Protestantism and Child Mortality in Northeast Brazil, 2000

The recent growth of Pentecostal Protestantism in Latin America has called attention to the social consequences of religious conversion. Ethnographic studies find that affiliation with Pentecostal churches is associated with attitudinal and behavioral transformations that modify gender relations, enhance the economic viability of the household, and endow families with social capital that can be mobilized during periods of economic stress, sickness, and emergency. The nature of the changes suggests that they may improve the welfare of infants and young children within the family. To explore this proposition, we use sample data from the 2000 demographic census in the Brazilian northeast to estimate the probability of death among children born to women 20 to 34 years of age. The findings show that, other things being equal, the death rate among children born to Protestant women is around 10 percent lower compared to the death rate among children born to Catholic women. We further disaggregate Protestants into "traditional" (e.g., Baptist, Presbyterian) and "Pentecostal" (e.g., Assembly of God) subgroups, and show that the mortality-reducing effect is greater among historical compared to Pentecostal Protestants. No mortality effects were associated with membership in neo-Pentecostal churches.     

The Marketing of Parochial Schooling Modeled as an Exchange Process

An old adage has it that “necessity is the mother of invention.” This aphorism may in part account for the increased interest of church school educators in the discipline of marketing as an aid in stimulating demand for their product. Drawing from social exchange theory, the framework below explores the link between sociology, marketing, and education in explaining why people choose education in parochial schools.     

The world looks better together: How close others enhance our visual experiences

People derive a number of benefits from sharing experiences with close others. However, most research on this topic has been restricted to forms of sharing involving explicit socializing, including verbal communication, emotion expression, and behavioral interaction. In two studies, these complexities were eliminated to find out whether merely experiencing visual stimuli (photographs) simultaneously with a close other—without communicating—enhances people's evaluations of those stimuli relative to coexperiencing the same stimuli with a stranger or alone. Compared to when viewers were alone, visual scenes were enhanced (better liked and seen as more real) when coexperienced with a close other and were liked less when coexperienced with a stranger. Implications for close relationships are discussed.     

Explaining Support for Violating Out‐Group Human Rights in Conflict: Attitudes Toward Principles of Human Rights,Trust in the Out‐Group,and Intergroup Contact1

A public atmosphere that supports violating the human rights of out‐group members can enable or even encourage enacting such violations. We present a model that explains such support in terms of 2 underlying components: (a) support for violating general principles of human rights (SVHRG); and (b) lack of trust toward the specific out‐group. This model was successful (R² = .47) in predicting Jewish‐Israeli support for violating human rights of Palestinians (SVHRP). Structural equation modeling indicated that, consistent with our hypotheses, SVHRG and distrust of Palestinians each significantly contributed to predicting SVHRP; and contact with Palestinians and religiosity each significantly contributed to predicting trust in Palestinians, with more contact predicting higher trust and more religiosity predicting lower trust.     

TELECOMMUTING TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATIONS: A WITHIN- AND BETWEEN-SUBJECTS LONGITUDINAL FIELD STUDY

This research examines the impact of technology design on the acceptance and long-term use of telecommuting systems. Specifically, we compare employee acceptance and sustained use of a traditional system designed based on the common "desktop metaphor," with a virtual-reality system designed to enhance social richness and telepresence. This 1-year study incorporated a within- and between-subjects examination of 527 employees across 3 locations of a large organization. Results showed much higher telecommuter acceptance and use of the virtual-reality system. Strong support emerged for the hypotheses that higher social richness and higher telepresence leads to higher telecommuter motivation and higher sustained use of the system.