Specifics in a Positive Approach to Peace

An approach to peace is called "positive" here if, in addition to appearing as a realistic means toward peace, it is inherently attractive and morally unobjectionable. Positive approaches include drastic reduction of nuclear weapons (bilateral if possible, but unilateral if necessary), total elimination of first-strike nuclear weapons, a wholehearted no-first-use policy in actions as well as in words, humanization of our own diabolical image of the U.S.S.R., cultivation of realistic empathy and global consciousness, drastic reduction of fear appeals by the peace movement, and cultivation of realistic hope. However, some "negative" actions are also well worth considering as paths to peace: retention of approximately 5% of our present nuclear strength, retention of "adequate" conventional strength, realistic criticism of the U.S.S.R., occasional use of fear appeals, and guarding against unrealistic hope. As a model of positive reasoning and a source of useful references, an imaginary dialogue is presented in which a peace activist answers, in a factual and two-sided way, a number of highly skeptical hawkish questions. Learning to answer such questions effectively may add to both immediate effectiveness and long-term hope within the peace movement.     

A decision theoretic model of the American war in Vietnam

This paper presents a decision theoretic model of the American side of the Vietnam war. That is, we only consider the U.S. government declared objectives and assign them utilities from that point of view. We assume that the involvement of the U.S. in this war was the outcome of a deliberate decision and, moreover, that this decision was taken on the basis of a careful weighing of goals and means. Hence decision theory is applicable in this case - and probably it was applied. We make hypotheses on the utilities of the goals and on those of the negative side effects. We also assess the probabilities of the four main possible courses of action available to achieve those goals: total war, advising, negotiating, and staying out. The total efficiencies of these turn out to be -0.30, -0.20, +0.51, and -0.11 respectively. This result explains why neutrality was not tried and why the advisory policy was eventually given up. But it does not explain why war, which has been not just inefficient but countereffective, was preferred over negotiating from the start or keeping neutral. Unless of course one assumes that the strategists either (a) paid no attention to any decision theoretic models or (b) used models that had fatal flaws. If the first alternative is discarded because of the prestige enjoyed by decision theory amongst American executives, we must conclude that the decision theoretic models employed by the U.S. high command had either of the following defects: (a) they ignored or underrated the negative side effects accompanying the implementation of every goal, or (b) they were not supplemented by mathematical models of the decisions likely to be made by the other side. In either case the decision to adopt the strategy with minimal expected utility was, at best, rational but extremely ill informed. It may have been one more victory of ideology over science.     

Psychology of Promoting Environmentalism: Psychological Contributions toAchieving an Ecologically Sustainable Future for Humanity

The most serious long-term threat facing the world is the danger that human actions are producing irreversible, harmful changes to the environmental conditions that support life on Earth. If this problem is not overcome, there may be no viable world for our descendants to inhabit. Because this threat is caused by human population growth, overconsumption, and lack of resource conservation, social scientists have a vital role in helping our world escape ecological disaster and approach a sustainable level of impact on the environment—one that can be maintained indefinitely. Enormous changes to human lifestyles and cultural practices may be required to reach this goal. This article discusses major obstacles to this goal, describes a variety of motivational approaches toward reaching it, and proposes that we should view the achievement of sustainable living patterns as a superordinate goal—a war against the common enemy of an uninhabitable world.     

Culture of Peace: Sociostructural Dimensions, Cultural Values, and Emotional Climate

This article examines how objective measures of sociostructural dimensions of a culture of peace are related to subjective national values, attitudes, and emotional climate. National scores on objective measures of four sociostructural dimensions were correlated with national means from a number of cultural value data sets and national indexes of emotional climate. Liberal Development was congruently associated with egalitarian, individualist values, a low negative emotional climate, and less willingness to fight in a new war. By contrast, Violent Inequality was associated with lower harmony values and less valuing of intellectual autonomy. State Use of Violent Means was strongly associated with low harmony values. Nurturance was associated with horizontal individualism, tolerance, cooperative values, and positive emotional climate. The conclusion discusses how the construction of a culture of peace must be based on values as well as objective sociocultural factors.     

