Explaining Information System Use with System-Monitored vs. Self-Reported Use Measures

New information technologies promise to generate new kinds ofdata. In this study, system-monitored use of a business-orientedvideotex service is compared to self-reported use of the service.Results show that interest in the information provided by theservice was the strongest correlate of the self-reports, whileage and income were the strongest correlates of system-monitoreduse.     

The Structure of Issue Voting in Postindustrial Democracies

Issues matter for elections. The issue environment, however, varies across political campaigns as well as across countries. How does the issue environment structure the vote? Is the issue space single‐ or multidimensional? Do issues vary in terms of salience across parties or nations? This article addresses these questions using an original dataset of mass and elite policy positions covering the United States and nine other industrialized nations. Results show that while the traditional language of politics—expressed as the left/right divide—still resonates, the issue space is not single dimensional but two dimensional. Issues associated with globalization represent a crosscutting divide, which complicates the voter's decision. Further, the salience of an issue to a party varies as a function of the party's type, size, and age. This article shows how a cross‐national approach provides perspective on how voter decision making operates in different country contexts.     

Voting paradoxes and referenda

In representational democracies the referenda constitute an additional way for the voters to express their opinions. At the same time they are accompanied by problems of agenda manipulation and interpretation of results. In this context various voting paradoxes and their interrelationships are of considerable interest. In this article particular attention is paid to opinion aggregation paradoxes in referendum institutions. The limits and interrelationships of paradoxes are discussed. Some ways of avoiding paradoxical situations are also outlined. Received: 11 September 1995 / Accepted: 7 January 1997     

The Generality and Consequences of Stereotype Threat

'Stereotype threat' refers to the state of psychological discomfort people experience when confronted by an unflattering reputation in a situation where that reputation can be confirmed by one's behavior. Once aroused, stereotype threat can have a number of disruptive effects, among them the short-term impairment of intelligent thought and academic achievement. Over time, it can prompt defensive adaptations that have far-reaching effects, such as disengagement from activities or domains where the stereotype is relevant, which in turn can lead to impaired intellectual development. Stereotype threat thus can result in a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby a person comes to resemble his or her reputation, living up or down to social expectations. This article reviews the development of the stereotype threat construct from Steele and Aronson's (1995 ) original demonstration to investigations of its generality and mediators and to more recent studies focusing on strategies for reducing its negative effects.     

Determinants of Countywide Voting Behavior on Environmental Ballot Measures: 1990–2000*

Abstract There is considerable debate in the literature regarding the variables that produce differing levels of countywide support for environmental protection. Competing explanations include differences stemming from individual attributes of residents, economic conditions, and urban‐rural differences. The present study examines why some counties express higher levels of support for environmental protection when voting on environmental ballot measures. Using voting data aggregated at the county level on state‐wide environmental ballot measures in five states, OLS regression is employed to examine the utility of each explanation. The results suggest that while all three hypotheses are accurate in a number of cases and urban counties tend to be more supportive of environmental protection than rural counties, individual attributes and economic conditions appear to be the most influential.     

The Consequences of Interpersonal Rewards

Many interpersonal processes impact social inequality, with social status and rewards playing a key role in its creation and form. In everyday interaction, people are defined not only by their categorical and/or achieved statuses, such as their gender and educational backgrounds, but also by their awards and possessions. These distinctions work together to create an understanding of who people are, what kinds of behaviors can be expected of them, how valuable their contributions should be, and the like. These expectations undergird individuals' shared and accepted social reality, with many using status and reward distinctions as shorthand for assessments of competence and worth. Questions therefore arise as to how individuals are affected by the configuration of valuable resources in their environment, namely how rewards are normatively distributed between and within social groups. Can rewards create new status groups? Can the perpetuation of inequalities based on status distinctions be impeded through the use of reward‐based interventions? I discuss the extant literature related to these topics and call for future research to more fully explore how rewards are implicated in processes of social inequality.     

The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children

I use a divorce‐stress‐adjustment perspective to summarize and organize the empirical literature on the consequences of divorce for adults and children. My review draws on research in the 1990s to answer five questions: How do individuals from married and divorced families differ in well‐being? Are these differences due to divorce or to selection? Do these differences reflect a temporary crisis to which most people gradually adapt or stable life strains that persist more or less indefinitely? What factors mediate the effects of divorce on individual adjustment? And finally, what are the moderators (protective factors) that account for individual variability in adjustment to divorce? In general, the accumulated research suggests that marital dissolution has the potential to create considerable turmoil in people's lives. But people vary greatly in their reactions. Divorce benefits some individuals, leads others to experience temporary decrements in well‐being, and forces others on a downward trajectory from which they might never recover fully. Understanding the contingencies under which divorce leads to these diverse outcomes is a priority for future research.     

