Disinheritance and Will Contests as Reciprocity and Deviance: An Empirical Extension of Gouldner and Rosenfeld Based on the Wills of Providence, 1985

Abstract

Traditional content analysis of the 319 last wills probated in Providence, RI, 1985, was used to test eight of Rosenfeld's empirical generalizations about the social characteristics of disinheritances and will contests and his explanation of them in terms of Gouldner's concept of the norm of reciprocity. Many of Rosenfeld's generalizations are applicable to the Providence data, although disinheritance might be “drifting down” into the middle and lower classes and seems to take at least five forms: positive reciprocity, negative reciprocity, positive deviance, negative deviance, and wastage avoidance. Disinheritance might become much more frequent but also multiform, sophisticated, consequential, and controversial in the decades ahead.