GESIS-ZUMA-Monographs

The following list provides an overview of the most significant English ZUMA book publications during the last quarter-century.

The entire book publication list including German books can be obtained here.

Methods & Procedures

An Empirical Study of the Reliability and Stability of Survey Research Items
Hrsg. von G.W. Bohrnstedt/P.Ph. Mohler/W. Müller.
Sociological Methods and Research 15, 1987.
Am Beispiel der Daten des ALLBUS Dreiwellenpanels aus dem Jahr 1986, werden sowohl klassische als auch moderne Verfahren für die Messung von Item-Reliabilität und Stabilität vorgestellt und diskutiert. Zu den Autoren gehören u.a. G. Arminger, W. Jagodzinski, F. Faulbaum, R. Porst und P. Schmidt.

New Directions in Attitude Measurement.
Hrsg. von D. Krebs/P. Schmidt.
Belin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 1993. 378 Seiten, 158 Mark. ISBN 3-11-013871-9.
Measurement of attitudes is one of the most frequent activities of empirically working social scientists. This book is a first step in bringing together relevant approaches of attitude theory, measurement and analysis: attitudes towards objects as well as attitudes towards behaviour; structural determinants of attitudes and their quantitative contribution to the explained variance of attitudes; measurement models and test theoretical models as alternative approaches for scaling attitudes; statistical techniques for estimating parameters of attitude models; and finally measurement and effects of response sets. Contents: I. Historical Perspectives and State of the Art; II. Social Structure, Attitudes and Social Action; III. Measurement Theory and Scaling; IV. Latent Variable Models: Foundations and Statistical Issues; V. Effects of Systematic Bias in Measuring Social Life Feelings and Attitudes.

Trends and Perspectives in Empirical Social Research
Hrsg. von I. Borg/P. Ph. Mohler.
Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1994. 375 Seiten, 80 Mark (brosch.). ISBN 3-11-014312-7.
Anläßlich der Feier zum 20-jährigen Bestehen von ZUMA wurde eine Festschrift mit dem Titel "Trends and Perspectives in Empirical Social Research" herausgeben. In dem Reader werden folgende Themen behandelt: Sozialindikatoren, allgemeine Sozialumfragen, Demographie, internationale und vergleichende Umfragen, Kognition und Umfrageforschung, Mikrodaten, Stichproben, Mikrosimulation, qualitative Methoden, Phänomenologie, Inhaltsanalyse, Panelanalyse, Mehrebenenanalyse, Faktorenanalyse, kausale Modellierung, Facettentheorie, Mathematik und Sozialwissenschaften, Datenmodellierung und Theoriebildung, Skalenniveaus.

ZUMA- Nachrichten Spezial Band 1.
Text Analysis and Computers.
Hrsg. von Züll, C./Harkness, J./J. H.P. Hoffmeyer- Zlotnik.
Mannheim, ZUMA, 1996, 132 Seiten, ISBN 3- 924220- 11- 5.
This ZUMA Nachrichten Spezial documents a cornerstone in an initiative to bring together scholars from different disciplines engaged in the computer-assisted analysis of texts. It presents reprints of the talks given by four keynote speakers and the abstracts of all the papers presented at the Text Analysis and Computers Conference held in Mannheim from September 18 - 21, 1995. The conference papers were drawn from four broad areas - content analysis, qualitative approaches in the social sciences, information processing and corpus linguistics.

Modern Multidimensional Scaling: Theory and Applications
Von I. Borg/Groenen, P.
New York: Springer 1997, 471 Seiten, (Springer Series in Statistics), 54,95$, ISBN 0-387-94845-7.
This book provides a comprehensive treatment of multidimensional scaling (MDS), a statistical technique used to analyze the structure of similarity or dissimilarity data in multidimensional space. There are many examples of such data, including intercorrelations of attitude items, direct ratings of similarity on choice objects, and trade indices for a set of countries. MDS models such data as distances between points in a geometric space of low dimensionality. This makes complex data sets accessible to visual exploration and thus makes it easier to see structure not obvious from the numbers. Other uses of MDS interpret the geometry and, in particular, the distance function as a psychological composition rule. The text is up-to-date in discussing the algebra of MDS models and state-of-the-art majorization algorithms as well as varieties of interpreting MDS solutions, including facet theory and regional approaches.

ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial Band 2 (vergriffen)
Eurobarometer
Measurement Instruments for Opinions in Europe
Hrsg. von W. E. Saris/M. Kaase
Mannheim: ZUMA 1997, ISBN 3-924220-12-3.
For more than two decades the biannual representative sample survey Eurobarometer  have been a major data source for comparative research in the social sciences, especially political science, although they are mainly conducted for policy counseling reasons. In order to speed up the policy information process, Karlheinz Reif had proposed the normal Eurobarometers to be supplemented by a regular tracking study on European attitudes on a monthly basis. Since this objective could not be reached by face to face personal interviews for reasons of cost and speed of data gathering, the option had to be validated to gather the tracking material through personal telephone inerviews. An important question to be answered there was whether, given the uneven distribution of private telephone ownership in the member countries of the European Union, it was nevertheless possible to produce valid, reliable and representative data based on telephone ownership household samples. The following chapters present analyses of such problems and draw conclusions for future research. Given the fact that all over Europe especially in commercial market research the number of telephone interviews is drastically increasing and that of personal face to face interviews is decreasing, the findings from the experimental research described in this book reach far beyond the Eurobarometers.

ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial Band 3
Cross-Cultural Survey Equivalence.
Hrsg. von J. Harkness.
Mannheim: ZUMA 1998, 187 Seiten, ISBN 3-924220-13-1.
This volume, the third in the ZUMA-Nachrichten-Spezial series on methodological issues in empirical social science research, is devoted to issues of cross-cultural methodology. The focus is on issues of equivalence, the key requirement in cross-national and cross-cultural comparative research. As the contributions indicate, equivalence is, however, better thought of in terms of equivalencies - in social science surveys and in other standardised instruments of measurement. Contributors come from different countries and continents and from widely differing research backgrounds, ranging from linguistics to survey research and its methodologies, to cultural anthropology and cross-cultural psychology. They are, in order of appearance in the volume: Timothy P. Johnson: Approaches to Equivalence in Cross-Cultural and Cross-National Survey Research. Fons J.R. van de Vijver: Towards a Theory of Bias and Equivalence. Willem E. Saris: The Effects of Measurement Error in Cross-Cultural Research. Janet A. Harkness and Alicia Schoua-Glusberg: Questionnaires in Translation. Michael Braun and Jacqueline Scott: Multidimensional Scaling and Equivalence: Is having a job the same as working? Ingwer Borg: A Facet-Theoretical Approach to Item Equivalency. Peter Ph. Mohler, Tom W. Smith and Janet A. Harkness: Respondents' Ratings of Expressions from Response Scales: A Two-Country, Two-Language Investigation on Equivalence and Translation.

ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial Band 4
Nonresponse in Survey Research
Hrsg. von A. Koch/R. Porst
Mannheim: ZUMA 1998, 354 Seiten, ISBN 3-924220-15-8.
This volume, the fourth in the ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial series on methodological issues in empirical social science research, takes up issues of nonresponse. Nonresponse, that is, the failure to obtain measurements from all targeted members of a survey sample, is a problem which confronts many survey organizations in different parts of the world. The papers in this volume discuss nonresponse from different perspectives: they describe efforts undertaken for individual surveys and procedures employed in different countries to deal with nonresponse, analyses of the role of interviewers, the use of advance letters, incentives, etc. to reduce nonresponse rates, analyses of the correlates and consequences of nonresponse, and descriptions of post-survey statistical adjustments to compensate for nonresponse. All the contributions are based on presentations made at the ‘8th International Workshop on Household Survey Nonresponse’. The workshop took place from September 24 - 26, 1997 in Mannheim, Germany, the home base of the workshop host institute, ZUMA. The Mannheim workshop drew 51 delegates from nine European countries, as well as Canada, Israel and the United States. Twenty-nine papers were presented and discussed, of which twenty-five are included here.

