A Probability Index of the Robustness of a Causal Inference

2003 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Pan ◽  
Kenneth A. Frank
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Causal Inference ◽  
Confounding Variable ◽  
Reference Distribution ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Controversial Topic ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Probability Index

Causal inference is an important, controversial topic in the social sciences, where it is difficult to conduct experiments or measure and control for all confounding variables. To address this concern, the present study presents a probability index to assess the robustness of a causal inference to the impact of a confounding variable. The information from existing covariates is used to develop a reference distribution for gauging the likelihood of observing a given value of the impact of a confounding variable. Applications are illustrated with an empirical example pertaining to educational attainment. The methodology discussed in this study allows for multiple partial causes in the complex social phenomena that we study, and informs the controversy about causal inference that arises from the use of statistical models in the social sciences.

scholarly journals Social Structures and Chaos Theory

1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.D. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Chaos Theory ◽  
Model Systems ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Prediction And Control ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact

Up to this point many of the social-scientific discussions of the impact of Chaos theory have dealt with using chaos concepts to refine matters of prediction and control. Chaos theory, however, has far more fundamental consequences which must also be considered. The identification of chaotic events arise as consequences of the attempts to model systems mathematically. For social science this means we must not only evaluate the mathematics but also the assumptions underlying the systems themselves. This paper attempts to show that such social-structural concepts as class, race, gender and ethnicity produce analytic difficulties so serious that the concept of structuralism itself must be reconceptualised to make it adequate to the demands of Chaos theory. The most compelling mode of doing this is through the use of Connectionism. The paper will also attempt to show this effectively means the successful inclusion of Chaos theory into social sciences represents both a new paradigm and a new epistemology and not just a refinement to the existing structuralist models. Research using structuralist assumptions may require reconciliation with the new paradigm.

“We Speak the Truth!”

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Sari Hanafi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Qualifications

This study investigates the preachers and their Friday sermons in Lebanon, raising the following questions: What are the profiles of preachers in Lebanon and their academic qualifications? What are the topics evoked in their sermons? In instances where they diagnosis and analyze the political and the social, what kind of arguments are used to persuade their audiences? What kind of contact do they have with the social sciences? It draws on forty-two semi-structured interviews with preachers and content analysis of 210 preachers’ Friday sermons, all conducted between 2012 and 2015 among Sunni and Shia mosques. Drawing from Max Weber’s typology, the analysis of Friday sermons shows that most of the preachers represent both the saint and the traditional, but rarely the scholar. While they are dealing extensively with political and social phenomena, rarely do they have knowledge of social science

scholarly journals Feminist Methods and Sources in Criminology and Criminal Justice

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Howe
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Advanced Education ◽  
Justice Research ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Feminist Methods ◽  
Criminal Justice Research ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Criminology And Criminal Justice

AbstractThis article by Adrian Howe is based on a presentation given at the ‘Sources and Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice Conference’ in November 2015, jointly sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Education and the Socio-Legal Studies Association. She begins by querying whether there are indeed distinct feminist methods in the social sciences. She outlines the impact of what she calls the ‘methodical revolution’ on the criminology discipline, Foucault's contribution and Foucauldian methodologies deployed in criminological and criminal justice research.

Journal influence in corporate research

2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Borokhovich ◽  
Allissa Lee ◽  
Betty Simkins
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Corporate Finance ◽  
Relative Influence ◽  
Impact Factors ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Journal Citation Reports ◽  
The Social ◽  
Total Influence ◽  
The Impact

Purpose – Studies of research influence commonly look at the overall field of finance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the sub-field of corporate finance at four different points in time to determine its evolution and range of influence, specifically focussing on the relative influence of seven leading journals. Design/methodology/approach – Not all articles appearing in the set of journals are in corporate finance. The authors examine each article published in the journals for four key periods and identify those that are corporate. The impact factors (IFs) published in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) are for all articles appearing in a journal. The authors are interested only in the corporate articles, so the authors calculate separate corporate IFs based on the citations to the corporate articles using the JCR technique. Findings – The authors find a broad corporate research environment with influence that extends well beyond finance. The authors also find differences in the relative influence of the journals not only in their total influence, but in where the influence occurs outside finance and other business journals and even more broadly in the social sciences. Research limitations/implications – The exclusion of journals outside the seven selected may not uncover other areas where corporate finance articles impact research more broadly. Also, classification of articles is inherently subjective. Practical implications – The authors draw comparisons between journals and corporate finance topic areas; indicating the breadth and depth research in these areas attain. These results should prove beneficial to researchers in determining areas of influence for their work, consequently providing opportunities for additional exchanges of ideas resulting in better and more informed research in the overall social sciences. Further, our approach to analyzing journal influence could prove fruitful for additional research. Originality/value – The findings allow for a greater understanding of the influence of individual journals and their subsequent rankings by a number of different means. The authors propose that the means and measures employed here can lead to a greater understanding of how influential a journal really is. Further, the authors contend that the study provides comparisons of the scope and depth of influence for each journal in a way that could lead to new avenues of research.

scholarly journals Social Semantics: The role of conceptual knowledge and cognitive control in a neurobiological model of the social brain

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J Binney ◽  
Richard Ramsey
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Social Information Processing ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
And Control ◽  
Social Semantics

