bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Predicting Depression From Temperament, Personality, and Patterns of Social Relations
Authors: Finch John F. , Graziano William G.
Published: March 2003

The present study used a levels‐of‐analysis perspective (McAdams, 1995) to link temperament to depression. We hypothesized a mediational role for three personality variables (Agreeableness, Extraversion Neuroticism) and two interpersonal variables (social support and negative social exchange) in channeling the effects of temperament. A structural equation modeling approach supported the hypothesis that these three personality variables were mediators of the link between temperament and depression. The patterns of mediation differed for Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism. In addition to the three personality variables, social support and negative social exchange were also found to mediate the effects of temperament. There was no evidence that patterns of relations among the variables differed between males and females. Results are discussed in terms of a levels‐of‐analysis approach to the examination of the effects of temperament and personality on adaptation outcomes.
Predicting Dimensions of Personality Disorder From Domains and Facets of the Five Factor Model
Authors: Reynolds Sarah K. , Clark Lee Anna
Published: March 2003

We compared the utility of several trait models for describing personality disorder in a heterogeneous clinical sample (N = 94). Participants completed the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP, Clark, 1993b), a self‐report measure that assesses traits relevant to personality disorder, and two measures of the Five Factor Model: the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO‐PI‐R; Costa and McCrae, 1992) and the Big Five Inventory (BFI; John, Donahue, & Kentle, 1991). Regression analyses indicated substantial overlap between the SNAP scales and the NEO‐PI‐R facets. In addition, use of the NEO‐PI‐R facets afforded substantial improvement over the Five Factor Model domains in predicting interview‐based ratings of DSM‐IV personality disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), such that the NEO facets and the SNAP scales demonstrated roughly equivalent levels of predictive power. Results support assessment of the full range of NEO‐PI‐R facets over the Five Factor Model domains for both research and clinical use.
Agreeableness as a Moderator of Interpersonal Conflict
Authors: Jensen‐Campbell Lauri A. , Graziano William G.
Published: March 2003

This multimethod research linked the Big Five personality dimensions to interpersonal conflicts. Agreeableness was the focus because this dimension is associated with motives to maintain positive interpersonal relations. Converging responses to both hypothetical conflicts and to diary records of actual daily interpersonal conflicts across a two‐week period were assessed. Agreeableness was expected to moderate affective responses and tactical choices during conflicts. Patterns of daily conflict were related to self‐reported reactions to hypothetical conflicts and to teacher‐rated adjustment in adolescents. As predicted, Agreeableness was related to responsiveness to conflict. Agreeableness differences and use of destructive tactics in conflict were significantly related to evaluations of the individual’s adjustment by knowledgeable raters. Among the Big Five dimensions, Agreeableness was most closely associated with processes and outcomes during interpersonal conflict.
The Structure of the Self‐Concept and Its Relation to Psychological Adjustment
Authors: Campbell Jennifer D. , Assanand Sunaina , Paula Adam Di
Published: March 2003

Research on the relation between the structure of the self‐concept and psychological adjustment has produced seemingly inconsistent findings. Some research suggests that greater pluralism in self‐concept structure enhances adjustment, whereas other research suggests that greater unity in the structure enhances adjustment. Four studies examined the relations among measures of self‐concept structure and their relations with adjustment. The measures of self‐concept structure included two that we viewed as reflecting self‐concept pluralism (self‐complexity and self‐concept compartmentalization) and four that we viewed as reflecting self‐concept unity (self‐concept differentiation, self‐concept clarity, self‐discrepancies, and the average correlation among participants' self‐aspects). The measures of self‐concept pluralism were unrelated to one another, were unrelated to the measures of self‐concept unity, and were unrelated to the measures of adjustment. The measures of self‐concept unity were moderately related to one another and were moderately related to the measures of adjustment.
Coupled Building Control Using Acceleration Feedback
Authors: Christenson Richard E. , Spencer, Jr. B. F. , Hori Natsuko , Seto Kazuto
Published: March 2003

Connecting adjacent buildings for response reduction has been shown to be an effective method of structural control. Active coupled building control has been implemented in 2001 in the recently constructed Triton Square office complex in Tokyo, Japan. To date, active coupled building control using acceleration feedback has not been demonstrated. This paper reports on studies at the Structural Dynamics and Control/Earthquake Engineering Laboratory (SDC/EEL) at the University of Notre Dame to experimentally verify active coupled building control employing acceleration feedback for the seismic protection of structures. Herein, a pair of 2–dof flexible building models with a DC servo–motor/ball–screw control mechanism are employed. Feedback control is incorporated, using the acceleration, as well as relative displacement, measurements at the top stories of the building models. The proposed approach is shown to be effective for reduction of structural vibration due to seismic excitation.
Can We Understand Ourselves?
Authors: Winch Peter
Published: March 2003

