bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Corporate Governance in Italy
Authors: Melis Andrea
Published: March 2003

This paper has analysed the Italian prevailing corporate governance system in terms of issues such as ownership and control structures, structure and functioning of the boards, executive remuneration and evaluation, the mission of the companies, the role of banks and market for corporate control. The issues determined by the presence of the blockholder have been analysed as well as the changes that derive from the Draghi reform. The Italian system of corporate governance seems to be effectively summarised by the expression ‘weak managers, strong blockholders and unprotected minority shareholders’, paraphrasing Roe‘s (1994) sentence.
Generally Accepted Management Principles (GAMP) – functions, first proposals, and acceptance among German top managers
Authors: V. Werder Axel , Grundei Jens
Published: March 2003

Judging the quality of top management is a pivotal aspect of good corporate governance. Such an evaluation requires standards which can be applied to the work of top management. In the German stock corporation this is particularly important for the Supervisory Board (Aufsichtsrat), because its main task is to control the quality of the Management Board (Vorstand). The development of generally accepted management principles seems to be a promising attempt to facilitate a fair management evaluation. These management principles are supposed to put in concrete form the top management’s duties of care. They thus can help to assure a certain management quality as well as to protect managers against exaggerated demands. After elaborating on these basic thoughts, a system of standards is outlined and the results from a first survey investigating the acceptance of the proposed standards among German top managers are reported.
Shareholder Value and the Stakeholder Debate in the UK
Authors: Gamble Andrew , Kelly Gavin
Published: March 2003

Shareholder value is assumed to be the ruling idea in Anglo‐American corporate governance. This paper first reviews the historical origins of the idea of shareholder value in the UK and the particular theoretical assumptions about the company which underpin it. It assesses the reasons why it was subjected to so little subsequent political challenge, and contrasts this with US experience. This historical and theoretical context is then used to explore the current debate on stakeholding in the UK, whether the UK system of corporate governance needs reform, and if so in which direction. Four main positions on stakeholding are identified – property rights, enlightened managerialism, active shareholders, and corporate pluralism. The paper concludes with an assessment of the political and legal pressures for reform of the UK model of corporate governance and the prospects for any significant change.
Institutional Investors and Voting Practices: an international comparison
Authors: Mallin Chris
Published: March 2003

The potential influence of groups of large shareholders was identified in the 1930s when Berle and Means (1932) highlighted the impact of the separation of ownership and control in corporations. Over sixty years later, institutional investors own large portions of equity in many companies across the world, and play a key role in the corporate governance arena. Corporate governance is defined in the Cadbury Report (1992) as “the system by which companies are directed and controlled. Boards of directors are responsible for the governance of their companies. The shareholders’ role in governance is to appoint the directors and the auditors and to satisfy themselves that an appropriate governance structure is in place”. In order to help satisfy this role, institutional shareholders engage in regular dialogue with companies; they also have the right to vote at companies’ annual general meetings. However evidence (Mallin 1995, 1996; PIRC 1998, 1999) shows that there is a much lower level of voting by institutional investors in the UK than might be expected.

In the UK, the existing proxy voting system is generally viewed as slow and overly‐complicated with many players in the chain and with little flexibility. By comparison, the US has, for a number of years, had in place state and federal legislation to allow proxy votes to be cast using modern media. Corporations have changed their articles as appropriate to take advantage of these revisions, and to enable them to be enacted in their own corporations. Legislation making similar provisions was also enacted in Australia in 1998. Increasingly it is seen as desirable, and eminently sensible, for the UK to follow suit (NAPF Inquiry, 1999).

This paper discusses the concept of the vote being a “fiduciary duty”, and compares the voting systems in several countries, including the UK, US, Australia, and Germany. The emerging trends in the area are discussed and the development of voting in the next millennium explored.
What is the Impact of Corporate Governance on Organisational Performance?
Authors: Heracleous Loizos
Published: March 2003

Research on the importance of generally accepted “best practices” in corporate governance has generally failed to find convincing connections between these practices and organisational performance. We discuss research outcomes on the relationship between two such “best practices” (CEO/Chair duality and insider/outsider composition) and organisational performance, and find this relationship to be insignificant. We propose four possibilities for this tenuous relationship, that are not mutually exclusive: firstly, the possibility that “best practices” in governance are indeed irrelevant to organisational performance; secondly, that the operationalisation of theoretical concepts has low face validity; thirdly, that studies are too narrow, aiming to relate board attributes directly to organisational performance and ignoring other systemic factors; and lastly, the possibility that different types of organisations require different practices in corporate governance. Lastly, we address the methodological and substantive implications of each of these possibilities.
Corporate Boards, Investors and Their Relationships: accounts of accountability and corporate governing in action
Authors: Pye Annie
Published: March 2003

