Sociological Theory and Methods
Online ISSN : 1881-6495
Print ISSN : 0913-1442
ISSN-L : 0913-1442
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Volume 15, Issue 2
Displaying 1-14 of 14 articles from this issue
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Special Section
  • [title in Japanese]
    Teruya ODA, Yuriko SAITO, Hiroshi TAROMARU
    2000 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 233-234
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 30, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11218/ojjams.15.233
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Mathematical Sociology and Classical Theories :
    A note to bridge them
    Kenji KOSAKA
    2000 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 235-248
    Published: October 30, 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 30, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11218/ojjams.15.235
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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         There have been a number of literatures that attempted to formulate mathematically classical theories in sociology. The present note reviews preceding such studies and classifies them into three types: formalization of theoretical ideas, formalization of social structure and processes represented in theories, formalization of concepts and propositions. DOs and DON'Ts are suggested to achieve a constructive bridge between mathematical sociology and classical theories.
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  • Environment, Community, and Mathematical Approach :
    Toward a Collaboration with “Life Environmentalism” and “Community Co-management Approach”
    Keiji HASEGAWA
    2000 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 249-260
    Published: October 30, 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 30, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11218/ojjams.15.249
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         The “Life-environmentalism”, the “community co-management approach”, and a mathematical approach guided by a social dilemma perspective have a common direction in their studies: How can people themselves manage their local environmental problems successfully. This paper aims to promote a mutual understanding and a collaboration among these three approaches. The life-environmentalism has a clear method that could provide the mathematical approach with detailed information about games played in a local community. The community co-management approach has specified important factors for successful management of the local environment. These two approaches and their findings could be utilized by the mathematical approach to develop new models for analyzing the local environmental problems.
         The mathematical approaches, on the other hand, can show a logical foundation of a certain kind of community “stabilizing mechanism”, a social ostracism for example, that is presupposed in the life-environmentalism. This approach could also contribute the community co-management approach by showing the validity of the factors found in the field studies.
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  • Rational and Ethical Individuals :
    The Formalization of Harm Principle and some Implications
    Eriko NAGATA
    2000 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 261-272
    Published: October 30, 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 30, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11218/ojjams.15.261
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         In this paper, we require each individual not only to be rational, but also ethical. We assume some persons who adopt “harm principle” and never take an action which worse off other persons' welfare. It is clear that all equilibria of such persons' non-cooperative games are Pareto-efficient. Then, the “harm principle” is community-oriented, not liberty-oriented like libertarians assert.
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  • Meanings of Action and their Interpretation :
    Formalization of Intention, Behavior and Interpretative Scheme using a Fuzzy Set
    Kazuharu TSUZUKI
    2000 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 273-286
    Published: October 30, 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 30, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11218/ojjams.15.273
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         The concept of action which the interpretative sociology (verstehende Soziologie) analyses is different from that of the mathematical action theory -especially from that which the the noncooperation game theory assumes, in some points. For example, the meaningful action (sinnhaftes Handeln) is composed of intention and behavior. But, a game strategy is not composed in such a way. This paper tries for it to extend a game strategy concept by separating a behavior and an action meaning and by assuming that each is some continuum.
         As a result, the generalized action concept is described in the fuzzy set. Then, we try to construct a model of the process about the two-person interaction using this conceptualization.
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  • The Tradition and Possibility of Rational Choice Theory in Sociology
    Hiroshi TAROHMARU
    2000 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 287-298
    Published: October 30, 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 30, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11218/ojjams.15.287
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         This paper constructs the tradition of rational choice theory in sociology and shows its possibility. I argue that rational choice theory has been a heresy in sociology because of its ignorance of formation process of preference and opportunity structure, but rational choice theory has also been a part of a vigorous sociological tradition to link micro and macro phenomena and to criticize society and propose policies through the concept of multiple rationality. Through this argument, I demonstrate that it is possible for various sociologists to communicate with one another by reconstructing sociological traditions.
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  • The Explanatory Forms of Power Theories
    Kiyoshi SHIDA
    2000 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 299-312
    Published: October 30, 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 30, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11218/ojjams.15.299
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         When a social theory treats some social power phenomena, we call it a power theory. As long as a power theory is a theory, it should be able to explain social phenomena. That is, it must derive uniquely social phenomena from its givens. The derivation depends on propositions, some of them are axioms or laws which construct the theory, others theorems derived from axioms or laws. Any conceptions, definitions or formalizations of social power have their traces in a power theory, especially in certain propositions concerned with social power, which we call power propositions. The power propositions are featured that they have asymmetric patterns of determination or restriction. The feature of asymmetry is not so natural in social theories, but holds with special conditions the theorist can not perfectly control. Therefore, even in a power theory would happen to have various kinds or classes of power propositions.