When it is asked if it is ‘possible’ for us to understand alien cultures, a contrast is implied with a certain conception of the understanding we have of our own culture. This contrast has certain parallels with the philosophical ‘problem of other minds’, in which a contrast is also drawn between understanding myself and others. Though these are different questions, they are related — in that somewhat parallel confusion about the notion of ‘understanding’ are involved in both. Our own culture is not in principle transparent to our understanding; neither are other cultures in principle opaque.
Environmental Transformation of the State: The USA, Norway, Germany and the UK
Authors: Dryzek John S. , Hunold Christian , Schlosberg David , Downes David , Hernes Hans-Kristian
Published: March 2003

Modern states underwent two major transformations that produced first, the liberal capitalist state and second, the welfare state. Each was accompanied by the migration of a previously confrontational movement into the core of the state. In the creation of the liberal capitalist state, the bourgeoisie could harmonize with the state's emerging interest in economic growth. In the creation of the welfare state, the organized working class could harmonize with the state's emerging interest in legitimating the political economy by curbing capitalism's instability and inequality. We show that environmental conservation could now emerge as a core state interest, growing out of these established economic and legitimation imperatives. This examination is grounded in a comparative historical study of four countries: the USA, Norway, Germany, and the UK, each of which exemplifies a particular kind of interest representation. We show why the USA was an environmental pioneer around 1970, why it was then eclipsed by Norway, and why Germany now leads in addressing environmental concerns.
The Earthquake, Civil Society, and Political Change in Turkey: Assessment and Comparison with Eastern Europe
Authors: Kubicek Paul
Published: March 2003

Civil society has been widely celebrated as instrumental in democratization, but in some countries it remains poorly developed. Such was the case in Turkey, but many hoped that the 1999 earthquakes would lead to an invigoration of civil society and subsequent political liberalization. Examining this claim shows that Turkish civil society has not been able to sustain the energy it enjoyed immediately after the earthquake because of factors within civil society itself and the attitude of the state. This relative failure is then contrasted with the more positive experience of civil society in East-Central Europe. The comparisons reveal some limits to the utility of a civil society approach to democratization. I conclude by assessing the ability of other actors and factors to fashion political reform in Turkey today.
Towards a Non-zero-sum Interactive Framework of Spatial Politics: The Case of Centre—Province in Contemporary China
Authors: Li Linda Chelan
Published: March 2003

This paper proposes an interactive, non-zero-sum framework to understand an important facet of spatial politics in contemporary China: the central-provincial relationship. The ‘conventional wisdom’ of the field, it is argued, confuses the role of coercion in the exercise of power, and assumes a static, zero-sum central-provincial relationship. Changes are merely cyclical, and hopes for genuine changes are pinned on ad hoc factors such as the arrival of ‘enlightened’ leaders. Drawing on Parsons' insights on the concept of power, the article outlines a new approach which sees the forces of genuine changes as residing within the institutional system. It interprets the central-provincial relationship as a non-zero-sum, interactive process of conflicts and compromises, whereby genuine changes to the relationship are made.
Liberal Equality, Exploitation, and the Case for an Unconditional Basic Income
Authors: White Stuart
Published: March 2003

This paper considers whether arguments presented in Philippe Van Parijs' Real Freedom for All: What (if Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? succeed in rebutting the objection that the introduction of a substantial unconditional basic income (UBI) would allow non-working citizens to free-ride on the efforts of, and so exploit, working citizens. It considers Van Parjis' ‘external assets argument’ for UBI, and finds that this argument does not succeed in reconciling payment of a substantial UBI with the reciprocity principle which underpins this ‘exploitation objection’. It considers and rejects Van Parijs' implicit claim that the exploitation objection must be grounded in a distributive principle which contradicts the egalitarian commitment to prevent brute luck inequality. It concludes that Van Parjis has failed, thus far, to articulate a convincing response to the exploitation objection.
Electoral Determinants of Agrarian Power: Measuring Rural Decline in Japan
Authors: Mulgan Aurelia George
Published: March 2003

