Indicators of public attitudes toward science and technology

The use of attitude surveys inScience Indicators — 1976 is reviewed and found sufficiently flawed to limit the utility of survey results. The primary confusion throughout is the treatment of science and technology as if they were indistinguishable activities. Suggestions for conceptual improvement are presented both for describing attitudes and for predicting changes in them.     

What factors are associated with increasing co-authorship in the social sciences? A case study of Danish Economics and Political Science

We examine the relative strength of short-term citation counts, bibliometric measures such as journal impact factors, and journal rankings in terms of predicting long-run citations. Using a set of articles published in sixty of the highest reputation economics journals in 1994, we find that citations received over fairly short windows (between 1 and 2 years after publication) are much stronger predictors of long-run citation counts compared with journal impact factors or other journal rankings. Our results are robust to a series of robustness checks. These findings suggest department heads and tenure and promotion committees should place greater weight on short-term citations as opposed to article placement when making personnel decisions.     

Medicinal and illegal drugs among Danish car drivers

The objective of this study was to get an insight into the prevalence of medicinal and illegal drugs among car drivers in a Danish rural area. The police randomly stopped about 1000 car drivers and asked them to deliver a saliva sample and gave them a questionnaire to fill in at home. Laboratory analyses by specific methods of samples, which a screening found positive, confirmed that 2% were positive for benzodiazepines or illegal drugs (amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine or opiates): 1.3% were positive for illegal drugs and 0.7% for benzodiazepines. Questionnaire statements from some of the drivers confirm that occasionally some of these drive despite a suspicion to be under the influence of an illegal drug (2.8%), an illegal drug including alcohol (4%), a hazardous medicinal drug including alcohol (8.5%), or alcohol alone above the legal limit (24.5%). These results are considered reliable for the survey area and may not reflect national conditions. The overall results indicate that in this study driving under the influence of illegal drugs or alcohol seems to be associated to especially men, aged 22–44 years. Driving under the influence of hazardous medicinal drugs seems to be associated to middle-aged/elderly drivers, both men and women.     

Alcohol/drug abuse, driving convictions, and risk-taking dispositions among trauma center patients

The objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship between alcohol/drug abuse diagnoses, driving convictions (speeding, reckless driving, impaired driving, license violations), and risk-taking dispositions among a series of injured drivers admitted to a trauma center. The driving records of 778 patients were linked to diagnoses of psychoactive substance use disorders (PSUDs), admission blood alcohol concentration (BAC), mode of injury, and results of a risk-taking disposition survey. Twenty-nine percent of patients had one or more convictions in the 3 years before injury. Types of violation were not related to mode of injury. Although there was a positive association between prior impaired-driving convictions, current alcohol dependence, and a BAC+ status, a consistent pattern relative to other violations, PSUDs, and BAC status was not apparent. Risk-taking disposition scale scores indicated that patients without PSUDs and without convictions tended toward less risk-taking behavior than patients with PSUDs and with convictions. The complex inter-relationships between PSUDs, risk-taking dispositions, and being convicted of driving dangerously require additional study so that intervention programs and injury prevention initiatives can be targeted effectively.     

The cognitive and the social structure of STS

Scientometrics - The differentiation of scientific fields into sub-fields can be studiedon the level of the 'scientific content' of the sub-field, thatis on the level of the products, as...     

Citation analysis and peer ranking of Australian social science journals

Citation analyses were performed for Australian social science journals to determine the differences between data drawn from Web of Science and Scopus. These data were compared with the tier rankings assigned by disciplinary groups to the journals for the purposes of a new research assessment model, Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), due to be implemented in 2010. In addition, citation-based indicators including an extended journal impact factor, the h-index, and a modified journal diffusion factor, were calculated to assess whether subsequent analyses influence the ranking of journals. The findings suggest that the Scopus database provides higher number of citations for more of the journals. However, there appears to be very little association between the assigned tier ranking of journals and their rank derived from citations data. The implications for Australian social science researchers are discussed in relation to the use of citation analysis in the ERA.     

