Group Identity and Alienation: Giving the We Its Due

The purpose of this paper is to argue for greater understanding and valuing of group affiliation and the formation of allegiances to groups during early adolescence. An overemphasis on themes of individual identity, self-reliance, and autonomy as the developmental trajectory of adolescence leads to a lack of attention to the positive, normative mechanisms that permit young adolescents to achieve a sense of belonging and connection. We propose developmental processes which underlie the capacity for reflection about groups, 4 basic components of group identity, and 6 propositions about new capacities that emerge as young adolescents struggle with the dialectic between group identity and alienation. The final section suggests opportunities that can emerge through a more appropriate emphasis on group identity as a valued, normative aspect of development during the early adolescent years.     

Canadian public service employee satisfaction and its main drivers

Using the results of the 2005 Public Service Employee Survey (PSES), this paper identifies which factors have the greatest effect on employee satisfaction in the Canadian public service. Several hypotheses are tested against the backdrop of existing literature. In general, public servant satisfaction is affected by belief in opportunities for promotion, fair classification, adherence to client service standards, life balance, recognition by immediate supervisors, team relationships with colleagues, how well information is shared and, finally, belief in the abilities of senior management. Some interesting elaborations of these basic findings emerge when other variables are controlled. The discussion considers how the public service can be seen as a more desirable career choice.     

Business Routes of Influence in Brussels: Exploring the Choice of Direct Representation

This paper presents one of the first statistical analyses of the factors that determine the extent to which direct influence strategies are used by companies. New survey evidence and multivariate analysis is used to assess seven hypotheses to explain direct influence strategies. The factor of greatest significance is company size since direct influence is open only to large companies. But the extent to which direct influence is followed by large companies depends on their sector, its extent of organization, the sector's size and 'weight', and the form of the business association relevant to the sector. Direct influence is more likely where associations cover large corporate businesses (rather than owner-managers, professionals, federations or mixed associations), in sectors with a high degree of market concentration within large companies, and where their associations are relatively small. These findings are related to the logic of collective action suggesting that in sectors where there is the least chance to opt out of an association, there is a greater chance of a business also directly lobbying in order to assure itself that its interests are not being diluted and so that it can gain direct specific information or influence benefits.     

Complex scientific testimony: How do jurors make decisions?

Critics of the civil jury system question whether jurors can adequately evaluate complex expert testimony. Based on current models of research in persuasion, we hypothesized that when expert testimony is complex, factors other than content will influence persuasion. Participants, serving as mock jurors, watched a videotaped trial in which two scientists provided evidence on whether PCBs could have caused a plaintiff's illness. The complexity of the expert's testimony and the strength of the expert's credentials were varied in a 2×2 factorial design. After watching the videotape, mock jurors rendered a verdict and completed a number of attitude measures related to the trial. Overall, consistent with our prediction, we found that jurors were more persuaded by a highly expert witness than by a less expert witness, but only when the testimony was highly complex. When the testimony was less complex, jurors relied primarily on the content of that testimony, and witness credentials had little impact on the persuasiveness of the message.