Theory & Methods: Why do we do it? Statisticians and the Practice of Statistics

There has been no work done on why statisticians have chosen their particular profession. With the increasing emphasis on the development of biotechnology, it seems important to encourage people to take up statistics and to offer the perspective that the study of statistics brings. This paper is an attempt to develop a preliminary understanding, by open-ended in-depth interviewing, of the personal backgrounds that have encouraged present practising statisticians to move into this field, and to see how they experience their work.     

Stereotypes and Prejudice as Dynamic Constructs: Reminders about the Nature of Intergroup Bias from the Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts

Following Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents, many of whom were African Americans, were relocated to communities around the U.S., including predominantly European American communities. The experiences of relocation community members are a potent reminder of the ever-changing and multiply-determined nature of stereotypes and prejudice. Prejudice and stereotyping are dynamic processes that evolve in response to numerous factors. Although several models of prejudice and stereotyping are dynamic and/or time-oriented, research on these topics predominantly has involved single-session laboratory experiments examining single mechanisms. To illustrate the importance of dynamic research, we outline a longitudinal model describing the potential independent and interactive effects of intergroup contact, individuating information, and perceived group threat from Katrina evacuees on prejudice and stereotypes about African Americans. The "natural experiment" created by the Katrina relocation reminds psychologists that naturalistic and longitudinal research on prejudice and stereotypes is an important complement to laboratory experiments.     

Religion, Race/Ethnicity, and Beliefs about Poverty

Objective . Although an expanding literature on "stratification beliefs" has developed over the past three decades, research has neglected relationships between religion and beliefs about poverty and other inequalities. This study examines the relationship between religious affiliation and "individualistic,""structuralist," and "fatalistic" beliefs about the causes of poverty, and compares the beliefs of African Americans, Latinos, and whites. Methods . Survey data collected in 1993 from a sample of southern Californians are used to test whether several religious affiliations (Protestant, Catholic, Jew, "other religion," and nonaffiliation) shape beliefs about poverty after controlling for race/ethnicity, SES, gender, and age. In addition, the question of whether African Americans, Latinos, and whites differ in the effects of key religious affiliations is examined. Results . Significant religious affiliation effects are found, net of sociodemographic controls. Protestants and Catholics are strongest on individualistic beliefs; Jews and followers of "other" religions are strongest on structuralist beliefs; Catholics and Jews are strongest on fatalistic beliefs. Finally, race/ethnic differences are found for the effects of key religious affiliations. Conclusion . The analyses demonstrate "religious factors" shaping beliefs about poverty, and reinforce the growing body of evidence that affiliations such as Protestant and Catholic have distinctive meanings and effects along race/ethnic lines in the United States.     

Bridging inequalities through inclusion: women's rights organisations as the ‘missing link’ in donor government-led participatory policy development and practice

This article focuses on women's rights organisations and their role in challenging inequality within the development process. Women in poverty are excluded as a result of their unequal societal position, geographic location, and the predominance of ‘top-down’ and piecemeal policymaking processes carried out by donor governments. We argue that in-country women's rights organisations provide the ‘missing link’ to bridge the disconnect between grassroots, marginalised women and donor decision-makers. This article focuses on the UK government's approach to developing policy and practice aimed at furthering international women's rights, focusing on the Women, Peace and Security agenda. Engaging with women's rights organisations not only ensures that donor policy and practice responds fully to the interests and needs of the poorest and most marginalised women in the global South, but renders the decision-making process itself empowering to the women involved.     

‘Live to Work’ or ‘Work to Live’? A Qualitative Study of Gender and Work–life Balance among Men and Women in Mid‐life

Many contemporary studies of ‘work–life balance’ either ignore gender or take it for granted. We conducted semi‐structured interviews with men and women in mid‐life (aged 50 to 52 years) in order to compare their experiences of work–life balance. Our data suggest that gender remains embedded in the ways that respondents negotiate home and work life. The women discussed their current problems juggling a variety of roles (despite having no young children at home), while men confined their discussion of such conflicts to the past, when their children were young. However, diversity among men (some of whom ‘worked to live’ while others ‘lived to work’) and women (some of whom constructed themselves in relation to their families, while others positioned themselves as ‘independent women’) was apparent, as were some commonalities between men and women (both men and women constructed themselves as ‘pragmatic workers’). We suggest ways in which gender‐neutral theories of work–life balance may be extended.     

