Opinions on hard-to-discuss topics change more via cohort replacement.

Cohort replacement - the replacement in a population of older cohorts by their successors who developed under different conditions - is an important process behind cultural change. Research on public opinion indicates that a large proportion of aggregate change is the result of cohort replacement rather than of individuals changing their minds. However, some publicly salient issues, like gay rights, appear to be exceptions. Why different issues show different patterns of change is not well understood. In this paper, we investigate whether opinions on sensitive - that is, hard to discuss - issues might change differently than opinions on less sensitive issues. We use data from the 1981-2020 World Values Surveys and newly collected data on the sensitivity of survey items to compare aggregate changes in public opinion on 56 survey items in eight countries. Our key finding is that survey items on more sensitive issues seem to change more through cohort replacement.

Gender differential effect of college on political orientation over the last 40 years in the U.S.-A propensity score weighting approach.

It is well-known that the more educated people are, the more liberal views they tend to express. However, it is unclear whether this is due to college attendance itself or because those who go to college differ from those who do not in ways (directly or indirectly) related to their later political identification. In this paper, we therefore attempt to estimate the effect of college on political identification net of people's tendencies to select into college using an inverse probability of treatment weighting approach. Based on data from the General Social Survey, we analyze how this effect has changed over time and whether college affects the political identification of women in the same ways as that of men. We find evidence consistent with the argument that college attendance politicizes both men and women. Moreover, we show that not only the general, but also the gender specific effects change markedly across the decades. This raises questions about the different mechanisms at play in how college mobilizes men and women politically.

A Model-Based Method for Detecting Persistent Cultural Change Using Panel Data.

Recent work argues that changes in people's responses to the same question over time should be thought of as reflecting a fixed baseline subject to temporary local influences, rather than durable changes in response to new information. Distinguishing between these two individual-level process-a settled dispositions model and an active updating model-is important because these individual-level processes underlie different theories of population-level social change. This article introduces an alternative method for adjudicating between these two models based on structural equation modeling. This model provides a close fit to the theoretical models outlined in previous work. Applying this method to more than 500 questions in the General Social Survey's three-wave panels, we find even stronger evidence than previous work that most survey responses reflect settled dispositions developed prior to adulthood.

Purity homophily in social networks.

Does sharing moral values encourage people to connect and form communities? The importance of moral homophily (love of same) has been recognized by social scientists, but the types of moral similarities that drive this phenomenon are still unknown. Using both large-scale, observational social-media analyses and behavioral lab experiments, the authors investigated which types of moral similarities influence tie formations. Analysis of a corpus of over 700,000 tweets revealed that the distance between 2 people in a social-network can be predicted based on differences in the moral purity content-but not other moral content-of their messages. The authors replicated this finding by experimentally manipulating perceived moral difference (Study 2) and similarity (Study 3) in the lab and demonstrating that purity differences play a significant role in social distancing. These results indicate that social network processes reflect moral selection, and both online and offline differences in moral purity concerns are particularly predictive of social distance. This research is an attempt to study morality indirectly using an observational big-data study complemented with 2 confirmatory behavioral experiments carried out using traditional social-psychology methodology.

Morality and politics: Comparing alternate theories.

Debates about the American "culture wars" have led scholars to develop several theories relating morality to political attitudes and behaviors. However, researchers have not adequately compared these theories, nor have they examined the overall contribution of morality to explaining political variation. This study uses nationally representative data to compare the utility of 19 moral constructs from four research traditions - associated with the work of Hunter, Lakoff, Haidt, and Schwartz - for predicting political orientation (liberalism/conservatism). Results indicate that morality explains a third of the variation in political orientation - more than basic demographic and religious predictors - but that no one theory provides a fully adequate explanation of this phenomenon. Instead, political orientation is best predicted by selected moral constructs that are unique to each of the four traditions, and by two moral constructs that crosscut them. Future work should investigate how these moral constructs can be synthesized to create a more comprehensive theory of morality and politics.

Best practices in the Veterans Health Administration's MOVE! Weight management program.

