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In-Progress and Forthcoming

  • Dustin S. Stoltz, Marshall A. Taylor, and Omar Lizardo. "Functionaries." [Abstract In conceptualizing institutions, theorists tend to resort to conceptual metaphors of CONTAINERS or SUBSTANCES. We argue these construals are responsible for difficulties analysts encounter in conceptualizing the sources and mechanisms behind institutional change. We propose DISTRIBUTION as a more effective foundational metaphor for institutional analysis. From this perspective, institutions are conceived as non-random dispersals of activity and knowledge across people and not as containers encasing persons or substances endowed with an essence. Most of a population may know how to take interactional advantage of an institution but few know how to keep institutions going and are therefore usually powerless to change them. This means those who do have the requisite operational knowledge and engage in the required upkeep activities, whom we refer to as "functionaries," play pivotal roles in institutional change and reproduction. We revise theories of institutional entrepreneurship around the role of functionaries, and distinguish between two ideal types of institutional change. ] [SocArXiv]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz. "The Duality of Class and Love." [Abstract Social classes are, in part, the intersection of economic and intimate relations. Just as groups and individuals form a duality, social classes and marriages form a duality to the extent marriages are homogamous along class-relevant dimensions; yet analyzing homogamy through the lens of duality is largely under-exploited. Using network, geometric, and text-analytic methods, I explore the intersection of individuals and groups through the social sinews of elite marriage as represented in nearly 14,000 New York Times wedding announcements over fifty years. The technique outlined here allows us to explore fine-grained similarities, moving beyond measuring identical matches or assuming affiliations are independent, to arrive at the latent social structures that emerge from the "homogamy space" created by the dualities of marriage. ] [SocArXiv]

2024

  • Marshall A. Taylor, and Dustin S. Stoltz. "A Workflow for Analyzing Cultural Schemas in Texts." [Abstract Concept class analysis (CoCA) is a method for recovering cultural schemas in texts using a combination of word embedding and community detection models. Like survey-based forms of schematic class analysis (SCA), however, interpreting results can be difficult. Some of these interpretive difficulties are applicable across types of SCA, while others are unique to CoCA. In this paper, we propose a complete workflow for interpreting and analyzing CoCA output. We use the case of social identity schemas in a collection of over 13,000 U.S. political blog posts to outline a number of interpretive and analytical strategies and a robustness check to make sense of the cultural schemas recovered from texts. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv] [Data & Code]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz. "Imaginative Labor and Embodied Cognition: Economic Sociology as a Cognitive Science." [Abstract How do we imagine economic objects, processes, and actions? More importantly, if the future is inherently uncertain what limits the range of possible imaginings such that actors can agree and coordinate? Building on the work of Jens Beckert, I outline an approach to imagination and imaginative labor in economic sociology grounded on the insight that embodied cognition is central to the capacity for exploring possibilities for action and organizing abstract domains. To demonstrate this approach, I use examples from a field whose fictional expectations have a significant impact on the global political-economy: elite professional advisory firms. This is a field in the business of selling imaginative labor, both within the backstage work of recruiting and the frontstage work of selling. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz and Michael L. Wood. "Drawing Out Definitions." [Abstract Defining social scientific concepts can contribute to scholarly advancement in many ways. Definitions, which we define as a description of a word or phrase using terms for which the meaning is well known in the community, can contribute to inclusive discussion by welcoming outsiders, mitigate misunderstandings among insiders, encourage theorists to commit to the (sometimes surprising) entailments of their theories, and provide starting points and new pathways for future research. A necessary feature of definitions is “boundaries” – to define is to bound. But, it is precisely in boundaries that definitions get us into problems: the meanings of words are inherently fuzzy and changing; exceptionless definitions are elusive. We elaborate a process of “definition work” which is inherently “community work.” The process recognizes that meaning is a dynamic and fuzzy community property and uses theory visualizations – specifically, property spaces, schematic networks, and dynamic spanning trees – as definition tools to explore this fuzziness, while also communicating definitions along with their indeterminacy. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz, Marshall A. Taylor, and Jennifer S.K. Dudley. "A Tool Kit for Relation Induction in Text Analysis." [Abstract Distances derived from word embeddings can measure a range of gradational relations---similarity, hierarchy, entailment, and stereotype---and can be used at the document- and author-level in ways that overcome limitations of more traditional dictionary-based methods. We provide a comprehensive introduction to using word embeddings for relation induction, and demonstrate how such techniques can complement dictionary methods as unsupervised, deductive methods. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv] [Data & Code]

