Reducing STD/HIV Stigmatizing Attitudes Through Community Popular Opinion Leaders in Chinese Markets

Reducing STDs and HIV/AIDS incidence requires campaigns designed to change knowledge, attitudes, and practices of risky sexual behavior. In China, a significant obstacle to such changes is the stigma associated with these diseases. Thus 1 campaign intervention strategy is to train credible community leaders to discuss these issues in everyday social venues. This study tested the effectiveness of such an approach on reducing HIV/AIDS stigma, across 2 years, from a sample of over 4,500 market vendors, in 3 conditions. Results showed an increasing growth in market communication about intervention messages, and concomitant declines in stigmatizing attitudes, across time, with the greatest changes in community popular opinion leaders, significant changes in intervention nonopinion leaders, and little change in the control markets.     

Audience Design in Multiparty Conversation

How do speakers design what they say in order to communicate effectively with groups of addressees who vary in their background knowledge of the topic at hand? Prior findings indicate that when a speaker addresses a pair of listeners with discrepant knowledge, that speakers Aim Low, designing their utterances for the least knowledgeable of the two addressees. Here, we test the hypothesis that speakers will depart from an Aim Low approach in order to efficiently communicate with larger groups of interacting partners. Further, we ask whether the cognitive demands of tracking multiple conversational partners' perspectives places limitations on successful audience design. We find that speakers can successfully track information about what up to four of their partners do and do not know in conversation. When addressing groups of 3–4 addressees at once, speakers design language based on the combined knowledge of the group. These findings point to an audience design process that simultaneously represents the perspectives of multiple other individuals and combines these representations in order to design utterances that strike a balance between the different needs of the individuals within the group.     

The decision to check in multialternative choices and limited sensitivity to default

Given the rapid proliferation of smartphone applications and data aggregation websites, in many situations people can use decision aids to guide their choices. For example, they may consider whether to use a navigation device to check the fastest route or whether to use a price comparison website to find the cheapest deal. In what circumstances will subjects use a costly comparison decision aid (which I refer to as “checking”) to choose for them? In six studies, I investigate the impact of the number of available alternatives and checking's attractiveness on the decision to check. While at first increasing the attractiveness of checking led to higher checking rates, a further increase in the number of available alternatives (and thus checking's attractiveness) did not increase the checking rate. Surprisingly, even when checking had a 40% higher expected value compared with not checking, the observed checking rate was below 45%, contrary to risk and ambiguity aversion predictions. Furthermore, labeling the checking alternative as the default had no impact on its choice rate. I find large individual differences in decisions to check. Surprisingly, subjects' initial decisions had high predictive power over their subsequent checking rates, even after 100 trials with full feedback. I propose two simple learning models that capture well the aggregated results.     

The MMPI and clinical diagnosis: a comparison of classification system outcomes with discharge diagnoses

This study examined the agreement or congruence rate between clinical-discharge diagnoses rendered by a psychiatrist, and admission and discharge MMPI-derived diagnoses from four diagnostic classification systems that have been developed for the MMPI. The four classification systems included a simple high-point code based on the most elevated clinical scale in the profile, the Henrichs revision of the Meehl-Dahlstrom rules, the Goldberg equations, and a system developed by Lachar. Subjects consisted of 150 patients selected from a larger pool of patients who had completed a 9-week adult residential treatment program. Overall, this study yielded modest hit rates between 26% and 34% for MMPI-derived diagnoses and psychiatric diagnoses across the various classification systems. In addition, stability of MMPI-based diagnoses from admission to discharge assessments ranged from 48% to 51% depending on the classification system employed. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the use of the MMPI in patient diagnosis. It is recommended that the MMPI be used in conjunction with other sources of clinical and test information in deriving clinical diagnoses.     

A comparison of alternative theoretical approaches to smoking cessation and relapse

Two theoretical approaches to smoking cessation were compared. Participants were randomly assigned either to (a) a traditional treatment program that used contingency contracting and that emphasized the necessity for absolute abstinence (AA) or to (b) a relapse-prevention (RP) treatment that focused on gradual acquisition of nonsmoking skills. It was hypothesized that participants in the RP treatment would be less successful initially but would have better maintenance skills and thus would relapse less during a 1-year follow-up period. Each program was evaluated in two formats: group-based treatment and self-help materials. Results indicated comparable 1-year abstinence rates for all treatments, although more participants dropped out of the self-help formats. Participants in the RP intervention were more likely to lapse sooner after quitting and were more likely to quit again during the 1-year maintenance period. Exploratory analyses of successful participants suggested that women were more successful in the RP program and that men had greater success with the AA approach.     

Aggregate item response analysis

A stochastic postulate is given for the multiple-item, successive-intervals scaling of populations. The logistic equivalent of this postulate provides an aggregate item response model in which a unidimensional submodel may be nested. This reduction provides a subtractive conjoint measurement of several items and stimuli on the same latent scale. Generalized-least-squares methods are used to estimate and test the multiple-item model, and its unidimensional reduction, on aggregate survey responses. The entire procedure is illustrated with an analysis of semantic-differential attitude data. This analysis exhibits an item selection procedure that is applicable to various social constructs.The authors dedicate this paper to the memory and contributions of Clyde Coombs.The programming and data analyses for the present paper were carried out by José Ventura of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Jerry Meiten of the Department of Statistics, University of Florida.The study was also supported by the College of Business Administration, University of Florida, and the Faculty of Social Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.     

Effects of observing competitive and violent versions of a sport

Males were randomly assigned to view either (1) a film clip featuring hockey fights or (2) a film of nonaggressive hockey action or (3) a no-film control condition after having first been angered or treated politely by an experimental confederate. The dependent variable was represented by a measure of aggressive mood and a behavioral measure of retaliatory aggression. Analyses revealed that both angered and nonangered subjects exhibited an increase in aggressive mood following exposure to the fight film. However, the analysis involving retaliatory aggression against the confederate yielded an anger x film interaction. While angered subjects were more aggressive than nonangered, only angered subjects retaliated against the confederate after viewing the fight film. The results were discussed in terms of Berkowitz’s (1974) aggressive cue theory. A version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, Edmonton, Canada, November 1987.