A Mazur
Biographic Data
| ID | 20335 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A Mazur |
| GIVEN NAMES | A |
| FAMILY NAME | Mazur |
| SIGNATURE | MAZUR A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Syracuse University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0230-2195 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 95 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 418 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 95 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1968 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Voluntourism and Multispecies Collaboration: Life, Death, and Conservation in the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef
Ice Ages: Their Social and Natural History
What causes Ice Ages? How did we learn about them? What were their affects on the social history of humanity? Allan Mazur's book tells the appealing history of the scientific 'discovery' of Ice Ages. How we learned that much of the Earth was repeatedly covered by huge ice sheets, why that occurred, and how the waning of the last Ice Age paved the way for agrarian civilization and, ultimately, our present social structures. The book discusses impl…
Global Warming in the Fickle News
Birth and Death(?) of the Anti-Fracking Movement: Inferences from Quantity of Coverage Theory
A Sociologist in Energyland: The importance of humans in energy studies research
How did the fracking controversy emerge in the period 2010-2012
In 2010-2012, the controversy over fracking grew rapidly, first in the United States, and then internationally. An important step was the anti-fracking documentary film Gasland. With help from celebrity sources, the film was produced and won a prize at the Sundance Film Festival by early 2010 and had an Oscar nomination by early 2011, in the meantime popularizing potent images of hazard including tainted aquifers and ignitable water running from …
How Distinct are American Jews
Testosterone Is High among Young Black Men with Little Education
Participation in the "honor culture" of poor black inner cities puts young men on constant alert for challenges to their reputations. Hypothetically, this vigilance raises their testosterone (T), which in turn facilitates dominant contests that may end violently. One prior study reports the predicted hormonal pattern including higher T among young black men with low education, compared to young white men with low education, but no race difference…
Lead, Flint, and Grandfather
Biosociology
In their broadest senses, sociobiology and biosociology refer to the modern study of biology as it relates – within a Darwinian framework – to social behavior. Sociobiology is the better‐known term, made famous when the New York Times gave prominence to controversy surrounding a 1975 book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis , by Harvard entomologist E. O. Wilson. Detractors argued that the book revived biological determinism, sexism, racism, and soc…
True Warnings and False Alarms: Evaluating Fears about the Health Risks of Technology, 1948-1971
Given time, scientists reach consensus about the truth or falsity of a wide range of alleged hazards. Today, there is broad agreement that CFCs destroy stratospheric ozone. On the other hand, research does not support claims that electromagnetic fields from transmission lines cause a noticeable increase of leukemia. But new allegations continuously arise. Are manufactured chemicals in the environment distorting normal hormonal processes in our bo…
A Hormonal Interpretation of Collins's Micro‐sociological Theory of Violence
Collins (2008) provides a grand theory that unifies all forms of human violence occurring in face‐to‐face situations, ranging from spousal abuse to medieval warfare. Laitin (2008) appreciates Collins's microscopic analysis of diverse data but points to important shortcomings in the theory, especially Collins's metaphoric explanations that are not testable. Here Collins's theory is merged with an existing biosocial model of dominance, replacing th…
Biosociology
In their broadest senses, sociobiology and biosociology refer to the modern study of biology as it relates – within a Darwinian framework – to social behavior. Sociobiology is the better‐known term, made famous when the New York Times gave prominence to controversy surrounding a 1975 book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis , by Harvard entomologist E. O. Wilson. Detractors argued that the book revived biological determinism, sexism, racism, and soc…
The role of testosterone in male dominance contests That Turn Violent
Usually face-to-face dominance contests between humans are nonviolent, even amiable. Most violence between young men occurs when dominance contests infrequently escalate beyond their usually bounds. Heightened testosterone is not a direct cause of male violence. Occasional outbreaks of violence occur for other reasons, and are often random outcomes. However testosterone does encourage (nonviolent) dominant behavior among young men, increasing the…
Testosterone and Social Behavior
Popular perceptions of the effect of testosterone on “manly” behavior are inaccurate. We need to move away from such simplistic notions by treating testosterone as one component along with other physiological, psychological and sociological variables in interactive and reciprocal models of behavior. Several hormones can now be measured in saliva, removing the need for blood samples. Conceptual shifts have moved research from biological determinis…
