Monday, October 16, 2017

Alma Garcia

            Alma Garcia, 333

In the article "Re-thinking the decline in trust: A comparison of black and white Americans" talks about how Americans have a lot less trust than they have ever had before. The research done in this article was on the two main causes which are generational perspective and period effects. Generational perspective means that because of the newer and more disbelieving generations there are, the greater the decline of trust there is. The second cause is period effects which talks about how there are changes in attitudes throughout the population. The population started to respond to the events that took place. The baby boom, white Americans, had a high level of trust. As time went on their trust started to decrease. While there is a decline for white Americans there is no decline for black Americans. Black Americans seems to have a small minimal difference in trust as the years go by. Also, the article mentions how there are different results depending if the respondent is black or white.

In the second article "Public support for Hispanic deportation in the United States: the effects of ethnic prejudice and perception of economic competition in a period of economic distress" mentions that there is ethnic prejudice and economic competition found in the survey that was conducted in 2009. Deportation was found to be supported by conservatives, republicans, and even democrats. Since there is a massive amount of people who are undocumented immigrants, contribute to the work force, and education it is hard to understand how massive deportation could be. In the study it was found that native-born are less likely to support the fact that undocumented immigrants should stay temporary rather than permanent. Hispanics were found to be in favor of them being able to stay temporary and permanent. African Americans were less likely to be in favor of temporary state. The reason being is because the news and media portray how the economy is doing bad and so it makes people to dislike the option of undocumented immigrants to have a temporary or permanent stay. The increase of the population to want deportation is because of the economic circumstances. It has also become the main preference of people in politics. 

Trust Quiz



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Best Wishes,

Savannah Corbin

Parinav Kanwar

                                                                                                                            Parinav Kanwar, 330 words. 

Race and Gender Differences in Self-efficacy: Assessing the Role of Gender Role Attitudes and Family Background

This research study utilized sample from general education classes of a university in southern US. Although it was not random sample but representative of population. The researchers measured global self-efficacy using a standardized scale. They assessed sex role liberalism on an eight-item scale and obtained information on work and family structure of respondents. The researchers calculated statistical data and performed regression analyses to obtain results.  These results concluded that gender attitudes influenced self-efficacy for all groups except white males.  African American women reported higher self-efficacy.  This could also because of family structure in African American homes where self-reliant African American women are common which can influence the values of self-efficacy. It was also found that African American males supported more egalitarian views of gender roles thus had higher self-efficacy scores. It should also be noted that white females tend to have mother which either does not work or work part time but African American females have working mother as their role model. This might have led to different socialization and hence these results.

Food Insecurity and Low Self-efficacy are Associated with Health Care Access Barriers among Puerto-Ricans with Type 2 Diabetes

This Research obtained data of Puerto Ricans adult suffering with Type 2 diabetes through interview and blood sample in Hartford County. The independent variable was demographic and socio-economic variables, psychosocial variables, cultural variables, clinical variables and Diabetes self-care factors. The dependent variable was the assessment of commonly reported barrier for seeing a doctor. A computer software for statistical analyses was used to analyses the results and variables.  The results showed that low diabetes management self-efficacy was associated with higher perceived barrier for health access and utilization. The study also found that food insecurity was linked to health care assess and utilization.

Both Articles dealt with self-efficacy. The first article studied the issues effecting self-efficacy whereas the second research focused on the effect on self-efficacy on health of an individual. The research also focused on Latinos and Puerto Ricans whereas the first research was focused on which and Africans Americans. 

Sunday, October 15, 2017

SOC 111 (MonWedFri 10AM) - Trust Efficacy Quiz Essay Response - Alexander Ray Salmeron

Alexander Ray Salmeron - 595 words(without articles titles)

Today I read two articles "Teens' social media use and collective action" by Hyunjin Soto, J. Brian Houston, Leigh Anne Taylor Knight, Emily J.Kennedy and Alexandra B. Inglish and "Race and Gender Differences in Self-efficacy: Assessing the Role of Gender Role Attitudes and Family Background" by Tom Buchanan and Nikesha Selmon. These articles regard the effects efficacy has on distinctive behaviors and the effects race or ethnicity has on self-efficacy, respectively.

