Sources of Status and Influence in All Female and Mixed Sex Groups*

Hollander's (1958) theory on conformity, status, and idiosyncrasy credits was tested using female rather than male groups. Each group contained either one male or one female confederate who broke procedual norms early, in the middle, late, or never during the 15 trials of an experimental game task. For some groups the task was described as a quasi-mathematical task; for others it was described as a common game. The quasi-mathematical definition of the task and male sex of the confederate resulted in greater conformity to the confederate's choice. Contrary to Hollander's theory, previous conformity was not related to influence. The results were interpreted in terms of traditional sex role expectations and in terms of the perceptual marker function that nonconformity plays in small groups. The marker function was related to perception in Hollander's original theoretical formulation.     

A Stimulus Control Model of Change in Behavioral Couples' Therapy: Implications for Contingency Contracting

Although contingency contracting is a popular strategy for use in treating distressed relationships, there is no direct evidence of its efficacy. A stimulus control model of change in behavioral couples' therapy states that the conditions under which an agreement was negotiated, regardless of the consequences specified in the agreement itself, are the primary determinants of whether the agreement is upheld. Once change is prompted, its maintenance is associated with stimuli generated by the negotiating session itself (that is, self-statements) and contingencies provided by concurrent changes occurring in therapy. Therefore, it is argued that explicit contingency contracting is unnecessary, and in fact contraindicated, for reasons which are elaborated. Hypotheses are offered which provide indirect tests of this model of change in behavioral couples' therapy .     

Household size,income and expenditure on food: The case of Cyprus

This paper addresses some of the questions raised in a debate between Deaton and Paxson, 1998, Deaton and Paxson, 2003 and Gan and Vernon (2003) in the Journal of Political Economy. At issue is what, on the basis of theory, the behaviour of households should be in relation to expenditure on food, as household size increases. One argument is that expenditure on food, per capita, should increase as household size increases, but analysis of the data gives very different results. Questions arise as to whether food is a public or private good within households, how food compares to clothing and whether there can be substitution away from food, for example towards clothing.For the purposes of addressing these and related questions in the Cyprus context, a household budget survey was undertaken, in which 625 responses were obtained. The paper describes the survey and uses the results of the survey to run regressions to identify the variables that relate significantly to expenditure on food. What we add to the discussion is the analysis of the determinants of expenditure on food in Cyprus, and the categorisation of this expenditure into food at home, take-away food, food in pubs and cafes, and food in restaurants. Our results tend to support Gan and Vernon (2003); we find, for example, that clothing is more private than food.     

Identifying Changing Aviation Threat Environments Within an Adaptive Homeland Security Advisory System

A critical component of aviation security consists of screening passengers and baggage to protect airports and aircraft from terrorist threats. Advancements in screening device technology have increased the ability to detect these threats; however, specifying the operational configurations of these devices in response to changes in the threat environment can become difficult. This article proposes to use Fisher information as a statistical measure for detecting changes in the threat environment. The perceived risk of passengers, according to prescreening information and behavior analysis, is analyzed as the passengers sequentially enter the security checkpoint. The alarm responses from the devices used to detect threats are also analyzed to monitor significant changes in the frequency of threat items uncovered. The key results are that this information‐based measure can be used within the Homeland Security Advisory System to indicate changes in threat conditions in real time, and provide the flexibility of security screening detection devices to responsively and automatically adapt operational configurations to these changing threat conditions.