How Many Balance Functions Does it Take to Determine a Utility Function?

Call b your balance function at wealth W if you are indifferent between W and a 50–50 lottery with outcomes x and b(x). Given one b, u is arbitrary on one side of W but then determined on the other. Given two b‘s, u is arbitrary between the two W′ s but then determined elsewhere. Additional properties of u restrict the b’s but do not ordinarily make u unique. Contradictions can occur. Given three b′ s, an algorithm is developed using minimal domains of definition that determines the relative utility of the W’s. If it is irrational, then the set S generated by applying all combinations of b’s to W′ s is dense and u is determined. If finitely many b’s are rationally related, then S is discrete, a further algorithm determines it, the values of u on S are equally spaced, and u is arbitrary between any two adjacent points of S but then determined elsewhere. Infinitely many balance functions determine u unless they are rationally related in a uniform way.JEL Classification: D81     

An Empirical Investigation of the Assumptions of Risk-Value Models

Do participants make decisions consistent with risk-value tradeoffs? One hundred and five undergraduate business students made risk and preference judgments about lottery pairs in a series of paper surveys. The data indicate that the participants’ responses were generally consistent with the key assumptions of risk-value models, but that some extensions of the theory would improve this consistency. In particular, we find that modifying the risk assumptions of the risk-value theory so they are consistent the concept of the reflection of the risk attitude in the domains of gains and losses increases the agreement between the theory and the participants’ responses.     

Parental divorce and subsequent disadvantage: A cross-cohort comparison

Although many studies have examined the link between parental divorce and subsequent well-being, some theories of the effects of divorce suggest that the negative associations should have declined over time. However, few studies have examined the extent to which the associations have remained stable over time. Using data from two British cohorts, we analyzed both shorter- and longer-term outcomes of children who experienced parental divorce and the extent to which the associations have changed over time. Estimating similar models for both cohorts, we found little evidence of any change in the size of the relationship as divorce became more commonplace.     

Demographers’ Involvement in Twentieth-Century Population Policy: Continuity or Discontinuity?

The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the development of a crusading spirit and massive technical aid aimed at reducing fertility levels and rates of population growth in developing countries, and also the involvement of demographers in these events. The demographers at Princeton University’s Office of Population Research, Frank Notestein and his colleagues, have been singled out by recent authors as playing a unique role in bringing about these changes, and they have been criticized for encouraging demographers to become involved, so eroding their scientific objectivity. This paper examines the development of relevant population thought and theory in the English-language literature over the first half of the twentieth century. It concludes that in the circumstances of the second half of the twentieth century, it was inevitable that developed countries and their demographers would become involved in controlling fertility levels in developing countries. The OPR story should be seen largely in terms of how the world’s leading demographic center and its demographic transition theory were swept along by global changes. As those developments started, attitudes to population change in densely settled Asia became Malthusian, even as population growth accompanied by mortality decline in Asia demonstrated that, at least in the short term, the positive checks were disappearing.     

Explaining Official Delinquency: a Spatial Study of Class,Conflict and Control*

The correlation between social class and official delinquency is one of the more stable findings of sociological research. Consensus, conflict and organizational explanations of this correlation are examined with a coordinated set of survey, interview, and official data gathered in the central area of a middle-sized Canadian city. These data make possible the consideration of behavior and official rate-producing processes in a model that lends support to a combination of conflict and organizational perspectives. Consideration is given to the need for additional research using a similar frame-work in other types of community settings.     

The Structure of the Families of Schizophrenics

In the families of schizophrenic patients everything is subordinated to the neurotic or psychotic needs of one of the parents, and the whole family then works together to stop that parent from becoming psychotic. The other parent must become completely subjugated or withdrawn and leave the family under the domination of his spouse. This becomes a rigid system in which the patient's role is to “feel nothing, do nothing, and be nothing”, and any minor change in him becomes a major threat to the integrity of the whole family. It is when he can no longer maintain this role that the person becomes clinically schizophrenic. Some of the difficulties in treating schizophrenic patients in individual or family therapy are discussed.     

Growth and Succession in Suburban Communities*

Previous studies of the growth of metropolitan communities, drawing primarily on ecological theory as represented by Burgess' concentric zone model of the metropolis, have highlighted the effects of distance from the city center on community development. Using data from one major suburban region, we show that a more complete examination of Burgess' ecological life-cycle theory should deal also with the effects of initial development pattern, age of housing stock, minority and low-income presence, and social heterogeneity. In addition we argue that the latter three variables also can be interpreted as measures of the potential for collective action of residents to restrict development, and show that an explicitly political characteristic—incorporation—has a significant impact on one dimension of succession. We conclude that rather than limiting attention to the effects of distance (simplifying Burgess' model to central place theory), studies of growth should address more directly the interaction between ecological processes and the socio-political framework within which they operate.     

The Marital/Family Therapist as an Expert Witness: Some Thoughts and Suggestions

The role of the therapist in forensic activities is highlighted from the standpoint of protection of the therapist from unauthorized disclosure to orientation and effectiveness in court in a step-by-step process. Conclusions reached that the adversary process and the role of mental health professional challenge the objectivity needed by the mental health professional.