Richard N Pitt
Biographic Data
| ID | 103345 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Richard N Pitt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Richard N |
| FAMILY NAME | Pitt |
| SIGNATURE | PITT R N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Vanderbilt University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2236-7260 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 123 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
(Family) Ties That Bind
Objective This study examines how families‐of‐origin influence couples' relocation decisions during doctoral training, when institutional demands and family expectations often pull in different directions. Background Research on adult mobility often assumes that the influence of families‐of‐origin recedes once couples form independent households, leaving little attention to how families‐of‐origin remain involved in major decision‐making. Doctoral…
Anxious for the Job Hunt
Research on the college-to-career transition emphasizes structural inequalities in opportunities and outcomes yet gives limited attention to how emotions are socially patterned during this high-stakes passage. This gap matters because emotion cultures and feeling rules shape both how students experience the search and how they are evaluated by others. We analyze survey data from 2,060 undergraduates at a large public university who were asked to …
Waiting to Work
Research on dual-career households and precarity has shown that mobility and instability shape professional lives, yet existing accounts incompletely explain how uncertainty is generated for workers whose career trajectories are not intrinsically insecure. Studies of dual-career couples emphasize household negotiation around co-location, while precarity research locates instability in contingent employment or labor-market volatility. What remains…
Imagined Pathways and Interpretive Resources
Scholars have long documented disparities in students’ confidence about achieving their career goals, yet prior research often treats confidence as a function of structural advantage or individual preparation rather than an interpretive assessment of what futures feel attainable. We conceptualize career goal confidence as a judgment shaped by how students understand occupational pathways and the influences that make those pathways more or less le…
The Social Fabric of Faith
The literature on religious authenticity lacks sufficient exploration of how social factors, such as social homophily and social validation, influence the relationship between religiosity and self-authenticity. While personal belief alignment is often highlighted, we still need to address the social dimensions of authenticity. In this article, we examined how religiosity, social homophily, and social validation interact to shape religious authent…
Are There Regional Differences in Mental Health among Black Americans? An Exploration of Explanatory Mechanisms
An Invitation to the Sociology of Religion
Church Planters
Starting a new organization is a risky business. Most startups fail; half of them do not reach the five-year mark. Protestant churches are not immune to these trends. Most new churches are not established with denominational support—many are actually nondenominational—and, therefore, have many of the vulnerabilities other infant organizations must overcome. Research has revealed that millions of Americans are leaving churches, half of all churche…
Religious Entrepreneurship
Optimism, Innovativeness, and Competitiveness
We contend that the work scientists do is entrepreneurial because they are in the business of discovering, evaluating, and exploiting opportunities to create new knowledge. In this article, we examine the relationship between Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) scholars’ holdings of traits associated with entrepreneurial activity and the degree to which these scientists consider being a scientist important to their sense of s…
Differences between Founder-Led and Non-Founder-Led Congregations
While sociologists have had a longstanding interest in religious leadership and congregational authority structures, most of the research in this area ignores the fact that many congregational leaders started the congregations they lead. Being in this unique position, founding pastor, likely gives them unusual authority to shape church policy and practice in, as yet, unexamined ways. Using three waves of the National Congregational Study, we exam…
Filled with the Spirit
The Relationship between College Major Prestige/Status and Post-baccalaureate Outcomes
Since Blau and Duncan's seminal work on social mobility, researchers have used subjective measures of occupational prestige to understand either the change or stability in generational socioeconomic statuses. While subjective measures of occupational prestige have been developed, the creation of measures of educational status and prestige that might serve as parallels to these measures has received less attention. In this paper, we attempt to cre…
Activating Diversity
Racial diversity is understood to play an important role for all students on the college campus. In recent years, much effort has gone into documenting the positive effects of this diversity. However, few studies have focused on how diversity impacts student interactions in the classroom, and even fewer studies attempt to quantify contributions from students of different races. Using Web blog discussions about race and religion, the authors uncov…
