The second sex: Women's place in polling language

Recent research suggests that gender nouns such as man, and pronouns such as he,· are not generic forms referring to humanity, but often refer exclusively to males. The use of male terms in a variety of role contexts serves to deny females identification with these contexts, and thereby stereotypes the roles of men and women. Public opinion polling, through its use of the questionnaire, represents an important social context where gender-biased phrasing can have an adverse impact on a large segment of society. A content analysis of polling questions from 1936–1973 was undertaken to ascertain their gender representation. Those questions containing gender referrants constituted ten percent of the sample. Questions were analyzed for their gender content in the areas of social, political, and economic life. The findings show a differential use of male and female terms, with the use of female gender most apparent in contexts traditionally defined as female: home and family. When females are mentioned in non-traditional contexts, they appear most often in competition with men. Male pronouns appear exclusively in contexts traditionally defined as male: work and politics. The methodological and social implications of these findings for survey research are discussed.     

Controlling type I error rates in multi-arm clinical trials: A case for the false discovery rate

Multi-arm trials are an efficient way of simultaneously testing several experimental treatments against a shared control group. As well as reducing the sample size required compared to running each trial separately, they have important administrative and logistical advantages. There has been debate over whether multi-arm trials should correct for the fact that multiple null hypotheses are tested within the same experiment. Previous opinions have ranged from no correction is required, to a stringent correction (controlling the probability of making at least one type I error) being needed, with regulators arguing the latter for confirmatory settings. In this article, we propose that controlling the false-discovery rate (FDR) is a suitable compromise, with an appealing interpretation in multi-arm clinical trials. We investigate the properties of the different correction methods in terms of the positive and negative predictive value (respectively how confident we are that a recommended treatment is effective and that a non-recommended treatment is ineffective). The number of arms and proportion of treatments that are truly effective is varied. Controlling the FDR provides good properties. It retains the high positive predictive value of FWER correction in situations where a low proportion of treatments is effective. It also has a good negative predictive value in situations where a high proportion of treatments is effective. In a multi-arm trial testing distinct treatment arms, we recommend that sponsors and trialists consider use of the FDR.     

Generating Ordered Families of Lorenz Curves by Strongly Unimodal Distributions

From any strongly unimodal density on the real line, it is possible to generate a one-parameter family of Lorenz curves. The resulting families of Lorenz curves are Lorenz ordered with respect to the indexing parameter. Symmetry of the unimodal density results in the generation of symmetric Lorenz curves. A related characterization of the normal distribution is presented.     

The Other‐Race Effect in a Longitudinal Sample of 3‐, 6‐ and 9‐Month‐Old Infants: Evidence of a Training Effect

We investigated the development of the other‐race effect “ORE” in a longitudinal sample of 3‐, 6‐, and 9‐month‐old Caucasian infants. Previous research using cross‐sectional samples has shown an unstable ORE at 3 months, an increase at 6 months and full development at 9 months. In Experiment 1, we tested whether 9‐month‐olds showed the ORE with Caucasian and African faces. As expected, the 9‐month‐olds discriminated faces within their own ethnicity (Caucasian) but not within the unfamiliar ethnicity (African). In months. In Experiment 2, we longitudinally tested infants at 3, 6, and 9 months by presenting either the Caucasian or the African faces used in Experiment 1. In contrast to previous cross‐sectional studies and Experiment 1, we found that infants discriminated between all stimuli. Hence, we did not find the ORE in this longitudinal study even at 9 months. We assume that the infants in our longitudinal study showed no ORE because of previous repetitive exposure to African faces at 3 and 6 months. We argue that only a few presentations of faces from other ethnic categories sufficiently slow the development of the ORE.     

Systematic Integration of Consumer Input into Curriculum Revision

This paper employs Lippitt, Watson, and Wesley's perspective of planned change to analyze the curriculum revision efforts of faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1969 to 1973. It is the consensus of the authors that it is possible and appropriate to apply the same motions we commonly associate with “good social work practice” to curriculum revision. Each of the phases of change is examined analytically and behaviorally from the standpoint of actions which occurred during that phase. The result of the change process was the acceptance of a new structural model within which to build curriculum.     

Conceptual Framework for Marriage Education Programs for Stepfamily Couples with Considerations for Socioeconomic Context

Stepfamily couples face unique challenges that put them at higher risk for dissolution than non-stepfamily couples. Risks for stepfamily couples are magnified in the context of lower economic resources, making low-income stepfamily couples a key target population for intervention and for community education programs. Existing programs and services for couples often do not address the unique situations of stepfamilies. This article builds on previous reviews that have offered information on important research themes and assessment of available curricula for stepfamily couples and presents a more comprehensive conceptual model to guide program design and services for stepfamily couples inclusive of specific objectives, as well as conditions and antecedents affecting content and prioritized needs. The goal is to enhance efforts to strengthen more vulnerable couples in complex families.