Michael E Sobel
Biographic Data
| ID | 87096 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael E Sobel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael E |
| FAMILY NAME | Sobel |
| SIGNATURE | SOBEL M E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Arizona |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1868 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Race, gender, and party in EEOC cases, 1996–2006: Assessing the role of judge attributes in case outcomes in the US district courts
We study the relationship between trial judge attributes and monetary outcomes in cases brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. We define an estimand, the average feature comparison (AFC), that addresses whether or not a case outcome would differ were it assigned to a judge of one type as opposed to another—here male versus female, White versus non‐White, or Republican versus Democratic appointee. We develop a framework for estima…
The mobility effects hypothesis: Methods and applications
Causal Inference
This entry provides an introduction to the statistical literature on causal inference
Handbook of Statistical Modeling for the Social and Behavioral Sciences
Men Matter More: The Social Class Identity of Married British Women, 1985–1991
We investigate the class identity of married women as it relates to their own and their husband's class position. Whereas previous workers have attempted to test whether identity depends solely on the husband's position, not at all on the husband's position or equally on the husband's and wife's position, leaving out all intermediate cases, we estimate new diagonal reference models that quantify the relative weight of each partner's class positio…
Forecasting the Vote: A Theoretical Comparison of Election Markets and Public Opinion Polls
The dominant methodology for short-term forecasting of electoral outcomes uses trial-heat polls, where respondents report their current electoral preferences (not their election-day predictions). Election markets, where self-selected participants trade shares of candidates at prices predictive of election-day results, provide an alternative method that often produces more accurate forecasts. Consequently, increasing attention is being paid to thi…
Culture Wars and Opinion Polarization: The Case of Abortion
Recent observers have pointed to a growing polarization within the U.S. public over politicized moral issues—the so‐called culture wars. DiMaggio, Evans, and Bryson studied trends over the past 25 years in American opinion on a number of critical social issues, finding little evidence of increased polarization; abortion is the primary exception. However, their conclusions are suspect because they treat ordinal or nominal scales as interval data. …
Modeling Direction and Intensity in Semantically Balanced Ordinal Scales: An Assessment of Congressional Incumbent Approval
Public opinion researchers frequently work with semantically balanced ordinal scales, such as five-point Likert scales. These items are used to measure candidate evaluations, public spending preferences, positions on social issues, and candidate and party placement, for example. Because the items are semantically balanced about a midpoint or implied midpoint, researchers may be interested in both the tendency to respond above versus below a midpo…
Some Log-Linear and Log-Nonlinear Models for Ordinal Scales with Midpoints, with an Application to Public Opinion Data
Ordinal response scales with a middle category are widely used in public opinion studies, psychology, medicine, computed tomography and other fields. The usual models in the statistical literature for ordinal response variables treat the case where the scale has a natural middle category no differently from the case where the scale does not have a middle category. This paper proposes new models for the analysis of ordinal response scales with mid…
Causal Inference in Statistical Models of the Process of Socioeconomic Achievement: A Case Study
Typically, using data from a nonexperimental study, quantitative sociologists model one or more outcomes as a function of independent variables, interpreting the resulting parameter estimates as effects. This article compares the usual approach to causal inference in sociology with an alternative approach that builds explicitly on a counterfactual account of causation. The comparison is relevant because sociologists typically interpret (incorrect…
Editors' Introduction to the Special Issue in Memory of Clifford C. Clogg-Part 2
Origins, Destinations, and Association in Occupational Mobility
Although the literature on occupational mobility distinguishes between structural and circulation (or exchange) mobility, previous methods for simultaneously considering these are inadequate. In this article, nonlinear models of association are combined with linear models for logits of marginal distributions, resulting in models with parameters directly interpretable in terms of association or structural mobility. Goodman's work on combining cate…
