Individual Characteristics of Political Leaders and the Use of Analogy in Foreign Policy Decision Making

The linkages between individual characteristics of political leaders and their usage of historical analogy during foreign policy decision-making episodes were examined. The individual characteristics studied were conceptual complexity and policy expertise, while usage of analogy was studied in terms of the sophistication and source of historical comparisons. The great majority of the analogies used by low-complexity individuals were nonsophisticated, whereas high-complexity individuals consistently used more sophisticated analogies. Low-complexity individuals drew analogies solely from their own generational and cultural context, while high-complexity leaders drew their analogies from a wider range of sources. More expert leaders drew from their personal experiences to a marginally greater degree than less expert individuals but, interestingly, both types of individual relied on generally available rather than personally experienced events for their analogies. The value added of the approach is to demonstrate that different types of leaders use history differently during political decision making.     

The Effects of Stakes and Threat on Foreign Policy Decision-Making

Decision research demonstrates that individuals adapt decision processing strategies according to the characteristics of the decision task. Unfortunately, the literature has neglected task factors specific to foreign policy decisions. This paper presents experimental analyses of the effects of the decisional stakes (i.e., salience of the values at issue) and threat (risk of loss on those issues) on decision-makers' information acquisition patterns and choice rules with respect to one of four hypothetical foreign policy scenarios. Contrary to the notion that normative (rational) decision-making is more likely in less dramatic settings, the results indicate that elevated threat encourages rational decision processing, whereas heuristic processing was more prevalent in less threatening situations. Interestingly, the added presence of high stakes magnified both threat effects. These results, although preliminary, suggest that stakes-threat effects are not direct reflections of stress and/or complexity effects, but should be considered independently in foreign policy analyses.     

Loss Aversion,Intellectual Inertia,and a Call for a More Contrarian Science: A Reply to Simonson & Kivetz and Higgins & Liberman

Higgins and Liberman (2018) and Simonson and Kivetz (2018) offer scholarly and stimulating perspectives on loss aversion and the implications for the sociology of science of its acceptance as a virtual law of nature. In our view, Higgins and Liberman (2018) largely complement our conclusion that the empirical evidence does not support loss aversion. Moreover, in alignment with our call for a contextualized perspective, they provide an excellent discourse on how a more nuanced view of reference points and consumers’ regulatory focus enriches our understanding of the psychological impact of losses and gains. Simonson and Kivetz (2018) approached our perspective with skepticism, and, while they retain some skepticism, they express agreement on the larger point that loss aversion has been accepted too uncritically. Both commentaries point to a need for a critical reevaluation of prevailing paradigms. Here, we build on these perspectives, as well as our experience working on the topic of loss aversion, to call for structural changes to facilitate scholarly debate on science's status quo.     

Policy bundling to overcome loss aversion: A method for improving legislative outcomes

Policies that would create net benefits for society that contain salient costs frequently lack enough support for enactment because losses loom larger than gains. To address this consequence of loss aversion, we propose a policy-bundling technique in which related bills involving both losses and gains are combined to offset separate bills’ costs while preserving their net benefits. We argue this method can transform unpopular individual pieces of legislation, which would lack the support for implementation, into more popular policies. Study 1 confirms that bundling increases support for bills with costs and benefits and that bundled legislation is valued more than the sum of its parts. Study 2 shows this finding stems from a diminished focus on losses and heightened focus on gains. Study 3 extends our findings to policies involving costs and benefits of the same type (e.g., lives) generated by different sources (e.g., food vs. fire safety).     

Framing Political Risks: Individual Differences and Loss Aversion in Personal and Political Situations

People are motivated to avoid losses. In the context of politics, studies consistently show that the threat of losses increases support for risky public policies more than the promise of gains. Here, we predict that this loss aversion is calibrated by individual differences related to one’s ability to accommodate resource loss, and we investigate how these individual differences moderate reactions to the threat of losses and the promise of gains. Results from large-N experiments consistently demonstrate that this moderation effect crucially depends on whether the resource loss relates to oneself or one’s group—whether the setting is personal or political. Consistent with classic assumptions, individuals with inferior abilities to cope with resource loss are more loss averse in personal settings. In political settings where group resources are threatened, effects reverse: Individuals with superior resources and a more central position within the group consistently respond more to the prospect of loss. As discussed, these findings have important implications for our understanding of why and for whom the threat of loss motivates risky personal and political choices. By consequence, the findings also shed novel light on the psychological underpinnings of recent risky political events.      

