The not so common sense :
Rosenberg, Shawn W., 1951-
The not so common sense : differences in how people judge social and political life / Shawn W. Rosenberg. - New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, 2002. - xiii, 424 p. ; 25 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Acknowledgments --
Ch. 1. Postmodernity, Not Learning and the Not So Common Sense. A First Puzzle: The Failure to Learn ; The Crisis of Postmodernity ; Appalachian Reform, Chad Health Aid, and University Instruction ; Theoretical Underpinnings of the Puzzle ; The Liberal Institutional Perspective ; The SociologicalAlternative ; An Inadequate Conception of Learning ; Social and Psychological Reductionism ; A Second Puzzle: Noncommon Meaning ; Implications for Theory and Empirical Research ; Conclusion --
Ch. 2. A Structural Pragmatic Social Psychology ; The Structural Pragmatic Approach ; The Pragmatist Dimension ; The Structuralist Dimension ; A Pragmatic Structuralism ; Structures, Structuration, and History ; Duality of Structuration ; The Transformation of Structures: The Social Psychology of Development ; Types of Thinking: A Preliminary Overview ; Sequential Thinking ; Linear Thinking ; Systematic Thinking --
Ch. 3. Linear Thinking ; The Mode of Reasoning and the General Structure of Thought ; The Structure of Thought: Unidirectional and Anchored ; Social Reasoning ; Focus on Action, Efficacy and Role ; Individuals: Person as Actor, Social Identity, and Self-Concept ; Groups as Actors ; Social Rules and Conventions ; The Linear Conception of Politics: A Scripted Play ; Linear Evaluation: Liking and Wanting, II8 The Primary Creation of Value ; The Secondary Creation of Value: Cognitive Balance, Prejudice, and Cultural Standards ; Value Application ; Value Conflict and Resolution ; Summary --
Ch. 4. Systematic Thinking ; The Mode and Structure of Systematic Thought ; The Underlying Structure of Thought: Systems and Principles ; The Nature of Social Reasoning ; Systemic Contexts: The Individual and the Community ; Systemic Construction of Social Life: Limits and Confusions ; Principles of Social Relationship ; Political Reasoning ; Political System ; Principles of Political Interaction ; Conclusion ; Systematic Evaluation: Function and Principle ; Processes of Evaluation: Systemic and Principled ; Three Levels of Value: The Desirable, the Good, and the Ideal --
Ch. 5. Sequential Thinking ; Mode of Reasoning and the General Structure of Thought ; Synthesis Without Analysis ; Temporality, Immediacy, and Mutability ; Conceptual Units ; Social Reasoning ; Temporal and Spatial Parameters ; SocialAction ; The Concept of Persons: Embedded and Fragmentary ; Routines Rather Than Rules ; Political Reasoning or Staring at the Night Sky ; The Nature of Evaluation: Feeling and Needing ; Evaluative Relations ; Evaluative Units ; Egocentrism and Social Influence ; Conclusion --
C. 6. Epistemology, Methodology, and Research Design ; Epistemological Assumption and Methodological Orientation -- Liberal Social Scientific Inquiry ; The Structural Pragmatic Approach ; Subject Population Studied ; Method of Gathering Data ; Objectives andAdministration of the Interview ; Methodological Concerns ; The Political Belief Systems Interview ; Personal Issue: EvaluatingAnother Person and Breaking the Law to Help a Friend ; Domestic Political Issue: The Controversial Display of HomoeroticArt ; Foreign Relations Issue: American Involvement in Bosnia-Herzegovina ; Concluding Comments ; Analysis of the Open-Ended Interview Data --
Ch. 7. Results of the Empirical Research: Julie, Barbara, and Bill ; Summary Statement of Results ; Sample Interviews: Julie, Barbara, and Bill ; Three Evaluations of a Personal Issue ; Julies Linear Evaluation ; Barbaras Systematic Evaluation ; Bills Sequential Evaluation ; Three Evaluations of a Domestic Political Issue ; Julies Linear Evaluation ; Barbaras Systematic Evaluation ; Bills Sequential Evaluation ; Concluding Comment --
Ch. 8. Overview and Concluding Remarks ; The Empirical Research: Related Work and Common Criticism ; Earlier Research ; Related Research on Political Social, and Moral Reasoning ; Schemas vs. Structures ; Addressing Criticism of the Empirical Research ; Tolerance, Deliberation, and Democratic Theory: Directions for Future Research --
Notes --
Bibliography --
Index.
This book challenges two basic assumptions that orient much contemporary social scientific thinking. Offering theory and empirical research, it rejects the classic liberal view that people share a basic "common sense" or rationality. At the same time, it questions the view of contemporary social theory that meaning is simply an intersubjective or cultural product. Through in-depth interviews, it explores the underlying logic of cognition and, rather than discovering a common sense or rationality, finds that people reason in fundamentally different ways and that these differences affect the kind of understandings they craft and the evaluations they make. As a result, people actively reconstruct culturally prevalent meanings and norms in their own subjective terms. The book provides a comprehensive description of three types of socio-political reasoning and the full text of three exemplary interviews. Its findings help explain such puzzling social phenomena as why people do not learn even when it is to their advantage to do so, or why they fail to adapt to changed social conditions even when they have clear information and motivation. The book argues that this kind of failure is commonplace and discusses examples ranging from the crisis of modernity to the classroom performance of university students. Building on the ideas of Jean Piaget, George Herbert Mead, and Jurgen Habermas, it offers a new orienting vision, structural pragmatics, to account for these social phenomena and personal research in cognition. The concluding chapter discusses the implications of this work for the study of social cognition, political behavior, and democratic theory.
