A psychometric evaluation of a Dutch version of the Job Content Questionnaire and of a short direct questioning procedure

Using the demand-control-support perspective on job stress, a Dutch translation of an adapted version of the Job Content Questionnaire (AJCQ) was administered to a large population ( N = 3638) of Flemish workers in a variety of jobs, together with the General Health Questionnaire, and a negative affectivity scale. Overall, the AJCQ was shown to be a solid measurement instrument as indicated by several estimated reliability indices and validity of the subscales. A factor analysis largely reproduced the a priori structure of the AJCQ. A short 10-item direct questioning procedure was constructed to measure the 10 subscales of the AJCQ and the results of this procedure were compared with the AJCQ in a subsample ( N = 660). The correlations with six criterion variables showed that single questions were equally predictive than the much longer version of the AJCQ.     

A chain game for distributed trading and negotiation

This position paper introduces a simulation gaming environment for enacting a production network. The environment aims to be an integrative laboratory for investigating supply networks, as well as being a versatile training tool. The primary focus is on food production networks. The environment enables a number of teams of participants, each representing one actor in a food chain, to conduct business together. The teams can have the role of auction, co-operation, wholesaler, factory, retail chain, and retail outlet. Producers and consumers are either enacted or simulated. The game leaders freely determine the products and production methods in each run of the game. The gaming environment takes performance, process and institutional aspects of chains into account. It is particularly suited for investigating issues of sustainability and trust. Currently the gaming environment is under development. The paper presents version 1B. This version can be found at http://www.chaingame.org. It runs on the Web, enabling to model distributed chains.     

Figuration und Emergenz

The paper reconstructs the methodology of Norbert Elias against the background of his ontology. Thereby Robert van Kriekens thesis will be defended that Elias is a proponent of a “third sociology”. His ontology shows that figurations are integrated wholes. Human beings form the parts of this wholes and necessarily build up social relations based upon their “relational properties”. This model of social wholes builds the finishing part of a mereological ontology of layers of the natural and social world. Physical-chemical wholes can reductively explained, biological and sociological wholes are ontologically and epistemologically irreducible because of phenomena of emergence. This ontology of Elias serves as a background for his methodology which does not favour individualist but moderat holist or relationalist explanations. With a new definition of social emergence it can be shown that relations are central factors of sociological explanations which can be found in Elias’ historical-sociological studies.?Keywords:Norbert Elias ? Ontology ? Methodology ? Third sociology ? Part-whole ? Methodological individualism ? Methodological relationalism ? Relational sociology ? Emergence ? Figuration ? Micro-macro     

Moderater methodologischer Holismus

Zusammenfassung Der Aufsatz nimmt eine undeutlich gebliebene anti-reduktionistische Tendenz der Weberschen Soziologie auf, Handlungs- und Ordnungsebene gleichberechtigt nebeneinander zu stellen. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird vorgeschlagen, die methodologische Position eines moderaten Holismus als ad?quaten Standpunkt für das Weber-Paradigma anzunehmen. Er verbindet eine Ontologie begrenzt holistischen Charakters mit dem individualistischen Makro-Mikro-Makro-Modell der Erkl?rung, das sich aber im Detail von dem Modell in der Version Hartmut Essers unterscheidet. Der moderate methodologische Holismus wird von drei anderen methodologischen Positionen auf der Grundlage neuerer emergenztheoretischer überlegungen unterschieden und am Beispiel der Protestantischen Ethik und der Weberschen Herrschaftssoziologie als Hintergrund eines ad?quaten Erkl?rungsmodells vorgestellt. Weiterhin wird demonstriert, dass jede Handlungstheorie im Sinne Webers mit dem Prinzip „Gründe als Ursachen“ eine holistische Grundorientierung besitzt, die konsequenter Weise auf der Ordnungsebene nicht auβer Kraft gesetzt werden sollte. Diese Version des Weber-Paradigmas hat eine ontologisch begründete N?he zu einer historisch und empirisch ausgerichteten Soziologie.      

Weak and strong laws of large numbers for coherent lower previsions

We prove weak and strong laws of large numbers for coherent lower previsions, where the lower prevision of a random variable is given a behavioural interpretation as a subject's supremum acceptable price for buying it. Our laws are a consequence of the rationality criterion of coherence, and they can be proven under assumptions that are surprisingly weak when compared to the standard formulation of the laws in more classical approaches to probability theory.     

From Parts to Wholes: Mechanisms of Development in Infant Visual Object Processing

Visual object processing in infancy is often described as proceeding from an early stage in which object features are processed independently to a later stage in which relations between features are taken into account (e.g., Cohen, 1998). Here we present the Representational Acuity Hypothesis, which argues that this behavioral shift can be explained by a developmental decrease in the size of neural receptive fields in the cortical areas responsible for object representation, together with a tuning to specific object features. We evaluate this hypothesis with a connectionist model of infant perceptual categorization. The model shows a behavioral shift in featural to relational processing consistent with similar results observed in the infant categorization experiments of Younger (1985) and Younger and Cohen (1986).     

Characteristics and impact of faked interviews in surveys – An analysis of genuine fakes in the raw data of SOEP

Summary: Panel data offers a unique opportunity to identify data that interviewers clearly faked by comparing data waves. In the German Socio–Economic Panel (SOEP), only 0.5 percent of all records of raw data have been detected as faked. These fakes are used here to analyze the potential impact of fakes on survey results. Due to our central finding the faked records have no impact on the mean or the proportions. However, we show that there may be a serious bias in the estimation of correlations and regression coefficients. In all but one year (1998), the detected faked data have never been disseminated within the widely–used SOEP study. The fakes are removed prior to data release.* We are grateful to participants in the workshop on Item Nonresponse and Data Quality on Large Social Surveys for useful critique and comments, especially Rainer Schnell and our outstanding discussant Regina Riphahn. The usual disclaimer applies.