At 4:59 PM -0600 2/27/01, Timmerman, Thomas wrote:
>In case anyone is still reading this, I've had time to skim the article.
>
>Sample is 90,000 in-class surveys in 140 schools followed up by 20,745
>in-home
>interviews followed up by 14,787 additional interviews.
>
>As for the validity of the self-reports:
>
>"The adolescent in-home interview was conducted using audio-CASI technology
>for all sensitive health status and
>health risk behavior questions. Adolescents listened to questions through
>earphones and directly entered their
>responses into a laptop computer, thereby eliminating any potential for
>interviewer or parental effects on their
>responses. ACASI technology has been shown to reduce response bias
>associated with sensitive questions and
>non-normative behavioral items (Turner et al, 1998)."
Seems to be a fair chunk of wishful thinking in here.
"Reduce" is not the same as "eliminate."
How much reduction? Under what circumstances?
>Turner, C. F., L. Ku, M. Rogers, L. D. Lindberg, J. H. Pleck, and F. L.
>Sonenstein. 1998. "Adolescent Sexual
>Behavior, Drug Use, and Violence: Increased Reporting With Computer Survey
>Technology." Science
>280(May):867-68.
>
>As for the correlation/confounding between pledging and religiosity,
>family relationships, social ties, etc.:
>
>"Pledgers' relative risk of sexual initiation is estimated to be 34 % lower
>than
>non-pledgers, even after controlling for a wide range of personal
>characteristics,
>religiosity, and other protective factors."
>
>A little fuel for the fire:
>"Critics of the pledge movement suggest that pledgers who break their
>promise and experience sexual
>intercourse will suffer negative psychological consequences. To assess this
>criticism, we consider two scales
>that measure psychological well-being, the self-esteem scale used in the
>transition models above, and an 11-item
>depression scale. For all groups except for black males, teens who had first
>intercourse experience a loss of
>self-esteem compared to those who remained virgins (results not shown;
>tables available from the authors).
>Female pledgers experience an increase in self-esteem between waves, and the
>interaction effect between
>pledging and having intercourse is not significant for any group. We found
>no indication that changes in self-esteem
>associated with intercourse depend on the timing of intercourse or on age at
>the time of the first wave
>interview. Hence, pledgers do not lose more self-esteem when they break
>their promises then others. The same
>obtains when using the depression scale, and in a multivariate model
>controlling for relationship with parents,
>religiosity, school integration, academic orientation, network position, and
>romantic involvement. Thus,
>pledging has no negative consequences in terms of psychological well-being,
>even for teenagers who break their
>promises."
Again, a lot of reliance on self report without direct validation.
We do not _know_, in fact, what the effect of pledging is on the subjects'
future behaviors.
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Dept Minnesota State University, Mankato *
* 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 *
* http://www.mankato.msus.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html *