Modeling Symmetry, Asymmetry, and Change in Ordered Scales with Midpoints Using Adjacent Category Logit Models for Discrete Data
Likert scales and bipolar adjective scales are often used to measure attitudes and opinions. To model the dependence of the scale on covariates, investigators typically (1) assign interval scores to scale categories, using these in regression analyses; (2) collapse categories to compare responses above and below a middle category; or (3) estimate a model for the cumulative distribution, for example, a proportional odds model. Problems with Approa…
Clifford Collier Clogg, 1949-1995: A Tribute to His Life and Work
Clifford Collier Clogg, distinguished social scientist and statistician, passed away this year at the age of 45. This paper reviews his scholarly contributions to the social sciences and statistics and extends some of his work on model comparisons. Section 2 discusses Clogg's work on the U.S. labor force and his attempts to produce social indicators of employment states more differentiated than the usual indicators-that is, the unemployment rate.…
An Introduction to Causal Inference
Sociologists routinely employ regression analysis and a variety of related statistical models to draw causal inferences from survey data. Typically, the parameters of the models are interpreted as effects that indicate the change in a dependent variable that would occur if one or more independent variables were set to values other than the values actually taken. The purpose of this article is to formally demonstrate, in a fashion accessible to th…
Categorical Data Analysis
The American Occupational Structure and Structural Equation Modeling in Sociology
Some Models for the Multiway Contingency Table with a One-to-One Correspondence among Categories
Goodman (1985) discusses a class of models for the R X R contingency table with a one-to-one correspondence between the row and column variables. The most restrictive model in this class combines the features of symmetry and independence, and the least restrictive is the model of quasi symmetry or symmetric association. In this paper, I extend the class of models discussed by Goodman to the R X R X K (K 2 2) contingency table and to the R X R X R…
Association and Heterogeneity: Structural Models of Similarities and Differences
Direct and Indirect Effects in Linear Structural Equation Models
This article discusses total indirect effects in linear structural equation models. First, I define these effects. Second, I show how the delta method may be used to obtain the standard errors of the sample estimates of these effects and test hypotheses about the magnitudes of the indirect effects. To keep matters simple, I focus throughout on a particularly simple linear structural equation system; for a treatment of the general case, see Sobel …
Some New Results on Indirect Effects and Their Standard Errors in Covariance Structure Models
I am grateful to Gerhard Arminger, Bruno A. Baldessari, William T. Bielby, George W. Bohrnstedt, Clifford C. Clogg, Hermann Flaschka, Edward H. Freeman, Kenneth J. Singleton, and Nancy B. Tuma for helpful advice. I am also grateful to Clement A. Stone for writing a computer program that provides the standard errors discussed in this chapter. This program can be obtained at nominal cost and is described in Stone (1985)
Platonic and Operational True Scores in Covariance Structure Analysis: An Invited Comment on Bielby's “Arbitrary Metrics in Multiple Indicator Models of Latent Variables”
Bielby (1986) argues that conventional practices for normalizing latent variable models can lead the applied researcher astray. He presents two examples to show how this may occur. In the first example, he considers the regression of income on education. In the second, he considers a panel model of attitude stability. He concludes that “explicit calibration of measurements” is as critical in sociological work as it is in the physical sciences. Th…
Saving the Bath Water: An Invited Comment on Krauze and Slomczynski's “Matrix Representation of Structural and Circulation Mobility
Krauze and Slomczynski propose a mathematical treatment of the mobility table that they claim solves 'the crucial methodological problem' in mobility research. We reject their definition of this problem, and we reject their solution. Their proposed solution (1) is not oriented toward describing the process of social mobility or testing theories about the mobility process. Consequently, major issues (for example, the causal effect of socioeconomic…
Use of Null Models in Evaluating the Fit of Covariance Structure Models
Theory, Description, and Quantification: A Note on the Use of the Independence Model in Mobility Research
