bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Environmental Change, Leadership Succession and Incrementalism in Local Government
Authors: Boyne George , Ashworth Rachel , Powell Martin
Published: March 2003

A theoretical model of strategic budgetary choices in local government is developed and tested. The model assumes that expenditure decisions are a function of changes in environmental circumstances and the characteristics of local leaders. Environmental change is operationalized through measures of workload, munificence and regulatory controls. Leadership succession is defined as the turnover in managerial and political élites. These environmental and leadership variables are included in a multivariate statistical model of budgetary incrementalism. The model is tested on the spending decisions of 402 English local authorities from 1981 to 1996. The empirical results suggest that the extent of budgetary change is influenced strongly by environmental change but weakly by leadership succession. Furthermore, environmental constraints became tighter during the study period. The characteristics of public sector organizations that impose limits on the strategic choices of new leaders are identified.
Pay Comparability Across and Within UK Boards: An Empirical Analysis of the Cash Pay Awards to CEOs and Other Board Members
Authors: Ezzamel Mahmoud , Watson Robert
Published: March 2003

Drawing on the literature on social comparison and equity theories, this paper analyses the determinants of, and the relationships between, the cash pay awards of CEOs and other board members for a sample of large UK companies over the period 1992–95. Our results suggest that external labour market and internal (i.e., within board) pay comparisons are important in explaining both CEO and other directors’ pay awards. In the case of CEOs, however, there is evidence of an asymmetric adjustment to prior period pay anomalies, whereby the pay of the relatively underpaid executives displays significantly greater sensitivity to external market comparison pay levels. This asymmetric adjustment process results in a ‘bidding‐up’ of average CEO pay relative to other board members over the four year period investigated.
Barriers to Managing Diversity in a UK Constabulary: The Role of Discourse
Authors: Dick Penny , Cassell Catherine
Published: March 2003

The literature on diversity management has tended to obfuscate some of the theoretical and methodological shortcomings associated with research in this area. Specifically, the literature tends to make a number of rather naïve assumptions about the experiences and aspirations of disadvantaged groups. This paper seeks to problematize the universalist and partisan tendencies that typify much of the diversity literature by focusing on the issue of ‘resistance’. Using a form of discourse analysis informed by Foucauldian principles, the paper explores how ‘resistance’ to diversity initiatives is expressed by both ‘dominant’ and ‘subordinated’ groups in a UK police force. It is argued that ‘resistance’ is better thought of as a discursive resource that can be drawn upon to justify or account for one’s own organizational experiences and, in turn, the need to both justify and account for one’s experiences is located in broader discursive fields that reproduce dominant ideologies of liberal democracies. The theoretical implications of this position are discussed and a case is presented for more critical and theoretical approaches in the diversity management literature.
Daily Goals, Life Goals, and Worst Fears: Means, Ends, and Subjective Well‐Being
Authors: King Laura A. , Richards Jeanette H. , Stemmerich Emily
Published: March 2003

This study addressed the relations among personal strivings (daily goals) and future life goals and worst fears. Eighty undergraduate participants (62 women, 18 men) listed their daily goals, their ultimate life goals, and their worst fears, and completed questionnaire measures of subjective well‐being. Daily goals were content‐analyzed for relevance to attaining life goals or avoiding worst fears. Daily goals that were instrumental to life goals or that avoided worst fears were rated as more important but also more difficult by participants. Working on daily goals avoiding one's worst fears was negatively related to measures of subjective well‐being, controlling for daily goal progress, difficulty, ambivalence, and importance. Working on daily goals that were instrumental to one's life goals only weakly predicted well‐being. The avoidance of worst fears interacted with daily goal appraisals such that individuals who experienced little progress at daily goals that served to avoid their “worst case scenario” experienced the lowest levels of subjective well‐being. In addition, progress at daily goals that were relevant to accomplishing one's life goals was significantly more strongly related to subjective well‐being than progress at daily goals that were unrelated to one's life goals. Results indicate that daily goals are used to enact life goals and avoid worst fears and that these means–end relations have implications for well‐being.
The Role of Defense in the Life Story
Authors: McAdams Dan P.
Published: March 2003

In modern societies, adults typically provide their lives with some sense of unity and purpose by constructing self‐defining life stories that serve as their identities. Such stories are told to others and to an internalized audience or listener who serves as an ultimate judge and interpreter of the narrative. Defense mechanisms specify narrative strategies that persons use to shape how their lives are told to others and to their internalized audiences. Life events and experiences are incorporated into a life story to the extent that the internalized audience can make sense of the telling. Defenses function to make some stories more tellable than they might otherwise be and to keep other potentially storied accounts from ever reaching the status of being told.
Personality, Personality Disorders, and Defense Mechanisms
Authors: Cramer Phebe
Published: March 2003

