College student bereavement experience in a Christian university

As part of the National College Grief Study, college student bereavement experience was examined specifically in a Christian university climate. Sex, year in school, and closeness to the deceased were measured in terms of academic and mental health outcomes and resources utilized. Females reported more mental health problems when close to the deceased, and seniors were less likely than first year students to utilize personal support resources of family and religion. During close losses, students experienced more mental health problems and negative social outcomes, but they did not access more resources. Recommendations for university personnel and suggestions for further research are given.     

The meaning of gender while aging with paralytic polio

The purpose of this article is to report the influence of gender on aging with childhood onset paralytic polio. The hermeneutic phenomenological exploration of gender was done using multiple qualitative interviews with 25 women, age 55 to 75 years of age, who had polio since before 14 years of age. We noted three themes: (a) the movement of her body, (b) integrating body and gender, and (c) gender discrepancies. Findings are discussed in the context of gendered expectations and the women's bodies.     

Inducing risk-neutral preferences: An examination in a controlled market environment

This article reports 15 first-price auction experiments, each with four bidders, designed to test Cedric Smith' (1961) hypothesis that risk-neutral behavior can be induced in subjects' decisions by paying them in lotteries on money that are linear in the outcome probabilities. We choose the first-price auction environment because of its relatively high success in surviving a large number of tests, which contrasts with the widely documented tendency of subjects to violate the expected utility axioms in making choices among gambles. In the first five experiments, subjects were experienced in first-price auctions with monetary rewards. We prescreened these subjects for exceptionally high bidding consistency with the constant relative risk-averse model. The results unyielded only weak support for the risk-neutralizing procedure (3 of 10 risk-averse cases became risk-neutral, but only 1 in 8 that were retested continued to exhibit risk-neutral behavior). We recruited 16 new subjects with no previous experience for four lottery-only auctions. Eight of the 16 subjects bid as if risk-neutral, but in a retest of 12 subjects only 2 remained consistently risk-neutralized. Finally we recruited 12 inexperienced subjects, and each subject bid against 3 robot bidders whose bidding strategies were known to the human bidder. We use this procedure to control for Nash expectations. These 12 subjects were run under both monetary and lottery reward conditions. Two of the 12 subjects bid as if risk-neutral in the lottery auction, but both of these subjects had shown risk-neutral behavior with monetary rewards. In conclusion, we find very weak support for the risk-neutralizing procedure. We caution other researchers to run calibration tests of the procedure in the particular context they are studying to assess its reliability.     

EARLY FACTORS LEADING TO COLLEGE GRADUATION FOR ASIANS AND NON-ASIANS IN THE UNITED STATES

This article explores factors that lead Asian Americans, both as a group and as subgroups, to obtain a college degree in comparison to members of other racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Using data from the 2000 wave of the National Education Longitudinal Study, we find that the effects of race on educational attainment virtually disappear once individual and family factors are controlled. However, there is significant heterogeneity in college attainment among Asian Americans. In addition, we find that the effects of socioeconomic status, parental expectations, eighth-grade grade point average, and family structure are generally weaker for Asian Americans relative to non-Asians while parental immigrant status and standardized test scores are stronger. Asians appear to be "protected" from many of the usual factors that negatively affect educational outcomes while receiving an enhanced benefit from being of an immigrant family.     

An extension of the Dirichlet prior for the analysis of longitudinal multinomial data

Studies producing longitudinal multinomial data arise in several subject areas. This article suggests a Bayesian approach to the analysis of such data. Rather than infusing a latent model structure, we develop a prior distribution for the multinomial parameters which reflects the longitudinal nature of the observations. This distribution is constructed by modifying the prior that posits independent Dirichlet distributions for the multinomial parameters across time. Posterior analysis, which is implemented using Monte Carlo methods, can then be used to assess the temporal behaviour of the multinomial parameters underlying the observed data. We test this methodology on simulated data, opinion polling data, and data from a study concerning the development of moral reasoning.     

CHILD CARE USE BY LOW‐INCOME FAMILIES IN RURAL AREAS

Using data from interviews with 323 low‐income women living in rural counties in 11 states, child care arrangements for 672 children under 13 are described in relation to women's employment status, partner availability, and child age. As found in previous studies of rural areas, informal care is frequently used, regardless of full‐ or part‐time work or partner availability. Single mothers rely more on regulated care arrangements than mothers with partners and are more likely to pay for informal care than other mothers. Work in part‐time and service jobs suggests the need for flexible arrangements. Public data on child care availability and access in rural areas, the cost of care, and state subsidy programs suggest reasons for rural women's child care decisions. Policy implications of the study findings are shared.