Effects of voice and similarity on procedural fairness and trust: A dual process model of public acceptance based on representatives’ participation

In citizen participation, a few representatives of the total citizen population participate in discussions with authorities regarding public decisions and policies. The present study examines a dual process model in which the representatives’ voice and similarity of values facilitate public acceptance through procedural fairness and trust in representatives, respectively. The results of an experiment employing a scenario method, which included participants from Japan (n = 211) and the Netherlands (n = 200), indicate that the representatives’ voice increased procedural fairness and public acceptance when the similarity of representatives was high. The effects of representatives’ voice on public acceptance via procedural fairness was supported in both nations, while other effects of representatives’ similarity on acceptance via trust were indicated only in Japan. These results suggest that the indirect voice of citizens, as conveyed by representatives, plays an important role in increasing perceptions of procedural fairness and public acceptance among citizens.     

The Anxious Amalgam of the Wish for “Recognition/Revenge/Reparation”: Discussion of Rina Lazar’s “What Are We Doing There? A Therapeutic Tale”

In this discussion, the clinical utility of Winnicott’s notion of “object usage” is described and applied to Rina Lazar’s clinical material. In the light of this concept, our understanding of trauma and the role of the other in both constituting and ameliorating the effects of trauma are considered. A related area of inquiry is how the realm of intergenerational transmission of trauma might be traced out by the particular conjunction of the object’s availability for use in the face of the subject’s trauma. In weaving together the ideas of “use of the object” and trauma, the question of regression and its manifestations and meanings in clinical work are illuminated.     

A claw is like my hand: comparison supports goal analysis in infants

Understanding the intentional relations in others' actions is critical to human social life. Origins of this knowledge exist in the first year and are a function of both acting as an intentional agent and observing movement cues in actions. We explore a new mechanism we believe plays an important role in infants' understanding of new actions: comparison. We examine how the opportunity to compare a familiar action with a novel, tool use action helps 7- and 10-month-old infants extract and imitate the goal of a tool use action. Infants given the chance to compare their own reach for a toy with an experimenter's reach using a claw later imitated the goal of an experimenter's tool use action. Infants who engaged with the claw, were familiarized with the claw's causal properties, or learned the associations between claw and toys (but did not align their reaches with the claw's) did not imitate. Further, active participation in the familiar action to be compared was more beneficial than observing a familiar and novel action aligned for 10-month-olds. Infants' ability to extract the goal-relation of a novel action through comparison with a familiar action could have a broad impact on the development of action knowledge and social learning more generally.     

Homogeneity perception as a reaction to identity threat: effects of status difference in a simulated society game

The present study examined how members of low status groups would react to a threat to their social identity. Undergraduates participated in a ‘simulated society game,’ and were divided into four groups, each of which was assigned either a high or low status. During a series of game sessions with intergroup competition and cooperation, participants estimated the range of distributions among in‐ group and out‐group members regarding various traits. The central tendency and variability derived from each estimate were analysed. Members of the low status groups deprecated their in‐group with respect to a status‐defining trait, but showed in‐group favouritism regarding alternative, status‐irrelevant traits. Furthermore, the low status members judged their in‐group as more homogeneous than the out‐group regarding the alternative traits, particularly when they were compared to a high status group. The results were interpreted as an indication of a subtle form of maintaining positive in‐group evaluations. Theoretical and methodological implications for the study of status effects are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When the Third is Dead: Memory,Mourning, and Witnessing in the Aftermath of the Holocaust1

The origins of psychoanalysis, as well as the concerns of our daily endeavors, center on engagement with the fate of the unbearable – be it wish, affect, or experience. In this paper, I explore psychological states and dynamics faced by survivors of genocide and their children in their struggle to sustain life in the midst of unremitting deadliness. Toward this continuous effort, I re‐examine Freud’s theoretical formulations concerning memory and mourning, elaborate André Green’s concept of the ‘Dead Mother’, and introduce more recent work on the concepts of the ‘third’ and ‘thirdness’. Throughout, my thoughts are informed by our clinical experience with the essential role of witnessing in sustaining life after massive trauma. I bring aspects of all these forms of knowing to reflections about a poem by Primo Levi entitled Unfinished business and to our own never finished business of avoiding denial while living in an age of genocide and under the aura of uncontained destructiveness.     

Feminism and the wish for a child

The present study investigated the relationship between feminism and the intensity of the wish for a child, as well as the costs and benefits of having children in a sample of 184 female undergraduates. Feminism was negatively related to motivation for motherhood, and the perceived costs of child raising rather than perceived benefits accounted for this finding. Perceptions of mother's—not father's—level of nurturance and happiness of childhood seemed to influence eagerness to assume the role of mother in profeminist women.This article was presented as a paper to the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York City, April 1981. The author wishes to thank Susan Bram for her comments on an earlier draft.     

Sequential estimation in multidimensional scaling

The concept of sequential estimation is introduced in multidimensional scaling (MDS). The sequential estimation method developed in this paper refers to continually updating estimates of a configuration as new observations are added. This method has a number of advantages, such as a locally optimal design of the experiment can be easily constructed, and dynamic experimentation is made possible. Using artificial data, the performance of our sequential method is illustrated.We are indebted to anonymous reviewers for their suggestions. In addition, we thank Dr. Frank Critchley for his helpful comments on our Q/S algorithm.     

An analysis of tactile letter confusions

A confusion matrix of the whole block capital letters of the alphabet was obtained so as to examine the nature of tactile letter recognition, using a 17 by 17 matrix of tactile stimulators placed against blind subjects’ backs. A hierarchical cluster analysis and a nonmetric multidimensional scaling technique were applied to the matrix. The results of the two analyses were consistent with each other and indicated that at least three independent basic letter features—enclosing shapes, vertical parallel lines, andangle of lines—play important parts in tactile letter recognition. Most confusion may be attributable to displacement of the apparent loci, omission or fusion of loci of stimulation, and failure to detect gaps in the tactile letters.