The Making of Female Presidents and Prime Ministers: The Impact of Birth Order, Sex, of Siblings, and Father-Daughter Dynamics

Although research into the factors that may affect male achievement of political leadership is relatively robust, very few studies on the making of female presidents and prime ministers exist. This paper examines the literature on birth order, sex of siblings, and parent-daughter dynamics to see whether the findings for male political leaders—that first-born individuals will be overrepresented as compared with later-born siblings—also hold for female ones. Two other hypotheses were tested concerning differences in birth order and sex of siblings between female political leaders and a larger sample of women. A review of the literature on parent-daughter dynamics suggests that this may be another important variable for future research into explanations for the success of women who achieve senior-level positions of power. The findings suggest that first-born women, like first-born men, are overrepresented among political leaders; that first-born women are overrepresented among female political leaders as compared with their numbers in a larger sample population; and that fewer female political leaders have an older brother than would be expected to occur in a larger sample population. The last finding applies only for women who come to power in the period 1960–1989, not those who gained office more recently.     

The Intergenerational Transmission of Party Preferences in Multiparty Contexts: Examining Parental Socialization Processes in the Netherlands

Research shows that parents have a strong influence on the party preferences of their children. Yet little is known about how such preferences are transmitted in multiparty systems with weak party identification and high electoral volatility. We propose a model of intergenerational transmission that includes both direct effects of parents' party preferences on those of their children, as well as indirect effects through left–right and issue positions. We test this model with original survey data of Dutch adolescents (14–20 years old) and their parents (N = 751 adolescent-parent pairs). We find two paths through which parents exert influence on the party preferences of their adolescent children. On the first path, parental party preferences function as a direct predictor of adolescent party preferences. On the second path, adolescent left–right and issue positions function as a mediator between parental left–right and issue positions and adolescent party preferences, with the effect of left–right positions being stronger than that of issue positions. The frequency with which adolescents discuss political topics with their parents moderates these effects.     

Culture, Society, and the Individual: Cross-Cultural Political Psychology in Japan

Studies of political behavior and attitudes in Japan have often looked to similarities and differences between the West, most notably the U.S., and Japan. This paper details two approaches concerned with examining Japanese social and political behavior within a cross-cultural context. The first—nihonjinron—works with cultural nationalism, which argues that Japanese values are unique and thus no social theory developed in the West can be applied to Japanese society. The second approach is characterized by field studies and tries to assess Japanese social behavior by comparing it to that of Americans and Europeans. There is a great deal of knowledge on political behavior in Western countries which scholars in Japan often refer to in order to evaluate the significance of their survey results. But there is still limited information on the Japanese situation, and any attempt to construct a general theory in either cultural or cross-cultural political psychology will have to refer also to human attitudes in this non-Western industrial society.     

Piety,Power, and the Purse: Religious Economies Theory and Urban Reform in the Holy Roman Empire

The religious economies model has been influential in the sociology of religion. Yet, propositions drawn from the model have been difficult to test in the comparative and historical study of religion, generally for lack of appropriate data. We develop a general theory of religious disestablishment and apply it to the Reformation in 16th‐century Europe to explain variation in the abolition of the Catholic monopoly. We suggest three principal factors—changes in demand, entry control mechanisms, and political incentives—that explain why incumbent religious firms may lose their monopoly. We then analyze the resulting hypotheses in a systematic analysis of cities in the Holy Roman Empire. Our analysis yields mixed support for demand‐side factors and entry control mechanisms, and firm support for political incentives in the institution of reform.     

Conflict, Identity, and Tolerance: Israel in the Al-Aqsa Intifada

This paper explores the impact of the Al-Aqsa Intifada on tolerance orientations of the Israeli Jewish public. We rely upon five surveys carried out between January 2000 and June 2002 to study in a real-life setting the amount and nature of change in political tolerance due to the conflict and the mechanisms behind it. Building on theory and research on intergroup relations in social psychology and political tolerance in political science, we focus upon threat and ingroup identification as the two primary factors in the social psychological processes resulting from conflict and leading to intolerance. We set the trends and explore mediation and interaction processes in the impact of this round of conflict on political tolerance.     

