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Still a Small World? University Course Enrollment Networks before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic

By on January 21, 2021 in Articles

Kim A. Weeden, Benjamin Cornwell, Barum Park

Sociological Science January 21, 2021
10.15195/v8.a4

Abstract

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In normal times, the network ties that connect students on a college campus are an asset; during a pandemic, they can become a liability. Using prepandemic data from Cornell University, Weeden and Cornwell (2020) showed how co-enrollment in classes creates a “small world” network with high clustering, short path lengths, and multiple independent pathways connecting students. Using data from the fall of 2020, we assess how the structure of the co-enrollment network changed as Cornell, like many other institutions of higher education, adapted to the pandemic by adopting a hybrid instructional model. We find that under hybrid instruction, not only is a much smaller share of students in the face-to-face network, but the paths connecting student pairs in the network lengthened, the share of student pairs connected by three or fewer degrees of separation declined, clustering increased, and a greater share of co-enrollment ties occurred between students in the same field of study. The small world became both less connected and more fragmented.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


Kim A. Weeden: Department of Sociology, Cornell University
E-mail: kw74@cornell.edu

Benjamin Cornwell: Department of Sociology, Cornell University
E-mail: btc49@cornell.edu

Barum Park: Department of Sociology, Cornell University
E-mail: b.park@cornell.edu

Acknowledgments: Direct correspondence to Kim A. Weeden, Department of Sociology, Cornell University; kw74@cornell.edu. We acknowledge Cornell University’s administration for generously and promptly providing access to anonymized data.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Weeden, Kim A., Benjamin Cornwell, and Barum Park. 2021. “Still a Small World? University Course Enrollment Networks before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Sociological Science 8: 73-82.
  • Received: November 19, 2020
  • Accepted: December 18, 2020
  • Editors: Mario Small
  • DOI: 10.15195/v8.a4


0

Using Sequence Analysis to Quantify How Strongly Life Courses Are Linked

By on January 19, 2021 in Articles

Tim F. Liao

Sociological Science January 19, 2021
10.15195/v8.a3

Abstract

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Dyadic or, more generally, polyadic life course sequences can be more associated within dyads or polyads than between randomly assigned dyadic/polyadic member sequences, a phenomenon reflecting the life course principle of linked lives. In this article, I propose a method of U and V measures for quantifying and assessing linked life course trajectories in sequence data. Specifically, I compare the sequence distance between members of an observed dyad/polyad against a set of randomly generated dyads/polyads. TheU measure quantifies how much greater, in terms of a given distance measure, the members in a dyad/polyad resemble one another than do members of randomly generated dyads/polyads, and the V measure quantifies the degree of linked lives in terms of how much observed dyads/polyads outperform randomized dyads/polyads. I present a simulation study, an empirical study analyzing dyadic family formation sequence data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations, and a random seed sensitivity analysis in the online supplement. Through these analyses, I demonstrate the versatility and usefulness of the proposed method for quantifying linked lives analysis with sequence data. The method has broad applicability to sequence data in life course, business and organizational, and social network research.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Tim F. Liao: Department of Sociology, University of Illinois
E-mail: tfliao@illinois.edu

Acknowledgments: The author wishes to acknowledge the benefit of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP#160101063, chief investigators Irma Mooi-Reci and Mark Wooden, and partner investigator Tim Liao). The abovementioned project anticipated the need for the research reported in this article. The author would also like to thank Anette Fasang and Marcel Raab, who kindly shared the Longitudinal Study of Generations data used in their 2014 Demography publication, and Yifan Shen for comments.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Liao, Tim F. 2021. “Using Sequence Analysis to Quantify How Strongly Life Courses Are Linked.” Sociological Science 8: 48-72.
  • Received: November 5, 2020
  • Accepted: December 13, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v8.a3


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Which Data Fairly Differentiate? American Views on the Use of Personal Data in Two Market Settings

By on January 13, 2021 in Articles

Barbara Kiviat

Sociological Science January 13, 2021
10.15195/v8.a2

Abstract

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Corporations increasingly use personal data to offer individuals different products and prices. I present first-of-its-kind evidence about how U.S. consumers assess the fairness of companies using personal information in this way. Drawing on a nationally representative survey that asks respondents to rate how fair or unfair it is for car insurers and lenders to use various sorts of information—from credit scores to web browser history to residential moves—I find that everyday Americans make strong moral distinctions among types of data, even when they are told data predict consumer behavior (insurance claims and loan defaults, respectively). Open-ended responses show that people adjudicate fairness by drawing on shared understandings of whether data are logically related to the predicted outcome and whether the categories companies use conflate morally distinct individuals. These findings demonstrate how dynamics long studied by economic sociologists manifest in legitimating a new and important mode of market allocation.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Barbara Kiviat: Department of Sociology, Stanford University
E-mail: bkiviat@stanford.edu

