or  will be conducted in schools, camps, hospitals, institutions, or similar settings in which the majority of children involved as subjects are not wards (that is, the fact that an individual subject is a ward is incidental). In these situations, researchers must provide for the appointment of an advocate for each child who is a ward.

The advocate is in addition to the child’s guardian or legal representative, and he or she must have the background and experience necessary to act in the best interests of the child for the duration of the child’s participation in the research. An individual may serve as advocate for more than one child; the advocate may not be associated in any way with the proposed research, the researcher(s), or the child’s guardian organization.

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Term Paper on Social Judgement Theory

TRAITS OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR| A Term Paper on the traits of Consumer Behavior| BY SUSHIL TAMANG | Submitted to: Mr. Rupesh K. Shrestha Facilitator, Consumer Behavior Submitted to: Mr. Rupesh K. Shrestha Facilitator, Consumer Behavior Social judgment theory (SJT) is a persuasion theory proposed by Muzafer Sherif and Carl Hoyland (hoyland & Sherif, 1980). According to Sherif, Social […]

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Psychoanalytic Social Theory of Karen Horney

Karen Horney made innovative contributions to the domain of Psychology. Karen is best known of her theory describing effects on the individual’s personality from his or her culture in a society particularly the childhood experience. Although people can become neurotic at any stage in life, most neurosis begins in childhood experiences. Genuine love and healthy […]

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Social Exchange Theory

Reaction Paper #2 The Social Exchange Theory was very interesting for me to research as I was not familiar with it before this class. I learned about the basic parts of the theory, how it can pertain to marriage and divorce, and how it can help me in parenting. Self-interest is the main focus of this particular theory and can be described as a utilitarian way of thinking. After more research, I learned that utilitarian thinking in family studies is concerned with achieving outcomes that are most valued (White & Klein, 2008). Within this theory, the actors are most concerned with rewards and costs.

Rewards are considered anything that is perceived as beneficial to the person’s interest, and the costs are just the inverse of the rewards. As a past math teacher, this was analytically easy for me to understand, but seemed very selfish to me. To me, someone who based their relationships and choices on this theory did it for their own personal profit and maximization. Even if there are no rewards, the actors will make whatever choices are necessary to minimize the costs (Chibucos & Leite, 2005). I did not fully accept and understand the social exchange theory until I read the additional assigned readings.

One of these articles was written by Susan Sprecher. She completed a longitudinal study on the social exchange theory within dating couples (Chibucos & Leite, 2005). As I examined her findings, I realized that most individuals make choices based on rewards and costs, and I sometimes refer to them as pros and cons of a decision. It did not seem so selfish, but more of a well thought out plan. I also realized that I had made choices as described by the social exchange theory many times in my life, specifically concerning my long-term relationships. I chose to get married in 1990 because the benefits outweighed the costs of marriage.

Yes, I even made a list. The benefits included companionship of the one I loved and trusted, the option to start a family and have children, and begin building lifelong relationship with the person that I had chosen to grown old with. I knew there were going to be costs to a marriage, but as a young adult, I did not realize all of them. The costs, in my mind, included a loss of independence, putting our money together, accountability, and maybe some contention. It seemed to me that my benefits were greater than any costs, and I was willing and excited to make my vows.

As time went on, children began arriving into our home. It seemed that as the stresses of family life increased, so did our marital contention. Somewhere during our fifth year of marriage, I made a list of the benefits and costs, or pros and cons as it seemed at the time, as to whether or not to continue my marriage. The benefits were about the same, but the costs were increasing annually. Finances were very tight, my husband chose to spend a lot of time away from home, anger problems were escalating, and being a mother of two children was hard without help from my husband.

Nonetheless, the benefits seemed to outweigh the costs, because I knew divorce would be more costly. By the eighteenth year of our marriage, my marriage had taken a terrible turn. A private investigator informed me that my husband was living with a 22-year-old and had been for over three months. I had five children, relied solely on my husband’s salary for support, and did not want the identity of being “divorced. ” But I think the devastation of discovering his romantic relationship, the length of his infidelity, and the fact that he made no attempts to resolve matters, made my benefits and costs equation easy to solve.

My benefits were to teach my daughters that this was unacceptable behavior and should never be tolerated and to teach my sons that there are dire consequences to such choices as a husband. I almost felt that my agency had been taken away as I had to choose to divorce my husband. Now three years later, I can examine that divorce equation and see that I made the best choice for my family, and that without even realizing it, I was using the social exchange theory to resolve a great issue in my life.

This theory is more easily seen within large issues to me, what about my everyday parenting? I have watched for the past few weeks how I can help my children within these guidelines. With some careful thought, I helped one of our children decide the best place to sit on the school bus. If he chose one seat, he could sit with more popular kids, but he stood a higher chance of getting in trouble for misconduct. If he chose a less desirable seat, he could stay out of trouble and befriend a new student who recently moved into town, therefore, making a new friend.

With some discussion, he was able to analyze on his own which seat would be more beneficial to him. Another time I was able to use this knowledge within parenting was in helping my daughter with her math teacher. My daughter dislikes math anyway, and sees no longterm reason to learn it. She was assigned a specific teacher at school and was not doing especially well, per her grades. My daughter disliked the teacher stating that she was too strict and assigned too much homework. Her friends told her that she did not need the specific math class to graduate and encouraged her to change classes.

Using the social exchange theory, we not only discussed the importance of math, but how learning to get along with this math teacher could greatly benefit her grades. We encouraged her to talk to her teacher about her difficulties and to request some clarifications about specific concepts. My daughter chose to try it out because during our discussion she could see the benefits, although, she was not completely convinced. She went to her teacher, worked out some differences, and her grades reflect the benefits. I now more fully appreciate the opportunity I have had to research, analyze, and give a presentation on the social exchange theory.

It increased my knowledge and gave me the opportunity to reflect on some past decisions I have made in my life. I can see that this theory is not applicable to all choices, but it is helpful to know that it is an option when dealing with difficult decisions pertaining to relationships. I can see why some would consider it reductionist (Piercy class notes, September 29, 2011). I think I would feel that a therapist was not taking my personal issues seriously if they were reduced to just costs or benefits. With this in mind, a marriage and family therapist might not want to use this framework when working with major relationship issues.

When the social exchange theory was further explained in class, I was able to grasp the thought of being under benefitted and over benefitted in a relationship (Piercy class notes, September 29, 2011). I do not think that any relationship is ever equal, but if we think about how and/or if each person involved benefits, we can help each person better relate to one another. This might be a better way that a therapist could use this theory in a counseling setting. As Dr. Piercy said, “Satisfaction and commitment are more important than equity” (Piercy class notes, September 29, 2011).

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The Social Theory of Du Bois

Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim are widely recognized as the trinity of sociological theory. While these three sociologists were trailblazing social theorists who enhanced the study of human behavior and its relationship to social institutions, other, more contemporary scholars were just as innovative – one of those scholars being W. E. B. Du […]

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