“无核世界”构想及其区域性实践——基于东南亚无核区的分析

"无核世界"构想是一种要求在限制核武器扩散的基础上,对已有核武器进行严格控制并逐步销毁,最终彻底消灭核武器,使国际社会回归到没有核武器的世界的政治主张。半个多世纪以来,"无核世界"构想在塑造全球政治安全环境、培育和平理念、推动核裁军方面发挥了重要作用。虽然当前"无核世界"构想尚难以实现,但在地区层面,无核区在一定意义上实现了"无核世界"构想。东南亚无核区是冷战后核扩散形势严峻的亚洲地区建立的首个无核区,对缓和亚洲地区的核扩散形势起到了积极的作用。本文认为,在国际政治现实下,无核区的建立必将成为实现无核世界的重要路径选择。     

Environmentally Responsible Behavior: Teaching and Promoting It Effectively

The most serious long-term threat facing the world is the danger that human actions are producing irreversible harmful changes to the environmental conditions that support life on Earth. If this problem is not overcome, there may be no viable world for our descendants to inhabit. Enormous changes to human lifestyles and cultural practices may be required to reach the goal of a sustainable level of impact on the environment—i.e., one that can be maintained indefinitely. Social science courses can aid in reaching this goal by teaching about environmentally responsible behavior. Such teaching should provide sound information and strengthen motivation and behavioral skills that are necessary to make the needed changes in behavior and lifestyles. This paper discusses major obstacles to the goal of sustainability, describes a variety of motivational approaches toward accomplishing it, and proposes that we should view the achievement of sustainable living patterns as a superordinate goal—a war against the common enemy of an uninhabitable world.     

Political Violence and Adolescent Out‐group Attitudes and Prosocial Behaviors: Implications for Positive Inter‐group Relations

The negative impact of political violence on adolescent adjustment is well established. Less is known about factors that affect adolescents' positive outcomes in ethnically divided societies, especially influences on prosocial behaviors toward the out‐group, which may promote constructive relations. For example, understanding how inter‐group experiences and attitudes motivate out‐group helping may foster inter‐group co‐operation and help to consolidate peace. The current study investigated adolescents' overall and out‐group prosocial behaviors across two time points in Belfast, Northern Ireland (N = 714 dyads; 49% male; Time 1: M = 14.7, SD = 2.0, years old). Controlling for Time 1 prosocial behaviors, age, and gender, multi‐variate structural equation modeling showed that experience with inter‐group sectarian threat predicted fewer out‐group prosocial behaviors at Time 2 at the trend level. On the other hand, greater experience of intra‐group non‐sectarian threat at Time 1 predicted more overall and out‐group prosocial behaviors at Time 2. Moreover, positive out‐group attitudes strengthened the link between intra‐group threat and out‐group prosocial behaviors one year later. Finally, experience with intra‐group non‐sectarian threat and out‐group prosocial behaviors at Time 1 was related to more positive out‐group attitudes at Time 2. The implications for youth development and inter‐group relations in post‐accord societies are discussed.     

Historical Role of the International Communist Movement during the World Anti-fascist War

The relationship between the international Communist movement and the world anti- fascist war constitutes a major historical theme of our times. As a positive force for democracy and peace, the international Communist movement became a solid political cornerstone of the anti-fascist war. Its enormous sacrifices and contributions made it one of the final forces terminating the fascist political order, and its humanity provided mankind with a just direction in the struggle against war terrorism and for peace idealism. It thus became a major force in effectively advancing the development of democracy and peace. Based on the logic of condemnation, the critical reflections upon fascism made by the Communist movement have provided a value dimension for the building of today’s international security system. Based on the logic of construction, the international peace ethics followed by the international Communist movement offer an ideological foundation for the building of the new international order. And based on the logic of development, the new paradigm of world civilization pursued by the international Communist movement has become a political exemplar for the current pursuit of international peace. The political force of the Communist Party of China (CPC), as China’s political backbone and advance guard, cannot be overlooked: it influenced the anti-fascist war, the postwar international Communist movement and the democratization of world order. Of course, both the Soviet Union and the Comintern also offered many historical lessons during the anti-fascist war, lessons that merit profound reflection and consideration.     

Peace Fair or Warfare: Educating the Community

Psychologists who wish to promote peace and justice must investigate how to mobilize the political will of the people in order to improve the policy making of the elite. This is the second study in a program of action research designed to investigate ways of encouraging people to accept personal responsiblity for influencing governmental foreign policy. It reports an attempt to create an ideal educational experience—a peace fair—that would provide the set of conditions that the first study suggested were essential for the acceptance of personal responsibility. The fair was successful in convincing individuals that they personally could do something to help prevent nuclear war. However, it revealed a serious weakness in the current peace movement—an inability to portray convincingly a course of national action that could promote peace and justice. This is an essential component for efficient action. Suggestions are made for the next round of research.     

