Top 5 Unsolved Sociological Questions

Physicists and other natural scientists often spend time specifying and focusing attention on unsolved questions, such as how particles obtain mass, the origins of dark matter, and how time is related to entropy. In general, I think it's a good practice for any field of endeavor to revisit the questions that are stubbornly and perplexing unsolved, including sociology. Thus, in this spirit of refining our ignorance (and clarifying our sociological "known unknowns"), here is my list of the top unsolved sociological questions of the early 21st century:

• What is causing the unprecedented, nearly-monotonic drop in crime rates across the developed world over the last several decades? As the NYT mentions, this question has been perplexing criminologists and sociologists, and everything from changing demographics to the legalization of abortion has been cited (although the latter cause is most probably incorrect, pace Steven Levitt).
• Why are various forms of inequality increasing across the developed world, from Sweden to the United States, since the early 1970s? Although many sociologists and economists have focused on technological change, immigration rates, and de-unionization, deeper causes (such as those related to political institutions or social structures) remain largely unexplored.
• Why do so many cultural and social phenomena (such as the frequency of words in the English language, size of cities across the globe, and amount of wealth across individuals) follow power-law distributions when plotted by size (or frequency) and rank? Explanations have focused on preferential attachment (popularly articulated by Herbert Simon) and information efficiency costs (as outlined by Benoit Mandelbrot), but thus far we have no conclusive evidence for favoring any particular mechanism over others.
• How does culture (defined as values, norms, attitudes, and beliefs) result in different economic and political outcomes across groups? Since the time of Max Weber, the causal effect of culture on human behavior has baffled sociologists and other social scientists, in part because of the apparent intractability of measuring culture and clearly linking it to economic and political outcomes. As a result, answering this question is an open, fertile area of empirical and theoretical exploration.
• Why is the United States unusually politically conservative and religious compared to other developed countries? At least since Tocqueville sociologists, including the late Seymour Martin Lipset, have puzzled over why the United States has exhibited a kind of cultural "exceptionalism" (in the non-normative sense), with relatively high levels of religiosity and political conservatism. Although many explanations have been offered, a satisfactory account has remained stubbornly elusive.

Physics Envy

The NYT published an op-ed today by a pair of political scientists on "physics envy" by sociologists, economists, and political scientists. The authors mainly argue that theory can be useful even when it is wrong or unsupported by data, and briefly mention that data analysis is useful even if theoretical contributions are not obvious. I disagree with the former, but not the latter. For a similar view, see this post by the theoretical physicist Sean Carroll.

Why are Economists so (Consistently) Led Astray About Inequality?

In a recent Boston Globe article Ed Glaeser, a conservative urban economist at Harvard, wrote an article titled Why income disparity in Boston isn't a bad thing. Glaeser is right that inequality increases in a city such as Boston can be due to selection effects, since poor people are moving into Boston for economic and cultural opportunities. Yet these selection effects (i.e., poor people moving into a geographic area in the hopes of upward mobility, which is generally considered a good thing) is drastically different from the observed outcomes (i.e., large disparities in people's wealth due to their social positions in a system of occupations, which is generally considered a bad thing). Yet Glaeser conflates the two, confusing the reader and, perhaps, himself. A more accurate title for the article would have been "Why poor people moving into Boston isn't a bad thing." This raises a question: why are economists so (consistently) led astray about the causes and consequences of economic, social, and political inequality?

Inequality: Everyone's Thinking About It

I ran into the following articles on inequality, which has not only been increasing structurally but culturally (in that more policy elites and journalists are discussing the topic openly). Here are some recent posts on inequality:

• Reuters is reporting findings from a group of researchers showing that Sweden has undergone an enormous increase in inequality, especially since the rise of the center-right in the political system. For those of us in the United States who look to Sweden as a model of development, in recent years even this country has regressed from the ideals of social democracy.
• Based on an online survey (with all the caveats about sampling procedures, of course), a group has surveyed wealthy Americans on their views on inequality. The biggest finding, which reinforces the importance of class-based analyses of electoral politics: among the wealthy there is a huge gap between self-identified Republicans and Democrats, with over 84% of the latter favoring policies taxing the rich while around 29% of the former.