This paper argues that constructive relationships between investors and boards have become crucial to running large organisations. Comparing interview data from Chairmen, Chief Executives and board members in 1987–89 and 1998–2000, this paper also considers the changing role of NEDs and influence of board culture which may constrain NEDs’ ability to perform effectively. While the board’s influence on shareholder value may be significant, the inability to account for its effectiveness or contribution appears surprising. The paper concludes that as shareholders exercise their “absolute rights” to question management, this may encourage more covert rather than overt behaviour, raising questions of accountability.
Corporate Governance Practices in Flemish Family Businesses
Authors: Van den Berghe L.A.A. , Carchon Steven
Published: March 2003

Corporate governance practices in family businesses (FB) remain a research domain with many unsolved questions. Nonetheless, researchers agree that corporate governance practices are important for family–backed companies. Different family ownership structures and different family generations influence the governance structures installed. So far, no research has been conducted on corporate governance characteristics among Flemish family companies. This study explores the relationships between ownership structure, board and management practices to find out where Flemish family businesses differ from non–family businesses (NFB). Additionally, this research investigates to what extent differences can be found within the group of family businesses based on family ownership and family generation.
Creating New Services Based on the Formation of a Strategic Community with Customers: A Case Study of Innovation Involving IT and Multimedia Technology in the Field of Veterinary Medicine
Authors: Kodama Mitsuru
Published: March 2003

This paper discusses the management processes for forming strategic communities by means of strategic partnerships between businesses and customers. It considers the introduction into these strategic communities of the knowledge and core competence of customers with a high degree of learning experience with respect to the products and services provided by the businesses. This creates new products and services and at the same time extends the results of the strategic communities to many other associated customers. The innovation of a telemedicine system in the field of veterinary medicine in Japan is taken as a case study. Here a strategic community of business and innovative customers developed new systems using IT and multimedia technology. The results from the strategic community were extended to many other related customers in a chain of community creation, and the new systems were widely proliferated throughout the whole of Japan.
Creativity and Innovativeness through Reflective Project Leadership
Authors: Ollila Susanne
Published: March 2003

The potential contribution of reflection to leadership at the project level is explored by building upon theories of reflection, and by presenting a case describing reflective leadership in practice. Reflective leadership refers to the process by which leaders reflect on their own leader behaviour in order to understand how it affects the behaviour of others. A means of facilitating leaders in their development of reflective skills is described. The evidence supports the proposition that reflective leadership can be enhanced to the benefit of innovative climate in projects.
Innovation and Knowledge Management: The Long View
Authors: Lester Michael
Published: March 2003

The challenge of the e–Economy is one of technological change and the innovation process affords insights into how this new knowledge can be harnessed across the economy to increase productivity and generate wealth. The conceptual framework for this paper is National Systems of Innovation (NSI) as applied to Australia Edquist (1997); Freeman (1995). NSI allows us to take a holistic view of innovation that realistically blends technology with institutional elements, particularly including issues of collaboration. Taking a Long View (Schwartz (1991), that is, looking back on the legacy of experience with the innovation process, will also facilitate looking forward strategically from Australia’s current practices, and to speculate on the prospects. This paper illustrates selectively and not comprehensively, from my own direct experience, the evolution of innovation policies in Australia and speculates on their implications for collaboration in the e–Economy by drawing on selected case studies in Research and Development, Industry and Trade, and the e–Economy. It also draws upon work for my doctorate in knowledge management at the University of Technology. The selection and synthesis of theory inevitably also reflect, however idiosyncratically, my academic training in engineering, politics and economics.
Users as a Hidden Resource for Creativity: Findings from an Experimental Study on User Involvement
Authors: Kristensson Per , Magnusson Peter R. , Matthing Jonas
Published: March 2003

The main objective of this article is to report the empirical findings from a study on user involvement in service innovation. In doing this, we seek to answer the question of how user involvement affects the originality of new service ideas. An experimental investigation was carried out which included 54 participants arranged into three groups of creative users, ordinary users and professional service developers. The empirical data revealed that the users produced more original ideas than the company’s professional service developers. It is thus suggested that business organizations attempt to innovate original products would benefit from involving their customers.
Working with Guanxi: An Assessment of the Implications of Globalisation on Business Networking in China
Authors: Hutchings Kate , Murray Georgina
Published: March 2003

