Culture in Mind Culture in Mind T S OWARD A OCIOLOGY C C OF U LTU RE AN D OG N ITION EDITED BY Karen A.Cerulo Routledge NEW YORK LONDON Published in 2002 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. Copyright © 2002 by Routledge All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Culture in mind: toward a sociology of culture and cognition/edited by Karen A.Cerulo p. cm. Includes bibliog raphical references and index. ISBN 0-415-92943-1—ISBN 0-415-92944-X (pbk) 1. Cognition and culture—Congresses. I. Cerulo, Karen A. BF311.C85 2001 153–dc21 2001019757 ISBN 0-203-90470-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-90474-5 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-92944-X (Print Edition) For Joseph and Edna Nicastro, bright and warm in my heart Contents Acknowledgments ix 1. ESTABLISHING A SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE AND COGNITION 1 Karen A.Cerulo Section I:Sensation and Attention SENSATION AND ATTENTION: AN INTRODUCTION 15 2. THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: NOTES ON THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF DENIAL 21 Eviatar Zerubavel 3. SIGNALS AND INTERPRETIVE WORK: THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN A THEORY OF PRACTICAL ACTION 28 Diane Vaughan Section II: Discrimination and Classification DISCRIMINATION AND CLASSIFICATION: AN INTRODUCTION 57 4. COMMENSURATION AND COGNITION 63 Wendy Nelson Espeland 5. PRETERM BABIES IN THE “MOTHER MACHINE”: METAPHORIC REASONING AND BUREAUCRATIC RITUALS THAT FINISH THE “UNFINISHED INFANT” 89 Nicole Isaacson 6. COGNITION IN SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS: MARKET RIVALRY PROFILE VERSUS COST SCHEDULE 101 Harrison C.White vii viii CONTENTS Section III: Representation and Integration REPRESENTATION AND INTEGRATION: AN INTRODUCTION 113 7. MORAL INQUIRY IN CULTURAL SOCIOLOGY 123 Robert Wuthnow 8. INDIVIDUALISM…PRO TEM: RECONSIDERING U.S. SOCIAL RELATIONS 135 Karen A.Cerulo 9. TRACKING DISCOURSE 172 David L.Altheide 10. HOW STORYTELLING CAN BE EMPOWERING 187 William A.Gamson Section IV: Storage and Retrieval STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL: AN INTRODUCTION 201 11. HONOR, DIGNITY, AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY: JUDGING THE PAST IN KOREA AND THE UNITED STATES 209 Barry Schwartz and MiKyoung Kim 12. THINKING ABOUT EVIL: ADOLF HITLER AND THE DILEMMA OF THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REPUTATION 227 Gary Alan Fine Section V: Building Bridges BUILDING BRIDGES: AN INTRODUCTION 241 13. FIXING A FOUCAULT SANDWICH: COGNITIVE UNIVERSALS AND CULTURAL PARTICULARS IN THE CONCEPT OF MENTAL DISORDERS 245 Jerome C.Wakefield 14. CULTURE, HARMFUL DYSFUNCTIONS AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF MENTAL ILLNESS 267 Allan V.Horwitz 15. WHY COGNITIVE (AND CULTURAL) SOCIOLOGY NEEDS COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 274 Paul DiMaggio Appendix: Mapping the Field 283 Karen A.Cerulo Contributors 294 Index 297 Acknowledgments The papers that constitute this volume were originally presented at a conference entitled “Toward a Sociology of Culture and Cognition,” held at Rutgers University in November 1999. I am grateful not only to this volume’s contributors, but to all those who presented their work at that event. These participants are all significant to the establishment of a new and exciting intellectual agenda. I take this opportunity to acknowledge gratefully the many sponsors that made this project possible: the American Sociological Association’s Funds for the Advancement of the Discipline, the Rutgers University Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture, the Rutgers University Research Council, the Rutgers University Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging, and Rutgers University’s Vice President of academic affairs, Dean of Social Sciences, Graduate School, and Department of Sociology. Special thanks go to my research assistant Ruth Simpson, who contributed significantly to the conference organization and provided insightful feedback on sections of this volume. Ruth also designed the wonderful Web site that accompanies both of these efforts. This collection also greatly benefited from Lyn Spillman’s careful and constructive review of the original proposal. I am grateful as well to Paul DiMaggio, Allan V.Horwitz, Magali Sarfatti Larson, Janet Ruane, Robert Wuthnow, and Eviatar Zerubavel for their intellectual and collegial support during various phases of this project. Finally, thanks go to my wonderful editor Ilene Kalish and the equally wonderful staff at Routledge (especially assistant editor Kimberly Guinta and production editors Tom Wang and Hope Breeman) for their help in bringing this project to fruition. ix