Take a Chimp, Add Language, Melt the Glaciers
Biases about Man-made Cancer among Researchers
Can sociological variables significantly predict researchers' positions on a scientific issue? Carcinogenesis offers a good test case because it is not definitively established how important man-made substances are as contributors to human cancer. American cancer researchers divide on this issue, some broadly emphasizing the importance of man-made carcinogens, others consistently minimizing their importance relative to natural carcinogens. We fin…
Science inA civil action
Voluntary behavior by electric utilities: Levels of adoption and contribution of the climate challenge program to the reduction of carbon dioxide
No Abstact
The geography of American environmentalism
Pollution Markets in a Green Country Town: Urban Environmental Management in Transition . Roger K. Raufer
Reproductive Constraints on Dominance Competition in Male Homo Sapiens
Dominance competition among males of the same group is characteristic for most primates including humans, with the outcome—rank—being positively associated with fitness. However, because we do not observe an evolutionary arms race toward hyperdominance in primate social systems, the evolution of ever more dominating behavior characteristics may be checked by increased costs in fitness to top rank. Empirical evidence for such costs, particularly i…
Testosterone and dominance in men
In men, high levels of endogenous testosterone (T) seem to encourage behavior intended to dominate – to enhance one's status over – other people. Sometimes dominant behavior is aggressive, its apparent intent being to inflict harm on another person, but often dominance is expressed nonaggressively. Sometimes dominant behavior takes the form of antisocial behavior, including rebellion against authority and law breaking. Measurement of T at a singl…
Toward a Biocritical Sociology
This dissertation is a critical discourse with three prominent trends in contemporary sociology. It is a critique of Emile Durkheim's admonition that sociological analysis, by definition, requires the exclusion of biological and psychological data. It shows, in contrast, that the exclusion of biosocial data removes vast sources of information which are useful and necessary in any interpretation of human behavior. This work also demonstrates that …
Marriage, Divorce, and Male Testosterone
Journal Article Marriage, Divorce, and Male Testosterone Get access Allan Mazur, Allan Mazur Syracuse University Direct all correspondence to Professor Allan Mazur, Public Affairs Program, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244. E-mail: [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Joel Michalek Joel Michalek Armstrong Laboratory, Brooks Air Force Base Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Ac…
Sounding the Global Alarm: Environmental Issues in the US National News
The New York Times and a few other major national news organizations, along with their sources of information, were effective in placing the global environment on the American agenda of problems during the late 1980s. This appears to have been an unplanned outcome, largely the result of a few specific environmental problems with different constituencies all becoming important news stories at about the same time. Each story reinforced the attentio…
U.S. trends in feminine beauty and overadaptation
Men place more importance on the physical attractiveness of women than women do on the physical attractiveness of men. As a result, women's social opportunities are more affected by their physical beauty than are men's, so that women are under more pressure to conform to an ideal of beauty. Although standards of female beauty are not as arbitrary as is sometimes claimed, they do vary greatly over time and across cultures. Modern institutions of a…
A Cross-Species Comparison of Status in Small Established Groups
Seven status characteristics of small established human groups are listed and then compared to the characteristics of a chicken pecking order. Chickens and humans share, at most, three of the seven characteristics. Problems of comparing human and nonhuman behavior are discussed, and a method is suggested which compares behaviors along this series of primates: tree shrew, lemur, squirrel monkey, baboon and macaque, gorilla and chimpanzee, man. The…
II Disputes between experts
Testosterone and Chess Competition
The hormone testosterone (T) has a central role in recent theories about allocation of status ransk during face-to-face competition. It has been methodologically convenient to test the hypothesized T mechanism in physically taxing athletic contests, where results have been supportive, although their generalizability to normal social competition is questionable. Competition among chess players is a step closer to normal social competition because …
Testosterone and Social Behavior
Popular perceptions of the effect of testosterone on “manly” behavior are inaccurate. We need to move away from such simplistic notions by treating testosterone as one component along with other physiological, psychological and sociological variables in interactive and reciprocal models of behavior. Several hormones can now be measured in saliva, removing the need for blood samples. Conceptual shifts have moved research from biological determinis…
A Biosocial Model of Status in Face-to-Face Primate Groups