Specialties and disciplines in science and social science: An examination of their structure using citation indexes

The technique of co-citation cluster analysis is applied to a special three-year (1972–1974) file of theSocial Sciences Citation Index. An algorithm is devised for identifying clusters which belong to a discipline based on the percentage of source documents which appear in a disciplinary journal set. Clusters in three disciplines (economics, sociology and psychology) are identified using this algorthm. Clusters in a specialty of natural science (particle physics) obtained from the 1973Science Citation Index are compared and contrasted with the three groups of social sciences clusters. Certain common structural characteristics of the social science and natural science groups suggest that knowledge is developing in parts of the social science disciplines in a manner similar to the natural sciences.Prepared for presentation at the joint meeting of The Society for Social Studies of Science and the Research Committee on the Sociology of Science of the International Sociological Association, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, November 4–6, 1976.     

The growth of research on inter-and multidisciplinarity in science and social science papers, 1975–2006

In a follow-up study of a previous analysis concerning the period 1980–1999, we found that inter-/multidisciplinary remained a highlighted title term both in science and social science papers. It is suggested that science policy should give proper priority to inter-and multidisciplinary research.     

The prevalence of green and grey open access: Where do physical science researchers archive their publications?

Scientometrics - The Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) implemented an open access policy for its grant recipients in 2008. We used bibliographic data from the Web of Science to find out...     

Comparing journals from different fields of science and social science through a JCR subject categories normalized impact factor

The journal Impact Factor (IF) is not comparable among fields of science and social science because of systematic differences in publication and citation behaviour across disciplines. In this work, a decomposing of the field aggregate impact factor into five normally distributed variables is presented. Considering these factors, a principal component analysis is employed to find the sources of the variance in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) subject categories of science and social science. Although publication and citation behaviour differs largely across disciplines, principal components explain more than 78 % of the total variance and the average number of references per paper is not the primary factor explaining the variance in impact factors across categories. The categories normalized impact factor based on the JCR subject category list is proposed and compared with the IF. This normalization is achieved by considering all the indexing categories of each journal. An empirical application, with one hundred journals in two or more subject categories of economics and business, shows that the gap between rankings is reduced around 32 % in the journals analyzed. This gap is obtained as the maximum distance among the ranking percentiles from all categories where each journal is included.     

Personality and attitudes as predictors of risky driving among older drivers

Although there are several studies on the effects of personality and attitudes on risky driving among young drivers, related research in older drivers is scarce. The present study assessed a model of personality-attitudes-risky driving in a large sample of active older drivers. A cross-sectional design was used, and structured and anonymous questionnaires were completed by 485 older Italian drivers (Mean age = 68.1, SD = 6.2, 61.2% males). The measures included personality traits, attitudes toward traffic safety, risky driving (errors, lapses, and traffic violations), and self-reported crash involvement and number of issued traffic tickets in the last 12 months. Structural equation modeling showed that personality traits predicted both directly and indirectly traffic violations, errors, and lapses. More positive attitudes toward traffic safety negatively predicted risky driving. In turn, risky driving was positively related to self-reported crash involvement and higher number of issued traffic tickets. Our findings suggest that theoretical models developed to account for risky driving of younger drivers may also apply in the older drivers, and accordingly be used to inform safe driving interventions for this age group.     

Car driver attitudes,perceptions of social norms and aggressive driving behaviour towards cyclists

The interaction of car drivers and cyclists is one of the main causes of cycle incidents. The role of attitudes and social norms in shaping car drivers’ aggressive behaviour towards cyclists, is not well understood and merits investigation. A sample of 276 drivers completed an online questionnaire concerning their attitudes towards cyclists, attitudes towards risky driving, perception of social norms concerning aggressive driving towards cyclists, and the frequency with which they engage in such aggressive driving behaviours. The results showed that attitudes towards cyclists, as well as social norm perceptions concerning aggressive driving towards cyclists, were associated with aggressive driving towards cyclists. Negative attitudes towards cyclists were more pronounced in non-cyclists than cyclists and their association with aggressive driving behaviour was stronger in cyclists than non-cyclists. The perception of social norms concerning aggressive driving towards cyclists had a stronger association with aggressive driving in non-cyclists than cyclists. Attitudes towards risk taking did not affect aggressive driving towards cyclists. These findings can inform campaigns that aim to improve cyclist and car driver interaction on the roads, making them safer to use for cyclists.     

