Imputation of missing categorical data by maximizing internal consistency

This paper suggests a method to supplant missing categorical data by reasonable replacements. These replacements will maximize the consistency of the completed data as measured by Guttman's squared correlation ratio. The text outlines a solution of the optimization problem, describes relationships with the relevant psychometric theory, and studies some properties of the method in detail. The main result is that the average correlation should be at least 0.50 before the method becomes practical. At that point, the technique gives reasonable results up to 10–15% missing data.We thank Anneke Bloemhoff of NIPG-TNO for compiling and making the Dutch Life Style Survey data available to use, and Chantal Houée and Thérèse Bardaine, IUT, Vannes, France, exchange students under the COMETT program of the EC, for computational assistance. We also thank Donald Rubin, the Editors and several anonymous reviewers for constructive suggestions.     

The representational basis of syllable categories

Two hypotheses concerning the relation between phoneme and syllable categories are contrasted. The phonological hypothesis holds that phoneme categories are perceptually basic, whereas syllable categories are abstract and specify the phonological rules operating on phoneme categories. The integrative routine hypothesis suggests that whereas phoneme categories are basic, syllable categories are not entirely abstract but are represented at least partially on the basis of higher order perceptual information, specifying the dynamics of coarticulating phoneme categories. Three experiments used a primed naming task in which subjects had to name the entire syllable (consonant-vowel and vowel-consonant; Experiment 1), the syllable-initial phoneme category (Experiment 2), or the syllable-final phoneme category (Experiment 3). The results supported the integrative routine hypothesis. S.D. is a postdoctoral fellow of the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research.     

“What Goes Around Comes Around”: Attitudes and Practices Regarding Ageing and Care for the Elderly Among Moroccan Muslim Women Living in Antwerp (Belgium)

The aim of this article is threefold. First, we seek to elicit the attitudes and practices of middle-aged and elderly Moroccan Muslim women towards ageing and care for the elderly. Second, we aim to identify possible differences between middle-aged and elderly women’s attitudes and practices. Third, we seek to explore which role religion plays in their attitudes and practices. Qualitative empirical research was conducted with a sample of middle-aged and elderly Moroccan Muslim women living in Antwerp (Belgium) (n = 30) and with experts in the field (n = 15). Our study unveils that ageing and care for the elderly are clearly understood from a religious framework. More specifically, theological and eschatological considerations take up a central position. Access to and utilization of professional elderly care is hampered by several barriers (e.g. religious, cultural and financial). We found a more open attitude towards professional elderly care among middle-aged women than among elderly women.

     

The naked truth: mindfulness and the purification of religion

To arrive at an understanding of what drives the much debated spiritual turn in Western Europe, we study the spiritual trajectories and identifications of mindfulness practitioners in the formerly predominantly Roman Catholic context of Flanders in Belgium. Fifteen semi-structured interviews addressed their religious and spiritual biographical trajectories as well as the symbolic boundaries they draw with adjacent religious and spiritual groups. We find marked evidence of a process of ‘religious purification’, which unfolds as a critique of the formal and external aspects of both religion (organisations, dogmas, ritual) and spirituality (woolly and frivolous New Age word games). To validate and justify, alternatively, the ‘pure’ and ‘grounded’ spirituality that results, those concerned consistently invoke the authority of science.     

Does habit strength moderate the intention–behaviour relationship in the Theory of Planned Behaviour? The case of fruit consumption

The present study examined if habit strength moderated the influence of intention on fruit consumption in a Dutch adult sample (N?=?521, 46.3% males, mean age?=?34.50, SD?=?10.87), using the theoretical relations of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). TPB variables and habit strength were assessed at baseline. Fruit consumption was assessed with a validated questionnaire five weeks later. Three groups were created: low habit strength (n?=?180), medium habit strength (n?=?185) and high habit strength (n?=?156). Confirmatory factor analyses and multi-group path analyses were performed using AMOS 4.0. A good fit was obtained for the overall measurement model and the structural models. Multi-group path analyses showed that intention was a significant predictor of fruit consumption in the low habit (β?=?0.36, p?<?0.001) and medium habit group (β?=?0.30, p?<?0.001), but a non-significant predictor in the high habit group (β?=?0.05, p?=?0.596). Implications for information-based and motivation-based interventions are discussed.     

