Social Psychology and Interaction Commons^™

Does The Reason Matter? Variations In Childlessness Concerns Among U.S. Women, Julia Mcquillan, Arthur L. Greil, Patricia Wonch Hill, Kari C. Gentzler, John D. Hathcoat

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Does the reason why women have no children matter with regard to level of childlessness concerns? Reasons include biomedical barriers, situational barriers, delaying motherhood, and choosing to be childfree. The concept of ‘‘childlessness concerns’’ captures the idea that holidays and family gatherings are difficult because of not having children or feeling left out or sad that others have children. Life course and identity theories guided the structural equation model analyses of a representative sample of 1,180 U.S. women without children from the National Survey of Fertility Barriers. The results indicated that women with the least control over pregnancy, those with …

The Effects Of Item Saliency And Question Design On Measurement Error In A Self-Administered Survey, Michael J. Stern, Jolene D. Smyth, Jeanette Mendez

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Recent survey design research has shown that small changes in the structure and visual layout of questions can affect respondents’ answers, but the results are not always consistent across studies. One possible reason for some of the inconsistency may be differences in the item saliency of the questions used in the experiments. In this article, the authors examine how item saliency might influence visual design effects. The authors report the results of three experimental alterations in question format and visual design using data from a 2005 random sample mail survey of 1,315 households. The results suggest that the saliency of …

Estimating The Size Of The Methamphetamine-Using Population In New York City Using Network Sampling Techniques, Kirk Dombrowski, Bilal Khan, Travis Wendel, Katherine Mclean, Evan Misshula, Ric Curtis

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

As part of a recent study of the dynamics of the retail market for methamphetamine use in New York City, we used network sampling methods to estimate the size of the total networked population. This process involved sampling from respondents’ list of co-use contacts, which in turn became the basis for cap-ture-recapture estimation. Recapture sampling was based on links to other respondents derived from demographic and “telefunken” matching procedures–the latter being an anonymized version of telephone number matching. This paper describes the matching process used to discover the links between the solic-ited contacts and project respondents, the capture-recapture calculation, the …

Guinea Pigging In Philadelphia, Roberto Abadie

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

On June 16, 2001, the national press first reported the death of Ellen Roche, a healthy 24-year-old who volunteered for an asthma study at Johns Hopkins University. The story revealed that a few days into the trial she felt very sick, was discharged, and sent home. Within some hours she checked into the emergency room at a local hospital and fell into a coma. Ellen remained in this state until her death a month later. She had received $375 for participating in seven to nine sessions as an outpatient in the clinical drug study that resulted in her death.

This …

Pregnancy Loss And Distress Among U.S. Women, Karina M. Shreffler, Arthur L. Greil, Julia Mcquillan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Although pregnancy loss—especially miscarriage— is a relatively common experience among reproductive-aged women, much of our understanding about the experience has come from small clinic-based or other nonrepresentative samples. We compared fertility-specific distress among a national sample of 1,284 women who have ever experienced a stillbirth or miscarriage. We found that commitment/attachment to pregnancy that ended in loss as well as current childbearing contexts and attitudes were associated with distress following pregnancy loss. Practitioners working with women or couples who have experienced pregnancy loss should be aware of the importance of characteristics associated with higher distress, such as whether the pregnancy …

Organs Watch: Possibilities And Perils For Public Anthropology, Roberto Abadie

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Recent technological advances in biomedicine have introduced new therapeutic possibilities but have also contributed to the emergence of a global market for human bodies and body parts. For example, artificial modes of human reproduction created a market for eggs, semen, and surrogate wombs. In addition, organ transfer generated a demand for kidneys and half livers. The whole body has become a valuable commodity as professional research subjects venture into the economy of Phase I Clinical Trials, testing drug safety for pharmaceutical companies. In the process, the trade has become a deeply unequal one in which poor, vulnerable, and easily exploited …

