The Consequences of Terrorism: Disentangling the Effects of Personal and National Threat

The events of 11 September 2001 have led to a higher perceived risk of terrorism in the United States. A better understanding of the political consequences of 9/11 requires a more complete accounting of the nature and consequences of perceived threat. Here, the distinction between perceived personal and national risks is examined in terms of two competing hypotheses: (1) The personal threat of terrorism has a pervasive influence even on national decisions and perceptions, in line with its highly arousing nature. (2) The effects of personal threat are highly circumscribed and overshadowed by the impact of perceived national threat, consistent with findings on the meager impact of self–interest and other personal concerns on public opinion. A survey of 1,221 residents of Long Island and Queens, New York, explored the degree to which personal and national threat affect perceptions of the consequences of, and possible solutions to, terrorism. As expected, there was a clear distinction between perceived personal and national threat, although the two are related. Perceived personal threat did not influence the perceived economic consequences of terrorism, although it had a narrow effect on personal behaviors designed to minimize risk. Overall, the findings imply that the effects of personal threat are circumscribed, consistent with past research on the limited personal basis of political judgments. However, the tests of these hypotheses were constrained by a limited set of dependent variables that included national consequences but not policy solutions designed to limit terrorism.     

孕妇心理的系统论思考

孕妇在孕期的心理变化与妊娠结局密切相关,我们必须充分了解这些变化以预测可能发生的情况,而哲学,特别是现在兴起的系统论为我们提供了很好的认识工具,这对我们在临床上诊治病人有很大的帮助.     

企业家行为民族特性理论构想

提出企业家民族特性理论和企业家行为人文社会精神理论并对其展开实证研究。突破了传统的企业家行为理论将企业家置于职业特性的研究范式和企业家行为特质只具有市场竞争精神的单维度结构。从回族商业文化特征研究入手, 构建企业家行为特质的二维结构模型, 开展回汉族企业家行为特质比较研究和回族企业家行为绩效评价研究。本项目可扩展企业家行为理论研究范畴, 推进学术界对我国少数民族商业文化及其企业家行为研究的关注, 丰富组织行为理论和民族理论等, 同时, 本研究对我国在转型期借鉴少数民族独具特色的商业文化成果重构中华民族商业文明, 促进企业家特别是少数民族企业家成长, 充分发挥企业家在经济建设和社会进步的作用, 推动少数民族经济繁荣以及少数民族特色产业企业绩效提高等方面, 也具有较高的应用潜质。     

Climatic warmth and national wealth: some culture‐level determinants of national character stereotypes

National character stereotypes are widely shared, but do not reflect assessed levels of personality traits. In this article we present data illustrating the divergence of stereotypes and assessed personality traits in North and South Italy, test hypotheses about the associations of temperature and national wealth with national character stereotypes in 49 cultures, and explore possible links to national values and beliefs. Results suggest that warmth and wealth are common determinants of national stereotypes, but that there are also idiosyncratic influences on the perceptions of individual nations. Published in 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

集体行动参与双路径模型再分析：来自现实与网络行动情境的检验

为探明中国文化背景下,Simon等人(1998)提出的集体行动参与双路径模型的适用性,以及现实和网络情境下行动参与心理机制的异同,本研究以“中日撞船事件”为考察蓝本向天津市431名大学生被试进行调查研究,结果发现：国家认同和工具理性动机对集体行动倾向的影响独立且显著,但两路径在内部动机上有汇聚;现实和网络两种行动情境下的整合模型对行动倾向的解释率为37%和44%。结论：中国式集体行动表现为内部驱力作用下的集体主义理性特征。     

Religious Attendance and Volunteering: Testing National Culture as a Boundary Condition

Numerous studies have documented the importance of religion, and especially of religious congregational attendance, in regard to volunteering. Most of these studies focus on individual and contextual factors, usually within one country. Recent studies suggest that the association between religious attendance and volunteering varies among countries. We hypothesize that national culture plays an important role in explaining volunteering mainly as a moderator of the relationship between religious attendance and volunteering, especially on volunteering to help people in need. To support this position, we used individual‐level data from the World Values Survey (WVS) coupled with national data on cultural measures. This enabled assessment of these relationships using a multilevel analysis of individuals nested in countries. We used two models of national culture, Hofstede (1984) and WVS to explain the differences between countries. We found direct relationships between national culture constructs (power distance and survival/self‐expression values) and volunteering. We also found that individualism, power distance, and survival/self‐expression values moderated the effect of religion on volunteering, with a stronger relationship between religious attendance and volunteering in nationalities with self‐expression values, high power distance, and low individualism. Theoretical and practical implications of this approach are discussed.     

We are the opposite of you! Mirroring of national,regional and ethnic stereotypes

The content of stereotypes can be shaped by multiple mechanisms, one of them possibly being the “mirroring effect.” Mirroring describes a phenomenon whereby people rate their ingroup characteristics as opposite to characteristics typical of a relevant outgroup. The aim of our study was to explore mirroring in three intergroup contexts—in national, regional, and ethnic stereotypes. In Study 1, 2,241 participants rated national ingroup stereotype and outgroup stereotypes of five Central European countries. In Study 2, 741 Czech participants rated regional ingroup and outgroup stereotypes of people living in two distinct parts of the Czech Republic. In Study 3, 463 majority and Hungarian minority participants in Slovakia rated ethnic ingroup and outgroup stereotypes. The results showed a clear presence of mirroring in all three contexts.     

Group identity as a source of threat and means of compensation: Establishing personal control through group identification and ideology

Compensatory control theory proposes that individuals can assuage threatened personal control by endorsing external systems or agents that provide a sense that the world is meaningfully ordered. Recent research drawing on this perspective finds that one means by which individuals can compensate for a loss of control is adherence to ideological beliefs about the social world. This prior work, however, has largely neglected the role of social groups in defining either the nature of control threat or the means by which individuals compensate for these threats. In four experiments (N = 466), we test the possibility that group‐based threats to personal control can be effectively managed by defensively identifying with the threatened group and its values. We provide evidence for the specificity of these effects by demonstrating that defensive identification and ideology endorsement are specific to the content of the group‐based threat.     

Too special to be duped: Need for uniqueness motivates conspiracy beliefs

Adding to the growing literature on the antecedents of conspiracy beliefs, this paper argues that a small part in motivating the endorsement of such seemingly irrational beliefs is the desire to stick out from the crowd, the need for uniqueness. Across three studies, we establish a modest but robust association between the self‐attributed need for uniqueness and a general conspirational mindset (conspiracy mentality) as well as the endorsement of specific conspiracy beliefs. Following up on previous findings that people high in need for uniqueness resist majority and yield to minority influence, Study 3 experimentally shows that a fictitious conspiracy theory received more support by people high in conspiracy mentality when this theory was said to be supported by only a minority (vs. majority) of survey respondents. Together, these findings support the notion that conspiracy beliefs can be adopted as a means to attain a sense of uniqueness.