Dimensions of Internet Science
Ulf-Dietrich Reips & Michael Bosnjak (Eds.)
Lengerich: Pabst Science Publishers, 2001
347 pages, 48.- DM (24.- €), ISBN3-935357-52-4

Internet Science is a new and exciting interdisciplinary field. Its purpose is the conduct of empirical studies which examine the Internet as both an instrument for, and an object of, scientific investigation. This book is the first comprehensive collection of contributions to Internet Science appearing in English, written by highly respected experts from seven different countries. Dimensions of Internet Science consists of twenty contributions, covering the following topics: Issues in Net-based Survey Research, Psychological Web Experiments and Web Questionnaire Studies, Online Communication Research and E-Commerce, Knowledge Acquisition and Learning with the Net, Studying Perception on the Net. The authors: Klaus Beck & Alexander Raulfs; Michael H. Birnbaum; Michael Bosnjak; Tom Buchanan; Don A. Dillman & Dennis K. Bowker; Andrea Frick, Marie-Therese Bächtiger & Ulf-Dietrich Reips; Frank Knapp & Martin Heidingsfelder; John H. Krantz; Bettina Laugwitz; Jochen Musch, Arndt Bröder & Karl Christoph Klauer; Anja Naumann, Jacqueline Waniek & Josef F. Krems; Manuela Paechter, Karin Schweizer & Bernd Weidenmann; Ulf-Dietrich Reips; Patrick Rössler, Nicole Klövekorn & Tania Rebuzzi; Alexa I. Ruppertsberg, Galia Givaty, Henricus A. H. C. Van Veen & Heinrich H. Bülthoff; Inga D. Schmidt, Birgit Stark & Thomas Döbler; Stefan Schwarz & Ulf-Dietrich Reips; Sonja Utz & Kai Sassenberg; Martin Voracek, Stefan Stieger & Alexander Gindl; Martin Welker.

Online Social Sciences
B. Batinic, U.-D. Reips & M. Bosnjak (Hrsg.)
Hogrefe Verlag für Psychologie, 2002
ISBN 0-88937-257-8
ca. 432 Seiten, ca. 44,95 € / 78 sFr
Ever more researchers in the social sciences and market research are interested in using the benefits of the Internet to obtain data, and as this book shows online studies can address many questions that are asked by social scientists. This unique text provides comprehensive and up-to-date information, from the basics upwards, about online research methods, technical approaches to data collection, and the quality and limitations of data collected online. Included among the twenty-three chapters, written by leading online researchers from Europe and North America, are ones investigating the implementation of both reactive and non-reactive methods of data collection. The studies reported utilize Web-based questionnaires, Web experiments, observations of virtual worlds, case narrations, content analyses, and analysis of mailing-lists and other log data. Online research from an international perspective: the latest developments and techniques for social scientists and others interested in exploiting the opportunities the Internet provides.

Cross-Cultural Survey Methods
Janet Harkness, Fons van de Vijver & Peter Ph. Mohler (Eds.)
Wiley & Sons, Inc., Publication, 2003
ISBN 0-471-38526-3
Hardcover, 432 Pages, US $89.95
Since all research is in a sense comparative, it is sometimes argued that methods and requirements remain the same, no matter what country or nationality is involved. The editors of this volume contend that this philosophy is an oversimplification. Although comparative survey research builds on and benefits from best practices established in monocultural research, cross-cultural research requires methodologies which address the central issues of equivalence of measurement and comparability of findings. The literature dealing with these issues has tended to be piecemeal, scattered across disciplines, and focused on specific questionnaires and the needs of single disciplines. This book provides the first systematic, interdisciplinary and hands-on treatment of the issues of greatest saliency for comparative survey research within and across countries. Breaking new ground in its approach, Cross-Cultural Survey Methods describes how to recognize and deal with the major obstacles at each stage of researching, striving for equivalence and comparability.

Advances in Cross-National Comparison: A European Working Book for Demographic and Socio-Economic Variables
Jürgen H.P. Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik & Christof Wolf (Eds.)
Kluwer Academic Publishers: New York, 2003
ISBN 0-306-47731-9; 420p; $ 150, £ 96, € 153

As the European Union grows together we are faced with an increasing number of European surveys and statistics that rely on national instruments or questionnaires. We lack valid instruments with functional equivalence that allow international comparative analysis. This problem is especially important in the case of demographic and socio-economic variables. To overcome these problems this book offers rules of comparison, tested Instruments and examples for the measurements of basic demographic and socio-economic variables. It is mainly written for two groups. First, researchers and practitioners involved in comparative Research in Europe. Second, researchers working with data of the statistical offices of European countries and data from institutions of the European Union.

ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial Band 9 
QUEST 2003
Questionnaire Evaluation Standards
Hrsg. von Peter Prüfer/Margrit Rexroth/Floyd Jackson Fowler, Jr.
Mannheim: ZUMA 2004, 216 Seiten, ISBN 3-924220-27-1
This volume, the ninth in the ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial series on methodological issues in empirical social science research takes up issues of question and questionnaire evaluation. The papers in this volume discuss practical as well as theoretical aspects of questionnaire evaluation. All contributions are based on presentations made at the fourth QUEST (Questionnaire Evaluation Standards) conference which took place from October 21 - 23, 2003 at ZUMA in Mannheim. There were 26 attendees from 9 countries representing 14 organizations: Bureau of Labor Statistics, USA, Center for Survey Research, University of Massachusetts, USA, Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach, Germany, National Center for Health Statistics, USA, National Center for Social Rerearch, U.K., Office of National Statistics, U.K., Statistics Canada, Statistics Finland, Statistics Netherlands, Statistics New Zealand, Statistics Norway, Statistics Sweden, U.S. Census Bureau, ZUMA, Germany.

Modern Multidimensional Scaling Theory and Applications Series:

Springer Series in Statistics

Borg, Ingwer, Groenen, Patrick
J. F. Springer Scince + Business Media, New York, 2nd ed., 2005, XXI ISBN: 0-387-25150-2, 611 p. 176 illus., Hardcover, 69,50 € 

The book provides a comprehensive treatment of multidimensional scaling (MDS), a family of statistical techniques for analyzing the structure of (dis)similarity data. Such data are widespread, including, for example, intercorrelations of survey items, direct ratings on the similarity on choice objects, or trade indices for a set of countries. MDS represents the data as distances among points in a geometric space of low dimensionality. This map can help to see patterns in the data that are not obvious from the data matrices. MDS is also used as a psychological model for judgments of similarity and preference.
This second edition is not only a complete overhaul of its predecessor, but also adds some 140 pages of new material. Many chapters are revised or have sections reflecting new insights and developments in MDS. 

How Europeans see Europe. Structure and Dynamics of European Legitimacy Beliefs 
Angelika Scheuer
Dissertation, Academisch Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam
ISBN 90 5629 408 3, NUR 741 / 754 , 2005
How do Europeans see Europe? What principles guide people's approval or rejection of EU projects? Are they 'Europeans by heart' or 'nice-weather Europeans'? How do citizens perceive the shift from economic integration to political unification? What are chances and risks of EU legitimacy? Angelika Scheuer gives empirical answers in her study of European legitimacy based on the European Elections Study of 1994. She demonstrates that publics of the EU-12 display a similar, well-structured European belief system. This enables comparative measurement and makes the EU a laboratory for hypothesis testing. The modelling of legitimacy processes discovers cross-country differences in the evolution of European legitimacy. Distinct legitimation styles exist among European publics and call for perceptive attention in future EU proposals and campaigns. 

ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial Band 11
Methodological Aspects in Cross-National Research
Jürgen H.P. Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik & Janet A. Harkness (Eds.) 
Mannheim: ZUMA 2005, 305 Seiten, ISBN 3-924220-29-8, 13 Euro
The idea for this volume was born during the Sixth International Conference on Social Science Methodology in Amsterdam in August 2004, organised by the International Sociological Association Research Committee 33 on Logic and Methodology. Most of the contributions in this volume are proceeding papers from the Amsterdam conference. The contributions in this volume are organised in four parts. The first part deals with designing and implementing cross-cultural surveys. The second part consists of three papers that deal with different issues of comparability or “equivalence”. The third part of the volume brings together papers on with harmonising socio-demographic information in different types of surveys. The last section of the volume contains papers that discuss individual socio-demographic variables in cross-national perspective. 

ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial Band 12
Conducting Cross-National and Cross-Cultural Surveys.
Papers from the 2005 Meeting of the International Workshop on Comparative Survey Design and Implementation (CSDI)
Janet A. Harkness (ed.)
Mannheim: ZUMA 2006, 123 Seiten, ISBN 3-924220-29-8, 13 Euro
The papers in this volume stem from the third annual meeting of the International
Workshop on Comparative Survey Design and Implementation (CSDI). The seven papers are good illustrations of the broad spectrum of research fields in which CSDI researchers are engaged. The volume begins and ends with two framework papers, the first discussing what makes cross-national research special, the last on where we begin to draw boundaries between entities to be compared in “comparative” research. The five remaining papers discuss (in order of the volume): the rich information available from the multinational European Social Survey on data collection; socio-demographic measurement and comparability in the cross-national context, again with reference to the European Social Survey; cognitive pre-testing of translated questionnaires; communicative issues across cultures in telephone interviews; and preliminary work on guidelines on using interpreters underway at the U.S. Census Bureau. The last-mentioned papers reflect research concerns in U.S. cross-cultural context.