0300084277
Social perception
Cognition and culture
302.1
The not so common sense : differences in how people judge social and political life / Shawn W. Rosenberg. - New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, 2002. - xiii, 424 p. ; 25 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Acknowledgments --
Ch. 1. Postmodernity, Not Learning and the Not So Common Sense. A First Puzzle: The Failure to Learn ; The Crisis of Postmodernity ; Appalachian Reform, Chad Health Aid, and University Instruction ; Theoretical Underpinnings of the Puzzle ; The Liberal Institutional Perspective ; The SociologicalAlternative ; An Inadequate Conception of Learning ; Social and Psychological Reductionism ; A Second Puzzle: Noncommon Meaning ; Implications for Theory and Empirical Research ; Conclusion --
Ch. 2. A Structural Pragmatic Social Psychology ; The Structural Pragmatic Approach ; The Pragmatist Dimension ; The Structuralist Dimension ; A Pragmatic Structuralism ; Structures, Structuration, and History ; Duality of Structuration ; The Transformation of Structures: The Social Psychology of Development ; Types of Thinking: A Preliminary Overview ; Sequential Thinking ; Linear Thinking ; Systematic Thinking --
Ch. 3. Linear Thinking ; The Mode of Reasoning and the General Structure of Thought ; The Structure of Thought: Unidirectional and Anchored ; Social Reasoning ; Focus on Action, Efficacy and Role ; Individuals: Person as Actor, Social Identity, and Self-Concept ; Groups as Actors ; Social Rules and Conventions ; The Linear Conception of Politics: A Scripted Play ; Linear Evaluation: Liking and Wanting, II8 The Primary Creation of Value ; The Secondary Creation of Value: Cognitive Balance, Prejudice, and Cultural Standards ; Value Application ; Value Conflict and Resolution ; Summary --
Ch. 4. Systematic Thinking ; The Mode and Structure of Systematic Thought ; The Underlying Structure of Thought: Systems and Principles ; The Nature of Social Reasoning ; Systemic Contexts: The Individual and the Community ; Systemic Construction of Social Life: Limits and Confusions ; Principles of Social Relationship ; Political Reasoning ; Political System ; Principles of Political Interaction ; Conclusion ; Systematic Evaluation: Function and Principle ; Processes of Evaluation: Systemic and Principled ; Three Levels of Value: The Desirable, the Good, and the Ideal --
Ch. 5. Sequential Thinking ; Mode of Reasoning and the General Structure of Thought ; Synthesis Without Analysis ; Temporality, Immediacy, and Mutability ; Conceptual Units ; Social Reasoning ; Temporal and Spatial Parameters ; SocialAction ; The Concept of Persons: Embedded and Fragmentary ; Routines Rather Than Rules ; Political Reasoning or Staring at the Night Sky ; The Nature of Evaluation: Feeling and Needing ; Evaluative Relations ; Evaluative Units ; Egocentrism and Social Influence ; Conclusion --
C. 6. Epistemology, Methodology, and Research Design ; Epistemological Assumption and Methodological Orientation -- Liberal Social Scientific Inquiry ; The Structural Pragmatic Approach ; Subject Population Studied ; Method of Gathering Data ; Objectives andAdministration of the Interview ; Methodological Concerns ; The Political Belief Systems Interview ; Personal Issue: EvaluatingAnother Person and Breaking the Law to Help a Friend ; Domestic Political Issue: The Controversial Display of HomoeroticArt ; Foreign Relations Issue: American Involvement in Bosnia-Herzegovina ; Concluding Comments ; Analysis of the Open-Ended Interview Data --
Ch. 7. Results of the Empirical Research: Julie, Barbara, and Bill ; Summary Statement of Results ; Sample Interviews: Julie, Barbara, and Bill ; Three Evaluations of a Personal Issue ; Julies Linear Evaluation ; Barbaras Systematic Evaluation ; Bills Sequential Evaluation ; Three Evaluations of a Domestic Political Issue ; Julies Linear Evaluation ; Barbaras Systematic Evaluation ; Bills Sequential Evaluation ; Concluding Comment --
Ch. 8. Overview and Concluding Remarks ; The Empirical Research: Related Work and Common Criticism ; Earlier Research ; Related Research on Political Social, and Moral Reasoning ; Schemas vs. Structures ; Addressing Criticism of the Empirical Research ; Tolerance, Deliberation, and Democratic Theory: Directions for Future Research --
Notes --
Bibliography --
Index.
This book challenges two basic assumptions that orient much contemporary social scientific thinking. Offering theory and empirical research, it rejects the classic liberal view that people share a basic "common sense" or rationality. At the same time, it questions the view of contemporary social theory that meaning is simply an intersubjective or cultural product. Through in-depth interviews, it explores the underlying logic of cognition and, rather than discovering a common sense or rationality, finds that people reason in fundamentally different ways and that these differences affect the kind of understandings they craft and the evaluations they make. As a result, people actively reconstruct culturally prevalent meanings and norms in their own subjective terms. The book provides a comprehensive description of three types of socio-political reasoning and the full text of three exemplary interviews. Its findings help explain such puzzling social phenomena as why people do not learn even when it is to their advantage to do so, or why they fail to adapt to changed social conditions even when they have clear information and motivation. The book argues that this kind of failure is commonplace and discusses examples ranging from the crisis of modernity to the classroom performance of university students. Building on the ideas of Jean Piaget, George Herbert Mead, and Jurgen Habermas, it offers a new orienting vision, structural pragmatics, to account for these social phenomena and personal research in cognition. The concluding chapter discusses the implications of this work for the study of social cognition, political behavior, and democratic theory.
0300084277
Social perception
Cognition and culture
302.1