In his work on occupational mobility, Sobel (1983) shows that the parameters of an empirically plausible loglinear model of the mobility process cannot be matched to the concepts of structural and circulation mobility (as these concepts are currently constituted by the bulk of the discipline). He also argues (by way of example) that a parametric approach to the mobility table yields more information about the mobility process than the various ind…
Asymptotic Confidence Intervals for Indirect Effects in Structural Equation Models
For comments on an earlier draft of this chapter and for detailed advice I am indebted to Robert M. Hauser, Halliman H. Winsborough, and Toni Richards, several anonymous reviewers, and the editor of this volume. I also wish to thank John Raisian, Nancy Rytina, and Barbara Mann for their comments and Mark Wilson for able research assistance. The opinions expressed here are the sole responsibility of the author
Diagonal Mobility Models: A Substantively Motivated Class of Designs for the Analysis of Mobility Effects
Designs for the analysis of mobility effects are flawed by the manner in which the effects of origins and destinations are parametrized. Consequently, suggestions that mobility experiences do not affect attitudes and behaviors are inconclusive. A new class of models (diagonal mobility models) for the analysis of mobility effects which are demonstrably grounded in sociological theory is proposed, and estimation of these models is discussed. To ill…
Social Mobility and Fertility Revisited: Some New Models for the Analysis of the Mobility Effects Hypothesis
Previous designs for the analysis of the mobility effects hypothesis do not incorporate explanatory variables other than origins destination and mobility and most designs fail to parametrize the effects of origins and destinations in a substantively defensible fashion. Sobel (1981) proposed a class of models for the analysis of mobility effects that parametrizes the effects of origins and destinations in a sociologically meaningful fashion but hi…
Some New Results on Indirect Effects and Their Standard Errors in Covariance Structure Models
I am grateful to Gerhard Arminger, Bruno A. Baldessari, William T. Bielby, George W. Bohrnstedt, Clifford C. Clogg, Hermann Flaschka, Edward H. Freeman, Kenneth J. Singleton, and Nancy B. Tuma for helpful advice. I am also grateful to Clement A. Stone for writing a computer program that provides the standard errors discussed in this chapter. This program can be obtained at nominal cost and is described in Stone (1985)
Culture Wars and Opinion Polarization: The Case of Abortion
Recent observers have pointed to a growing polarization within the U.S. public over politicized moral issues—the so‐called culture wars. DiMaggio, Evans, and Bryson studied trends over the past 25 years in American opinion on a number of critical social issues, finding little evidence of increased polarization; abortion is the primary exception. However, their conclusions are suspect because they treat ordinal or nominal scales as interval data. …
Exchange, Structure, and Symmetry in Occupational Mobility
Previous attempts to related the traditional concepts of exchange and structural mobility to parameters of the log linear model have been flawed. This article reformulated these concepts; introduces a new, more general conceptual distinction between reciprocated and unreciprocated mobility; and matches the concepts of structure and exchange to parameters of the model of quasi symmetry (QS). Specifically, if exchange or reciprocated mobility is de…
Structural Mobility, Circulation Mobility and the Analysis of Occupational Mobility: A Conceptual Mismatch
Stratification researchers typically conceptualize mobility in terms of structural and circulatory components and most investigators argue that it is analytically necessary to disaggregate mobility into these component parts. This paper examines (a) the two basic justifications that have been offered for the utilization of this conceptual framework and (b) the methodology that is used to separate mobility into its constituent parts. This examinat…
Direct and Indirect Effects in Linear Structural Equation Models
This article discusses total indirect effects in linear structural equation models. First, I define these effects. Second, I show how the delta method may be used to obtain the standard errors of the sample estimates of these effects and test hypotheses about the magnitudes of the indirect effects. To keep matters simple, I focus throughout on a particularly simple linear structural equation system; for a treatment of the general case, see Sobel …
An Introduction to Causal Inference
Sociologists routinely employ regression analysis and a variety of related statistical models to draw causal inferences from survey data. Typically, the parameters of the models are interpreted as effects that indicate the change in a dependent variable that would occur if one or more independent variables were set to values other than the values actually taken. The purpose of this article is to formally demonstrate, in a fashion accessible to th…
