A Note on the Composition of Verbal Response Forms

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - This note is about composition—the process by which fragments of verbal behavior are combined in novel verbal forms. The note begins by discussing recent...     

Long‐Term Trends in Life Expectancy and Active Life Expectancy in the United States

Changes in life expectancy and in active life expectancy may have effects on the fiscal integrity of both the Social Security and Medicare programs. Analysis of the fiscal stability of these programs shows that the most serious problem may be the growth of Medicare expenditures projected to surpass, in about 2024, Social Security costs. This is aggravated by the associated rapid growth of the Medicaid program. To understand how the growth of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security might be correlated we present estimates of changes in life expectancy and active life expectancy from 1935 to 1999 and then project those values to 2080. How the correlation of life expectancy and active life expectancy changes over time, and by age, may provide insights into how increased health care expenditures, if effective in changing health in the elderly, could modify the age structure of the labor force and the availability of human capital.     

Some contingencies of spelling

This paper presents some speculation about the contingencies that might select standard spellings. The speculation is based on a new development in the teaching of spelling—the process writing approach, which lets standard spellings emerge collateral to a high frequency of reading and writing. The paper discusses this approach, contrasts it with behavior-analytic research on spelling, and suggests some new directions for this latter research based on a behavioral interpretation of the process writing approach to spelling.

     

THE IMPACT OF INVESTIGATOR PERCEPTIONS OF VICTIM LEGITIMACY ON THE PROCESSING OF RAPE/SEXUAL ASSAULT CASES*

This analysis of 610 reports of rape/sexual assault, collected during six months of intensive field research within a metropolitan police department, addresses the issue of differential handling of such reports by police investigators. Their attributions of “relative legitimacy” to cases and victims are analyzed in the light of information items contained in the offense reports completed by patrol officers. Victim credibility, victim consent, offense seriousness, and victim characteristics are among the factors taken into account by the investigators as they assess rape/sexual assault cases and victims for the purpose of making dispositionary decisions. The likelihood of a case being actively pursued is discussed in terms of the tendency of investigators to classify cases along a continuum from “real” rapes to “deals”.     

Wife's role in monthly insurance expenditures

This study investigates the wife's role in monthly insurance expenditures of couples who have been married almost 13 years. Although previous research has shown that husbands dominate decisions about insurance, this study indicates that wives are involved in monthly expenditures for insurance. A wife's involvement is greater if she is less sex-role traditional, if her earnings are lower, if her husband's earnings are lower, if her husband's parents shared financial roles, if she perceives that net worth increased over the past 3 years, if she expects finances to be worse off in 3 years, and if she has a high school diploma or less. Involvement also increases with increases in number of children. Further research is essential in enhancing women's economic well-being.This study was a part of Project No. 60-0362 of the Agricultural Experiment Station, College of Agriculture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. University of Illinois Survey Research Laboratory services were used in preparation of the data tapes. The author wishes to thank Lauren J. Leach for assistance with data preparation.Vicki Schram Fitzsimmons is Assistant Professor, Division of Family & Consumer Economics, University of Illinois, 905 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801. Her research areas include family financial management, economic well-being, and household production. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois.     

Guided by ethics: religion and spirituality in gerontological social work practice

This random national survey anonymously explored 299 gerontological social workers' attitudes about spirituality and the use of spiritual interventions in practice. Respondents support the inclusion of religion and spirituality in education and practice as a diversity component, as part of holistic assessment, and as a fundamental aspect of human life. Nearly 70% of respondents report little or no preparation on spiritual issues during their schooling and only 24.5% report satisfaction with their educational preparation on this topic. While respondents' personal spirituality correlates positively and weakly with the use of spiritual interventions, it is ethical attitudes toward spiritual interventions that predict the use of spiritual interventions by gerontological social workers.     

Characterizing Paretian preferences

A characterization of a property of binary relations is of type M if it can be stated in terms of ordered M-tuples of alternatives. A characterization of finite type provides an easy test of whether preferences over a large set of alternatives possesses the property characterized. Unfortunately, there is no characterization of finite type for Pareto representability in . A partial result along the same lines is obtained for Pareto representability in , k>2.

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