2023

  • Travis Ashby, Omar Lizardo, Dustin S. Stoltz, Michael L. Wood "The Raw and the (Over)Cooked: States Are Physical Qualities" [Abstract Researchers have long recognized the role of metaphor in conceptualizing states. We contribute to research on the conceptualization of STATE concepts in two ways. First, we identify a not-yet-recognized metaphor system commonly used to conceptualize states: STATES ARE PHYSICAL QUALITIES. We contend that STATES ARE PHYSICAL QUALITIES is an elaboration of the image-schematic STATES ARE LOCATIONS metaphor, with a higher degree of specificity, affording entailments not supported by STATES ARE LOCATIONS. After introducing the physical qualities metaphor system, we examine the function of STATES ARE PHYSICAL QUALITIES in the social world, finding that when people use it to evaluate objects across many domains. Specifically, there is a significant distinction between two prototypical physical qualities—processed and unprocessed—used to conceptualize socially salient state differences, with “cooking” as the prototypical form of processing. Particularly in the domain of aesthetic evaluation, this is seen in the metaphor AUTHENTIC IS UNPROCESSED. In practical domains such as sports and science, this is seen in the metaphor DEVELOPED IS PROCESSED. In all these cases, the evaluation of people and objects is grounded in the perception of their states, comprehended as physical qualities. ] [DOI] [PDF]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz, Marissa A. Combs, and Marshall A. Taylor. "Corpus Modeling and the Geometries of Text: Meaning Spaces as Metaphor and Method." [Abstract This chapter explores the theoretical implications of spatial metaphors in the field of computational text analysis and inspects how the properties of topologies aid and inhibit our theories of textual meaning. Rather than mining for "ground truth," machine learning algorithms for text, especially word embedding models, provide a selectively simplistic map of the semantic space. The representation of that textual map depends not only on the choice of algorithm, but also on the composition of the corpora used to train them. Along with reviewing the technical aspects of embedding text into space, this chapter surveys the consequences of training algorithms with internal and external objectives. The implications of different types of training corpora are enumerated, with particular attention to ethical considerations. More scholarship, institutional support, and technical infrastructure directed toward the careful building, documenting, and sharing of corpora as well as machine learning models trained on those corpora are recommended. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]
  • Oscar Stuhler, Dustin S. Stoltz, and John Levi Martin. "Meaning and Machines." [Abstract Given the non-sentient nature of current machines, it can be puzzling to attempt to use ideas regarding “meaning” to explicate their results, even when these involve language outputs, often considered the acme of meaning-creation. We propose a formal approach to meaning that treats it as a dyad of a relation of reference, allowing a clear translation to the case of data analysis, and consider the ways that machine learning may be used to help human analysts explore the meanings in some set of data. Building on the two ways that humans learn language (formal and informal), we propose that there are two promising approaches to using machines, a more formal, grammar-based, one, and a more informal, embedding-based, one. Each of these has certain advantages and disadvantages, and we suggest ways that analysts can best make use of developing technologies as opposed to letting their theoretical imagination be hijacked by the path of development of computer science. ] [DOI] [PDF]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz and Michael L. Wood. "Grounding Oughtness: Morality of Coordination, Immorality of Disruption." [Abstract We outline a theory of morality grounded in implicit coordination, in contrast to morality as explicit cooperation. As coordinated practice in time and space is dynamic and ever-changing, memorizing explicit rules and following them may not only be unnecessary but also insufficient to guarantee "moral" behavior. An unskilled novice who knows and follows explicit rules may nonetheless disrupt other practitioners for lack of skill. Instead, a moral person is someone who responds "appropriately" to the continuously evolving situational dynamics. This grounds the sense of oughtness in the smoothness of dynamic, situated practices and thus is the result of skill development and use. The morality of mundane and taken-for-granted acts of ongoing coordination is typically revealed when practices are disrupted. We describe two generic kinds of disruption, (1) procedural and (2) conceptual. The first entails an undesirable interference with or coercion of procedural ability. The second entails witnessing an action that violates one's conceptual understanding of how the practice "ought to be." As a result of the constant ebb and flow of people with varying degrees of enskilment and with varying experiences in slightly different local ecologies, disruptions are bound to occur. People may attempt to cope with disruptions by making personal changes, but these efforts are constrained by the irreversible investment of time involved in enskilment. ] [DOI] [PDF [SocArXiv]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz. "Rising Co-Authorship in Sociology, 1895-2022." [Abstract Over 180,000 articles published in 110 sociology journals over 130 years reveals that co-authoring is increasingly a disciplinary norm in sociological publications. Over 55 percent of all articles published in 2022 were co-authored and only five journals had lower average co-authoring in the last five years than their overall average. The sample includes both U.S. and non-U.S. journals, as well as specialist and generalist journals. The U.S. journals include those published by the American Sociological Association (ASA) as well as various regional and specialty journals. When disaggregating the articles by these subcategories, the trend toward increased co-authoring remains. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv] [Data & Code]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz and Marshall A. Taylor. "How Objects Change Social Fields." [Abstract As field change is often explained by recourse to agentic efforts of a few or revolutionary turbulence of many, this paper provides a complementary explanation of change grounded in the quotidian dynamics of physical objects and settings. Materials are significant for the development and persistence of the passion and shared orientations which constitute social fields. It is through exposure to physical objects and settings that novices develop these capacities, and it is through these materials that veterans continue to feel the presence of the field, even in the absence of others. In this paper we demonstrate how attending to the materiality of objects and settings offers analytical leverage into the ways fields conflict and change. More specifically, we argue field instability is normal because mass and energy are inherently finite. As a result, actors responding to effects from distal fields may nevertheless collide over the objects and settings in which they are compelled to act. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]

