Conference Report

Proceedings of The Sixtieth Annual Conference of The AmericanAssociation for Public Opinion Research The 2005 conference of the American Association for Public OpinionResearch (AAPOR) was held May 12–15 at the FontainebleauHotel in Miami Beach and set records in several categories.First, there were 913 registrants, easily topping last year’srecord attendance of 843 in Phoenix (which was boosted by beinga World Association for Public Opinion Research year). Amongthese attendees were five Burns "Bud" Roper Fellows, whose expenseswere covered by Roper’s generous endowment to AAPOR. Second,there was also a record number of papers and authors—atotal of 318 oral presentations and 75 posters with     

Conformity to AAPOR Standards in Newspaper Reporting of Public Opinion Polls

This study examines three newspapers' level of conformity toAAPOR standards of minimal disclosure in their reporting ofpublic opinion polls. Analysis of 116 polls published in theperiod of 1972–79 indicates a dramatic increase in thenumber of polls reported, but not in the level of conformityto AAPOR standards. Conformity is higher when the polls concernelections rather than nonelection topics, and when newspapersthemselves, rather than external sources, are the sources ofthe polls.     

„First international conference on social sciences and the development of societies“ Kuwait, 10.–12. April 2001

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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„First international conference on social sciences and the development of societies“ Kuwait, 10.–12. April 2001

     

AAPOR Award

The American Association for Public Opinion Research Presents the AAPOR Award For Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement to Benjamin I. Page His many years of research on the relationship between the variousinputs into government and its policy outputs have contributedgreatly to the understanding of public opinion. He has made     

Assessing Adolescents Who Threaten Homicide in Schools

Psychoanalytic and psychiatric perspectives on children who threaten to kill others are reviewed in the context of the need for an interdisciplinary approach to the problem. Converging technologies derived from a Psychoanalytically informed social systems model are compared to law enforcement approaches, Psychoanalytic understanding of the individual dynamics of the child, and empirical research a conduct disordered adolescents. The interdisciplinary orientation of a broadly trained community psychoanalyst allows a unique contribution when trying to distinguish adolescents who make a threat from those who pose a threat. Case vignettes are used to illustrate the hypotheses. This article is reprinted with permission of The American Society of Psychoanalysis, Volume 62, Number 3, pp. 213–235 (2002). Two of the authors (SWT & FCS), participated in a conference held by the federal Bureau of Investigation in July 1999, in which 18 schools where there had been homicides as well as thwarted attacks were invited to a weeklong conference with many national experts and FBI profilers. Well over 100 individuals attended the meeting, including school principals, counselors, deans of students, district attorneys, and members of the police force in a think tank setting to understand the psychology of school violence and, in particular of the child who commits or threatens homicide in school called by the FBI a “school shooter”.     

The Content of Survey Introductions and the Provision of Informed Consent

Information disclosed to potential respondents in survey introductionswas examined in a sample of 78 introductions obtained by mailfrom AAPOR members. The following information was disclosed:research organization, in 86 percent of the introductions; interviewer,82 percent; research topic, 81 percent; sponsor, 45 percent;confidentiality, 42 percent; survey purpose, 26 percent; futuredata use, 24 percent; anonymity, 24 percent; sampling technique,21 percent; survey length, 13 percent; statement that participationwas voluntary, 10 percent; sample size, 4 percent; and consentsignature requirement, 4 percent. Mail surveys (and to a lesserextent those by academic institutions and on sensitive topics)provided more introductory information. For ethical reasons,such as providing informed consent, as well as methodologicalreasons, professional norms about providing information in surveyintroductions need to be examined.     

The topological approach to the aggregation of preferences

(1) A domain of preferences allows for topological aggregation for each number of people if and only if this domain of preferences is contractible. (2) The combination of continuity and the Pareto principle implies the existence of a unique manipulator. (3) Arrow’s theorem can be translated into the previous statement. All of these results are obtained via algebraic topology. This paper introduces some of the tools developed in topology and applies them upon the problem of preference aggregation. This paper is based upon a lecture given at the conference “Mathematical aspects of social choice”, CREM, Université de Caen and CNRS, November 8–10, 2004. I thank the organizers Maurice Salles and Vincent Merlin for their warm hospitality, and the participants for the stimulating discussion. I am indebted to Bart Capéau and Roeland Vervenne for helpful remarks. I thank the referee for combining speed and quality.     

AAPOR Award

The American Association for Public Opinion Research Presentsthe AAPOR AWARD For Exceptionally Distinguished Achievementto Norman H. Nie As a scholar, innovator, and inventor, Norman Nie     

Moments in the Methodology of Meso History

Meso history is that branch of the history of sociology that focuses on social relations, that is, patterns of connection among groups, group members, and group meanings, as explanatory factors in the shaping of sociology. The methodology of meso history consists of strategies for discovering, documenting and patterning connections. This paper explores those strategies in terms of three moments generic to the research process in social science– moments of movement from intellectual curiosity to conceptualization, from research question to data collection and from data to presentation of findings–focusing on the distinctive permutations on this research process that occur in the practice of meso history.     