Acknowledgments: For helpful comments, the author thanks Laura Adler, Alexandra Feldberg, Carly Knight, Rourke O’Brien, Kim Pernell, Alix Winter, and the editors of Sociological Science, as well as participants of the MIT-NYU Morals and Markets Workshop and the 2019 annual meetings of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics and American Sociological Association. For advice on the survey instrument used in this research, the author thanks Birny Birnbaum, Douglas Heller, Rajat Jain, Sam Luks, Katherine Morris, Gennady Stolyarov II, and the Dobbin Research Group. The author gratefully acknowledges funding from the National Science Foundation (Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award 1802286).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Kiviat, Barbara. 2021. “Which Data Fairly Differentiate? American Views on the Use of Personal Data in Two Market Settings.” Sociological Science 8: 26-47.
  • Received: September 26, 2020
  • Accepted: November 12, 2020
  • Editors: Gabriel Rossman, Ari Adut
  • DOI: 10.15195/v8.a2


0

How to Sell a Friend: Disinterest as Relational Work in Direct Sales

By on January 6, 2021 in Articles

Curtis Child

Sociological Science January 6, 2021
10.15195/v8.a1

Abstract

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Economic sociologists agree that monetary transactions are not necessarily antithetical to meaningful social relationships. However, they also accept that creating “good matches” between the two requires hard work. In this article, I contribute to the relational program in economic sociology by examining a common but understudied type of work in which one party to a relationship stands to benefit from it financially. I identify in these highly commercialized contexts a particular style of relational work anticipated, but not fully developed, in Pierre Bourdieu’s writings: disinterest. I argue that the disinterested style is manifest by economically implicated individuals who downplay their objectively apparent economic interests in order to preserve or encourage good feelings about a relationship that is meaningful to them. Drawing upon data from the direct selling industry, I show how distributors use disinterest to navigate their work.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Curtis Child: Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University
E-mail: cchild@byu.edu

Acknowledgments: Many thanks to Sage Christianson, Eric Dahlin, Krista Frederico, Ben Gibbs, Jon Jarvis, Stacey Johnson, Jane Lopez, Heather Shurtliff, and Greg Wurm for support and comments on earlier drafts.

  • Citation: Child, Curtis. 2021. “How to Sell a Friend: Disinterest as Relational Work in Direct Sales.” Sociological Science 8: 1-25.
  • Received: September 18, 2020
  • Accepted: October 20, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v8.a1


0

The Toll of Turnover: Network Instability, Well-Being, and Academic Effort in 56 Middle Schools

By on December 18, 2020 in Articles

Hana Shepherd, Adam Reich

Sociological Science December 18, 2020
10.15195/v7.a28

Abstract

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This article examines whether network instability—namely, the extent of turnover in a person’s social network over time—is a distinct social process that affects individual well-being. Using a unique two-wave network data set collected in a field experiment that involved more than 21,100 students across 56 middle schools, we find a strong negative association between network instability and well-being and academic effort at the individual level, independent of other types of network change effects. We assess whether the negative effect of network instability remains when the source of instability is exogenous, the result of participation in the randomized intervention. Network instability leads to negative consequences even in this context, negatively impacting students who directly participated in the intervention. For nonintervention students in treatment schools, the intervention stabilized their social networks. We discuss the implications of these findings for studies of social networks and collective action.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Hana Shepherd: Department of Sociology, Rutgers University
E-mail: hshepherd@sociology.rutgers.edu

Adam Reich: Department of Sociology, Columbia University
E-mail: ar3237@columbia.edu