The German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) & International Social Survey Programme (ISSP)

Attitudes to Inequality and the Role of Government.
Hrsg. von J.W. Becker/J.A. Dawis/P. Ester/P.Ph. Mohler.
Rijswijk, Netherlands: Social and Cultural Planning Office, 1990. ISBN 90-377-0041-1.
Das Buch gibt eine erste zusammenfassende Darstellung von Ergebnissen des International Social Survey Program (ISSP), u.a. mit Beiträgen zu Sozialer Ungleichheit und zu politischen Einstellungen.

Modern society and values. A comparative Analysis Based on the ISSP Project
N. Toš, P. Ph. Mohler and B. Malnar (Ed.) (vergriffen)
FSS, University of Ljubljana; ZUMA Mannheim, 2000
387 Seiten, 55 Mark, ISBN 961-235-028-0
The foundation of this book is the International Social Survey Programme, which over a period of sixteen years has studied the social situation and fundamental values, in eight thematic sets and several replications, in 34 countries throughout the world. The book consists of fifteen contributions by twenty researchers and is a response to the following thematic blocks: social inequality, role of government, family and gender-role attitudes, religios beliefs and environment.
The authors: Michael Braun, Pierre Bréchon, Paul Dekker, Juan Díez-Nicolás, Jonas Edlund, Peter Ester, M.D.R. Evans, Mitja Hafner-Fink, Jonathan Kelley, Noah Lewin-Epstein, Brina Malnar, Peter Ph. Mohler, Masja Nas, Peter Robert, Matild Sagi, Marjan Smrke, Haya Stier, Stefan Svallfors, Janez Štebe, Niko Toš, Samo Uhan.

Germans or Foreigners?  Attitudes Toward Ethnic Minorities in Post-Reunification Germany
Richard Alba, Peter Schmidt, Martina Wasmer (Eds.)  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004 ISBN: 1-4039-6378-9, 308 p., List Price: $59.95
This book examines contemporary attitudes towards ethnic minorities in Germany. These minorities include some of immigrant origin, such as Italians, Turks, and asylum seekers, and the principal non-immigrant minority, Jews. While the findings demonstrate that intense prejudice against minorities is not widespread among Germans, many of whom in fact can be considered immigrant- and minority-friendly, a crystallization of attitudes is also evident: that is, attitudes towards immigrants are strongly correlated with anti-Semitism and with other worldview dimensions, such as positioning in the left-right political spectrum. In this sense, the fundamental question of whether immigrants and other minorities should be regarded as fellow citizens or ethnic outsiders remains relevant in the German context.

Statistics & Software

SoftStat Conferences

SoftStat '91, Advances in Statistical Software 3.
Hrsg. von F. Faulbaum.
Stuttgart, Jena, New York: Gustav Fischer 1992. 536 Seiten, 94 Mark. ISBN 3-437-40280-3.
Berichtsband über die 6. Konferenz mit Originalbeiträgen zu den folgenden Themenbereichen:
Statistische Auswertungssysteme in Datenverwaltung und Datenanalyse, Individuelle Modellierung, Wissensbasierte Systeme in der Statistik, Simulation, Systeme und Ansätze zur interaktiven graphischen Datenanalyse, Kartographie und Geographische Informationssysteme, Statistik und Linguistische Datenverarbeitung, Behandlung anonymisierter Daten, Computerunterstützte Datenerhebung, Rechnernetze und Paralleles Rechnen in der Statistischen Datenverarbeitung, Statistikausbildung und Statistik-Software, Statistische Arbeitsplatzsysteme, weitere Bereiche der Anwendung von Statistik-Software wie Statistische Qualitätskontrolle und Versuchsplanung.