2022

  • Dustin S. Stoltz and Marshall A. Taylor. “text2map: R Tools for Text Matrices.” [Abstract This is a collection of libraries and utility functions for computational text analysis for the social sciences. The functions are optimized for working with various kinds of text matrices. Focusing on the text matrix as the primary object – which is represented either as a base R dense matrix or a ‘Matrix’ package sparse matrix – allows for a consistent and intuitive interface that stays close to the underlying mathematical foundation of computational text analysis. In particular, the package includes functions for working with word embeddings, text networks, and document-term matrices. ] [DOI] [PDF] [Data & Code]

  • Erin Metz-McDonnell, Dustin S. Stoltz, and Marshall A. Taylor. "Multiple Market Moralities: Identifying Distinct Patterns in how Consumers Evaluate the Fairness of Price Changes." [Abstract The default position in economic psychology is that consumers evaluate the fairness of firms' pricing strategies based on a widely shared schema of market morality, operationalized by analysing the average response within a respondent pool to a given price-change scenario. Conversely, drawing on economic and cultural sociology, we argue that there are multiple, distinctive schemas that pattern consumers' moral evaluation of market pricing practices. We identify distinctive moral schemas by replicating and reanalysing scenarios from the foundational study of the fairness in pricing field (Kahneman et al., 1986) with a new online survey of American adults. Using correlational class analysis, we find respondents orient to one of four different configurations of moral judgement about price-change fairness: dual-entitlement principles, free-market proponents (and opponents), retail-labour domain specificity and procedural (un)fairness. This research gives analysts new tools for more precisely specifying variation in consumer moral sentiment and raises new questions about the causes, consequences and contours of multiple market moralities. ] [DOI] [PDF]

