Preference theory is a multidisciplinary (mainly sociological) theory developed by Catherine Hakim. [1] [2] It seeks both to explain and predict women's choices regarding investment in productive or reproductive work. [3]
The theory sets out five socio-economic conditions which jointly create a new scenario: [4]
Preference theory posits that in the rare countries that have fully achieved the new scenario for women (she cites only Britain and the Netherlands), women have genuine choices as to how they resolve the conflict between paid jobs and a major investment in family life. These choices fall into three main groups: women who prioritise their careers and espouse achievement values (a work-centred lifestyle) and often remain childless by choice (about 20%); women who prioritise family life and sharing values (a home-centred lifestyle) and often have many children and little paid work (about 20%); and the majority of women who seek to combine paid jobs and family work in some way without giving absolute priority to either activity or the accompanying values (the adaptive lifestyle). [3]
Catherine Hakim carried out two national surveys, in Britain and Spain, to test the theory, and showed that questions eliciting personal preferences can strongly predict women's employment decisions and fertility. In contrast, women's behaviour did not predict their attitudes, showing that lifestyle preferences are not post hoc rationalisations. [5]
This study also showed that other sex-role attitudes do not have the same impact on women's behaviour; notably, the patriarchal values measured by most social surveys, including the European Social Survey, have virtually no impact on women's personal choices and behaviour. [5] [6] [7]
Hakim's preference theory has attracted great interest in the literature, but also considerable criticism. The main criticism is that it does not demonstrate causality, that the observed preferences causes changes in fertility patterns, and that it has been suggested that actual fertility may change values and preferences. It has also been suggested that the observed effect of lifestyle preferences on achieved fertility may absorbed by other factors when controlled for. [8] A follow-up study "found that Hakim’s typology does not work well in the Czech Republic", that there were no important differences in fertility between the three groups in that country. [2] A second follow-up study, surveying eleven European countries, found support for the theory in only two countries (Britain and Denmark). [8]
Rational choice theory refers to a set of guidelines that help understand economic and social behaviour. The theory originated in the eighteenth century and can be traced back to the political economist and philosopher Adam Smith. The theory postulates that an individual will perform a cost–benefit analysis to determine whether an option is right for them. It also suggests that an individual's self-driven rational actions will help better the overall economy. Rational choice theory looks at three concepts: rational actors, self interest and the invisible hand.
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things. According to this theory, when an action or idea is psychologically inconsistent with the other, people do all in their power to change either so that they become consistent. The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.
Lifestyle is the interests, opinions, behaviours, and behavioural orientations of an individual, group, or culture. The term was introduced by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in his 1929 book, The Case of Miss R., with the meaning of "a person's basic character as established early in childhood". The broader sense of lifestyle as a "way or style of living" has been documented since 1961. Lifestyle is a combination of determining intangible or tangible factors. Tangible factors relate specifically to demographic variables, i.e. an individual's demographic profile, whereas intangible factors concern the psychological aspects of an individual such as personal values, preferences, and outlooks.
Rensis Likert was an American organizational and social psychologist known for developing the Likert scale, a psychometrically sound scale based on responses to multiple questions. The scale has become a method to measure people's thoughts and feelings from opinion surveys to personality tests. Likert also founded the theory of participative management, which is used to engage employees in the workplace. Likert's contributions in psychometrics, research samples, and open-ended interviewing have helped form and shape social and organizational psychology.
Social research is research conducted by social scientists following a systematic plan. Social research methodologies can be classified as quantitative and qualitative.
This is an index of sociology articles. For a shorter list, see List of basic sociology topics.
Human male sexuality encompasses a wide variety of feelings and behaviors. Men's feelings of attraction may be caused by various physical and social traits of their potential partner. Men's sexual behavior can be affected by many factors, including evolved predispositions, individual personality, upbringing, and culture. While most men are heterosexual, there are minorities of homosexual or varying degrees of bisexual men.
Sexual capital or erotic capital is the social power an individual or group accrues as a result of their sexual attractiveness and social charm. It enables social mobility independent of class origin because sexual capital is convertible, and may be useful in acquiring other forms of capital, including social capital and economic capital.