Integrating social and cognitive aspects of belief dynamics: towards a unifying framework

Belief change and spread have been studied in many disciplines—from psychology, sociology, economics and philosophy, to biology, computer science and statistical physics—but we still do not have a firm grasp on why some beliefs change more easily and spread faster than others. To fully capture the complex social-cognitive system that gives rise to belief dynamics, we first review insights about structural components and processes of belief dynamics studied within different disciplines. We then outline a unifying quantitative framework that enables theoretical and empirical comparisons of different belief dynamic models. This framework uses a statistical physics formalism, grounded in cognitive and social theory, as well as empirical observations. We show how this framework can be used to integrate extant knowledge and develop a more comprehensive understanding of belief dynamics.     

Psychological,social and cognitive characteristics of high-risk drivers: A pilot study

A battery of short tests was administered to 30 young drivers who reported being involved in three or more accidents during the past three years and to 30 drivers who had no accident history but were matched for age, sex and exposure to driving. The high accident group scored higher on measures of personal maladjustment, social maladjustment, and to a lesser extent on measures of impulsivity and information processing deficiency. A discriminant function based on data for 46 drivers in the original sample was able to predict at 86% accuracy the group membership for seven additional high accident drivers and seven matched controls on the basis of the test scores. Implications for a theory of human accident involvement were discussed.     

Worsening file-drawer problem in the abstracts of natural,medical and social science databases

The file-drawer problem is the tendency of journals to preferentially publish studies with statistically significant results. The problem is an old one and has been documented in various fields, but to my best knowledge there has not been attention to how the issue is developing in a quantitative way through time. In the abstracts of various major scholarly databases (Science and Social Science Citation Index (1991–2008), CAB Abstracts and Medline (1970s–2008), the file drawer problem is gradually getting worse, in spite of an increase in (1) the total number of publications and (2) the proportion of publications reporting both the presence and the absence of significant differences. The trend is confirmed for particular natural science topics such as biology, energy and environment but not for papers retrieved with the keywords biodiversity, chemistry, computer, engineering, genetics, psychology and quantum (physics). A worsening file-drawer problem can be detected in various medical fields (infection, immunology, malaria, obesity, oncology and pharmacology), but not for papers indexed with strings such as AIDS/HIV, epidemiology, health and neurology. An increase in the selective publication of some results against some others is worrying because it can lead to enhanced bias in meta-analysis and hence to a distorted picture of the evidence for or against a certain hypothesis. Long-term monitoring of the file-drawer problem is needed to ensure a sustainable and reliable production of (peer-reviewed) scientific knowledge.     

Comparing research productivity of returnee-PhDs in science,engineering, and the social sciences

Comparing research output of foreign-trained doctorates (returnee PhDs) with those trained in the home country allows us to test effects of scientists’ mobility on research productivity, and informs policies aimed towards incentivizing return of foreign-trained scientists. This study compared research output of returnee PhDs in three fields that vary in resource-dependency (social sciences, sciences, and engineering), factoring in seniority and gender. Scientometric analysis (n?=?1056) compared research outputs of returnee PhDs & home-PhDs (h-Index and citations) at three levels of seniority (assistant, associate, professor) in the three fields. The comparison suggests that on average (independent of field), research output of returnee PhDs does not exceed that of home-PhDs, however, returnee PhD research output compared to that of home-PhDs in the sciences is substantially low compared to the difference in output observed in the social sciences and engineering fields. In sciences field, returnee PhDs’ output is lower than that of home-PhD at all three academic positions, whereas in the engineering field, returnee PhDs at the starting and senior-most positions show greater research productivity than home-PhDs. In social sciences, returnee PhDs’ research output exceeds that of home-PhDs only at the senior most position. Regarding gender, the analysis shows that research output of female returnee PhDs in the engineering field, in spite of them being small in number, is higher than that of male returnee PhDs. Implications of these insights are discussed to inform policies aimed toward incentivizing return of foreign PhDs to developing countries.     

Sustainability science: accounting for nonlinear dynamics in policy and social–ecological systems

Resilience is an emergent property of complex systems. Understanding resilience is critical for sustainability science, as linked social–ecological systems and the policy process that governs them have the capacity for nonlinear dynamics. The possibility of nonlinear change in these systems means that there is an inherent degree of uncertainty in social–ecological systems and the policy process. Abrupt, nonlinear change often results in social and/or ecological surprises that create tremendous challenges for environmental management. Thus, it is necessary to improve environmental management via a suite of mechanisms that have the capacity for adaptation. This paper suggests how we can move closer to achieving this goal through an overarching focus, including reformed and new law, adaptive management and adaptive governance, scenario planning, and leading indicators.