The prototype approach was used to assess the presence of personality features associated with borderline, narcissistic, histrionic, and psychopathic personality syndromes in a sample of 91 young adults from the Block and Block (1980) longitudinal study. These personality prototypes were found to be related to the use of denial and projection, and especially to the immature manifestations of those defenses, in ways consistent with theory.
Facial Features as Personality Cues
Authors: Paunonen Sampo V. , Ewan Ken , Earthy Jillian , Lefave Sarah , Goldberg Heather
Published: March 2003

Two studies examined the effects of the appearance of specific facial features on attributions of personality. In Study 1, photographs of men and women were computer‐manipulated to have larger than average or smaller than average eye size, and wider than average or narrower than average eye spacing. In Study 2, eye size and mouth fullness were similarly altered. Although it was found that neither eye spacing nor mouth fullness had any effect on perceptions of the targets' personality or physical characteristics, eye size had strong effects in both studies. Analyses of covariance revealed that the personality trait ratings that varied with eye size were mediated primarily by perceived differences in the targets’ masculinity‐femininity and babyfacedness, and to a lesser extent by attractiveness.
Extrinsic Value Orientation and “The Tragedy of the Commons”
Authors: Sheldon Kennon M. , McGregor Holly A.
Published: March 2003

Two studies examined the effect of Extrinsic Value Orientation (Kasser & Ryan, 1993, 1996) upon harvesting strategies and personal profit within commons dilemmas, in which individual and group interests can be at odds. At an individual or within‐group level of analysis, extrinsically oriented persons (who value money, fame, and popularity) harvested more than intrinsically oriented persons (who value self‐acceptance, intimacy, and community). However, a counteracting group‐level effect was found such that groups with a greater number of extrinsic members harvested less on average than did groups with more intrinsic members, because their commons did not last as long. As a result, even excessive harvesters within extrinsic groups did no better than did self‐restrained harvesters within intrinsic groups. Supplementary analyses indicate that extrinsic values are associated with acquisitiveness regarding resources, more so than apprehension regarding others' acquisitiveness.
The Outcome of Parenting: What Do We Really Know?
Authors: Harris Judith Rich
Published: March 2003

Lykken’s proposal that people should be required to apply for a license before they can become parents is based on his belief that the increase in crime over the past 40 years is due largely to the increase in the number of children reared in fatherless homes. I argue that the absence of a father is a correlate of criminal behavior in the offspring but not its cause. Other correlations that are usually interpreted as the effects of good or bad child‐rearing practices are similarly ambiguous and subject to other explanations. I conclude that the increase in crime over the past 40 years cannot be blamed on the absence of fathers or inept child rearing, and offer two alternative hypotheses.
Time Flies: Investigating the Connection Between Intrinsic Motivation and the Experience of Time
Authors: Conti Regina
Published: March 2003

The present study investigated the relationship between intrinsic motivation and the subjective experience of time passing. The Work Preference Inventory, which measures trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, was administered to 75 undergraduate participants. Measures of time awareness, time estimation, checking of time, and perceived speed of time were collected using the experience sampling method. Participants carried electronic schedulers for five days and completed questionnaires each time the scheduler sounded (eight times per day). Results showed that higher intrinsic motivation was associated with checking and thinking about time less often, a subjective experience of time passing more quickly, and more of a tendency to lose track of time. The experience of time awareness was accompanied by a subjective sense of time moving slowly, a tendency to overestimate the time, and a more negative affective experience. These findings suggest that time perception is an important dimension of motivational experience.
Critical Notice
Authors: Winch Peter
Published: March 2003

Malcolm, Norman Wittgensteinian Themes, Essays 1978–1989
Communal Democracy and its History
Authors: Black Antony
Published: March 2003

Communes and communal thought are an essential part of the history of democracy. By recognizing this we can re-discover the connection between democracy and local, small-scale self-government, and see that democracy has a communitarian as well as a liberal foundation.
Reciprocity and the Justification of an Unconditional Basic Income. Reply to Stuart White
Authors: van Parijs Philippe
Published: March 2003

1 Earlier versions of this reply were incorporated in talks I gave at Nuffield College, Oxford (3 November 1995) and at the Political Thought Seminar, University of Cambridge (21 January 1996). Many thanks to Tony Atkinson, Jerry Cohen, John Dunn, Cécile Fabre, Sue James, David Miller, Adam Swift, Stuart White, Andrew Williams and others (whose names I have forgotten or never knew) for stimulating discussions on these two occasions.
Policy Learning and the Drink Question in Britain 1850–1950
Authors: Greenaway John
Published: March 2003

