REPLY TO: “ON THE SENSITIVITY OF BRAND-CHOICE SIMULATIONS TO ATTRIBUTE IMPORTANCE WEIGHTS”

Our reply to Curry, Louviere, and Augustine's critique of our earlier paper focuses on differences in motivation between our research and theirs. Our interest in the problem relates to the possible incorporation of self-explicated evaluations in conjoint data collection methods; subsequent to the appearance of our original paper, we have developed hybrid models that combine elements of self-explicated (compositional) and conjoint (decompositional) data collection procedures. As far as we can surmise from their critique, Curry, Louviere, and Augustine are concerned with much broader strategic issues relating share of choices in the consumer population to changes in the shape of attribute weight distributions, shape of the Pareto tradeoff boundary, and so on.     

An Evaluation of Conditional Manding Using a Four-Component Multiple Schedule

Most verbal behavior curricula for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) focus on teaching multiple mands during the early stages of training (e.g., picture exchange communication system; Bondy & Frost, 1994). However, few, if any, of those curricula train children with ASD to differentially mand only for reinforcers that are reasonable for a caregiver to deliver in a given context (e.g., mands to cuddle at bedtime) and to refrain from manding for reinforcers that would be inappropriate to deliver in that context (e.g., mands to play outside at bedtime). In this study, we first taught a boy with ASD two initial mands. Immediately thereafter we brought those mands under the conditional discriminative control of a four-component multiple schedule with (a) S¹ correlated with one reinforcer available (i.e., edibles), (b) S² correlated with both reinforcers available (i.e., edibles or drink), (c) S³ correlated with another reinforcer available (i.e., drink), and (d) S^Δ correlated with no reinforcer available. Following treatment, the child displayed conditionally discriminated manding in accordance with each of the four components of the schedule. We discuss these findings relative to the potential benefits of bringing mands under both evocative and discriminative control.

     

Hanging Out With Which Friends? Friendship‐Level Predictors of Unstructured and Unsupervised Socializing in Adolescence

Companions are central to explanations of the risky nature of unstructured and unsupervised socializing, yet we know little about whom adolescents are with when hanging out. We examine predictors of how often friendship dyads hang out via multilevel analyses of longitudinal friendship‐level data on over 5,000 middle schoolers. Adolescents hang out most with their most available friends and their most generally similar friends, not with their most at‐risk or similarly at‐risk friends. These findings vary little by gender and wave. Together, the findings suggest that the risks of hanging out stem from the nature of hanging out as an activity, not the nature of adolescents' companions, and that hanging out is a context for friends' mutual reinforcement of preexisting characteristics.     

A Sociology of the Unmarked: Redirecting Our Focus

This article suggests that American sociology has developed a de facto tradition in the sociology of the marked that devotes greater epistemological attention to politically salient and ontologically uncommon features of social life. Although the unmarked comprises the vast majority of social life, the marked commands a disproportionate share of attention from sociologists. Since the marked already draws more attention within the general culture, social scientists contribute to re-marking and the reproduction of common-sense images of social reality. This has important analytic consequences. This article argues for developing a stronger tradition in a sociology of the unmarked that explicitly foregrounds politically unnoticed and taken-for-granted elements of social reality. Three strategies are proposed toward this end: (1) reversing conventional patterns of markedness to foreground what typically remains unnamed and implicit, (2) marking everything by filling in all the shades of social continua so that each shares the same degree of epistemological ornamentation, and (3) developing an analytically nomadic perspective that observes social phenomena from multiple vantage points.     

Estimates of above-ground tree carbon after projected land-use and land cover change in a subtropical urban watershed

Urban Ecosystems - This study investigates the effect of land-use and land cover (LULC) change on above-ground tree carbon (AGTC) in a subbasin of the Tampa Bay Watershed, Florida. LULC change was...     

Social Class Differentials During Fertility Decline: England and Wales Revisited

This paper reviews the relationship between landholdings and fertility. Two dimensions of land are identified as salient for fertility behaviour: size of operational holdings and land ownership. It is suggested that these two dimensions and the resulting income streams have disparate effects on fertility. Size of holdings is assumed to have a positive influence on fertility due to the greater labour demands of larger holdings, while land ownership is posited to exert a negative long-term effect because of the increase in old-age security associated with the income returns to equity. In addition to these effects on the demand for children, landholding is also thought to influence the supply of children. A systematic review of the literature finds support for the impact of both dimensions of landholding on fertility preferences, contraceptive behaviour, the proximate determinants and fertility. Both the demand and supply of children appear to be influenced by landholdings. The observed regularities suggest the need for further research on this connection, not the abandonment of this line of inquiry.     

Reflecting on attention-deficient hyperactivity disorder and disablement in education with Eric Fromm

Drawing upon the thought of Eric Fromm, this paper argues that efforts to understand and counter behaviour that causes difficulties in education should begin in a critical and reflective engagement with both the conditions of human freedom and the character of educational institutions and society as a whole. Fromm’s critique of dominating ideas about good mental health within capitalistic societies is examined in relation to disablement and attention-deficient hyperactivity disorder. A study of a sixth-form college in the south of England elucidates connections between Fromm’s insights into social psychology and disablement as a process of oppression.     

Profiles of adult survivors of severe sexual,physical and emotional institutional abuse in Ireland

Adult survivors of institutional abuse were interviewed with a comprehensive assessment protocol which included the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Institutional Child Abuse Processes and Coping Inventory, the Structured Clinical Interviews for Disorders of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV axis I disorders and personality disorders, the Trauma Symptoms Inventory, a Life Problems Checklist, the Experiences in Close Relationships Inventory and the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale. Profiles were identified for subgroups that described severe sexual (N = 60), physical (N = 102), or emotional (N = 85) abuse as their worst forms of maltreatment. Survivors of severe sexual abuse had the most abnormal profile, which was characterised by higher rates of all forms of child maltreatment and higher rates of post‐traumatic stress disorder, alcohol and substance abuse, antisocial personality disorder, trauma symptoms and life problems. Survivors of severe emotional abuse were better adjusted than the other two groups. The profile of survivors of severe physical abuse occupied an intermediate position between the other two groups. A thorough assessment of abuse history and current functioning should be conducted when providing services to adult survivors of institutional abuse, since this may have important implications for the intensity of services required. Survivors of severe sexual abuse may require more intensive services. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Comparison of Unit-Root Test Criteria

During the past 15 years, the ordinary least squares estimator and the corresponding pivotal statistic have been widely used for testing the unit-root hypothesis in autoregressive processes. Recently, several new criteria, based on maximum likelihood estimators and weighted symmetric estimators, have been proposed. In this article, we describe several different test criteria. Results from a Monte Carlo study that compares the power of the different criteria indicate that the new tests are more powerful against the stationary alternative. Of the procedures studied, the weighted symmetric estimator and the unconditional maximum likelihood estimator provide the most powerful tests against the stationary alternative. As an illustration, the weekly series of one-month treasury-bill rates is analyzed.     

Adjusting the degrees of freedom for the jackknife

The rule of thumb given by Mosteller and Tukey for obtaining the degrees of freedom which are appropriate for the approximate t-statistic associated with the jackknife is discussed.Examples of possible misapplication of this rule are given.