Political perception and political preference An exploratory study of Swedish political parties

Abstract.— Political perception was studied as a function of the perceiver's political viewpoint. The political stimuli used were the names of 9 Swedish political parties or organizations. Political viewpoint was defined by the person's political party preference. The subjects were 105 undergraduate psychology students. Different aspects of political party perception were studied concerning (a) perceived positions of the parties on a Left-Right continuum, ( b ) perceived similarity among parties, and (c) the number and nature of inferred dimensions and categories underlying the perception of the parties. With regard to (a) and (b), the analyses indicated systematic differences among political preference groups, whereas the number and nature of political dimensions seemed to be the same. Thus, for both socialists and nonsocialists the dimensions underlying the perception of Swedish political parties could be interpreted as "left-right", "extremity", and "religiosity".     

Personality as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Role Conflict,Role Ambiguity,and Burnout

We propose that role conflict and role ambiguity act as stressors to increase burnout. Personality, however, serves as a resource that moderates the negative effects of role conflict and role ambiguity on burnout. To test these hypotheses, we used a sample of 263 faculty members at a large state university. Stepwise regression shows that role conflict increased emotional exhaustion, while extraversion and emotional stability reduced emotional exhaustion. Role conflict increased depersonalization, while agreeableness decreased depersonalization. Role ambiguity reduced personal accomplishments, while agreeableness and emotional stability increased personal accomplishments. Role conflict combined with extraversion, and role ambiguity combined with conscientiousness to increase personal accomplishments. Our results highlight the complexity of burnout in the workplace.     

Language Attitudes and Cognitive Mediation

Using an independent samples factorial design, this study examined the roles of accent (standard vs. nonstandard), speech rate (fast vs. medium vs. slow), and age of voice (younger vs. older sounding) on British listeners’ social evaluations of audiotaped voices using the matched-guise technique. In addition, listener judges’ level and nature of cognitive responding, their interpretations of the targets’ utterances and the (mediumterm) recognition value of messages were uniquely explored as a function of these three independent variables. In general, standard speakers were upgraded on competencerelated traits but downgraded on solidarity traits irrespective of age, with older speakers being perceived as less hesitant but more benevolent than their younger counterparts. An Age × Accent interaction effect showed that older-sounding standard speakers were judged the most competent and older-sounding nonstandard speakers the least competent. Favorable ratings were afforded speakers with medium rates, and slow-talking, younger-sounding speakers were particularly downgraded. All three independent variables affected ratings of listeners’ interpretations of the (same) text, while speaker age was the only effect on the recognition of message material 2 days later. The cognitive responding data showed that listener judges were most positive about the source when the target was fast talking and older sounding and were most negative to the fast-talking, younger-sounding, and standard-accented speaker. The diverse pattern of findings emerging at different levels of analysis underscores the important roles of cognitive mediation in language attitude studies in ways not explored sufficiently previously.