Public information and social choice

We examine the value of public information when a society uses a social choice rule to decide among a set of outcomes. We require that a social choice function satisfies unrestricted domain, non-decisiveness and the Pareto principle. We show that there exist payoff structures for every social choice function, such that an arbitrary subset of voters is worse off by public information. We apply the proposition to collective information acquisition and to irreversible investments. Received: 2 June 1997/Accepted: 30 September 1998     

Collusion, renegotiation and implementation

We study the implementation problem for exchange economies when agents can renegotiate the outcome assigned by the planner and can collude. We focus on the use of sequential mechanisms and present a simple sufficient condition for implementation with renegotiation in strong perfect equilibrium. We present an application to optimal risk sharing, showing that the possibility of collusion and renegotiation does not in general prevent the implementation of efficient allocations. Received: 27 August 1997/Accepted: 29 October 1998     

Suspended Sorrow: The Crisis in Understanding the Diagnosis for the Mothers of Children with A Disorder of Sex Development

ABSTRACT.Objectives: We conducted a survey to obtain information concerning how mothers of children with DSD represent the diagnosis. Methods: We examined our findings through IPA methodology. Results: We observed a crisis of meaning, based on the inability to classify their child with a milestone of the social experience: the gender category. That risks of slipping into adempitive adherences to medical knowledge or hasty decisions about the health of the child. Conclusions: It's necessary to structure spaces with medical-psychological teams, for allowing these families to manage the condition in relation to the choices, and the daily context, of their children.     

Double implementation in Nash and strong Nash equilibria

 We deal with the implementation problem where agents in some groups can cooperate (or form coalitions) and in some others cannot. We consider a situation where the planner does not know whether agents in a group can cooperate or not. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for a correspondence to be implementable in such a situation. Received: 28 February 1995/Accepted: 13 March 1996     

A research agenda for the black middle class: work stress, survival strategies, and mental health

In this article we discuss the social position of the black middle class and two forms of work stress that appear unique to this group: token stress and social rejection. We outline a research agenda for studying: (1) the relationship between these stressors and mental health in the context of the work environment, and (2) the type of strategies that appear especially efficacious (or problematic) with regard to these problems. We begin the paper with a contextual discussion of the black middle class. We then offer a set of theoretical predictions about the relationship between work stress and mental health among middle class African Americans. We conclude the article with recommendations for future research, and we identify the implications of the research agenda for social policy efforts to diversify the workplace.     

Testing different rank order question layouts for PC and smartphone respondents

We studied the impact of different layouts for rank order questions on respondent effort, data quality, and substantive results among PC and smartphone respondents, in an experiment in an opt-in online panel in Spain, using an order-by-click design. We experimentally varied the device, the number of columns, and, for smartphone respondents, the position of the ‘next’ button in questions on trust in institutions.

We found some evidence of lower data quality for smartphone users but no evidence that presenting ranking items in one column performs differently than two columns. We also find little evidence that these effects differ by the number of response options presented or the number to be ranked. The placement of the ‘next’ button had little effect on performance on ranking items. Overall, our findings suggest that the format and layout of order-by-click questions has little effect on data quality, regardless of device used.     

Social Distress Theory and Teaching About Homelessness: A Retrospective Analysis

This paper provides a retrospective analysis of our course:“Hamelessness in the United States: An Interdisciplinary Approach.” It analyzes how such a course reveals social distress on two distinct levels: course content and course process. We deploy the concepts, tenets and insights of social distress theory to provide a retrospective analytical framework for the course. In addition, we extend the theory by presenting two corollaries to it and show how the literature on homelessness provides alternative connections among the major elements ofsocial distress theory. Thus, we raise new questions for the theory to consider. We also make recommendations for potential teachers of courses on homelessness.     

Explicit Verbal Sexual Consent Communication: Effects of Gender,Relationship Status,and Type of Sexual Behavior

Objectives: College students believe that they are supposed to be explicit and verbal in their sexual consent communication. We examined various contexts to determine when sexual consent is likely to be communicated explicitly and verbally. Method: We surveyed U.S. college students’ (n?=?707) sexual consent communication. Results: We identified contexts when explicit verbal consent cues are less likely—when the person is a woman, when the sexual relationship is casual, and when the sexual behavior is not vaginal-penile intercourse. Conclusions: If sexual consent is contextual, that means communicating consent should not ever be taken for granted.     

