Operationalizing the Construct of Friendship among Children: A Psychometric Comparison of Sociometric-Based Definitional Methodologies

Peer relations researchers generally agree that friendship involves a close, mutual, dyadic relationship. However, the lack of consensus on how to operationalize this construct has limited our understanding of the role of friendship in social adjustment. The present study directly compared the psychometric properties (i.e., number of friendships identified, concordances, and stability) of the five major different definitions of friendship used in the literature. Fourth- and fifth-grade students (N = 90) completed a battery of sociometric measures at two different times separated by eight weeks. Friendship dyads were then identified using the following definitional criteria: (1) mutual positive nominations; (2) mutal high ratings (i.e., 4 or 5 on a five-point Likert-type scale); (3) one positive nomination reciprocated by a rating of 5; (4) one positive nomination and mutual high ratings; and (5) one positive nomination and mutual ratings averaging at least 4. Frequency and concordance analyses indicated differences across the five definitions. In addition, the friendships identified by each of the five definitions were similarly moderate in their stability. Explanations for, and the possible implications of, these differences are discussed.     

Sequential assignment and treatment-as-usual. Alternatives to standard experimental designs in field studies of treatment efficacy.

Psychosocial treatment research studies encounter obstacles to random assignment (RA). Used together, two procedures offer an alternative to the standard RA design. First, sequential assignment (SA) may create less opposition from administration, staff, and clients. SA operates on the principle that limited bed availability, a common treatment consideration in the field, determines assignment of clients to conditions. Second, treatment-as-usual (TAU) represents an alternative type of control condition. Some clients on the waiting list will, before a slot opens up and they enter an experimental condition, be absorbed into the existing treatment system, in which the amount and type of treatment they receive can vary widely. Substituting SA and TAU for the standard RA design may introduce methodological impurities including certain limited biases.     

Deaths from Alcohol and Violence in Moscow: Socio-economic Determinants

Objective: To examine the association between accidental, violent and alcohol related adult mortality in the Russian capital and socio-economic status characteristics such as educational status, occupational group and marital status.Data and methods: individual death records for Moscow City for the years 1994 and 1995, for 86121 deaths between the ages of 20–59. Proportional mortality analysis was used to compare trends for alcohol related deaths and accidental and violent deaths (representing 5 and 28% of all deaths in this age group), with multiple controls consisting of deaths from cancer at various sites.Results: The probability of death from alcohol related diseases increased as education level decreased, with those men failing to complete secondary education over two and a half times as likely to die from these causes than men with higher education. Blue collar workers were also much more likely to die from these causes than white collar workers. Marriage had a marked protective effect for both men and women.Conclusion: Despite 75 years of official egalitarian ideology, there are marked socio-economic differentials in mortality in Russia. For the causes of death analysed, socio-economic mortality differentials were greater for women than for men.     

Semiparametric estimation of employment duration models

There are a variety of economic areas, such as studies of employment duration and of the durability of capital goods, in which data on important variables typically are censored. The standard techinques for estimating a model from censored data require the distributions of unobservable random components of the model to be specified a priori up to a finite set of parameters, and misspecification of these distributions usually leads to inconsistent parameter estimates. However, economic theory rarely gives guidance about distributions and the standard estimation techniques do not provide convenient methods for identifying distributions from censored data. Recently, several distribution-free or semiparametric methods for estimating censored regression models have been developed. This paper presents the results of using two such methods to estimate a model of employment duration. The paper reports the operating characteristics of the semiparametric estimators and compares the semiparametric estimates with those obtained from a standard parametric model.     

Reliability of work-related assessments

Insufficient evidence of the reliability of work-related assessments is a major concern in this area of practice. Despite this concern there has been ongoing development of new assessments, while existing assessments have been revised, modified and updated and others are no longer used or available. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to determine the extent and quality of evidence for the reliability of work-related assessments. STUDY DESIGN: This study examined available literature and sources in order to review the extent which reliability has been established for 28 work-related assessments. RESULTS: The levels of evidence and reliability are presented for each assessment. This indicates that a number of commercially available work-related assessments have insufficient evidence of reliability. For the limited number of work-related assessments with an adequate level of evidence on which to judge their reliability, most demonstrate a moderate to good level. Few assessments, however, have demonstrated levels of reliability sufficient for clinical (and legal) purposes. CONCLUSION: With this study clinicians will be able to examine their options with regard to the reliability of the assessments they choose to use. Interpretation of changes in test results can be considered in the light of the evidence for the reliability of the instrument used.     

Evaluation of treatment programs for persons with severe mental illness: moderator and mediator effects

This study evaluated several statistical models for estimating treatment effects in a randomized, longitudinal experiment comparing assertive community treatment (ACT) versus brokered case management (BCM). In addition, mediator and moderator analyses were conducted. The ACT clients had improved outcomes in terms of housing and psychiatric symptoms than BCM clients. Case management housing assistance and financial assistance partially mediated housing outcomes. No reliable mediators were found for psychiatric symptoms, and no reliable moderators were found for either housing or psychiatric symptoms. The study also made several important methodological advances in the analysis of longitudinal data in randomized experiments.     

OUT OF UTOPIA:

An important segment of writings on postindustrialization is distinctly utopian in stressing the greater mastery and control made possible by recent innovations in information technology. The utopian theme underscores the technical outcomes of innovations and highlights their benefits for ameliorating social problems. By contrast, our work suggests that many of the social problems in contemporary society are a consequence of recent innovations in information technology. We argue that postindustrial theorists are correct in stressing mastery over certain technical problems but incorrect in slighting the destabilizing effect innovations have on organizations and the markets in which these organizations participate. These destabilizing effects complicate organizational strategies by increasing market risk and uncertainty. Since most organizations are risk aversive, social problems are created as organizations externalize their costs and pass along risk to other, more dependent actors. Illustrations from two institutions, politics and the economy, indicate that many postindustrial innovations are associated with heightened competition as well as greater risk and uncertainty across the institutional order. We conclude that postindustrial technology introduces no net gain in man aging the complexities of the social world. Risk and control are both integral to technological innovation and constitute the paradox of postindustrialization.     

Nonverbal intimacy,sex, and compliance: A field study

The present study was designed to explore further the effects of nonverbal behaviors and sex on compliance. Male and female subjects who had just found a dime in a phone booth were approached by a male or female experimenter and were asked to return the dime that the experimenter had supposedly just lost. In the Eye Contact condition, the experimenter gazed at the subject as the request was made, whereas in the No-Eye Contact condition he/she did not. In addition, the experimenter lightly touched half of the subjects while making his/her request, but did not touch the other half. Replicating previous findings, it was found that both eye contact (significantly) and touching (marginally) produced increased rates of compliance. Extending prior results, these effects were obtained for male experimenters. Furthermore, a Sex of experimenter times Sex of subject interaction effect was obtained, such that subjects were much more willing to comply with the request of an opposite, rather than same sex experimenter. Questionnaire data suggested that: 1) subjects were aware of the touch, but not of the eye contact variable, and 2) the requesters were perceived as much more attractive when they were of the opposite, rather than the same sex as the subjects.