PREDICTING MORTALITY AMONG INDEPENDENTLY LIVING RURAL ELDERLY:

The problem of predicting mortality among rural elderly (65 years and older) living independently is examined using 20-year panel data derived from a random multistage cluster sample. Fifteen independent variables, including social networks, age, sex, and health status, were hypothesized on theoretical and empirical grounds to predict mortality. Face-to-face structured interviews were conducted with the same respondents in 1966, 1974, and 1986/87. Logistic regression establishes that a model comprising age, sex, participation in formal organizations, relative and children association, and general health status is a powerful predictor of mortality. The authors conclude that the more heterogeneous formal, or secondary, social networks which may enhance self esteem are most functional for the elderly.     

Exotic Enterprise No More? Adolescent Reports of Family and Parenting Processes From Youth in Four Countries

The current investigation cross‐nationally examined the relationship between adolescent reports of family or parenting processes and a series of developmental outcomes in a sample of adolescents (N=8,417) from Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. Based on confirmatory factor analyses and tests of scalar equivalence, results suggest that the Adolescent Family Process Measure (AFP), which assesses maternal and paternal closeness, support, monitoring, communication, conflict, and peer approval, was valid and reliable for males, females, middle adolescents, and late adolescents in all four national contexts. In addition, based on model‐free LISREL analyses, findings suggested that the relationships between these family processes and measures of adolescent externalizing (alcohol use, drug use, school misconduct, and total deviance) and internalizing (anxiety, depression, low self‐esteem, and low well‐being) behaviors were similar cross‐nationally. Findings are discussed in terms of their importance for the conceptualization and measurement of family and parenting processes.     

Fighting Words: What We Can Learn from Hitler's Hyperbole

The question of why human beings fight wars continues to stalk modern thought. This article treats Hitler's national socialist discourse as an extreme example of the social construction of a social problem, a cultural paradigm of how to talk people into fighting revolutions and wars. Drawing upon recent work in rhetorical studies by Gusfield and others, I show how political agents concoct a rhetoric of motives which they use to incite their followers to fight their enemies. The formal and poetic features of this system of discourse are identified and explicated. We can learn many things from Hitler. By identifying his technique, we can recognize when political agents are using the same technique and counter its seductive effects. We learn that the main effect of war rhetoric is social integration through the constitution of common enemies. And finally, we realize that wars are made to happen through the calculated use of symbolic practices. War is not, as many have argued, a fall into a latent animality, but an expression of our symbol-mindedness–our capacity to make and use hyperboles.     

PRIZE SCARCITY AND OVERDISSIPATION IN ALL‐PAY AUCTIONS

We compare bidding behavior in complete information all‐pay auction experiments that vary in the prizes and number of players. We confirm the observation from prior single‐prize experiments that there is overbidding relative to equilibrium predictions. Our primary results are that increasing the number of prizes and players proportionally does not reduce overbidding but increasing the number of prizes with a fixed number of players eliminates overbidding. We conclude that the overbidding phenomenon is related to the scarcity of the prize. We provide new theoretical results on the multi‐prize logit equilibrium, and our experimental results are qualitatively consistent with logit equilibrium predictions. (JEL D72, D91, C91, D44)     

The Americanization of catholic reproductive ideals

Abstract This paper considers the attitude of Roman Catholics in the United States of America towards family size and suggests that large family ideals are still being put forward by the Church in publications and periodicals. The second part of the paper considers the attitudes of American Roman Catholics towards family size and shows that though there are indications that Roman Catholics regard slightly larger families as ideal than do members of other religions, the difference is not now very great.     

Quantifying loss aversion: Evidence from a UK population survey

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - We quantify differences in attitudes to loss from individuals with different demographic, personal and socio-economic characteristics. Our data are based on...     

Mothers’ Parenting Stress and Engagement: Mediating Role of Parental Competence

ABSTRACT

Guided by role-strain theory and the spillover hypothesis, this study used data (n = 2,637) from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the link between mothers’ parenting stress, perceived parental competence, and parental engagement when the child was age 1, 3, and 5, respectively. Analyses were based on a multiple-sample path analysis that tested direct and indirect effects for mothers of biologically intact and nonintact families. Mothers who reported higher levels of parenting stress at child age 1 experienced lower levels of perceived parental competence at child age 3. Higher levels of perceived parental competence at child age 3 predicted increased mother–child engagement levels at child age 5. Test of indirect effects confirmed that perceived parental competence mediated the relationship between parenting stress and parental engagement for mothers of intact and nonintact families. Implications are discussed.     

Families Created by Donor Insemination: Father–Child Relationships at Age 7

This study examined the psychological well‐being of fathers and father–child relationships in families with a 7‐year‐old child conceived by donor insemination. Twenty‐four donor insemination families and comparison groups of 25 egg donation and 32 unassisted‐conception families were assessed using a standardized interview and questionnaires administered to the father, and father–child dyads participated in an observational assessment of father–child interaction. On the basis of perspectives from Parental Investment Theory and stress‐related models, it was expected that donor insemination fathers would show raised levels of psychological problems and a poorer quality of parenting and have more conflictual relationships with their children than genetically related fathers in egg donation and unassisted‐conception families. These hypotheses were not supported by the findings. Instead, it seems that commitment to parenthood may be more important than genetic relatedness for positive father–child relationships.