Social Causes of Psychological Distress (Social Institutions and Social Change)

A core interest of social science is the study ofstratification--inequalities in income, power, and prestige. Fewpersons would care about such inequalities if the poor, powerless, anddespised were as happy and fulfilled as the wealthy, powerful, andadmired. Social research often springs from humanistic empathy andconcern as much as from scholarly and scientific curiosity. Aneconomist might observe that black Americans are disproportionatelypoor, and investigate racial differences in education, employment, andoccupation that account for disproportionate poverty. A table comparingadditional income blacks and whites can expect for each additional yearof education is thus as interesting in its own right as any dinosaurbone or photo of Saturn. However, something more than curiosityunderscores our interest in the table. Racial differences in status andincome are a problem in the human sense. Inequality in misery makessocial and economic inequality personally meaningful. There are two ways social scientists avoid advocacy in addressingissues of social stratification. The first way is to resist projectingpersonal beliefs, values, and responses as much as possible, whilerecognizing that the attempt is never fully successful. The second wayis by giving the values of the subjects an expression in the researchdesign. Typically, this takes the form of opinion or attitude surveys.Researchers ask respondents to rate the seriousness of crimes, theappropriateness of a punishment for a crime, the prestige ofoccupations, the fair pay for a job, or the largest amount of money afamily can earn and not be poor, and so on. The aggregate judgments,and variations in judgments, represent the values of the subjects andnot those of the researcher. They are objective facts with causes andconsequences of interest in their own right. This work is an effort to move methodology closer to human concernswithout sacrificing the scientific grounds of research as such. Theauthors succeed admirably in this complex and yet worthwhile task. Thisis a work that could be helpful to those in all branches of the socialsciences that take up issues relating to inequality and the unevendistribution of the social goods of a nation.John Mirowsky is the author of 'Social Causes of Psychological Distress (Social Institutions and Social Change)', published 2003 under ISBN 9780202307091 and ISBN 0202307093.