Stanford Sociology Technical Reports and Working Papers, 1961-1993
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Browsing Stanford Sociology Technical Reports and Working Papers, 1961-1993 by Title
Now showing 1 - 20 of 95
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Alternative Estimation Procedures for Event-History Analysis: A Monte Carlo Study(2015-08-15) Carroll, Glenn R; Hannan, Michael T; Tuma, Nancy Brandon; Warsavage, BarbaraThe authors compare alternative procedures for estimating parameters of event-history models: ordinary least squares, Kaplan-Meier least squares, maximum likelihood, and partial likelihood. They report results of simulations comparing maximum likelihood and partial likelihood estimators for small samples in terms of several potential sources of error. A related paper is Tuma, Hannan, and Groeneveld (1979).Item Approaches to the Aggregation Problem(2015-08-12) Hannan, Michael TThe author describes and analyzes different sorts of problems from aggregation bias, a type of composition errors, that can result when shifting from group-level data to individual-level effects. He develops three approaches, grouping, causal modeling, and specification error approach. The analysis shows that all approaches are satisfactory for simple cases, and the latter two are preferable (although not entirely satisfactory) for cases where ordinary methodological difficulties appear.Item A Bibliography of Expectation States Research(2015-08-15) Berger, Joseph; Zelditch, Morris JrThis bibliography is a revised and expanded version of working paper 100.Item The Causal Approach to Measurement Error in Panel Analysis: Some Further Contingencies(2015-08-12) Hannan, Michael T; Rubinson, Richard; Warren, Jean TuttleThe authors describe and analyze some issues in understanding causality from panel designs. They focus on complications that arise when multivariate panel models are measured with either random or systematic errors. The analysis is illustrated with panel from the U.N. of education and economic data from 96 countries. They conclude that new statistics, to be developed or imported from other disciplines are needed to deal with measurement error in substantive panel data.Item Cerebral Balance, Recognition Accuracy, and Confidence when Task Performance Requires the Use of Preconsciously Acquired Information(2017-08-16) Perlaki, Kinga M.; Barchas, Patricia R.a. This TP is an attempt to identify brain mechanisms associated with the finding that mere exposure to words, patterns, and other stimuli often leads to liking, even when the exposure is too brief to produce conscious awareness. The authors investigate recognition accuracy of very brief (subliminal) exposure to stimuli following instructions to report either which stimulus they thought was familiar (left brain) or which the liked better (right brain). Results showed that participants instructed to process stimuli using right brain were more accurate. The authors interpreted the data as showing that right brain processing, which occurs outside of conscious awareness, is responsible for the subliminal “familiarity leads to liking” phenomenon.Item The Communication Network Structures of R & D Units(2017-08-16) Arechavala-Vargas, RicardoThe author develops a bounded rationality model of effects of communication structures and applies it to 223 R & D teams. One main result was that structural properties of a team’s network were strongly associated with evaluations the team received from management.Item A Comparative Study of the Perceived Housing Needs of Low-Income and Upper-Middle-Income Residents of San Jose(2015-08-10) Mazur, AllanThis technical report discusses findings from a class project interviewing residents of San Jose, CA, on housing needs. Besides finding considerable concern and actual deprivation (e.g., more occupants than bedrooms) among lower- income residents, the interviewers also found perceived deprivation relative to what the residents considered they ought to have.Item Consistent and Inconsistent Social Characteristics and the Determination of Power and Prestige Orders(2015-08-06) Berger, Joseph; Fisek, M. HamitThe work reported here was significant in the generalization of the first theory of status characteristics and expectation states (Technical Report #12 and Berger et al., 1966). The first theory could only account for status generalization from a single characteristic; this paper reports experimental results for two status characteristics. Experimental data showed that the characteristics combined, which was incorporated in the theoretical extension to two characteristics published by Berger et al. (1974).Item Constrained and Unconstrained Maximum Likelihood Estimation of a Variance Components Model of Cross- Sections Pooled Over Time(2015-08-15) Tuma, Nancy; Young, Alice AThe authors report on simulations on the quality of parameter estimates of regression coefficients with lagged variables. Results showed that the quality of estimates varied with the amount of serial error correlation and with the relative strength of effects of lagged variables. Estimates of the coefficient of an exogenous variable should be very similar by maximum likelihood estimates and modified generalized least squares. If they are not close to identical, an investigator should suspect misspecification of the model.Item Control and Cooptation in Mexican Politics(2015-07-21) Anderson, Bo; Cockcroft, James D.The authors identify a structure of widely-shared,interrelated goals, including political stability, economic growth, public welfare, and economic nationalism in contemporary Mexico. They relate those goals to the contemporary structure of Mexican governments. They also describe patterns of oligarchy, cooptation, dissent, and repression, and relate those patterns to the goal structure.Item Decisions, Nondecisions, and