MIT Inequality Talk

As part of the technology and culture forum at MIT, I attended a talk featuring the notable economists Frank Levy (Professor of Urban Economics at MIT), David Autor (Associate Chair of the MIT economics department), Peter Diamond (MIT Institute Professor Emeritus), and Arjun Jayadev (Assistant Professor Economics at UMass-Boston). I've read quite a bit of their work, and they have all conducted important research on inequality, poverty, and policy; for instance, Frank Levy's The New Dollars and Dreams: American Incomes and Economic Change is still (over a decade later since the last edition was published) one of the best overviews of trends in economic conditions in the United States since World War II. The panelists focused on the causes and consequences of income and wage inequality, as well as possible solutions, with moderation by David Autor.

Taxes and Inequality

The economist Daren Acemoglu and his colleague James Robinson have an excellent article on the problems with inequality in the United States. You can find it here. In general, I agree with them entirely, and they are persuasive in outlining the negative aspects of political inequality.

Utility Theory as Naive Cultural Theory

Here's a fascinating presentation by the economist Steve Keen on utility theory and neoclassical economics. From the perspective of a cultural sociologist, what is of particular interest is that the utility theory underlying neoclassical economics has the appearance of a naive cultural theory. Specifically, the indifference curves that constitute supply and demand curves in neoclassical analysis are based on strong, disproved assumptions about how people value things in the world: first, completeness (i.e., that the individual knows their evaluative ranking of all combinations of things); second, transitivity (i.e., if thing A is valued to B, and B to C, then A is valued over C); third, non-satiation (i.e., more things are always valued to less); fourth, convexity (i.e., for each thing, additional value falls); fifth, structural independence from culture (i.e., what an individual values is independent of how much income the have); finally, no curse of dimensionality (i.e., information processing abilities are unlimited). No cultural theory  in sociology has even approached the disbelief required for these kinds of assumptions. Fortunately, some sociologists (for example Michael Hechter), have sought to correct this naive cultural theory, and have advocated eloquently and convincingly for a richer understanding of values in economic models of human behavior.

Inequality versus Dispersion

I'm glad to see that Alan Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (a fancy name for a panel of three economists), discussed the problems with inequality in his address today. You can find his remarks and graphs here. I liked his graphs, and he shows convincingly many of the standard findings in sociology and political science on politics and inequality in the United States. However, I found the following comments puzzling:

Although I have done much research in my career on inequality, I used to have an aversion to using the term inequality. The Wall Street Journal ran an article in the mid-1990s that noted that I prefer to use the term “dispersion.” But the rise in income dispersion – along so many dimensions – has gotten to be so high, that I now think that inequality is a more appropriate term.

The mixing of the statistical concept of dispersion with the sociological concept of inequality muddles the discussion. It's true that any distribution is often described by some measure of dispersion (e.g., standard deviation) and central tendency (e.g., mean or mode). But inequality encompasses a concept of equity, as well as some concept of disparity (or disparities), neither of which is analogous to the statistical concept of dispersion. Moreover, if we use Krueger's logic it's unclear at what threshold "dispersion" is labeled "inequality"; for instance, his comments imply that Sweden currently has dispersion, while the United States has inequality, although many Swedes would probably disagree.

Animating David Harvey

I found the addition of animation a clever way of augmenting the arguments by the sociologist David Harvey, who discusses the crises of capitalism here:

Clearly this was a time-consuming effort, so not many of these videos can be made easily. If there is a way to make animating lectures more automated (through, for instance, computerized animations) it would be very beneficial for helping students learn. You can find additional RSAnimate lectures here.

Cultural Contradictions of Pop Economics

Andy Gelman has a fascinating post on the apparent contradictions of pop micro-economists today. I highly recommend reading it, as well as the comments. In essence, Gelman argues that many pop economists take one of two positions, depending on the circumstance: first, people are rational and respond to incentives (and thus behavior that appears irrational is actually rational once you take the perspective of an economist); second, people are irrational and don't respond to incentives (and thus, they need economists, with their open minds, to show them how to be rational). The problem, argues, Gelman is that these positions are entirely contradictory, and that pop-economics plays hopscotch with these viewpoints, switching from one to the other.

Daniel Bell, Master Sociologist

The NYT posted an excellent profile of my late friend Dan Bell, the master sociologist (and big thinker). Even though he was a big-thinking social theorist, I remember that Dan told me, emphatically in fact, that he was a quantitative sociologist! This makes sense, since his big books often included quantitative data of trend lines (which is in many ways advantageous over modeling the data and then focusing on the model parameters, such as regression coefficients or standard errors).

Sociology = Hedge Fund?