The Inevitability of Patriarchy: Why the Biological Difference Between Men and Women Always Produces Male Domination is a book by Steven Goldberg published by William Morrow and Company in 1973. The theory proposed by Goldberg is that social institutions that are characterised by male dominance may be explained by biological differences between men and women, suggesting male dominance (patriarchy) could be inevitable.
The economics of religion concerns both the application of the techniques of economics to the study of religion and the relationship between economic and religious behaviours. Contemporary writers on the subject trace it back to Adam Smith (1776).
In sexual relationships, concepts of age disparity, including what defines an age disparity, have developed over time and vary among societies. Differences in age preferences for mates can stem from partner availability, gender roles, and evolutionary mating strategies, and age preferences in sexual partners may vary cross-culturally. There are also social theories for age differences in relationships as well as suggested reasons for 'alternative' age-hypogamous relationships. Age-disparate relationships have been documented for most of recorded history and have been regarded with a wide range of attitudes dependent on sociocultural norms and legal systems.
Catherine Hakim is a British sociologist who specialises in women's employment and women's issues. She is known for developing the preference theory, for her work on erotic capital and more recently for a sex-deficit theory. She is currently a professorial research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Civil Society (Civitas), and has formerly worked in British central government and been a senior research fellow at the London School of Economics and the Centre for Policy Studies. She has also been a visiting professor at the Social Science Research Center Berlin.
The introspection illusion is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly think they have direct insight into the origins of their mental states, while treating others' introspections as unreliable. The illusion has been examined in psychological experiments, and suggested as a basis for biases in how people compare themselves to others. These experiments have been interpreted as suggesting that, rather than offering direct access to the processes underlying mental states, introspection is a process of construction and inference, much as people indirectly infer others' mental states from their behaviour.
In criminology, the power-control theory of gender and delinquency holds the gender distribution of delinquency is caused by stratification from gender relations within the family. The theory seeks to explain gender differences in the rates of delinquency by attributing them to the level of social/parental control practiced. The theory states that the class, gender, and type of family structure will influence the severity of social/parental control practiced which will in turn set the "accepted norm" for the child/individual. This norm will in turn control the level of delinquency by the individual.
In psychology, economics and philosophy, preference is a technical term usually used in relation to choosing between alternatives. For example, someone prefers A over B if they would rather choose A than B. Preferences are central to decision theory because of this relation to behavior. Some methods such as Ordinal Priority Approach use preference relation for decision-making. As connative states, they are closely related to desires. The difference between the two is that desires are directed at one object while preferences concern a comparison between two alternatives, of which one is preferred to the other.
Fertility factors are determinants of the number of children that an individual is likely to have. Fertility factors are mostly positive or negative correlations without certain causations.
In evolutionary psychology and behavioral ecology, human mating strategies are a set of behaviors used by individuals to select, attract, and retain mates. Mating strategies overlap with reproductive strategies, which encompass a broader set of behaviors involving the timing of reproduction and the trade-off between quantity and quality of offspring.
Integrated threat theory (ITT), also known as intergroup threat theory, is a theory in psychology and sociology which attempts to describe the components of perceived threat that lead to prejudice between social groups. The theory applies to any social group that may feel threatened in some way, whether or not that social group is a majority or minority group in their society. This theory deals with perceived threat rather than actual threat. Perceived threat includes all of the threats that members of group believe they are experiencing, regardless of whether those threats actually exist. For example, people may feel their economic well-being is threatened by an outgroup stealing their jobs even if, in reality, the outgroup has no effect on their job opportunities. Still, their perception that their job security is under threat can increase their levels of prejudice against the outgroup. Thus, even false alarms about threat still have "real consequence" for prejudice between groups.
Nan Dirk de Graaf is a Dutch sociologist working in Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He is known for his work on social stratification, religion, political sociology, the impact of social mobility on a variety of social issues, pro-social behaviour, as well as his books.
Melinda Mills, is a Canadian and Dutch demographer and sociologist. She is currently the Nuffield Professor of Sociology at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Mills’ research spans a range of interdisciplinary topics at the intersection of demography, sociology, molecular genetics and statistics. Her substantive research specializes in fertility and human reproductive behaviour, assortative mating, labour market, life course and inequality.