Cross cultural literature has suggested China has a business culture based on family networks or guanxi connections underpinned by strong Confucian ethics. We argue that Chinese business may have distinctly national cultural attributes (that international businesses ignore at their peril) but we reassess the continuing significance of these historical cultural concepts. We query whether a system of networks consolidated during fifty years of state‐owned enterprises can still have application on the considerably larger scale of multinational corporate business of today’s China. Interview data collected from Australian expatriates in China in 2001 is used to assess the relevance of guanxi for effective international operations in China from the perspective of Australian expatriate managers.
Creative Selves? Critically Reading ‘Creativity’ in Management Discourse
Authors: Prichard Craig
Published: March 2003

In broad terms the critical tradition in organization studies (Marsden & Townley, 1996) is concerned with understanding and questioning the elaboration of power relations in worksites, particularly as they induce oppressive and exploitative practices. This paper begins by outlining some of the key features of what might be regarded as a traditional critical reading of creativity in work organizations. This initial discussion is presented via an analysis of two texts from Fortune magazine’s account of the performance of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Without dealing in detail with some of the problematics and limitations of these approaches, the paper then outlines the key features of a Foucauldian critical discourse approach to the analysis of creativity. The discussion proceeds to identify key features of such an account. These include the position of academic experts as agents of knowledge in the production of ‘creativity’, the organizational prescriptions and devices used to visualize and normalize ‘creative’ managers and professionals, and the ontological and epistemological tradition that is drawn on in the production of both the agents of knowledge of creativity and the devices that identify, classify and regulate ‘creativity’ with respect to managing and organizing workplaces. Using the term ‘economy of identity’, the concluding section discusses the implications of this approach, including the oppressive and exploitative dimensions of ‘creativity’.
On the Myth of Automatic Semantic Activation in Reading
Authors: Stolz Jennifer A. , Besner Derek
Published: March 2003

Visual word recognition is widely considered to be automatic in the sense that activation of meaning occurs both in the absence of intent and despite the reader's intent to not read the word. New evidence from the semantic priming paradigm and the Stroop paradigm undermines this view. Semantic processing depends strongly on attentional control over how activation is distributed across different levels of representation.
Perceptual Learning
Authors: Ahissar Merav
Published: March 2003

The extent of adult improvement in not only complex but also simple perceptual tasks is remarkable. Although this phenomenon has been noted and studied since the middle of the 19th century, recent advances in the study of brain physiology and anatomy afford new insights. Improvement specificity suggests that changes involve early sensory cortical areas, previously thought to lose their plasticity following the first years. The critical role of selective attention, even in learning the simplest tasks, as well as the precedence of learning easy cases, suggests the involvement of high-level cortical areas. Learning easy cases is more general than learning difficult cases. This pattern suggests the involvement of both high- and low-level areas in an orderly manner, with easy learning beginning at high-level areas and harder cases being resolved by access to low-level areas. The mapping of behavioral findings to underlying brain sites provides a unified framework for this interdisciplinary field.
Illusions of Control
Authors: Thompson Suzanne C.
Published: March 2003

Illusions of control are common even in purely chance situations. They are particularly likely to occur in settings that are characterized by personal involvement, familiarity, foreknowledge of the desired outcome, and a focus on success. Person-based factors that affect illusions of control include depressive mood and need for control. One explanation of illusory control is that it is due to a control heuristic that is used to estimate control by assessing the factors of intentionality and connection to the outcome. Motivational influences on illusory control and consequences of overestimating one s control are also covered.
Psychological Perspectives on Entrepreneurship
Authors: Baron Robert A.
Published: March 2003

Why are some entrepreneurs so much more successful than others in starting new companies—ones that create wealth for their societies as well as themselves? Growing evidence suggests that the answer involves the influence of both cognitive and social factors. Successful entrepreneurs appear to think differently than other persons in several respects (e.g., they are less likely to engage in counterfactual thinking but more likely to show overconfidence in their judgments). Similarly, successful entrepreneurs appear to be higher in social competence—the ability to interact effectively with others (e.g., they are better at social perception and adapting to new social situations). These results suggest that the principles and findings of psychology can be invaluable to researchers in the field of entrepreneurship, providing important insights into the factors that influence entrepreneurs' success.
Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation in Schools
Authors: Covington Martin V.
Published: March 2003

This article explores the nature of the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in schools, and in particular examines critically the assertion that these processes are necessarily antagonistic. The weight of evidence suggests that rewards in the form of school grades and the focus of many students on doing well, gradewise, need not necessarily interfere with learning for its own sake. Educational implications of these findings are considered. One such implication is that focusing on students' interests can be a valuable motivational strategy.
Self-Esteem, Narcissism, and Aggression
Authors: Baumeister Roy F. , Bushman Brad J. , Campbell W. Keith
Published: March 2003