What is Peace Psychology the Psychology of?

Peace psychology emerged as a distinct area of research and practice during the Cold War, when the preeminent concern was the prevention of nuclear war. Now global in scope, the focal concerns of peace psychologists are nuanced by geohistorical contexts and the distinction between episodic violence and structural violence, the latter of which also kills people, albeit slowly through the deprivation of basic need satisfaction. Accordingly, the focal concerns of contributors to this issue vary depending on geohistorical context: some being primarily concerned with patterns of behavior and cognition involved in the prevention of violent episodes and others with the amelioration of structural violence. A systems perspective is used as a framework for integrating episodes and structures of violence and peace. Articles emphasizing "systemic violence" demonstrate the interplay between structures and episodes of violence. Articles on "systemic peacebuilding" examine intergroup contact, the nonviolent management of conflict, and movement toward socially just structures, thereby yielding an increase in cooperative and equitable relationships across levels, from interpersonal to intergroup.     

Threats to Democracy: A Judgment and Decision-Making Perspective

Democracy as a political form of social organization offers humanity its best prospect for freedom and peace. Today, it faces deliberate threats from totalitarian movements that rely on terrorist tactics. Democracy also faces threats from its own leaders because of the consequential nature of their judgment and decision making. This article examines how threats to democracy are perceived and managed. It is proposed that perception and management of threats to democracy represent a case of judgment and decision making under uncertainty. Relevant factors that influence policy decision making as it pertains to safeguarding democracies from threat are highlighted.     

Are Terrorists Mentally Deranged?

Recent terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon have accentuated the threat of terrorism. However, it appears that the attackers are popularly thought of as mentally deranged individuals who are evil. This article suggests that such an understanding is a misperception of these people and may interfere with an adequate response to prevent future attacks. The article reviews the extant literature on psychological theories of terrorism and concludes that terrorists are not dysfunctional or pathological; rather, it suggests that terrorism is basically another form of politically motivated violence that is perpetrated by rational, lucid people who have valid motives. The only real difference between terrorism and conventional military action is one of strategy. Terrorists lack the necessary resources to wage war in furtherance of their political goals.     

Democracy Out of Anarchy: The Prospects for Post‐Civil‐War Democracy*

Objective. This study explores the effects of civil war outcome on post‐civil‐war democratization. We employ an expected utility model to argue that the attributes of the civil war that lead to balanced power relations between the warring parties lead to higher levels of postconflict democracy. Methods. We estimate a series of OLS regression models with change in the level of democracy (from the prewar level to five and ten years after the conflict ended) as the dependent variable. Results. Civil wars that end in negotiated settlements are more likely to experience higher levels of democratization than civil wars that end in military victory by either side. Identity‐based conflicts lead to lower levels of democratization while previous democratic experience seems to decrease post‐civil‐war democratization. We find no support for the argument that high war costs and U.N. peace‐keeping forces produce higher levels of democracy. Conclusions. Civil war may lead to more inclusive polities if it serves to even the balance of power between contending groups in the nation. Power balance is more likely to bring about more democratic polities, especially where power sharing is formalized in a negotiated settlement.     

Goal Setting Process: Supporting Choice in a Feminist Group for Women with Alcohol Problems

ABSTRACT

Women who seek help for alcohol related concerns may have goals ranging from maintaining abstinence to moderating or simply monitoring their drinking. Facilitating a group when participants' goals vary is challenging but not impossible. The potential for slipping into the common stance of identifying abstinence as the most desirable goal can be avoided by sensitive group facilitation. This paper describes how a feminist group intervention employed the group process to support decision-making across a range of goal choices; it provides some guidance on how social group workers can assist in the difficult work of identifying, clarifying, and working toward self-selected goals.     