Some people have blamed hedge funds (whose managers can earn extraordinarily high returns) for contributing to the high level of economic inequality in the USA. And who invented the hedge fund? We can thank the sociologist Alfred Winslow Jones, Ph.D.

A Quantitative Tour of the Social Sciences

I just read "A Quantitative Tour of the Social Sciences," edited by Andrew Gelman and Jeronimo Cortina. I highly recommend the book for anyone who does quantitative research, including part-time quantitative analysts and ambitious undergraduates. The aim of the book is to expose the reader to the similarities and differences in quantitative thinking across five core social science disciplines: history (a welcome but oft neglected member of the social sciences), economics, sociology, political science, and psychology. The editors are unabashedly in favor of methodological pluralism, and present as diverse set of views as possible. What is notable about this volume is that for each discipline the authors have included exercises ranging from conceptual questions to hands-on data analyses. From my perspective, especially illuminating chapters include Andrew Gelman's thoroughly informative discussion of the application of game theory to trench warfare (in part because he discusses the criticisms of his paper as it went through peer review) and Jeronimo Cortina's overview of the potential outcomes model of causality (which, while familiar to more advanced readers, is presented with enviable clarity).

The chapters capture most of the differences among the disciplines in quantitative thinking. However, a few differences in mathematical modeling may be missed. In particular, likely reflecting an enduring interest in social context and interconnections among individuals, sociologists tend to use multilevel models and social network methods more frequently than other social scientists. As well, economists are much more likely to focus on trying to interpret observational data causally through the use of instrumental variables and, to a lesser extent, regression discontinuity design. Notwithstanding, overall this book is a welcome addition to the bookshelf of any scholar who does quantitative work.

Simpson's Paradox Strikes Again

The Wall Street Journal published a recent article on Simpson's paradox and the jobless rate in the USA. When aggregated, the jobless rate is lower today than in the 1980s; however, when broken down by educational levels, the jobless rate for each educational group is higher. How can this be? The reason the overall rate is higher today is because college graduates, who tend to have a lower unemployment rate than other groups even in good economic times, are a larger proportion of the population today than in the past. Thus, the weighted average across all educational groups is weighted much more by college graduates today than in the 1980s, lifting the overall unemployment rate higher even though all educational groups are faring worse.

The Paradox of Choice

Last week I read Barry Schwartz's (a professor of social theory and social action at Swarthmore) book The Paradox of Choice. I highly recommend reading his book, especially chapters 4 and 11, which summarize his main ideas. In a nutshell, he contends that the plethora of choices before us in modern capitalist economies often leads to chronic indecision, anxiety, unhappiness. (Sociologists may glean some elements of Durkheim from Schwartz's arguments.) In the final chapter Schwartz outlines several recommendations for how to decrease choice in your life and thus increase your overall life satisfaction. Here are some points I found particularly useful:

(1) Choose when to choose: In other words, make rules so you have fewer decisions to make. We often make rules for mundane tasks (such as "I always brush my teeth before going to bed") but not for other tasks, such as what hobbies to pursue, what clothes to purchase, and so forth. By reducing the number of decisions, you can increase your focus on those decisions you do decide to make (e.g., "Where should I move to?") and decrease your overall anxiety.

(2) Satisfice more and maximize less: That is, do not try to do the best and expect the best; rather, expect to do "good enough" while trying to do your best. Expecting to be the best will lead to anxiety and depression; after all, the "best" is almost always an illusion because there is never one metric for what constitutes the best. (Do this little experiment: compare the number of citations in google scholar for Albert Einstein's versus Anthony Giddens'. Who comes out on top? Who is the "best"?)

(3) Think about the opportunity cost of opportunity costs: Do not think about the attractive features of choices you do not make. For example, if you move decide to Florida, avoid thinking how much better the public transportation is in New York City, or how much better the universities are in Boston. Instead, focus on the warm weather, beautiful beaches, and fascinating American-Cuban culture.

(4) Cultivate non-reversible decisions: By making your decisions non-reversible, you can sink your efforts deep into what you're doing rather than thinking about what else you "should" be doing. A useful analogy is skiing: when you go skiing down hills, you decrease your chances of falling by leaning forward a bit rather than leaning back (i.e, you must commit to you decision!).

(5) Curtail social comparison: It's a good idea to obliterate social comparisons, especially upward social comparisons (which seems natural to many of us). It's always possible to find someone more successful by some standard, so it's always possible to be unhappy.

Of course, none of this easy (as Schwartz himself emphasizes)!