2021

  • Dustin S. Stoltz and Aaron Z. Pitluck. “Resources in Relational Packages: Social Capital as a Byproduct of Relational Work.” [Abstract Social capital theory offers a compelling explanation as to why people are committed to making resources available to others outside of formal institutions. In this paper, we build on social capital theory to explain how actors overcome two practical problems endemic to these resource transfers. We present Viviana Zelizer’s relational work theory as a complimentary framework which accounts for when an individual may act on commitments to offer resources and which commitments to act upon when they are in conflict. Drawing on our empirical work on almsgiving to social outcasts and resource transfers at mourning ceremonies in Azerbaijan, we describe how people identify and ascribe their relationships to others by relying on available cultural conventions to mark economic transactions and other media as appropriate or inappropriate. By conceptualizing social capital in this way, we also obtain a process-tracing methodology useful for social researchers and for community activists to generate ideas on how to expand social capital in their own or others’ communities. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]

  • Dustin S. Stoltz. "Becoming a Dominant Misinterpreted Source: The Case of Ferdinand de Saussure in Cultural Sociology." [Abstract Cultural analysts in sociology typically cite the work of Ferdinand de Saussure to motivate a narrow theory of meaning. In so doing, sociologists incorrectly attribute to Saussure (1) the postulate that meaning is arbitrary; (2) the idea that signs gain meaning only through relations of opposition to other signs; (3) the view that there is an isomorphic correspondence between linguistic signs and all cultural units of analysis, ergo culture is fundamentally arbitrary; and finally (4) the idea that he offers a Durkheimian theory of culture (i.e. Saussure was a follower of Durkheim). Saussure's project, rather, was specific to linguistics, and mainly one of theoretical and methodological clarification regarding phonology. Saussure never intended his analytical model of phonology to apply to the real operation of meaning in general, as done by contemporary interpreters and, furthermore, never argued that meaning is arbitrary. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]
  • Terence E. McDonnell, Dustin S. Stoltz, and Marshall A. Taylor. "Revision, Reclassification, and Refrigerators." [Abstract Current debates about cultural change question how and how often change in personal culture happens. Is personal culture stable, or under constant revision through interaction with the environment? While recent empirical work finds attitudes are remarkably stable, this paper argues that typifications—how material tokens are classified as a particular mental type by individuals—are more open to transformation as a result of the fundamentally fuzzy nature of classifying. Specifically, this paper investigates the social conditions that lead people to reclassify. How do we move people to see the same thing differently over time? Paying attention to type--token dynamics provides mechanisms for why and under what circumstances personal culture may change. To assess reclassification, the paper analyzes an online survey experiment that asked people to classify refrigerators as owned by "Trump" or "Biden" voters. Those participants who received definitive feedback about the correct answer were more likely to reclassify than are those receiving normative feedback about how "most people" classified the images. Implications for cultural change and persuasion are discussed. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv] [Data & Code]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz and Marshall A. Taylor. "Cultural Cartography with Word Embeddings." [Abstract Using the frequency of keywords is a classic approach in the formal analysis of text, but has the drawback of glossing over the relationality of word meanings. Word embedding models overcome this problem by constructing a standardized and continuous "meaning space" where words are assigned a location based on relations of similarity to other words depending on how they are used in natural language samples. We show how word embeddings are commensurate with prevailing theories of meaning in sociology and can be put to the task of interpretation via two kinds of navigation. First, one can hold terms constant and measure how the embedding space moves around them—much like astronomers measured the changing of celestial bodies with the seasons. Second, one can also hold the embedding space constant and see how documents or authors move relative to it—just as ships use the stars on a given night to determine their location. Using the empirical case of immigration discourse in the United States, we demonstrate the merits of these two broad strategies for advancing important topics in cultural theory, including social marking, media fields, echo chambers, and cultural diffusion and change more broadly. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv] [Data & Code]
  • Marshall A. Taylor and Dustin S. Stoltz. "Integrating Semantic Directions with Concept Mover's Distance to Measure Binary Concept Engagement." [Abstract In an earlier article published in this journal ("Concept Mover's Distance", 2019), we proposed a method for measuring concept engagement in texts that uses word embeddings to find the minimum cost necessary for words in an observed document to "travel" to words in a "pseudo-document" consisting only of words denoting a concept of interest. One potential limitation we noted is that, because words associated with opposing concepts will be located close to one another in the embedding space, documents will likely have similar closeness to starkly opposing concepts (e.g., "life" and "death"). Using aggregate vector differences between antonym pairs to extract a direction in the semantic space pointing toward a pole of the binary opposition (following "The Geometry of Culture," American Sociological Review, 2019), we illustrate how CMD can be used to measure a document's engagement with binary concepts. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv] [Data & Code]

