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Key Words negotiated order, social exchange, power, collective identity, symbolic interaction
* Abstract The distinctive contribution of sociological social psychology can be referred to as sociological miniaturism, a way of interpreting social processes and institutions that is microsociological more than it is psychological. We argue that social psychology of this variety permits the examination of large-scale social issues by means of investigation of small-scale social situations. The power of this approach to social life is that it permits recognition of the dense texture of everyday life, permits sociologists to understand more fully a substantive domain, and permits interpretive control. In the chapter we provide examples of this approach from two quite distinct theoretical orientations: symbolic interactionism and social exchange theory. We discuss the ways in which the study of two substantive topics, social power and collective identity, using these perspectives can be informed by closer collaboration between theorists within sociological social psychology. In the end it is our hope that pursuing such integrative theoretical and methodological efforts will produce a more complete understanding of important social phenomena. We offer sociological miniaturism as a promising vehicle for advancing the earlier call for greater mutual appreciation of and rapprochement between diverse lines of social psychological work in sociology.
INTRODUCTION
The social psychological perspective in sociology has had a long, if uncertain, history. Sociological social psychology has a longevity equal to its history in psychology, although its growth has been in spurts and starts, and its theoretical development has been, until recently, less continuous. In 1908 two textbooks of social psychology were published in the United States: one by William McDougall in psychology, one by Edward A. Ross in sociology. Within a few decades, after flirting with introspectionism, psychological social psychology claimed the laboratory experiment as its standard methodology (Fine & Elsbach 2000). The agenda of social psychology in psychology was to demonstrate how the behaviors of individuals were influenced by the existence of a social world and how individuals developed cognitive strategies to take their social surroundings into account. The primary thrust of this approach was to comprehend individual behaviors and attitudes as a function of an external reality.
In both methodological and theoretical terms, sociological social psychology has been less self-assured, perhaps bracingly more...