Myth,allegiances, and the study of social control

That sociology subscribes to certain popular myths and has aligned itself with the welfare of some groups over others complicates research into social control. This is especially so when the research deals with stereotypes and their effects on differential legal treatment. That the discipline has historically taken sides regarding certain commonly held stereotypes and been supportive of certain groups, means that findings that challenge those stereotypes or that are viewed as detrimental to the supported groups are brought into question. Our research on a regulatory mechanism of social control—the Black Book, a list of persons excluded from licensed gaming in Nevada because of their perceived threat to the industry—is illustrative of these complications. Our findings that the Black Book is largely symbolic and is applied discriminatorily challenge not only beliefs in its efficacy but certain myths and allegiances within sociology. That a group sociologically identified with the problem was discriminated against, and that a well-protected group elicited preferential treatment at the hands of regulators who identify with them have been particularly problematic for the acceptance of the findings. We argue here that debunking myth and value neutrality are essential to scientific endeavor and should override such disciplinary tendencies toward the tolerance and protection of some groups over others. Her research has dealt with aspects of culture, organized crime, and social elites. She is currently working on a book on high society and thoroughbred racing. His publications have dealt with issues of labeling and secondary deviation, the role of stereotypes in the legal process, and the legal reaction to corporate crime.     

Public Perceptions about Food Safety in the United States and Japan1

Abstract Consumer concerns over pesticide residues and food additives have been growing in industrialized societies, including the United States and Japan. However, little comparative research has been carried out to determine which household characteristics may be significantly associated with these heightened concerns, and whether or not the same factors are useful for understanding variation in these worries in more than one society. This paper examines food safety attitudes in Seattle, Washington, and Kobe, Japan, and discovers that while the absolute level of expressed concern is higher in Kobe, the predictive power of household characteristics in explaining attitudinal differences within countries is similar. Implications for rural areas and future research on family structures in capitalist societies are discussed.     

Mean squares in saturated fractional designs revisited

In a previous paper (Bissell, 1989) some suggestions were offered for interpreting mean squares in saturated fractional designs where no independent estimate of experimental error is available. One of the methods leads to a simple numerical test of homogeneity which provides an objective accompaniment to half-Normal plotting of effects (Daniel, 1959) in 2n designs or exponential plotting of mean squares (Bissell, 1989) in 3n designs. A table of percentage points for a convenient test statistic is provided in this paper.     

TESTING SPHERICITY UNDER A MIXTURE MODEL

The robustness of Mauchly's sphericity test criterion when sampling from a mixture of two multivariate normal distributions is studied. The distribution of the sphericity test criterion when the sample covariance matrix has a non-central Wishart density of rank one is derived in terms of Meijer's G-functions; its distribution under the mixture model is then deduced. The robustness is studied by computing actual significance levels of the test under the mixture model using the critical values under the usual normal model.     

Children's gender- and age-based categorization in similarity and induction tasks

The present studies examined children's and adults' preferences for gender- or age-based categorization using similarity and inductive inference tasks. Four-year-olds, 6-year-olds, and adults looked at pictures of people and decided which of two was more like a target (similarity condition) or which shared a novel age- or gender-related property with the target (inference condition). Age or gender-based matches were possible. The results are consistent with previous findings that gender-based classification decreases with age. However, they also demonstrate that children use gender more for judging similarity than for making inferences about novel properties. Distinct patterns emerge from the two tasks: 6-year-olds and adults in both conditions categorize more by age than gender; 4-year-olds categorize by gender more than age in the similarity task, but by age more in the induction task. Only adults differentiated by property in the inference condition. These findings suggest that the salience of gender categories cannot entirely be attributed to their inductive potential. Gender has a salience beyond what would be predicted by its power for directing novel generalizations.     

Estimation of noncentrality parameters

We propose some estimators of noncentrality parameters which improve upon usual unbiased estimators under quadratic loss. The distributions we consider are the noncentral chi-square and the noncentral F. However, we give more general results for the family of elliptically contoured distributions and propose a robust dominating estimator.     

The Micro System of Deviance in Intimate Relationships*

Deviance in intimate relationships may lie as much within the micro system of such relationships as it does within the personalities of the actors involved. Using a Parsonsian framework, it is argued that the strain of systemically disequilibrated relationships can produce deviant personality adaptations which, in turn, intensify conflict and deviance in those relationships. It is also proposed that a reciprocal quality exists to such maladaptations, with each member of the dyad contributing to the amplification of a stable system of deviant behavior patterns within the relationship. Because the patterns of maladaptive dyads spill over into parent-child relationships, they have implications for understanding intergenerational transmission of deviance between intimates.