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  • Social Stratification and Economic Development :
    Opportunity, Equality and Efficiency
    Arinori YOSANO
    2000 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 313-330
    Published: October 30, 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 30, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11218/ojjams.15.313
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         In this paper, we discuss about relationships between “equality of result” and economic development. For this purpose, the model of “the low-level equilibrium trap” by R. Nelson is reviewed, and the consequences are investigated from a viewpoint of “equality of result”. Because “a income per capita-investment per capita” curve can be considered as a composition of an individual's “income-investment” curve, so we analyze mathematically the effect of income inequality for a composition. And two propositions are reduced. First, when an income distributes in perfectly equal, investment per capita is minimized for any income-investment curve and for any income distribution. Second, when an income distributes Pareto's, the more inequality of an income, the more investment per capita. And generalizing income-investment curves to input-output curves, we find that the type of curves changes the two propositions.
         At last, we discuss the type of input-output curves can relate to degree of “equality of opportunity”, and then classify the set of “equality of opportunity”, “equality of result” and “efficiency”.
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Articles
  • Newcomb's Problem and Backward Causality :
    Formalization of Weber's Protestant Ethic
    Yuzuru SUZUKI
    2000 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 331-344
    Published: October 30, 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 30, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11218/ojjams.15.331
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         Newcomb's Problem is a paradoxical decision making problem invented by William Newcomb. This problem has been widely debated primarily among philosophers and logicians, but not among social scientists. It involves a certain being called the Predictor. The problem requires a different approach depending on the capacity of the Predictor. In this paper, we focus on the so-called perfect Predictor, and analyze the problem from two perspectives. The first perspective is the one from mathematical logic, particularly the consistency of axiomatic system. We will show that Newcomb's Problem is not logically decidable as a decision making proposition. Furthermore, the essence of this problem is the selection between two types of causality, namely forward causality and backward causality. The second perspective is sociological. We will apply this formulation to a concrete social phenomenon. In particular, we will associate our formulation with a formalization of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic. The predestination concept of Calvinism provides us with the setting equivalent to Newcomb's Problem where God corresponds to the perfect Predictor.
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  • Simulation Experiments of Periodic Phenomena of Fashion on Artificial Society with Learning Process
    Yutaka NAKAI
    2000 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 345-358
    Published: October 30, 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 30, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11218/ojjams.15.345
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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         There are periodic phenomena of fashions that animation and stagnation of a style repeated themselves such as skirt booms or new religion booms in the past. There is the possibility that the phenomenon results from a variation of a social temper. So, the author has built an artificial society by adding to the Ishii's model the process of learning and evolution in the rule to adopt or reject a style, and examined whether the autonomous variation of the temper can emerge.
         As results, the author shows that the periodic phenomena could emerge in the artificial society and that the formation and disruption of cluster of those who adopt a style sensitively turn the society toward the animation and stagnation as a driving force.
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  • Do Gender Role Attitudes Affect Aspirations of Female High-school Students ? :
    A Quantitative Study on Determinants of Aspirations of Female High-school Student
    Hiroshi KANBAYASHI
    2000 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 359-374
    Published: October 30, 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 30, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11218/ojjams.15.359
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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         Previous studies on women's educational aspiration, occupational aspiration, and life course expectation have argued that internalization of gender roles in women shapes their aspirations. However, they are based on poor operational model building and inadequate statistical methods, so we cannot rely on their argument. In this paper, we make their problems clear and propose alternative multinomial logit models to analyze determinants of aspirations of female high school students. By analyzing a data set of female high school students with the models, we get the following findings. First, educational aspiration is affected only by their school ranks and family backgrounds; gender role attitudes have no effect on it. Although the previous studies argue that they have found the correlation between gender role attitudes and educational aspiration, our finding suggests that such a correlation is spurious. Second, gender role attitudes, however, have a significant effect upon life course expectation. These two findings suggest that the theoretical models that argue internalization of gender roles in women shapes their aspirations are too simple to study determinants of aspirations of women rigorously and that we need to develop more fine-tuned theories.
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  • Being Unmarried under Sex Discrimination and Inequality within the Sexes :
    A Simple Model
    Kunihiro KIMURA
    2000 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 375-382
    Published: October 30, 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 30, 2016
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11218/ojjams.15.375
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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         This paper explores a micro-macro link: to explain the relationship between women's expanding economic independence and the rate of the unmarried in terms of a model of women's rational decision-making. An expected utility model is developed and combined with the assumption of random matching of men and women. The major propositions derived from the model are as follows. (1) The severer the sex discrimination in the sense that the difference in the means of the logarithm of income between men and women is large, the lower the probability of being unmarried. (2) The severer the sex discrimination as measured by the probability that a married woman, relative to an unmarried woman, can stay in her job, the higher the probability of being unmarried. (3) It is predicted that in most industrial societies, the higher the degree of inequality within the sexes, the higher the probability of being unmarried.
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