The Japanese farm sector illustrates the key measures of rural electoral influence in advanced industrialized societies and the principal causes of decline in the electoral basis of agrarian power. The political impact of the farm vote is sensitive to wider social, economic and demographic changes as well as to restructuring processes in electoral, organizational and party-political systems. In Japan's case the agricultural electorate continues to shrink along with the electoral profile of rural and semi-rural constituencies and the number of farm politicians in the Diet, although the orientation of the ruling conservative party towards the rural sector is strengthening in relative terms. The disproportionate enfranchisement of farm voters will be further reduced by electoral reform, which will generate potential gains and losses for the farm sector.
Looking over Your Shoulder: The Onlookers of Hegel's Phenomenology
Authors: Caro Jason S.
Published: March 2003

The vexed issue of the end of history has again emerged with Fukuyama's celebrated text. But Fukuyama is only the latest in a line of such Hegelian thinkers. How have such philosopher-historians come to know that history has ended? In returning to their source, Hegel's Phenomenology, these theorists are found to ruthlessly fashion the very history that they relate. Using techniques akin to Foucaultian disciplines, the historical onlookers impersonate, disinform and reconfigure unwilling individuals to advance in history. This guidance becomes especially problematic when it is shown that the Hegelian onlookers are ignorant of their profound impact on history. When such influence is combined with ignorance the thinkers of the end of history appear quite harmful.
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Politics in the Developing World
Authors: Clarke Gerard
Published: March 2003

The proliferation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the developing, as well as the developed, world, has triggered an ‘associational revolution’. Political scientists, however, have made a relatively minor contribution to the contemporary NGO literature which has evolved since the mid-1980s. This article examines some of the main political themes addressed in the NGO literature, as well as related themes in other political studies. NGOs, the article argues, make significant contributions to political life and to political change in developing countries, revealing a fertile, and hitherto neglected, research agenda.
Sport and Civil Society
Authors: Allison Lincoln
Published: March 2003

Political science lags behind social history and sociological theory in its contributions to the academic understanding of sport. One remedy for this lag might be the analysis of the concept of civil society in relation to sport, since sporting institutions fit many of the definitions and fulfil many of the supposed functions of civil society. An analysis of sporting institutions in Georgia, Thailand and South Africa shows that they do ‘reflect’ the general condition of civil society in those countries, albeit in a distorted or exaggerated way, and that it is possible, though not necessary, for sport to be a major component of civil society.
Business Routes of Influence in Brussels: Exploring the Choice of Direct Representation
Authors: Bennett Robert J.
Published: March 2003

This paper presents one of the first statistical analyses of the factors that determine the extent to which direct influence strategies are used by companies. New survey evidence and multivariate analysis is used to assess seven hypotheses to explain direct influence strategies. The factor of greatest significance is company size since direct influence is open only to large companies. But the extent to which direct influence is followed by large companies depends on their sector, its extent of organization, the sector's size and ‘weight’, and the form of the business association relevant to the sector. Direct influence is more likely where associations cover large corporate businesses (rather than owner-managers, professionals, federations or mixed associations), in sectors with a high degree of market concentration within large companies, and where their associations are relatively small. These findings are related to the logic of collective action suggesting that in sectors where there is the least chance to opt out of an association, there is a greater chance of a business also directly lobbying in order to assure itself that its interests are not being diluted and so that it can gain direct specific information or influence benefits.
Models of Capitalism in the New World Order: The UK Case
Authors: Coates David
Published: March 2003

In the debate over economic performance which has preoccupied UK policy makers for the last four decades, foreign ‘models' of more successful capitalisms elsewhere have been an important point of reference. Those models have been variously market-led (USA), state-led (Japan) or negotiated/consensual (Germany/Sweden). Of late the UK's own internal economic and social settlement has itself been offered as a viable model for once successful foreign economies now in competitive difficulties. The key features of these various models are analysed, and the UK's changing post-war position on the map of models is traced. The changing fortunes of these models are then related to developments in the global economy; and an assessment made of the adequacy (and desirability) of the kind of economic order now being canvassed in the UK by the present Labour Government.
The State and the Economy: Opinion Formation and Collaboration as Facets of Economic Management
Authors: Marsh Ian
Published: March 2003

This paper seeks to extend discussion of the areas of state activity that are relevant to economic performance. It does this by linking several literatures that are now usually considered in isolation from each other. These are institutionalist theory, developmental state theory, and comparative and historical institutionalism. The paper focuses particularly on the experience of the east Asian developmental states. The paper suggests a new role for the state as catalyst in the formation of ideas, choice sets and motives concerning economic performance. It can play this role at national and policy community levels and in relation to desired overall outcomes, export or cluster development and innovation. The notion that economic globalization will inexorably drive convergence between states is discounted. On the contrary, this is as likely to nourish miscomprehension or incomprehension between citizens of different states. This is an additional reason for attending to the quality of opinion formation by states.
Recursive Secessions in Former Yugoslavia: Too Hard a Case for Theories of Secession?
Authors: Pavković Aleksandar
Published: March 2003

