James Jaccard

Silver School of Social Work, New York University Skip to Content Skip to Search Skip to Navigation Skip to Sub Navigation

James Jaccard

Professor of Social Work; Associate Dean for Research; Co-director, Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health

PhD

jj76@nyu.edu

(212) 998-5892

Curriculum Vitae

Areas of Expertise

Attitude theory and decision making, adolescent problem behaviors, parent-adolescent communication, psychometrics, linear and non-linear modeling, and theory construction

Biography

Dr. James Jaccard is currently professor of social work, associate dean for research, and co-director of the Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health in the NYU Silver School of Social Work. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana in 1976. Previously, and he was the director of the Institute for Child Health and Development at Florida International University in Miami, and a Distinguished Research Professor at the State University of New York in Albany, where he had appointments in both the department of psychology and the School of Social Welfare.

Dr. Jaccard was trained as a psychologist with specialties in attitude change and decision making. His research focuses on adolescent problem behaviors related to unintended pregnancy and substance use. He has developed parent-based interventions to teach parents how to more effectively communicate and parent their adolescent so as to reduce the risk of unintended pregnancies and problems due to substance use. He was involved in the seminal work on the influential Theory of Reasoned Action. Dr. Jaccard was one of the designers of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), which interviewed over 20,000 adolescents and their mothers in a multi-wave wave panel design. Add Health is one of the largest and most influential secondary databases on adolescent health in the United States.

Dr. Jaccard also has an extensive background in psychometrics and statistical methods. He has written numerous books and articles on the analysis of interaction effects in a wide range of statistical models, and teaches advanced graduate courses on structural equation modeling. He is currently developing a general framework for statistical analysis that eschews p values and focuses instead on magnitude estimation and margins of error.

Finally, Dr. Jaccard has written about theory construction and how to build conceptual models. He recently completed a book with Professor Jacob Jacoby that gives social scientists practical, hands-on approaches for generating ideas and translating them into coherent theories.

Selected Publications

Books

Jaccard, J. and Jacoby, J. (2010). Theory construction and model building skills: A practical guide for social scientists. New York: Guilford.

Guilamo-Ramos, V., Jaccard, J. and Dittus, P. (2010). Parental monitoring of adolescents. New York: Columbia University Press.

Jaccard, J. (2009). Unlocking the contraceptive conundrum: Reducing unintended pregnancies in emergent adulthood. Washington, D.C. National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy

Jaccard, J., and Turrisi, R., (2003) Interaction effects in multiple regression. Newbury Park: Sage.

Jaccard, J. (2001). Interaction effects in logistic regression. Newbury Park: Sage.

Jaccard, J. (1998). Interaction effects in factorial analysis of variance. Newbury Park: Sage.

Jaccard, J. and Wan (1996). LISREL analyses of interaction effects in multiple regression. Newbury Park: Sage.

Jaccard, J. and Dittus, P. (1991). Parent-teenager communication: Towards the prevention of unintended pregnancies. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Jaccard, J., Turrisi, R., and Wan, C. (1990) Interaction effects in multiple regression. Newbury Park: Sage.

Brinberg, D. and Jaccard, J. (1989). Dyadic decision making. New York: Springer-Verlag

Jaccard, J. (1983). Statistics for the behavioral sciences. Belmont, California: Wadsworth (Second edition, 1989; Third edition, 1996, Fourth edition, 2000, Fifth edition, 2009).

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Jaccard, J. and Levitz, N. (2013). Counseling adolescents about contraception: Towards the development of an evidence-based protocol for contraceptive counselors. Journal of Adolescent Health, In press

Jaccard, J. (2012). The Reasoned Action Model: Directions for future research. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 640, 50-80.

Jaccard, J. (2012). Analysis of Variance and the General Linear Model. In C. Harris, P.M. Camic, D.L. Long, A. T. Panter, D. Rindskopf, K.J. Sher, (Eds.) APA handbook of research methods in psychology, Vol 3: Data analysis and research publication, 163-190.