Self-Esteem And Mastery Trajectories In High School By Social Class And Gender, Christina D. Falci

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Using longitudinal data from 769 white adolescents in the Midwest, this research applies a social structure and personality perspective to examine variation in self-esteem and mastery trajectories by gender and SES across the high school years. Analyses reveal that high SES adolescents experience significantly steeper gains in self-esteem and mastery compared to low SES adolescents, resulting in the reversal of SES differences in self-esteem and the emergence of significant SES differences in mastery. Pre-existing gender differences in self-esteem narrow between the 9^th and 12^th grade because self-esteem increases at a faster rate among girls than boys during high …

Attitudes, William A. Cunningham, Ingrid J. Haas, Andrew Jahn

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

This chapter reviews social neuroscience research that links social psychological attitudes and evaluative processes to their presumed neural bases. The chapter is organized into four parts. The first section discusses how attitude representations are transformed into evaluative states that can be used to guide thought and action. The next two sections address the related processes of attitude learning and change. The final section discusses applications of these concepts for the study of prejudice and political behavior.

Distress Among Indigenous North Americans: Generalized And Culturally Relevant Stressors, Melissa L. Walls, Les B. Whitbeck

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Stress process and life-course models of mental distress emphasize socio-cultural and historical processes that influence stress exposure and the impact of stress on mental health outcomes. Drawing from these theoretical orientations as well as concepts from the historical trauma literature, we examine the effects of culturally relevant and more generalized sources of stress on distress among North American Indigenous adults, and tests for the potential cumulative and interactive effects of stress on distress across the life-course via self-reported early childhood and adult/contemporary stressors. Results of OLS regression analyses reveal positive, significant associations between general stressors and distress as well as …

Variation In Distress Among Women With Infertility: Evidence From A Population-Based Sample, Arthur L. Greil, Karina M. Shreffler, Lone Schmidt, Julia Mcquillan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND We examine variation in fertility-specific distress (FSD) and general distress according to different experiences of infertility among 1027 US women who have experienced infertility within the previous 10 years.

METHODS General distress was measured by a short form of the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression. Multiple regression analysis was conducted on self-report data (based on a telephone interview) from a probability-based sample of US women aged 25–45 years. We compare women with infertility who have had a prior pregnancy (secondary infertility, n = 628) to women with infertility with no prior pregnancies (primary infertility, n = 399). We further distinguish …

Are Prior Pregnancy Outcomes Relevant For Models Of Fertility-Specific Distress Or Infertility Helpseeking?, Arthur L. Greil, Katherine M. Johnson, Julia Mcquillan, Naomi L Lacy

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Women with prior pregnancy but no live birth are inconsistently termed as either ‘primary infertile’ or ‘secondary infertile’ in psychosocial studies of infertile women. The goal of this study was to discover whether infertile women who had experienced pregnancies but no live births were more similar in attitudes and behavior to infertile women who had not experienced pregnancies or to those who had live births. We used the National Survey of Fertility Barriers (NSFB), which contains self-reported data from a probability-based sample of US women aged between 25 and 45, to accomplish our goal. In this cross-sectional analysis, infertile women …

Alcohol Use Trajectories And Problem Drinking Over The Course Of Adolescence: A Study Of North American Indigenous Youth And Their Caretakers, Jacob E. Cheadle, Les B. Whitbeck

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This study investigated the links between alcohol use trajectories and problem drinking (DSM-IV abuse/dependence) using five waves of data from 727 North American Indigenous adolescents between 10–17 years from eight reservations sharing a common language and culture. Growth mixture models linking fundamental causes, social stressors, support, and psychosocial pathways to problem drinking via alcohol use trajectories over the early life course were estimated. Results indicated that 20% of the adolescents began drinking at 11–12 years of age and that another 20% began drinking shortly thereafter. These early drinkers were at greatly elevated risk for problem drinking, as were those who …

