Chinese Twin Children Reared Apart and Reunited: First Prospective Study of Co-Twin Reunions

China's one-child policy led to the abandonment of tens of thousands of infants. Included among these children were twins who were adopted and reared separately. Since 2006, 10 reunited twin sets participated in the first prospective study of twins reared apart. This exploratory study reports a qualitative analysis of the children's reactions to their first meeting with, and departure from, their co-twin. The majority of twins 18 months of age and older displayed strong attraction upon first meeting. Leave-taking included sadness, but responses varied across pairs. Theoretical interpretations of the findings and implications for parenting reared-apart adopted twins are provided.     

Temporal Vertigo: The Paradoxes of Ageing

“I don’t feel old,” most older informants proclaim. That affirmation tells us much about the stigma surrounding old age. It tells us also about the temporal vertigo we face as we age if contemplating the multiplicity of continuities and discontinuities over time. Ageing is of interest to those who have always been skeptical about any notion of the “true self,” allowing us to puzzle over how the account the old give of themselves—if anyone is still listening—will rely upon their ability to incorporate differing versions of the self, woven into the volatilities of memory and fantasy. I explore some of the radical ambiguities in the speech or writing of those thinking about ageing. While pondering the fluctuating ties between younger and older selves, I also venture into the hazards of desire in old age and the apparently contrasting situation of ageing men compared with ageing women. Old age may no longer be the condition that dare not speak its name, but it remains the identity about which most prefer to stay silent.     

Learned Mothering: Raising a Child with ADHD

This is a report of the findings of an exploratory research study, using the qualitative method of Grounded Theory, of the experience of 25 mothers of children with Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). These mothers have been encumbered with great responsibilities caring for and managing their ADHD children, but little has been written that addresses their experience and their need for understanding and support. Because their children experience the world in highly idiosyncratic ways, the mothers need to learn to parent their children accordingly and not depend on the empathic responsiveness that comes intuitively with normal children. Discussion of theoretical and clinical issues should prove helpful to social workers and other clinicians.     

PARAMETER ESTIMATION FOR LOW-ORDER AUTO-REGRESSIVE MODELS WITH MISSING VALUES

Longitudinal data analysis in epidemiological settings is complicated by large multiplicities of short time series and the occurrence of missing observations. To handle such difficulties Rosner & Muñoz (1988) developed a weighted non-linear least squares algorithm for estimating parameters for first-order autoregressive (AR1) processes with time-varying covariates. This method proved efficient when compared to complete case procedures. Here that work is extended by (1) introducing a different estimation procedure based on the EM algorithm, and (2) formulating estimation techniques for second-order autoregressive models. The second development is important because some of the intended areas of application (adult pulmonary function decline, childhood blood pressure) have autocorrelation functions which decay more slowly than the geometric rate imposed by an AR1 model. Simulation studies are used to compare the three methodologies (non-linear, EM based and complete case) with respect to bias, efficiency and coverage both in the presence and in the absence of time-varying covariates. Differing degrees and mechanisms of missingness are examined. Preliminary results indicate the non-linear approach to be the method of choice: it has high efficiency and is easily implemented. An illustrative example concerning pulmonary function decline in the Netherlands is analyzed using this method.     

Super Majoritarianism and the Endowment Effect

The American and some other constitutions entrench property rights by requiring super majoritarian voting as a condition for amending or revoking their own provisions. Following Buchanan and Tullock [The Calculus of Consent, Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor), 1962], this paper analyzes individuals' interests behind a veil of ignorance, and shows that under some standard assumptions, a (simple) majoritarian rule should be adopted. This result changes if one assumes that preferences are consistent with the behavioral phenomenon known as the endowment effect. It then follows that (at least some) property rights are best defended by super majoritarian protection. The paper then shows that its theoretical results are consistent with a number of doctrines underlying American Constitutional Law.     

Calibration Results for Non‐Expected Utility Theories

Rabin (2000) proved that a low level of risk aversion with respect to small gambles leads to a high, and absurd, level of risk aversion with respect to large gambles. Rabin's arguments strongly depend on expected utility theory, but we show that similar arguments apply to general non‐expected utility theories.     

Robust Predictions for Bilateral Contracting with Externalities

The paper studies bilateral contracting between one principal and N agents when each agent's utility depends on the principal's unobservable contracts with other agents. We show that allowing deviations to menu contracts from which the principal chooses bounds equilibrium outcomes in a wide class of bilateral contracting games without imposing ad hoc restrictions on the agents' beliefs. This bound yields, for example, competitive convergence as N →∞ in environments in which an appropriately‐defined notion of competitive equilibrium exists. We also examine the additional restrictions arising in two common bilateral contracting games: the “offer game” in which the principal makes simultaneous offers to the agents, and the “bidding game” in which the agents make simultaneous offers to the principal.     

Robust effects of stress on early lexical representation

This study aims to elucidate the factors that affect the robustness of word form representations by exploring the relative influence of lexical stress and segmental identity (consonant vs. vowel) on infant word recognition. Our main question was which changes to the words may go unnoticed and which may lead the words to be unrecognizable. One‐hundred 11‐month‐old Hebrew‐learning infants were tested in two experiments using the Central Fixation Procedure. In Experiment 1, 20 infants were presented with iambic Familiar and Unfamiliar words. The infants listened longer to Familiar than to Unfamiliar words, indicating their recognition of frequently heard word forms. In Experiment 2, four groups of 20 infants each were tested in each of four conditions involving altered iambic Familiar words contrasted with iambic Unfamiliar nonwords. In each condition, one segment in the Familiar word was changed—either a consonant or a vowel, in either the first (unstressed) or the second (stressed) syllable. In each condition, recognition of the Familiar words despite the change indicates a less accurate or less well‐specified representation. Infants recognized Familiar words despite changes to the weak (first) syllable, regardless of whether the change involved a consonant or a vowel (conditions 2a, 2c). However, a change of either consonant or vowel in the stressed (second) syllable blocked word recognition (conditions 2b, 2d). These findings support the proposal that stress pattern plays a key role in early word representation, regardless of segmental identity.     

Running in Circles: My Best Friend’s Wedding After 19 Years

ABSTRACT

This essay revisits My Best Friend’s Wedding (Hogan, 1997) 19 years later. It compares its way of combining laughter and tears with 2 genres of literature: Marivaux’s (1964) 18th-century comic theatre and the 19th-century novel of adultery, with its overtones of classical tragedy. In each, an outsider observes, envies, and seeks to destroy a “happy couple”: the 2 genres end, respectively, in a wedding or in death. How do 3 women view this film, and its ending, in 2016?