Locus of control and delinquency

A sample of delinquent and nondelinquent male adolescents was assessed with respect to locus of control and intellectual achievement responsibility. Data were also gathered concerning age, family size, birth order, socioeconomic status, race, and school grade. Results were subjected to a multivariate analysis and showed support for a multidimensional model of locus of control. There was no difference in expectancy of control for negative academic events between delinquents and nondelinquents. In general, birth order and delinquency were the two most important determinants of locus of control. Results are discussed in terms of previous literature on locus of control with particular consideration paid to expectations of control.     

Toward a science of history

The scientific status of History was compared to other sciences in the critical areas event selection, investigative operations, and theory construction. First, in terms of events studied, history is regarded as a quasi-scientific study of past events. However, viewed from the science of behavior's perspective of what historians actually do, history becomes a study of current records. As a study of currently existing records, not the non-existent past, history has potential to become a science. Second, like other scientists, historians may undertake manipulative investigations: they can locate the presence and absence of a condition in records and thereby determine its relation to other recorded phenomena. A limitation has been the lack of quantification that results from emphasis on the uniqueness of things rather than on their communality. Scientific training would facilitate viewing similar things as instances of a larger class that could be counted. Another limitation that cannot be easily overcome is the inability to produce raw data. This limitation has created problems in theoretical practices, the third area of comparison, because theoretical constructions have frequently been substituted for missing data. This problem too could be reduced through scientific training, particularly in other behavior sciences. An authentic science of history is possible.     

Body size as a determinant of aggression during heterosexual encounters in hormone-treated gonadectomized pigs

Aggressive and sexual behavior was studied in 5-minute paired encounters between testosterone-treated castrated boars and estrogen-treated ovariectomized gilts. The boars were either 15 kg heavier (N = 6), or lighter (N = 6), than the gilts (N = 8). Tests were carried out over a 4-week period, during which time each boar was paired once with each gilt; the procedure was replicated over a further 4 weeks. Gilts usually initiated the aggression, especially in the first 4-week period; however, the degree of aggression was positively correlated with body size, irrespective of sex. Aggression was reduced in the second 4-week period in both sexes in tests with large, but not with small, boars. Large boars were more sexually active than small boars, and their sexual performance improved markedly with time, unlike that of the small boars. Champing was positively correlated with aggression duration in pigs of both sexes, and salivation was seen more often in boars than gilts.     

Aggression during sexual encounters between hormone-treated gonadectomized pigs in the presence or absence of boar pheromones

Aggressive and sexual behaviour was studied in 5-min paired encounters between castrated prepubertal boars (N = 14) and normal (N = 2) or bulbectomized (N = 2) oestrogen-treated ovariectomized gilts. The boars were made sexually active by treatment with 17β-oestradiol + 5α-dihydrotestosterone. Half of the boars were sprayed on the snout with a solution containing a mixture of the boar pheromones 3α-androstenol and 5α-androstenone immediately before testing, and the remainder were treated with the vehicle solution. Aggression was almost always initiated by the gilts, and neither bulbectomy nor pheromone treatment of the boars reduced its occurrence. The results suggest that the display of aggression by gilts towards boars of similar body size is unlikely to be suppressed by the steroidal pheromones present in boar saliva.     

Maternal Depression and Family Media Use: A Questionnaire and Diary Analysis

We describe the association between postpartum depression and the quantity and content of infant media use. Households with depressed mothers viewed twice as much television as households with non-depressed mothers did, and depressed mothers appeared to derive comparatively greater pleasure from television viewing. Maternal depression was associated with an increased exposure to child-directed content by 6–9-month-old infants, although it was not associated with an increased exposure to adult-directed programming. Depressed mothers also reported being less likely to sit and talk with their children during television use or to consult outside sources of information about media. This increase in television exposure without corresponding parental involvement could negatively affect developmental outcomes.     