Origins, Destinations, and Association in Occupational Mobility
Although the literature on occupational mobility distinguishes between structural and circulation (or exchange) mobility, previous methods for simultaneously considering these are inadequate. In this article, nonlinear models of association are combined with linear models for logits of marginal distributions, resulting in models with parameters directly interpretable in terms of association or structural mobility. Goodman's work on combining cate…
The mobility effects hypothesis: Methods and applications
Association and Heterogeneity: Structural Models of Similarities and Differences
Forecasting the Vote: A Theoretical Comparison of Election Markets and Public Opinion Polls
The dominant methodology for short-term forecasting of electoral outcomes uses trial-heat polls, where respondents report their current electoral preferences (not their election-day predictions). Election markets, where self-selected participants trade shares of candidates at prices predictive of election-day results, provide an alternative method that often produces more accurate forecasts. Consequently, increasing attention is being paid to thi…
Causal Inference in Statistical Models of the Process of Socioeconomic Achievement: A Case Study
Typically, using data from a nonexperimental study, quantitative sociologists model one or more outcomes as a function of independent variables, interpreting the resulting parameter estimates as effects. This article compares the usual approach to causal inference in sociology with an alternative approach that builds explicitly on a counterfactual account of causation. The comparison is relevant because sociologists typically interpret (incorrect…
Modeling Symmetry, Asymmetry, and Change in Ordered Scales with Midpoints Using Adjacent Category Logit Models for Discrete Data
Likert scales and bipolar adjective scales are often used to measure attitudes and opinions. To model the dependence of the scale on covariates, investigators typically (1) assign interval scores to scale categories, using these in regression analyses; (2) collapse categories to compare responses above and below a middle category; or (3) estimate a model for the cumulative distribution, for example, a proportional odds model. Problems with Approa…
Use of Null Models in Evaluating the Fit of Covariance Structure Models
Lifestyle Expenditures in Contemporary America: Relations Between Stratification and Culture
Using a multiple-indicator multiple-cause model, Sobel uses the 1972-73 National Survey of Consumer Expenditures to isolate four patterns of spending on leisure activities and to identify the social and demographic characteristics of people exhibiting each pattern
Mobility Effects in the Workplace
Previous research on the social and psychological effects of mobility is limited in two crucial respects: virtually all analyses have been couched at the level of societal stratification systems and based exclusively on a single statistical design-the so-called square-additive model. This paper joins questions of structural context and statistical design in an analysis of the effects of mobility in the stratification system of the workplace. The …
Modeling Direction and Intensity in Semantically Balanced Ordinal Scales: An Assessment of Congressional Incumbent Approval
Public opinion researchers frequently work with semantically balanced ordinal scales, such as five-point Likert scales. These items are used to measure candidate evaluations, public spending preferences, positions on social issues, and candidate and party placement, for example. Because the items are semantically balanced about a midpoint or implied midpoint, researchers may be interested in both the tendency to respond above versus below a midpo…
Some Log-Linear and Log-Nonlinear Models for Ordinal Scales with Midpoints, with an Application to Public Opinion Data
Ordinal response scales with a middle category are widely used in public opinion studies, psychology, medicine, computed tomography and other fields. The usual models in the statistical literature for ordinal response variables treat the case where the scale has a natural middle category no differently from the case where the scale does not have a middle category. This paper proposes new models for the analysis of ordinal response scales with mid…
Clifford Collier Clogg, 1949-1995: A Tribute to His Life and Work
Clifford Collier Clogg, distinguished social scientist and statistician, passed away this year at the age of 45. This paper reviews his scholarly contributions to the social sciences and statistics and extends some of his work on model comparisons. Section 2 discusses Clogg's work on the U.S. labor force and his attempts to produce social indicators of employment states more differentiated than the usual indicators-that is, the unemployment rate.…
