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    • Complicating the impact of relative advantage and disadvanta

    2018-10-30

    Complicating the impact of relative advantage and disadvantage, however, are numerous studies of the impact of fraternities on college performance and health-related behaviors. In general such studies show that people who join fraternities are more likely to have had a history of drinking before they joined; that drinking, the use of other substances (including tobacco), and unsafe sex are more frequent among fraternity members; and that academic achievement is lower. On the other hand, short term follow-up of fraternity and non-fraternity members indicates that the drinking of members declines after they leave college (Borsari & Carey, 1999; Sher, Bartholow, & Nanda, 2001; McCabe et al., 2005; Scott-Sheldon, Carey, & Carey, 2008; Cheney, Harris, Gowin, & Huber, 2014). The association between fraternity membership and alcohol use is not invariable, but is dependent to a large extent upon the cultural context created by colleges themselves (Weitzman & Chen, 2005; Weitzman & Kawachi, 2000). In general, however, the behavioral norms in fraternities at many institutions are such that we would expect that one consequence of membership might be to vitiate the survival benefits of early social advantage. Thus our second c14ɑ demethylase is that membership in fraternities has had an adverse impact on the survival of members. This is consistent with the recognition that the effects on health of secondary group membership (social capital) may be mixed, beneficial in some contexts and damaging in others (Kunitz, 2007).
    Methods We use data from the Yale College class of 1960, the most recent collected in 2015 on the occasion of the 55th reunion. (Unlike some other universities, there is only one undergraduate college.) The data all come from publicly available sources, including yearbooks, reunion books, and published necrologies. The major source of information is the class book published at graduation. Data were provided by the students themselves as well as records maintained by the university (The Yale Class Book, 1960). Each entry listed name; date and place of birth; parents׳ names; family members who had attended Yale (legacies); high school or schools attended before coming to Yale; major; residential college (one out of ten); activities in residential college; fraternity membership, senior society membership; academic honors; extra-curricular activities; roommates; plans for future occupation; home address as of spring 1960. Also included was whether the student had received scholarship assistance, and for how many semesters. The amount of aid was not given. The data were entered into a spread sheet for a study of the class members and the impact of growing up in the 1940s and 1950s and emerging from college as the political and cultural changes of the 1960s were becoming apparent (Horowitz, 2015). To these were added mortality data from the Class Directory published for the 55th reunion (Yale 1960 Class Directory, 2015). Deaths through 2014 had been recorded cumulatively over the preceding 55 years, as reported by surviving family members and friends. Twenty-two additional deaths were found in the publicly available Social Security Death Index and obituaries in Ancestry.com and on the internet. Statistical analyses include chi-square tests as well as logistic and Cox regressions. For the latter, number of years of survival since graduation in 1960 was the dependent variable. JMP 11 was used for the analyses. Several measures of social advantage were used: graduation from a private secondary school and whether or not the student had relatives who attended Yale. A priori covalent bond was expected that the former would be more likely than the latter to reflect social advantage of the students’ family of origin as relatives who attended Yale might not be a parent but brothers, cousins, uncles and other more distant kin whose economic status might have had no impact on the students’ circumstances. Therefore in several of the analyses attention is devoted primarily to the type of secondary school attended.