Perceptions In Turn Research Articles

Bio-, Agro- or even Social Fuels: Discourse Dynamics on Biofuels in Germany

Within the EU, Germany took a pioneering role in the production and promotion of biofuels. To explain this role the article analytically examines public discourses on biofuels. The analysis points out how the subject is interpreted and positioned by relevant actors and thus results in a specific public perception of biofuels in Germany. This perception in turn influences political decision-making processes. Since the analysis of discourses contributes to a better understanding of today's biofuel policy in Germany, the article characterises the biofuel discourse during the genesis of this policy. Additionally, it analytically traces changes of discourse constellations in the course of the biofuel policy path.

Value Development Underlies the Benefits of Parents' Involvement in Children's Learning: A Longitudinal Investigation in the United States and China.

This research examined whether the benefits of parents' involvement in children's learning are due in part to value development among children. Four times over the seventh and eighth grades, 825 American and Chinese children (mean age = 12.73 years) reported on their parents' involvement in their learning and their perceptions of the value their parents place on school achievement as well as the value they themselves place on it. Children's academic functioning was assessed via children's reports and school records. Value development partially explained the effects of parents' involvement on children's academic functioning in the United States and China. For example, the more children reported their parents as involved, the more they perceived them as placing value on achievement six months later; such perceptions in turn predicted the subsequent value children placed on achievement, which foreshadowed enhanced grades.

Morning employees are perceived as better employees: employees' start times influence supervisor performance ratings.

In this research, we draw from the stereotyping literature to suggest that supervisor ratings of job performance are affected by employees' start times-the time of day they first arrive at work. Even when accounting for total work hours, objective job performance, and employees' self-ratings of conscientiousness, we find that a later start time leads supervisors to perceive employees as less conscientious. These perceptions in turn cause supervisors to rate employees as lower performers. In addition, we show that supervisor chronotype acts as a boundary condition of the mediated model. Supervisors who prefer eveningness (i.e., owls) are less likely to hold negative stereotypes of employees with late start times than supervisors who prefer morningness (i.e., larks). Taken together, our results suggest that supervisor ratings of job performance are susceptible to stereotypic beliefs based on employees' start times. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Variability in HRM implementation among line managers and its effect on performance: a 2-1-2 mediational multilevel approach

Over the last few decades, a substantial body of research has examined the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and performance. However, little attention has been given to the implementation of HRM, although an HR policy can be implemented in various ways within an organization. In addressing recent calls in the literature to examine this issue more closely, we study the role of line managers in implementing HRM and the influence of employees' perceptions of HRM. In a multilevel study of 315 employees and 41 line managers drawn from various work-units of a Dutch municipality, we tested whether HR practices, as implemented by line managers, affect employees' perceptions of HRM and whether these perceptions in turn relate to perceived unit performance. The analysis shows that implemented HR practices differed between work-units. More specifically, our study shows that these differences can be explained by a line manager's leadership style. Moreover, our findings indicate that employees' perceptions of the HR practices implemented mediate the relationship between the HR practices implemented by line managers and perceived unit performance. These findings contribute to our understanding of how HRM affects performance.

Internet keyword advertising and consumer search intentions: The mediating effects of advertising attitude and keyword perception

The applications of the Internet have grown so rapidly that it has already replaced magazines, radio and newspapers and become the largest media after TV. The emergence of keyword advertising has grown fastest in the online advertising market, and is considered the most promising new market. This study examines the relationship between Internet consumers and keyword search intentions focusing on Internet users and using the Partial Least Squares method. The study results indicate that advertising involvement, cognition and value positively influence keyword attitude and perception. Moreover, advertising attitude and perception in turn positively influence keyword search intentions. In the meantime, they also have complete mediation.

