ERRORS IN OUTPUT DEFLATORS REVISITED: UNIT VALUES AND THE PRODUCER PRICE INDEX

Output prices are mismeasured because of inadequate adjustments for changes in product quality. Thus, when quality improves, inflation will be systematically over-stated. In this study, I find that the most commonly used indicator of the rate of inflation, the Producer Price Index, misses about 40 percent of the change in quality. However, I also find that the mismeasurement of output prices is constant over time, implying that errors of measurement are not a significant determinant of either the slowdown or recent acceleration in manufacturing productivity.     

The Social Psychology of Robert E. Park: Human Nature,Self, Personality and Social Structure

Robert E. Park is widely recognized today for his contributions to urban sociology, race relations and collective behavior but his social psychology has been largely neglected. Park's inclusive and loose framework covered his interest in: (1) human nature and the bio-physiological instincts which for him were raw materials of personality; (2) formulation of self concept as an organization of roles; and (3) micro-macro linkages between individual and social structure. Each one of Park's three themes is still important for symbolic interaction theory and offers insights into contemporary investigations of emotions, role acquisition and identity.     

Assessing the impact of planned social change

It is a special characteristic of all modern societies that we consciously decide on and plan projects designed to improve our social systems. It is our universal predicament that our projects do not always have their intended effects. Very probably we all share in the experience that often we cannot tell whether the project had any impact at all, so complex is the flux of historical changes that would have been going on anyway, and so many are the other projects that might be expected to modify the same indicators.It seems inevitable that in most countries this common set of problems, combined with the obvious relevance of social science research procedures, will have generated a methodology and methodological specialists focused on the problem of assessing the impact of planned social change. It is an assumption if this paper that, in spite of differences in the forms of government and approaches to social planning and problem-solving, much of this methodology can be usefully shared — that social project evaluation methodology is one of the fields of science that has enough universality to make scientific sharing mutually beneficial. As a part of this sharing, this paper reports on program impact assessment methodology as it is developing in the United States today.     

Effects of facial expression and stare duration on walking speed: Two field experiments

Two field experiments investigated the generality of the stare-escape phenomenon for pedestrians. Experiment 1, conducted at a traffic intersection, failed to replicate a previous finding that being stared at leads to faster walking speed. One hypothesis that could explain this failure is that the relatively short staring times used in Experiment 1 were insufficient for subjects to attribute a threatening meaning to the stare. In Experiment 2, conducted at a library elevator, duration of staring was systematically varied—either 2 seconds or more than 15 seconds. Consistent with the attribution time hypothesis, subjects increased walking speed after a long stare but decreased it after a short stare. In both experiments a smile coupled with a stare appeared to neutralize the effects of a stare alone.The authors would like to thank Clyde Hendrick for his valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

PERSONAL AUTHORITY VIA TERMINATION OF THE INTERGENERATIONAL HIERARCHICAL BOUNDARY: PART II—THE CONSULTATION PROCESS AND THE THERAPEUTIC METHOD

This paper is by way of a continuation of the definition of the theoretical position on the termination of the intergenerational hierarchical boundary, presented earlier (Williamson, 1981). That paper argued that this termination requires "a radical renegotiation of the power structures in the relationships between the two generations, and in the interactional political patterns which ensue from these." This paper reports on and describes a therapeutic methodology for securing and completing such a "radical renegotiation." It is implied that this therapeutic procedure has widespread applicability to the resolution of behavioral problems.     

Occupational preferences and the quality of life

This paper focuses on the theoretical and empirical aspects of occupational choice by examining the structure of individual preferences expressed in terms of abstract characteristics. Both verbal and quantitative models were successfully tested, and a rough upper limit was set on the ability of individuals to specify their quality-of-life technology. The study was too restrictive to permit general inferences concerning the quality of life of particular occupations. However, it may be concluded from the limited empirical findings that the qualitative model captured career-living preferences almost as consistently as did the highly structured quantitative approach. The experiments extracted subjects' cognitive structures for career-living stiuations in all the richness and generality permitted by verbal expression. Although more costly to determine, such qualitative information is of considerable potential benefit to policy makers, ect., and equivalent knowledge cannot be obtained from numerical representations.