Dialogue on Private Events

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - In the fall of 2003, the authors corresponded on the topic of private events on the listserv of the Verbal Behavior Special Interest Group. Extracts from that...     

Anticipating Law: Research Methods, Ethics, and The Law of Privilege

Our ethical obligation to protect the research confidentiality of individual participants is challenged when third parties use subpoenas in the context of criminal proceedings and civil litigation in an effort to order the production of confidential information. This paper discusses strategies researchers may employ in order to maximize their legal ability to maintain confidentiality in spite of those challenges. Use of existing statutory protections is the first choice, but these are available for only a subset of research related to health and criminal justice issues. In situations where statutory protections are not available, the Wigmore criteria may act as a guide for the design of research that maximizes researchers' ability to protect research participants by advancing a case–by–case claim for researcher–participant privilege. We discuss the legal basis for this conclusion and outline procedures that may be used to further strengthen confidentiality protections.     

SOCIAL CLASS SENTIMENTS IN FORMATION: Influence of Class Socialization, College Socialization, and Class Aspirations

What explains social class sentiments among public university students? This empirical study uses a distributional model to define social class, which places students and their families with comparable resources over time into similar class locations. We survey a sample of students enrolled in four different schools at a large public midwestern university. The research finds that examining experiences with past, present, and anticipated or aspired future class locations is necessary for understanding the attitudes and beliefs associated with class that are held by young adults. We contend that future research designed to validly measure class consciousness or class sentiments must recognize that for some segments of the general population, class sentiments are not fixed, but are in a process of formation.     

GUEST EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

Social Indicators Research -     

A Departure from Cognitivism: Implications of Chomsky’s Second Revolution in Linguistics

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - In 1957 Noam Chomsky published Syntactic Structures, expressing views characterized as constituting a “revolution” in linguistics. Chomsky proposed...     

The Fatality Risks of Sport-Utility Vehicles,Vans, and Pickups Relative to Cars

This paper examines the public health consequences of the regulatory subsidy given to light trucks. The empirical challenge is to disentangle the causal effects of light trucks from the selection bias that may occur due to drivers sorting into different vehicle types depending on their unobservable characteristics. I address this by using state variation of snow depth as an instrumental variable for vehicle miles traveled of light trucks and cars. This instrument has strong first-stage explanatory power. Since snow depth is likely a direct determinant of crashes, I meet the exclusion criteria by restricting the dependent variable to those crashes that occurred in the summer. My findings suggest that, given a crash, light trucks are more dangerous to others but less dangerous for those driving them. However, I also find that light trucks are more likely to crash than cars, which neutralizes the safety advantage to those who drive them. My estimates for aggregate fatalities suggest that a world of light trucks leads to substantially more fatalities than a world of cars.     

Comparison of Amish and Non-Amish Farmers: A Diffusion/Farm-Structure Perspective1

Abstract Considerable attention has focused on farming practices and behavioral patterns that characterize Amish farmers from other agriculturalists. It has been suggested that Amish farmers are more concerned about the physical environment than non-Amish farmers because Amish employ fewer technology-intensive farming practices, though there is little empirical evidence to support such an assertion. To address this issue, data were collected from a sample of Amish and non-Amish owner-operators in Ohio to compare environmental attitudes and farming systems presently in use. Discriminant analysis was used to examine factors chosen to differentiate the two groups. Findings reveal that Amish respondents believed more strongly than other farmers that ground water pollution was an important environmental problem and that farmers should reduce chemical application rates to protect ground water resources. Other farmers exhibited greater willingness to participate in educational programs designed to reduce pesticide application rates. The two groups could not be differentiated by criteria used to make adoption decisions about farm technologies and farming practices; both used productivity and efficiency criteria when making adoption decisions.     

Identifying endogenous fiscal policy rules for macroeconomic models

The forecast and policy simulations based on macroeconomic models are used in many instances as an important input into policy decision-making. In this paper, we present a model-based method for identifying fiscal closure rules in stochastic macroeconomic models. The methodology is based on the stability analysis of the model at hand, with an endogenous derivation of a reaction on the part of the fiscal authority to state variables in the model. The rule achieves the dual aim of imposing solvency on the fiscal sector and generating a state-contingent dynamic adjustment in a framework consistent with the properties of the model. The approach differs from the standard practice of deriving fiscal closure rules in large macroeconomic forecasting models in both its derivation and implementation. An example of the endogenously derived rule, including some illustrative results, is provided using a small calibrated macro model     

Is there a Gender Difference in False Belief Development?

The contribution of children's social environment to their acquisition of theory of mind skills, combined with the well documented advantage for girls in mental state talk with siblings, peers and mothers, might lead to a female advantage on false belief tasks. We present a post‐hoc analysis of large datasets from two independent laboratories. A slight advantage for girls on false belief task performance was found in both datasets and was only apparent in younger but not older children. Language ability could be controlled for only in a smaller subsample of one dataset and cannot be ruled out as a potential mediator of this effect. However, if there is an age‐specific advantage for girls in false belief acquisition it is a weak effect only.