A Sociological Consideration of Prayer and Agency

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 118-129
Author(s):  
Anna Sun
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Solitary Individual ◽  
Over Time

Prayer may be seen as one of the most individual forms of action. Yet, like suicide, another supposedly individualistic action performed by a solitary individual, prayer is a dynamic, reflexive, intersubjective social action, and the sociality of prayer may transform the agency of the actor who is committed to this action over time.

Migration, Urbanization, and Adolescent Prostitution in Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-261
Author(s):  
Sogo Angel Olofinbiyi ◽  
Shanta Balgobind Singh
Keyword(s):  
Adolescent Girls ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Support Services ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Combined Effects ◽  
Poverty Level ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Social Support Services ◽  
Over Time

The article begins with a brief discussion of migration and urbanization and its attendant problems in propagating prostitution among adolescent girls in Nigeria. It argues that the combined effects of urbanization, as well as people’s increasing agitation to secure greener pastures in cities, have made a large number of adolescent girls migrate to cities in the hope of meeting some basic needs of life—an adventure that turns out contrary to their expectations and predisposes some of them into the act of prostitution. Due to excruciating poverty within various families and the impacts of this awkward situation on most adolescent girls, delivery of quality social support services and care to the adolescent girls has been undermined over time, and their life chances have been affected, thereby making them most vulnerable to prostitution as a means of livelihood. The article concludes on socioeconomic constraints as the primary factors that push adolescent girls into prostitution in Nigeria, and these same factors are seen to influence their migration from one geographical location to another. The article recommends programs that will reduce the poverty level and unemployment trends among adolescent girls across a wide range of Nigerian societies. Drawing upon lessons learnt from the existing literature, there is an urgent need for collective social action through which more resources must be put in place to ameliorate the conditions of young girls at the interface of migration for greener pastures.

scholarly journals Talking Your Self Into It: How and When Accounts Shape Motivation for Action

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Winchester ◽  
Kyle Green
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Martial Arts ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mixed Martial Arts ◽  
Theoretical Position ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Theories Of Action ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Over Time

Following Mills (1940), several prominent sociologists have encouraged researchers to analyze actors’ motive talk not as data on the subjective desires that move them to pursue particular ends, but as post hoc accounts oriented toward justifying actions already undertaken. Combining insights from hermeneutic theories of the self and pragmatist theories of action, we develop a theoretical position that challenges dichotomous assumptions about whether motive accounts reflect either justifications or motivations for action, instead illustrating how they can migrate from one status to the other over time. We develop this perspective through a comparativeanalysis of actors’ involvements in two quite different careers of social action – religion and mixed martial arts –documenting both how and when justificatory talk about actors’ motives for initiating a course of action at one point in time became formative of their subjective motivations for sustaining these same courses of action at another.

scholarly journals Social Impact: Social Good, Social Neutrality, Social Bad, and Social Disaster: When Is Doing What You Have A “Right” To Do He “Right” Thing To Do?

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. p39
Author(s):  
John Tropman
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Lonely Crowd ◽  
Social Good ◽  
Social Disaster ◽  
Party Id ◽  
Over Time

Social good has been defined as “services or products that promote human well-being on a large scale.” While there seems to be agreement about the definitional “space” of social good, concepts of social action, social justice, and social impact require further attention.Producing social good does not require injustice: improvements can be made even when there is no injustice. Social good might be considered the first step in a triad containing social better (ment) and social best (good, better, best), with impactful results produced by social actors.There may be large cultural “umbrellas,” widely held value bundles, which define whole societies at points in time and over time. We discuss two: “the lonely crowd,” and “party ID.”We use a portfolio analysis to look at the elements of social good and social bad: social very good, social good, social neutrality, social bad, and social disaster, and then consider three examples of positive social impacts, and five examples of negative social impacts.We suggest a guide to social action to help us make better decisions aimed toward the A or B outcomes (Social Very Good and Social Good), using three steps: awareness of hidden bias, regular decision refurbishment, and using decision rules.The goal of this paper is to share ideas to help avoid social bad, and to help achieve social good. Ideally, social good considerations will become a regular part of the decision-making process. 

The Politics of Aspiration

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-769
Author(s):  
Martha Finnemore ◽  
Michelle Jurkovich
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Essential Work ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The World ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Core Features

Abstract Aspiration is an essential component of politics. It articulates goals, affirms identities and values, and structures action at all levels of social life. Yet political scientists have spent little time theorizing aspiration—what it is, how it relates to other concepts, and the kinds of effects it creates. In this article, we develop the concept theoretically and argue that aspiration creates a distinct “aspirational politics” that differs from our international relations models of both norm-driven social activism and interest-driven rational choice. We identify three core features of aspiration that undergird its theoretical utility: lofty goals, change over time, and transformation through imagination. In the hands of skilled political actors, aspiration does essential work in both facilitating agreement and mobilizing social action that create change in the world. However, aspiration also has a dark side and can be manipulated to dodge accountability, postpone action, and serve private, rather than public, goals.

