Leroy C. Gould

Risk and Benefit Perceptions, Acceptability Judgments, and Self-Reported Actions toward Nuclear Power

Summary Three-hundred and sixty-seven respondents selected from five widely differing groups in two U.S. communities were administered a questionnaire tapping personal action for or against nuclear power, as well as a variety of attitudinal, cognitive, and sociodemographic variables. Respondents included members of environmental groups, college students, blue-collar workers, business people, and nuclear engineers and other technologists. The results indicated that degree of self-reported action was systematically correlated with the rated “acceptability,” risks, benefits, and qualitative characteristics of nuclear power. The results also pointed to other major correlates of personal action, including confidence in various risk-management institutions and organizations. Emphasis is placed upon general methodological issues involved in the study of risk perceptions, acceptability judgments, and actions.

Who Defines Delinquency: A Comparison of Self-Reported and Officially-Reported Indices of Delinquency for Three Racial Groups

Because of the limitations inherent in “official” delinquency statistics, many criminologists have turned to self-report delinquency measures. In doing this, however, they have failed to examine the relationship (both empirical and theoretical) between these two measures of delinquency. This article reports such an examination involving three racial groups: Negroes, Caucasians, and Orientals. The study finds: (1) that the traditional relationship between race and delinquency does not hold when self-report delinquency measures are used, and (2) that officially-reported and self-reported delinquency are related only among Caucasians. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for criminological theory and argues that criminologists should recognize at least three distinct concepts of delinquency: delinquent acts, official delinquency, and self-perceived delinquency.

The Relationship Between Drug Education Programs in the Greater New Haven Schools and Changes in Drug Use and Drug-Related Beliefs and Perceptions

This study presents a broad epidemiological approach to evaluation of drug education. Data on adolescent drug use and on drug-related beliefs and perceptions, collected yearly over a three-year period in 33 schools in the Greater New Haven area, were analyzed in relation to information on drug education programs in these schools. Changes in the general prevalence rates for the study period (1970-1973) and with age were the background against which the effects of the independent variable — presence or absence of specific drug education activities in the various schools — were explored While the overall evidence suggested that drug education does not have a strong, across-the-board influence on either drug use rates or beliefs and perceptions, more modest and specific effects were noted which have implications for drug education.