In the article "Race and Gender Differences in Self-efficacy: Assessing the Role of Gender Role Attitudes and Family Background", Tom Buchanan and Nikesha Salmon conduct a study which attempts to identify a correlation between gender roles/attitudes and levels of self-efficacy. The researchers initiate the methods portion of the article by addressing the participants and viable variables. A total of 606 participants completed the survey and there was a 77% response rate. Multiple survey samples were observed due to several responses from the initial survey being dropped. This was a result of the initial feedback received. The final sample tallied up to 486 student which completed the survey. The majority of respondents were female, and more whites than black completed the survey. One of the main variables observed was the work status of the respondents' mothers. Global self-efficacy was measured through the GSE-Scale, which analyzes individuals views on their capacity to effort to complete complicated missions. A total of eight hypotheses were formed, each attempting to define the correlation between self-efficacy and race, gender, the role of a mother's work status in a family, and liberal gender roles. Contributing factor were measured and numerous tests were performed in order to identify differences between each of them. Chi-squared tests were performed in order to observe differences between gender and race. Findings revealed no distinctive relationship between sex-role liberalism and levels of self-efficacy in white males, however it was found with white females. Black females display the highest levels of self-efficacy compared to the other gender-ethnic groups. Nothing too significant was found for black males other than fathers playing a small role in their literalistic thinking. It was also discovered that the work status of a mother, single family or not, indeed plays a role in the respondents' self-efficacy levels. Race and gender roles too had a relationship with -self-efficacy levels.

In the article "Teens' social media use and collective action", a group of researchers attempt to to identify a relationship between teenagers' addiction to social media and their participation on social gatherings, a flash mob in particular. Vital variables in this study included social-self efficacy, collective-self esteem, and the urge to being in a social setting. These variables were used to forecast teen's addiction to social media. An online survey was created and was provided to 208 teens(ages 13-19) from Kansas City. Respondents under the legal age of 18 were given consent forms for parents to sign. Psychological variables such as self-esteem issues were taken into consideration during the study. Findings of the study show that 89.7% of respondents were high school students, 4.1% were K-12 graduates, and 6.2% were college students. With 68% being female, and 32% male. Blacks made up more than half of respondents with 53.3%, Hispanics 24.2%, and Caucasians 15.4%. A whopping 80% of respondents claimed to be heavily active on social media. The social media sites with highest amount of teenage traffic include Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Over half of total participants claimed to be familiar with flash mobs, yet only 38.3% would proudly participate in one. Final results show that social self-efficacy and collective self-esteem levels are not useful in predicting teens' addiction to social media. There was no relationship found between teens willingness to attend a flash mob and the total time they spend on social websites.

Jessica Vang

One of the article I read was the "Race and Gender Differences." This article was about gender differences between men and women and racial equality when working wise or pay wise. Women were told to just take women jobs when the world out there have plenty of different jobs women can choose from. There is this segregation they have with women because women are believed to stay at home and the men to go work. Working conditions and economic stress are also related to parenting styles which is taught along their children. Gender role and social structures to see who was the hardest working between the two parents and look upon their kids. There is an amount of supporter that the African American family structure differs from the white family. There has been debate as to whether African American families are disorganized or simply different. Racial differences may be strongly associated with labor force participation differences. While labor force participation rates for women have increased generally, African American households are relatively more likely to be characterized to be a working mothers and whites are to be stay at home mom.

Another article I wanted to talk about is "Re-thinking the decline in trust: A comparison of black and white Americans." This article generalizes the trust in Americans that is very low. This decline draw attention to the role of generational period effects stopping it from economic and political changes. The article is considerate of generational trends in trust for black and for white Americans. Even though race is considered one of the most important characteristics of many levels of trust many cases have analyzed how race relates to larger generational and period of decline. The survey data is used to test whether the decline thesis applies equally to black and to white Americans trust levels. It's considerate that both the generalized trust and the individual items comprising this survey result in what we believe. The results show that although the war baby generation (1935–1944) of white Americans was more trusting than other generations, there has been no corresponding variability across generations for black Americans. At the period level, while there has been a decline in generalized trust for white Americans. The time period-based of trends for black Americans are more variable throughout. The use of a general index to study trends for black Americans is an important period-based trends. The decline in trust is related to race and the different perspective of both white and blacks.


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Jessica Vang

Choua Yang - trust/efficacy/prejudice quiz

Choua Yang

505 words

 

Trust/Efficacy/Prejudice Quiz

 

Re-thinking the decline in trust: A comparison of black and white Americans (292 words)

 

The study attempts to explain the decline in trust in America, specifically that of whites and blacks. Data from the US General Social Survey from 1972 to 2008 shows that general trust was higher before the 1960s. The hypothesis is that there are generational (cohort) and period effects that may explain the decline. The study combines cohort and period effects with demographic variables, such as age, education, gender, marital status, unemployed, Southern residence, race, and religious attendance, to better understand the decline in trust. By looking at these variables and comparing race, the study finds that, on average, blacks were 1 point below whites in general trust. The general trust score comes from three survey questions: the first on whether you trust others, the second on whether you think people are helpful, and the last on whether you think people are fair.