This article uses the models of Paul Sabatier and Peter Hall, which stress the role of ideas and social learning in the policy process, to illuminate an historical case study over a hundred-year period. This concerns the Drink Question 1850–1950 in Britain and the various techniques for control of alcohol. In turn, the case study is used to suggest ambiguities or problems with the approaches. The case study finds the concept of social learning to be of some utility but casts doubt upon some of the assumptions of Sabatier and Hall: especially the threefold categorization which each author employs. Both models play down unduly the role of external forces in shaping the policy process and do not satisfactorily take into account the changing nature of a political system. In the case study the interplay between social problems, policy objectives and policy techniques is more fluid and complex than their theories suggest.
Universals and Particulars: The Case of Liberal Cultural Nationalism
Authors: Seglow Jonathan
Published: March 2003

Recent work in liberal political theory has rejected cosmopolitanism to incorporate the empirical agenda of nationalism and multiculturalism. In this article three issues facing cultural national liberalism are first extracted from Rawls's Political Liberalism: the range of reasonable cultural identities under liberalism; the substantive ethical bases of the state; and the possibility of principles of cultural self-respect. I then examine three works which address these problems, Will Kymlicka's Multicultural Citizenship, David Miller's On Nationality, and Charles Taylor's ‘The Politics of Recognition’. Kymlicka provides principles of cultural self-respect but is caught between conceptualising culture in universalist and particularist terms. Miller's liberal national state rests on shared meanings, but this serves to complicate the introduction of universal moral ideas. Taylor presents authenticity as an alternative self-understanding to liberal autonomy, but I argue against the notion of cultural authenticity.
Pluralism and the Hobbesian Logic of Negative Constitutionalism
Authors: Ivison Duncan
Published: March 2003

According to an essentially Hobbesian account of political order, the claims of cultural and national minorities within a state to some form of constitutional or institutional recognition are morally suspect and politically undesirable. Underlying this Hobbesian logic is a particular understanding of the relation between law and politics. ‘Negative constitutionalism’ is focused primarily on limiting the damage government can do. However the pursuit of constitutional minimalism runs up against the challenges presented by deeply diverse political communities. By investigating the manner in which Hobbes has been invoked in arguments concerning the relation between the rule of law and the ‘politics of recognition’, I argue (i) that the distinction between the rule of law and politics is fundamentally unstable, and (ii) that in invoking Hobbes, modern theorists have missed an important element of Hobbes's own argument – namely, his appreciation of this instability. As an example, I examine the way Hobbes is used in some of John Gray's recent writings on pluralism and liberalism.
Economic Development and Democracy: The View from Latin America
Authors: Landman Todd
Published: March 2003

This article provides a robust empirical test of the economic development thesis using time-series data on seventeen Latin American countries ( n = 408). It specifies similar models (both linear and non-linear) to those found in the global comparative literature on economic development and democracy in an effort to replicate their findings at the regional level. The statistical analysis shows that the positive relationship between economic development and democracy is not upheld at this level, even when using alternative measures of both and controlling for sub-regional variation. Overall, the analysis provides a regional ‘most likely’ study that infirms the main claims of modernization theory.
The Face of the State
Authors: Bennett Fred
Published: March 2003

From a liberal perspective, policies designed to permit the participation of minorities in national institutions while retaining their cultural particularities are justified either on the grounds that culture has a particular importance or on the basis of equal treatment of individuals. This paper argues that such policies, while not without benefits, have at least the potential to compromise the perceived neutrality of an important state institution. It focuses on the Canadian decision to permit the use of religious symbols as part of the uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Advocates of such policies focus only on their benefits and ignore the potential difficulties; the paper argues that a more balanced assessment is required, one which weights advantages and disadvantages.
Context, Conversation and Conviction: Social Networks and Voting at the 1992 British General Election
Authors: Pattie Charles , Johnston Ron
Published: March 2003

After some initial interest, analyses of contextual effects in British voting behaviour have tended to downplay or ignore the role of face to face conversations between electors. However, evidence from the 1992 British Election Study shows that conversations with partisan discussants do act as a statistically significant influence on voting. Those who discuss politics with supporters of a particular party are more likely to switch their votes to that party, if they had not previously voted for it, and less likely to switch to other parties. Conversations with family members are particularly important, though talking to other discussants also plays a part.
Who Governs Japan? Politicians and Bureaucrats in the Policy-Making Processes
Authors: Wright Maurice
Published: March 2003

