Joseph Berger (sociologist)

Joseph Berger (April 3, 1924 – December 24, 2023) was an American sociologist and social psychologist best known for co-founding expectation states theory.^[1] Expectation states theory explains how individuals use social information about one another (such as race, gender, or specific skills) to create informal status hierarchies in small groups. Researchers have used this program to develop interventions that counteract the disadvantages faced most notably by black students in the classroom^[2] and women leaders in the workplace.^[3] Social scientists have also applied this work to study hiring bias against mothers^[4] and discrimination against loan applicants^[5] among other topics.^[6]

Berger used expectation states theory as an exemplar of formal (or axiomatic) theory construction, for whose wider adoption among sociologists he advocated. Formal theories are logically related sets of statements from which a scientist can logically deduce hypotheses (e.g., if A → B and B → C, then A → C). Formal theorists then lay out the precise conditions under which their predictions do and do not apply. This contrasts with the norm in sociological theorizing, which is less explicit in its definitions, predictions, and scope.^[7]

Berger was later a professor emeritus at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.