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Heterogeneous Causal Effects and Sample Selection Bias

By on July 8, 2015 in Articles

Richard Breen, Seongsoo Choi, Anders Holm

Sociological Science, July 8, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a17

Abstract
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The role of education in the process of socioeconomic attainment is a topic of long standing interest to sociologists and economists. Recently there has been growing interest not only in estimating the average causal effect of education on outcomes such as earnings, but also in estimating how causal effects might vary over individuals or groups. In this paper we point out one of the under-appreciated hazards of seeking to estimate heterogeneous causal effects: conventional selection bias (that is, selection on baseline differences) can easily be mistaken for heterogeneity of causal effects. This might lead us to find heterogeneous effects when the true effect is homogenous, or to wrongly estimate not only the magnitude but also the sign of heterogeneous effects. We apply a test for the robustness of heterogeneous causal effects in the face of varying degrees and patterns of selection bias, and we illustrate our arguments and our method using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) data.
 
Richard Breen: Department of Sociology, Yale University.  Email: richard.breen@yale.edu

Seongsoo Choi: Department of Sociology, Yale University. Email: seongsoo.choi@yale.edu

Anders Holm: Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen. Email: ah@soc.ku.dk

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Breen, Richard, Seongsoo Choi and Anders Holm. 2015. “Heterogeneous Causal Effects and Sample Selection Bias.” Sociological Science 2: 351-369.
  • Received: November 4, 2014.
  • Accepted: January 15, 2015
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen L. Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a17

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Neighborhood and Network Disadvantage among Urban Renters

By on June 24, 2015 in Articles

Matthew Desmond, Weihua An

Sociological Science, June 24, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a16

Abstract

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0 Citation

Drawing on novel survey data, this study maps the distribution of neighborhood and network disadvantage in a population of Milwaukee renters and evaluates the relationship between each disadvantage and multiple social and health outcomes. We find that many families live in neighborhoods with above average disadvantage but are embedded in networks with below average disadvantage, and vice versa. Neighborhood (but not network) disadvantage is associated with lower levels of neighborly trust but also with higher levels of community support (e.g., providing neighbors with food). Network (but not neighborhood) disadvantage is associated with lower levels of civic engagement. Asthma and diabetes are associated exclusively with neighborhood disadvantage, but depression is associated exclusively with network disadvantage. These findings imply that some social problems may be better addressed by neighborhood interventions and others by network interventions.
 
Matthew Desmond: Department of Sociology and Social Studies, Harvard University.  Email: mdesmond@fas.harvard.edu

Weihua An: Department of Sociology and Statistics, Indiana University.

Acknowledgements: Supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, through its “How Housing Matters” initiative, and the Harvard Society of Fellows. Deborah De Laurell, Carl Gershenson, Barbara Kiviat, Kristin Perkins, Tracey Shollenberger, Adam Slez, Van Tran, and the Sociological Science editors provided helpful comments on earlier drafts.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Desmond, Matthew, and Weihua An. 2015. “Neighborhood and Network Disadvantage among Urban Renters.” Sociological Science 2: 329-350
  • Received: January 15, 2015
  • Accepted: March 6, 2015
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a16

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Niche Overlap and Discrediting Acts: An Empirical Analysis of Informing in Hollywood

By on June 8, 2015 in Articles

Giacomo Negro, Sasha Goodman

Sociological Science, June 9, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a15

Abstract
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0 Citation

This article examines informing on others as a discrediting act between individual agents in a labor market. We conduct an empirical analysis of artists called to testify during the 1950s Congressional hearings into Communism in Hollywood, and multi-level regression models reveal that the odds of an artist informing on another increase when their career histories are more similar. The similarity reflects levels of niche overlap in the labor market. The finding that similarity contributes to discredit in the context of resource competition is compatible with a social comparison process, whereby uncertainty about performance leads more similar people to attend to and exclude one another to a greater extent.
 