Image and Action in Peace Building

That images of the future motivate behavior in the present is a theory with both socio-historical and psychological evidence. Due to the difficulty of generating positive images of the future in the nuclear age, in contrast to the Utopian imagery of earlier ages, an experimental workshop was developed by Boulding and Ziegler to help people imagine positive futures—specifically, to image a future world without weapons. The workshop procedures are described, and three case examples are given of imaging groups with widely different background characteristics. Participants were able to create positive imagery in the workshop setting, and their imagery varied according to the background of the participating group. The paper explores the relationships among the intensity of the imaging experience, its saliency for the imager, and the action readiness of the imager; and it raises questions about the role of imaging workshops in the peace movement and the kinds of research that might make such workshops more effective.     

The Student Dormitory in the "Period of Stagnation" The Erosion of Regulatory Processes

The increased danger of a nuclear war capable of destroying civilization and life itself on our planet has led to an increasing fear and mistrust, in addition to material losses. As scholars testify, the nuclear threat has an appreciable influence on the consciousness and minds of children in different countries of the world, and especially in the USSR and the United States. It makes them uneasy about their fate and the future of the whole of mankind, and affects their behavior, value orientations, and mental health.     

Public attitudes toward policies related to labor migrants in Israel

This paper focuses on determinants of public attitudes in Israel toward two policy questions. First, should immigration policy measures be more restrictive toward overseas labor migrants? Secondly, should overseas labor migrants be replaced with Palestinian workers? Based on an attitudinal survey administered to a representative sample of the Israeli population, the findings indicate that support for a restrictive immigration policy is quite prevalent among Israelis. However, the survey reveals only moderate consent for replacing overseas labor migrants with Palestinian commuters. Attitudes toward a restrictive immigration policy are explained by the perceived threat posed by overseas labor migrants to social and economic interests. This threat is explained by the respondents’ socio-economic characteristics. Attitudes toward the replacement policy are partially explained by the sense of threat to the Jewish character of the state posed by overseas migrants, but are also attributed to several personal characteristics. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.     

Normative, Gain and Hedonic Goal Frames Guiding Environmental Behavior

This article discusses new developments about goal-dependent framing and multiple goal frames (sometimes also called "multiple motives"), which are highly relevant for understanding environmental behavior. We introduce goal-framing theory, which postulates that goals "frame" the way people process information and act upon it. Three goal frames are distinguished: a hedonic, gain, and normative goal frame. In general, multiple goals are active at any given time, which may (or may not) be compatible; that is, the strength of the focal goal may be influenced by other goals that are in the background. Based on an extensive review of studies in environmental psychology, we suggest those conditions under which each goal frame may be dominant in influencing environmental behavior. In the environmental context, normative goal frames imply acting pro-environmentally, while gain and hedonic goal frames often result in not acting in an environmentally sound manner. Next, we argue that pro-environmental behavior may be promoted by strengthening normative goals or by making gain and hedonic goals less incompatible with normative goals. Finally, based on goal-framing theory, we suggest questions to be addressed in future research.     

Disarmament, Arms Control, and Peace in the Nuclear Age: Political Objectives and Relevant Research

The present paper differentiates the political objectives of nuclear disarmament, nuclear arms control, and peace, and it selectively reviews psychological research relevant to each of these areas. The term nuclear disarmament—originally intended to indicate the complete elimination of nuclear weapons—is now commonly used to describe the reduction of any militarily operational nuclear weapons. Nuclear arms control, or the regulation of the nuclear arms race, includes attempts to (a) reduce the perceived probability that nuclear weapons will be used; (b) limit damage in the event that nuclear weapons are used, intentionally or unintentionally; (c) reduce the economic burden posed by various weapon systems; or (d) improve international relations through military restraint. In contrast to nuclear arms control and nuclear disarmament, there is no generally accepted definition of peace in the nuclear age. Peace has been defined variously as (a) the prevention or cessation of armed conflict, (b) a state of active cooperation, or (c) a condition resulting from the absence of unmet needs.     

Psychosocial Assistance for Youth: Toward Reconstruction for Peace in Angola

Following decades of war, Angolan youth are at risk of continuing cycles of violence and need support in developing positive behaviors and social roles. Accordingly, a community-based program, conducted in Angola 1998–2001, taught youth life skills, provided peer support and peace education, educated adults about youth, and engaged youth as workers on community development projects. The main results included increased adult awareness of the situation and needs of youth, improved youth-adult relations, reduced perceptions of youth as troublemakers, reduced fighting between youth, increased community planning, and increased perceptions that youth make a positive contribution to the community. The results suggest that a dual focus on youth and community development contributes to peacebuilding and the disruption of cycles of violence.