AFFECTIVE RESPONSES WITHIN A COMPLEX DECISION-MAKING TASK: THE INFLUENCE OF “PERCEPTUALLY” ILL-STRUCTURED PROBLEMS

The perceptual effects of varying levels of expert advice for potentially improving on strategic decisions were examined in conjunction with goals. The amounts of advice about decision alternatives, as well as assigned goals ranging from “nearly impossible” to “easy,” were manipulated. The task used was complex and functioned perceptually as an “ill-structured” problem. Mixed results indicated that more advice significantly affected satisfaction but advice in general had little influence on effort. On the other hand, as goal difficulty decreased, satisfaction and effort significantly increased. Easy goals were superior to more difficult ones within this perceptually ill-structured decision-making situation.     

RACIALIZING CULTURE IS ORDINARY1

This article engages a discussion of Raymond Williams claim that culture is ordinary to explore some of the ways in which racializing culture is embedded in everyday interactions and processes of identification that found subjectivity. It argues that there is a pressing need for social policy analysts to come to grips with the mechanisms through which ‘culture’ comes to be racialized and an object/subject of governance and suggests that current, high-profile articulations of the ‘problems’ of multiculturalism, profoundly hinder such a development.     

Determining the effects of intraclass correlation on factorial experiments

This paper considers the effects of the presence of eqmi-correlation between observations in a k-way factorial experiment, A technique to provide unbiased F-tests is also constructed.     

Frequency of Citations as Criterion for the Ranking of Departments, Journals, and Individuals

Interest in the structure and dynamics of sociology as a discipline has led to recurrent attempts to measure the prestige, productivity, and quality of education of the various sociology departments. While several previous papers have suggested the potential value of the Science Citation Index (SCI) as a measure of scientific standing, few attempts have been made to utilize a citation-based measure of scientific prestige. This paper considers the meaning of the citation in science and in stratification theory. Procedures are described whereby citations to individual sociologists and journals are employed to yield rankings of departments of sociology and journals. The differences between these rankings and other rankings are discussed.