Giacomo Negro: Emory University.  Email: giacomo.negro@emory.edu

Sasha Goodman: Northeastern University and Harvard University. Email: s.goodman@neu.edu

Acknowledgements: Emily Bianchi, Michael Hannan, Balázs Kovács, Wes Longhofer, John Levi Martin, James Moody, Jill Perry-Smith, Elizabeth Pontikes, Chris Rider, Peter Roberts, Gabriel Rossman, Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson, Anand Swaminathan, Jim Wade, Dave Waguespack, and seminar participants at Stanford University, Oxford University, and Yale University offered helpful critiques on the current or previous versions of the manuscript. We thank Hayagreeva Rao for his contributions to earlier stages of the study. Olgert Denas provided research assistance.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Negro, Giacomo and Sasha Goodman. 2015. “Niche Overlap and Discrediting Acts: An Empirical Analysis of Informing in Hollywood” Sociological Science 2: 308-328
  • Received: January 16, 2015
  • Accepted: March 5, 2015
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a15

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Extending the INGO Network Country Score 1950-2008

By on May 20, 2015 in Articles

Pamela Paxton, Melanie M. Hughes, Nicholas E. Reith

Sociological Science, May 20, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a14

Abstract
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0 Citation

Hughes et al. (2009) introduced the INGO Network Country Score (INCS), a measure of country-level connectedness to the world polity, for three years: 1978, 1988, and 1998. The measure scores countries by centrality in the world country-INGO network, rather than on raw counts of INGO ties that do not acknowledge networks or power. In this article, we extend the measure by time, space, organization, and calculation. First, we extend the measure to the period 1950âAS2008, allowing closer correspondence to the years typically assessed by researchers. Second, we extend the country samples upon which the scores are based, allowing researchers greater flexibility in choosing samples. Third, we extend the number of INGOs from which the scores are created. The Hughes et al. (2009) INCS were based on a single-year maximum of 476 INGOs; ours are based on a single-year maximum of 1,604 INGOs (5,291 INGOs across all years). Finally, we provide both raw and scaled scores, which we use to discuss the observed increasing density in the world polity from 1950 to 2008, comparing scores across regions. Results reveal higher average INCS with less variability among Western countries, and significant inequality between the West and the rest of the world.
 
Pamela Paxton: Department of Sociology, The University of Texas at Austin.  Email: ppaxton@prc.utexas.edu

Melanie M. Hughes: Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh. Email: hughesm@pitt.edu

Nicholas E. Reith: Department of Sociology, The University of Texas at Austin.  Email:nreith@utexas.edu

Acknowledgements: We gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation SES-1067218 and SES-1323130.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Paxton, Pamela, Melanie M. Hughes, and Nicholas E. Reith. 2015. “Extending the INGO Network Country Score, 1950–2008” Sociological Science 2: 287-307.
  • Received: July 15, 2014
  • Accepted: November 26, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sorensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a14

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Conceptual Spaces and the Consequences of Category Spanning

By on May 13, 2015 in Articles

Balázs Kovács, Michael T. Hannan

Sociological Science, May 13, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a13

Abstract
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2 Citation

A general finding in economic and organizational sociology shows that objects that span categories lose appeal to audiences. This paper argues that the negative consequences of crossing boundaries are more severe when the categories spanned are distant and have high contrast. Available empirical strategies do not incorporate information on the distances among categories. Here we introduce novel measures of distance in conceptual space and derive measures for typicality, category contrast, and categorical niche width. Using the proposed measurement approach, we test our theory using data on online reviews of books and restaurants.
 
Balázs Kovács: Universita della Svizzerá italiana.  Email: kovacsb@usi.ch

Micheal T. Hannan: Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. Email: hannan@stanford.edu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Kovács, Balázs, and Michael T. Hannan. 2015. “Conceptual Spaces and the Consequences of Category Spanning.” Sociological Science 2: 252-286.
  • Received: July 21, 2014
  • Accepted: September 24, 2014
  • Editors: Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a13

2

Making Up for an Unlucky Month of Birth in School: Causal Evidence on the Compensatory Advantage of Family Background in England

By on May 6, 2015 in Articles

Fabrizio Bernardi, Michael Grätz

Sociological Science, May 6, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a12

