About Me

Overview

I am the dean's associate professor of the college of liberal arts in the departments of Sociology and Statistics (by courtesy) at Purdue University. I am also a founder and co-director of the The Methodology Center at Purdue and a founder and co-director of the Kernan Experimental Social Science Lab. My research and education spans sociology, psychology, and statistics. I am a quantitative methodologist specializing in categorical data analysis, data visualization, latent variable modeling, and experimental design. I am also a social psychologist and use theories of identity, status, and stereotyping to understand (a) how social categories impact how we view ourselves and how others view and treat us, and (b) the social factors that influence health and well-being. Both my substantive and methodological work includes a diverse array of quantitative methods including survey experiments, lab experiments, representative survey data, longitudinal surveys, and simulation-based approaches.

My work has appeared in the American Sociological Review, Social Problems, Sociological Methodology, Social Psychology Quarterly, Sociological Science, Social Science & Medicine, Social Science Research, Journal of Marriage and Family, and other peer-reviewed journals. My research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Russel Sage Foundation, Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS), the Kinsey Institute, the American Sociological Association’s social psychology section, and others.

I am firmly committed to open science and reproducibility. Thus, I freely share the data, code, and replication files for all of my research projects as well as for all courses, seminars, and workshops I teach.

Research on Quantitative Methodology

My work on categorical data analysis seeks to expand analysis, interpretation, and visualization tools for these models. For example, I have published on statistical approaches for testing nonlinear interaction effects and visualization tools for interpretation. Another project develops a general framework for examining cross-model comparisons of predictions and effects (across both linear and nonlinear models). A current project expands these approaches to random, fixed, and mixed effects models. A new line of my research develops methods for summarizing the effects of nominal variables in linear and nonlinear models.

Another active area of my methodological research focuses on experimental design. A recent article overviews the use of the experimental method in the social sciences and lays out directions for the future—including a new framework of purposive sampling that encourages studying more diverse populations. Multiple projects examine new and old approaches for measuring interpersonal status in groups, including developments for studying groups online. I also study how we measure stereotypes and cultural beliefs, showing divergence across methods and a pessimism bias in perceptions of cultural stereotypes. A new project examines the role of dominant groups in setting cultural common knowledge.

Latent variable models for categorical items (e.g., item response theory models) present similar interpretation challenges to categorical data analysis models. Multiple current projects develop new tools for understanding these models. One offshoot of this work develops a new test of item bias, allowing for tests of whether specific items are biased against particular groups.

I also write statistical software to implement the new statistical approaches I develop (primarily using Stata). Available programs/packages/commands implement best practices for data visualization, comparisons of marginal effects across models, ways to visualize imbalance across groups, easy ways to produce publication quality descriptive statistics tables, marginal effects and standardized coefficient estimates for item response theory models, measures of model fit for latent class analysis, and statistical tests of mediation. I am currently working on programs that calculate tests of item bias for item response theory models and that summarize effects of nominal variables.

Social Psychological Research on Social Categories

I use social psychological theories of status, identity, and stereotyping to better understand how social categories affect both how we view ourselves and how others view and treat us. Much of this work focuses on inequalities in the labor market. For example, I have published on wage inequalities based on sexual orientation and on the role of subordinate behavior in maintaining gender inequalities in leadership positions. I am currently working on multiple projects examining parental leave: e.g., how an organization’s parental leave policies influence workplace outcomes for those who take parental leave and how parental leave-taking affects perceptions of good parenting and how likeable new parents are viewed. A new line of this work focuses on differences between married heterosexual parents, gay and lesbian parents, and single parents.

Multiple projects examine stereotypes and the consequences of these stereotypes. For example, I have examined the intersections of gender and sexuality and the intersections of gender and race-ethnicity, in both cases finding highly intersectional effects. Another project shows a shift to more traditional attitudes about gender and parenting during the pandemic. 

Much of my work focuses on how status and identity influence self- and other-categorization. E.g., One project examines how status processes affect who gets labeled as what sexual orientation category. Another project shows how social and structural factors explain rates of sexual identity disclosure across groups and social contexts.  

Research on Health & Well-Being

Health behaviors—such as substance use, exercise, and dietary habits—are a product of both personal choices but also structural constraints and social influence. For example, I have shown that the accumulation of different types of social roles influences health behavior practices. A current project examines both between- and within-gender differences in health behavior.

Mental health is similarly affected by social factors. For example, the number and types of social roles someone occupies has important effects on mental health. A recent project examines differential effects of role-accumulation across the life course, showing broad similarities but some unique effects in later life. Another project shows that sexual identity-behavior discrepancies (i.e., someone behaves in ways inconsistent with their identity) have myriad detrimental effects on mental health. 

In another line of work I detail how the meaning of mental health labels themselves are socially patterned, with the connotations of fear they carry moderating the effects mental illness labels have on how someone is subsequently treated by others. In a related project, we show that the causal effect of mental illness labels can be identified if one accounts for the role of previous contact with mental illness.

Teaching

I primarily teach applied statistics and quantitative methods courses and short workshops on advanced quantitative methods. I teach Statistical Horizons/Code Horizons seminars on categorical data analysis, data visualization using Stata, missing data using Stata (coming soon), and Stata programming (coming soon). 

I teach semester-long graduate courses on categorical data analysis, data visualization, experimental design, latent variable modeling, and social psychology. I also teach one and two-day workshops on data visualization (in Stata and R), survey design, analysis with missing data, workflow practices for reproducible research, statistical programming in Stata, survey experiments, and on advice for teaching methodology courses. The materials for these courses and workshops are freely available at the links above and under the Teaching tab.

Contact Information

PDFs of all of my published articles are available on the Research page of this site.

Feel free to email me if you have questions: tmize@purdue.edu