Research in social neuroscience has primarily focused on carving up cognition into distinct pieces, as a function of mental process, neural network or social behaviour, while the need for unifying models that span multiple social phenomena has been relatively neglected. Here we present a novel framework that treats social cognition as a case of semantic cognition, which provides a neurobiologically constrained and generalizable framework, with clear, testable predictions regarding sociocognitive processing in the context of both health and disease. According to this framework, social cognition relies on two principal systems of representation and control. These systems are neuroanatomically and functionally distinct, but interact to (1) enable development of foundational, conceptual-level knowledge and (2) regulate access to this information in order to generate flexible and context-appropriate social behaviour. The Social Semantics framework shines new light on the mechanisms of social information processing by maintaining as much explanatory power as prior models of social cognition, whilst remaining simpler, by virtue of relying on fewer components that are “tuned” towards social interactions.

scholarly journals Idiomaticity as a Language Learning Barrier: The EFL Context of Saudi Arabia

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Abdalla Elkheir Elgobshawi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Efl Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
Efl College Students ◽  
The Impact

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of Idiomaticity on language learning and the extent to which it can be a language learning barrier. It contrasts the perspective of language teachers and the attitude of language learners regarding how idioms can influence language learning. The theoretical framework provides a description of the general properties of English idiomatic expressions and shows the relevance of idiomaticity to linguistic theory. The paper is based on an analytical analysis and follows a quantitative approach in which two questionnaires are used to collect the data. The two questionnaires are administered to two independent samples: 20 participants representing ELT teachers at the tertiary level and 80 subjects representing Saudi EFL college students. The data are then analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The study reveals learners’ reasonable consensus on the issues assessed. They generally acknowledge the significance of idioms for language learning but with a general dissatisfaction with their status in learning and teaching contexts. Both teachers and learners view idioms as odd pieces of language that lack a uniform character and do not receive due attention in language syllabi and curricula. Teachers give different ratings on the pedagogical value of idioms, but they generally show low interest in teaching them.

scholarly journals Social Sciences, Complexity and Sociology of the Present in Edgar Morin

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-52
Author(s):  
Alex Galeno ◽  
Fagner Torres de França
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Open Method ◽  
Complex Thinking ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Narrative Ability ◽  
Epistemological Basis

The article intends to revisit the contribution of the french thinker Edgar Morin (1921-) to the construction of a plural and open method of research in Social Sciences. We will have as theoretical-epistemological basis the sociology of the present, an approach of social phenomena developed by the author during three decades, from the 1940s to the 1970s, constituting the matrix of complex thinking. The present work defends the idea that the central categories of the present sociology, such as phenomenon, crisis and event, as well as the so-called living method of empirical research are still fundamental today in the sense of proposing an opening of the social sciences to phenomena increasingly more complex and multidimensional. This presupposes the researcher's subjective and objective engagement, narrative ability, and sensitivity to grasp revealing detail.

scholarly journals We Need to Talk about Impact: Why Social Policy Academics need to Engage with the UK's Research Impact Agenda

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHERINE E. SMITH ◽  
ELLEN STEWART
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Research Impact ◽  
Policy Response ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Policy Relevance ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

AbstractOf all the social sciences, social policy is one of the most obviously policy-orientated. One might, therefore, expect a research and funding agenda which prioritises and rewards policy relevance to garner an enthusiastic response among social policy scholars. Yet, the social policy response to the way in which major funders and the Research Excellence Framework (REF) are now prioritising ‘impact’ has been remarkably muted. Elsewhere in the social sciences, ‘research impact’ is being widely debated and a wealth of concerns about the way in which this agenda is being pursued are being articulated. Here, we argue there is an urgent need for social policy academics to join this debate. First, we employ interviews with academics involved in health inequalities research, undertaken between 2004 and 2015, to explore perceptions, and experiences, of the ‘impact agenda’ (an analysis which is informed by a review of guidelines for assessing ‘impact’ and relevant academic literature). Next, we analyse high- and low-scoring REF2014 impact case studies to assess whether these concerns appear justified. We conclude by outlining how social policy expertise might usefully contribute to efforts to encourage, measure and reward research ‘impact’.

Impact of Advertising and Public Relations on Tourism Development in Da Nang, Vietnam

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Xuan Tran ◽  
Minh Nguyen ◽  
Ha Kieu Tan Luu ◽  
Ny Ngo ◽  
My Tran ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Tourist Destinations ◽  
Structure Equation Modeling ◽  
The Social ◽  
Destination Brand ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact

An exploratory study was conducted to determine the impact of advertising and public relations on the visit intention of tourists in Da Nang, Vietnam. In 2015, Trip Advisor and New York Times selected Da Nang, Vietnam as one of the top Asia tourist destinations. This study sought to address the relationship between advertising or public relations and tourists' intention to visit based on the theory of planned behavior. Structure Equation Modeling was conducted to predict the impact of advertising and public relations on the visit intention of tourists in Da Nang. Findings indicate that an increased favorable attitude and control of advertising would increase tourist arrivals. Surprisingly, an increased positive attitude and control of public relations did not significantly affect tourists' intention to visit. Instead, the social norms of public relations were effective in driving the decision to visit but the social norms of advertising were not. The findings have contributed to destination brand through advertising and public relations. Implications are discussed.

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