The judgment of rapport: A cross-cultural comparison between Americans and Greeks

Interpersonal perception was examined cross-culturally by having samples of Greek and American subjects view and judge the level of rapport throughout the same series of 50 dyadic interactions recorded in America. The overall pattern of results showed that: (a) the judgment policies and accuracy of the Greek and American samples were remarkably similar; (b) both groups fell far short of the agreement level possible for this task; and (c) the low levels of achievement were a consequence of both groups giving insufficient weight to valid behavioral predictors of rapport while relying on the apparently compelling but invalid cues, smiling and expressivity. Both the Greeks and Americans, it appears, have widely shared implicit theories or policies regarding which observable (i.e., nonverbal) aspects of an interaction indicate its positivity; these implicit policies are remarkably similar and they are imperfect.This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Young Investigator grant to the first author.     

Explaining Official Delinquency: a Spatial Study of Class,Conflict and Control*

The correlation between social class and official delinquency is one of the more stable findings of sociological research. Consensus, conflict and organizational explanations of this correlation are examined with a coordinated set of survey, interview, and official data gathered in the central area of a middle-sized Canadian city. These data make possible the consideration of behavior and official rate-producing processes in a model that lends support to a combination of conflict and organizational perspectives. Consideration is given to the need for additional research using a similar frame-work in other types of community settings.     

Efficacy of Statistical Outlier Analysis for Monitoring Quality of Care

Researchers have proposed that hospitals with excessive statistically unexplained mortality rates are more likely to have quality-of-care problems. The U.S. Health Care Financing Administration currently uses this statistical “outlier” approach to screen for poor quality in hospitals. Little is known, however, about the validity of this technique, since direct measures of quality are difficult to obtain. We use Monte Carlo methods to evaluate the performance of the outlier technique as parameters of the true mortality process are varied. Results indicate that the screening ability of the technique may be very sensitive to how widespread quality-related mortality is among hospitals but insensitive to other factors generally thought to be important.     

So long as they both shall live: marital dissolution and the decline of domestic homicide in France, 1852-1909

This article suggests that the growth of European states, the decline of familism, and the rise of individualism generated the institutionalization of judicial separation and divorce. Time-series analyses of France (1852-1908) reveal a persistent negative association between separation/divorce and domestic homicide, especially among males. Neither indicators of economic change nor trends in the wider pattern of violent crime account for the relationship. Although marital dissolution is a negative correlate of premeditated domestic homicide, the rate of separation/divorce is directly associated with spontaneous domestic homicide, for both females and males and may indicate that abandoned spouses can become homicidal.     

Coping with Crowding: Television,Patterns of Activity,and Adaptation to High Density Environments*

This research shows that life style interacts with population density in predicting psychological strain. Persons who are inclined to engage in outdoor leisure activities are more likely to experience strain in conjunction with building density. This is consistent with an environmental opportunity-constraint model. The study supports also the perspective that some styles of life insulate actors from then environments. Individuals with an inclination to spend leisure time away from home and persons who tend to watch television are less likely to experience strain in conjunction with household or building density. Data were collected from interviews with 442 residents of public housing in two middle sized Canadian cities. Stepwise regression, with dummy variables representing interaction terms, is used to analyze the data.     

Abusive supervision and the entitled employee

We present two studies that examine the effects of psychological entitlement on employees' ratings of abusive supervision and their behavioral reactions to these perceptions. Study 1 indicated that entitlement was positively associated with ratings of abusive supervision. Perceived abuse was, in turn, associated with upward undermining behaviors and organizational deviance. In Study 2, we re-examined the hypothesized relationships using paired data from employees and their coworkers. The results replicated those from the first study and showed that entitled employees rated supervisors as more abusive than coworkers who shared the same supervisors. Although this variance is likely driven by a combination of perceptual distortion and actual abusive behaviors, the ultimate implication is that psychologically entitled employees are prone to feel that they are victims of abuse and to react in undesirable ways.     

Literacy and the civilization of violence in 19th-century France

This research focuses on the impact of literacy on major crimes of violence, homicide, and suicide in France, between 1852 and 1914. A time-series analysis shows that declining rates of serious crimes of violence and passion-inspired homicide were associated with increasing literacy. On the other side, literacy and rates of cold-blooded murder were unrelated, and literacy was a positive predictor of suicide. In view of this, and the fact that the negative relationship between homicide and suicide depends on it, literacy, or broader cultural change, such as urbanity, or the education system itself may have been the causal agent in transforming expressions of passion from an explosion of violence against others to an implosion of violence against the self. Overall, literacy cannot be seen to have repressed violence per se. In fact between 1852 and 1914, the increase in rates of suicide in France was almost eight times greater than the decline in homicide, suggesting that literacy transformed rather than depressed death by violence.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 50th annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology in San Francisco, November 1991.