Social compromise and social metrics

In the context of constitutional design, a committee of citizens' representatives proposes (social choice) axioms. The outcome should not necessarily be the aggregation rule, or rules, satisfying each of the axioms. Alternative procedures are recommended for aggregating a set of axioms into a single summary axiom. The summary axiom generates a single social decision function when a social metric is applied.     

Situational life changes: A model for coping with stress in adolescence

A health-oriented interactional model of adolescent change in times of transition is presented. Four factors are discussed: 1. the effect of individuals and the environments on each other; 2. the interactive flow between regression and growth, vulnerabilites and competencies, crisis and equilibrium; and 3. the interactive effects of psychological, social and physical factors. A social work assessment and intervention model is built on this framework.Ms. Lammert is an Associate Professor, National Catholic School of Social Service, a consultant to the American Digestive Disease Society and to the Christ Child Society School Counseling Program and in private practice.     

Psychopathology in pathological gamblers seeking treatment

High rates of psychiatric symptoms have been reported in pathological gamblers. This study of psychiatric comorbidity in pathological gamblers is the first to use structured psychiatric interviews assessing DSM-III-R Axis I and II disorders. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM III-R (SCID-P, SCID-II) was administered to 40 (25 male, 15 male) pathological gamblers seeking outpatient treatment in Minnesota for gambling, and 64 (41 male, 23 female) controls. High lifetime rates of Axis I (92%) but not Axis II (25%) psychopathology were found in pathological gamblers as compared to controls. No differences between male and female gamblers were found in rates of affective, substance use or personality disorders. Females had higher rates of anxiety disorders and histories of physical/sexual abuse. Possible associations between psychiatric disorders and pathological gambling are discussed along with gambler typologies and implications for future research.The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of: Gary Christenson, M.D., Carol Peterson, Ph.D., William Meller, M.D., Thomas Mackenzie, M.D.     

Asymptotic properties of a generalized regression-type predictor of a finite population variance in probability sampling

A system of predictors for estimating a finite population variance is defined and shown to be asymptotically design-unbiased (ADU) and asymptotically design-consistent (ADC) under probability sampling. An asymptotic mean squared error (MSE) of a generalized regression-type predictor, generated from the system, is obtained. The suggested predictor attains the minimum expected variance of any design-unbiased estimator when the superpopulation model is correct. The generalized regression-type predictor and the predictor suggested by Mukhopadhyay (1990) are compared.     

Factors in the Post-Stalin Emergence of Soviet Sociology*

This paper attempts to analyze the social, economic, and political sources for the emergence of modern Soviet sociology in the 1950s. While it does not address extensively the characteristics of current Soviet sociology, it is suggested that those characteristics of a methodologically sophisticated and economically oriented sociology are largely the result of a compact between Soviet leaders and sociologists which allowed and required its post-Stalin emergence. Four sets of factors are evaluated in terms of their effect on the emergence of Soviet sociology. These are 1) the Marxist-Leninist vision (that is, the Utopian elements of ideology), 2) the Soviet ideology (that is, the elements of ideology oriented toward system maintenance), 3) the diffusion of ideas, and 4) the mandate of Soviet economic development. A brief evaluation of these sets of factors as they affect the emergence of Chinese sociology in the early 1980s is also provided. It is concluded that the future shape of sociology in the USSR and China is dependent upon the evolution of ideology in the two countries, an evolution that is intimately tied to the succession of political leadership.     

The residential segregation of occupational groups in central cities and suburbs

The impression of journalists and social critics in the 1950’s that post-war suburbia was uniformly middle-class has been generally rejected by social scientists, but there is a persisting belief in a high degree of residential segregation by social level in suburbia and in a high degree of socio-economic homogeneity within suburban neighborhoods. A comparison of eight central cities with their suburban zones in 1950 and in 1960 revealed, for both dates, (a) small differences in occupational distributions between the central cities and the suburban zones and (b) generally higher Index of Residential Dissimilarity values for pairs of occupational groups in the central cities. These findings indicate that suburban neighborhoods, at least in the eight suburban zones studied, were little, if any, more occupationally homogeneous than the central city neighborhoods. This suggests that the belief in homogeneous suburban neighborhoods should be added to the growing list of discredited “myths of suburbia. ”