Stakeholder Meetings as a Means of Engaging Student Learning of Complex Social Problems
A traditional debate format, in which a small group of students is given the task of presenting arguments for or against a particular issue, can promote pro and con dualism that is both incomplete and counter to developing a sociological imagination. In this article, the authors describe their efforts to avoid this kind of dualism through the development and implementation of a set of stakeholder meetings. They first examine the rationale for dev…
Fear of a Black Pulpit? Real Racial Transcendence Versus Cultural Assimilation in Multiracial Churches
The growing literature on multiracial churches tends to take the position that religious values can be influential in promoting racially inclusive religious communities. Marti offers further evidence for this argument: cosmetic changes predominately white churches make to their worship, music, and leadership in order to attract/retain “race-conscious” black congregants. In this response, I argue that these churches do not cause blacks to transcen…
Killing the Messenger
I use cognitive dissonance theory as a framework to examine coping strategies used by men endeavoring to maintain a coherent sense of themselves as gay Christians. Using interviews with black gay Christian men, I uncover a strategy used to maintain that identity in the face of stigmatizing religious rhetoric. While these men have managed to reconcile their religious and sexual identities, sermons delivered by church leaders disrupt that reconcili…
Still Looking for My Jonathan
This article looks at homosexual Black men who are heavily involved in fundamentalist African-American churches. These men describe themselves as "out as same-sex loving individuals" even though the messages preached by their church leaders and the doctrines of their churches are, at the very least, heterosexist, but more likely to be stridently anti-homosexuality. Not only do these men attend the churches they are parts of, but they are viewed a…
Bachelorhood and Men's Attitudes about Gender Roles
This paper examines the gendered domestic division of labor and men's attitudes regarding gender roles. It focuses on a potential catalyst for changing gender attitudes: bachelorhood. Because social conditions increasingly delay heterosexual men's movement toward marriage, it is important to consider the significance of the period between childhood and marriage. Using the NLSY, we find that the longer a man lives independently—outside his parents…
After Admission
Downlow Mountain? De/Stigmatizing Bisexuality through Pitying and Pejorative Discourses in Media
This article examines the differing approaches the media took to black and white male bisexuality following a 2001 Los Angeles Times article and Ang Lee's film, Brokeback Mountain, respectively. Using content analysis of more than 170 articles written between 2001 and 2007, the author finds that the media pathologized black bisexuals' behavior while either ignoring or sympathizing with white bisexuals' behavior. While the “Down Low” black bisexua…
Still Looking for My Jonathan
This article looks at homosexual Black men who are heavily involved in fundamentalist African-American churches. These men describe themselves as "out as same-sex loving individuals" even though the messages preached by their church leaders and the doctrines of their churches are, at the very least, heterosexist, but more likely to be stridently anti-homosexuality. Not only do these men attend the churches they are parts of, but they are viewed a…
Killing the Messenger
I use cognitive dissonance theory as a framework to examine coping strategies used by men endeavoring to maintain a coherent sense of themselves as gay Christians. Using interviews with black gay Christian men, I uncover a strategy used to maintain that identity in the face of stigmatizing religious rhetoric. While these men have managed to reconcile their religious and sexual identities, sermons delivered by church leaders disrupt that reconcili…
Fear of a Black Pulpit? Real Racial Transcendence Versus Cultural Assimilation in Multiracial Churches
The growing literature on multiracial churches tends to take the position that religious values can be influential in promoting racially inclusive religious communities. Marti offers further evidence for this argument: cosmetic changes predominately white churches make to their worship, music, and leadership in order to attract/retain “race-conscious” black congregants. In this response, I argue that these churches do not cause blacks to transcen…
Activating Diversity
Racial diversity is understood to play an important role for all students on the college campus. In recent years, much effort has gone into documenting the positive effects of this diversity. However, few studies have focused on how diversity impacts student interactions in the classroom, and even fewer studies attempt to quantify contributions from students of different races. Using Web blog discussions about race and religion, the authors uncov…
Downlow Mountain? De/Stigmatizing Bisexuality through Pitying and Pejorative Discourses in Media