Association of Fine Motor Loss and Allodynia in Fibromyalgia: An fNIRS Study

Recent studies showed that fine motor control dysfunction was observed in fibromyalgia (FM) syndrome as well as allodynia. However, brain signatures of this association still remain unclear. In this study, finger tapping task (FTT) and median nerve stimulation (MNS) were applied to both hands of 15 FM patients and healthy controls (HC) to understand this relationship. Hemodynamic activity was measured simultaneously using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Experiments were analyzed separately by using 2x2 repeated measures ANOVA. Results for the FTT experiment revealed that HC showed higher activity than FM patients in bilateral superior parietal gyrus (SPG), left supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and right somatosensory cortex (SI). Furthermore, right-hand FTT resulted in higher activity than left-hand FTT in left SPG, left SI and right motor cortex (MI). In the MNS experiment, FM patients showed higher activity than HC in bilateral SPG, right SMG, right SI and right middle frontal gyrus (MFG). Negative correlation was observed in left SPG between FTT and MNS activities. Besides, MNS activity in left SPG was negatively correlated with left-hand pain threshold.This study revealed that left SPG might be an important indicator to associate fine motor loss and allodynia in FM.     

Risk Orientation,Risk Exposure,and Policy Opinions: The Case of Free Trade

This research offers a general framework for thinking about how individual disposition towards risk influences public policy opinions. Affinity for or aversion to risk is, in part, a stable personality characteristic that interacts with risk and reward messages in complex policy debates. We examine the implications of this for public opinions about free trade with extensions to immigration policy. We argue and find that opinions about policy depend jointly upon one's exposure to potential gains or losses and one's risk orientation. The findings have implications for crafting and framing public policies because they highlight how individual characteristics are likely to shape the public response to policy proposals. Our findings suggest that there may be limits, in the aggregate, to the degree to which elites can alter the level of support for policies through framing or through offering risk‐mitigating policy provisions.     

Bringing (Contingent) Loss Aversion Down to Earth — A Comment on Gal & Rucker's Rejection of “Losses Loom Larger Than Gains”

Although we disagree with some of Gal and Rucker's (2018 – this issue) specific evidence and with their overstated conclusion regarding loss aversion, their overarching message makes a worthwhile contribution. In particular, loss aversion is less robust and universal than has been assumed while its most prominent empirical support — the endowment effect and the status quo bias — is susceptible to multiple alternative explanations. Instead of accepting loss aversion as true unless proven otherwise, we should treat it like other decision properties and psychological accounts that are contingent on various moderators and call for an analysis of psychological mechanisms. In this commentary, we suggest that gatekeepers, such as reviewers, tend to favor loss aversion and other widely accepted tendencies, while demanding a much higher support‐threshold for alternative or newer accounts. Although building on prior theories and concepts is of course important, the bias in favor of incumbent assumptions can impede scientific progress, bar new ideas from the literature, and reinforce well‐established but contingent notions that may apply under some conditions but not others.     

Formulation of Policy and Strategy in Developing Creativity Education in Four Asian Chinese Societies: A Policy Analysis

The present study sought to compare and contrast educational policies on creativity education in four Asian Chinese societies, namely mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. It establishes five criteria on creativity education policy, including policies regarding legislation on creativity education, definitions of creativity, standard implementation, explicit identification of special populations of creative students, and creativity education in the community. Among the four societies, Taiwan has an official document — the White Paper on Creative Education published in 2003 — whereas in Hong Kong and Singapore, creativity has been identified as an ability to be nurtured in students of all levels in their national curriculum reform. In mainland China, innovation is regarded as a synonym for creativity. Definitions of creativity have at times not been clearly defined, although multiple levels of creativity development (individual, school, societal, industrial, and cultural) have been discussed in Taiwan. In Hong Kong, creativity has been defined as a generic skill in various key learning areas (e.g., language education, mathematics education, science education, etc.) in the school curriculum. In Singapore, creativity is a learning outcome to be developed in students. None of these societies use standard creativity assessment tests as evidence of creative competence in students. When creativity has entered the central stage in the curriculum reform and creativity education is made available to every student, efforts have been made to identify highly creative students and provide them enrichment opportunities, mainly using performance assessments and performance in creativity competitions in these societies. But mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore do not sufficiently emphasize creativity education in the larger community.     