BACKGROUND: Obesity is a substantial problem in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). VHA developed and disseminated the MOVE! Weight Management Program for Veterans to its medical facilities but implementation of the program has been variable. PURPOSE: The objective was to explore variation in MOVE! program implementation to identify facility structure, policies, and processes associated with larger patient weight-loss outcomes. METHODS: Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) was used to identify facility conditions or combinations of conditions associated with larger 6-month patient weight-loss outcomes. QCA is a method that allows for systematic cross-case comparison to better understand causal complexity. Eleven sites with larger outcomes and 11 sites with smaller outcomes were identified and data were collected with site interviews, facility-completed program summary forms, and medical record abstraction in 2009 and 2010. Conditions were selected based on theory and experience implementing MOVE! and were calibrated using QCA methods. Configuration patterns were examined to identify necessary conditions (i.e., always present when outcome present, but alone do not guarantee outcome) and sufficient conditions (i.e., presence guarantees outcome) at sites with larger and smaller outcomes. A thematic analysis of site interview data supplemented QCA findings. RESULTS: No two sites shared the same condition pattern. Necessary conditions included the use of a standard curriculum and group care-delivery format, and they were present at all sites with larger outcomes but at only six sites with smaller outcomes. At the 17 sites with both necessary conditions, four combinations of conditions were identified that accounted for all sites with larger outcomes. These included high program complexity combined with high staff involvement; group care-delivery format combined with low accountability to facility leadership; an active physician champion combined with low accountability to facility leadership; and the use of quality-improvement strategies combined with not using a waiting list. CONCLUSIONS: The use of a standard curriculum delivered with a group care-delivery format is an essential feature of successful VHA facility MOVE! Weight Management Programs, but alone does not guarantee success. Program development and policy will be used to ensure dissemination of the best practices identified in this evaluation.

Motivation and justification: a dual-process model of culture in action.

This article presents a new model of culture in action. Although most sociologists who study culture emphasize its role in post hoc sense making, sociologists of religion and social psychologists tend to focus on the role beliefs play in motivation. The dual-process model integrates justificatory and motivational approaches by distinguishing between "discursive" and "practical" modes of culture and cognition. The author uses panel data from the National Study of Youth and Religion to illustrate the model's usefulness. Consistent with its predictions, he finds that though respondents cannot articulate clear principles of moral judgment, their choice from a list of moral-cultural scripts strongly predicts later behavior.

Parallel public spheres: distance and discourse in letters to the editor.

This article examines letters to the editor as one of the ways citizens seek to enact a public sphere using technological mediation. Using a sample of all letters received by a metropolitan newspaper during a three-month period (N = 1,113), the authors demonstrate that the tone and argumentative styles of letters differ with the scope of the issues the letters address. Local issues evoke more reasoned, conciliatory tones, while issues beyond the local context evoke more emotional, confrontational tones, even after controlling for individual writers' characteristics and anger as a motivation to write.

Environmental contingencies and genetic propensities: social capital, educational continuation, and dopamine receptor gene DRD2.

Studies of gene-environment interplay typically focus on one environmental factor at a time, resulting in a constrained view of social context. The concept of environmental contingency is introduced as a corrective. Drawing on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and qualitative comparative analysis, the authors focus on an example involving social capital, a gene associated with a dopamine receptor (DRD2), and educational continuation beyond secondary school. For boys, (1) DRD2 risk is associated with a decreased likelihood of school continuation; (2) one configuration of social capital -- high parental socioeconomic status, high parental involvement in school, and a high-quality school -- compensates for this negative relationship, consistent with environmental contingency; but (3) boys with DRD2 risk are less commonly observed in settings that are rich in social capital.

Helping relationships and genetic propensities: a combinatoric study of DRD2, mentoring, and educational continuation.

From conception to death, helping relationships promote positive development and enable people to surmount challenges in their lives. Is it the case that the negative consequences of a genetic propensity for risky behaviors can be attenuated by helping relationships (a G x E)? But is it also the case that people with such a genetic propensity are less likely to have helping relationships compared to people without such a propensity (a rGE)? We illustrate this complex pattern of gene-environment interplay by drawing on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and a combinatoric analytic strategy. We focus on a gene associated with dopamine receptor type 2 (DRD2 TaqIA), student-mentor relationships, and educational continuation beyond secondary school. Results reveal that, for both white and black males, DRD2 A1+ (A1A1 and A1A2 genotypes) is associated with a decreased likelihood of school continuation compared to their counterparts with DRD2 A1-; mentors who are teachers compensate for this negative association (a G x E); and youth with DRD2 A1+ are less likely to have a mentor who is a teacher than their counterparts with DRD2 A1- (a rGE).