Psychological Ties Research Articles

Attitudinal Orientation to Party Organizations in Turkey in the 2000s

The Turkish party system experienced a serious blow in the early 1980s, when the military government in power closed down all the former legal political parties. Therefore, little evidence of strong psychological ties between voters and the political parties they supported at the polls is expected. This essay draws upon existing literature on voting behavior to develop four hypotheses to explain partisan affiliations of Turkish voters. Each of the hypotheses is then put to empirical tests, using data collected by means of a nationally representative survey. The four independent variables used in the four hypotheses are the role of parents’ party identification (socialization), ideological orientations, economic expectations, and the ethnic identities of voters. Socialization emerges as a major determinant of partisan affiliation with the relatively older Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Action Party (MHP), while identifiers with the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) take few cues from their parents and pay more attention to the economic performance of that party in government. Ideology seems to play a major role in determining the psychological orientations of those who feel attached to the CHP versus the AKP or the MHP but little role in differentiating AKP from MHP voters. Ethnicity only plays a role in partisan affiliation with the MHP.

IDENTIFICACIÓN DE LOS GERENTES CON SU TRABAJO EN UNIDADES BÁSICAS DE SALUD DE BELO HORIZONTE: ¿REALIDAD O UTOPÍA?

This is a qualitative study that had as objective to know the way to identify the managers with their work in Basic Health Units (UBS) in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. The data had been collected by means of semi-structured interview and then analyzed. The analysis showed ties in the manifested identification by the surveyed subjects. By the results obtained, it was possible to pinpoint the existence of emotional, ideological, professional, and psychological ties. In spite of some depreciation, it was possible to notice other sources of compensation and identification towards their work and organization. This allows them to invest in improvement courses, and as a consequence, invest in both their personal and professional growth. Also, it has been expressed the managers freedom to act in their everyday life at work, the tenacity they display in their daily practices, and their autonomy.

Broadening the Study of Tourism

Following this introduction, this special issue includes five articles on the consumer psychology of travel and tourism behavior. Each of five papers contributes theoretically and empirically toward developing the field of tourism psychology and behavior. Each paper combines seemingly intuitively obvious propositions with unique insights resulting in deeper and more useful mental models of (1) the prior events and thoughts that drive tourism behavior, (2) thick descriptions of tourism consumption systems, and (3) the consequences of tourists' visits (e.g., perceived quality of the visit experience, satisfaction with activities experienced; intentions to return, post-experience, word-of-mouth, communications). This introduction champions the view that weak psychological ties stimulate or inhibit tourism behavior. Many of these ties are held unconsciously by consumers, and some ties may be retrievable automatically when thinking about a tourism-related activity. In most cases the presence of any one weak tie is necessary but not sufficient to result in a specific tourism behavior; the conjunctive presence of three or more antecedent events are observable. This introduction includes examples for German and British tourism behavior. Adopting such a view of tourism psychology and behavior may result in advancing a useful theory of travel and tourism marketing.

Wähler als Wandervögel: Dealignment and the German Voter

The 2002 Bundestag elections demonstrate the emerging new styleof German electoral politics. Where once party competition wasbuilt upon a stable base of Stammwähler, the catchword for 2002 wasthe Wechselwähler—the changing voter. The traditional bonds to socialgroups, such as class and religion, have steadily eroded across Bundestagelections in the late twentieth century, and these bonds had adiminished impact in 2002. Similarly, this chapter will demonstratethat affective psychological ties that once connected citizens to theirpreferred party have also weakened. Certainly some German votersremain connected to a social milieu or a habitual party tie, but thenumber of these voters is steadily decreasing.

