« Contexte évaluatif,règles d’équité et d’égalité. Une approche stratégique de la justice distributive. »

This article must be considered within the framework of research on distributive justice in the organisational context (Adams, 1965; Deutsch, 1975; Colquitt and Jackson, 2002). The aim is to propose an analysis from a political point of view of the orientation towards equity and equality rules. We take as a starting point the model of political decision in the organisational context by Murphy and Cleveland (1995). The political approach postulates that one cannot pertinently give an account of the managers’ decision modes without locating them in their daily context of human relations management, and their management strategy. We will examine the links between the context of immediate management and the managers’ choices for equity or equality. The results of two studies will be presented. They tend to legitimate the relevance of this approach.     

Verbal memory elicited by ambient odor.

This study examined whether an ambient odor can act as a contextual cue for retrieval of verbal stimuli. Subjects (N = 47) learned a list of 24 words while exposed to one of two odors (either jasmine incense or Lauren perfume) and subsequently relearned the list with either the same or the alternative odor present. Superior memory for the word list was found when the odor present during the relearning session was the same one that had been present at the time of initial learning, thereby demonstrating context-dependent memory. There were no differences in initial learning between the two odor conditions. No differences in pleasantness or intensity were found between the odors.     

Retroactive contour enhancement: A new visual storage effect

A test stimulus (a visual form) which is below recognition threshold when flashed briefly against a steady background field can be raised to complete discriminability if the background field is terminated and replaced by darkness within about 100 msec of the test flash. There must therefore be an efficient storage process for the apparently “invisible” form. The phenomenon is shown to occur under a variety of conditions. It appears not to be a simple visual masking phenomenon. The tasks used are forced-choice, and the phenomenon provides a new demonstration of visual storage effects which previously have generally been reported only for supraliminal visual test stimuli.     

Pervasiveness of framing effects among physicians and medical students

Researchers have been documenting the influence of framing upon decision making for more than two decades; decisions appear to change in response to superficial changes in the presentation of possible outcomes. Several studies of medical decision making have revealed; for instance, that clinical decisions differ when options are presented as gains (survival rates) rather than losses (mortality rates). However, most studies of framing effects in the medical domain have utilized a very limited number of clinical problems that have not allowed an adequate test of the prevalence of the phenomena. To extend previous studies, we presented three groups of subjects (experienced internists, residents, and third-year medical students) with booklets containing twelve hypothetical medical cases. Half of the subjects received gain versions and half received loss versions of the same cases. Chi-square analyses revealed that framing did not influence any of the decisions of medical students and influenced the decisions of residents and experienced physicians on only two of the clinical problems (the same two problems). It appears that the prevalence of framing effects in the clinical domain may be limited.     

The response of counsellors to apartheid: A reply to Dryden (1990) and De Jager (1992)

This reply to Dryden (1990) and De Jager (1992) explores the role of organised counselling psychology in challenging, maintaining or promoting apartheid. Counsellors have an important role to play in newly racially integrated tertiary institutions. This role should be informed by an acknowledgement of the central involvement of race and politics within counselling psychology so that appropriate politically contextualised organisational interventions can be implemented.     

IDEOLOGY AS BRAIN DISEASE

Abstract. The brain evolved not to think but to act, and ideology is an act of social affiliation which can be compared to kin affiliation, both satisfyingly emotional and expressing a perception about the nature of the real world central to the nature of being human. Males may affiliate to macrosocial ideologies more enthusiastically than females because of their relative lack of certainty of kin relationships. Exogamy was the necessary solution to kin-related strife in prehistory. Perhaps what the world needs is not only a moral equivalent to war but an ideological equivalent to exogamy to resolve social differences on a much larger scale.