Abstract
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0 Citation

Previous research has shown that being born in the months immediately preceding the school entry cut-off date leads to lower educational outcomes in countries with a strict admission policy. In this article we use the effect of age at school entry in England as an identification device to provide a causal estimate of the compensatory advantage enjoyed by children from high social origin families. We find that the negative effects of a young school entry age are stronger for children from low social origin families. We also investigate when social origin differences in school entry age effects emerge, and test possible mechanisms. We find that before starting school, a younger school entry age leads to lower test scores for children of both low and highly educated families. For children from highly educated families the negative effect, however, progressively declines over the school career and almost vanishes by age 16. With respect to the mechanisms underlying this compensatory effect, we find no strong mediating role for parental involvement in homework and private lessons or for school choice.
Fabrizio Bernardi: European University Institute Department of Political and Social Sciences.  Email: fabrizio.bernardi@eui.eu

Michael Grätz: European University Institute Department of Political and Social Sciences.   Email: michael.gratz@eui.eu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Bernardi, Fabrizio and Michael Grätz. 2015. “Making Up for an Unlucky Month of Birth in School: Causal Evidence on the Compensatory Advantage of Family Background in England.” Sociological Science 2:235-251
  • Received: November 13, 2014
  • Accepted: January 21, 2015
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a12

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Class Inequality and Adult Attainment Projects among Middle-Aged Men in the United States, 1980—2010

By on April 29, 2015 in Articles

Jeremy Pais, D. Matthew Ray

Sociological Science, April 29, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a11

Abstract
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0 Citation

Adult attainment projects (AAP) consist of a series of traditional adult statuses: labor force participation, residential independence, marriage, parenthood, and homeownership. This article examines these status indicators as integral parts of an individualized attainment project that is best assessed later in adulthood. Close examination of AAP gives novel insights into the changing U.S. opportunity structure that go beyond what can be achieved through studying temporal patterns of adult status indicators independently. From 1980 to 2010, rates of completed AAP declined by double digits, and the difference in the odds of completing AAP between men on different ends of the income distribution doubled. There are structural and cultural explanations for these trends. Divergence hypotheses favor structural explanations involving social stratification processes. Convergence hypotheses favor cultural explanations based on the loosening of norms regarding traditional adult statuses. This article uses factor analytic models on data from the Current Population Survey, in conjunction with formal measurement invariance testing, to evaluate these hypotheses. The adaptive differentiation hypothesis, a blended explanation positing analytically distinct AAP profiles for different socioeconomic groups, receives the most empirical support. The results affirm a structurally prevailing change in the lives of poor, working class, and lower-middle class Americans.
Jeremy Pais: Department of Sociology, University of Connecticut.  Email: j.pais@uconn.edu

D. Matthew Ray: Department of Sociology, University of Connecticut.   Email: matt.ray@uconn.edu

  • Citation: Pais, Jeremy, and D. Matthew Ray. 2015. “Class Inequality and Adult Attainment Projects among Middle-Aged Men in the United States, 1980—2010.” Sociological Science 2:211-234.
  • Received: October 10, 2014
  • Accepted: January 17, 2015
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Stephen Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a11

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Bringing Anomie Back In: Exceptional Events and Excess Suicide

By on April 20, 2015 in Articles

Mark Anthony Hoffman, Peter S. Bearman

Sociological Science, April 20, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a10

Abstract
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0 Citation

In this article we show that imitation is not the mechanism behind the observed increase in suicides subsequent to highly publicized celebrity suicides. Instead, we show that most celebrity suicides are exceptional events and because of that have similar effects on the daily suicide rate as other exciting events. This finding suggests that Durkheim was right in rejecting the Tardean hypothesis that imitation is an operative mechanism and provides substantial support for the competing hypothesis that disruptive and/or exciting events (whether favorable or unfavorable) induce anomie and with it suicide.
Mark Anthony Hoffman: Department of Sociology, Columbia University.  Email: mh3279@columbia.edu