Candidate Stability and Voting Correspondences

We extend the analysis of Dutta et al. (in Econometrica, 69:1013–1038, 2001) on strategic candidacy to multivalued environments. For each agenda and each profile of voters’ preferences over running candidates, a voting correspondence selects set of running candidates. A voting correspondence is candidate stable if no candidate ever has an incentive to withdraw her candidacy when all other potential candidates run for office. In the multivalued framework, candidates’ incentives to withdraw depend on candidates’ preferences over sets. If candidates cannot vote and they compare sets of candidates according to their expected utility conditional on some prior probability assessment, then a voting correspondence satisfies candidate stability and unanimity if and only if it is dictatorial. If the probability assessments are restricted to be uniform, candidates’ preferences over sets are consistent with leximin preferences, or candidates can vote, then possibility results are obtained.This paper is a revised version of the second chapter of my Ph.D. Dissertation submitted to the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. I am indebted to my supervisor Salvador Barberà for his advice, encouragement, and patience. I thank the hospitality of the Wallis Institute of Political Economy at the University of Rochester, where the revision of this paper was conducted. I am grateful to two anonymous referees and the Associate Editor, John Weymark, for their exhaustive and insightful comments. I also thank Dolors Berga, Carmen Beviá, Walter Bossert, Jernej Čopič, Bhaskar Dutta, Matt Jackson, Jordi Massó, Diego Moreno, David Pérez-Castrillo, and Yves Sprumont for helpful conversations and suggestions. Financial support through Research Grant 1998FI00022 from Comissionat per Universitats i Recerca, Generalitat de Catalunya, Research Project PB98-870 from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, Fundación Barrié de la Maza, and Consejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa, Junta de Andalucía is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.     

The Presence of Others and Overreporting of Voting in American National Elections

This study uses the 1978 and 1980 vote validation studies conductedby the University of Michigan Survey Research Center to testthe extent to which false claims about voting are affected bythe presence of third parties during the interview. The presenceof third parties during interviews is far more frequent thanis commonly assumed. But the tendency of respondents to givesocially approved answers is not affected by the presence ofothers during the interview. Thus, additional efforts to avoidcontamination of interviews by eliminating third parties arenot likely to reduce the exaggeration of self-reported vote.The analysis suggests that the declared intention to vote isa far more important factor in whether people falsely reportvoting than is the presence of others. Additional effort tounderstand the motivational basis of voting and nonvoting couldhelp to account for variation in voting overreports.     

The Consequences of Objective and Subjective Status Inconsistency*

The phenomenon of status inconsisitency, while having rich potential as an explanatory variable, has been beset with methodological problems and conflicting findings. Nelson has argued that the use of objective and subjective components of status inconsistency will allow for a more accurate test of its usefulness (1973). The present study, using a sample of 1971 male college graduates interviewed in 1974, analyzed the attitudinal and behavioral consequences of one type of status inconsistency (under-rewarded) incorporating objective and subjective techniques. The tentative conclusions were: (1) the use of subjective measures of inconsistency validates this phenomenon as an explanatory variable; (2) the use of subjective measures minimizes the methodological criticisms of the objective approach; and (3) both objective and subjective measures of status inconsistency should be incorporated in future research.     

Voting and Social Inclusion in Sweden

Three decades ago, Sweden extended municipal and provincial voting privileges to non‐citizen residents arguing that it would increase political influence, interest and self‐esteem among foreign citizens. The aim of this paper is to explore the act of voting as a measure of social inclusion by comparing voting propensities of immigrants (people born outside Sweden), their descendants (born in Sweden) and native Swedish citizens (those who have citizenship through jus sanguine) while controlling for a range of socio‐economic, demographic characteristics, contextual factors and a set of “hard” and “soft” social inclusion related variables. In particular we focus on the impact of citizenship acquisition ‐‐ does the symbolic act of attaining citizenship result in increased voting participation on the part of Swedish residents who are not citizens by birth. We use the Swedish 2006 electoral survey matched to registry data from Statistics Sweden to assess the correlates of voting by Swedish‐born and immigrant residents. Using instrumental variable regressions we estimate the impact of citizenship acquisition. We find that acquisition of citizenship makes a real difference to the probability of voting. Immigrants who naturalise are in general far more likely to vote than those who do not.     