A traditional view holds that low self-esteem causes aggression, but recent work has not confirmed this. Although aggressive people typically have high self-esteem, there are also many nonaggressive people with high self-esteem, and so newer constructs such as narcissism and unstable self-esteem are most effective at predicting aggression. The link between self-regard and aggression is best captured by the theory of threatened egotism, which depicts aggression as a means of defending a highly favorable view of self against someone who seeks to undermine or discredit that view.
Interpersonal Understanding Fuels Knowledge Acquisition
Authors: Baldwin Dare A.
Published: March 2003

Beginning in infancy, humans acquire knowledge at a pace far outstripping that found in any other species. Recent evidence indicates that interpersonal understanding—in particular, skill at inferring others' intentions—plays a pivotal role in this achievement. Infants as young as 12 to 18 months actively utilize clues to others' intentions to guide their interpretation of language, emotion, and action more generally. In the language domain, for example, on hearing a new word, infants spontaneously check the speaker for intentional clues such as gaze direction, emotional expression, gestures, and body posture, and interpret the word in light of such information. By capitalizing on information about intentions, infants are able to avoid a wide range of potential errors, and to quickly learn relevant new skills. Current research is exploring the origins and developmental course of such early-emerging interpersonal skill, ultimately with an eye to understanding how disruptions in such abilities affect children's cognitive and social development.
Remembering Early Childhood
Authors: Newcombe Nora S. , Drummey Anna Bullock , Fox Nathan A. , Lie Eunhui , Ottinger-Alberts Wendy
Published: March 2003

In this article, we consider recent research on three questions about people's memories for their early childhood: whether childhood amnesia is a real phenomenon, whether implicit memories survive when explicit memories do not, and why early episodic memories are sketchy. The research leads us to form three conclusions. First, we argue that childhood amnesia is a real phenomenon, as long as the term is defined clearly. Specifically, people are able to recall parts of their lives from the period between ages 2 and 5 years, but they recall less from that period than from other periods. Second, we conclude that implicit memories from early childhood may be evident even when explicit memories are not, a finding that suggests early experience may affect behavior in ways that people do not consciously recognize. Third, we argue that although young children are well known to be wonderfully efficient learners of semantic information, they have difficulty in either encoding or retrieving the interlinked aspects of events that lend them their autobiographical character. Although more evidence is needed, the relative lack of episodic memories of early childhood may be linked to maturation of prefrontal cortex.
Exercise of Human Agency Through Collective Efficacy
Authors: Bandura Albert
Published: March 2003

Social cognitive theory adopts an agentic perspective in which individuals are producers of experiences and shapers of events. Among the mechanisms of human agency, none is more focal or pervading than the belief of personal efficacy. This core belief is the foundation of human agency. Unless people believe that they can produce desired effects and forestall undesired ones by their actions, they have little incentive to act. The growing interdependence of human functioning is placing a premium on the exercise of collective agency through shared beliefs in the power to produce effects by collective action. The present article analyzes the nature of perceived collective efficacy and its centrality in how people live their lives. Perceived collective efficacy fosters groups' motivational commitment to their missions, resilience to adversity, and performance accomplishments.
Depression and Mortality in the Elderly
Authors: Schulz Richard , Martire Lynne M. , Beach Scott R. , Scheier Michael F.
Published: March 2003

It is well known that depression can be a consequence of medical illness and disability, but a growing literature suggests also that depression can cause biological changes linked to morbidity and mortality. Depression is strongly implicated as a contributor to cardiovascular disease and mortality. Using the cascade-to-death model as a conceptual framework, we explore the complex relations among behavior, affect, motivation, and pathophysiology that might account for the association between depression and premature death. Our model suggests that some individuals become entrapped in a downward spiral in which behavior, medical illness, and depressive affect feed on each other to undermine the biological integrity of the organism. In addition to specifying behavioral and biological mechanisms linking depression to mortality, future research needs to more closely examine phenomenological aspects of depression in order to determine what aspects of depression and related constructs such as hopelessness, vital exhaustion, and motivational depletion account for the link between depression and mortality.
Do Attitudes Affect Memory? Tests of the Congeniality Hypothesis
Authors: Eagly Alice H. , Kulesa Patrick , Chen Serena , Chaiken Shelly
Published: March 2003

