Expanding Diversity: Noncategorical Inclusion and Equity

Contemporary public policy and laws give strong support to equal protection and civil rights. This article argues that a modern society and each person therein should cultivate qualities in one’s self and others that will promote inclusion and equity to continually reduce and eventually eliminate unjust bias, prejudice, and discrimination (albeit perhaps an “impossible dream”). To date, equal protection has depended primarily on governmental regulations based on categorization of human factors. It is argued that everyone, particularly those persons granted “professional” status in society, should aspire for self-concept features that will move toward adopting and expanding inclusion to eliminate the need for categorization per se. Rather than diversity per se, inclusion and equity have contemporary support for better obtaining the personal and social values that can reduce bias, discrimination, and prejudice. It is recommended that interventions be directed at the structural, institutionalized, and close-minded barriers that exist in individual and collective decision making.     

Age and outcome allocation: A new test of the subtractive model

The no, moderate, and large differences between shares of outcome allocated to the high and low performers are interpreted as the respective rules of equality, ordinal equity, and proportional equity. The ability to employ the proportional rule is also believed to develop around the age of 13 years. The authors hypothesized that: (i) the rule of outcome allocation is subtraction; and (ii) age differences in outcome allocation are mediated by age differences in perceived inputs. In an experiment on Chinese aged 8–20 years, measures of perceived inputs were taken after or before outcome allocation. Results from the input-allocation order supported the hypotheses. Obviously, age effects in outcome allocations by Asians can sometimes be mediated by age differences in the ability to perceive the inputs accurately.     

Why do residents accept a demanding rule?: Fairness and social benefit as determinants of approval of a recycling system1,2

Abstract: This study examined why people accepted a demanding rule in a recycling system that was newly introduced in Nagoya City. We focused on two social psychological topics: social dilemmas and fairness. While the new system succeeded in reducing waste, it imposed a burden on citizens without providing incentives and sanctions. In a research survey, 1442 responses from a sample of 3000 (48% response rate) were obtained using a stratified sampling method. The results showed that the new recycling system was approved despite the demands placed on citizens, with a preference for more strict rules such as penalties and surveillance for noncompliance. The main determinants of approval of the new recycling system were social benefit and procedural fairness, whereas the main determinant of preference for strict rules was outcome fairness. We argue that (a) social benefit should be emphasized to facilitate cooperative behavior in a social dilemma situation and (b) the government should ensure sufficient discussion with citizens and acknowledgment of their opinions.     

Person perception in the heat of conflict: Negative trait attributions affect procedural preferences and account for situational and cultural differences

Disputes by their nature involve contentious behavior. If one attributes such behavior to underlying personality traits, these attributions can be quite damning. The current research investigated negative trait attributions and their impact on dispute resolution decisions. We hypothesized that judging one's opponent to be low in agreeableness and high in emotionality (e.g. stubborn and volatile) shifts one's preference towards more formal procedures – formal in the sense that a third party judge controls the process and outcome. Drawing on the attribution literature, we hypothesized that two antecedents of these judgments (and consequent preferences) are the perceiver's level of prior information and the perceiver's cultural proclivity to explaining behavior in terms of personal dispositions. Results of an experiment measuring reactions to a hypothetical dispute found that prior information and culture (USA vs Hong Kong) increased trait attributions and preferences for formal procedures. Additionally, expectancy measures showed interaction effects suggesting that disputants dynamically construct expectancies in light of their personality impressions.     

Gender Equity for Athletes: Multiple Understandings of an Organizational Value

Although gender equity for athletes is a frequently researched topic, it is often assumed that understandings of gender equity are unitary and shared, which may complicate the implementation of it. The purpose of this study was to understand and critique the meanings of gender equity for athletes through in-depth interviews with 5 administrators, 6 coaches, and 17 athletes at 1 Canadian university athletic department. These data were coded and categorized using Atlas.ti. The findings revealed multiple but narrow meanings of gender equity: (a) equality, (b) conditional equality, and (c) a women’s only issue. None of these challenged the taken for granted assumptions associated with university athletics; however, they illustrated the complexities and struggles involved in understanding this organizational value.     

