Constructing women's psychological health in anti-abortion rhetoric

This paper considers the ways in which anti-abortion activists construct women's psychological experience of abortion and explores the rhetorical significance of this discourse in advancing the anti-abortion project. In particular we examine how the psychological concept of 'denial' contained in the (proposed) diagnostic category of 'Post-Abortion Syndrome' allows anti-abortionists to 'psychologise' and therefore undermine alternative constructions of the experience of abortion. Further, we explore how this construction of women's experience allows particular constructions of the foetus (ie, 'unborn child') to be advanced (and naturalised) without reference to overtly political argumentation. The significance of this development of the abortion debate and its implications for the dynamics of political mobilisation are discussed.     

Double-sampling regression-cum-exponential estimator of the mean of a sensitive variable

ABSTRACT

A flexible scrambled response model using a randomization device for quantitative sensitive data is used to evaluate the protection of respondents’ privacy. A double-sampling regression-cum-exponential estimator is used to estimate the mean of a sensitive variable using the mean of a nonsensitive auxiliary variable under scrambled response. The expected bias, the expected mean square error, and the minimum mean square error of this exponential-type estimator are expressed. Simulations and empirical results show that the proposed estimator under scrambled response model has a lower mean square error and a lower bias than the ratio and the exponential estimators.     

Public Policy and the Effects of Media Violence on Children

Policymakers and the public have been concerned about the effects of media violence on children for decades. Scientific psychological research can be an important source of information for policy, as the goal of science is to separate facts from opinions. This article reviews children's exposure to media violence, describes theories that explain the effects media violence could have, summarizes the research on the effects of media violence exposure, and describes several moderators that can enhance or mitigate those effects. These scientific findings provide useful information for public policy, yet there are many barriers to their use, including misunderstandings of how causality is determined in scientific and public health circles and how large the effects are. Finally, the implications for public policy are discussed, including what has and has not worked in the United States, what other countries and the international community are doing, and where opportunities for new approaches for effective policies may exist.     

Use of scrambled response for estimating mean of the sensitivity variable

Abstract

In this article, we propose new efficient and more generalized difference-cum-exponential type estimator and generalized-difference-cum-generalized exponential type estimators for estimating the mean of sensitivity variable using the auxiliary information. We also discuss theoretically that proposed generalized estimators are more efficient than Sousa et al. (2010 Sousa, R., J. Shabbir, P. C. Real, and S. Gupta. 2010. Ratio estimation of the mean of a sensitive variable in the presence of auxiliary information. Journal of Statistical Theory and Practice 4 (3):495–507.[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]), Gupta et al. (2012 Gupta, S., J. Shabbir, R. Sousa, and P. C. Real. 2012. Estimation of the mean of a sensitive variable in the presence of auxiliary information. Communications in Statistics-Theory and Methods 41:1–12.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Koyuncu, Gupta, and Sousa (2014 Koyuncu, N., S. Gupta, and R. Sousa. 2014. Exponential-type estimators of the mean of a sensitive variable in the presence of non sensitive auxiliary information. Communications in Statistics-Simulation and Computation 43 (7):1583–94. doi: 10.1080/03610918.2012.737492.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) estimators. Results from a real life application and simulation study are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed mean estimators in relation to some of the existing mean estimators.     

Pathways to poverty reduction

Of the myriad approaches to reducing poverty, which have proved effective on a national scale? This article analyses 15 systematically selected national cases of demonstrated rapid poverty reduction, seeking insights into effective approaches to reducing poverty. From these 15 economies, in which the bottom quintile experienced an annual increase in income of at least 6% over at least a decade, emerge four poverty‐reduction pathways: (1) industrialisation, (2) rural development, (3) social welfare and (4) petroleum‐generated employment. In addition to helping us understand what policy approaches have actually helped reduce poverty, this article has implications for the understanding of economic growth, the impact of pro‐growth policies, the relationship between state and market, and the roles of non‐government organisations (NGOs) and civil society.     

Ethnic‐racial Socialization,Perceived Neighborhood Quality,and Psychosocial Adjustment among African American and Caribbean Black Adolescents

Ethnic–racial socialization is employed by ethnic minority parents to support their children’s psychosocial adjustment. These socialization messages may be associated differently with psychosocial adjustment for Black youth according to ethnicity and qualities of the neighborhood context. This research examined whether associations between ethnic–racial socialization messages and psychosocial adjustment vary by ethnicity and perceived neighborhood quality in a nationally representative sample of Black adolescents who participated in the National Survey of American Life Adolescent supplement study. The effects of promotion of mistrust messages varied by ethnicity, and the effects of egalitarianism messages varied depending on perceived neighborhood quality. These findings help clarify prior research which has yielded equivocal results for the effects of these messages for Black youth’s psychosocial adjustment.     

On the Bayesian analysis of the mixture of power function distribution using the complete and the censored sample

The power function distribution is often used to study the electrical component reliability. In this paper, we model a heterogeneous population using the two-component mixture of the power function distribution. A comprehensive simulation scheme including a large number of parameter points is followed to highlight the properties and behavior of the estimates in terms of sample size, censoring rate, parameters size and the proportion of the components of the mixture. The parameters of the power function mixture are estimated and compared using the Bayes estimates. A simulated mixture data with censored observations is generated by probabilistic mixing for the computational purposes. Elegant closed form expressions for the Bayes estimators and their variances are derived for the censored sample as well as for the complete sample. Some interesting comparison and properties of the estimates are observed and presented. The system of three non-linear equations, required to be solved iteratively for the computations of maximum likelihood (ML) estimates, is derived. The complete sample expressions for the ML estimates and for their variances are also given. The components of the information matrix are constructed as well. Uninformative as well as informative priors are assumed for the derivation of the Bayes estimators. A real-life mixture data example has also been discussed. The posterior predictive distribution with the informative Gamma prior is derived, and the equations required to find the lower and upper limits of the predictive intervals are constructed. The Bayes estimates are evaluated under the squared error loss function.     

Interpersonal skills scale: Development and validation in urbanized sample of adolescents

Interpersonal skills play a vital role in the growth and development of adolescents. The current study explored the experience and manifestation of interpersonal skills in Pakistani adolescents. In phase I, using open‐ended phenomenological approach, key components of interpersonal skills were elicited from 32 adolescents (boys = 16; girls = 16) aged 11–19 years (M = 14.48; SD = 1.06). In phase II, Content Validity Index for items (I‐CVIs) and scale (S‐CVI) was established. In phase III, pilot testing was carried out on 21 adolescents (boys = 11; girls = 10). In Phase IV, a sample of 674 adolescents (boys = 47%; girls = 53%) aged 11–19 years (M = 14.88; SD = 1.33) were tested for psychometric properties of Interpersonal Skills Scale along with Social Intelligence Scale for Adolescents and Self‐Esteem Scale for Children. Exploratory Factor Analysis (n = 221) generated three factors of the Interpersonal Skills Scale social engagement, sociability, and social etiquettes. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (n = 453) also supported the three‐factor structure of the Interpersonal Skills Scale. Furthermore, the scale found to have high internal consistency, construct validity, discriminant validity, split‐half reliability, and test–retest reliability. The results are discussed in the light of factorial structure in the Pakistani cultural context.