Social Psychology

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I am currently a Sociology doctoral student at Purdue University, West Lafayette IN. I have also done graduate coursework at Indiana University, Bloomington. I completed my M.S. at Purdue University in 2008. My B.S. was taken from Weber State University, Ogden UT in 2004. My undergraduate studies consisted of a double major in Sociology and Criminal Justice.

Click on this link for my full CV in .pdf format

My substantive interests are in the social aspects of self & identity. As a Sociologist I approach Social Psychology from a Symbolic Interaction (SI) tradition that begins with Weber's notion of verstehen. Following Weber I trace my interest through the nineteenth century pragmatist movement, and specifically the Chicago school contributions. At the center of the Chicago school was George Herbert Mead's SI work on self & identity. Mead's work is fundamental to my own thinking about self & identity. Moving forward along this timeline a methodological break occurred requiring students to either remain in Chicago with some of Mead's students like Herbert Blumer and pursue processual studies of SI or move to Iowa with Kuhn & McPartland to study structural SI. In recent years meta-analysis has made this "line in the sand" a bit fuzzy. Strict partisan adherence to survey work vs. field work has minimized and scholars are now engaged in mixed methods analysis of self & identity, allowing the question to drive the method and not the opposite. The Indiana school then emerged in the 1950's with Sheldon Stryker et al. Stryker followed the structural tradition of Iowa as do many of his contemporary students. Indiana, with Chicago, Iowa, and Stanford remain eminent institutions for sociological social psychology. It is in this tradition I aspire to follow. Building from a place that began (in sociological terms) with Weber, and then moving through contributors like James, Cooley, Mead, Blumer, Kuhn, Stryker, Burke, Gecas, Stets, and Thoits.

RC Morris
Purdue Univeristy
Department of Sociology
700 W. State Street
West Lafayette, IN 47907

• Email: rmorris@purdue.edu - RC Morris