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On the Microfoundations of Macrosociology Author(S): Randall Collins Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol On the Microfoundations of Macrosociology Author(s): Randall Collins Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 86, No. 5 (Mar., 1981), pp. 984-1014 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2778745 . Accessed: 04/08/2011 14:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Sociology. http://www.jstor.org On the Microfoundations of Macrosociology' Randall Collins Universityof Virginia Detailed microsociologicalstudies of everydaylife activityraise the challengeof makingmacrosociological concepts fully empirical by translatingthem into aggregates of micro-events.Micro-evidence and theoreticalcritiques indicate that human cognitive capacity is limited. Hence actors facingcomplex contingencies rely largelyupon tacit assumptionsand routine.The routinesof physicalproperty and or- ganizationalauthority are upheldby actors'tacit monitoring of social coalitions.Individuals continuously negotiate such coalitions in chains of interactionrituals in whichconversations create symbols of group membership.Every encounteris a marketplacein whichindividuals tacitlymatch conversational and emotionalresources acquired from previousencounters. Individuals are motivatedto movetoward those ritualencounters in whichtheir microresources pay thegreatest emo- tionalreturns until they reach personal equilibrium points at which theiremotional returns stabilize or decline.Large-scale changes in social structureare producedby aggregatechanges in the threetypes of microresources:increases in generalizedculture due to new com- municationsmedia or specializedculture-producing activities; new "technologies"of emotionalproduction; and new particularizedcul- tures (individualreputations) due to dramatic,usually conflictual, events.A methodof macrosamplingthe distribution of microresources is proposed. Microsociologyis the detailedanalysis of what people do, say, and think in the actual flowof momentaryexperience. Macrosociology is the analy- sis of large-scaleand long-termsocial processes,often treated as self-sub- sistententities such as "state," "organization,""class," "economy,""cul- ture,"and "society."In recentyears there has been an upsurgeof "radi- cal" microsociology,that is to say, empiricallydetailed and/or phenom- enologicallysophisticated microsociology. Radical microsociology(Garfin- kel 1967; Cicourel1973), as the detailedstudy of everydaylife, emerged partlyfrom the influx of phenomenologyinto empirical sociology and part- ly fromthe applicationof new researchtechniques-audio and video re- cordings-whichhave made it possible to study real-lifeinteraction in second-by-seconddetail. This has led to the close analysisof conversation (Sacks, Schegloff,and Jefferson1974), of nonverbalinteractions (Goffman 1971,pp. 3-61), and of the constructionand use of organizationalrecords 1 I am indebted to Aaron Cicourel,Paul DiMaggio, Arlie Hochschild,Charles Perrow, and Norbert Wiley for commentson earlier versionsof this paper. (? 1981 by The Universityof Chicago. 0002-9602/81/8605-0002$01.50 984 AJS Volume86 Number5 The Microfoundationsof Macrosociology (Cicourel1968; Clegg 1975) and henceto a viewof howlarger social pat- ternsare constructedout of micromaterials. This radical microsociology,under such labels as "ethnomethodology," "cognitivesociology," "social phenomenology,"and others,cuts in a num- ber of differentdirections. The directionthat I wouldargue is mostprom- isingfor the advance of sociologyas an empiricalscience is not the phe- nomenologicalanalysis of conceptsbut the emphasisupon ultradetailed empiricalresearch. This detailedmicro-analysis offers several contributions to the fieldof sociologyin general.One is to give a strongimpetus toward translatingall macrophenomenainto combinations of micro-events. A micro- translationstrategy reveals the empiricalrealities of social structuresas patternsof repetitivemicro-interaction. Microtranslation thus gives us a pictureof thecomplex levels of abstractioninvolved in causal explanations. Anothercontribution of radicalmicrosociology is its discoverythat actual everyday-lifemicrobehavior does not followrationalist models of cognition and decisionmaking. Instead, social interactiondepends upon tacitunder- standingsand agreementsnot to attemptto explicatewhat is taken for granted.This impliesthat explanations in termsof norms,rules, and role takingshould be abandonedand thatany modelof social exchangemust be considerablymodified. These