CLAUDIA STRAUSS, What Makes Tony Run?

About Claudia Strauss

- Undergrad at Brown University, Masters & PhD at Harvard
- Areas of expertise include psychological anthropology, cultural theory, American political culture, discourse
analysis, ad qualitative social research methods

What Makes Tony Run?

- 5 Rhode Island blue collar workers on getting ahead
- Schema/Schemata
o Model/framework/structure of cognition that lets people expect what is to happen in given situations
Construct/reconstruct probable details (Casson, 1983)
o A data structure for representing generic concepts stored in memory (Rumelhart, 1980)
o Scripts
o Connectionist theory
Units for processing information
Mirroring regularities but still in continual modification (DAndrade, 1995)
- 3 forms of cognitive representation
o Success values
Beliefs supposedly strived for
Bounded ideas poorly connected to more motivating ideas
Compacted units (think molecules; seemingly indivisible)
o Breadwinner values
Beliefs taken in as reality
Affects self-esteem also, but have more of an effect (not seen as a choice)
o Personal semantic networks
How the world is viewed by the individual created from the individuals life experiences
Personal motivations
Unbounded connected to experiences
Link verbal symbols
-

Cognitive links
o Contiguity if idea B follows A without interruptions/change in topic, theyre linked
o Significant terms talking about A & B using the same significant terms, linked
o Shared voice spoken of with the same outlook & mode of expression, linked

Questions:
- How does culture shape motivation?
Assumptions:
- The 3 types of thinking (culture as mental phenomena) shape what motivates a person (directive force)
- There is awareness of the schema and the individual can dispute it (Hierarchical)
o Breadwinner values and personal semantic networks VS success values
- Success values from mass media, breadwinner values from observation, personal semantic networks
learned verbally & observationally
Methods:
- Interviews
- In-depth analyses of transcriptions, examining schemas
Evidence:
- 5 acknowledge that they can be successful if they work for it, 1 knows it to be an old schema
- Despite knowing that, they stay in place despite promotions/better, safer opportunities
o Breadwinner thinking better to stay with the good money to provide for the family
o Personal semantic network [Tony DAbrosca] strong dislike for greed, capitalism given his past
experiences (further proven by cognitive links in text)
o Personal semantic network [Anthony Galluci] switched somewhere safer, with less pay &
supervision for more dating time. Hated any kind of authority due to experiences with old bosses
and governmental authority