Der Einfluss politischer Ereignisse auf die PopularitÄt von Parteien und Politikern und auf das Parteiensystem

Political events, entering the political system as external shocks, can have a sizable impact on the popularity of political parties and politicians. We investigate this impact using as examples the unregistered campaign donations to chancellor Kohl (CDU-Spendenaffäre) and the political handling of the flash flood in the Elbe region shortly before the last federal election. Our special contribution to the literature is the combined analysis of event impacts on the valence dimension of the German party system and the inertia of the ideological dimension. By using a principal component analysis we extract a two-dimensional political configuration containing the position of parties and politicians and voters’ ideal points. We show that the basic ideological structure of the party system remains nearly unaltered even by such prominent events as the Spendenaffäre (donations scandal). The main changes affect the valence dimension. Focusing on voters we show that the greatest change of evaluation of parties takes place within the group of independents while the partisans remain rather stable in their assessments.     

Video ethology: Television as a data base for cross-cultural studies in nonverbal displays

This demonstration study attempts to indicate how live television programming might provide an economical and easily-accessed source of material for cross-cultural investigation. This study compared the nonverbal displays of emotion for American and Canadian television game show contestants. Results suggested that although Americans and Canadians did not differ significantly in the types of emotions displayed, Americans were rated as being significantly more expressive in their emotional display. In addition, Americans differed from Canadians in their forms of nonverbal display. American females were seen as using their hands more than the Canadian females. American males were seen to smile more than their Canadian counterparts. Discussion explored how methodology introduced in this study could be conveniently expanded to more conclusively explore culturally determined display rules. Consideration of current video cassette technology facilitating this form of investigation was discussed.This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under grant number 410-84-0640.     

Death rates,psychiatric commitments,blood pressure,and perceived crowding as a function of institutional crowding

The effects of crowding were examined in a prison system. Emphasis was directed toward three factors—social density (number of individuals in sleeping quarters), spatial density (space per person), and overall institutional population level. Archival data indicated that in prisons higher population years yielded higher death rates and higher rates of psychiatric commitments. Blood pressure measures were analyzed for inmates living in three types of housing that differed in degree of spatial and social density. Blood pressure was higher in more crowded housing. The degree of perceived crowding was more strongly related to space per person than number of occupants per housing unit.The assistance of Ben Judd and Robert Matthews in this research is appreciated.