Social psychologists have usually hypothesized that attitudinal selectivity biases people's memory in favor of information that is congenial to their attitudes, because they are motivated to defend their attitudes against uncongenial information. However, our meta-analysis found that such effects have been only inconsistently obtained. One reason for these inconsistencies is that the defense of attitudes against attacks does not necessarily entail avoiding the uncongenial information. As shown by our experiments, people often expose themselves to attitudinally uncongenial information, attend to it, scrutinize it carefully, encode it accurately, and remember it fairly well, even though they dislike the information and are not persuaded by it. Given sufficient motivation and capacity, people mount an active defense that enhances memory for the information.
Evolutionary Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Dynamical Systems: Building an Integrative Paradigm
Authors: Kenrick Douglas T.
Published: March 2003

Cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and dynamical systems theory have all been proposed as frameworks for linking the diverse subdisciplines of psychology with one another, and with other scientific disciplines. Traditional cognitive science focused on content-free general processing and deemphasized motivation. An evolutionary perspective emphasizes the centrality of motivational systems and the specificity of mechanisms designed to solve particular recurrent problems. The evolutionary perspective provides a set of broad general principles linking diverse behaviors in humans as well as other species. The dynamic approach seeks even broader principles, searching for emergent patterns in all complex systems, whether animate or inanimate. Natural selection is itself one such broad principle, as is the broader principle of self-organization, which helps explain dynamic equilibria found in groups of humans and in diverse species linked together within ecosystems. Proponents of the major contending interdisciplines will need to build more bridges if the dream of a unifying paradigm is to be realized. This review samples some of the reasons why evolutionary psychologists, dynamical systems theorists, and traditional cognitive scientists need one another.
Synesthesia: Strong and Weak
Authors: Martino Gail , Marks Lawrence E.
Published: March 2003

In this review, we distinguish strong and weak forms of synesthesia. Strong synesthesia is characterized by a vivid image in one sensory modality in response to stimulation in another one. Weak synesthesia is characterized by cross-sensory correspondences expressed through language, perceptual similarity, and perceptual interactions during information processing. Despite important phenomenological dissimilarities between strong and weak synesthesia, we maintain that the two forms draw on similar underlying mechanisms. The study of strong and weak synesthetic phenomena provides an opportunity to enrich scientists' understanding of basic mechanisms involved in perceptual coding and cross-modal information processing.
On the Plasticity of Self-Defense
Authors: Tesser Abraham
Published: March 2003

Many qualitatively different mechanisms for regulating self-esteem have been described in the literature. These include, for example, reduction of cognitive dissonance, self-affirmation, and social comparison. The work reviewed here demonstrates that despite their differences, these mechanisms may be substitutable for one another. For example, a threat to self via cognitive dissonance can affect attempts to maintain self-esteem via social comparison. This implies that these mechanisms are serving the same, unitary goal of maintaining self-esteem. Thus, there is surprising generality or flexibility in the processes used to maintain self-esteem. Substitution of one mechanism for another may depend on the transfer of affect. The issue of substitutability across domains is briefly discussed.
Patterns of Natural Language Use: Disclosure, Personality, and Social Integration
Authors: Pennebaker James W. , Graybeal Anna
Published: March 2003

When people write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about an emotionally significant event, numerous benefits in many domains (e.g., health, achievement, and well-being) result. As one step in understanding how writing achieves these effects, we have developed a computer program that provides a “fingerprint” of the words people use in writing or in natural settings. Analyses of text samples indicate that particular patterns of word use predict health and also reflect personality styles. We have also discovered that language use in the laboratory writing paradigm is associated with changes in social interactions and language use in the real world. The implications for using computer-based text analysis programs in the development of psychological theory are discussed.
The Early Marital Roots of Conjugal Distress and Divorce
Authors: Huston Ted L. , Niehuis Sylvia , Smith Shanna E.
Published: March 2003

This article summarizes research that challenges conventional wisdom about the early roots of marital distress and divorce. We abstract results from a 13-year study that focused on the extent to which long-term marital satisfaction and stability could be forecast from newlywed and early marital data. We explore the usefulness of three models emergent distress, enduring dynamics, and disillusionment designed to explain why some marriages thrive and others fail. The dominant paradigm, the emergent-distress model, sees newlyweds as homogeneously blissful and posits that distress develops as disagreements and negativity escalate, ultimately leading some couples to divorce. The results we summarize run counter to this model and suggest instead that (a) newlyweds differ considerably in the intensity of both their romance and the negativity of their behavior toward one another and, for those who remain married, these early dynamics persist over time; and (b) for couples who divorce, romance seems to deteriorate differently depending on how long the marriage lasts. Soon after their wedding, “early exiters” seem to lose hope of improving an unpromising relationship; “delayed-action divorcers” begin marriage on a particularly high note, yet quickly show signs of disillusionment. These delayed-action divorcers reluctantly give up on the marriage long after the romance has faded.
The Biological Basis of Social Interaction
Authors: Frith Uta , Frith Chris
Published: March 2003

