Does a prolonged hardship reduce life span? Examining the longevity of young men who lived through the 1930s Great Plains drought

Population and Environment - The Great Plains drought of 1931–1939 was a prolonged socio-ecological disaster with widespread impacts on society, economy, and health. While its immediate...     

On fatalistic long-term health behavior

Many adults have an overly pessimistic view of old age because they fail to correctly predict their ability to hedonically adapt to old-age health related problems. A standard utility model where the marginal utility of health is higher at a lower level of health predicts that this overly pessimist view raises the incentive for healthy behavior. But this is at odds with empirical research that indicates that people with more negative aging stereotypes tend to adopt less healthy practices, transforming this negative view into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The aim of this note is to show that this fatalistic behavior can be explained through prospect theory by modelling this overly pessimistic view of old age as a failure to predict the change in the reference point due to hedonic adaptation. Given the diminishing sensitivity in the loss domain, people undervalue the future marginal value of health investment and may therefore underinvest in health as long as loss aversion is not too strong.     

Education, academic program and intergroup attitudes

Plusieurs études ont montré l'existence d'une relation positive entre le degré d'instruction et les attitudes intergroupes. Ces résultats suggèrent à certains chercheurs que l'éducation réduit les préjugés mais d'autres soutiennent que les gens les plus instruits ont simplement plus de facilités à cacher leurs préjugés. De façon similaire, si plusieurs considèrent que l'éducation rend les gens plus réceptifs à l'idéologie dominante, d'autres maintiennent l'inverse. La présente recherche évalue un modèle intégrant ces positions apparement contradictoires. Le modèle propose que les effets de l'instruction varient en fonction du domaine d'études. Alors que les étudiants/étudiantes d'un secteur d'études peuvent devenir plus favorables a l'égard d'un groupe social donné, ceux et celles d'un autre domaine peuvent maintenir leur attitude ou devenir plus negatifs à l'égard de ce même groupe. Le modèle présume que l'éducation constitue un processus de socialisation et que les domaines d'études professent des idéologies différentes. Une étude transversale menée auprès de 675 étudiants/étudiantes de trois niveaux scolaires et de trois domaines d'études a permis de recueillir des évaluations de sept groupes sociaux. II ressort que les étudiants/étudiantes en sciences sociales sont plus favorables à l'égard des ‘socialistes’à mesure que leur niveau scolaire augmente alors que les étudiants/étudiantes en administration deviennent moins favorables. L'inverse se produit par rapport à l'évaluation des ‘militaires’ et des ‘conservateurs’. Les résultats appuient le modèle qui propose un effet différentiel du domaine d'études sur les attitudes intergroupes. La discussion souligne les implications de ces résultats pour les recherches étudiant l'incidence de l'instruction sur les attitudes sociales et politiques et pour les théories sociologiques de l'éducation. Several studies have shown a positive relation between education and intergroup attitudes, with such results usually being taken as evidence that education reduces prejudice. Others have argued that the better-educated simply have a greater ability to disguise their prejudice. Similarly, while many have argued that education increases support for the dominant ideology, others maintain the opposite. The present study tests a model that would permit reconciliation of these seemingly contradictory positions. The model proposes that effects of education on intergroup attitudes will vary as a function of academic discipline. While students in one area of study may become more positive toward a given social group, students in another area may not change or may become more negative toward that same group. The model assumes education is a socialization process and that academic areas differ in the ideology they promulgate. A cross-sectional survey of 675 students at three levels of education, in three fields of study, collected ratings of seven groups. Social science students were found to give more positive ratings to 'socialist as their level of education increased while business students became more negative. The reverse pattern was observed on ratings of 'the military and 'conservatives. The results support the model of differential effects of field of study on intergroup attitudes. The implications for research on the effects of education and for theories regarding the nature of the educational process are discussed.     

An Affine-Invariant Generalization of the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test for the Bivariate Location Problem

This paper proposes an affine‐invariant test extending the univariate Wilcoxon signed‐rank test to the bivariate location problem. It gives two versions of the null distribution of the test statistic. The first version leads to a conditionally distribution‐free test which can be used with any sample size. The second version can be used for larger sample sizes and has a limiting χ₂² distribution under the null hypothesis. The paper investigates the relationship with a test proposed by Jan & Randles (1994). It shows that the Pitman efficiency of this test relative to the new test is equal to 1 for elliptical distributions but that the two tests are not necessarily equivalent for non‐elliptical distributions. These facts are also demonstrated empirically in a simulation study. The new test has the advantage of not requiring the assumption of elliptical symmetry which is needed to perform the asymptotic version of the Jan and Randles test.     

Ethnic and gender differences in parental expectations and life stress

This paper presents ethnic and gender differences in reported stressful life events (SLE) in a sample of 70 Southeast Asian (SEA) adolescents. The ranking of five SLEs with the highest percentage reportingSome orA Lot of stress showed differences in qualitative life events among Cambodian, Hmong, and Vietnamese adolescents. Cambodians rankedstrict discipline in social life by parents as most stressful. Hmong and Vietnamese adolescents reporteddoing house chores andacademic pressure to do well, respectively, as most stressful. In other stressor domains, academic performance (i.e.studying for a test, personal pressure to get good grades) and parental expectations (i.e.high expectations from parents to do well, fear of failure to meet family expectations) show similarity across ethnic groups. T-tests show that female adolescents reported higher stress on eight out of 10 life events females than males.Personal pressure to get good grades had the highest percentage mean for females. For males,worrying about where to live or getting a job after graduation were the two most endorsed stressful life events. Important implications for social work practice in schools and with parents in SEA families are discussed. Further research into parental involvement and family distress is also recommended.     

The Academic Marketplace in Social Work

Abstract

Deans and directors of graduate and undergraduate programs in social work were surveyed to ascertain the number of academic jobs available during 1984–86. They were also questioned about characteristics desired in new faculty. Results showed a stable or increasing overall demand for social work faculty. Demand varied in relation to whether the highest degree offered by the hiring unit was the baccalaureate, master's, or doctorate. The quantity of recent hiring and the desirability of research skills and publications was higher in programs offering higher degrees, but teaching credentials were of equal importance for all three types of units. Implications for the educational system and for job seekers are discussed.     

Likelihood ratio test for independence with partial multivariate normal data

This article derives the likelihood ratio statistic to test the independence between (X ₁,…,X _r ) and (X _r+1,…,X _k ) under the assumption that (X ₁,…,X _k ) has a multivariate normal distribution and that a sample of size n is available, where for N observation vectors all components are available, while for M = (n + N) observation vectors, the data on the last q components, (X_k-q+1,…,X _k ) are missing (k+q≥r).     

Adaptive sequential design for regression on multi-resolution bases

This work investigates the problem of construction of designs for estimation and discrimination between competing linear models. In our framework, the unknown signal is observed with the addition of a noise and only a few evaluations of the noisy signal are available. The model selection is performed in a multi-resolution setting. In this setting, the locations of discrete sequential D and A designs are precisely constraint in a small number of explicit points. Hence, an efficient stochastic algorithm can be constructed that alternately improves the design and the model. Several numerical experiments illustrate the efficiency of our method for regression. One can also use this algorithm as a preliminary step to build response surfaces for sensitivity analysis.