The Role of Professional and Technical Workers in Progressive Social Transformation

During the 1930s, a small but significant group of radical professional and technical workers formed the Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians (FAECT), a predominantly left-led labor union within the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The formation of this union took place within the context of the emerging "new working class" of professional and technical workers, the consequence of US capital's embrace of science and "scientific management" during the period of rapid capitalist development between 1890 and 1930. FAECT was instrumental in demonstrating that at least one sector of these workers could break the hegemony that the elitist and often anti-union professional societies had over those workers by more successfully addressing their pressing economic and professional concerns. By integrating these members of the "new working class" into the older, blue-collar working class, FAECT also helped to weaken the ideological, psychological, and organizational ties management had sought to build with this new stratum, winning them instead to the progressive social agenda of the growing trade-union movement.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Religious Brand Loyalty and Political Loyalties

Numerous works have detailed the breakdown of brand loyalty within society over the last forty years and its results. Whether examining political loyalties, religious loyalties, or loyalties to brands such as Lucky Strike cigarettes, each study has noted a lowering of traditional barriers to switchingbrands and the creation of a nation of individualist choosers (Friedman 1990). Here I attempt to suggest some connections between religious and political loyalties. Using the 1993 General Social Survey, I operationalize religious loyalty in four ways and suggest three mechanisms through which religious loyalty is connected to political loyalty: psychological ties, socialeties,and social circumstances. I find significant effects of different conceptions of religious loyalty encouraging party loyalties, steadfast voting, and loyalty to on party's presidential candidates across two elections.

All That is Solid Melts into Air: Party Identification in Norway

For two decades researchers have been arguing whether profound changes were taking place in electoral politics or not. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to party identification in the European debate. In Norway, party identification has dropped dramatically since the mid‐1980s. We hypothesize that the strong psychological ties between citizens and parties, described as party identification, have become a rare occurrence for several reasons. The intense debate over EU membership weakened the formation of party identification in two periods linked to the referendums in 1972 and 1994, but we also believe the observed decline in party identification to be a long‐term change linked to the fading of the old cleavages and the decline of parties as mass organizations. The hypotheses have been tested on data from the Norwegian Electoral Surveys and the Referendum Surveys from 1972 and 1994. Although the hypotheses find support, alternative explanations cannot be ruled out at this stage.

How Cueless Are the Voters, and Does Personality Analysis Fill the Void?

In an interesting combination of papers at a recent conference on the Clinton presidency, Bennett addressed the fundamental problem of gaining politically meaningful insight into candidates amid the sophisticated image management of modem campaigns, while Winter offered personality analysis based on campaign speeches as a means of gaining just such insight into how candidates would govern if elected. (Bennett, 1993; Winter, 1993). This paper examines Bennett's diagnosis and Winter's prescription in the light of their theoretical arguments, methods, and use of the '92 campaign as a case in point. The image of the public portrayed in Bennett's paper is one of fragmented, isolated individuals, increasingly unmoored from the psychological ties that once gave private citizens stable public identities. This cueless, destabilized, and emotionally vulnerable electorate was, in this view, seduced by the regular doses of contrived intimacy emanating from the carefully crafted Clinton campaign. The electorate has reached this vulnerable political-psychological state because of broad historical factors that have caused the traditional cues of elec

What is a family? a contemporary view

In the light of two cases that held the attention of the United States in mid-1993, family therapists as well as other professionals need to consider- or re-consider-what it is that constitutes a family. Is the family based on biological ties? On psychological bonds? On legal definitions? When a conflict arises as to the family with which a child should reside, what factors need to be considered? Contested adoption cases are rare but not unique; the legal “divorce” from biological parents in favor of psychological ties is a much newer phenomenon. These cases are central to the discussion of this contemporary view of what constitutes a family.

Neighborhood revitalization's effects on tenants and the benefit-cost analysis of government neighborhood programs

This paper analyzes the potential effects of neighborhood improvements on low-income tenants. The theoretical model shows that tenants with strong psychological ties to their current neighborhood may suffer significant losses due to rent increases caused by neighborhood improvement, even if no displacement occurs. These tenant effects bias property value measures of the benefits of government neighborhood programs. The model is tested using data from the Experimental Housing Allowance Program, and modest but important tenant effects are found.