Acknowledgments: We thank the members of the Columbia University Networks and Time Workshop for their feedback on this project. Amy Kate Bailey, Lauren Krivo, Emily Marshall, Christine Percheski, and LaTonya Trotter provided helpful feedback on early versions of the manuscript. The data set used in this article (available at Inter-University Consortium for Politics and Social Research, https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37070.v1) was collected by Elizabeth Levy Paluck and Hana Shepherd and was funded by grants from the W. T. Grant Foundation Scholars Program, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Princeton Educational Research Section, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Rutgers Research Council, the National Science Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Shepherd, Hana, and Adam Reich. 2020. “The Toll of Turnover: Network Instability, Well-Being, and Academic Effort in 56 Middle Schools.” Sociological Science 7: 663-691.
  • Received: August 12, 2020
  • Accepted: September 30, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Delia Baldassarri
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a28


0

Racial and Gender Disparities among Evicted Americans

By on December 16, 2020 in Articles

Peter Hepburn, Renee Louis, Matthew Desmond

Sociological Science December 16, 2020
10.15195/v7.a27

Abstract
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Drawing on millions of court records of eviction cases filed between 2012 and 2016 in 39 states, this study documents the racial and gender demographics of America’s evicted population. Black renters received a disproportionate share of eviction filings and experienced the highest rates of eviction filing and eviction judgment. Black and Latinx female renters faced higher eviction rates than their male counterparts. Black and Latinx renters were also more likely to be serially filed against for eviction at the same address. These findings represent the most comprehensive investigation to date of racial and gender disparities among evicted renters in the United States.
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Peter Hepburn: Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Rutgers University-Newark
E-mail: peter.hepburn@rutgers.edu

Renee Louis: Department of Sociology, Princeton University
E-mail: reneel@princeton.edu

Matthew Desmond: Department of Sociology, Princeton University
E-mail: matthew.desmond@princeton.edu

Acknowledgments: Members of the Eviction Lab at Princeton University offered valuable feedback on an early draft of this article. Sandra Park of the American Civil Liberties Union provided guidance on the structure of disparate impact claims and the Fair Housing Act. The Eviction Lab is funded by the JPB, Gates, and Ford Foundations as well as the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under award number P2CHD047879. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official views of the NIH.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Hepburn, Peter, Renee Louis, and Matthew Desmond. 2020. “Racial and Gender Disparities among Evicted Americans.” Sociological Science 7: 649-662.
  • Received: September 21, 2020
  • Accepted: November 14, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a27


2

Threshold Models of Collective Behavior II: The Predictability Paradox and Spontaneous Instigation

By on December 8, 2020 in Articles

Michael W. Macy, Anna Evtushenko

Sociological Science December 8, 2020
10.15195/v7.a26

Abstract
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Collective behavior can be notoriously hard to predict. We revisited a possible explanation suggested by Granovetter’s classic threshold model: collective behavior can unexpectedly fail, despite a group’s strong interest in the outcome, because of the sensitivity of cascades to small random perturbations in group composition and the distribution of thresholds. Paradoxically, we found that a small amount of randomness in individual behavior can make collective behavior less sensitive to these perturbations and therefore more predictable. We also examined conditions in which collective behavior unexpectedly succeeds despite the group’s weak interest in the outcome. In groups with an otherwise intractable start-up problem, individual randomness can lead to spontaneous instigation, making outcomes more sensitive to the strength of collective interests and therefore more predictable. These effects of chance behavior become much more pronounced as group size increases. Although randomness is often assumed to be a theoretically unimportant residual category, our findings point to the need to bring individual idiosyncrasy back into the study of collective behavior.
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Michael W. Macy: Department of Sociology and Department of Information Science, Cornell University
E-mail: mwm14@cornell.edu

Anna Evtushenko: Department of Information Science, Cornell University
E-mail: ae392@cornell.edu

Acknowledgments: We thank Jon Kleinberg, Dana Warmsley, and Danielle Toupo for contributing ideas and technical suggestions. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (SES 1756822, “Testing Unpredictability with MultipleWorlds”). Correspondence should be sent to Michael W. Macy, Department of Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Macy, Michael W., and Anna Evtushenko. 2020. “Threshold Models of Collective Behavior II: The Predictability Paradox and Spontaneous Instigation.” Sociological Science 7: 628-648.
  • Received: October 18, 2020
  • Accepted: November 1, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a26


0

The Inheritance of Race Revisited: Childhood Wealth and Income and Black–White Disadvantages in Adult Life Chances

