Reflections on Reflections:

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Reflections on PSA

A personal reflection on the history of the Pacific Sociological Association in the USA and the Pacific Basin. Essay ends with suggestions for the PSA’s future.     

Reflections on Accuracy

The difference between test accuracy and predictive accuracy is presented and defined. The failure to distinguish between these two types of measures is shown to have led to a misguided debate over the interpretation of prevalence estimates. The distinction between test accuracy defined as sensitivity and specificity, and predictive accuracy defined as positive and negative predictive value is shown to reflect the choice of the denominator used to calculate true positive, false positive, false negative, and true negative rates. It is further shown that any instrument will tend to overestimate prevalence in low base rate populations and underestimate it in those populations where prevalence is high. The implications of these observations are then discussed in terms of the need to define diagnostic thresholds that have clinical and policy relevance.     

Critical Reflections on the March for Science

Using MacKendrick (2017) as a springboard, this essay explores the March for Science as an example of social mobilization. I lay out some concerns regarding the use of this tactic as a response to attacks on science and suggest some ways sociology could contribute to the development of more efficacious actions to address the denigration of scientific knowledge.     

Reflections on the revolutionary wave in 2011

The “Arab Spring” was a surprising event not just because predicting revolutions is a difficult task, but because current theories of revolution are ill equipped to explain revolutionary waves where interactive causal mechanisms at different levels of analysis and interactions between the units of analysis predominate. To account for such dynamics, a multidimensional social science of revolution is required. Accordingly, a meta-framework for revolutionary theory that combines multiple levels of analysis, multiple units of analysis, and their interactions is offered. A structured example of theory building is then given by detailing how the development of world cultural models and practices challenge existing political structures, affect mobilization processes, and make diffusion more likely. A structured example of study design using qualitative comparative analysis of 16 Middle Eastern and North African countries provides support for the interaction of subnational conditions for mobilization, state-centered causes, and transnational factors, including a country’s linkage to world society, as one explanation of the Revolutions of 2011.     

Evaluability assessment: Reflections on the process

As a formal process, evaluability assessment is 10 years old. In the Cooperative Extension Service (CES), the process is 5 years old. Since 1984, evaluability assessments have been implemented in five states with six different major programs in an effort to define the process in a practical methodological sense and to encourage its adoption in CES. Implementation proceeded iteratively and after each study, procedures were analyzed, clarified, and, wherever possible, simplified to make the process more usable and more “operator robust.” The purpose of this article is to reflect on the process as it evolved in applications in CES. Underlying philosophy and methodological considerations are discussed. To put these in perspective, background information is provided on the evaluability assessment process and on the studies conducted in CES.     

Reflections on the Therapeutic Action of Desire

When feelings of love and desire for an external object are so powerful that they distract from the treatment relationship or manifest as an erotic transference, they can undermine or destroy an analysis. Likewise, when the analyst's erotic responses are more than he or she can tolerate, acting out can prove fatal. Conversely, when the erotic is contained, desire can become an important part of the therapeutic action. An extended clinical example is presented to explore these themes and related variables of repressed and liberated desire as well as the connection between age and erotic longing.     

Reflections on dangerous fieldwork

Latin American fieldwork may involve danger for researcher and subject alike. The researcher must work to minimize his or her own or others’ exposure to violence. Unobtrusive methods such as Q-Methodology, participant observation, and quiet interviewing are recommended so that the researcher can build a sustaining and protecting network of contacts. This article discusses the interpersonal relations, problems of security, and field entry techniques involved in sensitive research situations. Ana Karina Galve de Peritore, his wife and frequent field collaborator, is a former professor of international relations at National Autonomous University of Mexico, and is currently a doctoral candidate in rural sociology at University of Missouri-Columbia.     

Reflections on Mathematical Sociology

As a participant in the development of mathematical sociology over the past several decades, the author undertakes a personal and historical review of the field. A special effort is made to link early innovations and interests to recent developments. The paper deals successively with (a) the origins of mathematical sociology and its early achievements, (b) the cognitive interests and values of mathematical sociologists in relation to ideas associated with the founders of sociology, (c) the scope of mathematical contributions in terms of the general components of human action and society, and (d) the problematic specialty status of mathematical sociology. The paper concludes with some thoughts on the future of mathematical sociology.