Book Award

The American Association for Public Opinion Research Presents the 2004 AAPOR BOOK AWARD to John R. Zaller For The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion Cambridge University Press (1992) The Nature and Origins of     

Policy Impact Award

The American Association for Public Opinion Research Presents the 2004 POLICY IMPACT AWARD to The Urban Institute For the Assessing the New Federalism Project AAPOR honors the Urban Institute for providing critical surveyson understanding     

Diversification and win rate in NLRB certification elections

This research examined industrial diversification patterns and win rates within the 1977–1979, 1983–1985 and 1992–1994 periods for all NLRB certification elections of the 30 most active unions in 1977–1979. We found significant change in diversification and little change in average win rates over the study period. The general trend was less total diversification and more unrelated diversification in 1992–1994 relative to 1983–1985 and 1977–1979. Total diversification and election frequency had no impact on win rates. However, related diversification had a significant positive influence on union win rates for elections recorded outside unions’ core organizing industries.     

AAPOR Award

TThe American Association for Public Opinion Research Presentsthe AAPOR AWARD For Exceptionally Distinguished Achievementto Andrew Kohut As a brilliant media commentator on the nature and interpretationof poll findings, Andy Kohut has become the public face of opinionresearch to millions of Americans. Andy is     

Reading Between the Lines of Consumer Confidence Measures

Public opinion data about consumer buying intentions have provento be reliable indicators of future economic trends. This demonstratesthe advisability of including well-informed public opinion datain public policy planning. This introduction and the three essaysthat follow are based on a panel on "Taking the Pulse of theEconomy: A Fresh Look at Economic Indicators", which was presentedat the 1981 Annual AAPOR Conference.     

Editorial introduction to the Special Issue

In March 2004, a major conference on community development inthe ‘new Europe’ was held in Budapest, Hungary,to mark the accession of a further ten nation states, most ofthem in the east and central European region, to the EuropeanUnion. The conference was sponsored by the International Associationfor Community Development (www.iacdglobal.org), in conjunctionwith the Combined European Bureau for Social Development (www.cebsd.org),the Hungarian Association for Community Development (kofe@kkapcsolat.hu),and the Community Development Journal (www.cdj.oupjournals.org).The initial outcome was the Budapest Declaration, the text ofwhich was included in the CDJ issue of October 2004 (39(4),423–429 – copies     

Work–Family Conflict and Fertility Intentions: Does Gender Matter?

Fertility among employed women remains far below their desired preferences. Although research has shown that fertility intentions significantly predict subsequent behavior, little is known about the factors that contribute to intentions. We assess the impacts of perceived self and partner work-to-family and family-to-work conflict on the fertility intentions of both women and men. Using a national probability sample of men and women in dual-earner families (N = 630), we find that men’s perceptions of their wives’ work–family conflict significantly predict men’s fertility intentions, even though men’s own work–family conflict does not. Neither women’s own work–family conflict nor their perceptions of their husbands’ work–family conflict predicts women’s fertility intentions.     

The regulation of American foundations: Looking backward at the Tax Reform Act of 1969

The American Tax Reform Act of 1969 represented a major watershed in the law of philanthropy, introducing a new classification scheme —one that sharply distinguished between ‘private foundations’ and other charitable organisations- and, for the private foundation category, a new regulatory system, new regulatory sanctions, a new tax on investment income and new restricitons on the deductibility of property gifts. After briefly tracing the origins of this legislation, the paper sets forth five norms that should characterise the legislative process, and proceeds to explore, albeit in abbreviated fashion, the extent to which each of these norms was respected by the Congress in 1969. The paper then turns from an examination of regulatory principles to a consideration of regulatoryimpacts, dealing with several ways in which the 1969 Act appears to have caused diversion of resources, including: diversion of charitable giving from foundations to non-foundation charities (with consequences for the ‘birthrate’ of foundations); diversion of resources from charitable to non-charitable uses; diversion of funds from charitable channels to the US Treasury; and a diversion of resources from certain grantees to others. The mitigating effects of recent forms of deregulation are described, followed by the suggestion that more deregulation is desirable, in order to sustain the health and strength of America's private foundation sector. This paper has its origins in a talk (never published) that was given at a conference entitledTwenty Years Under the 1969 Act: Private Foundations 1969–1989, held on 2 May 1989 at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.     

Proceedings of the Fifty-Ninth Annual Conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research

The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR)focused on "The Image of Public Opinion Research" as a record-breaking846 researchers gathered May 13–16, 2004 at its fifty-ninthannual conference at the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resortin Phoenix, Arizona. The conference, held in conjunction withthe World Association for Public Opinion Research’s conference,centered on "The Image of Public Opinion Research," and helpedthe AAPOR Executive Council kick off a campaign to examine whatmany perceive to be an increasingly negative image of public