The Language of Economists

For the past few days I've been brushing up on econometrics (i.e., statistical methods used and developed by economists) and I've run across a number of curious terms used by economists (at least in the examples mentioned in the particular textbook). What I find fascinating is how economists and sociologists can examine similar phenomenon yet use different terminology, reflecting differences in training, theories, and political opinions. Here is an abbreviated dictionary of my favorite terms from economics, with my (cheeky?) translations into sociology:

Equilibrium:  A condition in which (economic) forces are balanced and, in the absence of an external force, the values of variables do not change; according to many sociologists, an outdated concept from either the 19th Century (see, for example, Charles Tilly's view on equilibrium as conceptual baggage) or mid-20th century structural functionalism (see, for instance, the work by Talcott Parsons and his followers) that is either (a) generally not useful for understanding actually existing social conditions or (b) somehow used to justify the status quo.

Utility function: A mathematical equation showing people's total satisfaction equivalent to a set of variables, often reflecting a combination of consumption of goods and work performance. According to sociologists, a radical abstraction, obscuring the fact that people's preferences (on which utility is usually based) are often incoherent, ill-formed, and even non-existent until they are asked about them.

Revealed preference: The idea that what you truly want is revealed by what you do rather than what you say; according to many sociologists, patterns of behavior independent of what you really want, influenced by social structures, norms, and governments, and even ideology. Regarding the latter, see Steven Lukes' classic work on power, in which he contends that what you think what you want may not be what you really want if you were in a society free of ideology.

Flexibility: A condition in the labor market in which workers shift from one economic activity to another very quickly; according to many sociologists, pervasive job insecurity (see, for example, the recent work by the sociologist Arne Kalleberg). Among sociologists and public health researchers, research has generally demonstrated the negative effects of job insecurity, which leads to lower levels of physical health, higher rates of depression, and disruptions over the life course.

Free market: A system of transactions based on supply and demand with extremely little government involvement; according to many sociologists, an impossible fiction. As the late sociologist Charles Tilly put it, the market is run not by an "invisible hand" (which is capable and in control) but by an "invisible elbow" (which clumsily knocks things over without realizing it). Or to refer to another sociologist, Karl Polyani, the free market is at most a temporary phase of systemic social disruptions pushed through by the heavy hand of the state, which if left unchecked leads to mass unemployment, financial chaos, and violent social movements.

Ever wonder why economists and sociologists have trouble agreeing?

Economists > Political Scientists > Sociologists?

I recently encountered a blog entry by the eminent (and often wrong) economist Greg Mankiw . In his blog he notes that the ex-president of Harvard, the economist Larry Summers, asked a dean at Harvard if it isn't true that "in general, economists are smarter than political scientists, and political scientists are smarter than sociologists?" Mankiw then links to these 2002 data of GRE scores by field of Ph.D. study (with the obligatory "joke" that public administration is at the bottom of the hierarchy):

There are two big problems with Mankiw's claim that Larry Summers is "vindicated." First, does the GRE measure what it means to be "smart"? As much as I'd like to think so (since I scored in the 99th percentile on the GRE), the answer is a resounding no. The GRE is not recognized by Mensa, the high IQ society, as a legitimate IQ test. The lack of validity of the GRE as an IQ test is echoed by Educational Testing Service (ETS), the company that created the GRE, which has since removed the analytical section of the GRE listed above and replaced it with a writing section. And of course we should not forget that the GRE does not even attempt to measure the multitude of intelligences discussed by Robert J. Sternberg and Howard Gardner: social, emotional, visual, and so forth. Intelligence has likely evolved into a system of modules in the brain embodying different capabilities rather than a single, unitary construct that can be organized on one dimension (or a small number of dimensions).

Second, even if the GRE does measure what it means to be "smart," is there any reason to think these differences will persist after entry into graduate school? Again, there are serious problems with such a claim. Sociologists (especially vis-a-vis economists) are an especially diverse group of people: we are more likely to be female, non-white, and come from poorer backgrounds. These disadvantages can lead to stereotype threat (as discussed by the late John Ogbu) or other forms of test anxiety, resulting in lower test scores even when such tests measure raw intelligence. Moreover, the GRE scores listed above are only those for Doctoral students who enter programs, not those who exit them; given the difficulty of academic work, it is likely the differences between fields become flattened when you compare students who graduate with degrees. Finally, the GRE scores above ignore possible cohort effects: it is possible current sociology faculty score just as highly as current faculty in economics.

In short, pace Mankiw, Summers has not been "vindicated."