The fact that brain disorder can impair social interactions in different ways suggests that social competence has multiple components that have foundations in brain systems. The physiological basis of one aspect of social cognition, theory of mind, is just beginning to be understood. Brain-imaging studies suggest that a network of areas linking medial prefrontal and temporal cortex forms the neural substrate of mentalizing, that is, representing one's own and other people's mental states. The medial prefrontal areas are prominent also in tasks that involve self-monitoring, whereas the temporal regions are prominent also in tasks that involve the representation of goals of actions. We speculate that the precursors of mentalizing ability derive from a brain system that evolved for representing agents and actions, and the relationships between them.
Opportunism in Memory: Preparing for Chance Encounters
Authors: Seifert Colleen M. , Patalano Andrea L.
Published: March 2003

Recognizing opportunities to achieve pending goals is an important cognitive ability. But when and how do we recognize that a current situation is especially suited to resuming a past goal? The predictive encoding model suggests pending goals are encoded into memory in association with anticipated environmental features. Optimally, these features are (a) necessary for successful goal satisfaction, (b) distinctive preconditions for expecting a plan to achieve the goal, and (c) described so as to be readily identified in the environment. Later, ordinary perception of features in the environment leads to automatic recognition of opportunities already prepared in memory. Evidence from experimental studies supports this theory, and demonstrates that general preparation can produce apparently novel opportunism. These findings suggest ways to facilitate the recognition of opportunities to satisfy pending goals.
Anticipated Emotions as Guides to Choice
Authors: Mellers Barbara A. , McGraw A. Peter
Published: March 2003

When making decisions, people often anticipate the emotions they might experience as a result of the outcomes of their choices. In the process, they simulate what life would be like with one outcome or another. We examine the anticipated and actual pleasure of outcomes and their relation to choices people make in laboratory studies and real-world studies. We offer a theory of anticipated pleasure that explains why the same outcome can lead to a wide range of emotional experiences. Finally, we show how anticipated pleasure relates to risky choice within the framework of subjective expected pleasure theory.
A Better Look at Intelligence
Authors: Das J.P.
Published: March 2003

The Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive (PASS) model is offered as an alternative to the unidimensional conceptualization of intelligence as a general ability. The unidimensional conceptualization has not helped researchers and clinicians understand variations of cognitive functions within special populations such as individuals with learning disabilities, disorders of attention, or mental retardation. Neither has this conceptualization aided in program planning for these individuals. PASS is a model of cognitive function based on contemporary research in both cognition and neuropsychology and provides a theory for both assessment and intervention. This article reviews concepts and examples of PASS theory and its application to reading disabilities and mental retardation. For example, the article links dyslexia with a deficit in successive processing. It also identifies the major difficulties of individuals with Down syndrome in phonological memory and articulation. Further research on successive processing, and planning as it relates to language, is suggested.
Gender and Group Process: A Developmental Perspective
Authors: Maccoby Eleanor E.
Published: March 2003

Until recently, the study of gender development has focused mainly on sex typing as an attribute of the individual. Although this perspective continues to be enlightening, recent work has focused increasingly on children's tendency to congregate in same-sex groups. This self-segregation of the two sexes implies that much of childhood gender enactment occurs in the context of same-sex dyads or larger groups. There are emergent properties of such groups, so that certain sex-distinctive qualities occur at the level of the group rather than at the level of the individual. There is increasing research interest in the distinctive nature of the group structures, activities, and interactions that typify all-male as compared with all-female groups, and in the socialization that occurs within these groups. Next steps in research will surely call for the integration of the individual and group perspectives.
Category Representation in Young Infants
Authors: Quinn Paul C.
Published: March 2003

Results obtained from a novelty-preference procedure indicate that young infants possess abilities to organize objects into perceptual categories that have conceptual significance for adults. This work suggests that the initial construction of category representations is not dependent on language, formal instruction, or specialized processes, and that category development may proceed through a process of enrichment.
Men's and Women's Mating Preferences: Distinct Evolutionary Mechanisms?
Authors: Miller Lynn Carol , Putcha-Bhagavatula Anila , Pedersen William C.
Published: March 2003

Have men and women evolved sex-distinct mating preferences for short-term and long-term mating, as postulated by some evolutionary theorists? Direct tests of assumptions, consideration of confounds with gender, and examination of the same variables for both sexes suggest men and women are remarkably similar. Furthermore, cross-species comparisons indicate that humans do not evidence mating mechanisms indicative of short-term mating (e.g., large female sexual skins, large testicles). Understanding human variability in mating preferences is apt to involve more detailed knowledge of the links between these preferences and biological and chemical mechanisms associated with sexual motivation, sexual arousal, and sexual functioning.
Evolutionary Psychology of Facial Attractiveness
Authors: Fink Bernhard , Penton-Voak Ian
Published: March 2003