About trust, whites were at 43% compared to blacks at 16%. Whites were at 52% compared to blacks at 32% with the question about others being helpful. About fairness, whites were at 61% and blacks were at 31%. Clearly, there is a difference between black and white feelings about trust. The study showed that as age increases, trust also increases. This is true with education as well; however, this had twice the effect on whites compared to blacks. Also, being in the South was only significant for whites.

The study concludes that there were no cohort differences or period effects for blacks. White trust has declined sharply due to older, more trusting generations being replaced by newer, less trusting ones; however, black trust has remained rather low and stable, even across generations. Collectively, the black experience is very different from the white one, which accounts for some of the difference.

 

Why Whites Favor Spending More Money to Fight Crime: The Role of Racial Prejudice (213 words)

 

This study relies on the 2000 General Social Survey to see if support for an increase in spending for crime reduction is affected by racial stereotyping and prejudice. To measure racial stereotyping and prejudice, the study uses questions about which groups tend to be violence prone, about marrying blacks, about living in a neighborhood with blacks to questions asking for a rating of intelligence and laziness. In addition, variables such as gender, education, income, age, and other factors are used.

The findings show that whites, who believed blacks to be violence prone, had higher support for an increase in spending. The more prejudiced the white individual is, the higher the support is. Perceptions of Asian and Hispanic violence were not significant predictors of support for spending. However, perceived Hispanic violence is becoming like the effect of perceived black violence on crime spending. This hints at the idea of whites being threatened by the increase in the Hispanic population. As the Hispanic population figures become like those of the blacks, whites seem to have an increased perception of violence, and therefore, higher support for spending to reduce crime. Therefore, the study builds on previous research regarding how public opinion shapes policies; however, it cautions policymakers against making laws based on the prejudices of whites.

Katerina Davila trust/efficacy/prejudice quiz

Katerina Davila
Soc 111
MWF 10am 
Word Count 399

In Rima Wilkes article, "Re-thinking the decline in trust: A comparison of black and white Americans" the General Social Survey is used to compile an idea of what variables affect both black and white Americans levels of trust for each individual. The methods used to figure out what causes trust in this research was by looking at the demographics of the people like age, sex, or even education to see what corresponds to levels of trust. They first took the age of each individual into consideration, then added all other demographic questions. Next, race is attached to each demographic answer like white males, black age, etc to now see which one is effected the most based on their race. The findings of this article show that the people who were surveyed who were higher in age tended to trust others more then those who are younger. So the older you are the more likely you are to trust others according to this study. Another demographic that had a significant effect was the amount of years of education. This showed that almost more than half of Whites trust those more who had a higher education than Blacks do. The main findings of this study showed that education and age plus race were the most effective factors that led to a rise in trust. 

Eric J. Sydell and Eileen S. Nelson's article "Modern Racism on Campus: A Survey of Attitudes and Perceptions" compares the views and attitudes of different racial college students by mostly focusing on black and white students. The methods conducted included a confidential telephone survey using all the black students that attended the collage, and then the same number of white students who were randomly selected so that an equal amount of students were used to represent each race. The students were given 63 closed end questions and 1 open end question. All questions dealt with racism, whether is be from their own life or how it is in society.  The findings indicated that in many of the questions asked to the students the answers mostly indicated that Blacks deal with more racism than whites in the long run. In many of the questions, both races showed that they believe that Black Americans have what it takes to overcome the outcomes of racism themselves where as Blacks believe that Blacks need government aid to get them out of those racal problems. The researchers concluded that this survey can be used to discover the reason the cases those to be racist. 

Alina Moua

Trust is a firm belief that is an emotional and logical act. Trust is built and developed in many different ways. Trust in value exchange occurs when we do not know what we are receiving.

Race plays a significant factor when trust is involved. In this review literature, Race and Trust, the author Smith clarifies how do we explain trust. What do people do to explain trust. To analyze more in depth, they looked at how African Americans and Whites responded to trust. African Americans had different responses versus White people. 81% of Africans said most people were untrustworthy while 51% of Whites said people were untrustworthy. African Americans were also twice as much more likely to report that people were unfair. The question asking if people were helpful or taking advantage had 63% from Whites and 41% for African Americans. Those who feel like they've been targeted by police or targeted by society tend to have lower trust. The difference is always large, depending on the questions.