The Relationship Between Self-Reported Levels of Distress of Parents and Victims in Incest Families

A common clinical observation is that a "special" relationship exists between the father/perpetrator and child victim of incest. The purpose of this study was to test empirical indicants that father/perpetrators and child victims are involved in close, enmeshed relationships, specifically concerning symptoms of emotional distress. The primary hypothesis was that stronger associations would be obtained on indicants of distress (i.e., depression, fear, and anxiety) for father-victim dyadic relationships than for mother-victim dyadic relationships. Subjects in this study were 32 families referred from community agencies. Results indicated that victims' self-reported levels of anxiety were significantly related to both maternal and paternal indicants of distress; maternal, rather than paternal, distress was associated with victim's self-reported fears, and no significant associations were obtained between parental distress and victims' self-reported depression. Additionally, no significant differences were noted in the magnitudes of correlations between father/victim and mother/victim levels of distress. In contrast to clinical accounts, the study failed to find evidence of emotional enmeshment between victim and father/perpetrator. Rather, the results suggested that a dynamic of familial enmeshment is present in incest families.     

The Intergenerational Consequences of Parental Health Limitations

Scholars have theorized interrelationships between family members' health and well‐being. Though prior research demonstrates associations between parents' and children's health, less is known about the relationship between parental health limitations and children's behavioral and academic outcomes. This article uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Well being Study (N = 3,273) to estimate the relationship between parental health limitations and four aspects of children's well‐being. Findings reveal that mothers' health limitations, especially when they occur in middle childhood or chronically, are independently associated with greater internalizing and externalizing behaviors, lower verbal ability, and worse overall health at age 9. Fathers' health limitations are not associated with children's well‐being. Fathers exert influence in other ways, as the relationship between mothers' chronic health limitations and children's internalizing behaviors is concentrated among children not residing with their fathers. These findings support the development of policies and interventions aimed at families.     

Refugees and Elections: The Effects of Syrians on Voting Behavior in Turkey

In the wake of the Syrian civil war, more than three million people have fled to Turkey, which now hosts the largest refugee population on earth. Making up 4.42 per cent of the total population in Turkey as of February 2018, Syrian refugees are nevertheless spread unevenly within its borders. The ratio of refugees to the local population ranges from as high as 99per cent in the city of Kilis to as low as 0.05per cent in Sinop. This article presents findings from the empirical study of the effect of this geographical variation on election outcomes in Turkey, after the arrival of major refugee populations in 2012. Drawing on a unique subnational dataset and ordinary least squares (OLS), generalized least squares (GLS), and difference‐in‐differences (DiD) regressions, the study compares cities hosting few refugees (control group) with cities with large refugee populations (treatment group) to determine whether significant differences in voting patterns emerged. Our findings show a negative, but insignificant, impact on the incumbent party. The findings have policy implications for Turkey as well as any country that experiences a considerable flow of refugees.     

Community Structure and Voting in the South

This article combines census and survey data to assess the effectsof community characteristics, black concentration and urbanism,on the decision processes of southern white voters. Examiningvoting for Wallace in the 1968 election, the effects of blackconcentration on voting, attitudes, issue salience, and perceptionsof candidates are found to be generally greater in rural thanin urban areas.     

中国推进城市化的犹豫、失误和后果

按照人均GDP为标志的发展阶段比较,中国城市化水平比一般国家低了15个百分点,结构上呈现工业化超前和城市化滞后的状态,也形成GDP结构与就业结构之间的严重扭曲。这是建国以来特别是1960年起开始的反城市化道路和政策所致。但1978年以后,并没有真正从理论上认识城市化对于中国经济和社会发展的重要性,在推进城市化的战略、体制和政策上,是犹豫和半推半阻的。城市化滞后给中国的经济和社会发展带来了一系列的问题。事实证明,城市化水平低是城乡差距大的一个重要因素。因此,建国以来,包括改革开放以来,推进城市化方面的犹豫和缓慢,是导致中国经济社会发展诸多问题的重大的深层次原因。     

Voting cycles and the structure of individual preferences

Empirical studies have shown that cyclical preferences are infrequent, but they have been less clear about why. Using thermometer ratings from nationally-representative samples of the U.S., we examine preferences for presidential candidates in order to determine what it is about them that leads to few cycles. Single-peaked preferences as usually construed (meaning that all of a set of preferences satisfy single-peakedness criteria) are, of course, rare. Yet we find a high degree of unidimensionality in the sense that for any given set of preferences, a relatively high proportion of the preference orders are consistent with single-peakedness. We also find that the highest amounts of unidimensionality often do not occur along partisan or left/right lines. Strong feelings for or against candidates, often not derived from an issue base, form the basis for the dimensionality discovered.We would like to thank Daniel Severance for programming the random model calculations and three anonymous referees, whose comments were very helpful in clarifying the presentation in this paper.