2020

  • Marshall A. Taylor and Dustin S. Stoltz. “Concept Class Analysis: A Method for Identifying Cultural Schemas in Texts.” [Abstract Recent methodological work at the intersection of culture, cognition, and computational methods has drawn attention to how cultural schemas can be “recovered” from social survey data. Defining cultural schemas as slowly learned, implicit, and unevenly-distributed relational memory structures, researchers show how schemas—or rather, the downstream consequences of people drawing upon them—can be operationalized and measured from domain-specific survey modules. Respondents can then be sorted into “classes” on the basis of the schema to which their survey response patterns best align. In this paper, we extend this ``schematic class analysis" method to text data. We introduce concept class analysis (CoCA): a hybrid model that combines word embeddings and correlational class analysis to group documents across a corpus by the similarity of schemas recovered from them. We introduce the CoCA model, illustrate its validity and utility using simulations, and conclude with considerations for future research and applications. ] [DOI] [PDF] [Data & Code]

  • Dustin S. Stoltz, Justin Van Ness, and Mette Evelyn Bjerre. "The Changing Valuation of Dogs." [Abstract In recent decades, the United States has witnessed profound changes in the sociocultural valuation of dogs, variously described as humanization, sentimentalization, or sacralization. A broad look at this "sacralization" of dogs in the United States reveals that this changing valuation has altered dogs' place within economic processes. In particular, these changes parallel Viviana Zelizer's work on the changing valuation of children a century ago. In this article, we further specify Zelizer's insights by arguing that these accompanying economic transformations are best understood as shifting of a dogs' place within budgetary units: from objects for human consumption to fellow actors humans consume with and around. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz and Richard A. Williams. "Marginal Effects and Adjusted Predictions." [Abstract Marginal effects and adjusted predictions are means for providing insights into how important effects really are. Adjusted predictions are expected values of a dependent variable computed from the results of a regression, where all independent variables are held at specified values. A marginal effect is the change in the predicted value of a dependent variable after changing one independent variable—either a discrete change in categorical variables or an instantaneous change in continuous variables—while all other variables are held at specified values. Comparing predicted values and marginal effects is a tool for summarizing, interpreting, and testing the significance of independent variables. ] [DOI] [PDF]

2019

  • Dustin S. Stoltz and Marshall A. Taylor. “Concept Mover’s Distance: Measuring Concept Engagement in Texts via Word Embeddings.” [Abstract We propose a method for measuring a text’s engagement with a focal concept using distributional representations of the meaning of words. More specifically, this measure relies on word mover’s distance, which uses word embeddings to determine similarities between two documents. In our approach, which we call Concept Mover’s Distance, a document is measured by the minimum distance the words in the document need to travel to arrive at the position of a “pseudo document” consisting of only words denoting a focal concept. This approach captures the prototypical structure of concepts, is fairly robust to pruning sparse terms as well as variation in text lengths within a corpus, and with pre-trained embeddings, can be used even when terms denoting concepts are absent from corpora and can be applied to bag-of-words datasets. We close by outlining some limitations of the proposed method as well as opportunities for future research. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv] [Data & Code]