This article examines the differing approaches the media took to black and white male bisexuality following a 2001 Los Angeles Times article and Ang Lee's film, Brokeback Mountain, respectively. Using content analysis of more than 170 articles written between 2001 and 2007, the author finds that the media pathologized black bisexuals' behavior while either ignoring or sympathizing with white bisexuals' behavior. While the “Down Low” black bisexua…
After Admission
Differences between Founder-Led and Non-Founder-Led Congregations
While sociologists have had a longstanding interest in religious leadership and congregational authority structures, most of the research in this area ignores the fact that many congregational leaders started the congregations they lead. Being in this unique position, founding pastor, likely gives them unusual authority to shape church policy and practice in, as yet, unexamined ways. Using three waves of the National Congregational Study, we exam…
Bachelorhood and Men's Attitudes about Gender Roles
This paper examines the gendered domestic division of labor and men's attitudes regarding gender roles. It focuses on a potential catalyst for changing gender attitudes: bachelorhood. Because social conditions increasingly delay heterosexual men's movement toward marriage, it is important to consider the significance of the period between childhood and marriage. Using the NLSY, we find that the longer a man lives independently—outside his parents…
The Social Fabric of Faith
The literature on religious authenticity lacks sufficient exploration of how social factors, such as social homophily and social validation, influence the relationship between religiosity and self-authenticity. While personal belief alignment is often highlighted, we still need to address the social dimensions of authenticity. In this article, we examined how religiosity, social homophily, and social validation interact to shape religious authent…
An Invitation to the Sociology of Religion
Stakeholder Meetings as a Means of Engaging Student Learning of Complex Social Problems
A traditional debate format, in which a small group of students is given the task of presenting arguments for or against a particular issue, can promote pro and con dualism that is both incomplete and counter to developing a sociological imagination. In this article, the authors describe their efforts to avoid this kind of dualism through the development and implementation of a set of stakeholder meetings. They first examine the rationale for dev…
Downlow Mountain? De/Stigmatizing Bisexuality through Pitying and Pejorative Discourses in Media
This article examines the differing approaches the media took to black and white male bisexuality following a 2001 Los Angeles Times article and Ang Lee's film, Brokeback Mountain, respectively. Using content analysis of more than 170 articles written between 2001 and 2007, the author finds that the media pathologized black bisexuals' behavior while either ignoring or sympathizing with white bisexuals' behavior. While the “Down Low” black bisexua…
Bachelorhood and Men's Attitudes about Gender Roles
This paper examines the gendered domestic division of labor and men's attitudes regarding gender roles. It focuses on a potential catalyst for changing gender attitudes: bachelorhood. Because social conditions increasingly delay heterosexual men's movement toward marriage, it is important to consider the significance of the period between childhood and marriage. Using the NLSY, we find that the longer a man lives independently—outside his parents…
After Admission
Still Looking for My Jonathan
This article looks at homosexual Black men who are heavily involved in fundamentalist African-American churches. These men describe themselves as "out as same-sex loving individuals" even though the messages preached by their church leaders and the doctrines of their churches are, at the very least, heterosexist, but more likely to be stridently anti-homosexuality. Not only do these men attend the churches they are parts of, but they are viewed a…
Stakeholder Meetings as a Means of Engaging Student Learning of Complex Social Problems
A traditional debate format, in which a small group of students is given the task of presenting arguments for or against a particular issue, can promote pro and con dualism that is both incomplete and counter to developing a sociological imagination. In this article, the authors describe their efforts to avoid this kind of dualism through the development and implementation of a set of stakeholder meetings. They first examine the rationale for dev…
Fear of a Black Pulpit? Real Racial Transcendence Versus Cultural Assimilation in Multiracial Churches
The growing literature on multiracial churches tends to take the position that religious values can be influential in promoting racially inclusive religious communities. Marti offers further evidence for this argument: cosmetic changes predominately white churches make to their worship, music, and leadership in order to attract/retain “race-conscious” black congregants. In this response, I argue that these churches do not cause blacks to transcen…
Killing the Messenger
I use cognitive dissonance theory as a framework to examine coping strategies used by men endeavoring to maintain a coherent sense of themselves as gay Christians. Using interviews with black gay Christian men, I uncover a strategy used to maintain that identity in the face of stigmatizing religious rhetoric. While these men have managed to reconcile their religious and sexual identities, sermons delivered by church leaders disrupt that reconcili…