Derogation, Discrimination, and (Dis)Satisfaction With Jobs in Science

In the current study of 353 science and engineering faculty members, we examined whether three types of gender-based mistreatment might “chill” individuals’ perceptions of the professional climate, which might in turn undermine satisfaction with their jobs. We also tested gender differences in these relationships. Results indicated that for women, the relationship between gender discrimination (e.g., unequal access to resources) and job satisfaction was mediated by scholarly alienation and a negative workplace climate; gender derogation (e.g., disparaging comments) was related to organizational sexism toward women (OSTW), which was associated with perceptions of scholarly alienation and a negative workplace climate; these perceptions in turn predicted lower job satisfaction. For men, gender derogation was indirectly related to job satisfaction via scholarly alienation, and OSTW was indirectly related to job satisfaction via both climate variables. Analyses indicated that most of these indirect effects were stronger for women than men. We discuss these results for both sexes and suggest reasons why men’s climate perceptions may be “chilled” by exposure to sexism toward women. We also discuss implications for individuals working with women in male-dominated environments, such as organizational administrators and clinical practitioners.

HRM, Communication, Satisfaction, and Perceived Performance

Employee perceptions of HR practices are often assumed to play an important mediating role in the relationship between HR systems and HR outcomes. In a multisource, multilevel study of 2,063 employees and 449 managers in 119 branches of a single large firm, the authors tested how managers’ perceptions of the HR practices implemented in the unit relate to employee perceptions of these HR practices. The authors’ main aim is to explore managers’ communication quality as a moderator of the relationship between manager-rated and employee-rated HR practices. They also tested whether perceived human resource management (HRM) perceptions in turn relate to perceived unit performance and satisfaction. Multilevel structural equation modeling analyses showed that HRM perceptions mediated the relationship between implemented HRM and both satisfaction and unit performance and that communication moderated the relationship between manager-rated and employee-rated HRM. These findings contribute to scholars’ understanding of how HRM affects employee-related outcomes.

A means-end analysis of Special Olympics volunteers

Many non-profit recreation, parks and tourism organizations utilize volunteers. To attract and retain volunteers, these organizations must discover why volunteers donate time. This study used means-end theory to examine the attributes, consequences and values associated with volunteering for the San Luis Obispo (SLO) County Special Olympics as well as the volunteer demographics. Study participants included 55 volunteers who were asked demographic and open-ended questions during interviews at sporting and training events. Results showed most volunteers were parents of an athlete in the program and either had been involved in the program for less than a year and donated less than 60 hours per year, or had been involved for more than 5 years and donated hundreds of hours per year. Many individuals volunteer so their child athlete will receive the benefits of sport, including increased social contact for their child, which leads them to believe their child will have warm relations with others and have a sense of belonging which leads to having increased self-confidence, leading to the athlete enjoying their life more. Parents perceive that their child athlete receives these benefits of sport and this perception in turn generates a positive effect on the parent.

Performance Appraisal Procedural Justice: The Role of a Manager’s Implicit Person Theory

Although there is a vast literature on employee reactions to procedural injustice, little is known about the important issue of why some managers are less procedurally just than others. In this field study we found that a manager’s implicit person theory (IPT; i.e., extent of assumption that people can change) predicted employees’ perceptions of the procedural justice with which their last performance appraisal was conducted. These procedural justice perceptions in turn predicted employees’ organizational citizenship behavior, as partially mediated by their organizational commitment. This research provides an initial empirical basis for a new line of inquiry that extends existing IPT theory into the realm of perceptual, attitudinal, and behavioral responses to people as a function of their IPT. Other contributions to the IPT, performance appraisal, and procedural justice literatures are discussed.

Colonial Legacies and Repertoires of “Ethnic” Violence: The Case of Western India, 1941–2002

AbstractThe post‐colonial state is held to be a weak state whose ease of capture reduces its capacity to suppress violence. The focus on the state, however, risks neglecting the ways in which violence is deployed to render the state weak in popular perception. This perception in turn legitimates claims for a foundational shift in the basis of power. In this paper, the concept of “repertoire” as first used by Charles Tilly, is used to analyze continuities and discontinuities in the development of the “ethnic riot” in urban, western India. As an “extreme” case in which riots have shown considerable durability over time, it highlights a key point, namely, that riots can form part of a strategy of power by simultaneously projecting themselves as popular insurrection and constructing a perception of the state as weak. The persistence of this repertoire, it is further argued, derives from the historical specificities of colonial state formation which promoted an ethnically imagined and hierarchized polity, as well as political struggles which weakened alternative forms of community.

