Forthcoming in Sociological Forum

Volume Contents

Forthcoming in Sociological Forum     

Effect of the doctor on college students' attitudes toward physician-assisted suicide

Ninety-six students were presented with eighteen different vignettes describing different types of active and passive observed suicide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Attitudes regarding the morality and desired legality of each situation were measured. Results indicated that the interaction between the doctor and the patient, and, to a lesser extent, the active or passive nature of the agent of death, were more important than the actual actions of the doctor in allowing or causing death to occur.     

Alternative Question Forms for Attitude Scale Questions in Telephone Interviews

The absence of visual aids in telephone interviews has led investigatorsto seek methods for asking questions which are commonly accompaniedby aids in personal interviews. This study experimentally comparedtwo approaches to asking seven-point scale attitude questionsin a national (N = 4,300) telephone health survey. A randomhalf-sample received the attitude questions as single-step numericalselection tasks. The questions were administered to the otherhalf-sample in two stages, the first asking for a general verbalstatement of attitude and the second asking for a more detailedspecification. The two question forms produced comparable resultsin univariate distributions. Items administered with the one-stepform showed slightly higher intercorrelations. This study representsone step in the process of empirically testing data collectionprocedures which have been deemed necessary in the rich folkloreof survey research. Overall, the results show more comparabilitythan might be anticipated, given the multiple differences betweenthe forms.     

The marriage squeeze

If the sex-age structure of the population is equilibrated, observed marriage patterns are assumed to reflect preferred mate selections. With regard to age, these preferences can be expressed in terms of the probabilities of unmarried persons of given ages marrying persons of various ages. To study the situation of unequilibrated sexes, these probabilities can be used to compute, for each combination of ages of groom and bride, the expected number of grooms and the expected number of brides. If either of these numbers exceeds the other, the corresponding sex is in a "marriage squeeze." The comparison among the expected number of grooms, that of brides, and the observed number of marriages supplies information on the effects of the squeeze.In Australia, marriage statistics of 1949 were considered to reflect preferred selections. In 1958, men of most ages were in a squeeze. As a consequence, some relatively younger and older men did not get married, and some relatively younger and older women improved their chances of marriage in the year under consideration. 291-299.     

Projective (2n,n,λ,1)-designs

A projective (2n,n,λ,1)-design is a set $\text{D}$ of n element subsets (called blocks) of a 2n-element set V having the properties that each element of V is a member of λ blocks and every two blocks have a non-empty intersection. This paper establishes existence and non-existence results for various projective (2n,n,λ,1)-designs and their subdesigns.     

A class of Shrunken estimators for normal mean

This paper presents a class of estimators for the mean of a normal population and determines the conditions on characterizing scalars under which the class of estimators uniformly dominates over the conventional sample mean according to the mean-square-error criterion.     

Violent comic books and judgments of relational aggression

This study investigated the effects of reading extremely violent versus mildly violent comic books on the interpretation of relational provocation situations. One hundred and seventeen introductory psychology students read either an extremely violent comic book or a mildly violent comic book. After reading the comic books, participants read five hypothetical stories in which a child, caused a relationally aggressive event to occur to another child, but the intent of the provocateur was ambiguous. After each story, participants were asked a series of questions about the provocateur's intent; potential retaliation toward the provocateur; and the provocateur's emotional state. Responses were coded in terms of amount of negative and violent content. Results indicated that participants reading the extremely violent comic books ascribed more hostile intent to the provocateur, suggested more retaliation toward the provocateur, and attributed a more negative emotional state to the provocateur than participants reading the mildly violent comic book. These data suggest that social information processing of relationally aggressive situations is influenced by violent comic books, even if the comic books do not contain themes of relational aggression.