JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review.
American Sociological Review 1975, Vol. 40 (February):37-47This paper is about the logic of interpreting recursive causal theories in sociology. We review the distinction between associations and effects and discuss the decomposition of effects into direct and indirect components. We then describe a general method for decomposing effects into their components by the systematic application of ordinary least squares regression. The method involves successive computation of reduced-form equations, beginning with an equation containing only exogenous variables, then computing equations which add intervening variables in sequence from cause to effect. This generates all the information required to decompose effects into their various direct and indirect parts. This method is a substitute for the often more cumbersome computation of indirect effects from the structural coefficients (direct effects) of the causal model Finally, we present a way of summarizing this information in tabular form and illustrate the procedures using an empirical example.
"This paper details the authors' selection, design, and use of a life history calendar (LHC) to collect retrospective life course data. A sample of nine hundred [U.S.] 23-year-olds, originally interviewed in 1980, were asked about the incidence and timing of various life events in the nine years since their 15th birthday.... The following aspects of the LHC are described: (a) the concept, uses, and advantages of the LHC, (b) the time units and domains used, (c) the mode of recording the responses and the decisions and problems involved, (d) interviewer training, and (e) coding. The following results attest to the accuracy of the LHC retrospective data: (a) only four of the calendars had missing data in any month; (b) the data obtained in 1980 about current work, school attendance, marriage, and children showed a remarkable correspondence to the retrospective 1985 LHC reports of these events; (c) the interviewers were positive about the LHC's ability to increase respondent recall."
Two hypotheses about the relation between age and susceptibility to attitude change were tested. The impressionable years hypothesis proposes that individuals are highly susceptible to attitude change during late adolescence and early adulthood and that susceptibility drops precipitously immediately thereafter and remains low throughout the rest of the life cycle. The increasing persistence hypothesis proposes that people become gradually more resistant to change throughout their lives. Structural equation models were applied to data from the 1956-1960, 1972-1976, and 1980 National Election Panel Studies in order to estimate the stability of political attitudes and unreliability in measures of them. The results support the impressionable years hypothesis and disconfirm the increasing persistence hypothesis. A decrease in the over-time consistency of attitude reports among 66- to 83-year-olds was found to be due to increased random measurement error in their reports, not to increased attitude change.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.