Introduction: Charlotte Perkins Gilman On The Sociology Of Families, Marriages, And Children, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Charlotte Perkins Gilman died in 1935, but she remains today a provocative sociological writer; she makes us think, argue, and question our preconceptions, especially with regard to marriage and family. Several posthumous volumes of Gilman’s work have been produced and it has been my pleasure to help present three of Gilman’s (1997, 2002, 2004) major sociological writings to new generations of readers in English. As noted in the preface, it has been a special honor to acquaint an audience of Italian readers with a selection of her powerful writings on families, marriages, and children.1 The present volume joins a small …

Queryarch3d: Querying And Visualising 3d Models Of A Maya Archaeological Site In A Web-Based Interface, Giorgio Agugiaro, Fabio Remondino, Gabrio Girardi, Jennifer Von Schwerin, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Raffaele De Amicis

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Constant improvements in the field of surveying, computing and distribution of digital-content are reshaping the way Cultural Heritage can be digitised and virtually accessed, even remotely via web. A traditional 2D approach for data access, exploration, retrieval and exploration may generally suffice, however more complex analyses concerning spatial and temporal features require 3D tools, which, in some cases, have not yet been implemented or are not yet generally commercially available. Efficient organisation and integration strategies applicable to the wide array of heterogeneous data in the field of Cultural Heritage represent a hot research topic nowadays. This article presents a visualisation …

Pregnancy And Mental Health Of Young Homeless Women, Devan M. Crawford, Emily C. Trotter, Kelley J. Sittner Hartshorn, Les B. Whitbeck

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Pregnancy rates among women in the U.S. who are homeless are much higher than rates among women who are housed (Greene & Ringwalt, 1998). Yet little research has addressed mental health, risk and resilience among young mothers who are homeless. This study utilizes a sample of women from the Midwest Longitudinal Study of Homeless Adolescents (MLSHA) to investigate pregnancy and motherhood over three years among unaccompanied homeless young mothers. Our data are supplemented by in-depth interviews with a subset of these women. Results show that almost half of sexually active young women (n = 222, μ age = 17.2) had …

Maturation, Peer Context, And Indigenous Girls' Early-Onset Substance Use, Melissa L. Walls, Les B. Whitbeck

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This paper examines a biosocial model of the impact of puberty on Indigenous girls' early-onset substance use by considering the potential mediating role of peer context (i.e. mixed-sex peer groups and substance use prototypes) on the puberty and substance use relationship. Data include responses from 360 girls of a common Indigenous cultural group residing on reservations/reserves in the upper Midwest and Canada. Results of structural equation modeling revealed that the statistically significant relationship between girls' pubertal development and early-onset substance use was mediated by both mixed-sex/romantic peer groups and favorable social definitions of substance use. Implications for substance use prevention …

Archival Methods And The Veil Of Sociology, Mary Jo Deegan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Archival methods of research are crucial to reconstruct. interpret. and evaluate contributions of early sociologists that are hidden behind the veiIs of racism and sexism. Many of these founding sociologists profoundly shaped their communities and created important organizations to combat social inequality and injustice. Their lives as intellectuals were frequently controversial. which made them political anathemas to mainstream sociologists, usually white males working in prestigious universities who wanted money. fame, and prestige for the new discipline and its leaders.

In this chapter, [recount how r began a career using historical research to understand the rich. alternative history of the profession. …

The Social Construction Of Infertility, Arthur L. Greil, Julia Mcquillan, Kathleen S. Slauson-Blevins

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Health and illness are not objective states but socially constructed categories. We focus here on infertility, a phenomenon that has shifted from being seen as a private problem of couples to being seen as a medical condition. Studying infertility provides an ideal vantage point from which to study such features of health care as inter-societal and cross-cultural disparities in health care, the relationship between identity and health, gender roles, and social and cultural variations in the process of medicalization. Infertility is stratified, both globally and within Western societies. Access to care is extremely limited for many women in developing societies …