This paper describes a biosocial model of status in face-to-face groups. It argues that status ranks are allocated among members of a group through face-to-face interaction and that the allocation process is similar across each primate species, including humans. Every member of a group signifies its rank through physical or vocal demeanor. For example, behavioral signs of dominant status include erect posture, glares, eye contact, strutting, and …
Military Rank Attainment of a West Point Class: Effects of Cadets' Physical Features
Prior research has shown that males are perceived, on the basis of their physical characteristics, as either dominant or submissive individuals, that is, as assertive leaders or as uninfluential followers. In particular, certain facial features, tallness, and an athletic physique are perceived as dominant characteristic. Do such physical features affect social mobility? Do dominant-looking men advance to higher ranks in the military hierarchy tha…
Facial Dominance of West Point Cadets as a Predictor of Later Military Rank
Journal Article Facial Dominance of West Point Cadets as a Predictor of Later Military Rank Get access Ulrich Mueller, Ulrich Mueller University of Marburg, Germany Direct correspondence to Ulrich Mueller, Institute of Medical Sociology, University of Marburg, Bunsenstrasse 2, 35033 Marburg, Germany; or [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Allan Mazur Allan Mazur Syracuse Univers…
Nuclear power, chemical hazards, and the quantity of reporting
The geography of American environmentalism
Global Environmental Change in the News: 1987-90 Vs 1992-6
Important hazards to the global environment, including climate change, ozone depletion, rainforest destruction and species extinction, were prominently covered by the American mass media during the period 1987-90. As a result, these hazards became important problems on the American agenda of risks, and were soon taken up by other nations, at least until news coverage fell after 1990. This article shows why these particular hazards, which had all …
Marriage, Divorce, and Male Testosterone
Journal Article Marriage, Divorce, and Male Testosterone Get access Allan Mazur, Allan Mazur Syracuse University Direct all correspondence to Professor Allan Mazur, Public Affairs Program, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244. E-mail: [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Joel Michalek Joel Michalek Armstrong Laboratory, Brooks Air Force Base Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Ac…
A nonrational approach to theories of conflict and coalitions
For a long time many social scientists seem to have felt that, since mathematics was good for physics, it must be good for sociology-if only someone could figure out how to use it in sociology. But how do you apply differential calculus to a group of people? Perhaps this concern explains why there was such a rush to game theory when von Neumann and Morgenstern published their Theory of Games and Economic Behavior in 1944. Here at last was a mathe…
Was Vietnam a Class War
A random sample of Army veterans who served during the Vietnam War was collected by the Centers for Disease Control. Its distributions by race and education are similar to those of the general American population of similar age
Science courts
Bomb Threats and the Mass Media: Evidence for a Theory of Suggestion
Furtado, Celso 1970 Economic Development in Latin America: Colonial Times to the Cuban Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Galtung, Johan 1971 A structural theory of imperialism. Journal of Peace Research 8:81-117. Haberler, Gottfried 1970 Dynamic benefits of trade . Pp. 492-498 in Gerald M. Meger (ed.), Leading Issues in Economic Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Koutsoyiannis, A. 1973 The Theory of Econometrics. New Y…
Physiological Aspects of Communication Via Mutual Gaze
Eye contact between two people often serves as a channel of nonverbal communication. It may signal aggresive or dominating intent, as in a staredown, or it may convey an impression of close bonding, intimacy, or a request for aid, depending on how actors define the situation. Some theories of nonverbal communication assume that mutual gaze is physiologically arousing and that this arousal accounts in part for the efficacy of eye contact as a comm…
Incipient Status in Small Groups
Unacquainted individuals, placed together in a Bales-type discussion group, quickly form a participation hierarchy that indicates status differentiation. This rapid structuring of status, similar to the rapid structuring of status hierarchies in groups of Rhesus monkeys, suggests some subtle form of dominance and submission signalling may be operating. Two experimental conditions test this possibility. In one condition a measure of subjects' init…
Opposition to technological innovation
Culture and the perception of social dominance from facial expression
The Causes of Black Riots
The Rise and Fall of Public Opposition in Specific Social Movements
This article reports a comparative study of four 'specific' social movements which involve aspects of technological controversy: Fluoridation, the ABM, Nuclear Power Plants, and Legalized Abortion. We suggest a theoretical model of the rise and fall of public opposition in these movements over time. Quantitative indicators are developed and applied to this historical model. Rise and fall of controversy follows a regular sequence: Activities of pr…
Facial Gestures Which Influence the Perception of Status
Channel Modeling: From West Point Cadet to General