The recent experience of the former Yugoslavia provides an important test case for appraising theories of secession. This article begins with an outline of the main candidate justifications for a right to secession; withdrawal of consent; remedial right only; national self-determination and hybrids of these arguments. The article then provides a survey of the experience of the various secessions in the former Yugoslavia and draws attention to the particular problem of recursive secessions – that is counter secessions by minorities within the new ‘republics’. The discussion of recursive secession provides an additional criterion for assessing the adequacy of candidate theories of justified secession.
The Concept of the State in British and French Political Thought
Authors: Laborde Cécile
Published: March 2003

The importance of the concept of state in British political thought has recently been re-assessed, and Dyson's contrast between a continental ‘state tradition’ and an Anglo-American ‘stateless tradition’ has been put into question. Yet this paper argues that there remain crucial differences in the way in which French and British political thinkers have understood the concept of state. Focusing on a critical moment in the crystallization of the meaning of ‘state’, the turn of the twentieth century, and in particular on the anti-statist pluralist school, it analyses how state critics were influenced by national intellectual traditions. French thought has been permeated by the idea of the autonomy of the state vis-à-vis society at large, while British thought has remained committed to an ideal of fluidity between state and society.
Bougainville and Papua New Guinea: Complexities of Secession in a Multi-Ethnic Developing State
Authors: Matthew Anthony
Published: March 2003

The claims made by Bougainville's secessionist leaders correspond with five theoretical perspectives on the morality of secession – based, respectively, on notions of political consent, national identity, cultural preservation, distributive justice and territorial title. Each is tackled in turn, as a means to both assessing the justness of the Bougainvillean case, while also testing the limits of applicability of the moral perspectives themselves. Overall, it is concluded that the complexities of the Bougainville/Papua New Guinea case militate against outright separation. Rather, a balanced resolution of injustices is more likely to be attained by modifications to institutions and patterns of distribution within the existing state. Furthermore, this highly complex case throws up important challenges from which normative theory can profitably learn.
Nationalism and Intellectuals in Nations without States: The Catalan Case
Authors: Guibernau Montserrat
Published: March 2003

This paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for the study of the relationship between intellectuals and nationalism in Western nations without states. The first part sets up a theoretical framework which includes a definition of the concepts of nation, state and nationalism and also introduces the concept of nations without states. It then establishes a distinction between ‘state nationalism’ and nationalism in ‘nations without states’. The second part analyses the relationship between intellectuals and nationalism in the work of Elie Kedourie, Tom Nairn, John Breuilly and Anthony D. Smith. The third part considers the specific context within which intellectuals operate in nations without states. It concentrates on the study of the role of Catalan intellectuals in protecting their vernacular language and culture during Franco's regime (1939–75) together with the processes which, in the 1960s and 1970s, turned Catalan nationalism from an elite into a mass movement. Particular attention is given to the cultural resistance activities carried out by Catalan intellectuals during this period, the reasons why some intellectuals may feel attracted to nationalism, and the rational and emotional arguments employed by intellectuals as mobilizing agents.
Don't Discard State Autonomy: Revisiting the East Asian Experience of Development
Authors: Polidano Charles
Published: March 2003

Rapid East Asian economic growth was commonly credited to the existence of strong, autonomous developmental states. Subsequently a new ‘institutionalist’ school of thought emerged which argued that an effective state must be connected to civil society, not autonomous from it, and which reinterpreted East Asian development in these terms. This paper is a critical reappraisal of the institutionalist school. The evidence of state autonomy (seen in relativistic rather than absolute, either-or terms) in East Asia's recent history is too great to be ignored. And since some institutionalists themselves acknowledge autonomy as a necessary foundation for developmentally effective relationships with civil society, we should recognize autonomy as a potentially important element of state capacity. State autonomy remains an important analytical concept that deserves the attention of scholars.
Republicanism, Freedom from Domination, and the Cambridge Contextual Historians
Authors: Springborg Patricia
Published: March 2003

