Boundary Spaces

While shows like The X-Files and 24 have merged conspiracy theories with popular science (fictions), some video games have been pushing the narrative even further. Electronic Art's Majestic game was released in July 2001 and quickly generated media buzz with its unusual multi-modal gameplay. Mixing phone calls, faxes, instant messaging, real and "fake' websites, and email, the game provides a fascinating case of an attempt at new directions for gaming communities. Through story, mode of playing, and use of technology, Majestic highlights the uncertain status of knowledge, community and self in a digital age; at the same time, it allows examination of alternative ways of understanding games' role and purpose in the larger culture. Drawing on intricate storylines involving government conspiracies, techno-bio warfare, murder and global terror, players were asked to solve mysteries in the hopes of preventing a devastating future of domination. Because the game drew in both actual and Majestic-owned/-designed websites, it constantly pushed those playing the game right to borders where simulation collides with " factuality'. Given the wide variety of "legitimate' conspiracy theory, alien encounters and alternative science web pages, users often could not distinguish when they were leaving the game's pages and venturing into " real' World Wide Web sites. Its further use of AOL's instant messenger system, in which gamers spoke not only to bots but to other players, pushed users to evaluate constantly both the status of those they were talking to and the information being provided. Additionally, the game required players to occupy unfamiliar subject positions, ones where agency was attenuated, and which subsequently generated a multi-layered sense of unease among players. This mix of authentic and staged information in conjunction with technologically mediated roles highlights what are often seen as phenomenon endemic to the Internet itself; that is, the destabilization of categories of knowing, relating, and being.     

Flipping and ex post aggregation

We show that Bayesian ex post aggregation is unstable with respect to refinements. Suppose a group of Bayesians use ex post aggregation. Since it is a joint problem, each agent's problem is captured by the same model, but probabilities and utilities may vary. If they analyze the same situation in more detail, their refined analysis should preserve their preferences among acts. However, ex post aggregation could bring about a preference reversal on the group level. Ex post aggregation thus depends on how much information is used and may keep oscillating (“flipping”) as one keeps adding more information. Received: 16 April 2002/Accepted: 27 May 2002     

Socioeconomic Status and Early Adolescent Self-Esteem*

This study is a replication of a recent assessment of the relationship between social class and self-esteem, and the variables that intervene on this relationship. The purpose is to replicate the methods used to explore further this relationship by attempting to replicate the findings reported by Demo and Savin-Williams (1983) in another population. Only one of the four hypotheses tested received support thereby indirectly supporting the null relationship theory of no relationship between socioeconomic status and self-esteem. Implications of the findings also are addressed.     

TESTAMENTARY BEHAVIOR:

Content analysis and qualitative analysis of all 319 last wills that were filed in Providence Probate Court, 1985, revealed that about ten percent of the testators used testamentary material, disinheritance or altruism to express their individuality. About 42 percent of the wills were personalized directly in other ways. Forty-eight percent displayed indirect influences of family, friends and community. Less that ten percent displayed primary influences of attorneys, banks, nursing homes, governments, religions or other organizations. In the light of these findings, while none of the three major theoretical positions on testamentary behavior prevails, the individualist position is manifested more often than is the family-community position. Both of these positions are manifested much more often than is the legalist position.
These findings are related to the work of Emile Durkheim and to contemporary sociological theories of the family, community and law.     

Job Loss as Career Growth: Responses to Involuntary Career Transitions

The Latack-Dozier (1986) model of career growth through job loss was examined using a sample of 515 involuntarily displaced professionals. Results supported the model and identified variables most predictive of career growth for men and women. The results also partially supported the hypothesis that men and women rely on different forms of social support after job loss. The Latack-Dozier model is discussed in light of the findings. In addition, implications for dismissed workers, for career development specialists, and for practitioners are discussed.     

Assessing reoffense risk with juvenile sexual offenders

This article summarizes a two-year study of juvenile sexual offenders in Washington. Both community-based and institution-based treatment programs were evaluated. A typical profile of the juvenile sexual offender is offered, as well as recidivism data from a mean 20-month follow-up period.     

Reactions to Job Content Plateaus: Examining Role Ambiguity and Hierarchical Plateaus as Moderators

Plateauing research often reveals a negative relationship between job content plateauing (i.e., lacking challenge in one's job) and work attitudes. This study explores situations where job content plateauing is associated with fewer negative work attitudes, revealing role ambiguity (i.e., being unclear about job duties and responsibilities) and hierarchical plateauing (i.e., low likelihood of promotions) as moderators of the job content plateau‐work attitude relationship. Specifically, job content plateaued employees reported greater job satisfaction and organizational commitment if they were not also experiencing a hierarchical plateau. Job content plateaued employees also reported greater job satisfaction when role ambiguity was low.     

Reasoning With Partial Knowledge

We investigate how sociological argumentation differs from classical first–order logic. We focus on theories about age dependence of organizational mortality. The overall pattern of argument does not comply with the classical monotonicity principle: Adding premises overturns conclusions in an argument. The cause of nonmonotonicity is the need to derive conclusions from partial knowledge. We identify metaprinciples that appear to guide the observed sociological argumentation patterns, and we formalize a semantics to represent them. This semantics yields a new kind of logical consequence relation. We demonstrate that this new logic can reproduce the results of informal sociological theorizing and lead to new insights. It allows us to unify existing theory fragments, and it paves the way toward a complete classical theory.