Heterogeneity And Its Impact On Thermal Robustness And Attractor Density, Yuri Cantor, Bilal Khan, Kirk Dombrowski

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

There is considerable research relating the structure of Boolean networks to their state space dynamics. In this paper, we extend the standard model to include the effects of thermal noise, which has the potential to deflect the trajectory of a dynamical system within its state space, sending it from one stable attractor to another. We introduce a new “thermal robustness” measure, which quantifies a Boolean network’s resilience to such deflections. In particular, we investigate the impact of structural homogeneity on two dynamical properties: thermal robustness and attractor density. Through computational experiments on cyclic Boolean networks, we ascertain that as a …

Coaching Efficacy With Academic Leaders: A Phenomenological Investigation, Deanna Lee Vansickel-Peterson

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this psychological phenomenological research was to understand the efficacy of life coaching from the perspective of academic leaders. To date, not one investigation or attempt has been made towards the above stated purpose. This study includes a theoretical overview and a review of the coaching literature from Socrates (469-399 BC) to current day Humanistic theory presented in part by Roger (1902-1987). This process included data collection from five academic leaders who have been coached for at least two years. Levels of analysis of 365 statements, quote and/or comments produced finding of efficacy in life coaching with academic …

The Civilizing Process And Its Discontents: Suicide And Crimes Against Persons In France, 1825–1830, Hugh P. Whitt

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

A spatial analysis of data for French départements assembled in the 1830s by André-Michel Guerry and Adolphe d’Angeville examines the impacts of modernization and resistance to governmental “Frenchification” policies on measures of violence and its direction. In the context of Unnithan et al.’s integrated model of suicide and homicide, high suicide rates in the northern core and a predilection for violence against others in the southern periphery may be consistently interpreted in terms of theories of the civilizing process and internal colonialism. Alternative explanations of southern violence in 19th-century France are explored and rejected, and additional theoretical applications are suggested.

Using The Internet To Survey Small Towns And Communities: Limitations And Possibilities In The Early 21st Century, Jolene D. Smyth, Don A. Dillman, Leah Melani Christian, Allison C. O'Neill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Researchers who are interested in small towns and rural communities in the United States often find that they need to conduct their own sample surveys because many large national surveys, such as the American Community Survey, do not collect enough representative responses to make precise estimates. In collecting their own survey data, researchers face a number of challenges, such as sampling and coverage limitations. This article summarizes those challenges and tests mail and Internet methodologies for collecting data in small towns and rural communities using the U.S. Postal Service’s Delivery Sequence File as a sample frame. Findings indicate that the …

Campus Safety: Assessing And Managing Threats, Mario Scalora, Andre Simons, Shawn Vanslyke

Mario Scalora Publications

Since the shootings at Virginia Tech, academic institutions and police departments have dedicated substantial resources to alleviating concerns regarding campus safety. The incident in Blacksburg and the similar tragedy at Northern Illinois University have brought renewed attention to the prevention of violence at colleges and universities.

Campus professionals must assess the risk posed by known individuals, as well as by anonymous writers of threatening communications. The authors offer threat assessment and management strategies to address the increased demands faced by campus law enforcement, mental health, and administration officials who assess and manage threats, perhaps several simultaneously.

Patterns Of Nonresident Father Contact*, Jacob E. Cheadle, Paul R. Amato, Valarie King

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

We used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort (NLSY79) from 1979 to 2002 and the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (CNLSY) from 1986 to 2002 to describe the number, shape, and population frequencies of U.S. nonresident father contact trajectories over a 14-year period using growth mixture models. The resulting four-category classification indicated that nonresident father involvement is not adequately characterized by a single population with a monotonic pattern of declining contact over time. Contrary to expectations, about two-thirds of fathers were consistently either highly involved or rarely involved in their children’s lives. Only one group, …

Variations In Social Support And Mental Health Among Black Women By Socioeconomic Status, Lesa A. Johnson