From their findings, social class, education, location, and income has a correlation with how people trust. None of these things however does not erase race. Race is still an important factor even when we are controlling other variables. The richest African American have as much trust as the poorest Whites. Trust is different among groups that race continues to be a strong factor.

In today's society, there is less trust. There has been a decline in trust across generations. Trust was a lot higher in the mid 1960s and then slowly declined as decades went by. In the article, Re-thinking the decline in trust: A comparison of black and white Americans, researchers focused on generational replacement and period effect to explain why the time an individual was born affects the amount of trust towards them. Using United States General Social Survey data collected from 1972 and 2008, the authors examine the general trust difference for blacks and whites.

To explain their findings, the researchers asked questions about trust such as, can most people be trusted or that you can't be too careful in life? These questions about trust are declining patterns among Whites. Whites don't trust as much as they use to. The research shows that great grandparents and grandparents were much more trusting than folks after. Compare to the African Americans levels of trust, it hasn't changed that much but it has gone down. This gap is narrowing the difference between African Americans and Whites in terms of trust over time. What develops people's trust are belief systems, specific events, and population that influences how society think and act in years to come. The relationship between diversity and trust lead to the decline in trust over time. An example to is 9/11. Many lives were lost unexpectedly, therefore people couldn't afford to put themselves at risk. Due to this, people's level of trust went down. Different generations have different levels of trust. For this reason, Americans no longer trust each other as much as they once did.


Nolan Dempsey

Alexis Abdulian

            Alexis Abdulian 

In the article, "Re-thinking the decline in trust: A comparison of black and white Americans," Rima Wilkes explains the decreasing trust Americans have for one another. Using the United States General Social Survey, Wilkes examined the dates between 1972 and 2008 on the trends, specifically generational and period, for trust in white and black Americans. Wilkes already knew that the number one factor of how much people trust each other is race, so decided to pry further into the topic by adding generation and period trends to the research. The findings were that the most trusting was the generation of war babies for white Americans, but there were not any generational factors for black Americans in regards to trust. The dependent variables in this article were the generalized trust index, trust, helpfulness, and fairness. The independent variables were age, male, married, education years, unemployed, religious attendance, and southern residence. The data shows that in all areas of trust, helpfulness, and fairness whites are more likely to see the good in people versus blacks. In general, over the years, trust has declined; however, there is a large race gap between blacks and whites when it comes to trust, helpfulness, and fairness. Throughout the charts that compare these three ideals with people's race, it is fairly clear to see that blacks have stayed rather steady in their beliefs, while whites have had some jumps in periods of time where they were a lot more trusting.

            In Pamela Braboy Jackson and Sarah Mustillo's article, "I Am Woman: The Impact of Social Identities on African American Women's mental health," they research the idea that the situation of some African American women negatively affects their mental health. The data they used was from the National Survey of Black Americans from the time of 1979-1980. The dependent variables used was mental health, which they broke into the three sections of psychological distress, happiness, and antisocial behavior.  Their mediating variable was the idea of self-concept, which is measured by self-efficacy and self-esteem. The independent variables were body image (skin color, physical attractiveness, and physical impairment), perceived role performance, racial/ethical and gender discrimination, and social class. There were three background variables that were used as controls which were age, marital status, and region. They found that mental health status is directly related to discrimination. They also found that women who obtain a higher income are less stressed than women with lower incomes. Having poor self-concepts had a direct affect on mental health of African American women. They stated that this study done with African American women is consistent with those done on white women within certain variables. In this study they found that racism did not affect mental health as much as sexism did, but state that it needs to be further studied because they did not directly have the people in the study identify as an African American or a woman. 