Peter S. Bearman: Department of Sociology, Columbia University.   Email: psb17@columbia.edu.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Hoffman, Mark A., and Peter S. Bearman. 2015. “Bringing Anomie Back In: Exceptional Events and Excess Suicide.” Sociological Science 2: 186-210.
  • Received: November 12, 2014
  • Accepted: November 27, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a10

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Robust Science: Passive Smoking and Scientific Collaboration with the Tobacco Industry in the 1970s

By on April 1, 2015 in Articles

Uri Shwed

Sociological Science, April 1, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a9

Abstract
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0 Citation

The first lesson from the history of research on smoking hazards is that scientists should be wary of collaboration with interested industries. This lesson, which is influential in the literature on science–industry relationships, comes from a historiography focused on the carcinogenicity debate of the 1950s and 1960s and the passive smoking debate of the 1980s and 1990s. Few studies have examined research in the 1970s. This article fills this lacuna using novel bibliometrical methods augmented with a qualitative analysis of the associations between periods and literary camps, as expressed in scientific texts. The mixed-methods approach identifies the temporal dynamics of the literature on smoking hazards to reveal that the well-documented attempts of the tobacco industry to stall and hamper science had unanticipated consequences. Specifically, an industry–science collaboration to develop a less hazardous cigarette put scholars on the path to discovering the hazards of passive smoking. The analyses supply a narrative that has room for actors’ complex interests and actions and demonstrates that such complexity may only be revealed in research whose outcomes are never known in advance.
Uri Shwed: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev.  Email: shwed@bgu.ac.il

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Shwed, Uri. 2015. “Robust Science: Passive Smoking and Scientific Collaboration with the Tobacco Industry in the 1970s.” Sociological Science 2:158-185.
  • Received: August 17, 2014
  • Accepted: November 2, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Delia Baldassarri
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a9

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The Buffering Hypothesis: Growing Diversity and Declining Black-White Segregation in America’s Cities, Suburbs, and Small Towns?

By on March 25, 2015 in Articles

Domenico Parisi, Daniel T. Lichter, Michael C. Taquino

Sociological Science, March 25, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a8

Abstract
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0 Citation

The conventional wisdom is that racial diversity promotes positive race relations and reduces racial residential segregation between blacks and whites. We use data from the 1990–2010 decennial censuses and 2007–2011 ACS to test this so-called “buffering hypothesis.” We identify cities, suburbs, and small towns that are virtually all white, all black, all Asian, all Hispanic, and everything in between. The results show that the most racially diverse places—those with all four racial groups (white, black, Hispanic, and Asian) present—had the lowest black-white levels of segregation in 2010. Black-white segregation also declined most rapidly in the most racially diverse places and in places that experienced the largest recent increases in diversity. Support for the buffering hypothesis, however, is counterbalanced by continuing high segregation across cities and communities and by rapid white depopulation in the most rapidly diversifying communities. We argue for a new, spatially inclusive perspective on racial residential segregation.
Domenico Parisi: Department of Sociology, Mississippi State University.  Email: mimmo.parisi@nsparc.msstate.edu

Daniel T. Lichter: Policy Analysis & Management and Sociology, Cornell University.  Email: dtl28@cornell.edu

Michael C. Taquino: National Strategic Planning & Analysis Research Center, Mississippi State University. Email: mtaquino@nsparc.msstate.edu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Parisi, Domenico, Daniel T. Lichter and Michael C. Taquino. 2015. “The Buffering Hypothesis: Growing Diversity and Declining Black-White Segregation in America’s Cities, Suburbs, and Small Towns?” Sociological Science 2:125-157.
  • Received: December 2, 2014
  • Accepted: December 22, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Stephen L. Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a8

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Individual Religiosity and Orientation towards Science: Reformulating Relationships

By on March 11, 2015 in Articles

David R. Johnson, Christopher P. Scheitle, Elaine Howard Ecklund

Sociological Science, March 11, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a7

