Münchener Studie zur Lebenszufriedenheit

In der vorliegenden Studie werden Bestimmungsfaktoren von Lebenszufriedenheit untersucht. Miteigens in München erhobenen Daten werden neben der deskriptiven Darstellung der gegenwärtigen Lebenszufriedenheit der Münchener Bevölkerung die Wirkungen körperlicher, sozialer sowie materieller Einflussfaktoren auf das persönliche Wohlbefinden analysiert. Es zeigt sich, dass trotz des subjektiven Charakters von empfundenem Glück die Lebenszufriedenheit der Münchener Bevölkerung zu rund 20 % mit Hilfe genereller Einflussfaktoren erklärt werden kann. Neben dem Lebensalter besitzen dabei insbesondere soziale Einflussfaktoren eine hohe Relevanz

Product Success in Cultural Markets: The Mediating Role of Familiarity, Peers, and Experts

The mediation of ambiguous markets has been essential to recent developments in economic sociology. Cultural industries provide a valuable testing ground for its perspective of socially influenced market behavior. This article emphasizes the uncertainty of cultural markets and thus the relevance of social valuation in disseminating new releases. I hypothesize that recipients of culture simplify cultural choice by reacting to easily attainable signals of product value. Mechanisms of valuation include product familiarity, peer influence, and expert critique. Focusing on an exemplary cultural market, I confront theoretical implications with data from the German book industry (2001–2006). Panel and cross-section regressions show that, alongside well-defined market segments, separate mechanisms guide consumer behavior. For incumbents’ offerings, prior recognition stabilizes cultural choice and reinforces differences in market success. In the highly ambiguous newcomer segment, imitation and negative media steer audience attention, at times leading to unsatisfactory aggregate outcomes, i.e. ‘bad’ bestsellers

Chapter 3 Analytical Sociology amidst a Computational Social Science Revolution

"The Handbook of Computational Social Science is a comprehensive reference source for scholars across multiple disciplines. It outlines key debates in the field, showcasing novel statistical modeling and machine learning methods, and draws from specific case studies to demonstrate the opportunities and challenges in CSS approaches. The Handbook is divided into two volumes written by outstanding, internationally renowned scholars in the field. This first volume focuses on the scope of computational social science, ethics, and case studies. It covers a range of key issues, including open science, formal modeling, and the social and behavioral sciences. This volume explores major debates, introduces digital trace data, reviews the changing survey landscape, and presents novel examples of computational social science research on sensing social interaction, social robots, bots, sentiment, manipulation, and extremism in social media. The volume not only makes major contributions to the consolidation of this growing research field, but also encourages growth into new directions. With its broad coverage of perspectives (theoretical, methodological, computational), international scope, and interdisciplinary approach, this important resource is integral reading for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers engaging with computational methods across the social sciences, as well as those within the scientific and engineering sectors.

The Dark Side of Leadership: An Experiment on Religious Heterogeneity and Cooperation in India.

We investigate voluntary contribution to public goods in culturally heterogeneous groups with a laboratory experiment conducted among 432 Hindu and Muslim subjects in India. With our specification of 'Leading by example' we test for an interaction effect between leadership and religious heterogeneity in a high stake environment. While cultural diversity does not affect contributions in the standard linear Public Goods Game, it reduces cooperation in the presence of a leader. Furthermore, we show that preferences for conditional cooperation are only prevalent in pure groups. In mixed groups, poor leadership and uncertainty about followers' reciprocity hinders the functionality of leadership as an institutional device to resolve social dilemmas

Disorder, Social Capital, and Norm Violation: Three Field Experiments on the Broken Windows Thesis

Adding to the debate about the “broken windows” thesis we discuss an explanation of minor norm violation based on the assumption that individuals infer expected sanctioning probabilities from contextual cues. We modify the classical framework of rational crime by signals of disorder, local social control, and their interaction. Testing our implications we present results from three field experiments showing that violations of norms, which prevent physical as well as social disorder, foster further violations of the same and of different norms. Varying the net gains from deviance it shows that disorder effects are limited to low cost situations. Moreover, we provide suggestive evidence that disorder effects are significantly stronger in neighborhoods with high social capital

Disorder, Social Capital, and Norm Violation: Three Field Experiments on the Broken Windows Thesis

Adding to the debate about the “broken windows” thesis we discuss an explanation of minor norm violation based on the assumption that individuals infer expected sanctioning probabilities from contextual cues. We modify the classical framework of rational crime by signals of disorder, local social control, and their interaction. Testing our implications we present results from three field experiments showing that violations of norms, which prevent physical as well as social disorder, foster further violations of the same and of different norms. Varying the net gains from deviance it shows that disorder effects are limited to low cost situations. Moreover, we provide suggestive evidence that disorder effects are significantly stronger in neighborhoods with high social capital

The Dark Side of Leadership: An Experiment on Religious Heterogeneity and Cooperation in India.

We investigate voluntary contribution to public goods in culturally heterogeneous groups with a laboratory experiment conducted among 432 Hindu and Muslim subjects in India. With our specification of 'Leading by example' we test for an interaction effect between leadership and religious heterogeneity in a high stake environment. While cultural diversity does not affect contributions in the standard linear Public Goods Game, it reduces cooperation in the presence of a leader. Furthermore, we show that preferences for conditional cooperation are only prevalent in pure groups. In mixed groups, poor leadership and uncertainty about followers' reciprocity hinders the functionality of leadership as an institutional device to resolve social dilemmas