Philip Pettit, in Republicanism: a Theory of Freedom and Government (1997), draws on the historiography of classical republicanism developed by the Cambridge Contextual Historians, John Pocock and Quentin Skinner, to set up a programme for the recovery of the Roman Republican notion of freedom, as freedom from domination. But it is my purpose to show that classical republicanism, as a theory of institutional complexity and balanced government, could not, and did not, lay exclusive claim to freedom from domination as a defining value. Positive freedom was a concept ubiquitous in Roman Law and promulgated in Natural Law as a universal human right. And it was just the ubiquitousness of this right to freedom, honoured more often in the breach than the observance, which prompted the scorn of early modern proto-feminists like Mary Astell and her contemporary, Judith Drake. The division of society into public and private spheres, which liberalism entrenched, precisely allowed democrats in the public sphere full rein as tyrants in the domestic sphere of the family, as these women were perspicacious enough to observe. When republicanism is defined in exclusively normative terms the rich institutional contextualism drops away, leaving no room for the issues it was designed to address: the problematic relation between values and institutions that lies at the heart of individual freedoms.
The Twilight of Westminster? Electoral Reform and its Consequences
Authors: Norris Pippa
Published: March 2003

The UK political system has long exemplified ‘majoritarian’ or ‘Westminster’ government, a type subsequently exported to many Commonwealth countries. The primary advantage of this system, proponents since Bagehot have argued, lie in its ability to combine accountability with effective governance. Yet under the Blair administration, this system has undergone a series of major constitutional reforms, perhaps producing the twilight of the pure Westminster model. After conceptualizing the process of constitutional reform, this paper discusses two important claims made by those who favor retaining the current electoral system for Westminster, namely that single-member districts promote strong voter-member linkages and generate greater satisfaction with the political system. Evidence testing these claims is examined from comparative data covering 19 nations, drawing on the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. The study finds that member-voter linkages are stronger in single member than in pure multimember districts, but that combined districts such as MMP preserve these virtues. Concerning claims of greater public satisfaction under majoritarian systems, the study establishes some support for this contention, although the evidence remains limited. The conclusion considers the implications of the findings for debates about electoral reform and for the future of the Westminster political system.
The Politics of Transition? Explaining Political Crises in the Implementation of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement
Authors: Ruane Joseph , Todd Jennifer
Published: March 2003

The implementation of the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement has been marked by recurring crises. While each of these has its specific causes, they are symptomatic of contradictions in the underlying conditions of conflict. These made the Belfast Agreement possible, but they also create difficulties in its implementation. The Agreement echoes – not least in its ambiguities – the underlying contradictions, reconstituting the political terrain in terms of them. This has reproduced the tendency toward conflict even among the supporters of the Agreement, whose different responses and ends-in-view reflect the objective uncertainties in the situation. Political crises are likely to continue even after the full implementation of the Agreement.
The Democratic Quality of Institutional Regimes: A Conceptual Framework
Authors: Kaiser André , Lehnert Matthias , Miller Bernhard , Sieberer Ulrich
Published: March 2003

Lijphart's spectrum of democracies – recently expanded by Jack Nagel to a sub-majoritarian sphere of pluralitarian systems which use disproportional electoral systems in order to manufacture majority governments from minorities in the electorate – is based on only one dimension: inclusion of preferences. Political scientists in the Lijphartian tradition wrongly assume that inclusion of preferences, which is an input characteristic, automatically leads to responsiveness, which refers to actual policy decisions and hence is an output characteristic. We therefore add ‘responsibility’ as a second input characteristic and employ it alongside the inclusiveness of institutional regimes. We argue that in representative democracies there exists a trade-off between inclusiveness and responsibility. This trade-off helps us to measure the democratic quality of institutional regimes. The now expanded spectrum of democracies based on these two dimensions shows that majoritarian democracy proper – in which governments represent a majority of individual preferences but not more than necessary – is the best possible combination of the two democratic values.
The 1998 German Federal Election
Authors: James Peter
Published: March 2003

The federal election held in Germany on 27 September 1998 marked the end of the Kohl era. It was one of the closest-fought postwar elections, which made the result difficult to predict and the election evening extremely exciting. In the event the ruling Christian Democrats recorded their worst result since 1949, a sitting federal chancellor, Helmut Kohl, was voted out of office for the first time in the history of the Federal Republic and the main opposition party, Germany's Social Democrats, became the largest party in parliament for only the second time since the war.
The Face of Time: Temporal Cues in Facial Expressions of Emotion
Authors: Edwards Kari
Published: March 2003

Results of studies reported here indicate that humans are attuned to temporal cues in facial expressions of emotion. The experimental task required subjects to reproduce the actual progression of a target person's spontaneous expression (i.e., onset to offset) from a scrambled set of photographs. Each photograph depicted a segment of the expression that corresponded to approximately 67 ms in real time. Results of two experiments indicated that (a) individuals could detect extremely subtle dynamic cues in a facial expression and could utilize these cues to reproduce the proper temporal progression of the display at above-chance levels of accuracy; (b) women performed significantly better than men on the task designed to assess this ability; (c) individuals were most sensitive to the temporal characteristics of the early stages of an expression; and (d) accuracy was inversely related to the amount of time allotted for the task. The latter finding may reflect the relative involvement of (error-prone) cognitively mediated or strategic processes in what is normally a relatively automatic, nonconscious process.
Birth Order Effects on Personality and Achievement Within Families
Authors: Paulhus Delroy L. , Trapnell Paul D. , Chen David
Published: March 2003

