Predicting Perceived Risk of Crime: a Multilevel Study

With a sample of Italians selected from 71 Italian counties (N = 1,868), we performed two multilevel analyses aimed at predicting the perceived risk of crime at local (i.e., in the participants' county of residence) and at societal (i.e., in the context of Italian society) levels. A significant proportion of the variation in local risk perception was at the county level. The following individual variables predicted higher levels of this variable: indirect victimization, the perception of social and physical disorder, being a woman, being poorly educated, and being an older person. Among the ecological predictors, the crime rate and unemployment rate predicted higher levels of local crime risk perception, while the immigrant rate did not. Perceived risk of crime at the societal level did not show significant variation at the county level. Education, being a man, trusting people, and adhesion to post‐materialistic values predicted lower levels of societal crime risk perception, while number of sons/daughters and exposure to television news increased it. The limitations and possible development of this study are discussed.     

Understanding the effect of a numerical anchor

Wegener et al. extended the investigation of the anchoring phenomenon to include the manipulation of cognitive load and several traditional factors in persuasion such as source credibility. To this breadth strategy might be added approaches that focus more on depth. By depth is meant an understanding of the underlying mechanisms of anchoring and the forces driving those mechanisms.     

How persuasive messages can influence behavior without awareness

A persuasive message that favors one option in a binary choice can enhance the apparent value of its target by biasing the interpretation of subsequent information. The message installs its target as the initial leader in preference and lets the predecisional distortion of information defend that leadership position. An experiment that contrasts showing TV commercials before and after objective product information demonstrates this process. Ratings of the importance of the commercials to the choice indicate that people are aware of advertising's direct effect on their choice but not of its indirect effect through the biased evaluation of the product information.     

Binary choice under instructions to select versus reject

Two experiments examine differences in binary choice under select versus reject instructions. Three aspects of the choice process are examined: commitment to the chosen alternative, absolute magnitude of attribute evaluations, and information distortion during the choice process. Although the findings support previously hypothesized causes (Study 1), these results are reversed when the decision alternatives are uniformly negative (Study 2a). Accompanying verbal protocols (Study 2b) provide additional insights into the underlying decision process. The results consistently support a compatibility effect. Whenever there is a match between the valences of the alternatives and of the decision strategy, namely selecting a positive alternative or rejecting a negative one, there is greater accentuation of attribute differences, higher certainty in the final choice, and more information distortion. Metaphorically, the choice process seems to flow more smoothly in the compatible conditions.     

Predictors of College Students' Levels of Knowledge and Concern about Nuclear War

There is a growing interest regarding college student attitudes, knowledge, and concern about the potential threat of nuclear war. The present study attempted to identify salient political, psychological, and educational variables that might account for differing levels of concern and knowledge about nuclear war among college students. The results of two multiple regression analyses indicated that a greater interest in international affairs, less trust in government, more exposure to sources of nuclear war information, and being female contributed to greater concern about nuclear war. Having more political knowledge in general, being male, being more a Democrat than Republican, and having a greater interest in international affairs contributed to more knowledge about nuclear war. The results are discussed in light of their implications for university education.     

On the differential nature of implicit and explicit memory

In this article, we report two experiments that provide further evidence concerning the differential nature of implicit and explicit memory. In Experiment 1, subjects first undertook a sentenceverification task. While carrying out this task, half of the subjects were also required to carry out a secondary processing task involving tone monitoring. Twenty-four hours later, the subjects’ memory for target items in the sentence-verification task was tested explicitly by means of a recognition task and implicitly by examining the extent to which the items primed fragment completion. Recognition performance was significantly impaired by the imposition of secondary processing demands during the original learning phase. In contrast, fragment completion was completely unaffected by this additional processing, even though substantial priming was observed. In Experiment 2, we examined whether priming in fragment completion is influenced by the nature of repetition during initial learning. Subjects studied a list of target items that were each repeated twice. Halfthe items were repeatedimmediately (lag 0) and halfwere repeated after six intervening items (lag 6). Memory for the itemswas assessed by recognition and by priming in fragment completion. Recognition was affected by lag, with lag 6 items being recognized better than lag 0 items. However, although significant priming was obtained, the extent of this priming was uninfluenced by lag. These data indicate two additional dimensions along which implicit and explicit memory differ and, furthermore, they support recent conceptualizations of processing differences underlying these two forms of memory.     

A framework for the conceptualization,design, and strategic management of planned change systems

This article extends a framework for conceptualizing, designing, and managing planned change-systems. The framework argues that the adoption of social innovations is best facilitated when change organizations manage how target adopters perceive and enact the entire adoption experience. This process is accomplished by defining three critical components of the change-system and applying the principles of synergy to their design and management. Christine Moorman is an assistant professor of marketing at the Graduate School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her current research interest include consumers' use of health and nutrition information, managers' use of market research information, and social marketing. Brian Dondiego Uzzi has an M.S. in industrial administration from Carnegie-Mellon University and is presently a Ph.D. student in the department of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Karen Russo France has an M.B.A. from the Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh and is currently a doctoral student in marketing at the University of Pittsburgh.