SoftStat '93: Advances in Statistical Software 4.
Hrsg. von Frank Faulbaum.
Stuttgart, Jena, New York: Gustav Fischer Verlag 1994. 656 Seiten. 128 Mark. ISBN 3-437-40324-9.
This volume reports on the results of the 7th Conference on the Scientific Use of Statistical Software (SoftStat '93). The purpose of the Conference Series is to provide an overview of the different ways in which methods and tools of computer science can be made useful for statistics. In particular the conferences deal with new developements, applications, comparisons and evaluations of statistical analysis systems including the various mathematical procedures and algorithms which underly the different software realizations. In addition it is concerned with the role of statistical analysis systems in the research process, in teaching and education as well as in the solution of concrete problems in special fields of application. The topics dealt with at this conference were: Computer Programs for Statistical Data Analysis, Knowledge-Based Systems in Statistics, Simulation, Experimental Design, Processing of Very Large Data Sets, Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, Statistics and Linguistic Data Processing, Computer-Assisted Data Collection, Scaling and Classification, Data Models and Design of Data Bases, Parallel and Neural Computing, Training in Statistics and Statistical Software, Statistical Algorithms, Academic Software Cooperation, Fuzzy Statistics.

SoftStat '95 Advances in Statistical Software 5.
Hrsg. von F. Faulbaum/Bandilla, W.
Stuttgart: Lucius und Lucius, 1996, 638 Seiten. ISBN 3-8282-0001-X.

SoftStat ´97 - Advances in Statistical Software 6
Hrsg. von Bandilla, W./Faulbaum, F.
Stuttgart: Lucius und Lucius, 1997, 513 Seiten, 110 Mark, ISBN 3-8282-0032-X.
Die beiden Tagungsbände enthalten Beiträge zur international ausgerichteten 8. bzw. 9. Konferenz über die wissenschaftliche Anwendung von Statistik-Software (SoftStat), die im Frühjahr 1995 bzw. 1997 stattfanden. In ihnen wird ein Überblick über den jeweils aktuellen Forschungsstand in folgenden Bereichen gegeben: Algorithmische Aspekte der statistischen Datenanalyse; Explorative Datenanalyse und Verfahren zur Entdeckung von Modellen, Graphische Datenanalyse, Visualisierung, Skalierung, Klassifikation und Diskrimination; Computergestützte Textanalyse; Softwareaspekte in speziellen Anwendungen, wie z.B. der Ökonometrie und angewandten Wirtschaftsforschung sowie der Geographie und Verarbeitung räumlicher Daten. Ein Schwerpunkt der 9. SoftStat-Konferenz waren zusätzlich Computergestützte Verfahren der Datenerhebung, speziell Internet Umfragen.

ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial Band 5

A review of software for text analysis

Alexa Melina & Cornelia Zuell

Mannheim: ZUMA 1999, 176 Seiten, 13 €, ISBN 3-924220-16-6

The book reviews a selection of software for computer-assisted text analysis. The primary aim is to provide a detailed (and up-to-date) account of the spectrum of available text analysis software and catalogue the kinds of support the selected software offers to the user. A related, more general, goal is to record the tendencies both in functionality and technology and identify the areas where more development is needed. For this reason the presented selection of software comprises not only fully developed commercial and research programs, but also prototypes and beta versions. An additional aspect with regards to the kinds of software reviewed is that both qualitative and quantitative-oriented types of research are included. Depending on research purposes and project design the text analyst can profit from available tools independently of their orientation. Today it is often the case that in computational support, the borderline between quantitative and qualitative methodologies can become 'obscure'; instead, one can detect a number of commonalities which can be placed within a broader text analysis context.

Cognitive Psychology

Social Cognition and Communication: Human Judgement in Its Social Context.
Hrsg. von N. Schwarz/F. Strack.
Sonderheft der Zeitschrift Social Cognition, Band 9, Heft 1. New York: Guilford Press, 1991, $16. ISSN 0278-016x.
In sechs Beiträgen berichten Sozialpsychologen über Einflüsse des kommunikativen Kontextes auf die soziale Urteilsbildung. Die Untersuchungen zeigen, daß eine Analyse menschlichen Denkens den jeweiligen sozialen Kontext berücksichtigen muß, für dessen Einfluß sich eine Konzeptualisierung in Begriffen der Griceschen Konversationslogik anbietet. Methodologische Implikationen für sozialwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen und psychologische Experimente werden diskutiert.