A Review of Best Practice Recommendations for Text Analysis in R (and a User-Friendly App)

In recent decades, the amount of text available for organizational science research has grown tremendously. Despite the availability of text and advances in text analysis methods, many of these techniques remain largely segmented by discipline. Moreover, there is an increasing number of open-source tools (R, Python) for text analysis, yet these tools are not easily taken advantage of by social science researchers who likely have limited programming knowledge and exposure to computational methods. In this article, we compare quantitative and qualitative text analysis methods used across social sciences. We describe basic terminology and the overlooked, but critically important, steps in pre-processing raw text (e.g., selection of stop words; stemming). Next, we provide an exploratory analysis of open-ended responses from a prototypical survey dataset using topic modeling with R. We provide a list of best practice recommendations for text analysis focused on (1) hypothesis and question formation, (2) design and data collection, (3) data pre-processing, and (4) topic modeling. We also discuss the creation of scale scores for more traditional correlation and regression analyses. All the data are available in an online repository for the interested reader to practice with, along with a reference list for additional reading, an R markdown file, and an open source interactive topic model tool (topicApp; see https://github.com/wesslen/topicApp, https://github.com/wesslen/text-analysis-org-science, https://dataverse.unc.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.15139/S3/R4W7ZS).     

Nonlinear Predictive Models for Multiple Mediation Analysis: With an Application to Explore Ethnic Disparities in Anxiety and Depression Among Cancer Survivors

Mediation analysis allows the examination of effects of a third variable (mediator/confounder) in the causal pathway between an exposure and an outcome. The general multiple mediation analysis method (MMA), proposed by Yu et al., improves traditional methods (e.g., estimation of natural and controlled direct effects) to enable consideration of multiple mediators/confounders simultaneously and the use of linear and nonlinear predictive models for estimating mediation/confounding effects. Previous studies find that compared with non-Hispanic cancer survivors, Hispanic survivors are more likely to endure anxiety and depression after cancer diagnoses. In this paper, we applied MMA on MY-Health study to identify mediators/confounders and quantify the indirect effect of each identified mediator/confounder in explaining ethnic disparities in anxiety and depression among cancer survivors who enrolled in the study. We considered a number of socio-demographic variables, tumor characteristics, and treatment factors as potential mediators/confounders and found that most of the ethnic differences in anxiety or depression between Hispanic and non-Hispanic white cancer survivors were explained by younger diagnosis age, lower education level, lower proportions of employment, less likely of being born in the USA, less insurance, and less social support among Hispanic patients.     

Extraversion and job performance: How context relevance and bandwidth specificity create a non-linear,positive, and asymptotic relationship

The personality factor of extraversion has been associated with performance in some occupations (e.g., sales), and it has been one of the most consistent personality predictors of leadership. Recent research indicates that extraversion could have a non-linear relation with performance. At the same time, many researchers have contended that scholars should utilize measures of personality narrower than factors and that the bandwidth and relevance of personality should fit both the criterion and the context of a study. We argue and find that by examining an aspect of extraversion (i.e., social potency) in a particular vocational context (i.e., enterprising job demands), non-linear, asymptotic (diminishing marginal benefits) effects will be demonstrated on a relevant type of performance (i.e., enterprising job performance). We review implications, limitations, and avenues for future research.     

Lay Understandings of Sex/Gender and Genetics: A Methodology That Preserves Polyvocal Coder Input

Lay understandings of the role of heredity and genetics in the production of human sex may be important in perceptions of the relative similarity and difference of men and women and therefore of the appropriateness of behaviors or social policies. We employed 17 focus groups segregated by gender and ethnicity (43 European American and 39 African American) to assess lay understandings of genetics and biological sex. To ensure the inclusion of multiple perspectives in results, we developed and applied a methodology we call “polyvocal coding.” Results show uneven incorporation of basic genetics, with substantial diversity of alternative understandings, especially with regard to sexual orientation. Different individuals, including both coders and participants, may interpret the same information about sex chromosomal inheritance as a fundamental quality of individual identity that constitutes essential and significant difference or as a component with limited impact on each person.