No-envy and Arrow's conditions

This paper analyzes the concept of envy-freeness in the framework of Arrovian social choice theory. We define various no-envy conditions and study their relationships with Arrow's condition of independence of irrelevant alternatives. We also propose a new condition, called Minimal Equity, that says that each individual must have the conditional power to veto at least one social state (for instance, a social state which is particularly unfair to him). We show that, under unrestricted domain, Pareto Optimality and a weak independence condition, Minimal Equity leads to an impossibility result. Received: 9 October 1997/Accepted: 27 May 1998     

Predicting help-seeking behavior: The impact of knowing someone close who has sought help

ABSTRACT

Objectives: This study sought to replicate and extend research on social facilitators of college student's help seeking for psychological problems. Participants: We collected data on 420 ethnically diverse college students at a large public university (September 2008–May 2010). Methods: Students completed a cross-sectional online survey. Results: We found that students who were aware of close others' (eg, family, friends) help seeking were two times more likely to have sought formal (eg, psychologist) and informal (eg, clergy) help themselves. Tests of moderation revealed the incremental effect (ie, controlling for help-seeking attitudes, internalizing symptoms, cultural demographics) of close others' formal help seeking was strong and significant for men (R² = 0.112), while it was negligible and nonsignificant for women (R² = .002). Conclusions: We discuss the importance for students—particularly men—to learn about close others' help seeking for facilitating their own help seeking during times of distress.     

Financial Variables and the Simulated Out-of-Sample Forecastability of U.S. Output Growth Since 1985: An Encompassing Approach

We reconsider the out-of-sample forecasting ability of a large number of financial variables with respect to real output growth over the 1985:1–1999:4 period. We show that models including financial variables display almost no forecasting ability relative to an autoregressive benchmark model over this period according to a mean squared forecast error metric. However, tests based on forecast encompassing indicate that many financial variables do, in fact, contain information that is useful for forecasting real output growth over the 1985:1–1999:4 out-of-sample period. Our results suggest that the extant literature exaggerates the demise of the forecasting power of financial variables with respect to real activity since the mid-1980s.     

Ranking opportunity sets: An approach based on the preference for flexibility

We describe a criterion to evaluate subsets of a finite set of alternatives which are considered as opportunity sets. The axioms for set comparison are motivated within the preference for flexibility framework. We assume the preference over the universal set of alternatives to be made of two disjoint binary relations. The result is the axiomatic characterization of a procedure which is formally similar to the leximax ordering, but in our case it incorporates the presence of some uncertainty about the decision-maker final tastes. Received: 20 January 1999/Accepted: 20 October 1999     

The Temporal Structure of Scientific Consensus Formation

This article engages with problems that are usually opaque: What trajectories do scientific debates assume, when does a scientific community consider a proposition to be a fact, and how can we know that? We develop a strategy for evaluating the state of scientific contestation on issues. The analysis builds from Latour's black box imagery, which we observe in scientific citation networks. We show that as consensus forms, the importance of internal divisions to the overall network structure declines. We consider substantive cases that are now considered facts, such as the carcinogenicity of smoking and the non-carcinogenicity of coffee. We then employ the same analysis to currently contested cases: the suspected carcinogenicity of cellular phones, and the relationship between vaccines and autism. Extracting meaning from the internal structure of scientific knowledge carves a niche for renewed sociological commentary on science, revealing a typology of trajectories that scientific propositions may experience en route to consensus.     

Groves sealed bid auctions of heterogeneous objects with fair prices

We study the allocation of heterogeneous indivisible objects to agents whose valuations of the objects depend on what other objects they are obtained with. We apply the envyfree criterion to Groves sealed bid auctions, which are value maximizing and dominant strategy incentive compatible for this multi-object allocation problem. First we show that if valuations are unrestricted then there is no Groves auction which ensures that the allocation is always envyfree. We obtain a positive result, however, if the valuations of the objects are superadditive, and give a complete characterization of Groves prices that guarantee envyfreeness for superadditive valuations. Received: 25 April 2001/Accepted: 3 April 2002 I would like to thank Kim Border, Tom Palfrey, and especially John Ledyard for their comments. Special thanks are due to Katya Sherstyuk. Support from a Sloan Dissertation Fellowship is gratefully acknowledged.     