are largedepartures from accepted sociologi- cal traditions.But these traditionshave not been verysuccessful in ad- vancingexplanatory principles. I would contendthat thisis because they have an incorrectmodel of the actor.What we need,instead, is a micro- mechanismthat can explain the repetitiveactions that make up social structuresuch that interactionsand theiraccompanying cognitions rest upon noncognitivebases. Such a mechanism,I will attemptto show,is providedby interaction ritualchains. Such chainsof micro-encountersgenerate the central features of social organization-authority,property, and group membership-by creatingand recreating"mythical" cultural symbols and emotionalener- gies.The resultof microtranslatingall socialstructure into such interaction ritualchains shouldbe to make microsociologyan importanttool in ex- plainingboth the inertia and the dynamicsof macrostructure. THE TIME-SPACE TABLE It is usefulto visualizethe empiricalbasis of microand macrocategories by a time-spacetable (see table 1). On one dimensionare laid out the amountsof timeconsidered by thesociologist, ranging from a fewseconds throughminutes, hours, days, weeks,months, and up to years and cen- turies.On the otheraxis are the numbersof people in physicalspace one mightfocus on: beginningwith one personin a local bodilyspace, through small groups,large groups,and aggregates,and up to an overviewof all 985 tn - v rn 0 rn in 10-4 En 0 ce -4 - ce En " -4 u En 0 0 0 ;J'R cti 0 rn - c) I.. cd.- 4-iu 4i E C'dJ boj::: - 4) 7:$ Cd En ce 0 0 u tn 0 -4 En 4-i 4-i Cd 0 Cd tn bo > 0 0 Cd ce 0 cn0 >C C/) rn tn En t. "C 0 0 -" 0.)> 0 0 cd En > rn ce ce > rn 4-4 > Cd C D- cd ce ce ;J In 0 u $-- X d 4; pp u rn cd 0 cn En tn 1-4 Cd tn 0 v u > rn En cd '. C) 4'j- En > - J) g 0 0 0 0 ce 0b,C ce 4-4 4-i 4-4 -4 4-4 IT In. Cd En :J 4-i - 0 -4 En 0 Cd 1-4 bJD -C--- 0 Cd The Microfoundationsof Macrosociology the people across a large territory.I have filledin the cells of the table withthe kindsof analysesthat sociologists make of thatparticular slice of timeand space. It is clear thatthe distinction between micro and macrois one of degree and admitsof at least two dimensions.All levels of analysisin this table are moremicro than those below and to theright of them,and all levelsare moremacro than those above and to theleft. Micro and macroare relative termsin both timeand space, and the distinctionitself may be regarded as a pair of continuousvariables. Moreover, one can see thatmicroanalysis in sociologyhas recentlyshifted its level: symbolicinteractionism, for ex- ample,has traditionallybeen concernedwith situations (although some- times with more long-termprocesses-e.g., Becker 1963; Bucher and Strauss 1961; Dalton 1959) located generallyon the minutes-to-hours level.Radical microsociologiessuch as ethnomethodologicalanalysis of con- versationor micro-ethologicalstudies of eye movementshave shiftedthe focus to the secondslevel (e.g., Schegloff1967); and phenomenological sociology,in its extremeformulations, verges upon Platonismor mysticism because of its focuson the instantaneous"now" at the leftedge of the table. The strictmeaning of "empirical"refers to theupper left-hand corner of the table.You, the reader,sitting at yourdesk or in yourcar, or standing by yourmailbox, etc., are in thatmicrosituation (or possiblyalso slightly furtherdown the left-handcolumn), and it is impossiblefor anyone ever to be in any empiricalsituation other than thissort. All macro-evidence, then,is aggregatedfrom such micro-experiences.Moreover, although one can say thatall the verticalcells in the farleft-hand column are empirical in the (slightlydifferent) sense that they all existin the physicalworld of the present,the cells horizontallyto the rightmust be regardedas ana- lysts'constructs. In the fewseconds it takes to read thispassage, you the readerare constructingthe realityof all thosemacrocategories insofar as you thinkof them.This is not to say thatthey do not also have someem- piricalreferent, but it is a morecomplex and inferentialone than direct micro-experience. Everyone'slife, experientially, is a sequenceof microsituations,and the sumof all sequencesof individualexperience in theworld would constitute all the possiblesociological data. Thus the recentintroduction of audio- and videotapesby radicalmicrosociologists is a movetoward these primary data. MICROTRANSLATION AS A STRATEGY There are severaladvantages in translatingall sociologicalconcepts into aggregatesof microphenomena.The firstpoint is epistemological.Strictly
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