J Skvoretz
Biographic Data
| ID | 799 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Skvoretz |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Skvoretz |
| SIGNATURE | SKVORETZ J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of South Carolina |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0573-1710 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 89 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 685 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 89 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1974 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Working Together: Status Effects of Racial and Gender Identity on Teammate Selection
Research reported in this article examines the impact of race and gender as status characteristics on the selection of teammates for a collectively oriented task. Expectation states research provides the theoretical grounding for the project and for hypotheses tested with choice models. Results suggest that expectation states/status characteristics theory may not apply to the task of teammate selection. We find that race and gender have different…
Theoretical unification and sociological theory: An appreciation of the contributions of T.J. Fararo
Examining whether and how instructional coordination occurs within introductory undergraduate STEM courses
Instructors’ interactions can foster knowledge sharing around teaching and the use of research-based instructional strategies (RBIS). Coordinated teaching presents an impetus for instructors’ interactions and creates opportunities for instructional improvement but also potentially limits an instructor’s autonomy. In this study, we sought to characterize the extent of coordination present in introductory undergraduate courses and to understand how…
Status allocation from elementary allocation principles
Que(e)rying How Professional STEM Societies’ Serve Queer and Trans Engineering and Science Undergraduates
The STEM climate is overall less welcoming for queer students, and is especially harrowing for transgender, nonbinary, and students with additional gender non-conforming identities (TNBGNC+). Professional STEM societies provide students with a range of resources that help them persist in STEM, though qualitative research shows that such societies geared toward queer and trans students may offer less professional and academic resources and priorit…
Stability of dyadic exchange: Experimental evidence for the impact of shared group membership
The Influence of Professional Engineering Organizations on Women and Underrepresented Minority Students’ Fit
Our work focuses on women and underrepresented minority (URM) students’ cultural models of engineering success (CMES) or beliefs about doing well in engineering. Because of its consequential effect on persistence, we pay special attention to the fit domain of CMES—student feelings of belonging in their engineering program. We examine 1) how student fit is affected by participatory social capital (i.e., participation in professional engineering or…
“Now I’m Not Afraid”: The Influence of Identity-Focused STEM Professional Organizations on the Persistence of Sexual and Gender Minority Undergraduates in STEM
In comparison to work on women and historically excluded racial/ethnic minority students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), research on sexual and gender minority (SGM) students in STEM is somewhat incipient. There is little scholarship available on SGM-focused STEM organizations (e.g., oSTEM). Building on the previous literature, we examine how SGM-focused STEM organizations provide social capital, both expressive (e.g., emoti…
How stereotypes and relationships influence women and underrepresented minority students' fit in engineering
Women and underrepresented minority (URM) undergraduates declare and complete science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors at different rates in comparison to majority groups. Explanations of these differences have long been deficit oriented, focusing on aptitude or similar characteristics, but more recent work focuses on institutional contexts, such as academic climate and feelings of belonging (fit). This study examines the experien…
The Association Between Homophily on Illicit Drug Use and PrEP Conversations Among Latino Men Who Have Sex with Men Friends: A Dyadic Network and Spatially Explicit Study
The association between egocentric sexual networks and sexual meeting venues with PrEP conversation and encouragement for use among Latinx men who have sex with men
Despite the increasing availability of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), Latinx men who have sex with men (LMSM) are not receiving PrEP-related information. To understand the influence of LMSM sexual networks on PrEP-related conversations and encouragement to use PrEP, this cross-sectional egocentric network study characterized the PrEP-related communication of 130 LMSM egos with 507 sexual partners (alters). Participants were recruited using resp…
Diffusion of social conventions across polarized communities: An empirical study
Why Re-Invent the Wheel? Social Network Approaches Can Be Used to Mitigate Sars-CoV-2 Related Disparities in Latinx Seasonal Farmworkers
Latinx seasonal farmworkers are essential workers and are at elevated risk for SARS-CoV-2 in the United States. Risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 are unique to this population and include crowded living conditions, isolated social networks, and exploitative working environments. The circumstances and cultural values of Latinx seasonal farmworkers pose a unique challenge to public health authorities working to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2. This comm…
PrEP Use and PrEP Use Disclosure are Associated with Condom Use During Sex: A Multilevel Analysis of Latino MSM Egocentric Sexual Networks