Metadecisions(2015-08-15) Zelditch, Morris Jr; Harris, William; Thomas, George M; Walker, Henry APolitical decisions at all stages, from community to country,occur only after a process of agenda setting. Nondecisions result from failing to raise an issue to the appropriate decision-making body, and occur through predecision political influences. These authors formally explicate a discursive theory of nondecisions, derive hypotheses, and test them in experimental settings. Results confirmed the hypotheses.Item Development of the Spatial Judgment Experimental Task(2015-07-21) Moore, James C.Moore builds on the work of Conner (Technical Report #11) to develop an entirely new experimental task. This task, with the important restriction that stimuli are presented in a particular order, does successfully meet the criterion of independent trials. Each stimulus of the task developed here resembles a checkerboard with 100 rectangles. The task can be either ambiguous (it has no correct answer and it is perceived as having no correct answer) or veridical (it has a correct answer and respondents normally are able to distinguish it). A later version, now usually called Contrast Sensitivity, uses pairs of the patterns that Moore developed here. As with Technical Report #11, this Technical Report discusses questions of how to attain criteria for the task, and how to assess success. The document labelled Technical Report #15 was retrieved from Moore’s dissertation.Item Directions in Expectation States Research(Stanford University Press, 1988) Berger, JosephThis WP was prepared for a conference on the current state and future prospects for status and expectations research. It summarizes theoretical and empirical investigations, and describes the present structure of the program. The author published this WP (1988).Item Distributive Justice: A Status Value Formulation(2015-07-29) Berger, Joseph; Zelditch, Morris Jr; Anderson, Bo; Cohen, Bernard PThe authors present a theory of distributive justice, feelings that a distribution of benefits and burdens to particular individuals is right and proper. They distinguish local systems and referential structures, and the theory predicts that perceived justice obtains when relations in the local system reflect relations in the referential structure.Item Do Sociological Theories Grow?(2015-08-15) Wagner, David G; Berger, JosephThe authors claim that theoretical growth is often obscured by a narrow definition of “growth,” one that emphasizes only empirical support for a unit theory. They introduce the idea of theoretical research programs, distinguish five types of growth in in them, and illustrate the types with examples. This is the final technical report. It is dated September 1983.Item Dynamics of Formal Political Structure: An Event-History Analysis(2015-08-15) Hannan, Michael T; Carroll, Glenn RThe authors apply event history analysis to records on 90 countries from 1950-1975 to test hypotheses consistent with world systems and modernization hypotheses. The hypotheses predict factors associated with political change from/to one-party and multi-party governments. Modernization hypotheses predict that changes making a society more modern (that is, more like European societies) increase the chances for multi-party democratic governments. World systems hypotheses predict that governments are more affected by a country’s place in the world economic system than by internal changes. Results here show small effects of modernizing on government form, and event history methods show a complex relationship between GNP per capita and form of government.Item Effect of Sex of Subject and Experimenter on Hemispheric Balance(2015-08-15) Ford, Joan; Wilkes, Chris; Crissman, Sue; Barchas, PatThe authors measured alpha brain wave activity from volunteers as a function of gender of experimenter and gender of volunteer. Cross-gender combinations, especially for male volunteer—female experimenter, showed different patterns than same-gender combinations. However in an experiment using the standard design (Berger 2007), status and agreement or disagreement feedback, elicited very similar brain wave patterns for male and female participants.Item Effects of a Legitimate Authority's Justification of Inequality on the Mobilization of Revolutionary Coalitions(2015-08-15) Linewebber, David; Barr-Bryan, Dorine; Zelditch, Morris JrThe authors explore revolutionary coalition formation in equitable situations. They posited that actors would form such coalitions if the equitable relations were threatened. Results of an experimental test of that idea were not confirmatory. The authors attributed the outcomes to an unintended factor of inferred authorization.Item The Effects of College Quality and Size on Student Occupational Choice(2015-08-06) Meyer, John WThe author analyzed questionnaire responses from students in 99 colleges. College effects were much smaller than individual background factors and freshman occupational choices. Larger colleges tended to shift occupational choices away from high status professional occupations, while small colleges had the opposite effect.Item Eliminating the Effects of a Status Characteristic(2015-08-12) Freese, Lee; Cohen, Bernard PThe authors propose a theory in which status generalization from a diffuse status characteristic such as age, race or gender can be eliminated by introducing contradictory information about a specific status characteristic such as task ability. They conducted an experimental test of the theory and found confirmation. The conclusions here differ from results of other experiments in which all status information combined and none was eliminated (including Technical Report #32 and Technical Report #35), and from the aggregation function proposed in the developing theory of status characteristics and expectation states (Berger et al. 1974; 1977).