Community Psychology and Transformative Policy Change in the Neo-liberal Era

I present ideas about how community psychologists, as researcher-activists, can influence public policy. I begin by describing the current neo-liberal era, noting the immense obstacles it poses to progressive policy change. Next I contrast two approaches to understanding policy formation, evidence-based policy and discursive policy analysis, and argue that transformative policy change can benefit from both approaches. I then propose three types of policy outcomes that community psychology research and activism should aim to promote: (a) shaping problem definition, (b) controlling channels for debate and participation, and (c) allocating resources. I use examples from community psychologists’ involvement in policy, mostly in Canada, to illustrate how such policy change can be both achieved and constrained. I conclude by discussing implications for theory and practice related to policy change.     

The Theory and Practice of Foreign Policy Decision Making

Central to Alex George's work was a concern with the psychology of presidential decision making. Our analysis focuses on George's work at the intersection of leadership psychology and the psychology of judgment in the making of consequential foreign policy decisions, specifically those dealing with issues of war and peace. We begin with a review of the fundamental dilemmas of political decision making, focusing on the various factors that present challenges to leaders seeking to make high-quality decisions. We then move to an analysis of the nature of judgment and the ways in which it both shapes and is shaped by cognitive dynamics and conclude by examining a number of steps designed to help leaders avoid the most damaging blind spots of their own psychologies and cognitive biases.     

参照依赖和损失规避对个体收入分配公平判断的影响

收入分配公平判断是人们对自己收入所得公平与否的主观评价。通过对参照点和收入金额的控制,探讨参照依赖和损失规避对收入分配公平判断的共同影响。结果发现,(1)民众的收入公平判断受参照点的影响,在有参照点的情景下比无参照点情景下更感觉不公平;(2)不同工资水平下,民众的公平判断具有显著差异,而且民众对低于平均工资的“受损”比高于平均工资同等金额的“受益”赋予的公平感的权重更大,即存在得失感受的不对称;(3)不同的工资参照点、多得和少得的分配结果共同影响民众的公平判断,即损失规避在参照依赖对公平判断的影响中起调节作用。     

The FOCUS Family Resilience Program: An Innovative Family Intervention for Trauma and Loss

This article describes the core principles and components of the FOCUS Program, a brief intervention for families contending with single or multiple trauma or loss events. It has been administered nationally to thousands of military family members since 2008 and has been implemented in a wide range of civilian community, medical, clinical, and school settings. Developed by a team from the UCLA and Harvard Medical Schools, the FOCUS Program provides a structured approach for joining with traditional and nontraditional families, crafting shared goals, and then working with parents, children, and the entire family to build communication, make meaning out of traumatic experiences, and practice specific skills that support family resilience. Through a narrative sharing process, each family member tells his or her story and constructs a timeline that graphically captures the experience and provides a platform for family discussions on points of convergence and divergence. This narrative sharing process is first done with the parents and then the children and then the family as a whole. The aim is to build perspective‐taking skills and mutual understanding, to reduce distortions and misattributions, and to bridge estrangement between family members. Previous studies have confirmed that families participating in this brief program report reductions in distress and symptomatic behaviors for both parents and children and increases in child pro‐social behaviors and family resilient processes.     

The Prospects for Prospect Theory: An Empirical Evaluation of International Relations Applications of Framing and Loss Aversion

International relations theorists have tried to adapt prospect theory to make it relevant to the study of real-world decision-making and testable beyond the constraints of the laboratory. Three experiments with undergraduate samples were conducted in an effort to clarify the advantages and limitations of prospect theory as adapted to explain political behavior. The first experiment tested hypotheses regarding the impact of prospect framing on group polarization, but these were only weakly supported. The second and third experiments examined alternative adaptations of the concept of framing; the results suggest that the political science expansion of the concept of framing may, under certain conditions, produce clear and robust preference reversals.     

Cultural, Gender, and Socioeconomic Contexts in Therapeutic and Social Policy Work

The contention of this paper is that the context of social and therapeutic problems is critical to their resolution, and that many of them stem from historical and structural injustice. It focuses on the contextual issues of cultural, gender, and socioeconomic equity as providing important insights into authentic notions of social inclusion and well-being, and encourages therapists, service providers, researchers, and policy makers to take responsibility to ensure that these injustices are addressed, and become part of the public discourse about the sources and solutions of endemic social problems. Critique and deconstruction of institutional power in our public, private, and voluntary services is encouraged in a manner that honors diversity and enables sensitive therapy, other forms of service delivery and policy making that genuinely reflect the range of cultural, gender, and socioeconomic experiences of citizens.     