Social Capital From Professional Engineering Organizations and the Persistence of Women and Underrepresented Minority Undergraduates
Professional engineering organizations (PEOs) have the potential to provide women and underrepresented and minoritized (URM) students with social capital (i.e., resources gained from relationships) that aids their persistence in their engineering undergraduate programs and into the workforce. We hypothesize that women and URM students engineering students who participate in PEOs are more likely to persist in their engineering major and that PEOs …
Pursuing an engineering major: Social Capital of Women and Underrepresented Minorities
As part of a longitudinal research effort that examines the influence of social capital on differential persistence and retention among undergraduate engineering majors, this study examines how engineering degree-related social capital differs for first-year engineering students by gender and ethno-racial groups. Social capital is operationalized as a person’s network of relationships with individuals who hold influential positions (e.g. parent, …
Inequality, cooperation, collective action, and delayed marital unions: Papers from the Sixth Joint Japan–US Conference on Mathematical Sociology and Rational Choice
The Social‐psychological Aspects of Team Formation: New Avenues for Research
The ubiquity of teams in the modern workplace cannot be denied, as Curseu, Kenis, and Raab (2009, p. 30) note, “team formation is a challenge in modern organizations as most of them use teams to perform a variety of organizational tasks.” How teams form is, therefore, a question of much practical interest. Research illustrates that stratified social systems influence the choice and decision‐making behaviors that shape group and team formation (He…
Research and Practice Communications Between Oral Health Providers and Prenatal Health Providers: A Bibliometric Analysis
Red, White, Yellow, Blue, All Out but You”: Status Effects on Team Formation, an Expectation States Theory
Teams are ubiquitous in contemporary business, government, health care, and education settings; hence, the process of team formation is worth close examination. We propose models based in expectation states theory for the probability that a particular candidate (or subset of candidates) is selected from a pool of potential team members who are differentiated along diffuse status characteristics. The candidates may be equally qualified in other re…
All for one and one for all: Theoretical models, sociological theory, and mathematical sociology
I make the argument that mathematical sociology uniquely contributes to sociological theory through the theoretical models it develops to bridge the gap between the ideas of sociological theorists and data relevant to their empirical evaluation. My work on intergroup association and social integration, the fruit of a long-time collaboration with Fararo and more recently with Karpiński, is used throughout to illustrate my points
Status and Interaction: A Stochastic Model for the Measurement of Macro-status Value and the Determination of Micro-status Ranking in Task Group Interaction
Status inequality is a matter both of the distribution of persons to status positions (men and women, highly educated and poorly educated, young and old) and of the value of those positions relative to one another. The authors' work focuses on the second issue. The authors propose a stochastic model for how status value can be measured on a ratio scale from data on how occupancy of macro-status positions influences the micro-status orderings of a…
Models of Power in Exchange Networks
Repulsed by the 'Other: Integrating Theory with Method in the Study of Intergroup Association
We offer an integration of theory and method in the study of intergroup social associations. Specifically, we show that models for intergroup association tables developed using generic log-linear methods for categorical data analysis embody a general theoretical point of view on the driving force behind intergroup association, namely, as the outcome of a probabilistic process of repulsion from dissimilar others. We develop this argument and illus…
Structural embeddedness, uncertainty, and international trade
We examine the impact of structural embeddedness, operationalized as a third-party effect, on bilateral trade of two goods (apparel and grain) with different levels of product differentiation and transactional uncertainty. Specifically, we test two competing hypotheses for how trade ties to third parties affect trade in a dyad: the balance hypothesis – common third-party contact(s) mediate information flows between two otherwise disconnected acto…
The Evolution of Trust and Cooperation between Strangers: A Computational Model
Social and economic exchanges often occur between strangers who cannot rely on past behavior or the prospect of future interactions to establish mutual trust. Game theorists formalize this problem as a one-shot prisoner's dilemma and predict mutual noncooperation. Recent studies, however, challenge this conclusion. If the game provides an option to exit (or to refuse to play), strategies based on projection (of a player's intentions) and detectio…
Exclusion and Power: A Test of Four Theories of Power in Exchange Networks
We evaluate four theories that predict the distribution of power in exchange networks.All four theories-core theory, equidependence theory, exchange-resistance theory, and expected value theory-assume actors rationally pursue self-interests.Three of the theories add social psychological assumptions that place the pursuit of self interest in an interactive context.Predictions of exchange earnings by the four theories are evaluated against data fro…
Salience, Heterogeneity and Consolidation of Parameters: Civilizing Blau's Primitive Theory