We investigated birth order effects on personality and achievement in four studies (N = 1,022 families) including both student and adult samples. Control over a wide range of variables was effected by collecting within-family data: Participants compared their siblings (and themselves) on a variety of personality and achievement dimensions. Across four diverse data sets, first-borns were nominated as most achieving and most conscientious. Later-borns were nominated as most rebellious, liberal, and agreeable. The same results obtained whether or not birth order was made salient (to activate stereotypes) during the personality ratings. Overall, the results support predictions from Sulloway's niche model of personality development, as well as Zajonc's confluence model of intellectual achievement.
When Positive Stereotypes Threaten Intellectual Performance: The Psychological Hazards of “Model Minority” Status
Authors: Cheryan Sapna , Bodenhausen Galen V.
Published: March 2003

Asian-American women's performance on a test of quantitative skill was studied as a function of whether their Asian, female, or individual identity was salient at the time of testing. In previous research, ethnicity salience was found to result in enhanced math performance among Asian women. However, the investigators relied on a subtle manipulation of ethnicity salience that likely did not invoke concerns about group reputation nor make salient the common cultural stereotypes concerning Asians' mathematical prowess. We induced a focus on ethnic identity in a manner that was likely to make other people's high performance expectations more salient. Under these conditions, ethnicity salience resulted in diminished ability to concentrate, which in turn led to significantly impaired math performance. Thus, although people commonly hold positive stereotypes about Asians' mathematical skills, making these stereotypes salient prior to performance can create the potential for “choking” under the pressure of high expectations.
Infants' Knowledge About Occlusion and Containment Events: A Surprising Discrepancy
Authors: Hespos Susan J. , Baillargeon Renée
Published: March 2003

The present research examined whether infants acquire general principles or more specific rules when learning about physical events. Experiments 1 and 2 investigated 4.5-month-old infants' ability to judge how much of a tall object should be hidden when lowered behind an occluder versus inside a container. The results indicated that at this age infants are able to reason about height in occlusion but not containment events. Experiment 3 showed that this latter ability does not emerge until about 7.5 months of age. The marked discrepancy in infants' reasoning about height in occlusion and containment events suggests that infants sort events into distinct categories, and acquire separate rules for each category.
Seeing Sets: Representation by Statistical Properties
Authors: Ariely Dan
Published: March 2003

Sets of similar objects are common occurrences—a crowd of people, a bunch of bananas, a copse of trees, a shelf of books, a line of cars. Each item in the set may be distinct, highly visible, and discriminable. But when we look away from the set, what information do we have? The current article starts to address this question by introducing the idea of a set representation. This idea was tested using two new paradigms: mean discrimination and member identification. Three experiments using sets of different-sized spots showed that observers know a set's mean quite accurately but know little about the individual items, except their range. Taken together, these results suggest that the visual system represents the overall statistical, and not individual, properties of sets.
Visual Prior Entry
Authors: Shore David I. , Spence Charles , Klein Raymond M.
Published: March 2003

It has long been claimed that attended stimuli are perceived prior to unattended stimuli—the doctrine of prior entry. Most, if not all, studies on which such claims have been based, however, are open to a nonattentional interpretation involving response bias, leading some researchers to assert that prior entry may not exist. Given this controversy, we introduce a novel methodology to minimize the effect of response bias by manipulating attention and response demands in orthogonal dimensions. Attention was oriented to the left or right (i.e., spatially), but instead of reporting on the basis of location, observers reported the order (first or second) of vertical versus horizontal line segments. Although second-order response biases were demonstrated, effects of attention in accordance with the law of prior entry were clearly obtained following both exogenous and endogenous attentional cuing.
Genetic Influence on the Expression of Hand Preferences in Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes): Evidence in Support of the Right-Shift Theory and Developmental Instability
Authors: Hopkins William D. , Dahl Jeremy F. , Pilcher Dawn
Published: March 2003