Sara Greenlee

Trust/Efficacy/Prejudice Quiz

            The required article that I chose to examine was, "Public support for Hispanic deportation in the United States: the effects of ethnic prejudice and perceptions of economic competition in a period of economic distress," by authors Arthur Cosby, Kristen Aanstoos, Marissa Matta, Jeremy Porter and Wesley James. This particular article examines how ethnic prejudices and perceptions affects people's opinions on Hispanic deportation of illegal immigrants, specifically in the United States. This study, the SCSH, was conducted via cell phone calls, with interviewers asking the sample of 1,510, questions of their attitudes and policy preferences of Hispanic immigration. It was of February and March of 2009 that this survey was conducted.  The study took into account the participants ages, sex, race, education, employment, and political parties. The authors of this study focused on policy concerns, such as asking the participants whether they believe that illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay permanently upon arrival in the United States, or be given a temporary work visa.  Of the participants' races, more Hispanics said that they would've given illegal immigrants allowance to stay permanently. For Blacks, more Blacks said that they would grant illegal immigrants temporary residence as a result of a work visa. For education, the participants that have higher education levels favored giving illegal immigrants temporary work visas. As for participants' political parties, and how that shaped their view on illegal immigration, there were more Democrats that said they would allow illegal immigrants permanent residence, versus Independents who said they would give illegal immigrants temporary living status in the United State via a work visa.  The second article I chose to examine was, "The Blacker the Berry: Gender, Skin Tone, Self-Esteem, and Self-Efficacy," by authors Maxine S. Thompson and Verna M. Keith.

            "The Blacker the Berry: Gender, Skin Tone, Self-Esteem, and Self-Efficacy," evaluates how skin color affects women's perceptions of themselves, thus people's self-esteem, and overall, the implications that people face just because their skin is a certain color. The National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA) was responsible for the data of this study. The study was only open to interviewing Black Americans in the United States, being of at least 18 years of age or older. The two dependent variables in this study were self-efficacy and self-esteem. As part of the study to examine participants' self-esteem and self-efficacy, participants were asked about their feelings of self-worth and their personal efficacy. The independent variables of this study were primarily skin tone, but also, the participants social class, education, and how their body images. As for the results of this study, the authors found that the lighter your skin tone is, the more self-efficacy you have, with darker skinned men having worse levels of self-efficacy than dark skinned women. Where participants live, and their education levels, this improved, both men and women's self-efficacy, more for men however. For Black Americans' views on their bodies, it was found that light skinned people are more attractive, but if Blacks are successful, their self-esteem rose. 

Megan Dudley Soc 111

Megan Dudley, 563 words


  The article, "Re-thinking the decline in trust: A comparison of black and white Americans" focuses primarily on the levels of general trust among Americans particularly between whites and blacks. When talking about trust it is in the sense of whether or not you trust people in one's community,or whether they trust people in general. The study primarily focused on the changes in attitudes of trust by generations and what caused those changes, whether it be connected to things like social media and industrialization. This study was meant to look at overall ideas of trust, whether Americans are showing more or less trust than in previous years. A general survey that was already completed was used to collect data. In the past it has shown that whites generally do have more trust among others especially before the Civil Rights Movement, or at times when the country was prospering financially. While when looking at previous years of trust among the black population you cannot conclude clear results that there were general attitudes about trust generationally. 

Essentially this article finds that African Americans have differences yet again on their opinions of trust.The wide variety of variables included things like location, because that can impact one's opinions based on experience, as well as education which showed that the more education attained the higher trust one has. Of course income played a role where the individuals with lower income developed low trust and vice versa for the wealthier. Experiences with government whether that be good or bad also had an affect on attitudes of trust, however race was deemed the most influential or important factor that determined opinions of trust. The overall decline in trust is linked to race, on the average blacks have low trust among others, but it has shown that trust is also declining amongst the whit populations as well. This is most likely due to diversity as well as modernization and the Internet. In America we are faced with multiculturalism yet many do not understand this ideal, we also are always approaching new technologies, as well as spreading our information faster and faster through social media for example.

The article "Teens' social media use and collective action," discusses the effects or perhaps the links between teens use of social media and what that can do to their perception of belonging. Social media sites such as Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook allow for teens these days to communicate in ways that were simply just not around in previous generations. These sites created a new way for teenagers to communicate and it could be having impacts of those taking apart in them. For instance, when one posts a picture on Instagram, the more comments and likes or positive responses that person receives the more likely they are to feel as though they belong, or that they are "liked" by others. If this is possible for positive effects it could also be possible that negative effects could occur. For example, when someone posts something and gets a lot of hate, they will often feel isolated, or that the are not accepted by others. 

  Overall the study conducted a survey amongst Kansas City youth and looked at variables such as self- efficacy, self-esteem, and need to belong.The study also asked about social media use, perceptions of flash mobs, and common demographics such as age. The findings included that the more time spent on social media the more positive opinions on flash mobs, or collective action. 

Trust/efficacy/prejudice