Abstract
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0 Citation

The religion-science relationship has been the focus of a growing body of research. Such analyses have often suffered from poorly specified concepts related to religion and to science. At the individual level, scholars often assume that an individual’s religiosity will affect her orientation towards science. But an orientation towards science consists of several sub-concepts, each of which may have a unique relationship, or lack thereof, with religiosity. We use observed measures from the 2008 General Social Survey to build latent variables representing science orientation sub-concepts and assess their relationships using structural equation modeling. We find that religiosity has no significant association with interest in or knowledge of science. Religiosity does, however, have a significant negative association with confidence in science. This suggests that the lack of faith in science held by religious individuals is not a product of interest or ignorance, but is instead based on theological or institutional reservations.
David  R. Johnson: Department of Sociology, Rice University. E-mail: drj4@rice.edu

Christopher P. Scheitle: Department of Sociology, St John’s University.  Email: cscheitle@csbsju.edu

Elaine Howard Ecklund: Department of Sociology, Rice University. Email: ehe@rice.edu

  • Citation: Johnson, David R., Christopher P. Scheitle and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2015. “Individual Religiosity and Orientation towards Science: Reformulating Relationships.” Sociological Science 2: 106-124.
  • Received: November 18, 2014
  • Accepted: December 1, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a7

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Is the Effect of Parental Education on Offspring Biased or Moderated by Genotype?

By on February 24, 2015 in Articles

Dalton Conley, Benjamin W. Domingue, David Cesarini, Christopher Dawes, Cornelius A. Rietveld, Jason D. Boardman

Sociological Science, February 25, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a6

Abstract
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0 Citation

Parental education is the strongest measured predictor of offspring education, and thus many scholars see the parent–child correlation in educational attainment as an important measure of social mobility. But if social changes or policy interventions are going to have dynastic effects, we need to know what accounts for this intergenerational association, that is, whether it is primarily environmental or genetic in origin. Thus, to understand whether the estimated social influence of parental education on offspring education is biased owing to genetic inheritance (or moderated by it), we exploit the findings from a recent large genome-wide association study of educational attainment to construct a genetic score designed to predict educational attainment. Using data from two independent samples, we find that our genetic score significantly predicts years of schooling in both between-family and within-family analyses. We report three findings that should be of interest to scholars in the stratification and education fields. First, raw parent–child correlations in education may reflect one-sixth genetic transmission and five-sixths social inheritance. Second, conditional on a child’s genetic score, a parental genetic score has no statistically significant relationship to the child’s educational attainment. Third, the effects of offspring genotype do not seem to be moderated by measured sociodemographic variables at the parental level (but parent–child genetic interaction effects are significant). These results are consistent with the existence of two separate systems of ascription: genetic inheritance (a random lottery within families) and social inheritance (across-family ascription). We caution, however, that at the presently attainable levels of explanatory power, these results are preliminary and may change when better-powered genetic risk scores are developed.
Dalton Conley: Department of Sociology, New York University. E-mail: conley@nyu.edu.

Benjamin W. Domingue: Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado Boulder

David Cesarini: Center for Experimental Social Science, Department of Economics, New York University

Christopher Dawes: Wilff Family Department of Politics, New York University

Cornelius A. Rietveld: Erasmus School of Economics and Erasmus University Rotterdam Institute for Behavior and Biology, Erasmus University.

Jason D. Boardman: Institute of Behavioral Science and Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder.

 

 Supplemental Material 

  • Citation: Conley, Dalton, Benjamin W. Domingue, David Cesarini, Christopher Dawes, Cornelius A. Rietveld and Jason D. Boardman. 2015. “Is the Effect of Parental Education on Offspring Biased or Moderated by Genotype?” Sociological Science 2: 82-105.
  • Received: November 25, 2014
  • Accepted: December 26, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a6

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Gender Differences in the Formation of a Field of Study Choice Set

By on February 18, 2015 in Articles

Sigal Alon, Thomas A. DiPrete

Sociological Science, February 18, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a5

