A note on LeCam’s bound for the distance between the Poisson binomial and the Poisson distribution

n possibly different success probabilities p ₁, p ₂, ..., p _n is frequently approximated by a Poisson distribution with parameter λ = p ₁ + p ₂ + ... + p _n . LeCam's bound p ² ₁ + p ² ₂ + ... + p _n ² for the total variation distance between both distributions is particularly useful provided the success probabilities are small. The paper presents an improved version of LeCam's bound if a generalized d-dimensional Poisson binomial distribution is to be approximated by a compound Poisson distribution. Received: May 10, 2000; revised version: January 15, 2001     

Lumpers and Splitters: The Public Opinion Information that Politicians Collect and Use

Are the decisions of American policymakers informed by generaltrends in the public’s ideology or by the public’spolicy-specific preferences? In this article we discuss twoexplanations for the types of public opinion information thatpoliticians collect and use. Using a unique data set of privatepolls from the White House of Richard Nixon, we find that whenopinion data on specific policies were available, the presidentrelied on them and not on general ideology data. On less importantissues, however, we find that the president often chose notto collect policy-specific data and instead relied on generalideology data. The differential collection and use of informationby policymakers reflect varying strategic calculations. Theyalso have profound implications for representative democracyand the demands placed on citizens and governors.     

The Division of Household Labor in Germany and Israel

We compare the patterns of household division of labor in Germany and Israel—two countries that share key elements of the corporatist welfare regime but differ in their gender regimes—and evaluate several hypotheses using data from the 2002 International Social Survey Program. Although time constraints and relative resources affect the division of household labor and women’s housework in both societies, we find that in Germany the gender order of household labor is more rigid, whereas in Israel the spouses’ linked labor market status exerts distinctive effects. We also find significant relationships between gender ideology and the division of household labor. We discuss the theoretical advantages of approaching the comparative study of gender inequality from the vantage point of family and gender regimes.     

Analytical approximations for iterated bootstrap confidence intervals

Standard algorithms for the construction of iterated bootstrap confidence intervals are computationally very demanding, requiring nested levels of bootstrap resampling. We propose an alternative approach to constructing double bootstrap confidence intervals that involves replacing the inner level of resampling by an analytical approximation. This approximation is based on saddlepoint methods and a tail probability approximation of DiCiccio and Martin (1991). Our technique significantly reduces the computational expense of iterated bootstrap calculations. A formal algorithm for the construction of our approximate iterated bootstrap confidence intervals is presented, and some crucial practical issues arising in its implementation are discussed. Our procedure is illustrated in the case of constructing confidence intervals for ratios of means using both real and simulated data. We repeat an experiment of Schenker (1985) involving the construction of bootstrap confidence intervals for a variance and demonstrate that our technique makes feasible the construction of accurate bootstrap confidence intervals in that context. Finally, we investigate the use of our technique in a more complex setting, that of constructing confidence intervals for a correlation coefficient.     

TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY OF CULT FILMS: Reading Rocky Horror

This article provides a sociological reading of cult films, in particular, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Cult films are secular documents, celebrated as sacred texts by audiences and used as shared foci to collectively create rituals and belief systems. They differ from popular re-releases, fad films, films with cult qualities, and critical cult films in that they involve typical people in atypical situations, sympathetic deviance, challenges to traditional authority, reflections of societal strains, and paradoxical and interpretable resolutions. Examination of the Rocky Horror text and the cult activities that occur during its viewing, reveal it as a paradoxical indictment and validation of traditional societal arrangements.     

Professional Perspectives on Decision Making about the Long-term Care of Older People

With the increasing pressure on social and health care resources,professionals have to be more explicit in their decision makingregarding the long-term care of older people. This groundedtheory study used 19 focus groups and nine semi-structured interviews(99 staff in total) to explore professional perspectives onthis decision making. Focus group participants and intervieweescomprised care managers, social workers, consultant geriatricians,general medical practitioners, community nurses, home care managers,occupational therapists and hospital discharge support staff.The emerging themes spanned context, clients, families and services.Decisions were often prompted by a crisis, hindering professionalsseeking to make a measured assessment. Fear of burglary andassault, and the willingness and availability of family to helpwere major factors in decisions about living at home. Serviceavailability in terms of public funding for community care,the availability of home care workers and workload pressureson primary care services influenced decision ‘thresholds’regarding admission to institutional care. Assessment toolsdesigned to assist decision making about the long-term careof older people need to take into account the critical aspectsof individual fears and motivation, family support and the availabilityof publicly funded services as well as functional and medicalneeds.     

A review of research on the happiness measures: A sixty second index of happiness and mental health

Eighteen years of research using the Happiness Measures (HM) is reviewed in relation to the general progress of well-being measurement efforts. The accumulated findings on this remarkably quick instrument, show good reliability, exceptional stability, and a record of convergent, construct, and discriminative validity unparalleled in the field. Because of this, the HM is offered as a potential touchstone of measurement consistency in a field which generally lacks it.     

Secularization and the politics of traditionalism: The case of the right-to-life movement

Research on the traditionalist movement against abortion needs alignment with currents in historical sociology, the theory of social movements and the sociology of politics. The religious (specifically, Christian) basis of the right-to-life movement has attracted considerable attention in the literature. The movement is seen as a traditionalist bloc claiming to oppose secularization and return to customary restrictions. However the tradition in question appears to be a recent social construction. There is slim warrant in the actual traditions of Western religion for asserting a categorical right to life. As a result, the movement's ideology is best approached as the product of—rather than the antidote to—secularizing processes (including the demographic transition, discourse about rights, markets for symbolic entrepreneurs and the separation of church and state) and possibly as an unintended import from non-Western religion. Implications for traditionalism, the functions of religion, and the study of countermovements are explored. This case illustrates the value of attending to historical sequences and the external cultural environments of social movements.     

The encoding and decoding of liking from behavioral cues in both auditory and visual channels

Fifty high school students met in same-sex dyads for the first time over a cup of coffee in an experimental room designed as a comfortable living room. They then responded to a questionnaire designed to measure liking and perceived similarity. The interactions were video-taped. Two different panels of 6 judges later either viewed (video only) or heard (audio-only) the videotape and raed the subjects behavior on a number of scales. The judges also judged the degree of liking felt by the subjects by estimating subjects responses to the questionnaire. In addition gaze behaviour during the interaction was measured. Factor analysis demonstrated that 60% of the variance in The Liking Scale was attributed to 14 items relating to liking and perceived similarity. A separate factor to assess perceived similarity could not be found. Twenty-nine percent of the variance in the liking reported by subjects was predicted by an interrelated pattern of expressing behaviour including approproate looking, mutual gaze, self-disclosure, synchrony in movement and gesture, expressiveness of the face and liveliness of the voice. Video judges liking correlated 0.33 with subjects liking and 48% of the variance in their judgements was explained by the valid cues of looking and expressiveness of the face. Audio judges liking, although it correlated at 0.34 with video judges liking, did not correlate at all with subjects' liking because of an over-reliance on the important content cues. It is suggested that major problems leading to decoding inaccuracy may be over-reliance on content cues and over-confidence in the possibility of decoding accuracy. The evidence suggests that differences between subjects in encoding may be considerable.