scholarly journals How the Ritual of a City Holiday is changing: the Case of the Amur Tiger Day

Inter ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-64
Author(s):  
Natalya Yu. Malkova
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Amur Tiger ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Original Idea ◽  
History Of ◽  
Idea Formation ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

The article explores the city holiday Amur Tiger Day in Vladivostok, which originated as a civic initiative, and later became an official event. The history of the holiday invention and the socio-cultural context of the holiday idea formation are considered, the changes in the structure and the meaning of this holiday over time are analyzed. The hypothesis is formulated that a civil initiative, representing a type of social action, can provide the creation of meanings, their preservation in a group and their transfer to newcomers only if certain strict limits or “rituals” are observed. The conducted empirical research has shown that a deviation from the established ritual results not only distorts the original idea, but also produces a more formal attitude of participants to the event. It can also become a way to solve “external” problems that are completely unrelated to the event. The obtained data make possible to conclude that there is some discrepancy between the initial aim of the holiday to form a new way of life and its nowadays perception as a matter for recreation and entertainment. The city holiday as a social action is now deritualized and this influences the citizens’ perception of the holiday and their involvement in the action.

scholarly journals Talking Your Self into It: How and When Accounts Shape Motivation for Action

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Winchester ◽  
Kyle D. Green
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Martial Arts ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theoretical Position ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Theories Of Action ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Over Time

Following Mills, several prominent sociologists have encouraged researchers to analyze actors’ motive talk not as data on the subjective desires that move them to pursue particular ends but as post hoc accounts oriented toward justifying actions already undertaken. Combining insights from hermeneutic theories of the self and pragmatist theories of action, we develop a theoretical position that challenges dichotomous assumptions about whether motive accounts reflect either justifications or motivations for action, instead illustrating how they can migrate from one status to the other over time. We develop this perspective through a comparative analysis of actors’ involvements in two quite different careers of social action—religion and mixed martial arts—documenting both how and when justificatory talk about actors’ motives for initiating a course of action at one point in time became formative of their subjective motivations for sustaining these same courses of action at another.

scholarly journals Human Rights and Democratic Development in Nigeria:The Missing Link

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Akani Christian
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
The People ◽  
Over Time

<p>Human rights have become a buzzword in the 21<sup>st</sup> century. Apart from its global legitimacy, it has become an index of measuring the level of good governance and has an organic link with development. Development here connotes the capacity of a people to reproduce themselves within a social context. All through ages, human rights have engendered democratic development principally because of a sustained social action, in most cases leading to the payment of the supreme sacrifice. After all, freedom is not given by the exploiter to the exploited on a platter of gold. Stupendously, in spite of flagrant violations of human rights by successive governments in Nigeria, it has not triggered a sustained social action to ensure democratic development. Although, some sparing efforts have been made, they fizzle out over time. This negative attitude has heightened Government impunity and deceit. Therefore, the focus of this paper is to examine why Nigerians are not conscious of their rights. ? Why is government not accountable to the people? In carrying out this task, the qualitative method of data collection was used with an emphasis on triangulation. It was discovered that Nigerians are not dogged in the protection of their rights, thinking that development can come to them by the benevolence of government. It recommends that Nigerians should not agonize, but doggedly and consistently organize to demand and protect their rights, at all times. Anything less will make democratic development elusive.</p>

Social transmission bias and the cultural evolution of folk-economic beliefs

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hirshleifer ◽  
Siew Hong Teoh
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Economic Attitudes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Beliefs ◽  
Over Time

AbstractEvolved dispositions influence, but do not determine, how people think about economic problems. The evolutionary cognitive approach offers important insights but underweights the social transmission of ideas as a level of explanation. The need for asocialexplanation for the evolution of economic attitudes is evidenced, for example, by immense variations in folk-economic beliefs over time and across individuals.

Articulatory Generalization in Two Word-Medial, Ambisyllabic Contexts

1988 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia I. Wolfe ◽  
Suzanne D. Blocker ◽  
Norma J. Prater
Keyword(s):  
Common View ◽  
Perceptual Salience ◽  
The Common ◽  
Unitary Concept ◽  
Over Time

Articulatory generalization of velar cognates /k/, /g/ in two phonologically disordered children was studied over time as a function of sequential word-morpheme position training. Although patterns of contextual acquisition differed, correct responses to the word-medial, inflected context (e.g., "picking," "hugging") occurred earlier and exceeded those to the word-medial, noninflected context (e.g., "bacon," "wagon"). This finding indicates that the common view of the word-medial position as a unitary concept is an oversimplification. Possible explanations for superior generalization to the word-medial, inflected position are discussed in terms of coarticulation, perceptual salience, and the representational integrity of the word.

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