Maternal Discipline and Children's Adjustment: The Role of the Cultural and Situational Context

This study examined how the cultural and situational contexts can jointly shape the consequences of discipline strategies. Israeli mothers who grew up in Israel or in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) (overall N = 110) reported regarding their use of psychologically controlling and punitive discipline with their seven‐years‐old to 10‐years‐old children, and teachers reported regarding children's behavior problems. We assessed both mothers' overall general use of the discipline strategies, and their use of the same strategies following transgressions in the academic domain, an area which the two groups emphasize to differing degrees. Consistent with hypothesis, controlling discipline in academic situations had more positive consequences in the FSU group compared with the Israeli‐origin group. In contrast, and as predicted, cultural group was not a moderator of mothers' overall, general use of the same discipline strategies. The findings illustrate how taking the situation into account can inform examination of the moderating role of cultural group.     

Urn Sampling and the Proportional Hazard Model

This paper investigates the urn sampling analogue for the score statistic relating survival to covariates assuming a proportional hazard model. The exact permutation distribution can be calculated as well as the exact low order moments for arbitrary censoring patterns. The asymptotic distribution of the score statistic is an easy consequence. The method is naturally extended to deal with the multivariate case, time varying covariates and interval censoring. Finally the relationship between the censoring process, the survival times and covariates are studied considering different reference sets for the distribution of the score statistic. Some assumptions about the censoring process are investigated and as a consequence the effect of censoring is clarified.     

Mother–Adolescent Conflict: Adolescent Goals,Maternal Perspective‐Taking,and Conflict Intensity

Younger and older adolescents were interviewed about their goals in recent disagreements with their mothers. Six goals were identified: instrumental (simply gaining their immediate desire); dyadic concern; achieving emotional support; autonomy; dominance; and nonengagement (avoidance of conflict). Younger adolescents reported significantly more instrumental and significantly fewer emotional support and dominance goals than did older adolescents. Maternal perspective‐taking predicted more dyadic concern and fewer dominance goals, as well as more nonengagement goals for younger adolescents. Dominance goals mediated the effect of maternal dyadic perspective‐taking on conflict intensity for older adolescents.     

Double Sampling Designs in Multivariate Linear Models with Missing Variables

We provide a method for finding the optimal double sampling plan for estimating the mean value of a continuous outcome. It is assumed that the fallible and true outcome data are related by a multivariate linear regression model where only some of the explanatory variables are sampled. Conditions under which double sampling is preferred over standard sampling plans are determined. An application of the method to a well-known data set on air pollution is presented.     

Testing for order among K populations: theory and examples

Testing for stochastic order among K populations is a common and important problem in statistical practice. It arises in the analysis of both planned experiments and observational studies. The authors develop a new nonparametric test for order among K populations that can accommodate any stochastic ordering. The test is based on a maximally selected chi‐bar‐square statistic. The authors find its limiting distribution and use simulations to derive critical values. Three important examples are used to illustrate the applicability of the general method. The authors find that the new tests outperform the existing methods in many practical cases. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 38: 97–115; 2010 © 2009 Statistical Society of Canada     

Stratified Double Sampling with Continuous Outcomes: Design and Analysis

We provide a method for estimating the sample mean of a continuous outcome in a stratified population using a double sampling scheme. The stratified sample mean is a weighted average of stratum specific means. It is assumed that the fallible and true outcome data are related by a simple linear regression model in each stratum. The optimal stratified double sampling plan, i.e. , the double sampling plan that minimizes the cost of sampling for fixed variances, or alternatively, minimizes the variance for fixed costs, is found and compared to a standard sampling plan. The design parameters are the total sample size and the number of doubly sampled units in each stratum. We show that the optimal double sampling plan is a function of the between-strata and within-strata cost and variance ratios. The efficiency gains, relative to standard sampling plans, under broad set of conditions, are considerable.     

New tests for stochastic order with application to case control studies

It is shown that if a binary regression function is increasing then retrospective sampling induces a stochastic ordering of the covariate distributions among the responders, which we call cases, and the non-responders, which we call controls. We also show that if the covariate distributions are stochastically ordered then the regression function must be increasing. This means that testing whether the regression function is monotone is equivalent to testing whether the covariate distributions are stochastically ordered. Capitalizing on these new probabilistic observations we proceed to develop two new non-parametric tests for stochastic order. The new tests are based on either the maximally selected, or integrated, chi-bar statistic of order one. The tests are easy to compute and interpret and their large sampling distributions are easily found. Numerical comparisons show that they compare favorably with existing methods in both small and large samples. We emphasize that the new tests are applicable to any testing problem involving two stochastically ordered distributions.     

Can we Rate Public Support for Democracy in a Comparable Way? Cross-National Equivalence of Democratic Attitudes in the World Value Survey

In this study we examine the cross-cultural equivalence of two scales that measure attitudes toward democracy across 36 countries in the World Value Survey (WVS) 2000. We examine the equivalence of these scales in order to explore if we can meaningfully compare democratic attitudes across countries. Multiple group confirmatory factor analyses (MGCFA) is applied to answer this question. The analyses indicate that the scales may be compared but only to a certain extent and not across all the countries. We close this article by discussing the implications of the findings.     

Recollections of harsh discipline in childhood and depressive feelings in adulthood: The roles of culture and gender

The present study examined the roles of culture and gender in the association between recollections of harsh discipline experienced during childhood and levels of depressive feelings in early adulthood. A sample of Jewish (n = 250) and Arab (n = 115) university students reported regarding exposure to corporal punishment and emotional aggression from each parent during childhood, and about current depressive feelings. Consistent with predictions, both culture and gender moderated the links between corporal punishment (used by either mother or father) and depression. Arab males, for whom exposure to corporal punishment might be more culturally normative, showed a different pattern than both Arab females and Jewish respondents. Moreover, culture moderated the association between emotional aggression from fathers (but not mothers) and depression. The discussion focuses on the importance of examining the effects of gender (of child and parent) in conjunction with culture, and on the complex role of cultural normativeness.     

Level and change of group-focused enmity in Germany: unconditional and conditional latent growth curve models with four panel waves

In this study, we investigate and explain the level and change of six elements of group-focused enmity (GFE; see Zick et al. in J. Soc. Issues 64(2):363–383, 2008) in Germany between 2002 and 2006: racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia, exclusion of homeless people and support for rights of the established. For the data analysis, a representative 4-year panel study of the adult non-immigrant German population collected during the years 2002–2006 is used, and the development of each GFE component is tested by using an unconditional second-order latent growth curve model (LGM) (with full information maximum likelihood, FIML). We find that the level of 5 of the 6 components (racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia, exclusion of homeless people) displays an increase at the beginning of the observed period followed by a decrease. However, the sixth aspect, rights of the established, displays a continuous linear increase over time. The different developmental pattern stands in contrast to Allport’s (The nature of prejudice. Perseus Books, Cambridge, 1954) hypothesis for the strong link between the components and their development over time. We try to explain this different developmental pattern by several sociodemographic characteristics. This is performed by using a conditional second-order latent growth curve model.