Collective Decision-Making: the Analytic Hierarchy Process

Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a method to improve decision making whose application here is to complex environments. “A.H.P.” involves structuring a decision into a hierarchy, determining relative priorities for the elements in the hierarchy, and combining the numbers into overall weights estimating each decision outcome. The need for decision aids such as AHP, is supported by the literature, which suggests that even experts can contend with only limited amounts of information and tend to arrive at decisions in a simple fashion. AHP allows for using more information to make decisions in more complex ways. This leads to more coherent decisions. In the case presented AHP helped a committee make resource allocation decisions in an urban renewal project in Israel. The example highlights the usefulness of AHP in group settings. Areas of disagreement were easily identified and discussed. This diffused much of the tension typical of these proceedings.     

集体谈判的内部国家机制：以温岭羊毛衫行业工价集体谈判为例

集体谈判作为西方社会劳资冲突制度化的社会发明,不但得到工人和工会的拥护,同时也引起了雇主的兴趣。通过协商的程序、承诺的遵守以及共同利益的形成,可以构筑消解工人集体怨恨、制造工人认同的内部国家机制。在中国,工会受组合主义限制,尚不能成为集体谈判的有效发起者,愈演愈烈的劳资冲突却有可能使雇主成为实际的“发动引擎”。本文通过对温岭羊毛衫行业工价集体谈判过程的描述,探讨在竞争和斗争的背景下,雇主和工人在集体谈判过程中的互动,以及在以生存伦理为基础的工人群体中逐步形成从“无序抗争”到“有序遵守”的内部国家机制。     

Collective Action in Modern Times: How Modern Expressions of Prejudice Prevent Collective Action

This contribution addresses modern forms of group-based discrimination, and examines how these impact upon the likelihood that people engage in collective action. Based on a review of the relevant literature, we predict that modern expressions of prejudice are less likely to be perceived as indicating group-based disadvantage and hence elicit less anger, protest, and collective action than old-fashioned prejudice. We present three studies to offer empirical support for this prediction. In Study 1 ( N = 116), female participants were led to believe that the general public endorses either old-fashioned or modern sexist views. In Study 2 ( N = 44) and 3 ( N = 37) female participants were exposed to a student supervisor who allegedly held either old-fashioned or modern sexist views. Results of all three studies indicate that modern sexism is less likely to be perceived as a form of discrimination, and as a result elicits less anger at the source and less support for collective action (Study 1), intentions to protest (Study 2), and collective protest behavior (Study 3) than old-fashioned sexism. In discussing the results of this research, we connect to current insights on antecedents of collective action, and identify conclusions from our analysis that are relevant for societal and organizational policy making.     

Evil and the Instigation of Collective Violence

Literature on the psychology of evil has tended to focus on the motivations of perpetrators of collective violence, but almost no work has examined the special role of instigators. This article examines some of the differences between instigators and perpetrators of collective violence with a focus on Osama bin Laden. Compared with perpetrators, instigators are more powerful and less interchangeable, and they tend to rely on some form of nationalism to rally support. The article also examines the attributional bases of evil and how differences of construal can contribute to an escalation of violence.     

从边缘到主流：集体行动框架与文化情境

基于一个动员框架发生显著变化的社会运动案例,本文分析了主导运动前后两个阶段的动员框架及其转变机制。研究发现,框架转变源于社会运动领袖的策略性选择,转变背后体现的是动员框架与运动所处的宏观文化情境之间的微妙联系。具体而言,第一阶段的动员框架使用了文化情境中的边缘价值,动员效果并不理想;第二阶段,社会运动领袖对动员框架进行策略性的调整,将其与文化情境中的主流价值靠拢,在动员取得突破之后,又将边缘价值带回动员框架。随着运动的扩大,这些边缘价值被广泛传播与推广,并在运动之后延续下来,重塑了文化情境。     

William James' Theory of Emotions: Filling in the Picture

The theory of emotion developed by William James has been subject to four criticisms. First, it is held that Jamesian emotion is without function, that it plays no role in cognition and behavior. Second, that James ignores the role of experience in emotion. Third, that James overstated the role of physical processes in emotion. Fourth, that James' theory of emotion has been experimentally demonstrated to be false. A fifth point, less an explicit criticism than an assumption, holds that James has nothing to offer a social psychology of emotions. It will be shown in this paper that not one of these criticisms of James' theory of emotion can be sustianed.     

Users as Citizens: Collective Action and the Local Governance of Welfare

Self-organization amongst users of community care services preceded the consumerist developments of the 1980s and early 1990s, but can be considered to have been "legitimized" by top-down objectives relating to "user involvement". Nevertheless, the objectives and value bases of disabled people's organizations and organizations of users (or survivors) of mental health services have not always been consistent with those of consumerism, and user groups have experienced tensions in determining the extent to which they should respond to official agendas. Drawing on theories of new social movements and of citizenship, this paper considers the developing place of user organizations within systems of local governance. It looks at the way in which groups have sought to assert the legitimacy both of experiential knowledge and of their position as citizens in the face of official responses which have constructed them as self-interested pressure groups. It draws on empirical research investigating local groups of disabled people and of mental health service users conducted in the first part of the 1990s. It discusses the significance of shared identity as a basis for collective action alongside more pragmatic motivations to influence the nature of health and social care services. In the context of appeals to "community" and "partnership" which are starting to replace the discourse of markets and contracts as the key metaphor for both policy-making and service delivery, the article considers likely future roles for groups comprising people often excluded from community.     

Film Trends: East and West

A leading Soviet film director (The Young Guard) recounts his discussions with Hollywood film executives and directors, indicates some aspects of the organization of the Soviet film industry, and presents his views of recent French, Italian and American films. ("Films and Man in the 1960's," Izvestiia, August 12-14, 1960.)     

Collective Emotions in Conflict Situations: Societal Implications

It is well established today that emotions are an important part of most societal dynamics. The current article focuses on the role of different collective emotional elements in creating, preserving, and resolving conflicts. The main premise is that collective emotions play a pivotal role in shaping individual and societal responses to conflicting events and in contributing to the evolvement of a social context that maintains the emotional climate and collective emotional orientation that have developed. The first part of the article provides a conceptual framework to discuss the relations between conflict, context, and collective emotions. The second part uses the conceptual framework to discuss the societal implications of the articles presented in this issue. Taken together, the parts create a platform for future research on the role of collective emotions in conflict resolution and the construction of cultures of peace.     

Collective citizenship: From citizenship and mental health to citizenship and solidarity

Although the concept of citizenship is a widely used theoretical framework within political philosophy, its use in the field of mental health remains underexplored. Within this context, citizenship emphasises the social inclusion and participation of people who are marginalized and offers a more social and relational view of services and support for people with mental health problems than has been common in mental health systems of care. At the same time, however, the citizenship approach has operated in the context of systems of care in the United States that favour highly individualized conceptions of, and approaches to, care, and these systems of care operate in the social and political context of highly individualized concepts of the citizen. In this article building on the work of other citizenship scholars, we argue that a collective form of citizenship, grounded in the 5Rs framework, holds the individual and collective in creative tension. Furthermore, the paper applies this model to the domain of mental health, where people are treated in individualistic ways and experience marginalisation, making the collective dimension imperative and promoting participation, empowerment and the contribution for social change to people with mental health problems. Our theoretical framework of collective citizenship, while geared toward the needs of persons with mental health problems, also contributes to recent citizenship theory on the inclusion of marginalized, stigmatised, and excluded groups. We illustrate the application of this approach through an ethnographic-participant observation case study of a collective citizenship group with which we are associated.