Subjective Well-Being: An Interdisciplinary Perspective.
Hrsg. von F. Strack/M. Argyle/N. Schwarz.
Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1991, 74 Mark. ISBN 0-08-037264-3.
Psychologen und Sozialwissenschaftler verschiedener Fachrichtungen präsentieren theoretische Modelle und empirische Untersuchungen zum subjektiven Wohlbefinden. Sozialwissenschaftliche Analysen auf der Basis subjektiver sozialer Indikatoren werden durch Analysen aus dem Bereich der Kognitions-, Sozial-, Persönlichkeits-, Gesundheits- und Arbeitspsychologie ergänzt.

Context effects in social and psychological research.
Hrsg. von N. Schwarz/S. Sudman.
New York: Springer, 1992, 84 Mark. ISBN 3-540-97705-8.
Kognitionspsychologen und Umfrageforscher berichten über Untersuchungen zum Auftreten von Kontexteffekten bei Befragungen, in Laborexperimenten und in psychologischen Tests. Von besonderem Interesse sind Einflüsse der Reihenfolge von Fragen und von Antwortvorgaben. Mehrere Beiträge stellen theoretische Modelle zur Erklärung und Vorhersage von Kontexteffekten zur Verfügung.

Autobiographical Memory and the Validity of Retrospective Reports.
Hrsg. von N. Schwarz/S. Sudman.
New York: Springer Verlag. 1993. 380 Seiten, 124 Mark. ISBN 3-540-94167-3.
Kognitionspsychologen und Umfrageforscher berichten über theoretische Modelle des autobiographischen Gedächtnisses und empirische Untersuchungen zur Validität retrospektiver Verhaltensberichte. Von besonderem Interesse sind Möglichkeiten, die Qualität retrospektiver Berichte durch geeignete Befragungsmethoden zu verbessern.

Social Dilemmas and Cooperation.
Hrsg. von U. Schulz/W. Albers/U. Mueller.
Berlin, Heidelberg, New York u. a.: Springer Verlag 1994. 541 Seiten. 198 Mark. ISBN 3-540-57757-2.
A social dilemma is a game which at first glance has only inefficient solutions. If efficient solutions are to be achieved, some kind of cooperation among the players is required. This book asks two basic questions, closely intertwined with each other: 1. How is cooperation possible among rational players in such a social dilemma? Which changes in the social context of a social dilemma situation are necessary in order for players to rationally choose the cooperative option? 2. How do real players actually behave in social dilemma situations? Do they behave "rationally" at all? Or, conversely, what kind of reasoning, attitudes, emotions, etc. shape the behavior of real players in social dilemmas? What kind of interventions, what kind of internal mechanisms within a real group may change players' willingness to cooperate? These two general questions mark the broad spectrum of the problem which has been, over the last three decades, investigated in various disciplines, and which has brought many new ideas and new observations into the study of the old question of social order in a world of born egoists. Accordingly, this volume contains contributions by biologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists, mathematicians, psychologists, and philosophers.

Social Indicators

Recent Social Trends in West Germany 1960-1990.
Von W. Glatzer/K.-O. Hondrich/H.-H. Noll/K. Stiehr/B. Wörndl.
Reihe »Comparative Charting of Social Change»
Frankfurt/New York: Campus. 1992, 564 Seiten, gebunden, 88 Mark. ISBN 3-593-34402-5.
Dieses Datenhandbuch enthält eine theorie- und problemorientierte Auswahl von Zeitreihendaten zu den wichtigsten Tendenzen des sozialen und kulturellen Wandels der westdeutschen Gesellschaft. Die Analysen umfassen insgesamt 78 Trenddimensionen, gegliedert in 17 Bereiche, wie z.B. Arbeit, soziale Schichtung, Lebensstile, Bildung, Einstellung und Werte.

Social Statistics and Social Reporting in and for Europe.
Series Europe in Comparison, Vol. 1.
Hrsg. von P. Flora/F. Kraus/H.-H. Noll/F. Rothenbacher.
Bonn 1994. ISBN 3-8206-0096-5. 48 Mark.
The contributions to this volume represent the revised papers of a workshop on "Social Statistics and Social Reporting in and for Europe". Scholars from very different institutional contexts were brought together to gain an overview of current structures, activities and approaches in social data production at the international (OECD, EU) as well as the national level. The eleven papers deal with various aspects of EU data such as: EU social statistics/social protection statistics/health statistics; interrelations of German and EU social statistics; the EUROBAROMETER programme of the European Commission and the activities of the Centre of European Surveys and Studies (ZEUS); research and data holdings of the OECD in the social data field; organisation and results of the International Social Survey Programme; national and international approaches in social reporting in the whole of Europe as well as in Germany. The spectrum and quality of the contributions have made it possible to produce a comprehensive book on social reporting and social statistics in Europe which will be useful to all social scientists working in this field.