Abstract
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0 Citation

Women now surpass men in overall rates of college graduation in many industrialized countries, but sex segregation in fields of study persists. In a world where gender norms have changed but gender stereotypes remain strong, we argue that men’s and women’s attitudes and orientations toward fields of study in college are less constrained by gendered institutions than is the ranking of these fields. Accordingly, the sex segregation in the broader choice set of majors considered by college applicants may be lower than the sex segregation in their first preference field of study selection. With unique data on the broader set of fields considered by applicants to elite Israeli universities, we find support for this theory. The factors that drive the gender gap in the choice of field of study, in particular labor market earnings, risk aversion, and the sex composition of fields, are weaker in the broad set of choices than in the first choice. The result is less segregation in considered majors than in the first choice and, more broadly, different gender patterns in the decision process for the set of considered majors and for the first choice. We consider the theoretical implications of these results.
Sigal Alon: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University.  Email: salon1@post.tau.ac.il

Thomas A. DiPrete: Department of Sociology, Columbia University.    Email: tad61@columbia.edu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Alon, Sigal, and Thomas A. Diprete. 2015. “Gender Differences in the Formation of a Field Study Choice Set.” Sociological Science 2: 50-81.
  • Received: July 9, 2014
  • Accepted: September 16, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a5

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The Social Contagion of Antisocial Behavior

By on February 4, 2015 in Articles

Milena Tsvetkova, Michael W. Macy

Sociological Science, February 4, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a4

Abstract
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0 Citation

Previous research has shown that reciprocity can be contagious when there is no option to repay the benefactor and the recipient instead channels repayment toward strangers. In this study, we test whether retaliation can also be contagious. Extending previous work on “paying it forward,” we tested two mechanisms for the social contagion of antisocial behavior: generalized reciprocity (a victim of antisocial behavior is more likely to pay it forward) and third-party influence (an observer of antisocial behavior is more likely to emulate it). We used an online experiment with randomized trials to test the two hypothesized mechanisms and their interaction by manipulating the extent to which participants experienced and observed antisocial behavior. We found that people are more likely to harm others if they have been harmed and they are less likely to do so if they observe that others do not harm.
Milena Tsvetkova: Department of Sociology, Cornell University  E-mail: mvt9@cornell.edu

Michael W. Macy: Department of Sociology and Department of Information Science, Cornell University  Email: m.macy@cornell.edu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Tsvetkova, Milena, and Michael W. Macy. 2015. “The Social Contagion of Antisocial Behavior.” Sociological Science 2:36-49
  • Received: November 24, 2014
  • Accepted: January 5, 2015
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a4

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Studying Online Behavior: Comment and Rejoinder

By on January 21, 2015 in Articles

Kevin Lewis
Ashton Anderson et al.

Sociological Science, January 21, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a2
DOI 10.15195/v2.a3
Comment Rejoinder
0

Kevin Lewis: Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego
Email: lewis@usd.edu

  • Citation: Lewis, Kevin. 2015. “Studying Online Behavior: Comment on Anderson et al. 2014” Sociological Science 2: 20-31.
  • Received: September 19, 2014
  • Accepted: Spetember 29, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen L. Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a2 

Ashton Anderson: Department of Computer Science, Stanford University
E-mail: ashton@cs.stanford.edu

Sharad Goel: Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University
Email: scgoel@stanford.edu

Gregory Huber:  Department of Political Science, Yale University
Email: gregoryhuber@yale.edu

Neil Malhotra:  Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
Email: neilm@stanford.edu

Duncan J. Watts:  Microsoft Research
Email: duncan@microsoft.com

  • Citation: Anderson, Ashton, Sharad Goel, Gregory Huber, Neil Malhotra, and Duncan J. Watts. 2015. ” Rejoinder to Lewis” Sociological Science 2: 32-35.
  • Received: November 13, 2014
  • Accepted: November 17, 2014
  • Editor: Jesper Sørensen
  • DOI: 10/15195/v2.a3

Original Article 
 

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Disability and the Worlds of Welfare Capitalism

By on January 12, 2015 in Articles

Rourke O’Brien

Sociological Science, January 12, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a1

Abstract
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0 Citation

A higher proportion of working- age persons receive disability assistance in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands than in other European countries. Whereas current research emphasizes the connection between disability assistance and rates of labor force exit, to date there has been no exploration of how welfare state context influences individual self-reported disability. Using nationally representative data from 15 countries (n = 88, 478), I find that residents of generous welfare states are significantly more likely to report a disability net of self-reported health, sociodemographic, and labor force characteristics and, notably, that this association extends to younger and more educated workers. I argue that welfare state context may directly shape what it means to be disabled, which may have consequences for evaluations of welfare state performance and social exclusion.

