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Governments are increasingly interested in estimating the prevalence of substance abuse with social indicators, largely because of the high cost of estimating prevalence with surveys of random samples of the population. With both the individual and county as the unit, we regress measures of the use of alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs on social indicators that fall into three categories: demographics, measures of social disorganization, and measures more directly related to the use of substances. The measures of explained variance are fairly low, but even more troubling is that the effects of several social indicators are in the “wrong” direction. Reliance on social indicator data to supplant survey estimates of the prevalence of substance abuse requires further validation, attention to sources of bias in the indicator data, and replication of the models over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the hypothesized inverse relationship between socioeconomic status and conservatism on a wide range of so-called social issues. This relationship is important in itself as well as in some theories that link political dealignment to features of postindustrial society. We examine this relationship by looking at the net effects of education, occupation, income, and class (owner, supervisor, or worker) on nine issues. Our results suggest that the hypothesized relationship is absent for most dimensions of socioeconomic status and most social issues. The most consistent exception to this is that liberalism on social issues tends to increase with education, but even here the relationship varies considerably from issue to issue. The lack of a consistent relationship reflects both the diversity of the social issues and the fuzziness of the social/economic distinction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For some lime, researchers have wanted to estimate models which include effects of origin, destination, and mobility on various dependent variables, but these models are underidentified. When identifying restrictions have been imposed, either the effects of mobility are insignificant or the restrictions are unreasonable. We argue that the most sensible area in which to expect effects of mobility is emotional well-being and propose two types of identifying restrictions on the mobility effects which allow the estimation of main and mobility effects. The first of these constrains the effect of slight upward mobility to be identical to the effect of no mobility. The second constrains the effects of upward and downward mobility to be exponential. For four of five measures of well-being, significant effects are estimated. For three of these, mobility in either direction is associated with improved mental health, For another, the effects of downward mobility are beneficial, and the effects of upward mobility are detrimental. it is critical to remember that these effects are + net of origin and destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attribution theory suggests that attributions of personal responsibility are less likely to be made when forces external to individuals are believed to be important. Data from national samples collected in 1957 and 1976 indicate a reluctance to attribute marital problems to oneself and a decreased tendency to attribute them to one's spouse; the decrease was especially pronounced among divorced respondents in describing previous marriages, although this differential change led to only a partial convergence of the married and the divorced. In both years, mentions of spouse are less frequent among those groups most exposed to secular forces: men, the young, and the better educated. This finding suggests that the decreased frequency of attributing responsibility to the spouse is due to the secularization of marital values. Further evidence for this perspective is obtained from the relationship of spousal blame with the frequency of church attendance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the reply of authors to the comments by sociologist Novral D. Glenn. Glenn maintains that the approach which authors employ to detect mobility effects in the presence of main effects of origin and destination is flawed for several reasons. Authors concede at the outset that the approach is not the ideal way to study mobility. The ultimate solution must involve attempts to measure the concepts for which the mobility terms serve as proxies and their employment of these models is primarily heuristic. Glenn dismisses our identifying restrictions as either being trivial or arbitrary. The first restriction that mobility in the U.S. is characterized by small upward steps. Thus, those who are slightly upwardly mobile are likely to find themselves in unusual circumstances since many of similar origins will have moved with them. The second constraint is based on the linear dependence of mobility of origin and destination by incorporating the consideration that the effect of mobility is likely to increase ad mobility increases.

The article presents a reply to Walter R. Schumm and his colleagues, who have proposed an alternative means of dealing with situations involving an hypothesized effect of the difference between two variables. Their approach stresses the role of theory in specifying a priori an appropriate three-dimensional geometric model. They proposed that what they consider an alternative means of dealing with situations involving an hypothesized effect of the difference between two variables. Their approach stresses the role of theory in specifying a priori an appropriate three-dimensional geometric model and the testing of this model against alternative plausible models using regression. In the earlier article Charles J. Brody and James A. McRae made use of previous theory and research on the effects of social mobility to select an appropriate dependent variable for analysis, to propose two types of identifying restrictions leading to plausible three-dimensional models, and to rule out other identifying restrictions leading to less plausible models or unreasonable constraints on the mobility parameters.

This study examined how information obtained from an adolescent screening instrument administered in a medical clinic is affected by the method of data collection and knowledge that a summary report would be given to the provider. The Adolescent Health Review (AHR) was administered to 610 adolescent patients randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions to test the effect of mode of administration (paper vs. computer) and disclosure of results to the provider versus only to researchers (using the computer version). The AHR obtained information on mental health, sexual experiences, and use of psychoactive substances. Response patterns varied by mode of administration, with the paper version generally eliciting higher, and arguably more accurate, rates of disclosure. Knowing that the results would be provided to the doctor further attenuated disclosure. Results suggest that the paper version's higher rates of reporting must be weighed against the computer version's benefits of automated scoring and reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]