Challenging the Stubborn Core of Opposition to Equality: Racial Contact and Policy Attitudes

A Random Digit Dialing survey (n = 794) examined the interracial contact experiences and racial attitudes of White South Africans. The survey measured racial attitudes not only in terms of individuals' prejudice, but also in terms of their perceptions of group threat, perceived injustice, and support for various government policies designed to rectify the legacy of apartheid. The results indicated that the frequency and quality of interracial contact predicted Whites' support for both race compensatory and race preferential policies of redress, and these effects were partly mediated by perceived threat, sense of fairness, and racial prejudice. The research points to a potential rapprochement between the social psychological theories of intergroup contact and group positioning theories derived from the work of Blumer. It also highlights the value of adopting a more expansive and politically nuanced conception of the “consequences” of contact and desegregation.     

Loss of control over eating reflects eating disturbances and general psychopathology

This study examined the clinical significance of the loss of control over eating as a key component of eating disorders. It investigated the association of eating-related psychopathology and general psychopathology with objective bulimic episodes (OBEs; experiencing a loss of control while consuming large amounts of food) and subjective bulimic episodes (SBEs; experiencing a loss of control while consuming small/moderate amounts). A community sample of 81 women with a range of disordered eating was recruited: binge-eating disorder, bulimia nervosa, subclinical eating disturbances, or no eating disorders. They were interviewed using the Eating Disorder Examination and completed measures of eating-related and general psychopathology. Both OBE and SBE frequencies correlated significantly with measures of eating-related and general psychopathology, and no significant differences were found between the magnitudes of the correlations with either binge episode type. SBE frequency significantly and independently predicted global eating disorder psychopathology. The loss of control over eating, without consuming large amounts of food, was as closely associated with specific eating disorder psychopathology and general mental health as were traditionally defined OBEs. SBEs may be an important target of treatment and should be considered for future diagnostic classifications of eating disorders.     

Policy Frames, Metaphorical Reasoning, and Support for Public Policies

This article evaluates the predictive value of a new theory for understanding public support for alternative solutions to policy problems, which we call policy metaphors. A policy metaphor represents a particular form of cognitive framing that makes use of commonly understood social institutions and judgments about their effectiveness to form "archetypes" against which proposed solutions to new policy problems are compared. We test the extent to which both understanding of and preference for particular policy frames predicts the nature and strength of policy choices by a representative sample of the American public. After controlling for factors that past research has shown to be important in understanding public opinion, including general partisan and ideological attitudes, self-interest, political values, and emotions, the cognitive frames specified by the general theory of policy metaphors are shown to strongly predict public support for hypothetical solutions to three different policy problems. These frames also predict support for President Clinton's 1993–94 health care reforms after controlling for those same conventional predictors. Most importantly, we demonstrate that these cognitive frames help constrain the beliefs of even the least politically aware members of the general public. Discussion centers on the implications of this new approach for understanding public opinion.     

Redefining Cultural Diplomacy: Cultural Security and Foreign Policy in Canada

A content analysis of material generated by the 1994–1995 foreign policy review process in Canada was conducted in an effort to understand how culture came to be officially constituted as the third pillar of Canadian foreign policy. The analysis showed significant differences among actors in terms of modes of legitimization of cultural diplomacy. State agents, by refusing to consider culture as a referent object in a broadened notion of security and by assimilating it into a system of civic values, resisted pressures from academics and groups that favored introducing societal conceptions of culture as relevant for the making of foreign policy. The result is nevertheless a new, albeit defensive and still ambiguous, form of implication of foreign policy in the cultural mission of the state in Canada.     

Public Policy, Participation and the Third Position: The Implication of Engaging Communities on their Own Terms

Policy development and implementation should be fundamental for community psychologists in their endeavors to create social change. Policy necessarily is engaged at broad social and political levels, but it is mediated through communities and individuals, and thus appealing for our discipline. We argue that there are increasing opportunities for social input in liberal democracies with the growing awareness of the need to consider social factors in policy. Public participation is one aspect of policy development, but it can be problematic and can disempowered communities, especially disadvantaged communities. Using the framework of the ‘third position’, a case study of attempts to ameliorate institutional oppression of Australian Aboriginal people through policy change is described. Structural reform to community engagement is described in terms of empowerment and capacity building. Power relationships are deconstructed to allow understandings of the dynamics of policy change, and the broader implications for community psychological praxis are discussed.