The long-running debate about who governs Japan has been given a new twist by ‘rat-choicers' who argue that Japan has been governed for the last thirty years or more neither by bureaucrats nor by a ‘conservative coalition’ of bureaucrats, politicians and businessmen but by the Liberal Democratic Party alone. This article examines their arguments and sets them in the context of other competing and conflicting explanations. It is argued that more relevant and researchable questions are what is governed and how, an approach calling for a more nuanced analysis of policy making in order to observe the impact on different policies and policy-processes of the role of the state and its institutional structures and their embedded ‘collective identities’.
Citizens' Juries and Deliberative Democracy
Authors: Smith Graham , Wales Corinne
Published: March 2003

In the face of widespread dissatisfaction with contemporary democratic practice, there has been a growing interest in theories of deliberative democracy. However theorists have often failed to sufficiently address the question of institutional design. This paper argues that recent experiments with citizens' juries should be of interest to deliberative democrats. The practice of citizens' juries is considered in light of three deliberative democratic criteria: inclusivity, deliberation and citizenship. It is argued that citizens' juries offer important insights into how democratic deliberation could be institutionalized in contemporary political decision-making processes.
The Settlement and Process of Devolution: Territorial Politics and Governance under the Welsh Assembly
Authors: Marinetto Mike
Published: March 2003

Devolution has been the most notable feature of the Labour government's plan to modernize the constitution. Principal consideration is given to Wales and to events since the formation of the National Assembly, which are examined by recourse to theoretically informed analysis on territorial politics and the nature of governance. The central question concerns the extent to which the Assembly can develop an autonomous policy position. Contemporary theories argue that internal and external developments have left central government in a less powerful position, which potentially can further augment the prospects for devolution. Events prior to and after the formation of the Assembly question whether government has moved into a new phase of development. Central government still commands an extensive range of resources and powers, especially over territorial bodies. At the same time, comparative analysis shows that such institutional parameters need not remain fixed. There is institutional space within the state for these powers to be contested and that the continued significance of territory can act as the basis of such political struggle.
Bicameralism and Party Politics in Germany: An Empirical Social Choice Analysis
Authors: König Thomas
Published: March 2003

This paper analyses whether and how party politics transform German bicameralism. Based on the policy positions of bicameral legislators, the study computes the win sets, the yolks of each chamber and a Nash solution in order to analyse empirically the effects of party politics on German bicameralism. In comparison to the basic bicameral model, hypotheses on bicameral conflict and policy stability are tested in the case of similar and different party majorities in the two-dimensional policy space of German labour politics. The results show that party politics transform German bicameralism in two ways. Similar majorities collapse bicameral checks-and-balances, while different party majorities come close to the basic bicameral model with high policy stability and conflict between both chambers.
Marching at the Pace of the Slowest: A Model of International Climate-Change Negotiations
Authors: Ward Hugh , Grundig Frank , Zorick Ethan R.
Published: March 2003

We model international negotiations on climate change. Leaders such as the European Union and the US can make proposals and influence veto players, including other countries and domestic lobbies, who must choose whether to accept or reject proposals. We explain why policy change has been minimal in this issue area, which veto-players receive the greatest and least attention and why leader actors wishing to see less progress are in such a strong bargaining position.
Ethnicity and Politics: Cohesion, Division and British Jews
Authors: Kotler-Berkowitz Laurence A.
Published: March 2003

Structural, cultural, psychological and materialist theories support the proposition that political cohesion and division in ethnic groups are a function of ethnic cohesion and division generally. The proposition is applied to British Jews, and data from the first nationally representative survey of British Jews are employed to test an empirical hypothesis linking strong manifestations of ethnicity to Conservative partisanship. Results from multinomial logistic regression analysis support the hypothesis, and transformations to probabilities demonstrate the strong effect of ethnic divisions on party divisions. Comparisons are drawn between British Jews and other British ethnic minorities, and between British and American Jews.
Liberal Nationalism and Cultural Rights
Authors: Levey Geoffrey Brahm
Published: March 2003

Liberal nationalists such as Yael Tamir and Will Kymlicka have argued for an extravagant range of cultural rights based on respect for individual autonomy. I present an alternative account of the moral import of liberal autonomy for the status of cultural minorities. The article examines three pivotal aspects of Tamir's argument for cultural rights and argues that, in each case, Tamir's position fails to honour the value of individual autonomy, and in ways parallel to Kymlicka's argument. These shared difficulties point to some basic ontological and moral properties of a genuine autonomy-based defence of cultural rights.
Guilty Subjects and Political Responsibility: Arendt, Jaspers and the Resonance of the ‘German Question’ in Politics of Reconciliation
Authors: Schaap Andrew
Published: March 2003