Erratum: Versions downloaded prior to January 30th, 2015 omitted Figure 3. As a result, those versions also have incorrect pagination. Please use the current version.

Rourke O’Brien: Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Harvard University E-mail: robrien@hsph.harvard.edu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: O’Brien, Rourke L. 2015. “Disability and the Worlds of Welfare Capitalism” Sociological Science 2: 1-19.
  • Received: July 26, 2014
  • Accepted: September 20, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Stephen L. Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a1

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Birds of Different Feathers Cooperate Together: No Evidence for Altruism Homophily in Networks

By on December 22, 2014 in Articles

Brent Simpson, Matthew Brashears, Eric Gladstone, Ashley Harrell

Sociological Science, December 22, 2014
DOI 10.15195/v1.a30

Abstract
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0 Citation

Many evolutionary models of cooperation assume that altruists possess telltale signs of disposition that they use to find and selectively associate with each other. Prior research finds that people can detect these signs of altruism in strangers, but we do not yet know whether this results in altruism homophily. We argue that dispositions should matter less in repeated interactions, where behavior is based on reciprocity. As a consequence, we should not expect people to have accurate insight into the dispositions (egoism vs. altruism) of their friends, nor should we expect these relations to be characterized by altruism homophily. Three studies, employing diverse methodologies and measures, find no evidence of altruism homophily. Moreover, we find that people have poor insight into their friends’ altruism. We discuss the implications of these findings for the emergence of altruism and the role of embedded interactions in sustaining human cooperation.
Brent Simpson: University of South Carolina  E-mail: bts@sc.edu

Matthew Brashears: Cornell University  E-mail: meb299@cornell.edu

Eric Gladstone: Cornell University Email: eg366@cornell.edu

Ashley Harrell: University of South Carolina Email: harrella@mailbox.sc.edu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Simpson, Brent, Matthew Brashears, Eric Gladstone, and Ashley Harrell. 2014. “Birds of Different Feathers Cooperate Together: No Evidence for Altruism Homophily in Networks.” Sociological Science 1: 542-564.
  • Received: September 4, 2014
  • Accepted: October 11, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v1.a30

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Defending the Decimals: Why Foolishly False Precision Might Strengthen Social Science

By on December 8, 2014 in Articles

Jeremy Freese

Sociological Science, December 8, 2014
DOI 10.15195/v1.a29

Abstract
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Social scientists often report regression coefficients using more significant figures than are meaningful given measurement precision and sample size. Common sense says we should not do this. Yet, as normative practice, eliminating these extra digits introduces a more serious scientific problem when accompanied by other ascendant reporting practices intended to reduce social science’s long-standing emphasis on null hypothesis significance testing. Coefficient p-values can no longer be recovered to the degree of precision that p-values have been abundantly demonstrated to influence actual research practice. Developing methods for detecting and addressing systematically exaggerated effect sizes across collections of studies cannot be done effectively if p-values are hidden. Regarding what is preferable for scientific literature versus an individual study, the costs of false precision are therefore innocuous compared to alternatives that either encourage the continuation of practices known to exaggerate causal effects or thwart assessment of how much such exaggeration occurs.
Jeremy Freese: Northwestern University E-mail: jfreese@northwestern.edu

  • Citation: Freese, Jeremy. 2014.“Defending the Decimals: Why Foolishly False Precision Might Strengthen Social Science.” Sociological Science 1: 532-541.
  • Received: June 13, 2014
  • Accepted: July 3, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Delia Baldassarri
  • DOI: 10.15195/v1.a29

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