Jaccard, J. (2011). Theory construction, model building, and model selection. In T. Little (Ed.) Handbook of quantitative methods. New York: Oxford.

Jaccard, J. and Danilowski, K. (2011). The general linear model and analysis of variance. In P. Camic, H. Cooper, D. Long, A. Panter, and K. Shure (Eds. ) Handbook of research methods in psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Guilamo-Ramos, V., Bouris, A., Jaccard, J., Gonzalez, B., McCoy, W and Aranda, D. (2011). A parent-based intervention to reduce sexual risk behavior in early adolescence: Building alliances between physicians, social workers, and parents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 48, 159-163.

Guilamo-Ramos, V., Jaccard, J. & Dittus, P. (2010). The Linking Lives Health Education Program: A randomized clinical trial of a parent-based tobacco use prevention program for Latino and African American youth. American Journal of Public Health, 100, 1641-1647

Blanton, H. and Jaccard, J. (2008). Unconscious prejudice: A concept in pursuit of a measure. Annual Review of Sociology, 34, 277-297.

Blanton, H. and Jaccard, J. (2008). Representing versus generalizing: Two approaches to external validity and their implications for the study of prejudice. Psychological Inquiry, 9, 99-105.

Guilamo-Ramos, V., Jaccard, J., Dittus, P., Gonzalez, B., & Bouris, A. (2008). A conceptual framework for the analysis of risk and problem behaviors: The case of adolescent sexual behavior. Social Work Research, 32, 29-45.

Jaccard, J., Guilamo-Ramos, V. Johansson, M. & Bouris, A. (2006). Multiple regression analyses in clinical child and adolescent psychology. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 35, 456-479.

Blanton, H. and Jaccard, J. (2006). Tests of multiplicative models in psychology: A case study using the unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self esteem and self concept. Psychological Review, 122, 155-169.

Quinlan, S. L., Jaccard, J. & Blanton, H. B. (2006). A decision theoretic and prototype conceptualization of possible selves: Implications for the prediction of risk behavior. Journal of Personality, 74, 599-630.

Blanton, H. & Jaccard, J. (2006). Arbitrary metrics in psychology. American Psychologist, 61, 27-41.

Jaccard, J., Blanton, H. & Dodge, T. (2005). Peer influences on risk behavior: An analysis of the effects of a close friend. Developmental Psychology, 41, 135-147.

Jaccard, J. and Blanton, H. (2005). The origins and structure of behavior: Conceptualizing behavior in attitude research. In D. Albarracín, B. T. Johnson, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Handbook of attitudes and attitude change. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Ramos, B., Jaccard, J. & Guilamo-Ramos (2003). Dual ethnicity and depressive symptoms: Implications of being Black and Latino in the United States. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 25, 147-173.

Jaccard, J., McDonald, R., Wan, C., Dittus, P. & Quinlan, S. (2002). The accuracy of self reports of condom use and sexual behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32, 1863-1905.

Jaccard, J. & Dittus, P. (2000). Adolescent perceptions of maternal approval of birth control and sexual risk behavior. American Journal of Public Health, 90, 1426-1430.

Jaccard, J., Dittus, P.J. and Gordon, V. V. (1998). Parent-adolescent congruity in reports of adolescent sexual behavior and in communications about sexual behavior. Child Development, 69, 247-261.

Radecki, C. And Jaccard, J. (1997). Psychological aspects of organ donation: A critical review and synthesis of individual and next of kin decisions. Health Psychology, 16, 183-95.

Jaccard, J. (1996). Adolescent contraceptive behavior: The impact of the provider. Obstetrics and Gynecology, 88, 57-64.

Radecki, C. M., and Jaccard, J. (1995). Perceptions of knowledge, actual knowledge and information search behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 31, 107-138.

Jaccard, J. and Dittus, P. (1993). Parent-adolescent communication about premarital pregnancy. Families in Society, 74, 329-343.