The post-war question of German guilt resonates in contemporary world politics, framing the way actors and observers conceptualize collective responsibility for past wrongs in diverse polities. This article examines the responses of Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers to the ‘German question’: in what sense are ordinary citizens collectively accountable for state crimes and how should they respond to the legacy of past wrongs? Arendt and Jaspers agree on conceiving collective responsibility in terms of a liability predicated on political association that does not impute blame. However, they disagree on the value of the sentiment of guilt in politics. For Jaspers, a spreading consciousness of guilt through public communication leads to purification of the polity. But Arendt rejects guilt in politics, where publicity distorts it into a sentimentality that dulls citizens' responsiveness to the world. These contrasting responses are employed to consider how members of a ‘perpetrating community’ might be drawn into a politics of reconciliation. I suggest that Arendt's conception of political responsibility, conceived in terms of an ethic of worldliness, opens the way for understanding how ‘ordinary citizens' might assume political responsibility for past wrongs while resisting their identification as guilty subjects by a discourse of restorative reconciliation.
Operation Restore Hope and the Illusion of a News Media Driven Intervention
Authors: Robinson Piers
Published: March 2003

US intervention in Somalia (1992) and Iraq (1991) are held as evidence for a more powerful media in the post Cold War era and the thesis that media coverage of suffering people is a major cause of humanitarian intervention. This paper investigates the role of mass media during the 1992 decision to deploy ground troops in Somalia. A media influence model is outlined and then applied to the decision to intervene in Somalia. The research indicates that significant levels of media attention actually followed the intervention decision and that this coverage was framed in a way that built support for the intervention. I conclude there is little evidence to support the claim that media coverage compelled policy makers to intervene or that media coverage was a major factor in policy deliberations. Overall, the role of media in causing intervention in Somalia has been substantially overplayed, instead other factors are likely to have had a far greater effect in causing the intervention. This finding challenges both the thesis that media coverage is a major cause of the deployment of ground troops during humanitarian crisis and suggests caution be exercised with regard to post-Cold War claims of a more powerful and influential media.
The Limits of Rational Choice: New Institutionalism in the Test Bed of Central Banking Politics in Australia
Authors: Bell Stephen
Published: March 2003

This paper tests the explanatory capacities of different versions of new institutionalism by examining the Australian case of a general transition in central banking practice and monetary politics: namely, the increased emphasis on low inflation and central bank independence. Standard versions of rational choice institutionalism largely dominate the literature on the politics of central banking, but this approach (here termed RC1) fails to account for Australian empirics. RC1 has a tendency to establish actor preferences exogenously to the analysis; actors' motives are also assumed a priori; actor's preferences are depicted in relatively static, ahistorical terms. And there is the tendency, even a methodological requirement, to assume relatively simple motives and preference sets among actors, in part because of the game theoretic nature of RC1 reasoning. It is possible to build a more accurate rational choice model by re-specifying and essentially updating the context, incentives and choice sets that have driven rational choice in this case. Enter RC2. However, this move subtly introduces methodological shifts and new theoretical challenges. By contrast, historical institutionalism uses an inductive methodology. Compared with deduction, it is arguably better able to deal with complexity and nuance. It also utilises a dynamic, historical approach, and specifies (dynamically) endogenous preference formation by interpretive actors. Historical institutionalism is also able to more easily incorporate a wider set of key explanatory variables and incorporate wider social aggregates. Hence, it is argued that historical institutionalism is the preferred explanatory theory and methodology in this case.
Escape from Domination: The Concept of Disengagement in Third World Studies
Authors: Baker Bruce
Published: March 2003

All political systems have their quota of dissidents, cynics and the apathetic who, rather than trying to change the structures of oppression, opt to withdraw from them. The phenomena associated with such withdrawal include political migration, secession, second economy activity, counterculture movements and departicipation from political activity and voting. ‘Disengagement’ boldly claims to provide a single unifying concept to embrace them all. Following an assessment of its use within different paradigms, common problems of defining the boundaries of disengagement are considered. Finally a tentative typology is offered.
After Chechnya: At Risk in Dagestan
Authors: Ware Robert Bruce , Kisriev Enver
Published: March 2003

Population displacements in the aftermath of the Chechen conflict may undermine a complex political balance existing among the extraordinarily numerous ethnic groups in the neighbouring Republic of Dagestan. The destabilisation of Dagestan threatens to bring ethnic conflict to virtually the only state in the Caucasus to have avoided it thus far. This article considers the basis of ethnic accommodation in Dagestan, the policies and migratory patterns that have placed it at risk, and the regional context in which these have occurred.
Communication with the Environment? Non-Human Nature in the Theories of Jürgen Habermas
Authors: Whitworth Andrew
Published: March 2003