Some Models for the Multiway Contingency Table with a One-to-One Correspondence among Categories
Goodman (1985) discusses a class of models for the R X R contingency table with a one-to-one correspondence between the row and column variables. The most restrictive model in this class combines the features of symmetry and independence, and the least restrictive is the model of quasi symmetry or symmetric association. In this paper, I extend the class of models discussed by Goodman to the R X R X K (K 2 2) contingency table and to the R X R X R…
Response to Bridges and Miller
Saving the Bath Water: An Invited Comment on Krauze and Slomczynski's “Matrix Representation of Structural and Circulation Mobility
Krauze and Slomczynski propose a mathematical treatment of the mobility table that they claim solves 'the crucial methodological problem' in mobility research. We reject their definition of this problem, and we reject their solution. Their proposed solution (1) is not oriented toward describing the process of social mobility or testing theories about the mobility process. Consequently, major issues (for example, the causal effect of socioeconomic…
"Frameworks" and Frameworks: Reply to Slomczynski and Krauze
Mobility Effects in the Workplace
Previous research on the social and psychological effects of mobility is limited in two crucial respects: virtually all analyses have been couched at the level of societal stratification systems and based exclusively on a single statistical design-the so-called square-additive model. This paper joins questions of structural context and statistical design in an analysis of the effects of mobility in the stratification system of the workplace. The …
Response to Bridges and Miller
Diagonal Mobility Models: A Substantively Motivated Class of Designs for the Analysis of Mobility Effects
Designs for the analysis of mobility effects are flawed by the manner in which the effects of origins and destinations are parametrized. Consequently, suggestions that mobility experiences do not affect attitudes and behaviors are inconclusive. A new class of models (diagonal mobility models) for the analysis of mobility effects which are demonstrably grounded in sociological theory is proposed, and estimation of these models is discussed. To ill…
Asymptotic Confidence Intervals for Indirect Effects in Structural Equation Models
For comments on an earlier draft of this chapter and for detailed advice I am indebted to Robert M. Hauser, Halliman H. Winsborough, and Toni Richards, several anonymous reviewers, and the editor of this volume. I also wish to thank John Raisian, Nancy Rytina, and Barbara Mann for their comments and Mark Wilson for able research assistance. The opinions expressed here are the sole responsibility of the author
Social Measurement: Current Issues
Some Large-Sample Standard Errors for Components of a Mean Difference under a Linear Model
Lifestyle Expenditures in Contemporary America: Relations Between Stratification and Culture
Using a multiple-indicator multiple-cause model, Sobel uses the 1972-73 National Survey of Consumer Expenditures to isolate four patterns of spending on leisure activities and to identify the social and demographic characteristics of people exhibiting each pattern
Structural Mobility, Circulation Mobility and the Analysis of Occupational Mobility: A Conceptual Mismatch
Stratification researchers typically conceptualize mobility in terms of structural and circulatory components and most investigators argue that it is analytically necessary to disaggregate mobility into these component parts. This paper examines (a) the two basic justifications that have been offered for the utilization of this conceptual framework and (b) the methodology that is used to separate mobility into its constituent parts. This examinat…
Working-Class Life: "The American Standard" in Comparative Perspective, 1899-1913. Peter R. Shergold
"Frameworks" and Frameworks: Reply to Slomczynski and Krauze
Lifestyle and Social Structure: Concepts, Definitions, Analysis
Use of Null Models in Evaluating the Fit of Covariance Structure Models
Theory, Description, and Quantification: A Note on the Use of the Independence Model in Mobility Research
In his work on occupational mobility, Sobel (1983) shows that the parameters of an empirically plausible loglinear model of the mobility process cannot be matched to the concepts of structural and circulation mobility (as these concepts are currently constituted by the bulk of the discipline). He also argues (by way of example) that a parametric approach to the mobility table yields more information about the mobility process than the various ind…
Social Mobility and Fertility Revisited: Some New Models for the Analysis of the Mobility Effects Hypothesis