Blau's (1977) theory uses properties of macro social structure to deduce properties of micro social structure, the network of observed social relations among individuals. This paper continues the work of Fararo (1981) in providing a formal linkage between these two levels using the concepts of biased net theory. The application provides versions of Blau's major theorems that uncover implications not readily apparent from his verbal presentation, …
Comparing Networks across Space and Time, Size and Species
We describe and illustrate methodology for comparing networks from diverse settings. Our empirical base consists of 42 networks from four kinds of species (humans, nonhuman primates, nonprimate mammals, and birds) and covering distinct types of relations such as influence, grooming, and agonistic encounters. The general problem is to determine whether networks are similarly structured despite their surface differences. The methodology we propose …
The Seeds of Weak Power: An Extension of Network Exchange Theory
We extend network exchange theory (Markovsky, Willer, and Patton 1988) to accommodate a new class of phenomena. Previous theory and research have shown that structural configurations in some networks promote or inhibit exchange opportunities, leading to robust and resource differentials. The extension identifies a structural basis for subtler forms of differentiation. Using computer simulations and laboratory experiments, we show that the degree …
Logit Models for Affiliation Networks
Once confined to networks in which dyads could be reasonably assumed to be independent, the statistical analysis of network data has blossomed in recent years. New modeling and estimation strategies have made it possible to propose and evaluate very complex structures of dependency between and among ties in social networks. These advances have focused exclusively on one-mode networks—that is, networks of direct ties between actors. We generalize …
Status and Participation in Task Groups: A Dynamic Network Model
This article presents a dynamic model for the formation of status orders in small task groups whose members may be differnetiated by a diffuse status characteristic. This theoretical strategy embodies " E-state structuralism," wich unites the social psychological formalism of expectation states theory with social network research. Using the development of status hierarchies via differential participation in group discussion, the formal model synt…
E-State Structuralism: A Theoretical Method
This paper unifies two strands of theoretical method in sociology. On the one hand, the structuralist or network program of research involves the fundamental rule that basic data and analytic procedures of sociology must focus on social relations. This leads to theories about structural stabililty or change, for example, although the network approach generally has been stronger on technique than on explanatory theory. An interest in theoretical e…
Institutions as production systems
This paper proposes a formal mode of representation and a corresponding way of thinking about institutionalized social action. It draws its representational technique and its way of thinking about its subject from several sources, including systems theory, cognitive science, and structuralism. It is based on the idea that a model involves a proposed generative mechanism for observable patterns of action and that such a generator must be a system …
Unification Research Programs: Integrating Two Structural Theories
The synthesis of discrete theories and principles to generate ever more comprehensive and unified general theory is fundamental to theoretical science. This paper, after introducing the authors' conception of what such a process involves, combines two structural theories: Blau's macrosociological, social differentiation theory and Granovetter's strength-of-weak-ties principle. Each was previously formalized within a common biased-net mathematical…
Measuring Patterns of Acquaintanceship [and Comments and Reply]
This paper examines some of the factors which determine how people know each other and is a preliminary attempt to discover the rules which govern such interactions. An informant-defined experiment was conducted to elicit the information about a person needed by individuals in a small U.S. university town to choose which of their acquaintances was most likely to know that person. We found, as with a previous experiment, that knowledge of the pers…
Who Exchanges with Whom: Structural Determinants of Exchange Frequency in Negotiated Exchange Networks
John Skvoretz, Michael J. Lovaglia, Who Exchanges with Whom: Structural Determinants of Exchange Frequency in Negotiated Exchange Networks, Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 163-177
Negotiated Exchanges in Social Networks
Reciprocity, Multiplexity, and Exchange: Measures
Diversity, Integration, and Social Ties: Attraction versus Repulsion as Drivers of Intra- and Intergroup Relations
Interethnic and intergroup social ties are critical to knitting together increasingly diverse societies into cohesive wholes. Yet their formation faces the homophily hurdle: important and intimate social ties tend to be established disproportionately between those sharing significant social attributes. In the spirit of analytical sociology, the author explores two mechanisms that could drive intra- and intergroup relations: attraction to similar …
Games and Structures
Frequently applications of game theory assume, but do not show, that games are contained in social structures. The new analysis offered here uncovers games embedded in structures by attributing strategies to some positions and deriving the pay-off matrices for others. As structures vary so do the games embedded in them. All strong power structures contain prisoners' dilemma games for at least some range of pay-offs while some contain a chain of p…
Power in Exchange Networks: Setting and Structural Variations