  • Omar Lizardo, Brandon Sepulvado, Dustin S. Stoltz, and Marshall A. Taylor. "What Can Cognitive Neuroscience Do For Cultural Sociology?." [Abstract Can cognitive neuroscience contribute to cultural sociology? We argue that it can, but to profit from such contributions requires developing coherent positions at the level of ontology and coherent epistemological views concerning interfield relations in science. In this paper, we carve out a coherent position that makes sense for cultural sociology based on Sperber's "infra-individualist" and Clark's "extended cognition" arguments. More substantively, we take on three canonical topics in cultural sociology: language, intersubjectivity, and associational links between elements, showing that the cognitive neurosciences can make conceptual and empirical contributions to the thinking of cultural sociologists in these areas. We conclude by outlining the opportunities for further development of work at the intersection of cultural sociology and the cognitive neurosciences. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz and Marshall A. Taylor. "Textual Spanning: Finding Discursive Holes in Text Networks." [Abstract We propose a measure of discursive holes well suited for the unique properties of text networks built from document similarity matrices considered as dense weighted graphs. In this measure, which we call textual spanning, documents similar to documents dissimilar from one another receive a high score, and documents similar to documents similar to one another receive a low score. After offering a simulation-based validation, we test the measure on an empirical document similarity matrix based on a preestimated topic-model probability distribution. The results demonstrate that our proposed textual spanning measure captures different structural features of discursive fields than alternative measures. ] [DOI] [PDF] [Data & Code]
  • Marshall A. Taylor and Dustin S. Stoltz. "Binding Significance to Form: Cultural Objects, Neural Binding, and Cultural Change." [Abstract In sociology, a cultural object is the "binding" of significance to a material form. But, how do people "bind" otherwise discrete elements as a single element? In cognitive neuroscience and the philosophy of mind, this is known as the "binding problem." Sociologists can learn from research on binding, as it deepens our understanding of cultural objects, learning, and social change. Binding is the process by which a material "token" is assimilated into (or expands the boundaries of) a cognitive "type," or resists such typification thereby leading to the formation of a new cognitive "type." Cultural objects are simultaneously types and tokens, and the interplay between them results in a fundamental cultural instability. "Binding" is an attempt to stabilize meaning in two ways: the first, innovating, is implicated in the emergence of a cultural object, and the second, indexicalizing, in its maintenance and extension. However, even the process of indexicalizing a well-established type—i.e., the proliferation of tokens—provides the material fodder from which to innovate new types. Attention to binding processes in the production and reception of cultural objects reveals important insight into the dynamics of cultural change and stability. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]
2018
  • Omar Lizardo, Dustin S. Stoltz, Michael L. Wood, and Marshall A. Taylor. "Visualizing Bring-backs." [Abstract The figure plots the number of articles that have attempted to "bring" something "back in" in the social sciences by publication year and number of citations. Andrew Abbott, taking a (pessimistic) sociology of knowledge perspective, identified this tendency—beginning with Homans's classic article "Bringing Men Back in"—as emblematic of the tendency to rediscover old ideas in sociology. The plot shows that "bring-backs" did not become a common yearly occurrence until the mid to late 1990s but are now relatively frequent. The most successful bring-backs have been relatively abstract things such as the "state" and "society" and more recently, "culture," "knowledge," and "values." ] [DOI] [PDF] [Data & Code]
  • Michael L. Wood, Dustin S. Stoltz, Justin Van Ness, and Marshall A. Taylor. "Schemas and Frames." [Abstract A perennial concern in frame analysis is explaining how frames structure perception and persuade audiences. In this article, we suggest that the distinction between personal culture and public culture offers a productive way forward. We propose an approach centered on an analytic contrast between schemas, which we define as a form of personal culture, and frames, which we define as a form of public culture. We develop an "evocation model" of the structure and function of frames. In the model, frames are conceived as material assemblages that activate a network of schemas, thereby evoking a response when people are exposed to them. We discuss how the proposed model extends, and clarifies, extant approaches, and consider new directions for future research. