Humanisation,democracy and trust: The democratisation of the school ethos

A democratic state is characterised by more than its particular principles and institutions; its citizens must have the democratic virtues and attitudes. One such important attitude is trust, as commentators on the current attempts to create democratic institutions in the USSR emphasise. The paper gives an account of social trust and also the important, though problematic, role that distrust plays in a democracy. Finally the paper considers how the school can instantiate social trust in its own ethos.     

Natural anchoring at the neutral point of category rating scales

Contextual theories of judgment assume that the rating of any stimulus depends on its relationship to a context of similar stimuli. For example, any specific act of behavior would be rated less favorably when considered in the context of good behaviors then when considered in the context of bad ones. However, two experiments suggest an absolute anchoring of the natural neutral point, an exception to this generalization. In Experiment 1, morally indifferent acts remained “neutral,” regardless of context; and in Experiment 2 the break-even or zero-point in a simulated game of chance was always rated “neutral.” In both experiments, contextual manipulations had powerful effects upon ratings of other stimuli, though never shifting them across the neutral point. Furthermore, both experiments suggest that neutral-point anchoring also affects the use of the most extreme categories in a manner that is unique to this phenomena. In Experiment 2 for example, the introduction of extremely positive “wins” not only made other wins seem less favorable while leaving ratings of the zero-point unchanged, but also made the most negative losses seem more favorable. It is as if the introduction of an extremely positive “win” also introduces the possibility of an extremely negative “loss.” Taken together these findings contradict the basic adaptation-level premise that the entire scale is determined by the neutral point; they are also inconsistent with the assumption of range theories that the scale is anchored by the endpoints of the range of stimuli actually experienced.     

The Effect of 9/11 on the Heritability of Political Trust

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, a rally effect led to a precipitous rise in political trust. However, the increase in political trust concealed a simultaneous decline among a smaller portion of the population. This article examines the psychological mechanisms underlying these heterogeneous attitudes towards government and shows that a biosocial model best explains the observed patterns of response. The interplay of genetic and environmental factors of political trust reveals the stable but dynamic nature of heritability: genetic influences of political trust increased immediately following 9/11 but quickly decayed to pre‐9/11 levels.     

Effects of trustors' social identity complexity on interpersonal and intergroup trust

Although previous literature has revealed the effect of a single social identity on trust, only few studies have examined how multiple social identities affect trust in others. The present research examined the effects of trustors' social identity complexity on their level of trust toward another person (interpersonal trust), outgroup members (outgroup trust), and ingroup members (ingroup trust). Study 1, which was a correlational study, indicated that trustors' social identity complexity was positively related to their interpersonal and outgroup trust. Three experimental studies were performed to identify causal relationships. Study 2 found that activating trustors' high social identity complexity produced high levels of interpersonal trust, and Studies 3 and 4 found that this effect was more pronounced when the trustee was an outgroup member (outgroup trust) rather than an ingroup member (ingroup trust). The implications of these results for social harmony are discussed.     

员工创新行为源于领导情感信任吗?风险倾向与组织行为授权的调节作用

领导情感信任会促进员工表现创新行为,但员工个体的风险倾向与组织行为授权可能对其具有调节作用。结果显示（1）领导情感信任能正向预测员工创新行为;（2）领导情感信任、组织行为授权与风险倾向对员工创新行为预测存在三维交互作用,相对于其他条件,组织行为授权和风险倾向均处于高水平条件下,领导情感信任与员工创新行为的正相关程度更为明显。探讨领导情感信任、组织行为授权、风险倾向与员工创新行为的关系可以为甄别影响员工创新行为的个体和环境因素提供理论指导,此外,也可为企业和直接领导如何增加员工创新行为提供借鉴。     

催产素对社会决策行为的影响

大量的研究已经证明催产素对人类社会决策起着重要的调节作用。以往研究者采用多种实验范式用于探讨催产素对社会决策的影响, 研究内容主要包括合作与保护行为、道德行为、信任行为和慷慨行为。研究者已提出三种关于催产素的可能的作用机制用来解释观察到的实验结果, 三种理论各有侧重。未来的研究中应关注鼻喷催产素和受体基因多态性等生理机制、并考虑催产素影响社会决策行为的性别差异、建立更完善并可供检验的理论模型。     

Casual Cynics or Disillusioned Democrats? Political Alienation in Japan

This paper examines the structure of political alienation among Japanese eligible voters, using data from the first, second, fifth, and sixth waves of the seven-wave Japanese Electoral Survey II (JES II). Political alienation can be expressed as comprising two dimensions, political trust and civic-mindedness. Males and people with more years of schooling are more allegiant in general; that is, they are both more trusting and more civic-minded. Evaluations of cabinet performance and support for democratic mechanisms are strongly related to political trust and civic-mindedness. Supporters of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are no more civic-minded than average but are more trusting politically, whereas Japan Communist Party supporters are more civic-minded but a good deal less politically trusting than average. Independents are below the overall average on both the political trust and civic-mindedness dimensions. Even though party support is unstable, Japan's political system will not lose its stability as long as LDP supporters and independents constitute the majority of Japan's electorate. The advent of a new party capable of providing an alternative to the LDP is important to the future of Japanese democracy.     

Do differences in general trust explain cultural differences in dispositionism?1

Abstract: It has been suggested that Westerners are more inclined than Easterners to endorse dispositionism. To help explain what produces this cultural difference, I examined the responses of Japanese and American students to determine whether levels of general trust, which is the expectation of benign or cooperative behavior based on the goodwill of another person (Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994), would matter. As predicted, in accounting for either a prosocial or deviant behavior, high trusters were more likely than low trusters to show dispositionism on all three measures (dispositional attribution, trait inference, and behavioral consistency), whereas cultural differences in dispositionism almost vanished. This tendency was found regardless of the desirability of behaviors.     

Dismantling institutional racism: theory and action

Despite a strong commitment to promoting social change and liberation, there are few community psychology models for creating systems change to address oppression. Given how embedded racism is in institutions such as healthcare, a significant shift in the system's policies, practices, and procedures is required to address institutional racism and create organizational and institutional change. This paper describes a systemic intervention to address racial inequities in healthcare quality called dismantling racism. The dismantling racism approach assumes healthcare disparities are the result of the intersection of a complex system (healthcare) and a complex problem (racism). Thus, dismantling racism is a systemic and systematic intervention designed to illuminate where and how to intervene in a given healthcare system to address proximal and distal factors associated with healthcare disparities. This paper describes the theory behind dismantling racism, the elements of the intervention strategy, and the strengths and limitations of this systems change approach.