This article adds to the body of findings on how network position and the conditions of exchange influence an actor's power to obtain favorable outcomes. Four network structures of four persons each are examined in each of two experimental settings: a face-to-face setting, in which negotiations are carried out directly, and the ExNet setting, in which negotiations are carried out through a microcomputer-based electronic network. The structures ar…
Status and Participation in Six-Person Groups: A Test of Skvoretz's Comparative Status Model
Journal Article Status and Participation in Six-Person Groups: A Test of Skvoretz's Comparative Status Model Get access Lynn Smith-Lovin, Lynn Smith-Lovin University of South Carolina Address correspondence to Lynn Smith-Lovin, Department of Sociology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar John V. Skvoretz, John V. Skvoretz University of South Carolina Search for…
Social structure, networks, and E‐state structuralism models
The method of E‐state structuralism provides dynamic models for the evolution and development of networks in small groups. Our interest lies in the kind of social networks that these models produce. We ask the question of whether such models produce “interesting” structure from a network point‐of‐view, in particular, from the perspective of Holland and Leinhardt who argue that any network that can be modeled adequately using only properties of no…
Action and institution, network and function: The cybernetic concept of social structure
Models of Participation in Status-Differentiated Groups
Several models of participation in status-differentiated groups are proposed, and their fit is examined with data from 31 six-person discussion groups which vary systematically in sex composition from entirely male to entirely female. The six models share a common framework in which participation is viewed as the outcome of two processes: first, a process by which chances to participate are channeled to group members, and second, a process by whi…
Career mobility as a Poisson process
Status and Interaction: A Stochastic Model for the Measurement of Macro-status Value and the Determination of Micro-status Ranking in Task Group Interaction
Status inequality is a matter both of the distribution of persons to status positions (men and women, highly educated and poorly educated, young and old) and of the value of those positions relative to one another. The authors' work focuses on the second issue. The authors propose a stochastic model for how status value can be measured on a ratio scale from data on how occupancy of macro-status positions influences the micro-status orderings of a…
Actors' Responses to Outcomes in Exchange Networks: The Process of Power Development
Leading theories of power in exchange networks make assumptions about actors' reactions to being included in or excluded from exchanges. These assumptions, that actors consistently included increase their demands on others and that actors consistently excluded decrease their demands, provide the behavioral mechanism by which structural differences in position convert into power advantages or disadvantages. We test these assumptions with data gath…
Action structures and sociological action theory
Three research traditions that have developed formal representations of action structures are presented in the first part of this paper and preliminary attempts are made to unify them. These three efforts differ more or less substantially in focus: affect control (Heise 1979; 1985), institutionalized social action (Fararo and Skvoretz 1984; 1986) and action feasibility (Nowakowska 1973). In the second part of the paper, we attempt to place these …
Luce's Axiom and occupational prestige: Test of a measurement model
This paper reports research using a psychological theory, R. D. Luce's (1959) individual choice theory, to provide a ratio‐level measurement basis for an important sociological variable, occupational prestige. It is shown that earlier measurement procedures to scale this sociological variable are essentially arbitrary, although heuristically useful. Luce's Axiom of Choice and his Ranking Postulate are then tested on choice sets of occupations whe…
Interests and Alliances: A Reformulation of Barth's Models of Social Organization
Some evidence concerning the value hypothesis of intergenerational status transmission: A research note
Role-Programme Models and the Analysis of Institutional Structure
Our aim is the development of a formal basis for the analysis of institutional structure. While the concept of an institution is a central one in sociology, there has been much doubt about its analytical utility (Buckley, 1967: 161). The notion of a role-programme model, set out and discussed in this paper, appears to offer a precise analytical version of the institution concept. Its formal basis rests on representational techniques developed in …
Extending Expectation States Theory: Comparative Status Models of Participation in N Person Groups
This paper develops some ideas consistent with expectation states theory about how status affects participation in status differentiated task groups larger than the dyad. The aim is to provide a precise account of the distribution of participation in n person task groups. The basic assumption is one implicit in expectation states theory, namely, that the behavioral effects of an actor's status derive from how it compares with the status attribute…
Comment on Fararo's “biased networks and social structure theorems”
Salience, Heterogeneity and Consolidation of Parameters: Civilizing Blau's Primitive Theory
Blau's (1977) theory uses properties of macro social structure to deduce properties of micro social structure, the network of observed social relations among individuals. This paper continues the work of Fararo (1981) in providing a formal linkage between these two levels using the concepts of biased net theory. The application provides versions of Blau's major theorems that uncover implications not readily apparent from his verbal presentation, …
