Stephen Vaisey
Professor of Sociology
Overview
The main goal of my research is to understand moral and political beliefs: what they are, where they come from, and what they do. I lead the Measuring Morality project, the goal of which is to understand how different ideas of morality fit together and influence politics and other domains of life.
I also work quite a bit on statistical methods for observational data, including panel data, treatment effects analysis, and multilevel modeling.
Selected Grants
The Spread and Impact of Moral Messages: Machine Learning, Network Evolution, and Behavioral Prediction awarded by University of Southern California (Principal Investigator). 2015 to 2018
"The Social Context and Consequences of Transformative Experience" awarded by University of Notre Dame (Principal Investigator). 2014 to 2017
Handbook of the Sociology of Morality. Ed. S Hitlin and S Vaisey. Springer, 2010.
Vaisey, S. "Why Things Matter to People: Social Science, Values and Ethical Life by Andrew Sayer." Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews 41.5 (September 1, 2012): 671-672. Full Text
Vaisey, S. "The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt." ARCHIVES EUROPEENNES DE SOCIOLOGIE 53.3 (2012): 448-451. Full Text
Vaisey, S. "The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection by W.G. Runciman." AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 116.4 (January 2011): 1377-1380.
Vaisey, S. "Fuzzy Set Theory: Applications in the Social Sciences by Michael Smithson and Jay Verkuilen." SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS & RESEARCH 37.3 (February 2009): 455-457. Full Text
Shanahan, MJ, Vaisey, S, Erickson, LD, and Smolen, A. "Environmental Contingencies and Genetic Predispositions: Social Capital, Educational Continuation, and a Dopamine Receptor Polymorphism." American Journal of Sociology 114 (2008): S260-S286.
Vaisey, S. "Emerging Moral Vocabularies: The Creation and Establishment of New Forms of Moral and Ethical Meanings by Brian M. Lowe." Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews 36.3 (May 1, 2007): 259-260. Full Text
Vaisey, S. "Human institutions: A theory of societal evolution by Jonathan H. Turner." Social forces; a scientific medium of social study and interpretation 83.1 (September 2004): 432-433. Full Text
Boutyline, A, and Vaisey, S. "Belief Network Analysis: A Relational Approach to Understanding the Structure of Attitudes." American Journal of Sociology 122.5 (March 2017): 1371-1447. Full Text
Vaisey, S, and Miles, A. "What You Can—and Can’t—Do With Three-Wave Panel Data." Sociological Methods & Research 46.1 (January 2017): 44-67. Full Text
Dehghani, M, Johnson, K, Hoover, J, Sagi, E, Garten, J, Parmar, NJ, Vaisey, S, Iliev, R, and Graham, J. "Purity homophily in social networks." Journal of experimental psychology. General 145.3 (March 2016): 366-375. Full Text
Victor, EC, Miles, A, and Vaisey, S. "The Role of Moral Worldviews in Predicting Sexual Behavior From Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood." Journal of Adolescent Research 30.6 (November 2015): 779-799. Full Text
Miles, A, and Vaisey, S. "Morality and politics: Comparing alternate theories." Social science research 53 (September 2015): 252-269. Full Text
Johnson, KM, Iyer, R, Wojcik, SP, Vaisey, S, Miles, A, Chu, V, and Graham, J. "Ideology-Specific Patterns of Moral Indifference Predict Intentions Not to Vote." Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 14.1 (December 2014): 61-77. Full Text
Vaisey, S. "The Moral Background: An Inquiry into the History of Business Ethics." ARCHIVES EUROPEENNES DE SOCIOLOGIE 55.3 (December 2014): 381-383. Full Text
Edelmann, A, and Vaisey, S. "Cultural resources and cultural distinction in networks." Poetics 46 (October 2014): 22-37. Full Text
Vaisey, S. "Comment." Sociological Methodology 44.1 (August 2014): 108-112. Full Text
Vaisey, S, and Miles, A. "Tools from moral psychology for measuring personal moral culture." Theory and Society 43.3-4 (July 2014): 311-332. Full Text