Department of Sociology
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
Telephone: Not Given
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Stephen Vaisey received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is now Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses primarily on the origins and consequences of different moral worldviews, especially in the contemporary United States. His current major project in this area is a study of the moral culture of the Millenial generation. Based on data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, this study follows members of "Generation Y" over a six year period in order to understand how their sense of right and wrong and their imaginations of "the good life" shape the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. Among other things, it explores the influence of individualist moral worldviews on outcomes like deviance and substance use, civic engagement, and the transformation of friendship networks. Unlike previous work on the culture of individualism, this project uses both longitudinal survey and interview data. Unexpectedly, this mixed-method strategy yields a paradox: while the interviews suggest little connection between talk and behavior, the survey results suggest strong, persistent links between different worldviews and behavior three years later. Resolving this paradox yields important insights into the different roles played by discursive and practical cognition, and helps reconcile seemingly contradictory theories of culture in action.
Vaisey is also working on, or has recently worked on, a number of other projects, ranging from developing statistical extensions to fuzzy-set analysis, to investigating occupational overqualification, to exploring the role of "spiritual capital" in 1970s communes. His work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in the American Sociological Review, The American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Sociological Theory and elsewhere.