Neighborhood Disorder, Subjective Alienation, and Distress

Living in a threatening, noxious, and dangerous neighborhood may produce anxiety, anger, and depression because it is subjectively alienating. We hypothesize that neighborhood disorder represents ambient threat that elicits perceptions of powerlessness, normlessness, mistrust, and isolation. These perceptions in turn lead to anxious and angry agitation, and depressed exhaustion. We use data from the 1995 Community, Crime, and Health survey, a probability sample of 2,482 adults in Illinois, with a follow-up survey in 1998. We find that perceived neighborhood disorder is associated with high levels of anxiety, anger, and depression. Personal victimization mediates about 10 percent of the association. The rest of the association is mediated primarily by mistrust and, secondarily, by perceived powerlessness. Normlessness reflects neighborhood disorder but it appears to have little influence on distress. Social isolation has trade-offs in its connections to neighborhood disorder and to distress.

Internet Recruiting: Effects of website content features on viewers' perceptions of organizational culture

This study examined the effects of four ‘careers’ website content features (pictures, testimonials, organizational policies, and awards won) on viewers' perceptions of nine organizational culture attributes. Eight of these culture attributes were more strongly conveyed by culture‐specific website content features than by culture‐neutral website content features. This study also found support for a partial mediated‐moderation model. This model illustrated that participants with weak culture preferences formed less favorable person–organization (P–O) fit perceptions as they perceived an organization to more strongly convey the culture attribute under investigation. Conversely, participants with strong culture preferences formed more favorable P–O fit perceptions as they perceived an organization to more strongly portray the culture attribute in question. Respondents with stronger P–O fit perceptions in turn reported stronger organizational attraction.

Policy-based voting, perceptions of issue space, and the 2000 Mexican elections

I argue, and test using data from the 2000 Mexican elections, the following assertions: perceptions of issue space condition the weights voters assign to policy stances and these perceptions in turn are affected by both individual and contextual variables. By perceptions of issue space I mean the choice candidates appear to offer on a given issue. The principal data I use come from the Mexico 2000 Panel Study; hypotheses are tested using multinomial logit and OLS analyses. The first set of results supports the thesis that perceptions of issue space condition the tendency for individuals to select leaders on the basis of select policy stances. The second set demonstrates that individual characteristics, structural constraints, and candidates' rhetorical strategies (the latter mediated by partisan leanings) all affect perceptions of issue space. Combined, these findings have important implications for understanding voting behavior in young and old democracies alike.

When Disagreement Gets Ugly: Perceptions of Bias and the Escalation of Conflict

It is almost a truism that disagreement produces conflict. This article suggests that perceptions of bias can drive this relationship. First, these studies show that people perceive those who disagree with them as biased. Second, they show that the conflict-escalating approaches that people take toward those who disagree with them are mediated by people's tendency to perceive those who disagree with them as biased. Third, these studies manipulate the mediator and show that experimental manipulations that prompt people to perceive adversaries as biased lead them to respond more conflictually-and that such responding causes those who engage in it to be viewed as more biased and less worthy of cooperative gestures. In summary, this article provides evidence for a "bias-perception conflict spiral," whereby people who disagree perceive each other as biased, and those perceptions in turn lead them to take conflict-escalating actions against each other (which in turn engender further perceptions of bias, continuing the spiral).

Preadolescents' and adolescents' online communication and their closeness to friends.

The 1st goal of this study was to investigate how online communication is related to the closeness of existing friendships. Drawing from a sample of 794 preadolescents and adolescents, the authors found that online communication was positively related to the closeness of friendships. However, this effect held only for respondents who primarily communicated online with existing friends and not for those who mainly talked with strangers. The 2nd goal was to refine 2 opposing hypotheses, the rich-get-richer and the social compensation hypotheses. Consistent with the rich-get-richer hypothesis, socially anxious respondents communicated online less often than did nonsocially anxious respondents. However, socially anxious respondents perceived the Internet as more valuable for intimate self-disclosure than did nonsocially anxious respondents, and this perception in turn led to more online communication. This result is consistent with the social compensation hypothesis. Online communication and closeness to friends increased with age. There was a curvilinear relationship between age and perceived value of the Internet for intimate self-disclosure, such that 15-year-olds were at the epitome of online self-disclosure. Girls were closer to friends and more socially anxious than were boys.

