Joseph Berger
Senior Fellow

Expertise: Status processes and status relations among members of different groups, processes of legitimation, reward expectations and distributive justice, theory growth in the behavioral sciences

Joseph Berger is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also professor of sociology emeritus and former chairman of the department at Stanford University.

His expertise is in the area of status process and status relations among members of different groups, processes of legitimation, reward expectations and distributive justice, and theory construction in the behavioral sciences. His current research focuses on gender relations in interpersonal settings, status characteristics theory, and cumulative theory in social science.

He recently compiled (with M. Zelditch) a collection of theoretical papers in the volume New Directions in Contemporary Sociological Theory (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002). He has coauthored and coedited many scholarly books including Status, Power, and Legitimacy; Theoretical Research Programs; Status Characteristics and Social Interaction; and Sociological Theories in Progress, volumes 1–3.

Berger has published with numerous academic journal articles. Articles of note include "Gender and Interpersonal Task Behaviors," Sociological Perspectives, 1997; "Status Inconsistency in Task Situations," American Sociological Review, 1992; "Do Sociological Theories Grow?" American Journal of Sociology, 1986; and "Construction of Status and Referential Structures," Sociological Theory, 2002.

Berger began his teaching career at Dartmouth College in 1954 as an instructor of sociology; he became an assistant professor of sociology there in 1956.

Berger came to Stanford University in 1959 as assistant professor of sociology, was appointed associate professor of sociology in 1962, and became director of the Laboratory for Social Research in 1968. He held that post until 1970. He held the directorship again from 1971 to 1974.

In 1968, Berger was appointed a professor of sociology and in 1976 became vice chairman of the Department of Sociology. He was chairman of the department from 1977 to 1983 and then again from 1985 to 1989.

Berger also served in the U.S. Army in the Military Intelligence Service, European Theater of Operations, and the Information Control Division, Office of the Military Government of Greater Hesse, Germany, between 1943 and 1946. He received a direct commission in France in 1945 and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and Army Commendation Award.

Berger is the recipient of the Cooley-Mead Award, which is awarded by the Social Psychology Section of the American Sociological Association to honor long-term distinguished contributions to the intellectual and scientific advancement of social psychology. In 2007, he was awarded the W.E.B. DuBois Award for his contributions to the field of sociology.

A magna cum laude graduate of Brooklyn College, he received both his M.A. and Ph.D. (1958) degrees from Harvard University.