Previous designs for the analysis of the mobility effects hypothesis do not incorporate explanatory variables other than origins destination and mobility and most designs fail to parametrize the effects of origins and destinations in a substantively defensible fashion. Sobel (1981) proposed a class of models for the analysis of mobility effects that parametrizes the effects of origins and destinations in a sociologically meaningful fashion but hi…
Exchange, Structure, and Symmetry in Occupational Mobility
Previous attempts to related the traditional concepts of exchange and structural mobility to parameters of the log linear model have been flawed. This article reformulated these concepts; introduces a new, more general conceptual distinction between reciprocated and unreciprocated mobility; and matches the concepts of structure and exchange to parameters of the model of quasi symmetry (QS). Specifically, if exchange or reciprocated mobility is de…
Some New Results on Indirect Effects and Their Standard Errors in Covariance Structure Models
I am grateful to Gerhard Arminger, Bruno A. Baldessari, William T. Bielby, George W. Bohrnstedt, Clifford C. Clogg, Hermann Flaschka, Edward H. Freeman, Kenneth J. Singleton, and Nancy B. Tuma for helpful advice. I am also grateful to Clement A. Stone for writing a computer program that provides the standard errors discussed in this chapter. This program can be obtained at nominal cost and is described in Stone (1985)
Platonic and Operational True Scores in Covariance Structure Analysis: An Invited Comment on Bielby's “Arbitrary Metrics in Multiple Indicator Models of Latent Variables”
Bielby (1986) argues that conventional practices for normalizing latent variable models can lead the applied researcher astray. He presents two examples to show how this may occur. In the first example, he considers the regression of income on education. In the second, he considers a panel model of attitude stability. He concludes that “explicit calibration of measurements” is as critical in sociological work as it is in the physical sciences. Th…
Saving the Bath Water: An Invited Comment on Krauze and Slomczynski's “Matrix Representation of Structural and Circulation Mobility
Krauze and Slomczynski propose a mathematical treatment of the mobility table that they claim solves 'the crucial methodological problem' in mobility research. We reject their definition of this problem, and we reject their solution. Their proposed solution (1) is not oriented toward describing the process of social mobility or testing theories about the mobility process. Consequently, major issues (for example, the causal effect of socioeconomic…
Association and Heterogeneity: Structural Models of Similarities and Differences
Direct and Indirect Effects in Linear Structural Equation Models
This article discusses total indirect effects in linear structural equation models. First, I define these effects. Second, I show how the delta method may be used to obtain the standard errors of the sample estimates of these effects and test hypotheses about the magnitudes of the indirect effects. To keep matters simple, I focus throughout on a particularly simple linear structural equation system; for a treatment of the general case, see Sobel …
Some Models for the Multiway Contingency Table with a One-to-One Correspondence among Categories
Goodman (1985) discusses a class of models for the R X R contingency table with a one-to-one correspondence between the row and column variables. The most restrictive model in this class combines the features of symmetry and independence, and the least restrictive is the model of quasi symmetry or symmetric association. In this paper, I extend the class of models discussed by Goodman to the R X R X K (K 2 2) contingency table and to the R X R X R…
The American Occupational Structure and Structural Equation Modeling in Sociology
Categorical Data Analysis
Clifford Collier Clogg, 1949-1995: A Tribute to His Life and Work
Clifford Collier Clogg, distinguished social scientist and statistician, passed away this year at the age of 45. This paper reviews his scholarly contributions to the social sciences and statistics and extends some of his work on model comparisons. Section 2 discusses Clogg's work on the U.S. labor force and his attempts to produce social indicators of employment states more differentiated than the usual indicators-that is, the unemployment rate.…
An Introduction to Causal Inference
Sociologists routinely employ regression analysis and a variety of related statistical models to draw causal inferences from survey data. Typically, the parameters of the models are interpreted as effects that indicate the change in a dependent variable that would occur if one or more independent variables were set to values other than the values actually taken. The purpose of this article is to formally demonstrate, in a fashion accessible to th…
Econometrics (23 works) · Mathematics (22 works) · Computer Science (20 works) · Statistics (19 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Economics (13 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Social science (7 works)