AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF RIOT PARTICIPATION

This paper examines the behavior of riot participants in the context of an expected utility maximization model. The basic hypothesis is that a riot presents the participants with a constantly changing set of opportunities, and that their behavior can only be understood in light of these changing returns and costs. The model is tested using data collected by the National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorders. The results are consistent with the hypothesis of maximizing behavior.     

The Impact of "No Opinion" Response Options on Data Quality: Non-Attitude Reduction or an Invitation to Satisfice?

According to many seasoned survey researchers, offering a no-opinionoption should reduce the pressure to give substantive responsesfelt by respondents who have no true opinions. By contrast,the survey satisficing perspective suggests that no-opinionoptions may discourage some respondents from doing the cognitivework necessary to report the true opinions they do have. Weaddress these arguments using data from nine experiments carriedout in three household surveys. Attraction to no-opinion optionswas found to be greatest among respondents lowest in cognitiveskills (as measured by educational attainment), among respondentsanswering secretly instead of orally, for questions asked laterin a survey, and among respondents who devoted little effortto the reporting process. The quality of attitude reports obtained(as measured by over-time consistency and responsiveness toa question manipulation) was not compromised by the omissionof no-opinion options. These results suggest that inclusionof no-opinion options in attitude measures may not enhance dataquality and instead may preclude measurement of some meaningfulopinions.     

The Polls: Regulation--Part I

Part II of this report will appear in the Fall 1984 issue.     

Family Placements for People with a Learning Difficulty: A Study using Time Budgets

Correspondence to Dr R. F. Drewett, Department of Psychology, University of Durham, Science Building, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE. Summary The Durham County Council Family Placement Scheme offers long-termcare in families for adults with learning difficulties. Theactivities of the twenty-four clients in family placements werestudied using interviews and diaries kept by carers. Althoughmost of the clients were only mildly handicapped three wereseverely disabled. Most of the carers have either professionalor voluntary experience of work with people with learning difficulties.Although four of the placements have broken down, the levelsof activity of the clients still in their families were similarto those found in other types of community-based care, and werejust as extensive in the more disabled. The previous experienceof the carer had no clear relationship with the activity levelsof the client.     

MARGINALITY AND LIBERALISM AMONG JEWISH ELITES

Although much has been written about the Jewish proclivity towardliberalism, little has been written about elites who are Jewish.This article extensively compares American elites, both Jewishand non-Jewish, on a wide variety of social, economic, and politicalattitudes. Jewish elites are found to be consistently more liberalthan their non-Jewish counterparts on four different measuresof liberalism. We find small differences between religiouslyliberal and religiously conservative Jews. The differences betweenJewish and non-Jewish elites persisted after controlling fora number of background variables including current occupation.These results are explained as a result of Jewish socializationinto a tradition of marginality which has persisted despitechanging conditions. This conclusion is supported by showingthat parental ideology can partially predict respondents' ideologicalviews.