The theories of Jürgen Habermas provide us with a powerful analytical tool for the analysis of politics, including social movements. However, they are lacking in one particular area, the analysis of environmental politics. The reasons behind these difficulties can be traced through the development of Habermas's work and lie in the inability of non-human nature to participate in language-based discourse. The dilemma is acute – the ecocentric moral position needs grounding in the rationality of discourse if it is not to slip into possibly dangerous irrationality, but how can such a grounding occur? This article reviews the development of discussion in this area and investigates advocacy as a possible resolution of the problem.
‘Just War’ or Just War? The Future(s) of a Tradition
Authors: Gorry Jon
Published: March 2003

The greatest virtue of the just war lies in its ability to pass judgement on war (the announced aims) and its conduct (the adopted strategy). But how coherent is this synthesis of ideas that assumes a unity between force, political expediency and morality? Can individual wars be morally assessed, and how useful is the just war in this respect? This article assesses the modern relevance of the tradition before suggesting directions for further research in the light of the recent Kosovo Crisis.
Utilitarian Multilateralism: The Implications of 11 September 2001 for US Foreign Policy
Authors: Cameron Fraser
Published: March 2003

The 11 September terrorist attacks have led the United States to reassess its foreign policy. The overwhelming priority is the defeat of terrorism and to further this end the United States is prepared to engage with states, regardless of their democratic credentials, willing and able to help the United States on the terrorist front. There is little sign, however, that the new-found interest in promoting multilateral co-operation to deal with terrorism is spilling over into other policy areas. The United States shows no sign of modifying its opposition to a number of international treaties and agreements – such as Kyoto, CTBT or the ICC – all of which its closest allies support. The US approach may be described as ‘utilitarian multilateralism’.
The Logic of Violence
Authors: Muro-Ruiz Diego
Published: March 2003

To date, there is no synthetic, general theory of violence able to integrate the less complete theories of violent behaviour. There is little agreement among researchers about the causes of violence (not to mention what to do about it) and the field has become vast in terms of literature. This paper reviews theories of violence, mostly from sociology, political science and psychology both at the level of the individual and the collective. The paper is divided in two parts: the first deals with theories that see violence as a reaction, the second deals with those theories that see violence as a mean to attain goals.
What Can 1 Million Trials Tell Us About Visual Search?
Authors: Wolfe Jeremy M.
Published: March 2003

In a typical visual search experiment, observers look through a set of items for a designated target that may or may not be present. Reaction time (RT) is measured as a function of the number of items in the display (set size), and inferences about the underlying search processes are based on the slopes of the resulting RT x Set Size functions. Most search experiments involve 5 to 15 subjects performing a few hundred trials each. In this retrospective study, I examine results from 2,500 experimental sessions of a few hundred trials each (approximately 1 million total trials). These data represent a wide variety of search tasks. The resulting picture of human search behavior requires changes in our theories of visual search.
Catastrophizing and Untimely Death
Authors: Peterson Christopher , Seligman Martin E. P. , Yurko Karen H. , Martin Leslie R. , Friedman Howard S.
Published: March 2003

Participants in the Terman Life-Cycle Study completed open-ended questionnaires in 1936 and 1940, and these responses were blindly scored for explanatory style by content analysis. Catastrophizing (attributing bad events to global causes) predicted mortality as of 1991, especially among males, and predicted accidental or violent deaths especially well. These results are the first to show that a dimension of explanatory style is a risk factor for mortality in a large sample of initially healthy individuals, and they imply that one of the mechanisms linking explanatory style and death involves lifestyle.
Multiple Visual Latency
Authors: Allik Jüri , Kreegipuu Kairi
Published: March 2003

It has long been known that a dark visual stimulus is seen later than a bright one, with a delay up to several 10s of milliseconds. Systematic studies of various phenomena demonstrating this delay have revealed that the perceptual latency decreases monotonically as the stimulus intensity increases. Because latencies measured by psychological methods and cortical evoked responses are very similar to electroretinogram latencies, it has become a common belief that there is little in the intensity-dependent latency function that cannot be explained by retinal processes. In this study, we report evidence that there is no one absolute visual delay common to the whole visual system, but rather that the delay varies considerably in different perceptual subsystems. The relative visual latency was found to be considerably shorter in the task involving detecting the direction of movement than in other perceptual tasks that presume visual awareness of the beginning or temporal order of visual events.
Arousal-Mediated Memory Consolidation: Role of the Medial Temporal Lobe in Humans
Authors: LaBar K.S. , Phelps E.A.
Published: March 2003

