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Revisting Tally's Corner

Mainstream Norms, Cognitive Dissonance, and Underclass Behavior

Northwestern University

In this article, I develop a formal model of underclass behavior based explicitly on Tally's Corner, Elliot Liebow's classic ethnography of streetcorner men. In the model, a social norm requires husbands to provide a minimum level of family support. Disobedience to the norm generates cognitive dissonance, which induces a change in the husband's altruism toward his family. The analysis highlights the interdependence of "mainstream values" and underclass behavior: an increase in mainstream values may actually decrease the level of family support provided by low-income men.

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