Genetic mechanisms have been proposed to explain the pervasive representation of right-handedness in humans, whereas random, nongenetic factors have been posited to explain the lack of population-level right-handedness in nonhuman primates. We report evidence that hand preferences in chimpanzees are heritable, even among related individuals raised in different environments. Furthermore, we report that the degree of heritability is modified by factors associated with developmental instability, notably, offspring parity. The data are interpreted to reconcile both genetic models for handedness and hypotheses suggesting that developmental instability influences variation in handedness.
Evidence for Two Components of Object-Based Selection
Authors: Awh Edward , Dhaliwal Harpreet , Christensen Shauna , Matsukura Michi
Published: March 2003

A wealth of research has shown that observers can bias visual processing toward specific locations, but the role of object-based selection is less clear. In support of object-based selection, previous research has shown that when two objects are presented simultaneously, observers are better at reporting two attributes from one of the objects than one attribute from each object. However, there has been controversy over whether this effect is best explained by object-based selection or spatial selection. Our work suggests that there are two separate components of selection in this task: (a) a spatial component that is observed when the relevant targets are cued for observers before the onset of the stimulus display and (b) an object-based component that can still be observed when the first component has been eliminated. The latter effect replicates the initial evidence in favor of object-based selection, and can be demonstrated even when the relevant targets are cued after the offset of the target stimuli.
All Together Now: When Dissociations Between Knowledge and Action Disappear
Authors: Munakata Yuko , Yerys Benjamin E.
Published: March 2003

Why do people sometimes seem to know things but fail to act appropriately on the basis of this knowledge? Such dissociations between knowledge and action often occur in infants and children, and in adults following brain damage. These dissociations have supported inferences about the organization of cognitive processes (e.g., separable knowledge and action systems) and their development (e.g., knowledge systems develop before action systems). The current study tested the basis for knowledge-action dissociations in a card-sorting task in which children typically correctly answer questions about sorting rules while sorting cards incorrectly. When questions and sorting measures were more closely equated for the amount of conflict that needed to be resolved for a correct response, children showed no systematic dissociation between knowledge and action. The results challenge standard interpretations of knowledge-action dissociations and support an alternative account based on graded knowledge representations.
Implementation Intentions and Facilitation of Prospective Memory
Authors: Chasteen Alison L. , Park Denise C. , Schwarz Norbert
Published: March 2003

Forming detailed implementation intentions for a future behavior can increase the probability that the behavior is actually completed. We investigated whether this intention effect could be used to improve prospective memory in older adults. As expected, participants who formed an implementation intention were more than twice as likely to self-initiate the intended behavior (writing down the day of the week on every sheet of paper received during the experiment) compared with participants who either were merely instructed to do so or actively rehearsed the instruction. Forming an implementation intention, however, did not improve performance on a task that required a response to salient cues. We conclude that detailed implementation intentions facilitate prospective memory on tasks that lack salient cues and require self-initiation.
Moving to Directly Cued Locations Abolishes Spatial Interference During Bimanual Actions
Authors: Diedrichsen Jörn , Hazeltine Eliot , Kennerley Steven , Ivry Richard B.
Published: March 2003

Interference is frequently observed during bimanual movements if the two hands perform nonsymmetric actions. We examined the source of bimanual interference in two experiments in which we compared conditions involving symmetric movements with conditions in which the movements were of different amplitudes or different directions. The target movements were cued either symbolically by letters or directly by the onset of the target locations. With symbolic cues, reaction times were longer when the movements of the two hands were not symmetric. With direct cues, reaction times were the same for symmetric and nonsymmetric movements. These results indicate that directly cued actions can be programmed in parallel for the two hands. Our results challenge the hypothesis that the cost to initiate nonsymmetric movements is due to spatial interference in a motor-programming stage. Rather, the cost appears to be caused by stimulus identification, response-selection processes connected to the processing of symbolic cues, or both.
Influence of Past Experience on Perceptual Grouping
Authors: Kimchi Ruth , Hadad Bat-Sheva
Published: March 2003

We used primed matching to examine the microgenesis of perceptual organization for familiar (upright letters) and unfamiliar (inverted letters) visual configurations that varied in the connectedness between their line components. The configurations of upright letters were available for priming as early as 40 ms, irrespective of connectedness between their line components. The configurations of connected inverted-letter primes were also available this early, but the configurations of disconnected inverted letters were not available until later. These results show that past experience contributes to the early grouping of disconnected line segments into configurations. These findings suggest an interactive model of perceptual organization in which both image-based properties (e.g., connectedness) and input from object memories contribute to perceptual organization.
Traces Left on Visual Selective Attention by Stimuli That Are Not Consciously Identified
Authors: Jaśkowski Piotr , van der Lubbe Rob H.J. , Schlotterbeck Erik , Verleger Rolf
Published: March 2003