Presumed Influence on Peer Norms: How Mass Media Indirectly Affect Adolescent Smoking

In the context of adolescent smoking adoption, this study examined the presumed influence hypothesis, a theoretical model suggesting that smoking-related media content may have a significant indirect influence on adolescent smoking via its effect on perceived peer norms. That is, adolescents may assume that smoking-related messages in the mass media will influence the attitudes and behaviors of their peers and these perceptions in turn can influence adolescents’ own smoking behaviors. Analyzing data from a sample of 818 middle school students, we found that both pro- and antismoking messages indirectly influenced smoking susceptibility through their perceived effect on peers. However, this indirect effect was significantly stronger for prosmoking messages than for antismoking messages, an outcome that most likely increases adolescents’ susceptibility to cigarettes. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00002.x People who perceive that mass media can powerfully influence others may, often quite sensibly, react to that perception themselves. These reactions to presumed influence on others fall into two general categories. One category is prevention: Assuming, for example, that sexual content in media will corrupt the morals of others, people may support censorship of such content in an effort to thwart the undesirable outcome. The other reaction is accommodation: Assuming, in this alternative scenario, that advertising is going to influence public opinion about what is fashionable and attractive, people may adopt these new fashions themselves. In both cases, regardless of any actual direct effect, media may be exerting a very real indirect effect on individuals—an indirect effect via presumed influence on others. This general indirect effects model has been called the presumed influence hypothesis (Gunther & Storey, 2003). Prevention reactions have been repeatedly documented over the past 10 years, largely in the context of third-person-effect research (see, e.g., Gunther, 1995;

Motives and Contexts of Identity Change: A Case for Network Effects

In this paper we interrelate different theories of identity and describe how various social contexts and cognitive motives influence the process of identity change. We consider two competing theories about the linkage of contexts with motives for identity change: the effect of category traits, based on social identity theory, and the effect of social networks, based on identity theory. To explore these relations, we use data collected on more than 6,000 adolescents at six high schools in two consecutive school years. Multilevel logit models reveal a strong relationship between contexts and perceived identity imbalances, and a strong effect of identity imbalance on identity change. More important than category traits are the social network characteristics of prominence, homogeneity, and bridging; these form social contexts that affect perceptions of identity imbalance, and the perceptions in turn lead to a heightened incidence of identity change.

‘We’ll be dead by then!’ – Comical Self-Disclosure by Elderly Japanese Women

n/a

Media Use Habits, Audience Expectations and Media Effects in Hong Kong's First Legislative Council Election

This research investigates the origin of audience expectations and their subsequent role in the media use-to-effects process. It argues that a significant portion of perceptions of media is couched in people's media habits and these perceptions in turn mediate political effects attributable to mass media. Contextualized in the first Legislative Council election in Hong Kong, our analysis of data from a survey of 503 local residents yielded several revelations. First, audience expectations of campaign media performance have distinct dimensions stemming from different social structural backgrounds. Second, various dimensions of audience expectations are also associated with unique patterns of media use habits. And third, media's effects on campaign political knowledge and participation are to some extent mediated by what audience members expect from media coverage.

Notes on document supply in the Middle East

This overview of document supply in the Middle East divides the countries of the region into four groups: GCC states; Iran and Iraq; Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey; and finally, Israel. This grouping is based on the varying economic conditions amongst the members of each, both historically and in terms of their diversification. The conclusion reached is that, whilst economic conditions are important in influencing the ability to pay for document supply services, they are more importantly a deciding factor in determining the perception of their usefulness. This perception in turn influences a society’s willingness to incorporate document supply within its policies and plans on research information access and infrastructure.