Changing Structures of Inequality: A Comparative Perspective
Yannick Lemel, Heinz-Herbert Noll (Hrsg.)
Montreal et al.: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002
USD 85.00, 461 Seiten
ISBN 0-735-2203-4
In den vergangenen Jahren wurde das Thema der sozialen Ungleichheit in der internationalen soziologischen Debatte intensiv diskutiert. Dabei hat sich eine lebhafte Kontroverse um die Frage entwickelt, ob soziale Klassen und Schichten auch heute noch nützliche Konzepte der Gesellschaftsanalyse darstellen. Einige Forscher sind der Ansicht, dass Klassen und Schichten für die Beobachtung und Erklärung sozialer Ungleichheit nach wie vor unverzichtbar sind, während andere den Nutzen dieser Konzepte unter den veränderten Bedingungen moderner Gesellschaften kritisch beurteilen. Der vorliegende Band untersucht diese Fragen sowie die faktischen Veränderungen in der Struktur sozialer Ungleichheit in vergleichender Perspektive für die folgenden fünf Nationen: Kanada, Frankreich, Deutschland, Spanien und die Vereinigten Staaten.

Microdata

ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial Band 7
Social and Economic Analyses of Consumer Panel Data
Hrsg. von Georgios Papastefanou, Peter Schmidt, Axel Börsch-Supan, Hartmut Lüdtke, Ulrich Oltersdorf
Mannheim: ZUMA 2001; 212 Seiten; CD-Rom
Eine von der Abteilung Einkommen und Verbrauch von ZUMA organisierte Arbeitsgruppe hat sich mit datentechnischem Handling und Analysepotential von komplexen Verbraucherpaneldaten, am Beispiel des ConsumerScan Haushaltspanels der Gesellschaft für Marktforschung (GfK, Nürnberg) beschäftigt und die Ergebnisse in einem Symposium im Oktober 1999 vorgestellt. Die überwiegende Zahl der vorgetragenen Arbeiten, die man als Werkstattberichte ansehen kann, sind in diesem Band 7 der ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial abgedruckt. Neben einem detallierten Einblick in die Praxis und das Datenerhebungsprogramm von Verbraucherpanels, wie sie z.B. bei der Marktforschungen der GfK unterhalten werden, enthält der Band Untersuchungen zu Fragen der Flexibilität von Preisbildungsvorgängen, des Lebensstils im alltäglichen Konsums, der Gesundheitsorientierung im Konsumverhalten, der Umweltorientierung und ihrer Umsetzung im Kauf alltäglicher Haushaltungsprodukte, der Gewohnheitsbildung und Risikorientierung bei Kaufentscheidungen sowie der sozio-ökonomischen Einbettung des Kaufs spezieller Produkte wie z.B. alkoholischer Getränke.

Others

Do Political Campaigns Matter?  
David M. Farell & Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck
Routledge: London & New York, 2002
ISBN 0-415-25593-7, 215 Seiten, 55 £
In recent decades, political actors of all sorts - parties and candidates, governments and other political institutions, interest groups and social movements - have increasingly come to view political campaigning as an essential supplement to their engagement in the process of policy-making. By investing ever more efforts and resources into political campaigns, they seek to mobilize support among the mass public, to persuade citizens of their causes and to inform the citizenry about public policies and political procedures. So far as the practitioners are concerned, such campaigns matter a great deal. Each year, billions of dollars are spent on political campaigns. The sophisticated services of specialist agencies and campaign consultants are engaged; candidates are sent on television training courses; glossy literature, advertisements and campaign gimmicks are produced. While parties, candidates, interest groups, governments, media and - perhaps - voters all seem to be strongly convinced of the notion that campaigns do indeed matter, the collective views of the academic community can perhaps best be summarized as undecided. This book, in bringing together some of the leading international scholars on electoral behaviour and communication studies, provides the first ever stock-take of the state of this sub-discipline. The individual chapters present the most recent studies on carnpaign effects in North America, Europe and Australasia. As a whole, the book provides a cross-national assessment of the theme of political campaigns and their consequences.