Comic Relief In Everyday Life: Dramaturgic Observations On A Function Of Humor*

The comic relief of the theater has an everyday analog. It is seen in the momentary humorous respites from the seriousness or lengthy concentration on a collective task commonly found in certain spheres of daily life. These respites facilitate the completion of that task by refreshing the participants. Observations of social comic relief made during a series of rehearsals and performances of an amateur theater company are reported. The nature and function of this sort of humor is considered, first in theater, and then in other similar settings. A comparison of social comic relief as a function of humor with selected philosophical and psychological relief theories of humor follows. A concluding section considers the place of creativity and wit in social comic relief.     

Personnel policies and the age structure of an occupation: the case of the academic labor market

Population projection techniques are used to project the size and age structure of the academic labor force. Age specific coverage data from Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association are used to proxy academic employment. Hiring, quit, retirement and death rates are calculated for 1981 and 1982. Projections of the future academic labor force are made holding these rates constant. The results show the importance of these entry and exit rates and also indicate how these rates can fluctuate from year to year.Estimates of the future demand for teachers are used to determine a target rate of growth of the academic labor force. Alternative personnel policies are incorporated into the projections. This analysis indicates that the personnel policies chosen to meet the desired labor force size have substantially different effects on the age structure of the labor force.The authors wish to acknowledge the cooperation of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association in providing the data used in this study and specifically Francis King for his assistance and encouragement. Helpful comments on this paper were provided by John Dutton, Ronald Schrimper, Jack Wilson, and Bryan Boulier.     

An experiment on coordination in multi-candidate elections: The importance of polls and election histories

Do polls simply measure intended voter behavior or can they affect it and, thus, change election outcomes? Do candidate ballot positions or the results of previous elections affect voter behavior? We conduct several series of experimental, three-candidate elections and use the data to provide answers to these questions. In these elections, we pay subjects conditionally on election outcomes to create electorates with publicly known preferences. A majority (but less than two-thirds) of the voters are split in their preferences between two similar candidates, while a minority (but plurality) favor a third, dissimilar candidate. If all voters voted sincerely, the third candidate — a Condorcet loser — would win the elections. We find that pre-election polls significantly reduce the frequency with which the Condorcet loser wins. Further, the winning candidate is usually the majority candidate who is listed first on the poll and election ballots. The evidence also shows that a shared history enables majority voters to coordinate on one of their favored candidates in sequences of identical elections. With polls, majority-preferred candidates often alternate as election winners.     

A longitudinal examination of the membership patterns of minorities and women in referral unions

In an examination of the membership patterns of minorities and women in building and nonbuilding trade referral unions between 1969 and 1979, results reveal that variations in referral union membership can be substantially accounted for by race and sex. Longitudinally, no meaningful changes in the racial composition of referral unions exist, while the sexual composition within building and nonbuilding trade union categories change significantly over time. More importantly, however, male / female representation patterns across both referral union categories over the ten-year period remain fairly constant relative to one another.     

Asymptotic properties of the maximum-likelihood estimator for a class of birth-and-death processes admitting a unique stationary distribution

The asymptotic properties of the maximum-likelihood estimator of the parameter vector for a class of birth-and-death processes admitting a unique stationary distribution are studied. Also, it is shown that identifiability of the parameter vector with respect to the likelihood implies that the Fisher information matrix is of full rank. Two special cases of biological interest are presented. One of these, the exponential birth-and-death process, is proposed as a more appropriate model of density dependence than the logistic process.     

Social impacts of sporhase in the arid West

The United States Supreme Court decision in Sporhase v. Nebraska (458 U.S. 941 [1982]) has changed the way groundwater is distributed in western United States. Since water is a crucial factor for economic development, the change has generated social impacts at the individual, community, and state levels. Adjustments are being made which might alter the balance of power in the western United States for years to come.     

A MODEL FOR COLLABORATIVE TEAM PROCESSING IN BRIEF SYSTEMIC FAMILY THERAPY*

While there has been considerable growth in recent years in the use of collaborative teamwork in Systemic Family Therapy, there has been a dearth of literature concerning the process of team functioning. Based upon a careful analysis of actual teamwork, a model for conducting more efficient and effective team conferences has been developed. The ensuing discussion examines the risks in working in teams and proposes ways to counteract these. Further avenues of research are suggested.