Planning, motivation, and evaluation in orientation to the future: A latent structure analysis

The paper presents a model of orientation to the future in terms of three processes; motivation, planning, and evaluation. To test this model a total of 154 11-, 15- and 18-year-old adolescents were interviewed about their goals and hopes for the future. Seven observed variables were estimated and a model including three latent constructs was tested using the LISREL VI computer program. The planning construct consisted of the amount of knowledge, the complexity of plans and their level of realization. The evaluation construct included internality, estimation of the likelihood that the goals would be realized and an overall emotional evaluation of the future. The motivation construct consisted of one observed variable, extension. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model fitted the data, thus providing support for the theoretical model.     

Anger,Exposure to Violence,and Intragroup Conflict: A “Lab in the Field” Experiment in Southern Israel

I examine how anger stemming from violence in the Israel‐Palestine conflict influences intragroup retaliation. In July 2010 I conducted a series of experiments in two cities in the Southern District of Israel affected to varying degrees (high and low) by rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. For each experiment, subjects were partnered anonymously with a member of their community. They were then exposed to one of two emotional manipulations: one that induced anger or one that did not. Finally, each subject was given an opportunity to keep an endowment or allocate it towards destroying a portion, or all, of their partner's income (“pay to punish”) in retaliation for their partner having taken money from them previously. This decision to “pay to punish” was designed to closely mimic the costly nature of conflict. The findings suggest that anger has a conditional effect on decisions to pay to punish: in Sderot (most affected by rocket fire), anger decreases punishment, while in Ofakim (less affected), it increases punishment. Additionally, higher exposure to violence made subjects more likely to engage in negative reciprocity.     

The developmental change in strategies parents employ to settle young children to sleep,and their relationship to infant sleeping problems,as assessed by a new questionnaire: the Parental Interactive Bedtime Behaviour Scale

The development of a new parental self‐report questionnaire, the Parental Interactive Bedtime Behaviour Scale (PIBBS) is described. The PIBBS was designed to capture a wide range of parental behaviours used to settle infants off to sleep. The commonest behaviours employed were giving a feed, talking softly to the child, cuddling in the arms, and stroking. A factor analysis revealed five settling strategies; ‘active physical comforting’ (e.g. cuddling in arms); ‘encouraging infant autonomy’ (e.g. leaving to cry); ‘movement’ (e.g. car rides), ‘passive physical comforting’ (e.g. standing next to the cot without picking the infant up), and ‘social comforting’ (e.g. reading a story). Excessive ‘active physical comforting’ and reduced ‘encourage autonomy’ strategy use was associated with infant sleeping problems. Regarding developmental change in strategy between 1 and 2 years, the later the onset at which ‘encourage autonomy’ became the principal strategy used, the more likely that persistent infant sleeping problems would be present. Factors accounting for the change in strategy use over time were: (i) parental adaptation to infant developmental maturation; (ii) the interaction between maternal cognition and strategy, and, to a lesser extent; (iii) the interaction between infant temperament and parental strategy. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adjustment to War Captivity: The Role of Sociodemographic Background,Trauma Severity,and Immediate Responses,in the Long-Term Mental Health of Israeli Ex-Pows

This study assessed the role of sociodemographic features, pre-captivity combat exposure, captivity severity, emotional responses and coping during captivity, and social support at homecoming, to the short- and long-term mental health of 164 Israeli POWs of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The major contributors to the POWs' mental health were psychological responses during captivity, followed first by their education and ethnic status, and then by severity of captivity. Both traumatic stress of captivity and the results of the study were discussed in the light of Conservation of Resources (COR) theory.     

Intentions to participate in counselling among front-line,at-risk Irish government employees: an application of the theory of planned behaviour

ABSTRACT

The study set out to examine intentions to engage in counselling among at-risk Irish government employees and the differential utility of two alternative theory of planned behaviour (TPB) models of behaviour to explain intentions to participate in counselling. Individuals (N=259) employed in a front-line, at-risk occupation for the Irish government completed a TPB-based questionnaire. Quantitative analyses revealed that participants held positive to neutral intentions to participate in counselling, irrespective of gender. The original TPB model explained 49.9% of variance in intentions whereas an alternative TPB model, splitting the perceived behavioural control (PBC) construct between its internal and external control components, explained a further 8.9% of variance. Furthermore, self-efficacy was found to be the strongest predictor of intentions. This study therefore supports the use of the TPB in understanding counselling-seeking behaviour.