The human face communicates an impressive number of visual signals. Although adults' ratings of facial attractiveness are consistent across studies, even cross-culturally, there has been considerable controversy surrounding attempts to identify the facial features that cause faces to be judged attractive or unattractive. Studies of physical attractiveness have attempted to identify the features that contribute to attractiveness by studying the relationships between attractiveness and (a) symmetry, (b) averageness, and (c) nonaverage sexually dimorphic features (hormone markers). Evolutionary psychology proposes that these characteristics all pertain to health, suggesting that humans have evolved to view certain features as attractive because they were displayed by healthy individuals. However, the question remains how single features that are considered attractive relate to each other, and if they form a single ornament that signals mate quality. Moreover, some researchers have recently explained attractiveness preferences in terms of individual differences that are predictable. This article briefly describes what is currently known from attractiveness research, reviews some recent advances, and suggests areas for future researchers' attention.
The Bonifacian mission and female religious in Wessex
Authors: Yorke Barbara
Published: March 2003

With only two Kentish exceptions, the West Saxon identity of the English female correspondents of Boniface and Lull can be affirmed. Together with other evidence, the letters imply a considerable number of female religious in Wessex in the late seventh and eighth centuries, but with a distribution confined to the western parts of the kingdom. The foundation of these religious communities appears to belong to a particular phase of West Saxon conversion and political expansion.
The bishoprics of Saxony in the first century after Christianization
Authors: Carrol Christopher
Published: March 2003

The eighth and ninth centuries witnessed the foundation of many new bishoprics in the territories on the fringes of the Carolingian Empire. Saxony was one such region. This article seeks to understand the political status of these new bishoprics during the first century of their existence, from their foundation to the end of Carolingian rule in east Francia (805–911). The religious history of the Saxon province, and the Carolingians' lack of interest in this region after its forcible conversion, had a significant effect on the status of its bishoprics during the ninth and early tenth centuries. This study assesses the evidence for both the land‐holdings of this new episcopal church and the activities of its bishops, and concludes by arguing for the distinctive position of the Saxon bishoprics within the Frankish and east Frankish churches of this period.
Enjoying the saints in late antiquity
Authors: Brown Peter
Published: March 2003

The discovery at Mainz by Franĉois Dolbeau of a new collection of sermons of Augustine has enabled us to study, in far greater detail, the attitude of Augustine to the reform of the cult of the martyrs between 391 and 404. This study aims to understand Augustine’s insistence on the need to imitate the martyrs against the background of his views on grace and the relation of such views to the growing differentiation of the Christian community. It also attempts to do justice to the views of those he criticized: others regarded the triumph of the martyrs over pain and death as a unique manifestation of the power of God, in which believers participated, not through imitation but through celebrations reminiscent of the joy of pagan festivals. In this debate, Augustine by no means had the last word. The article attempts to show the continuing tension between notions of the saints as imitable and inimitable figures in the early medieval period, and more briefly, by implication, in all later centuries.
The Merovingian accounting documents of Tours: form and function
Authors: Sato Shoichi
Published: March 2003

A little fewer than thirty Merovingian accounting documents which originated from the Abbey of St Martin of Tours, though fragmentary, provide for the historians of early medieval Europe an unexpected tool with which the latter could cast a new light over actual conditions in tribute collection and the management system for the fiscal administration of the abbey. The present article asks some basic questions about these accounting documents in the hope of casting further light on their form and function: which form did take the documents while they had been used for the collection of dues? At which stage of collecting procedure they served in the abbey as a tool for the keeping of records? When was each document prepared? In which historical context could be placed the birth of fiscal document of the abbey? All of these question are important for an understanding of the history of St Martin's of Tours and of the use of documents in general in the Merovingian era.
Dating the Gesta martyrum: a manuscript‐based approach
Authors: Pilsworth Clare
Published: March 2003

