Structural Social Psychology and the Micro-Macro Problem

A unique multilevel perspective is explicated to help build theorical bridges between micro and macro levels of analysis in sociology. The perspective portrays actors as having minimal properties of purposiveness and responsiveness, encounters as interaction episodes between multiple actors, microstructures as local patterns of interaction emerging from and subsequently influencing encounters, and macrostructures as networks of social positions. These levels of analysis are connected via mutually contingent process. We illustrate the ability of the framework to strengthen the macrosociological import of micro theories of power, status, and justice. We argue that structural social psychology is an important metatheorical strategy for developing testable connections between individual and collective units of sociological analysis