By on December 1, 2020 in Articles

David Brady, Ryan Finnigan, Ulrich Kohler, Joscha Legewie

Sociological Science December 1, 2020
10.15195/v7.a25

Abstract
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1 Citation


Vast racial inequalities continue to prevail across the United States and are closely linked to economic resources. One particularly prominent argument contends that childhood wealth accounts for black–white (BW) disadvantages in life chances. This article analyzes how much childhood wealth and childhood income mediate BW disadvantages in adult life chances with Panel Study of Income Dynamics and Cross-National Equivalent File data on children from the 1980s and 1990s who were 30+ years old in 2015. Compared with previous research, we exploit longer panel data, more comprehensively assess adult life chances with 18 outcomes, and measure income and wealth more rigorously. We find large BW disadvantages in most outcomes. Childhood wealth and income mediate a substantial share of most BW disadvantages, although there are several significant BW disadvantages even after adjusting for childhood wealth and income. The evidence mostly contradicts the prominent claim that childhood wealth is more important than childhood income. Indeed, the analyses mostly show that childhood income explains more of BW disadvantages and has larger standardized coefficients than childhood wealth. We also show how limitations in prior wealth research explain why our conclusions differ. Replication with the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a variety of robustness checks support these conclusions.
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David Brady: School of Public Policy, University of California, Riverside, and WZB Berlin Social Science Center
E-mail: dbrady@ucr.edu

Ryan Finnigan: Department of Sociology, University of California, Davis
E-mail: rfinnigan@ucdavis.edu

Ulrich Kohler: Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Potsdam
E-mail: ukohler@uni-potsdam.de

Joscha Legewie: Department of Sociology, Harvard University
E-mail: jlegewie@fas.harvard.edu

Acknowledgments: Direct correspondence to David Brady, School of Public Policy, University of California, INTS 4133, 900 University Ave., Riverside, CA 92521; email:dbrady@ucr.edu. The last three authors are listed alphabetically and contributed equally. This article benefitted from presentations at the New York University–Abu Dhabi Social Research and Public Policy seminar; University of California, Santa Barbara, Broom Center for Demography; the PAA meetings; the University of California Riverside Applied/Development Economics Brown Bag; theWorking Groups on Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility and Movements, Organizations, and Markets in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles; and the WZBUSP Writing Workshop. We appreciate suggestions from Sociological Science reviewers and editor Jesper Sorensen, Thomas Biegert, Agnes Blome, Irene Boeckmann, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Tyson Brown, Mareike Buenning, Rich Carpiano, Joe Cummins, Chenoa Flippen, Sanjiv Gupta, Martin Hällsten, Lena Hipp, Sabine Huebgen, Bob Kaestner, Sasha Killewald, Nadia Kim, Matthew Mahutga, Fabian Pfeffer, Emanuela Struffolino, Florencia Torche, Zachary Van Winkle, Andres Villarreal, and Hanna Zagel.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Brady, David, Ryan Finnigan, Ulrich Kohler, and Joscha Legewie. 2020. “The Inheritance of Race Revisited: Childhood Wealth and Income and Black–White Disadvantages in Adult Life Chances.” Sociological Science 7: 599-627.
  • Received: August 7, 2020
  • Accepted: September 24, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a25


1

Who Supports Global Cooperation? Cooperative Internationalism at the Intersection of Social Class and Economic Development

By on November 23, 2020 in Articles

Brandon Gorman, Charles Seguin

Sociological Science November 23, 2020
10.15195/v7.a24

Abstract
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Throughout the twentieth century, the world has seen a rapid increase in global social, economic, and political integration. According to many studies, attitudes toward international organizations and international cooperation have also grown more positive, particularly among elites and in the affluent, densely connected countries of the global core. Using survey responses on 18 different questions from six cross-national attitude surveys, we find that “cooperative-internationalist” attitudes, though widely popular, are no more common in the global core than on the periphery. Furthermore, we find elites are more likely to hold proglobal attitudes than non-elites only in wealthy core countries. These results indicate that scholars may have incorrectly assumed that (modest) class differences in cooperative-internationalist attitudes in Western countries generalize globally, both within and between countries. We conclude with a call to theorize cooperative internationalism as a function of how different groups of people interpret their own costs and benefits of global cooperation.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Brandon Gorman: Department of Sociology, University at Albany, SUNY
E-mail: bgorman@albany.edu

Charles Seguin: Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State University
E-mail: czs792@psu.edu