Measurement of the sexual health and wellbeing of women who have undergone female genital mutilation/Cutting: A scoping review

Objective: We conducted a scoping review to identify and assess instruments used to measure sexual health and wellbeing in women who have undergone female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). Method: We retrieved and assessed 10 validated instruments using an 18-item checklist derived from the Consensus-based Standards for the Selection of Health Status Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) checklist. Results: All instruments were developed and initially validated among literate, predominantly Caucasian participants in North America and Europe. Only 1 validation study was conducted among women living with FGM/C. Conclusion: Most instruments only measured sexual functioning. Findings underscore the need to validate instruments appropriate for use among FGM/C survivors.     

Ideological versus Downsian political competition

We analyze a one-dimensional model of spatial political competition with two parties and uncertainty on the distribution of voters' types. We assume that parties are formed by regular members and professional politicians; members care about the policy enacted, while professional politicians, on the contrary, care only about winning the election. We consider two possibilities: that members choose the political platforms and that professional politicians are the ones who choose such platforms. The expected utility for party members is analyzed under these two cases. We find that when professional politicians have no informational advantage, it is on the interest of both parties to let professional politicians choose the platforms. Only in the case in which professional politicians have much better information than the members of the party about voters is it possible that party members obtain a greater expected utility choosing the platforms themselves rather than letting the professional politicians choose. Received: 31 May 1999/Accepted: 1 March 2001     

Cooperative production with unequal skills: The solidarity approach to compensation

We consider a simple production model and we assume that agents have unequal production skills which can in no way be attributed to their responsibility. We study how it is possible, if at all, to compensate for differential skills by applying Rawls's idea of a collective sharing in the benefits of skills. For this purpose, we introduce an axiom of solidarity, according to which agents should all be affected in the same direction if the profile of personal skills changes. We show that particular allocation rules are characterized be combining this axiom with a requirement of non-discrimination among preferences, or with a property capturing Nozick's idea of guaranteeing a minimal benefit from one's own skill. Received: 1 July 1996/Accepted: 25 May 1998     

REVIEWS

REVIEWS:Kasser, T., & Kanner, A. D. (Eds.). (2004). Psychology and Consumer culutre: The struggle for a good life in a materialistic world.
REVIEWS:Hargragve, D., & Pifitzer, F. (2003). The new contextual therapy: guiding the Power of give and take.
REVIEWS:Silverstiein, L. B., & Goodrich, T. J. (Eds.). (2003). Feminist family therapy: Empowerment in social context.
CLARIFICATION:The review of Kaethe Weingarten's book Common Shock-Witnessing Violence Every Day: How We are Harmed, How We Can Heal, by Charette Dersch (Journal of marital and Family Therapy,     

The Treaty of Nice and qualified majority voting

We analyse and evaluate three decision rules for the Council of Ministers of the EU, which are prescribed by the `definitive form' of the Treaty of Nice. The first will apply from 2005 to the present 15-member EU, if it will not have been enlarged by then. The second or third will apply to an enlarged 27-member EU. We conclude that the first of these is an improvement on the current decision rule; but the other two have extremely undesirable features. Received: 23 February 2001/Accepted: 26 March 2001     

Decomposition properties of dual choice functionals

The Gini coefficient is a well-known measure of inequality, and it satisfies a non-overlapping additive decomposition property (Ebert 1988b). The Gini coefficient is related to the dual theory of choice, as developed by Yaari (1987, 1988). We determine which other dual choice functionals satisfy a non-overlapping additive decomposition property that is weaker than the additive one suggested in Ebert (1988b). It turns out that the only functionals that do are those that arise from the Lebesgue measure, the measure associated with the Gini coefficient, and degenerate delta functions. Received: 8 January 2001/Accepted: 22 February 2002 We thank the Actuarial Education and Research Fund for financial support of this project. We also thank anonymous referees for helpful comments.