Individuals and Social Structure

Treatments of contextual effects in the social science literature have traditionally focused on statistical phenomena more than on social processes. Typically, the existence of contextual processes has been inferred on the basis of "group-level" effects (as contrasted with "individual-level" effects). This article seeks to redress that imbalance by focusing on underlying processes through which social structure and social interaction may impinge upon individuals. Four alternative generating mechanisms for contextual effects are discussed, along with their implications for model specification and estimation; only one of these, however, is found to be compatible with the notion of modeling individual outcomes as a result of group processes (endogenous feedback). Methods for consistent parameter estimation in endogenous feedback models are presented, based on maximum likelihood estimators for models with lattice autoregressive structure and their extension to models with lattice autocorrelated error structures. Moreover, since the latter often arise by failure to specify contextual processes explicitly, conventional statistical definitions of contextual effects are shown to be confounded with the resulting specification bias.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68634/2/10.1177_004912417900700404.pd

Report of the CSSDA Consulting Committee

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66730/2/10.1177_106939716700200303.pd

Individuals Writ Large: An Epilogue on the "Ecological Fallacy"

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The Impact of Political Events on Mass Publics: the Time Dimension of Public Opinion and an Approach to Dynamic Analysis.

Ph.D.Political scienceUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/157422/1/7529215.pd

Mass-Media and Voters (Federal Parliament Election Study 1994)

Media usage and voting decision. Topics: Most interesting topics in the media; prediction of general economic development and personal living conditions; most important political problems; currently most able party; preference for chancellor; behavior at the polls in the last Federal Parliament election 1990 and party preference (Sunday question); habitual voting inclination; assessment of problem-solving ability of established parties; media usage for daily newspapers and television; self-assessment of interest in politics; party membership. Also encoded were: day of interview; interview week; municipality code; city size.Mediennutzung und Wahlentscheidung. Themen: Interessanteste Themen in den Medien; Prognose der allgemeinen wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung und der persönlichen Lebensverhältnisse; wichtigste politische Probleme; derzeit kompetenteste Partei; Kanzlerpräferenz; Wahlverhalten bei der letzten Bundestagswahl 1990 und Parteipräferenz (Sonntagsfrage); habituelle Wahlneigung; Einschätzung der Problemlösungskompetenz der etablierten Parteien; Medienkonsum bei Tageszeitungen und Fernsehen; Selbsteinschätzung des Politikinteresses; Parteimitgliedschaft. Demographie: Alter; Geschlecht; Schulbildung; Beruf; Berufliche Position; Berufstätigkeit; Haushaltseinkommen; Haushaltszusammensetzung. Zusätzlich verkodet wurden: Interviewtag; Interviewwoche; Gemeindekennziffer; Ortsgröße

Internet y sociedad

El Instituto Stanford para el Estudio Cuantitativo de la Sociedad (Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society, SIQSS) se fundó en 1998 a propuesta de Norman H. Nie, actual director de este organismo. Uno de los principales objetivos del centro es la realización de una investigación cuantitativa de los cambios sociales que permita conocer la realidad social y la percepción de la misma por parte del público. «Internet podría convertirse en la última tecnología aislacionista, pues reduce la participación de la sociedad más de lo que antes hizo la televisión.» Es un fenómeno absorbente donde el usuario incrementa el tiempo de utilización a medida que va conociendo el sistema. Dada la velocidad a la que está cambiando Internet, los datos preliminares de este estudio son de interés informativo para conocer la actualidad norteamericana.= Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society, SIQSS, was established in 1998 thanks to the interest and effort of Norman H. Nie, its current director. One of the main goals this center strives for is to conduct quantitative research on social changes, gain knowledge on social realities and their public perception. «Internet could become the most recent isolating technology, as it reduces the participation of society in a higher degree than television did at a time». It becomes an absorbing phenomenon where a user gradually increases the time devoted to Internet, as he/she becomes more knowledgeable of the system. Given the speed at which the Net is changing, the preliminary data of this study provide interesting insight on the current attitude toward Internet in the North American society

Persuasion bias, social influence, and uni-dimensional opinions

We propose a boundedly rational model of opinion formation in which individuals are subject to persuasion bias; that is, they fail to account for possible repetition in the information they receive. We show that persuasion bias implies the phenomenon of social influence, whereby one’s influence on group opinions depends not only on accuracy, but also on how well-connected one is in the social network that determines communication. Persuasion bias also implies the phenomenon of unidimensional opinions; that is, individuals’ opinions over a multidimensional set of issues converge to a single “left-right” spectrum. We explore the implications of our model in several natural settings, including political science and marketing, and we obtain a number of novel empirical implications