Activating Diversity
Racial diversity is understood to play an important role for all students on the college campus. In recent years, much effort has gone into documenting the positive effects of this diversity. However, few studies have focused on how diversity impacts student interactions in the classroom, and even fewer studies attempt to quantify contributions from students of different races. Using Web blog discussions about race and religion, the authors uncov…
Filled with the Spirit
The Relationship between College Major Prestige/Status and Post-baccalaureate Outcomes
Since Blau and Duncan's seminal work on social mobility, researchers have used subjective measures of occupational prestige to understand either the change or stability in generational socioeconomic statuses. While subjective measures of occupational prestige have been developed, the creation of measures of educational status and prestige that might serve as parallels to these measures has received less attention. In this paper, we attempt to cre…
Religious Entrepreneurship
Optimism, Innovativeness, and Competitiveness
We contend that the work scientists do is entrepreneurial because they are in the business of discovering, evaluating, and exploiting opportunities to create new knowledge. In this article, we examine the relationship between Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) scholars’ holdings of traits associated with entrepreneurial activity and the degree to which these scientists consider being a scientist important to their sense of s…
Differences between Founder-Led and Non-Founder-Led Congregations
While sociologists have had a longstanding interest in religious leadership and congregational authority structures, most of the research in this area ignores the fact that many congregational leaders started the congregations they lead. Being in this unique position, founding pastor, likely gives them unusual authority to shape church policy and practice in, as yet, unexamined ways. Using three waves of the National Congregational Study, we exam…
Church Planters
Starting a new organization is a risky business. Most startups fail; half of them do not reach the five-year mark. Protestant churches are not immune to these trends. Most new churches are not established with denominational support—many are actually nondenominational—and, therefore, have many of the vulnerabilities other infant organizations must overcome. Research has revealed that millions of Americans are leaving churches, half of all churche…
An Invitation to the Sociology of Religion
Are There Regional Differences in Mental Health among Black Americans? An Exploration of Explanatory Mechanisms
The Social Fabric of Faith
The literature on religious authenticity lacks sufficient exploration of how social factors, such as social homophily and social validation, influence the relationship between religiosity and self-authenticity. While personal belief alignment is often highlighted, we still need to address the social dimensions of authenticity. In this article, we examined how religiosity, social homophily, and social validation interact to shape religious authent…
(Family) Ties That Bind
Objective This study examines how families‐of‐origin influence couples' relocation decisions during doctoral training, when institutional demands and family expectations often pull in different directions. Background Research on adult mobility often assumes that the influence of families‐of‐origin recedes once couples form independent households, leaving little attention to how families‐of‐origin remain involved in major decision‐making. Doctoral…
Anxious for the Job Hunt
Research on the college-to-career transition emphasizes structural inequalities in opportunities and outcomes yet gives limited attention to how emotions are socially patterned during this high-stakes passage. This gap matters because emotion cultures and feeling rules shape both how students experience the search and how they are evaluated by others. We analyze survey data from 2,060 undergraduates at a large public university who were asked to …
Waiting to Work
Research on dual-career households and precarity has shown that mobility and instability shape professional lives, yet existing accounts incompletely explain how uncertainty is generated for workers whose career trajectories are not intrinsically insecure. Studies of dual-career couples emphasize household negotiation around co-location, while precarity research locates instability in contingent employment or labor-market volatility. What remains…
Imagined Pathways and Interpretive Resources
Scholars have long documented disparities in students’ confidence about achieving their career goals, yet prior research often treats confidence as a function of structural advantage or individual preparation rather than an interpretive assessment of what futures feel attainable. We conceptualize career goal confidence as a judgment shaped by how students understand occupational pathways and the influences that make those pathways more or less le…
Sociology (15 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Political science (9 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Religion, Society, and Development (6 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works)