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz and Omar Lizardo. "Deliberate Trust and Intuitive Faith: A Dual-Process Model of Reliance." [Abstract Drawing on the dual process framework from social and cognitive psychology, this paper reconciles two distinct conceptualizations of trust prevalent in the literature: "rational" calculative and irrational "affective" or normative. After critically reviewing previous attempts at reconciliation between these distinctions, we argue that the notion of trust as "reliance" is the higher order category of which "deliberate trust" and "intuitive faith" are subtypes. Our revised approach problematizes the conflation of epistemic uncertainty with phenomenological uncertainty while providing sound footing for a key sociological insight: that reliance on the routine social order is both the cognitive default and based on substantial practical evidence. We develop two broad suggestions for future research from these implications: (1) sociological research should examine the role of intuitive faith—as opposed to deliberate trust—in late modern societies, and (2) analysts should challenge the role of deliberate trust as the "modal" form of reliance in contemporary research. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]
  • Dustin S. Stoltz. "Relations and Relationships: Clarifying the Terms of the `New' Relational Economic Sociology." [Abstract In economic sociology, relations and relationships have emerged as central yet poorly specified concepts. In this paper, I clarify these terms in a positive critique of the current state of the field. I then consider the ways in which the proposed framework can help analysts to bridge the divide between economics and sociology. Armed with techniques derived from formal network analysis, the new economic sociology offered the first sustained foray into economic territory, but sociological skeptics remain unsatisfied. Two broad rejoinders to this network-analytic approach emerged in the last two decades, but both correctives, nevertheless, leave the divide intact. In the last decade, however, a new paradigm is coalescing under the rubric of "relational economic sociology. While showing promise, it furthers the confusion surrounding the key concepts of "relations" and "relationships." The proposed framework provides a foundation for constructive dialogue among the different traditions which constitute this new paradigm. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]
2017
  • Dustin S. Stoltz and Marshall A. Taylor. "Paying with Change: The Purposeful Enunciation of Material Culture." [Abstract Recent work in cultural sociology has called attention to constraints imposed by material objects on interpretive processes, but is unclear as to how actors use such constraints to produce new meanings. In this article, we use novel newspaper data of people attempting to pay with large amounts of small cash and coins as a form of protest to highlight the material conditions under which actors are able to convey an alternative meaning of an object to an audience. We use computational linguistic and quantitative methods to examine when changes in the meaning of money are more likely to lead to emotionally-charged media reception. We find that emotionally-charged media reception is more likely when, typically, actors consciously attend to money and yet do not have to put in much cognitive work to assign meaning to it in the setting where the protest is attempted. We conclude by considering the implications of the study for broader projects within cultural sociology, economic sociology, organizational theory, political sociology, and social movement studies. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv] [Data & Code]
  • Omar Lizardo and Dustin S. Stoltz. "Max Weber's Ideal Versus Material Interest Distinction Revisited." [Abstract While Weber's distinction between 'ideal' and 'material' interests is one of the most enduring aspects of his theoretical legacy, it has been subjected to little critical commentary. In this article, we revisit the theoretical legacy of interest-based explanation in social theory, with an eye to clarifying Weber's place in this tradition. We then reconsider extant critical commentary on the ideal/material interest distinction, noting the primarily Parsonian rendering of Weber and the unproductive allegiance to 'generic need' readings of Weber's action theory. We reconstruct the basis of the ideal/material interest distinction in the work of Rudolph von Ihering and provide a sounder basis for its analytic role in Weber's 'grand' project. ] [DOI] [PDF]
2016
  • Omar Lizardo, Robert Mowry, Brandon Sepulvado, Dustin S. Stoltz, Marshall A. Taylor, Justin Van Ness, and Michael L. Wood. "What Are Dual Process Models? Implications for Cultural Analysis in Sociology." [Abstract In this paper we introduce the idea of the dual process framework (DPF), an interdisciplinary approach to the study of learning, memory, thinking, and action. Departing from the successful reception of Vaisey (2009), we suggest that intradisciplinary debates in sociology regarding the merits of "dual process" formulations can benefit from a better understanding of the theoretical foundations of these models in cognitive and social psychology. We argue that the key is to distinguish the general DPF from more specific applications to particular domains, which we refer to as dual process models (DPMs). We show how different DPMs can be applied to a variety of analytically distinct issues of interest to cultural sociologists beyond specific issues related to morality, such as culture in learning, culture in memory, culture in thinking, and culture in acting processes. We close by outlining the implications of our argument for relevant work in cultural sociology. ] [DOI] [PDF] [SocArXiv]
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