Industrial Society: Requiem for a Concept

This paper traces the historical development as well as the analytical and ideological uses of “industrial society” as an object of knowledge. The binary opposition traditional society/industrial society and the latter tripartite division traditional, industrial, post-industrial society have been central to the development of sociology as a discipline. Like all analytical concepts “industrial society” is both a way of seeing and not seeing. It focuses attention on some social attributes and processes rather than others. The first objective of this paper is to evaluate whether or not this object of knowledge focuses attention on crucial aspects of social life, or whether, instead, it shrouds and distorts more than it reveals. The second objective is to evaluate the ideological import of the concept. Did it, and does it still, provide a realistic and achievable model of the way we ought to live together?     

On thoughtfulness and generosity in sequential decisions

In this article, we develop frameworks to study the notions of thoughtfulness and generosity in sequential choice situations involving two individuals. In such situations, by taking particular actions, an individual (the first mover) can induce various sets of alternatives to be available for the other individual (the second mover) to choose from. We view those sets of alternatives as opportunity sets reflecting degrees of thoughtfulness or generosity exhibited by the first mover toward the second mover. We axiomatically study several specific rules for ranking opportunity sets in terms of either thoughtfulness or generosity.     

Examining the Psychosocial Functioning and Characteristics of Incarcerated Girls with a Substance Use Disorder

The purpose of this study was to identify the psychosocial characteristics of incarcerated girls with a substance use disorder. Profile analysis, the repeated measures extension of multivariate analysis of variance, was conducted to compare a state-based sample of incarcerated girls with (n = 140) and without (n = 63) a substance use disorder across multiple subscales of the Multidimensional Adolescent Assessment Scale. Girls with a substance use disorder had higher levels of problem severity. They were more likely to have problems related to alcohol use, drug use, aggression, and cognition. Incarcerated girls with a substance use disorder may benefit from intense interventions that focus on cognitive restructuring or cognitive recovery, and interventions that promote coping and stress management skills.     

Predicting Permanency Intentions Among Kinship Caregivers

This study examines kinship caregivers’ (n = 830) experiences and their perceptions of the children (n = 1,339) in their care in order to predict permanency intent. Permanency intent is a caregiver’s expressed intent to adopt the child in his or her care or to provide permanent, legal guardianship. The results of this study reveal that most caregivers’ permanency choice is guardianship and not adoption. However, binary logistic regression results uncovered six factors (i.e., thorough explanation of case plans, decreases in caregiver emotional stress, decreases in child depression, child lack of communication with birth parent, caregiver providing care for a sibling group, decreases in run-away behavior) that predict that a caregiver will adopt the child in his or her care. Policy, practice, and research implications are noted.     

Child Neglect and Its Association With Subsequent Juvenile Drug and Alcohol Offense

This study presents empirical findings about the association between childhood neglect and adolescents’ subsequent involvement with drug and alcohol related offense from a sample of 251 neglected children and their community matched control (N = 502) from a 17-year period longitudinal data set. Findings confirmed that neglected children were at greater risk to be arrested for later juvenile drug and alcohol offenses than non-neglected children. Being male, White and the presence of domestic violence also significantly contributed to elevated risks of being arrested for juvenile drug and alcohol violations for neglected children. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

When Physical and Vocal Attractiveness Differ: Effects on Favorability of Interpersonal Impressions

Previous research has shown that targets whose physical and vocal attractiveness do not match (one channel being high and the other being low in attractiveness) elicit more negative impressions. The present study replicated this result and showed that the mediator and, hence, the reason for this effect is not simply a perception that the face and voice are discrepant but rather some disappointment with the less attractive channel. The finding that perceivers are overly disappointed with the less attractive channel is consistent with a large literature indicating that effects of negative events such as unattractive face or voice are stronger than effects of positive events.     

“The More You Gesture,the Less I Gesture”: Co-Speech Gestures as a Measure of Mental Model Quality

Studies in the literature have revealed that a speaker’s co-speech gestures favor the construction of a complete and articulated mental model of the discourse by the listener; moreover, from the literature on co-speech gestures we know that they help the speaker to organize the stream of thought. Given these data, we hypothesized that a person who listens to a discourse accompanied by gestures would produce fewer co-speech gestures in recollecting the discourse compared to a person who listens to a discourse not accompanied by gestures. The analysis of the co-speech gestures produced by the participants in two experiments while recollecting the content of a discourse confirmed our predictions.     

The Short and Long-Run Labor Market Effects of Age Eligibility Rules: Evidence from Women’s Professional Tennis

Age is often used in law and public policy as a low-cost proxy for competency, maturity, and ability. Age is also used in numerous sport (and non-sport) labor markets to determine workplace eligibility. We exploit the enactment of the women’s professional tennis minimum age rule (AR) in 1995 to estimate the effects of ARs on short-run and long-run labor market outcomes. We find very limited evidence that the AR has had any systematic beneficial effect on players’ career longevity or success. Our results suggest that sport governing bodies should (re-)evaluate the efficacy and necessity of “one size fits all” age eligibility rules.     

Is Collective Bargaining Pareto Efficient? A Survey of the Literature

It would be difficult, even today, to argue that labour unions are not important economic institutions, and it is this importance that makes their consequences for efficiency so substantial. Interest in the economic analysis of unions was revived in the early 1980s, in large part by a paper by Ian McDonald and Robert Solow, which formalized ideas first expressed in the context of labour markets 35 years earlier by Wassily Leontief. The standard textbook model of the labour union treats the union as a conventional monopoly seller of labour, selecting the wage while the firm chooses the level of employment; McDonald & Solow, however, drew from Leontief’s work to suggest an alternative in which the firm and union negotiate to a Pareto efficient contract. Further theoretical work followed, and a still-growing empirical literature began to develop; a wide variety of empirical procedures and tests have been attempted, with a diverse and contradictory range of findings. Given the importance of the question of union contract efficiency, an up-to-date survey of the literature may be useful in synthesizing past results and pointing the way to future research, and it is this role which the current paper will attempt to fill.