Affiliative behaviour during escape to building exits

Two models of escape behaviour are contrasted in an analysis of flight from a fire by 128 people in a public building. The ‘panic’ model assumes that escape involves a homogeneous population of individuals concerned with self-preservation, competing with each other for limited exits. The ‘affiliative’ model 2 predicts individuals with close psychological ties will attempt to escape in groups of two or more; flight is assumed to involve escape to familiar persons and places. Causal loglinear analysis was used to model the inter-relationships between four variables in a 2 × 2 × 3 × 2 cross-classified categorical table: (A) Group Membership (family/mixed); (B) Group Attachment at Cue (attached/separated); (C) Cue (ambiguous/verbal/unambiguous); (D) Group Affiliation at Exit (affiliated/separated). Associations were found between [BC] and [ABD] indicating strong support for model. In a situation of potential danger ‘separated’ individuals responded more often to ‘ambiguous’ cues. ‘Family’ members who were attached at cue were most likely to be together and ‘mixed’ group members apart when exiting from the building. Family members tried to adopt an optimal strategy for group rather than individual survival.

Medical involvement in procreation: how far?

Towers speculates about the potential dangers of advances in reproductive technologies, especially in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer. Procreation to increase the power of the state, à la Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, is one feared result. Loosening the biological and/or psychological ties between mother and child is another. He advocates open discussion of these issues because society, not just doctors and patients, should choose the uses to which these technologies will be put.

Living with the characterologically, altered brain injured patient: Lezak, M. D. VA Hosp., Portland, Ore., U.S.A. J. Clin. Psychiatry 39(7), 592–598, 1978

Characterological defects secondary to brain injury tend to disrupt normal family interaction patterns and create adjustment problems for the patient's close family members. Social and psychological ties, expectations, and vulnerabilities make caretaking spouses and dependent children particularly susceptible to emotional stresses. Unrealistic expectations often compound these problems. Almost all family members experience some depression. Counseling family members can improve the quality of their adjustment and their care of the patient. Counseling goals include helping the family readjust expectations, providing practical management advice, and alerting family members to their own needs. Specific recommendations for dealing with common family problems are offered.

Language Planning for China's Ethnic Minorities

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) recognizes language as one but not the sole determinant of ethnic identification. Following the analysis of nationality outlined in Joseph Stalin's essay, Marxism and the National Question, official Chinese policy recognizes common territory, common economic ties and common psychological ties as of comparable importance to language in determining the existence of an ethnic group or-as it is generally referred to in Marxist terminology-minority nationality. The existence of four criteria allows some leeway for arbitrary judgments, since a group may meet some rather than all the tests (i.e., common language but territorial discontinuity, or territorial continuity and psychological ties but several different languages or very different dialects of a common language). The Chinese government has reserved to itself the right to final judgment on the existence of a national minority, declaring emphatically that a self-reported name of a nationality cannot automatically confirm the existence of such a nationality group.1 Within the first I5 years of its founding in 1949, the Chinese People's Republic (PRC) had confirmed the existence of 54 such nationality groups, with linguistic identification playing a significant role in this designation. Approximately 40 million people were included. The list of 54 was considerably less than the several hundred self-reported names amassed in the process of taking the 1953 census, and this paring down made the government's language planning significantly easier. The CCP had come to power pledging to allow each ethnic group within its borders to develop according to its unique historical characteristics and raise its overall cultural level, with the group's language clearly being considered an important part of this ethnic-cultural

“Colonial Psychology” and Race

If “colonial politics” denotes the objectives of a metropolitan power vis-à-vis its colony, then, for purposes of this paper, we may define “colonial psychology” as the frame of reference that determines the attitudes of “metropolitans” vis-à-vis the “colonial problem.” By “metropolitans” we mean the inhabitants of those Western societies that are linked to part of the non-West by the historical, political, economic and psychological ties that have always accentuated the dominance of the West. By “colony” we shall here mean only the areas with a multiracial population of which a white element considers itself so integrally a part that it feels itself more strongly associated with its own “colonial” society than with the metropolitan country of its origins.