The impact of respondent attentiveness on reliability and validity

This study aims to assess whether respondent inattentiveness causes systematic and unsystematic measurement error that influences survey data quality. To determine the impact of (in)attentiveness on the reliability and validity of target measures, we compared respondents from a German online survey (N = 5205) who had passed two attention checks with those who had failed. Our results show that inattentiveness induces both random and systematic measurement error, which impacts estimates of the reliability and validity of multi-item scales. In addition, we conducted a sensitivity analysis, which revealed that the impact of inattentiveness on analyses can be substantial.     

Meeting the needs of the adoption triangle through open adoption: The adoptee

Open adoption offers advantages for adopted persons which are not available in traditional adoption. Having access, to information about their biological heritage allows adopted persons to integrate their adoptive, history with their biological history. This integration enables resolution of normal developmental crisis. Openness also helps facilitate communication between the adoptee and the adoptive parents. Adoptive parents are then able to recognize, and provide support, when their child is grieving the loss of the birthparents.     

Meeting the needs of the adoption triangle through Open Adoption: The adoptive parent

Open adoption enables the adoptive parents to participate more fully in the adoption. It allows them to make decisions regarding the amount of openness they wish to have. By means of seminars, readings, and panels the adoptive parents learn more about adoption and birthparents. By experiencing openness, the adoptive parents come to know the birthparents as real people. The birthparents are no longer perceived as a threat. The adoptive parents gain a feeling of entitlement to parent from the birthparent(s).     

Inequality indices as measures of dissimilarity: a generalization

Income Inequlity Indices are shown to be specific instances of Dissimilarity Indices. On the basis of this result various Dissimilarity Indices are defined. This paper was written while the author was visiting the Departement Economie Politique at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.     

On distributional change,pro-poor growth and convergence

This paper proposes a unified approach to the measurement of distributional change. The framework is used to define indices of inequality in proportional growth rates, convergence, and pro-poorness of growth and associated equivalent growth rates. A distinction is made between non-anonymous and anonymous measures. The analysis is extended by using the notion of generalized Gini index. This unified approach is then implemented to study the link between income and other non-income characteristics, such as education and health. Empirical illustrations based on Indian data on individual educational achievements and on state wide infant survival levels highlight the usefulness of the proposed measures.     

Dutch books and agent rationality

According to the Dutch Book Argument (DBA), if an agent's subjective probabilities fail to satisfy the axioms of the probability calculus and so make the agent vulnerable to a Dutch Book, the agent's subjective probabilities are incoherent and the agent is therefore irrational. Critics of DBA have argued, however, that probabilistic incoherence is compatible with various kinds of rationality – logico-semantic, epistemic, instrumental and prudential. In this paper, I provide an interpretation of DBA on which it is true that probabilistic incoherence entails agent irrationality. Articulating this interpretation requires the specification of some of the connections among the varieties of rationality. Once this is done, it becomes possible to vindicate a modest version of DBA.     

The subjective well-being of mental patients in nursing homes.

This article reports a survey of self-reports of well-being by chronic mental patients in nursing homes. Patients reported lower levels of well-being than the general population, but not lower than other socially disadvantaged groups including urban renewal blacks. Nursing home mental patients reported levels of well-being that were generally similar to mental patients in other settings, including day hospital patients, participants in an innovative community care program, and patients receiving traditional hospital and follow-up care. These reports were mostly unrelated to levels of symptomatology or social integration, but were strongly related to patient perceptions of the quality of the environment. Results have important implications concerning the justifications for community care goals like noninstitutional care, reduction of symptomatology, and the fostering of social integration.