Although the influence of emotional arousal on declarative memory has been documented behaviorally, the mechanisms underlying arousal-memory interactions and their representation in the human brain remain uncertain. One route through which arousal achieves its effects on memory performance is by regulating consolidation processes. Animal research has revealed that the amygdala strengthens hippocampal-dependent memory consolidation in a limited time window following participation in an arousing task. To examine whether this integrative function of amygdalo-hippocampal structures extends to the human brain, we tested unilateral-temporallobectomy patients on an adaptation of a classic paradigm in which levels of physiological arousal at encoding modulate retention over time. Subjects rated emotionally arousing (taboo) and neutral words on an arousal scale while their skin conductance responses (SCRs) were monitored. Recall for the words was assessed immediately and after a 1-hr delay. Both temporal-lobectomy patients and control subjects generated enhanced SCRs and arousal ratings for the arousing words at the time of encoding. However, only control subjects exhibited an increase in memory for the arousing words over time. This group difference in the effect of arousal on the rate of forgetting suggests that the role of medial temporal lobe structures in memory consolidation for arousing events is conserved across species.
Timing in Eyeblink Classical Conditioning and Timed-Interval Tapping
Authors: Green John T. , Ivry Richard B. , Woodruff-Pak Diana S.
Published: March 2003

The cerebellum is implicated in interval timing for diverse tasks including eyeblink classical conditioning (EBCC) and repetitive tapping. We examined performance on both tasks across identical intervals ranging from 325 to 550 ms. In five weekly sessions, 23 participants used a different interval each week, both as the target for tapping and as the delay interval in EBCC. Changes in variability as a function of the tapping or delay interval were assessed using regression analyses. The slope for repetitive tapping was comparable to two measures of temporal acuity in EBCC, onset and peak latency of the conditioned response. Each of 80 additional participants was assessed in one session at one of four tapping and delay intervals. Results were similar to those observed in the repeated measures group. These findings provide further evidence that EBCC and repetitive tapping utilize common mechanisms for representing temporal information.
A Renewed Interest in Human Classical Eyeblink Conditioning
Authors: Steinmetz Joseph E.
Published: March 2003

Over the past few years, a number of publications have reported the results of a variety of human classical eyeblink conditioning experiments. This renewed interest in human classical eyeblink conditioning appears to be caused by several factors, including the preference by some researchers to observe and report on behavior directly, the discovery that eyeblink conditioning can be used to assess basic biological and psychological processes, recent success in using eyeblink conditioning to determine the cause and expression of brain pathologies, and the successful use of this simple behavioral procedure in human imaging and electrophysiological experiments.
Comparison, Grouping, and Preference
Authors: Brenner Lyle , Rottenstreich Yuval , Sood Sanjay
Published: March 2003

How does the attractiveness of a particular option depend on comparisons drawn between it and other alternatives? We observe that in many cases, comparisons hurt: When the options being compared have both meaningful advantages and meaningful disadvantages, comparison between options makes each option less attractive. The effects of comparison are crucial in choice problems involving grouped options, because the way in which options are grouped influences which comparisons are likely to be made. In particular, we propose that grouping focuses comparison, making within-group comparisons more likely than between-group comparisons. This line of reasoning suggests that grouping should hurt, and we observe that it does: An option is more likely to be chosen when alone than when part of a group.
The Impact of Necessity and Sufficiency in the Wason Four-Card Selection Task
Authors: Ahn Woo-kyoung , Graham Loranel M.
Published: March 2003

Performance in the Wason card selection task is often improved given thematic content. Such content effects have been considered evidence against human rationality. We propose that the role of content lies in specifying premises underlying “if P, then Q” rules. Unlike thematic rules, abstract conditional rules do not explicitly provide material interpretation ( P is a sufficient but not necessarily a necessary condition for Q), resulting in nonnormative responses. When necessity-sufficiency relations were explicated, normative responses were elicited and effects of other logically irrelevant components disappeared. The results suggest that content effects are compatible with human rationality.
“I” Value Freedom, but “We” Value Relationships: Self-Construal Priming Mirrors Cultural Differences in Judgment
Authors: Gardner Wendi L. , Gabriel Shira , Lee Angela Y.
Published: March 2003

The distinction between relatively independent versus interdependent self-construals has been strongly associated with several important cultural differences in social behavior. The current studies examined the causal role of self-construal by investigating whether priming independent or interdependent self-construals within a culture could result in differences in psychological worldview that mirror those traditionally found between cultures. In Experiment 1, European-American participants primed with interdependence displayed shifts toward more collectivist social values and judgments that were mediated by corresponding shifts in self-construal. In Experiment 2, this effect was extended by priming students from the United States and Hong Kong with primes that were consistent and inconsistent with their predominant cultural worldview. Students who received the inconsistent primes were more strongly affected than those who received the consistent primes, and thus shifted self-construal, and corresponding values, to a greater degree.
The Mozart Effect: An Artifact of Preference
Authors: Nantais Kristin M. , Schellenberg E. Glenn
Published: March 2003