Acknowledgments: The authors are listed in alphabetical order; each contributed equally. We thank Daniel Laurison, Eric Schoon, and members of the Culture and Politics Workshop
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for comments and guidance on earlier drafts. Mayuko Nakatsuka and Elise Wolff provided able research assistance for this project.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Gorman, Brandon, and Charles Seguin. 2020. “Who Supports Global Cooperation? Cooperative Internationalism at the Intersection of Social Class and Economic Development.” Sociological Science 7: 570-598.
  • Received: August 27, 2020
  • Accepted: October 14, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Delia Baldassarri
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a24


0

Concept Class Analysis: A Method for Identifying Cultural Schemas in Texts

By on November 9, 2020 in Articles

Marshall A. Taylor, Dustin S. Stoltz

Sociological Science November 9, 2020
10.15195/v7.a23

Abstract
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Recent methodological work at the intersection of culture, cognition, and computational methods has drawn attention to how cultural schemas can be “recovered” from social survey data. Defining cultural schemas as slowly learned, implicit, and unevenly distributed relational memory structures, researchers show how schemas—or rather, the downstream consequences of people drawing upon them—can be operationalized and measured from domain-specific survey modules. Respondents can then be sorted into “classes” on the basis of the schema to which their survey response patterns best align. In this article, we extend this “schematic class analysis” method to text data. We introduce concept class analysis (CoCA): a hybrid model that combines word embeddings and correlational class analysis to group documents across a corpus by the similarity of schemas recovered from them. We introduce the CoCA model, illustrate its validity and utility using simulations, and conclude with considerations for future research and applications.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Marshall A. Taylor: Department of Sociology, New Mexico State University
E-mail: mtaylor2@nmsu.edu

Dustin S. Stoltz: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Lehigh University
E-mail: dss219@lehigh.edu

Acknowledgments: A replication repository for this article can be found at: https://github.com/Marshall-Soc/CoCA. We thank Jesper Sørensen, the deputy editor, and the consulting editor for their thoughtful comments on this article.

  • Citation: Taylor, Marshall A., and Dustin S. Stoltz. 2020. “Concept Class Analysis: A Method for Identifying Cultural Schemas in Texts.” Sociological Science 7:544-569.
  • Received: July 31, 2020
  • Accepted: October 4, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a23


0

Microaggressions in the United States

By on November 2, 2020 in Articles

Kiara Wyndham Douds, Michael Hout

Sociological Science November 2, 2020
10.15195/v7.a22

Abstract
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“Microaggressions” is the term scholars and cultural commentators use to describe the ways that racism and other systems of oppression are upheld in everyday interactions. Although prior research has documented the types of microaggressions that individuals experience, we have lacked representative data on the prevalence of microaggressions in the general population. We introduce and evaluate five new survey items from the 2018 General Social Survey intended to capture five types of microaggressions. We assess the prevalence of each microaggression as well as a constructed microaggression scale across a key set of sociodemographic characteristics. We find that black Americans experience more microaggressions than other racialized groups, twice the rate of the general public for some types. Younger people report more microaggressions than older people. Women are more likely to report some types of microaggressions, and men others. Experiencing microaggressions is associated with an array of negative physical and mental health outcomes.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Kiara Wyndham Douds: Department of Sociology, New York University
E-mail: kiara.douds@nyu.edu

Michael Hout: Department of Sociology, New York University
E-mail: mikehout@nyu.edu

Acknowledgments: This research was conducted with institutional support from New
York University and no external funding.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Douds, Kiara Wyndham, and Michael Hout. 2020. “Microaggressions in the United States.” Sociological Science 7: 528-543.
  • Received: September 11, 2020
  • Accepted: September 25, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a22


0

Sexual Identity Disclosure among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Individuals

By on October 19, 2020 in Articles

Long Doan, Trenton D. Mize

Sociological Science October 19, 2020
10.15195/v7.a21

Abstract
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Most research on sexual prejudice explicitly or implicitly assumes that an individual’s sexual orientation identity is known to observers. However, there has been little large-scale survey evidence examining differential rates of disclosure among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals, and there remains much to be studied as to why and when LGB individuals choose to disclose their sexual identity to others. Using data from a nationally representative sample of LGB Americans (N=1,085), we assess the contexts and conditions under which LGB individuals disclose their sexual identities. Results show that bisexual women and men are significantly less likely to disclose their sexual identity across several important social domains, such as family and the workplace. This disclosure gap is partially explained by measures of identity commitment but surprisingly not by measures of perceived social acceptance. We discuss implications of these findings for sexuality and identity research.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Long Doan: Department of Sociology, University of Maryland
E-mail: longdoan@umd.edu

