Causality in Contemporary American Sociology: An Empirical Assessment and Critique

Using a unique data set of causal usage drawn from research articles published between 2006–2008 in the American Journal of Sociology and American Sociological Review, this article offers an empirical assessment of causality in American sociology. Testing various aspects of what we consider the conventional wisdom on causality in the discipline, we find that (1) “variablistic” or “covering law” models are not the dominant way of making causal claims, (2) research methods affect but do not determine causal usage, and (3) the use of explicit causal language and the concept of “mechanisms” to make causal claims is limited. Instead, we find that metaphors and metaphoric reasoning are fundamental for causal claims‐making in the discipline. On this basis, we define three dominant causal types used in sociology today, which we label the Probabilistic, Initiating and Conditioning types. We theorize this outcome as demonstrating the primary role that cognitive models play in providing inference‐rich metaphors that allow sociologists to map causal relationships on to empirical processes.     

Expectation–maximization algorithm for system-based lifetime data with unknown system structure

AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis - In science and engineering, we are often interested in learning about the lifetime characteristics of the system as well as those of the components that made...     

Preschool-Age Adopted Chinese Girls’ Behaviors That Were Most Concerning to Their Mothers

Children's behavioral difficulties are a major source of parental concern. The goals of the current study were to (1) describe preschool-age adopted Chinese girls’ behaviors that were most concerning to their adoptive mothers and (2) examine the relation between children's concerning behaviors and parent/child demographics. Qualitative data from 422 mothers on 480 adopted Chinese girls (M = 44.2 months, SD = 15.2) were collected using three sequenced methods (i.e., open-ended question, follow-ups, and a focus group discussion). These girls were adopted at 3 to 60 months of age (M = 13.8, SD = 8.0) and had lived in the adoptive homes for at least 6 months (M = 30.2, SD = 14.4). Data analysis showed that 242 (57.3%) mothers (representing 274 girls) reported one to three concerning behaviors per child (total = 323 concerns), including behaviors that indicated attachment problems (107 or 33.1%), poor social skills (46 or 14.2%), language/speech problems (42 or 13%), sleep problems (29 or 9%), health/physical problems (24 or 7.4%), and problems in other areas (e.g., potty training) (75 or 23.2%). Further analysis showed that the mothers with prior experience of raising adopted children, but not biological children, were more likely to report concerning attachment behaviors than first-time mothers.     

The Death Penalty in the Post-Furman Era: A Review of the Issues and the Debate

This is a review of the issues and debate over capital punishment in the United States during the post- Furman era (since 1972). It encompasses a review of the legal issues, highlighting major U.S. Supreme Court cases in which the constitutionality of the death penalty has been challenged. These constitutional challenges have included issues of arbitrariness and race discrimination in the application of the death penalty. Also considered is the Court's 'evolving standards of decency' test in terms of what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment – relative to the execution of juveniles and the mentally retarded and whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual. The post- Furman era death penalty debate is comprised of two phases, both raised questions about public confidence in the criminal justice system. Phase one, occurring in the 1980s and early 1990s, was concerned with the lengthy appeal process and the lack of finality in capital cases. Phase two emerged in the late 1990s and 2000s and focused on the accuracy (wrongful convictions) and fairness (arbitrariness and discrimination) of the administration of capital punishment. The DNA revolution and a parade of high-profile exonerations in the United States contributed to this latter phase. Finally, the death penalty debate is considered from an international and human rights perspective.     

Elicitation

There are various situations in which it may be important to obtain expert opinion about some unknown quantity or quantities. But it is not enough simply to ask the expert for an estimate of the unknown quantity: we also need to know how far from that estimate the true value might be. Tony O'Hagan describes the process of elicitation: the formulation of the expert's knowledge in the form of a probability distribution.     

LIFE CHANCES AND CHOICES:

A Weberian lifestyles approach is employed to examine differences in quality of life among the homeless. Using a systematic random sample of 161 homeless people in a mid-sized, Southern metropolitan area, the study focuses on the impact of life chances and social choices on aspects of quality of life in this severely challenged population. Regression results show that a number of life chance and social choice variables affect general and domain-specific well-being. While chances and choices both contribute to these aspects of quality of life, there is only modest evidence of a mediating effect. With the exception of depressive symptoms, life chances appear to play a more important role in quality of life differences than life choices. The specific life chance and choice factors influencing aspects of quality of life vary with each separate well-being outcome. The implications of these findings for general sociology and homeless social policy are explored.     

Mixture Multi-state Markov Regression Model

Although heterogeneity across individuals may be reduced when a two-state process is extended into a multi-state process, the discrepancy between the observed and the predicted for some states may still exist owing to two possibilities, unobserved mixture distribution in the initial state and the effect of measured covariates on subsequent multi-state disease progression. In the present study, we developed a mixture Markov exponential regression model to take account of the above-mentioned heterogeneity across individuals (subject-to-subject variability) with a systematic model selection based on the likelihood ratio test. The model was successfully demonstrated by an empirical example on surveillance of patients with small hepatocellular carcinoma treated by non-surgical methods. The estimated results suggested that the model with the incorporation of unobserved mixture distribution behaves better than the one without. Complete and partial effects regarding risk factors on different subsequent multi-state transitions were identified using a homogeneous Markov model. The combination of both initial mixture distribution and homogeneous Markov exponential regression model makes a significant contribution to reducing heterogeneity across individuals and over time for disease progression.