Self-Selection, Church Attendance, and Local Civic Participation

Prior research has shown that church attendance affects voting participation, but has a negative or no effect on more demanding forms of political participation. I argue that this differential for nonelectoral activity partially results from biases in how scholars conceptualize and analyze church attendance variables. To properly measure the influence of church attendance on nonelectoral participation, scholarship needs to account for self-selection biases that hinder accurate analyses. Consistent with the literature, a selection model finds that once fundamentalism's motivating effect is considered, church attendance plays no role in a respondent's participation in local government meetings. The present work provides a partial explanation for why attendance has no effect on more demanding political activity. These findings demonstrate that scholarship should focus attention on prior factors that influence congregants' attendance decisions.     

Using Weber and Foucault to understand the evolution of motivations in a Tibetan Buddhist organisation in Scotland

The purpose of this paper is to provide a case study of the evolution of motivations amongst participants engaged with the Tibetan Buddhist organisation, Rokpa, in Scotland. In doing so, this paper points to the utility of the Max Weber's concept of authority and Michel Foucault's concept of the discourse for understanding this evolution and sheds further light on the subjectivisation thesis in relation to understanding the dual processes of secularisation and sacralisation in contemporary, global society.     

Finite basis problems and results for quasivarieties

Let be a finite collection of finite algebras of finite signature such that SP( ) has meet semi-distributive congruence lattices. We prove that there exists a finite collection ₁ of finite algebras of the same signature, , such that SP( ₁) is finitely axiomatizable.We show also that if , then SP( ₁) is finitely axiomatizable. We offer new proofs of two important finite basis theorems of D. Pigozzi and R. Willard. Our actual results are somewhat more general than this abstract indicates.While working on this paper, the first author was partially supported by the Hungarian National Foundation for Scientific Research (OTKA) grant no. T37877 and the second author was supported by the US National Science Foundation grant no. DMS-0245622.Special issue of Studia Logica: Algebraic Theory of Quasivarieties Presented by M. E. Adams, K. V. Adaricheva, W. Dziobiak, and A. V. Kravchenko     

Increased sensitivity to differentially diagnostic answers using familiar materials: Implications for confirmation bias

Researchers have recently pointed out that neither biased testing nor biased evaluation of hypotheses necessitates confirmation bias--defined here as systematic overconfidence in a focal hypothesis--but certain testing/evaluation combinations do. One such combination is (1) a tendency to ask about features that are either very likely or very unlikely under the focal hypothesis (extremity bias) and (2) a tendency to treat confirming and disconfirming answers as more similar in terms of their diagnosticity (or informativeness) than they really are. However, in previous research showing the second tendency, materials that are highly abstract and unfamiliar have been used. Two experiments demonstrated that using familiar materials led participants to distinguish much better between the differential diagnosticity of confirming and disconfirming answers. The conditions under which confirmation bias is a serious concern might be quite limited.     

Recommendations implicit in policy defaults

Should people be considered organ donors after their death unless they request not to be, or should they not be considered donors unless they request to be? Because people tend to stay with the default in a variety of domains, policymakers' choice of default has large and often important effects. In the United States, where the organ-donation policy default is "not a donor," about 5,000 people die every year because there are too few donors. Four experiments examined two domains-being an organ donor and saving for retirement-where default effects occur and have important implications. The results indicate that default effects occur in part because policymakers' attitudes can be revealed through their choice of default, and people perceive the default as indicating the recommended course of action. Policymakers need to be aware of the implicit messages conveyed by their choice of default.     

Effects of setting and number of observations on generalizability of parent-child interactions in childhood obesity treatment

The generalizability of behaviors across observational conditions is a critical issue in behavioral assessment. Generalizability theory was used to examine two aspects of audio recorded parent-child interactions recorded over 6 days of home measurement and 1 day of laboratory measurement in a behavioral treatment program for childhood obesity. Families audiotaped parent-child home meetings during which they reviewed self-monitored diet and exercise records that were coded for the following types of interactions: praise statements, negative statements, prompts for new behaviors, and statements promoting problem solving. A similar meeting was audiotaped in our laboratory. The first question explored was the number of measurements needed to generalize to the universe of the six home measures. Results showed an increase in generalizability over measurements for each behavioral category. Using generalizability coefficients of .60 or more, praise, negative comments and prompts, respectively, could be reliably observed based on 1, 4, or 4 days of measurement. Second, the effects of setting (laboratory versus home) were assessed for 1 day of measurement in each environment. Again using generalizability coefficients of .60, generalizability analysis showed that the lab setting could not be generalized to the home setting based on 1 day of measurement, with generalizability coefficients ranging from .27 for negative comments to .57 for praise. Results suggest that 4 days of behavioral assessment in the home can be used to establish generalizable data for all the dependent measures studied. However, generalizability coefficients suggested that 1 day of laboratory measurement was not adequate to generalize to typical home behavior.This research was supported in part by Grant NIH HD 23713 awarded to the third author.     

A new technique for testing the eliciting effects of fish color patterns

This new technique provides an alternative to the use of stimulus fish with paint applied to their body surfaces or fish dummies for testing the eliciting effects of different color patterns. The stimulus fish are fitted with thin plastic suits, with the pattern to be tested painted on each suit. Small numbers of stimulus fish are required. They adjust readily to the suit and rarely show agitated movements during testing. Suited-up stimulus fish may better simulate the appearance of free-living conspecifics than dummy fish that show no breathing activity or unassisted swimming movements. At the same time, suited-up fish provide some variation in stimulus characteristics particularly relative to swimming movement.