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A considerable body of research focuses on the mental health of black women with low socioeconomic status. Social scientists have noted that women in low socioeconomic status groups often utilize social networks to provide protection and survival in dense and depressed communities. Still, some social scientists also suggest that the bounded solidarity of kinship networks decreases chances for women to pursue opportunities for economic mobility by creating stressful and time consuming obligations for reciprocity. Though many qualitative and community quantitative studies have been conducted regarding social support and survival among low income women, few quantitative studies have addressed variation in …

Tribal Vs. Public Schools: Perceived Discrimination And School Adjustment Among Indigenous Children From Early To Mid- Adolescence, Devan M. Crawford, Jacob E. Cheadle, Les B. Whitbeck

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to assess the differential effects of perceived discrimination by type of school on positive school adjustment among Indigenous children during late elementary and early middle school years. The analysis utilizes a sample of 654 Indigenous children from four reservations in the Northern Midwest and four Canadian First Nation reserves. Multiple group linear growth modeling within a structural equation framework is employed to investigate the moderating effects of school type on the relationship between discrimination and positive school adjustment. Results show that students in all school types score relatively high on positive school adjustment at …

Thomas Carlyle’S Lost Translation Of Saint-Simon’S Nouveau Christianisme: An Epistolary Account, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The first-known (and now lost) translation of Saint-Simon’s Nouveau christianisme was prepared by the well-known Scotch-born prose writer, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). Carlyle was considerably interested in the Saint- Simonian movement (Cofer 1931; Murphy 1936; Shine 1941) and undertook to translate Saint-Simon’s last work during the latter half of 1830. The following excerpts from Carlyle’s correspondence reveal that he was unable to find a willing publisher for his translation, and the manuscript subsequently disappeared, presumably in France. This unfortunate chain of events accounts in part for the circumstance that Nouveau christianisme was not better-known among Englishspeaking sociologists and lay readers. Although …

Jacob Singer (1883-1964): Bio-Bibliography Of A Jewish-Latvian-Nebraskan Sociologist, Michael R. Hill, Natalja Callahan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The professional life of Jacob Singer was deeply entwined with religion and thus exemplifies the sociological life histories of many early sociologists in the United States and elsewhere. Numerous Protestant sociologists, such as Charles A. Ellwood (1988) and the religious men of the early Chicago School, e.g., Albion Small, Charles R. Henderson, George Vincent and Charles Zeublin (Deegan 1988: 71- 104), interpenetrated the boundaries between sociology and religion as did several Catholic sociologists, including, for example, Eva J. Ross (Hill 1999) and the members of the Christus Rex Society in Ireland (Daly 2006). Adding to the religious diversity of this …

Charlotte Perkins Gilman And The Entrepreneurial Turn: A Working Introduction, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, lived from 1860 to 1935 — the same years as did Jane Addams. Gilman was an American, a pioneering sociologist, an influential feminist pragmatist, a peripatetic lecturer, a prolific author, and a friend of Addams. Although Gilman died in 1935, she remains today a provocative sociological presence whose writings continue to make us think, argue, and question our preconceptions. This paper explores the entrepreneurial basis of Gilman’s life as a professional sociologist, including her work as an artist, public speaker, and writer. Gilman promoted the core ideas that (1) humanness trumps sexual difference, (2) social logic is …

The Hidden Infertile: Infertile Women Without Pregnancy Intent In The United States, Arthur L. Greil, Julia Mcquillan, Katherine Johnson, Kathleen Slauson-Blevins, Karina M. Shreffler

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

A national probability sample reveals two relatively distinct groups of infertile women: those with intent, who have experienced a period of 12 or more months during which they tried to conceive but did not, and those without intent, who had a period of at least 12 months during which they could have conceived and did not but who do not describe themselves as having tried to become pregnant at that time. Those with intent are more likely to identify as having a fertility problem, to be distressed, and to pursue infertility treatment than those without intent, suggesting that many women …