Whats Missing? SOCI 101 November 29, 2011 SOCI 101 () Whats - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Whats Missing? SOCI 101 November 29, 2011 SOCI 101 () Whats Missing? November 29, 2011 1 / 25 Whats Missing? I. Health and Health Care II. Mistakes, Misconduct, and Disaster III. Economics and Performativity SOCI 101 () Whats

SLIDE 1

What’s Missing?

SOCI 101 November 29, 2011

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SLIDE 2

What’s Missing?

I. Health and Health Care
II. Mistakes, Misconduct, and Disaster
III. Economics and Performativity

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SLIDE 3

I Health and Health Care

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SLIDE 4

Society and Health

Causal Directions

Health Social Factors

? ?

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SLIDE 5

Social Effects on Health Care

Typical approach Inequalities in:

Diet Access to health care Education Opportunities for physical activity

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SLIDE 6

Medicine and Culture

Lynn Payer (1988)

Doctors in USA, Britain, Germany, France “only about 15% of all contemporary [1988] medical interventions are supported by objective clinical evidence that they do more good than harm.” Vague symptoms

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SLIDE 7

Hospitalization Rates

The relative risks of hospitalization (as compared with Rochester children) for Boston and New Haven children, respectively, were 3.8 and 2.3 for asthma, 6.1 and 2.9 for toxic ingestions, and 2.6 and 2.7 for head injuries.

–JM Perrin, CJ Homer, DM Berwick, AD Woolf, JL Freeman, and JE Wennberg “Variations in rates of hospitalization of children in three urban communities,” 1989.

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SLIDE 8

Diagnostic Dilemmas: ADHD

Is it just “kids being kids?” Teachers and parents believe in it Stimulants make everyone concentrate better Social differences in diagnosis and treatment What makes it a disorder?

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SLIDE 9

ADHD

All children, 4–17 7.8% Boys 11% Girls 4.4% White 8.6% Black 7.7% Health insured 8.1% Not insured 4.9%

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SLIDE 10

ADHD

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SLIDE 11

Education and Fertility

“Demographic Transition” includes fertility decline Education is a key piece, both causal and caused Women’s education is apparently particularly important Why?

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SLIDE 12

II Mistake, Misconduct, and Disaster

Systems Breakdown

When, under what conditions, and why do things go wrong?

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SLIDE 13

Complex Systems

Lots of “working parts” Nestedness Degree of coupling

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Flexibility and Rigidity in Complex Systems

Basic tradeoff Flexible complex systems: bend but don’t break Rigid complex systems: reliable but fragile

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Theory: When Can Things Go Wrong?

The system is too rigid The system is too flexible People within the system are malicious Unforseeable exogenous events

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Breakdown is Intrinsic

Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents Breakdowns are normal parts of complex systems over time (Some) breakdowns are the results of systems failure Catastrophic breakdowns can (usually) be avoided Human implications of breakdowns can vary

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Example 1: The Buffalo Creek Disaster

1972, West Virginia coal mining country Questionable practices, “invisible” areas Linear assumption of security Social, psychological oucomes of disaster

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The MOVE Bombing

Philadelphia, 1985: countercultural cult MOVE Provocations, escalations, breakdown ⇒ “bombing” Wagner-Pacifici, Discourse and Destruction: MOVE bombing as discursive breakdown

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SLIDE 19

The Challenger Launch Decision

Exceedingly complex system Significant exogenous variables Tightly coupled What’s the right way to evaluate information about potential failures? Ultimately, NASA does not consider concerns voiced about the O-rings

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SLIDE 20

Challenger, Columbia, and Diane Vaughan

The Challenger Launch Decision (1996) “History as Cause: Columbia and Challenger.” Ch. 8, Report, Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Vol. 1. August 2003.

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SLIDE 21

Other Candidate Examples

The Enron meltdown The Matt Doherty era The 2000 Florida elections

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SLIDE 22

III Economics and Performativity

Do people act economically rationally? Why? Is economic behavior natural or produced? Options pricing and the Black-Scholes-Merton Equation

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SLIDE 23

H. Economicus

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Sociological critiques of H. Economicus

Culture and collective morality Inconsistent preferences Prejudice and discrimination Performativity

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SLIDE 25

Performativity

MacKenzie and Millo, AJS 109:1 (2003)

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