Reflections on a 30-Year Career of Research on Work and Personality by Melvin Kohn and Colleagues

• Published in: Sociological forum (Randolph, N.J.) N.J.), 1998-03, Vol.13 (1), p.169-181
• Main Author: Spenner, Kenneth I.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Environmental sociology; Inertia; Personality; Research design; Review Essays; Social Class; Social classes; Social psychology; Social research; Social self; Social Stratification; Social Structure; Social structures; Sociological Research; Species; Work Environment; Workplaces
• ISSN: 0884-8971; 1573-7861
• DOI: 10.1023/A:1022120401296

An overview of Melvin Kohn's 3 decades of research, suggesting that Kohn broke ground by showing that class-related patterns had causal explanations in the conditions of people's work lives, & workers were affected by both the structural conditions of the workplace & the self-construction of their world. He was among the first to apply nonrecursive structural equation models & to use cross-sectional data to extend core findings to classic sociological problems. Kohn's research was impacted by changes in the social environment, as evidenced by his late-1980s conceptualization of social class in discrete Marxist categories, & the significance of class vs stratification in the relationship between work & personality. It is argued that, despite some weaknesses, Kohn's body of work redirected the field of social structure & personality, & opened new avenues for future research. 16 References. J. Lindroth