A Turbo Pascal program for the computation of scale-dependent association coefficients

A Turbo Pascal program is described that computes scale-dependent association coefficients belonging to Zeger’s general family of association coefficients. Members of this family can be constructed that are adapted to the scale type of the variables, in that they are insensitive to admissible transformations of the variables but sensitive to inadmissible transformations. The program can compute (chance-corrected) association coefficients between variables of eight different scale types and between variables of mixed scale type.     

Dual imputation model for incomplete longitudinal data

Missing values are a practical issue in the analysis of longitudinal data. Multiple imputation (MI) is a well‐known likelihood‐based method that has optimal properties in terms of efficiency and consistency if the imputation model is correctly specified. Doubly robust (DR) weighing‐based methods protect against misspecification bias if one of the models, but not necessarily both, for the data or the mechanism leading to missing data is correct. We propose a new imputation method that captures the simplicity of MI and protection from the DR method. This method integrates MI and DR to protect against misspecification of the imputation model under a missing at random assumption. Our method avoids analytical complications of missing data particularly in multivariate settings, and is easy to implement in standard statistical packages. Moreover, the proposed method works very well with an intermittent pattern of missingness when other DR methods can not be used. Simulation experiments show that the proposed approach achieves improved performance when one of the models is correct. The method is applied to data from the fireworks disaster study, a randomized clinical trial comparing therapies in disaster‐exposed children. We conclude that the new method increases the robustness of imputations.     

On the Ratio Challenge for Comparativism

This paper discusses a challenge for comparativists about belief, who hold that numerical degree of belief (in particular, subjective probability) is a useful fiction, unlike comparative belief, which they regard as real. The challenge is to make sense of claims like ‘I am twice as confident in A as in B’ in terms of comparative belief only. After showing that at least some comparativists can meet this challenge, I discuss implications for Zynda's [2000] and Stefánsson's [2017] defences of comparativism.     

Beyond the Spiritual Supermarket: The Social and Public Significance of New Age Spirituality

This article argues that New Age spirituality is substantially less unambiguously individualistic and more socially and publicly significant than today's sociological consensus acknowledges. Firstly, an uncontested doctrine of self-spirituality, characterised by sacralisation of the self and demonisation of social institutions, provides the spiritual milieu with ideological coherence and paradoxically accounts for its overwhelming diversity. Secondly, participants undergo a process of socialisation, gradually adopting this doctrine of self-spirituality and eventually reinforcing it by means of standardised legitimations. Thirdly, spirituality has entered the public sphere of work, aiming at a reduction of employees’ alienation to increase both their happiness and organisational effectiveness. A radical ‘sociologisation’ of New Age research is called for to document how the doctrinal ideal of self-spirituality is socially constructed, transmitted, and reinforced and critically to deconstruct rather than reproduce sociologically naive New Age rhetoric about the primacy of personal authenticity.     

Leisure time physical activity motives and smoking in adolescence

ObjectivesThe study aimed to gain a better understanding of the relationship between leisure time physical activity and smoking in adolescence by investigating adolescents' motives for participation in leisure time physical activity.MethodsThe study involved cross-sectional and longitudinal data from a postal survey involving 16–22-year old Danes. The hypothesized associations were examined using hierarchical logistic regression analyses.ResultsAn inverse association between participating in leisure time physical activity and smoking was found. Participation in leisure time physical activity for friendship or competition reasons were conditions that strengthened the inverse association between physical activity and smoking in males. In contrast, participation for the reason of losing weight or gaining self-esteem appeared to weaken the inverse association among females. In addition, the motives enjoyment, health and, in females, friendships and stress relief were associated with less smoking irrespective of participation level, while the motives self-esteem, losing weight and, in males, friendships were unrelated or even positively related to smoking.ConclusionsThe association between adolescents' leisure time physical activity and smoking behavior differs with the underlying motivation for the activity.