Schematic logics and patterns of culture choice: Linking cognition and action in the sociology of taste.
Research applying schematic class analysis to patterns of cultural taste in the United States has generally elided the distinction between taste schemas and cultural choice behavior. Instead, researchers have tended to collapse the two by, for instance, reading behavioral choices (e.g. omnivorousness or univorousness) based exclusively on the pattern of correlation between genre evaluations shared by persons who share a taste schema Yet the logic of schema theory suggests that the particular ways in which omnivorousness (or univorousness) is expressed behaviorally is only conditioned, but not determined, by a given taste schema. In this sense, schemas allow for distinct (and seemingly opposed) behavioral manifestations, yet, given limitations in extant data sources, this has yet to be empirically explored. To fill this gap in the literature, I integrate research on schematic class analysis of cultural taste with work on the "varieties of omnivorousness'' literature, arguing that we should observe distinct manifestations of omnivorousness depending on the given taste schema deployed by the person. Using a novel data source containing information on both taste expression and behavioral choices, I show that different schematic classes display distinct forms of omnivorousness, that are not completely predictable from an analysis based purely on their pattern of evaluation.
Omar Lizardo is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, where he has been a faculty member for the last ten years after completing his PhD at the University of Arizona in 2006. His research deals with various topics in cultural sociology, network science, social psychology, and cognitive social science. His work has appeared in such venues as American Sociological Review, Theory and Society, Sociological Science, Socius, Sociological Theory, and Social Forces. With Jessica Collett, he was the guest-editor of the June 2014 special issue of Social Psychology Quarterly dedicated to advancing the connections between Social Psychology and Cultural Sociology. He is currently a member of the editorial advisory board of more than six journals and, with Rory McVeigh and Sarah Mustillo, he is the one of the current co-editors of American Sociological Review. He has also been the recipient of the 2013 Lewis Coser Award for Theoretical Agenda Setting from the American Sociological Association Section on Theory, the winner of the 2008 Clifford Geertz Prize for Best Article from the American Sociological Association Section on Culture, and the co-winner (with Robert Fishman) of the Charles Tilly Best Article Award from the American Sociological Association’s section on Comparative Historical Sociology.