山东省某县农民参加新农合意愿及受益公平分析

通过调查农民参加新型农村合作医疗（新农合）意愿选择及受益程度,对影响参合因素及政府补助分配的公平性进行研究,认为：影响参合因素主要有家庭收入、家庭医疗支出、补偿比例等;从受益角度看,总补助的集中指数是负值,不同人群的受益趋于公平。从不同服务看,住院的公平程度好于门诊。     

THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PROCEDURAL JUSTICE IN RESPONSES TO PROMOTION DECISIONS

This study used structural equations modeling to examine the mediating role of procedural justice in the relationships between promotion decisions and organizational commitment and between promotion decisions and intent to leave the organization. 156 managers and executives in Italian subsidiaries of two large multinational organizations in the chemical industry were surveyed about their career history within the organization and their reactions to promotion decisions over an 8-year period. The results showed that promotion decisions influenced feelings of organizational commitment through perceptions of procedural justice in promotion decision-making processes. The theoretical and practical implications of the study’s findings are discussed.This research was supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research (MURST). A previous version of this paper was presented at the 2000 Academy of Management meetings in Toronto and published in the Best Paper Proceedings. We would like to thank Paula Caliguiri, Jason Shaw, M. Susan Taylor, and two anonymous Academy reviewers for their helpful suggestions on prior drafts of this article.     

Mentalization, insightfulness, and therapeutic action The importance of mental organization

Continuing debates over the relative importance of the role of interpretation leading to insight versus the relationship with the analyst as contributing to structural change are based on traditional defi nitions of insight as gaining knowledge of unconscious content. This defi nition inevitably privileges verbal interpretation as self‐knowledge becomes equated with understanding the contents of the mind. It is suggested that a way out of this debate is to redefi ne insight as a process, one that is called insightfulness. This term builds on concepts such as mentalization, or theory of mind, and suggests that patients present with diffi culties being able to fully mentalize. Awareness of repudiated content will usually accompany the attainment of insightfulness. But the point of insightfulness is to regain access to inhibited or repudiated mentalization, not to specifi c content, per se. Emphasizing the process of insightfulness integrates the importance of the relationship with the analyst with the facilitation of insightfulness. A variety of interventions help patients gain the capacity to refl ect upon and become aware of the intricate workings of their minds, of which verbal interpretation is only one. For example, often it seems less important to focus on a particular confl ict than to show interest in our patients’ minds. Furthermore, analysands develop insightfulness by becoming interested in and observing our minds in action. Because the mind originates in bodily experience, mental functioning will always fl uctuate between action modes of experiencing and expressing and verbal, symbolic modes. The analyst's role becomes making the patient aware of regressions to action modes, understanding the reasons for doing so, and subordinating this tendency to the verbal, symbolic mode. All mental functions work better and facilitate greater self‐regulation when they work in abstract, symbolic ways. Psychopathology can be understood as failing to develop or losing the symbolic level of organization, either in circumscribed areas or more ubiquitously. And mutative action occurs through helping our patients attain or regain the symbolic level in regard to all mental functions. Such work is best accomplished in the transference. The concept of transference of defense is expanded to all mental structure, so that transference is seen as the interpersonalization of mental structure. That is, patients transfer their mental structure, including their various levels of mentalizing, into the analytic interaction. The analyst observes all levels of the patient's mental functioning and intervenes to raise them to a symbolic one. At times, this will require action interpretations, allowing oneself to be pulled into an enactment with the patient that is then reprocessed at a verbal, symbolic level. Such actions are not corrective emotional experiences but are interpretations and confrontations of the patient's transferred mental organization at a level affectively and cognitively consistent with the level of communication. Nonetheless, the goal becomes raising the communication to a symbolic level as being able to refl ect symbolically on all aspects of one's mind with a minimum of restriction is the greatest guarantee of mental health.     

质性比较专家与新手的物理学知识结构

通过质性比较方法,本实验刻画了专家与新手在物理学欧姆定律上的知识差异,并发现,与新手相比,专家的知识结构有如下特点:(1)精致化,即拥有更多公式且生成了新公式,表示他们在知识之间形成了更多联系;(2)限制化,即添加更多恒定条件于知识中,从而产生更为明确的行动。此外,本实验在方法学上为细致描述和解释专长的实质提供了可能。     

香港医疗制度与改革

香港的医疗制度由一个"二元医疗体系"组成,在体制模式、融资制度及服务规管三方面的安排都有其独特之处,为香港七百多万人提供了一个全民医疗安全网,能够达到公平、有效、可及性高及质素佳的要求。但是这个医疗系统也存在不少问题和隐忧,需要有效的改革,包括管治、管理、服务安排和融资模式改革等。