The Social Psychology of "Pseudoscience": A Brief History

The word 'pseudoscience' is a marker of changing worries about science and being a scientist. It played an important role in the philosophical debate on demarcating science from other activities, and was used in popular writings to distance science from cranky theories with scientific pretensions. These uses consolidated a comforting unity in science, a communal space from which pseudoscience is excluded, and the user's right to belong is asserted. The urgency of this process dwindled when attempts to find a formal demarcation petered out, and the growth of social constructionism denied science any special access to truth. The reaction to this led to the science wars, which ushered in a new anxiety in the use of 'pseudoscience', especially from the least secure branches. But recent writings on the disunity of science reveal how the sense of support drawn from it may be based on an illusion, creating a disunity of pseudoscience as well as of science.     

A Comparison of Three Brand Evaluation Procedures

The paper reports an empirical examination of the results, reliability,and validity of three attitude measurement procedures—open-ended,paired comparison, and monadic rating. Significant differencesamong the three approaches were found in the evaluation of twobrands on a number of attitudinal dimensions with respect tojudgment of "both brands are alike" and the evaluation of "brandA vs. brand B."     

THE EFFECTS OF SPANISH‐LANGUAGE BACKGROUND ON COMPLETED SCHOOLING AND APTITUDE TEST SCORES

We investigate the effect of speaking Spanish at home as a child on completed schooling and aptitude test scores using data from the NLSY79 on Hispanics who grew up in the United States. We model the accumulation of traditional human capital and English fluency, leading to the joint determination of schooling and test scores. We find that speaking Spanish at home reduces test scores, but has no significant effect on completed schooling. The reduction in test scores (1) increases in magnitude in three of the tests when the parents are more educated; (2) is much more dramatic when the choice of home language is made endogenous; and (3) is not systematically greater for the verbal than for the math tests. (JEL I20, J15)     

Ethics Instruction Increases Graduate Students' Responsible Conduct of Research Knowledge but not Moral Reasoning

The purpose of this study was to assess the short-term effectiveness of ethics courses in enhancing responsible conduct of research (RCR) knowledge and moral judgment among graduate students in health-related disciplines. Forty-eight graduate students completed a questionnaire about research experience, knowledge and judgments about appropriate research practices, and a standardized test of moral judgment at the beginning and end of a semester-long ethics course. Knowledge about RCR but not moral judgment increased significantly in some areas. The results are discussed in terms of implications for RCR instruction and of future research designed to improve RCR instruction.     

Optimal Incentive Contracting with Ex Ante and Ex Post Moral Hazards: Theory and Evidence

Predictions concerning structure and performance for managerial incentive contracts designed to prevent accidents are developed and tested. The model predicts a step-function penalty with more costly, more reliable audits used for higher loss reports to control ex post exaggeration of the loss. In addition, the penalty induces nonreporting that is imperfectly controlled through random audits. An empirical contract implemented to control workers' compensation medical losses provides evidence consistent with these predictions. The contract reduces both accident frequency and total losses, but increases reported loss severity as managers evade approximately 40% of the accident penalty by underreporting small losses.