The “Mozart effect” reported by Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky (1993, 1995) indicates that spatial-temporal abilities are enhanced after listening to music composed by Mozart. We replicated and extended the effect in Experiment 1: Performance on a spatial-temporal task was better after participants listened to a piece composed by Mozart or by Schubert than after they sat in silence. In Experiment 2, the advantage for the music condition disappeared when the control condition consisted of a narrated story instead of silence. Rather, performance was a function of listeners' preference (music or story), with better performance following the preferred condition.
Reproductive Freedom, Educational Equality, and Females' Preference for Resource-Acquisition Characteristics in Mates
Authors: Kasser Tim , Sharma Yadika S.
Published: March 2003

Females' preference for resource-acquisition characteristics in mates has been explained as an evolved psychological mechanism that conveyed reproductive advantage to human ancestors. To explore the hypothesis that females express this preference more strongly when their educational opportunities and reproductive freedom are limited, we reanalyzed mate-preference data collected from 37 cultures by Buss et al. (1990). The results demonstrate that females (but not males) strongly prefer resource-acquisition characteristics in mates when they live in cultures low in both female reproductive freedom and educational equality between the sexes. Discussion focuses on how evolutionary, interactionist, and social-role theories might explain these results.
Changing Trends in Doctoral Training Programs in Psychology: A Comparative Analysis of Research-Oriented Versus Professional-Applied Programs
Authors: Maher Brendan A.
Published: March 2003

Data from the National Research Council's 1995 study of doctoral programs provide a basis for the comparison of research-oriented Ph.D. programs in psychology and Ph.D. programs of professional-applied schools. The latter present a profile of faculty resources, attributes, and activities that differs sharply from that found in the research-oriented programs, and in Ph.D. programs in the other behavioral and social sciences. The difference in profiles suggests that the professional programs conduct Ph.D. training that departs from the training ordinarily regarded as necessary for the award of that degree.
Exploring Hindu Indian Emotion Expressions: Evidence for Accurate Recognition by Americans and Indians
Authors: Hejmadi Ahalya , Davidson Richard J. , Rozin Paul
Published: March 2003

Subjects were presented with videotaped expressions of 10 classic Hindu emotions. The 10 emotions were (in rough translation from Sanskrit) anger, disgust, fear, heroism, humor-amusement, love, peace, sadness, shame-embarrassment, and wonder. These emotions (except for shame) and their portrayal were described about 2,000 years ago in the Natyasastra, and are enacted in the contemporary Hindu classical dance. The expressions are dynamic and include both the face and the body, especially the hands. Three different expressive versions of each emotion were presented, along with 15 neutral expressions. American and Indian college students responded to each of these 45 expressions using either a fixed-response format (10 emotion names and “neutral/no emotion”) or a totally free response format. Participants from both countries were quite accurate in identifying emotions correctly using both fixed-choice (65% correct, expected value of 9%) and free-response (61% correct, expected value close to zero) methods.
Subliminal Mere Exposure: Specific, General, and Diffuse Effects
Authors: Monahan Jennifer L. , Murphy Sheila T. , Zajonc R.B.
Published: March 2003

The present research examined the possibility that repeated exposure may simultaneously produce specific and diffuse effects. In Study 1, participants were presented with 5-ms exposures of 25 stimuli each shown once (single-exposure condition) or with five repetitions of 5 stimuli (repeated-exposure condition). Participants in the repeated-exposure condition subsequently rated their own mood more positively than those in the single-exposure condition. Study 2 examined whether affect generated by subliminal repeated exposures transfers to unrelated stimuli. After a subliminal exposure phase, affective reactions to previously exposed stimuli, to new but similar stimuli, and to stimuli from a different category were obtained. Previously exposed stimuli were rated most positively and novel different stimuli least positively. All stimuli were rated more positively in the repeated-exposure condition than in the single-exposure condition. These findings suggest that affect generated by subliminal repeated exposure is sufficiently diffuse to influence ratings of unrelated stimuli and mood.
Interactions Between Visual Working Memory and Selective Attention
Authors: Downing Paul E.
Published: March 2003

The relationship between working memory and selective attention has traditionally been discussed as operating in one direction: Attention filters incoming information, allowing only relevant information into short-term processing stores. This study tested the prediction that the contents of visual working memory also influence the guidance of selective attention. Participants held a sample object in working memory on each trial. Two objects, one matching the sample and the other novel, were then presented simultaneously. As measured by a probe task, attention shifted to the object matching the sample. This effect generalized across object type, attentional-probe task, and working memory task. In contrast, a matched task with no memory requirement showed the opposite pattern, demonstrating that this effect is not simply due to exposure to the sample. These results confirm a specific prediction about the influence of working memory contents on the guidance of attention.