Biased networks and social structure theorems: Part II
Institutions as production systems
This paper proposes a formal mode of representation and a corresponding way of thinking about institutionalized social action. It draws its representational technique and its way of thinking about its subject from several sources, including systems theory, cognitive science, and structuralism. It is based on the idea that a model involves a proposed generative mechanism for observable patterns of action and that such a generator must be a system …
Issues in institution representation: Reply to the commentaries
Measuring Patterns of Acquaintanceship [and Comments and Reply]
This paper examines some of the factors which determine how people know each other and is a preliminary attempt to discover the rules which govern such interactions. An informant-defined experiment was conducted to elicit the information about a person needed by individuals in a small U.S. university town to choose which of their acquaintances was most likely to know that person. We found, as with a previous experiment, that knowledge of the pers…
The Logic of Opportunity and Mobility
This paper clarifies the relationship between opportunity and mobility: first, by analyzing the ways opportunity differentials are created into three generic possibilities—through positional historical, and resource variation; and, second, by uncovering certain logical relations that exist between opportunity differentials and differences in the amount of career mobility individuals experience. The first point offers a useful classification for o…
Career mobility as a Poisson process
Random and biased networks: Simulations and approximations
Action and institution, network and function: The cybernetic concept of social structure
E-State Structuralism: A Theoretical Method
This paper unifies two strands of theoretical method in sociology. On the one hand, the structuralist or network program of research involves the fundamental rule that basic data and analytic procedures of sociology must focus on social relations. This leads to theories about structural stabililty or change, for example, although the network approach generally has been stronger on technique than on explanatory theory. An interest in theoretical e…
Status and Participation in Six-Person Groups: A Test of Skvoretz's Comparative Status Model
Journal Article Status and Participation in Six-Person Groups: A Test of Skvoretz's Comparative Status Model Get access Lynn Smith-Lovin, Lynn Smith-Lovin University of South Carolina Address correspondence to Lynn Smith-Lovin, Department of Sociology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar John V. Skvoretz, John V. Skvoretz University of South Carolina Search for…
Unification Research Programs: Integrating Two Structural Theories
The synthesis of discrete theories and principles to generate ever more comprehensive and unified general theory is fundamental to theoretical science. This paper, after introducing the authors' conception of what such a process involves, combines two structural theories: Blau's macrosociological, social differentiation theory and Granovetter's strength-of-weak-ties principle. Each was previously formalized within a common biased-net mathematical…
Models of Participation in Status-Differentiated Groups
Several models of participation in status-differentiated groups are proposed, and their fit is examined with data from 31 six-person discussion groups which vary systematically in sex composition from entirely male to entirely female. The six models share a common framework in which participation is viewed as the outcome of two processes: first, a process by which chances to participate are channeled to group members, and second, a process by whi…
The structure of stratified systems and the structure of mobility: A first approximation to a structural theory of vertical mobility
This essay summarizes an inquiry that explores relations between the structure of stratified systems and the processes of vertical mobility. The inquiry considers economic stratification (the distribution of wealth) and is directed to determining whether the structural properties of stratification systems are sufficient to generate basic patterns in vertical mobility observed in empirical research, especially, the rank‐distance effect. In particu…
Action structures and sociological action theory
Three research traditions that have developed formal representations of action structures are presented in the first part of this paper and preliminary attempts are made to unify them. These three efforts differ more or less substantially in focus: affect control (Heise 1979; 1985), institutionalized social action (Fararo and Skvoretz 1984; 1986) and action feasibility (Nowakowska 1973). In the second part of the paper, we attempt to place these …
Biased net theory: Approximations, simulations and observations
Changing reward structures and population distributions: An aggregate analysis of earnings inequalities in the 1980s
Theoretical and methodological models of networks and relations
Power in Exchange Networks: Setting and Structural Variations
This article adds to the body of findings on how network position and the conditions of exchange influence an actor's power to obtain favorable outcomes. Four network structures of four persons each are examined in each of two experimental settings: a face-to-face setting, in which negotiations are carried out directly, and the ExNet setting, in which negotiations are carried out through a microcomputer-based electronic network. The structures ar…
Sociology (57 works) · Computer Science (51 works) · Psychology (48 works) · Mathematics (34 works) · Social Psychology (33 works) · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence (27 works) · Epistemology (26 works) · Social Power and Status Dynamics (25 works) · Political science (24 works) · Economics (23 works)