Trenton D. Mize: Department of Sociology and Advanced Methodologies, Purdue University
E-mail: tmize@purdue.edu

Acknowledgments: We thank Brian Powell, Lisa R. Miller, and Brian T. Connor for excellent suggestions on various drafts of this paper. Parts of this paper were presented at the Indiana University Social Psychology, Health, and the Life Course seminar and the 2017 ASA Meetings. We thank audience members in both venues for their valuable comments. We are also grateful to the Pew Research Center for collecting the data used in our analyses. Partial funding for open access was provided by the UMD Libraries’ Open Access Publishing Fund. Opinions, findings, and ‘conclusions presented in this paper are ours and do not necessarily represent the views of any of the organizations or individuals above.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Doan, Long, and Trenton D. Mize. 2020. “Sexual Identity Disclosure among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Individuals.” Sociological Science 7: 504-527.
  • Received: August 19, 2020
  • Accepted: September 19, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a21


0

Generalized Markovian Quantity Distribution Systems: Social Science Applications

By on October 8, 2020 in Articles

Noah E. Friedkin, Anton V. Proskurnikov

Sociological Science October 8, 2020
10.15195/v7.a20

Abstract
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We propose a model of Markovian quantity flows on connected networks that relaxes several properties of the standard compartmental Markov process. The motivation of our generalization are social science applications of the standard model that do not comport with its steady state predictions. The proposed generalization relaxes the predictions that every node belonging to the same nontrivial strong component of a network must acquire the same fraction of its members’ initial quantities and that the sink component(s) of the network must absorb all of the system’s available initial quantity. For example, when applied to refugee flows from a nation in chaos to other nations on a network with one or more sink nations, the standard model predicts that all the refugees will be eventually located in the sink(s) of the network and none that will permanently locate themselves in the nations along the paths to the sink(s). We illustrate this and several other social science applications to which our proposed model is applicable.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Noah E. Friedkin: Department of Sociology and the Center for Control, Dynamical Systems, and Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara
E-mail: friedkin@soc.ucsb.edu

Anton V. Proskurnikov: Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy, and the Institute for Problems of Mechanical Engineering of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
E-mail: anton.p.1982@ieee.org

  • Citation: Friedkin, Noah E., and Anton V. Proskurnikov. 2020. “Generalized Markovian Quantity Distribution Systems: Social Science Applications.” Sociological Science 7: 487-503.
  • Received: September 3, 2020
  • Accepted: September 10, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a20


0

Interactions between Polygenic Scores and Environments: Methodological and Conceptual Challenges

By on September 21, 2020 in Articles

Benjamin W. Domingue, Sam Trejo, Emma Armstrong-Carter, Elliot M. Tucker-Drob

Sociological Science September 21, 2020
10.15195/v7.a19

Abstract
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Interest in the study of gene–environment interaction has recently grown due to the sudden availability of molecular genetic data—in particular, polygenic scores—in many long-running longitudinal studies. Identifying and estimating statistical interactions comes with several analytic and inferential challenges; these challenges are heightened when used to integrate observational genomic and social science data. We articulate some of these key challenges, provide new perspectives on the study of gene–environment interactions, and end by offering some practical guidance for conducting research in this area. Given the sudden availability of well-powered polygenic scores, we anticipate a substantial increase in research testing for interaction between such scores and environments. The issues we discuss, if not properly addressed, may impact the enduring scientific value of gene–environment interaction studies.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Benjamin W. Domingue: Graduate School of Education, Stanford University
E-mail: bdomingu@stanford.edu

Sam Trejo: La Follette School of Public Affairs & Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin–Madison
E-mail: sam.trejo@wisc.edu

Emma Armstrong-Carter: Graduate School of Education, Stanford University
E-mail: emmaac@stanford.edu

Elliot M. Tucker-Drob: Department of Psychology and Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
E-mail: tuckerdrob@utexas.edu

Acknowledgments: This work has been supported by the Russell Sage Foundation and the Ford Foundation (grant 96-17-04). S.T. was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant DGE-1656518) and the Institute of Education Sciences (grant R305B140009). E.M.T.-D. was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grants R01AG054628, R01MH120219, and R01HD083613) and by the Jacobs Foundation. Any opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and should not be construed as representing the opinions of any foundation. The authors would like to thank Jason Boardman and Jason Fletcher for comments on an early draft of this article.