The U.S. Army and Air Force are two of many organizations that are characterized as meritocracies, where career advancement is supposed to be determined mostly by one's ability to achieve institutional goals. Critics have long claimed, however, that promotion in a meritocracy is inevitably affected by factors separate from competence (Young, 1958). Moore and Trout (1978) contrast performance theory, which says that promotion in the military goes …
Social Behavior of Semi-Free Ranging White-Lipped Tamarins
This note summarizes some field observations of seven semi-free ranging white-lipped tamarins ( Leontocebus nigricallis) at Monkey Jungle near Miami, Florida
A nonrational approach to theories of conflict and coalitions
For a long time many social scientists seem to have felt that, since mathematics was good for physics, it must be good for sociology-if only someone could figure out how to use it in sociology. But how do you apply differential calculus to a group of people? Perhaps this concern explains why there was such a rush to game theory when von Neumann and Morgenstern published their Theory of Games and Economic Behavior in 1944. Here at last was a mathe…
Comment on Davis' Graph Models
The Causes of Black Riots
Human Social Development: Psychobiological Roots and Social Consequences
Increased Tendency Toward Balance During Stressful Conflict
II Disputes between experts
A Cross-Species Comparison of Status in Small Established Groups
Seven status characteristics of small established human groups are listed and then compared to the characteristics of a chicken pecking order. Chickens and humans share, at most, three of the seven characteristics. Problems of comparing human and nonhuman behavior are discussed, and a method is suggested which compares behaviors along this series of primates: tree shrew, lemur, squirrel monkey, baboon and macaque, gorilla and chimpanzee, man. The…
Biology and Social Behavior
Genetic Fix
Opposition to technological innovation
A model of behavior in Berger's standard experiment
Berger has developed a standard experimental situation for the study of influence processes in dyads. A simple model is presented' which orders the empirical results of eight experiments (27 conditions) on status‐undifferentiated dyads in this situation. The model provides a good fit to the data and makes additional predictions
Cross-Species Comparisons of Aggression
On Wilson's Sociobiology Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Edward O. Wilson
Public Confidence in Science
Over the past twenty years, many commentators have claimed that there is a growing distrust of science in the United States. They cite this as the cause of public opposition to technologies as varied as fluoridation, the anti-ballistic missile, and nuclear powerplants.1 Others claim that science is more highly regarded than most American institutions,2 and still others suggest a more mixed picture.3 This Note reports the degree of public confiden…
Facial Gestures Which Influence the Perception of Status
Science courts
An Empirical Test of McClelland's "Achieving Society" Theory
McClelland's theory of economic development claims that at any given time, the national level of a psychological motive called “need for achievement” (n Achievement) is a major determinant of the nation's subsequent rate of economic growth. Predictions from the theory are tested for the period 1950–71. N Achievement does not generally predict the economic growth of nations
Controversy over a Local Nuclear Waste Repository
A proposal to site a nuclear waste repository near Syracuse, New York became the focus of a shortlived controversy. We interviewed a sample of local residents near the height of the publicity and then nearly four months later, after the publicity had died away. Men were three times more likely than women to be aware of the controversy. However, exposure to the controversy had a greater effect on women than on men, moving female attitudes against …
The Biology of Human Action
The biology of human action , The biology of human action , مرکز فناوری اطلاعات و اطلاع رسانی کشاورزی
Biological Explanation in Sociology
Ritzer (1975) suggests that biological explanation may emerge as a new paradigm in sociology but incipient work in this area has not had much impact on the discipline. Some forms of biological explanation seem sociologically trivial, but at least three forms of explanation common in the discipline of biology have meaningful homologues in sociology: (1) species-wide human behavior may be explained as the result of biological evolution; (2) behavio…
Separating factual disputes from value disputes in controversies over technology
Incipient Status in Small Groups
Unacquainted individuals, placed together in a Bales-type discussion group, quickly form a participation hierarchy that indicates status differentiation. This rapid structuring of status, similar to the rapid structuring of status hierarchies in groups of Rhesus monkeys, suggests some subtle form of dominance and submission signalling may be operating. Two experimental conditions test this possibility. In one condition a measure of subjects' init…
Presidential Politics and Science Policy
Special Supplement: The XYY Controversy: Researching Violence and Genetics
Political science (49 works) · Sociology (47 works) · Psychology (38 works) · Law (33 works) · Social Psychology (22 works) · Biology (20 works) · Law (19 works) · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (15 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Medicine (14 works)