Search results

Using data from an unusual survey, we gauge factors influencing support for a state anti-gay rights referendum. After controlling for other powerful predictors of attitudes, we find personal contact (especially relevant and voluntary contact) has an important impact on public support, although community context does not. These findings support an integrated notion of interactions with 'out' groups, grounded in social categorization theory, that sees community context and interpersonal contact as concentric circles, moving from abstract, detached forms of contact to more pronounced, personal forms. However, even among those with substantial interpersonal contact, support for the referendum was still widespread. Adapted from the source document.

A historiographical analysis of the events of the Petrine era in the Caucasus demonstrates that the problem of personal contacts of Tsar Peter I with the ruling elites of Dagestan during his campaign in 1722 remains one of the poorly developed historical aspects. The tsar's personal contacts with foreign elites were part of his imperial policy of expanding the territories of the Russian state, involving new subjects in the sphere of the political and legal space of the empire, ensuring their loyalty in the conditions of multi-ethnicity and political fragmentation of the Caucasus. Such ensuring was achieved by involving local elites in the social structure of the empire, in its economic system. Peter the Great's contacts with the Dagestan rulers took place during the Persian expedition – his last major foreign policy campaign, as a result of which the southwestern Caspian region was briefly conquered and annexed to the Russian Empire. The conducted study made it possible to identify the reason that determined the pro-Russian position of one or another Dagestan ruler, their attitude to Peter I, in particular. The contacts of the parties were accompanied by giving each other expensive gifts, awarding ranks to the ruling elite that had passed into Russian citizenship, confirmation in positions, assignment of salaries to its representatives, etc. The study is based on the analysis of retrospective documentary information collected from documents of scientific archives of Russia and historiographical sources. The source base of the study, in addition to archival documents, are the materials of direct participants and eyewitnesses of the meeting of Peter I and a number of Dagestani rulers: "The War Diary of 1722", compiled in the middle of the XIX century based on the diary entries of Peter I, travel notes of the Scottish doctor J. Bell and Artillery Captain Peter Bruce. The last two sources in this study are used in the original.

Recent studies hold out political mobilization as the possible solution to low and declining voter turnout. This research explores the effects of face-to-face mobilization efforts that, in the course of 7 months, reached more than 4,500 registered voters in a Florida State House primary race. Controlling for their past voting history, the mobilization effort did increase turnout by about 10% of the electorate. However, the effects were dependent on the timing of the contact, as more distant efforts to mobilize had a much weaker effect on turnout. The combination of distant contact aimed at an infrequent voter was especially ineffective in improving turnout. The results suggest that implementing more face-to-face mobilization efforts would increase turnout but that the window of opportunity for such efforts is limited.

The research presented in this paper explored the relationship between personal contact, viewing media portrayals of people with disabilities, and audience's reactions to them. Viewers of positive portrayals of the disabled on television programs and in the movies were more likely to perceive discrimination and less likely to say they had negative emotions when encountering people with disabilities, but more often said they were uncomfortable with them. Having a close friend or relative with a disability was generally unrelated to perceptions of discrimination, but was associated with less frequently having negative emotions and more often feeling uncomfortable with disabilities.

Kagawa Toyohiko, the preeminent Japanese Christian leader of the interwar era, exerted influence in the United States as well as in his native Japan, with his support for economic cooperatives, his calls for friendship between the two nations, his protests against racist U.S. immigration policies, and his service as a model for the Social Gospel wing of Protestantism. This paper studies four American missionaries in Japan—William Axling, Helen Topping, T.T. Brumbaugh, and Galen Fisher—whose writings and activities were essential in making Kagawa's views known in the United States. It argues that through the personal bonds they forged with Kagawa, they came to a new understanding of the missionary endeavor, moving away from simply spreading Christianity to the Japanese toward serving as interpreters of Japanese society and attitudes for Americans. In the process, they developed a critical approach toward U.S. policy and society, which the author terms "critical internationalism."

AbstractThis article explores the causal effect of personal contact with ethnic minorities on majority members' views on immigration, immigrants' work ethics, and support for lower social assistance benefits to immigrants than to natives. Exogenous variation in personal contact is obtained by randomising soldiers into different rooms during the basic training period for conscripts in the Norwegian Army's North Brigade. Based on contact theory of majority–minority relations, the study spells out why the army can be regarded as an ideal contextual setting for exposure to reduce negative views on minorities. The study finds a substantive effect of contact on views on immigrants' work ethics, but small and insignificant effects on support for welfare dualism, as well as on views on whether immigration makes Norway a better place in which to live.

AbstractObjectiveThis study considers how having personally tested positive for COVID‐19 or knowing someone who has tested positive for COVID‐19 is associated with an individual's reported change in confidence in the scientific community due to the pandemic.MethodsUsing data generated from a probability sample of U.S. adults, we estimate regression models predicting individuals' reported change in confidence in the scientific community due to the pandemic.ResultsPolitical affiliation, age, having tested positive for COVID‐19, and knowing someone who tested positive for COVID‐19 are associated with reporting changes in confidence in the scientific community due to the pandemic.ConclusionThese findings suggest that the public's perception of the scientific community's response to the COVID‐19 pandemic is in part shaped by individuals' personal contact with the virus.