This project aims at developing three new groups of specific regression models for the analysis of social and individual processes. All the three regression models involve latent classes for the purpose of both the measurement of quantities that are not directly observed and the reflection of specific aspects of unobserved population heterogeneity. One group consists of multinomial logit latent-class regression models with special contrasts among the dependent latent-class categories, and it will be developed for the analysis of intrasocietal group comparisons of social mobility. The second group consists of regression extensions of the mover-stayer model, which is a special case of the two-class model, for the panel data analysis of stability and change in public opinions. The third group of models, latent-choice models, assume a pair of dichotomous latent-class variables that represent husband's and wife's latent choices as covariates of an observed dichotomous dependent variable for the discrete-time hazard-rate analysis of a family event using pairs of event-history data of married couples. Although the three groups of models differ in form and substantive application, they are all intended for the analysis of social and individual processes using latent classes. For each model, the study addresses issues related to (1) specific parameterizations of models, especially about latent classes, regarding possible new insights that such parameterizations may provide in the analysis of particular social and individual processes, (2) the stability of parameter estimates, and (3) comparisons of results from models to be developed in the project with those from related existing alternative models.
The three groups of specific latent-class models are expected to yield substantive findings that cannot be made, or cannot be obtained definitively, without using them in the areas of social research for which the models are intended. The substantive area of applications of the first group of models is intrasocietal group comparisons of social mobility, such as differences in social mobility patterns, for which an analysis based on existing mobility models has serous limitations. The models to be developed in the project will shed new light on racial/ethnic inequality of social opportunity. The substantive area of applications of the second group of models is the panel-data analysis of change in public opinion. The models separate the prediction of positive versus negative response from the prediction of the stability of these responses by assuming that responses of a population are based on unobserved heterogeneous confidence levels. An application, such as an analysis of the rise and the fall of support for the first Bush administration through the years 1990-92, may yield such a finding that an apparently high rate of support for the government administration stands on a weak basis because supporters' confidence levels are much lower than nonsupporters' confidence levels. The substantive area of applications of the third group of models is the analysis of a family process having as its outcome a family event, such as divorce, childbirth, a residential move, or the purchase of a house -- regarding which the husband and the wife may or may not agree with each other. The models will try not only to identify the predictors of latent individual choices but also the predictors of unobserved family heterogeneity regarding (1) the relative "power" between husband and wife in causing event occurrence or nonoccurrence, and (2) the extent to which a consensus between wife and husband is required to yield the occurrence of the family event.