  • Citation: Domingue, Benjamin W., Sam Trejo, Emma Armstrong-Carter, and Elliot M. Tucker-Drob. 2020. “Interactions between Polygenic Scores and Environments: Methodological and Conceptual Challenges.” Sociological Science 7: 465-486.
  • Received: June 5, 2020
  • Accepted: August 24, 2020
  • Editors: Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a19


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Bounded Solidarity in Cross-National Encounters: Individuals Share More with Others from Poor Countries but Trust Them Less

By on September 8, 2020 in Articles

Felix Bader, Marc Keuschnigg

Sociological Science September 8, 2020
10.15195/v7.a17

Abstract
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Globalization makes cross-national encounters increasingly common. Hesitant cooperation across national, ethnic, and cultural boundaries, however, undercuts the microlevel stabilizers of global integration and, most importantly, the willingness to share with and place trust in members of other social groups. In a 109-country online experiment, we convey information on interaction partners’ nationalities to indicate membership in a broader in- or out-group, cultural distance, and perceived material neediness—or status differences more generally—to 1,674 participants in incentivized games of generosity (dictator game) and trust (trust game). We find consistent evidence for in-group favoritism and—against this benchmark—demonstrate that individuals across the globe share more with but place less trust in interaction partners from poor countries and that cultural distance moderates this status effect.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Felix Bader: Department of Social Sciences, Technical University of Kaiserslautern
E-mail: felix.bader@sowi.uni-kl.de

Marc Keuschnigg: Institute for Analytical Sociology, Linköping University
E-mail: marc.keuschnigg@liu.se

Acknowledgments: We thank Hanna Nau, Leona Przechomski, and Fabian Thiel for excellent research assistance and Amelie Aidenberger, Johanna Gereke, Wojtek Przepiorka, and Heiko Rauhut for discussions. This research received funding from the German Research Foundation (KE 2020/2-1). M.K. further acknowledges the Swedish Research Council (2018-05170). Address correspondence to felix.bader@sowi.uni-kl.de.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Bader, Felix, and Marc Keuschnigg. 2020. “Bounded Solidarity in Cross-National Encounters: Individuals Share More with Others from Poor Countries but Trust Them Less.” Sociological Science 7: 415-432.
  • Received: June 5, 2020
  • Accepted: July 22, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Delia Baldassarri
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a17


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Signs of the End of the Paradox? Cohort Shifts in Smoking and Obesity and the Hispanic Life Expectancy Advantage

By on August 31, 2020 in Articles

Jennifer Van Hook, Michelle L. Frisco, Carlyn E. Graham

Sociological Science August 31, 2020
10.15195/v7.a16

Abstract
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Hispanics’ paradoxical life expectancy advantage over whites has largely been attributed to Hispanics’ lower smoking prevalence. Yet across birth cohorts, smoking prevalence has declined for whites and Hispanics, and Hispanics’ obesity prevalence has increased substantially. Our analysis uses data from the 1989 to 2014 National Health Interview Survey and Linked Mortality files to investigate whether these trends could lead Hispanics to lose their comparative mortality advantage. Simulations suggest that foreign-born Hispanics’ life expectancy advantage over whites is likely to persist because cohort trends in smoking and obesity largely offset each other. However, U.S.-born Hispanics’ life expectancy advantage over whites is likely to diminish or disappear entirely as the 1970s and 1980s birth cohorts age due to increases in obesity prevalence and the relatively high mortality risks of those who are obese. Results have important implications for understanding the future of immigrants’ health advantages and ethnic disparities in health.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Jennifer Van Hook: Department of Sociology, Penn State University
E-mail: jxv21@psu.edu

Michelle L. Frisco: Department of Sociology, Penn State University
E-mail: mlf112@psu.edu

Carlyn E. Graham: Department of Sociology, Penn State University
E-mail: ceg248@psu.edu

Acknowledgments: We are grateful to Virginia Chang for helpful comments in her role as a discussant of this article at the 2019 meeting of the Population Association of America. We also acknowledge assistance provided by the Population Research Institute at Penn State University, which is supported by an infrastructure grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD041025).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Van Hook, Jennifer, Michelle L. Frisco, and Carlyn E. Graham. 2020. “Signs of the End of the Paradox? Cohort Shifts in Smoking and Obesity and the Hispanic Life Expectancy Advantage.” Sociological Science 7: 391-414.
  • Received: June 13, 2020
  • Accepted: July 20, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a16


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