The gesta martyrum are an anonymous and disparate group of texts celebrating saints venerated in early medieval Rome as having been martyred in that city. This paper investigates the problems involved in placing these texts in their early medieval contexts. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, when scholarship moved away from attempts to identify a core of authentic ancient tradition in these early medieval narratives, most work on the corpus has concentrated on dating the composition of the accounts of individual martyrs. Given the sparsity of absolute chronological markers through references or citations in other written sources, this has inevitably rested on circumstantial evidence and the reconstruction of probable contexts for the redaction of specific works. This paper argues that much new light can be shed on the development of the cult of Roman martyrs if we shift the focus of our investigation from the origin and composition of the Urtexts to the surviving manuscript witnesses – all bar one eighth century or later – and the complex process of transmission which they document. The earliest copies of gesta martyrum, in both legendaries and other manuscripts, reveal surprisingly diverse contexts of transmission. Detailed investigation of Vienna National bibliothek 357, which Dufourcq argued contains a copy of a collection of martyr‐narratives available to Gregory the Great, shows that in fact this manuscript sheds light on interest in Roman martyrs north of the Alps in the late Carolingian period, and the networks of contact and communication through which information about the Roman martyrs was transmitted across time and space.
Gender and exemplarity east of the middle Rhine: Jesus, Mary and the saints in manuscript context
Authors: Lifshitz Felice
Published: March 2003

The available source material for the intellectual, religious and cultural history of the Rhine‐Main region in the eighth century is outstanding, due to the many surviving manuscripts produced in the region during that time period. In this paper I demonstrate how a historically contextualised analysis of the manuscript evidence can lead to a significant re‐evaluation of gender ideology in an early medieval society. The manuscript evidence allows us to investigate the reception and adaptation of inherited gender models by male and female religious communities, and illuminates the cultural significance to eighth‐century male and female readers of heroines assigned to the earliest days of the Church. Comparison of three manuscripts which can be allocated to male and female communities – two containing exegetical material penned by Gregory the Great and read liturgically for dominical and martyr festivals, the third Marian writings and the passiones of four female martyrs – demonstrates the importance of gender identification in the reception of this material. Writers and copyists in one community of religious women in the Rhine‐Main region in the eighth century were concerned to present both Roman martyrs and Biblical women as positive models for women without reference to hierarchical notions of gender. Mary, for example, is put forward as a ‘new Eve’ who has freed women of every estate (not just virgins) from the curse of Eve, whilst the commemoration of female martyrs – fully human figures who were temporally and geographically less remote than Mary and biblical models – further strengthened the egalitarian message provided by this exegesis. A proper understanding of gender identities, and of the meanings of the cult of the Roman martyrs, in the early middle ages can only proceed from this type of properly contextualised analysis.
Roman martyrs and their veneration in Ottonian Saxony: the case of the sanctimoniales of Essen
Authors: Bodarwé Katrinette
Published: March 2003

The relics of Roman martyrs played an important role in the christianisation of Saxony, and the ninth and tenth centuries saw a ‘second wave’ of relic translations from Rome northwards across the Alps, as well as the translation of Roman relics already in Francia into Saxony. But what happened to the relics of the Roman martyrs once they were introduced into a new cultural landscape? This paper look at the reception of Roman relics in Ottonian Saxony, focusing in particular on the female religious community at Essen. No translation accounts or historical texts are preserved from Essen, but it is possible to gain a clear overview of the relics existing there through liturgical manuscripts and inscriptions; evaluation of these sources sheds light on the mechanisms through which relics were diffused through Saxony, and on their liturgical relevance. It is also possible to investigate attitudes towards these supernatural patrons through their mention in contemporary charters and their depiction in dedication illustrations. Whilst the Roman martyrs Cosmas and Damian (whose relics had been obtained by Altfrid, Essen's ninth‐century founder) were seen as the patrons of the community by those outside, the sanctimoniales of Essen continued to identify primarily with the Virgin Mary. Gender identification, as well as political and legal claims, therefore played an important role in the reception of the cult of the Roman martyrs in tenth‐century Saxony.
Translating relics: Victricius of Rouen and fourth‐century debate
Authors: Clark Gillian
Published: March 2003

This article uses a little‐known sermon by Victricius, bishop of Rouen, as an approach to the fourth‐century debate on the translation of relics. In the last third of the fourth century, the cult of martyrs and their relics was promoted by Damasus of Rome, Paulinus of Nola and Ambrose of Milan, but remained controversial in the western churches. Roman law forbade the disturbance of dead bodies, especially where magic was suspected. Christians as well as non‐Christians were repelled by the veneration of bone, bloodstains and dust, and by the extreme asceticism that was often associated with relic‐cult. The sermon Victricius preached, welcoming to Rouen a gift of relics from Ambrose, is here interpreted as an attempt at cultural translation. Victricius deploys a late‐antique education in rhetoric and philosophy to make relic‐cult and asceticism acceptable. Like many others, he uses the adventus, the ceremonial reception of a visiting emperor or his deputy by local aristocracy and officials, as an analogy for the reception of relics by ascetics and clergy. Exceptionally, he equates corporeal relics with the presence of God; but his unique theology of relics was lost to view.