Who Is the Boss and Who Is Not? Accuracy of Judging Status

We investigated whether people were accurate at judging other people's status, what behavioral and appearance cues they relied on when assessing status, whether the way those cues were used was accurate, and whether target gender affected any of the results. Targets (N = 48) were university employees (faculty and staff) who were photographed while interacting with a coworker. One sample of perceivers (66 females, 42 males) rated the relative status of the two people in the photograph to each other, and another sample (60 females and males) rated each target in the photograph on status. Additionally, an array of behavioral and appearance cues of targets in the photograph was assessed. Results showed that (1) people were able to assess status in others, (2) the cues they used to assess female and male targets were somewhat different, and (3) how much people relied on specific cues corresponded to how status was expressed in these cues.     

From the Editor

Sociological Forum -     

From the Editor

Sociological Forum -     

Re-Figuring Marked Bodies on the Borders: Breast Cancer and “Femininity”

The author discusses writings by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Kathleen Martindale, Audre Lorde, and Barbara Rosenblum on their experiences with breast cancer, and explores their articulations of the impact mastectomy has had on their sense of femininity in relation to their own identities and body images, and in relation to cultural expectations, and how others perceive them. Their identification of the body as socially produced, and as a site of contestation and multiple struggles, offers a strategic site from which to engage with the violent gender-inflected notion of the ideal female body. Themes addressed include: the process of writing embodied experience to make it real, the body's role in the process of identity formation, the culturally constructed significance of appearance to the individual's sense of femininity, the value of the female body in a capitalistic society, and heterosexism in society and in the health care system.     

‘I Became a Mom’: Identity Changes in Mothers Receiving Public Assistance

ABSTRACT

This phenomenological study used individual, semistructured, face-to-face interviews to explore motherhood experiences among 15 women receiving public assistance in a large urban area on the West coast. A primary phenomenon observed was that motherhood was described as an experience of identity change, with resulting emotional, behavioral, and sense-of-self changes. Within this broad theme, two categories emerged: the experience and process of change, and consequences of change. It was concluded that motherhood may serve as an important catalyst for change in some women and that the context of poverty is essential for understanding the motherhood experience. These results suggest that interventions aimed at leveraging emerging motherhood identities may be beneficial in setting women on the path out of poverty, drug addiction, and incarceration. Future research should examine the consequences of maternal change within the specific context of the stages of change documented in the recovery process from drug addiction.     

Lagrange Multiplier Tests for Normality Against Seminonparametric Alternatives

In this article, I derive the Lagrange multiplier test of the null hypothesis that a stationary random vector has a (possibly heteroscedastic) normal distribution against the alternative that the distribution is a member of the family with seminonparametric probability density functions considered by Gallant and Tauchen (1989). The test is shown to contain special cases of the moment tests proposed by Newey (1985) and Tauchen (1985). Evidence from a small simulation study is reported, showing that the test has reasonable finite-sample properties in moderately sized samples. The test is applied to the change of price in a treasury-bill data series analyzed by Tauchen and Pitts (1983) and Tauchen (1985).     

Examining the historical and present energy metabolism of a Rust Belt City: Syracuse,NY 1840–2005

Early cities depended on local, solar-based energy resources for their metabolism. Over time, cities have become increasingly dependent on fossil fuels, both directly and indirectly, as they facilitate exploitation of solar resources from much farther away. Alternatives to fossil fuels, typically generated locally, often provide lower surplus energy to society. As cities consider the transition back to solar-based energy resources, it becomes necessary to understand the capability of the solar-based economy to provide e.g. energy (including food) from nearby lands. To do so, we compared the energy metabolism (respiration) of a typical rust-belt city, Syracuse, NY, with the net primary production in the surrounding county (production) over its development (1840–2005). We calculated the ratio of respiration to production (R:P) and examined how this ratio changed during the periods of industrialization, shifts in major fuel types, and deindustrialization. We found that from 1840 to 1950 respiration became increasingly centralized in the urban core; since then it has become more diffused. Urban respiration exceeded production in the county by 9:1 in 1930, and it remains just under 2:1 today. Respiration reached an absolute (67 PJ) and a per capita (339 GJ) maximum in 1970, then fell by 40 % and 20 % respectively, due to deindustrialization and population losses. Conversely, production increased 480 % from its lows in 1930 because of reforestation and improved agricultural yields. What this means is that to achieve a higher P:R ratio requires either increased production of food and fuels in areas surrounding the city, or decreased per capita energy consumption.     

Nonlinear voxel-based modelling of the haemodynamic response in fMRI

A common assumption for data analysis in functional magnetic resonance imaging is that the response signal can be modelled as the convolution of a haemodynamic response (HDR) kernel with a stimulus reference function. Early approaches modelled spatially constant HDR kernels, but more recently spatially varying models have been proposed. However, convolution limits the flexibility of these models and their ability to capture spatial variation. Here, a range of (nonlinear) parametric curves are fitted by least squares minimisation directly to individual voxel HDRs (i.e., without using convolution). A ‘constrained gamma curve’ is proposed as an efficient form for fitting the HDR at each individual voxel. This curve allows for spatial variation in the delay of the HDR, but places a global constraint on the temporal spread. The approach of directly fitting individual parameters of HDR shape is demonstrated to lead to an improved fit of response estimates.