Regulating Heterosocial Space: Sexual Politics in the Early Twentieth Century

This essay proposes a reading of the vice commission reports of the early 20th century USA and Canada as exemplifying projects to regulate 'heterosocial space'. 'Heterosocial space' refers to the shifting and changing sites where young women and men come into contact and where transactions with potentially sexual dimensions arise or which others define in sexualized terms. 'Space' not only has a spatial, but also a temporal dimension exemplified in deep anxieties about the rapid expansion of the cities and life on street-corners after dark. The city was constituted as an arena of dispersed agencies of surveillance; a myriad of sites, including dance, halls, movie houses, ice cream parlors and skating rinks; department stores and city parks, which evaded attempts at systematic disciplinary supervision. Attention is paid to the closely textured interaction between official bodies and private agencies of moralization whose attempts at regulating heterosocial life involved an expansion of regulatory activities which were often ill-coordinated and conflictual. In the struggle between respectability and unrespectability, traditional notions of respectability were persistently submerged and outflanked. The vice reports can also be read as metaphorical narratives, such that prostitution can be seen as embracing multiple referents shifting from concern with 'commercial vice' to 'casual prostitution', and encompassing ideas of disease, disorder and transgression.     

(RE)AFFIRMING RACE:

This article combines insights from the social construction of reality tradition and recent works on audience ethnography to explore the ritualistic process by which racial boundaries are continually policed, (re)affirmed and (re)produced. The so-called black-white divide in perceptions of the O. J. Simpson double murder trial serves as the case study. This case is understood as a classic media event in which different societal groups struggle to privilege particular understandings of reality, to either maintain or improve their statuses in society. Two ten-member groups—one group black, one white—were tracked over the course of the criminal trial. Findings outline how "raced ways of seeing' figured in the process by which the groups attributed meanings to the case and case-related media constructions. Study conclusions consider the implications for "evidence,' epistemology, and contemporary U. S. race relations.     

Research note: Strategies in eliciting sensitive sexual information: the case of gay men

Project SIGMA's research on gay men's sexual behaviour and Aids and HIV infection has posed complex ethnographic and methodological problems which have required unorthodox and innovative strategies for their solution. Three main problem areas included: value-conflict between interviewer/HIV tester roles; Issues concerning data confidentiality and legal interference, and the elicitation of detailed sexual behaviour. The procedures developed have clear applicability to other research concerned with covert, stigmatised and legally-sensitive behaviour or data.     

Impulsivity and predictive control are associated with suboptimal action-selection and action-value learning in regular gamblers

Heightened impulsivity and cognitive biases are risk factors for gambling problems. However, little is known about precisely how these factors increase the risks of gambling-related harm in vulnerable individuals. Here, we modelled the behaviour of 87 community-recruited regular, but not clinically problematic, gamblers during a binary-choice reinforcement-learning game, to characterize the relationships between impulsivity, cognitive biases and the capacity to make optimal action selections and learn about action-values. Impulsive gamblers showed diminished use of an optimal (Bayesian-derived) probability estimate when selecting between candidate actions, and showed slower learning rates and enhanced non-linear probability weighting while learning action values. Critically, gamblers who believed that it is possible to predict winning outcomes (as ‘predictive control’) failed to use the game's reinforcement history to guide their action selections. Extensive evidence attests to the ease with which gamblers can erroneously perceive structure in the reinforcement history of games when there is none. Our findings demonstrate that the generic and specific risk factors of impulsivity and cognitive biases can interfere with the capacity of some gamblers to utilize structure when it is available in the reinforcement history of games, potentially increasing their risks of sustaining gambling-related harms.