Briefly presented information, even if unidentifiable, may speed or delay required responses to following events. It has been assumed that this priming of the motor system may occur without affecting attention to priming and following stimuli. In contrast to this notion, the present study reports that such unidentified stimuli have effects on a physiological indicator of the attentional system. A lateral posterior electroencephalogram component was evoked by laterally presented relevant shapes, reflecting shifts of attention to those shapes. This component was absent, however, when the relevant shape was preceded by a similar shape at the same location, even if this shape was completely masked by metacontrast. The attentional shift evidently became unnecessary in this situation. Thus, unidentifiable information may leave some trace for attention-controlled selection of the following event.
Lexical Neighborhoods and the Word-Form Representations of 14-Month-Olds
Authors: Swingley Daniel , Aslin Richard N.
Published: March 2003

The degree to which infants represent phonetic detail in words has been a source of controversy in phonology and developmental psychology. One prominent hypothesis holds that infants store words in a vague or inaccurate form until the learning of similar-sounding neighbors forces attention to subtle phonetic distinctions. In the experiment reported here, we used a visual fixation task to assess word recognition. We present the first evidence indicating that, in fact, the lexical representations of 14- and 15-month-olds are encoded in fine detail, even when this detail is not functionally necessary for distinguishing similar words in the infant's vocabulary. Exposure to words is sufficient for well-specified lexical representations, even well before the vocabulary spurt. These results suggest developmental continuity in infants' representations of speech: As infants begin to build a vocabulary and learn word meanings, they use the perceptual abilities previously demonstrated in tasks testing the discrimination and categorization of meaningless syllables.
Probability Cuing of Target Location Facilitates Visual Search Implicitly in Normal Participants and Patients with Hemispatial Neglect
Authors: Geng Joy J. , Behrmann Marlene
Published: March 2003

We explored how variability in the probability of target locations affects visual search in normal individuals and in patients with hemispatial neglect, a deficit in attending to the contralesional side of space. Young and elderly normal participants responded faster when targets appeared in the more probable region than when targets appeared in the less probable region. Similarly, patients were sensitive to the distribution of targets, even in the neglected field. Although the attentional gradient that characterizes neglect was not eliminated, the response facilitation due to the probability distribution was proportionate to that of control participants and equal in magnitude across the neglected field. All participants exploited the uneven distribution of targets to enhance task performance without explicit instructions to do so or awareness of biases in their behavior. These results suggest that attentional orientation and sensitivity to external probabilities are possibly dissociable. An early sensory and a late motor mechanism are postulated as possibly being involved in the observed probability-matching behavior of participants.
On Wildebeests and Humans
Authors: Dijksterhuis Ap , Aarts Henk
Published: March 2003

On the basis of a functional perspective, we hypothesized that negative stimuli are detected faster than positive stimuli. In Experiment 1, participants were subliminally presented with positive and negative words or with no words at all. After each presentation, participants were asked whether they had seen a word. They detected negative words more accurately than positive words. In Experiment 2, participants were subliminally presented with negative or positive words. After each presentation, they were asked whether the presented word was positive or negative. Negative words were correctly categorized more often than positive words. Experiment 3 showed that although participants correctly categorized negative words more often than positive words, they could not guess the meaning of the words better than would be expected by chance. The results are discussed against the background of recent findings on basic affective processes.
Reshaping the Democratic State: Swedish Experiences in a Comparative Perspective
Authors: Premfors Rune
Published: March 2003

In the international discourse concerning recent administrative reform developments there is a dominant overall interpretation propagated by a dominant story‐teller: the public management programme (PUMA) of the OECD. This article takes issue with this story, arguing that instead of a singular pattern of adaptation there have been and there are several different reform trajectories in Western‐style democracies, largely predicated on historically determined patterns of state‐society relations and significant variations in political cultures. A detailed comparative analysis of the case of Sweden is here used to illustrate the prevalence of a pattern of ‘structured pluralism’ and the fruitfulness of a historical‐institutionalist approach to the comparative study of administrative reform.
Linking Policy Networks and Environmental Policies: Nitrate Policy Making in Denmark and Sweden 1970‐1995
Authors: Daugbjerg Carsten
Published: March 2003

The policy network literature has provided important insight into the way in which public policy is made in Western societies. Most network studies have focused on processes within networks and have paid little attention to the conceptualization of policy outcomes and the theoretical link between network type and policy type. This article defines and categorizes environmental policy and suggests a proposition on the link between network types and environmental policy types. It is argued that the existence of tight and closed policy communities in sectors subject to environmental regulation is associated with the introduction of low cost environmental policies. In contrast, open and loose issue networks are associated with high cost environmental policies.