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AbstractIn this paper a theoretical approach to group facilitation is introduced, based on the work of the so‐called Palo Alto school in communication and psychotherapy. This approach permits an analysis of group facilitation processes on the basis of several important principles that also inform system dynamics model building and simulation. On the basis of this analysis existing lists of appropriate facilitation skills and attitudes may be supplemented with three guidelines, leading to greater insight into the quality of the process of group model building and possible ways to evaluate that process. Ultimately, the growth and proliferation of system dynamics models and simulations depend on improvement of both process and content of modeling and simulation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This dissertation is an exercise in political psychology and psychologically oriented political science. The approach it takes to the study of voting is inherently psychological, yet the choice and scope of psychological theories is bounded by the discussion of voting behavior as it appears from the political science literature. Digressions into psychological theory and history provide wider perspectives and foster searches for convergences, yet the terminus of these investigations invariably centers on issues from political science.

In this article differences between rational, policy-based, and rationalized voting are discussed, and it is argued that these forms of electoral decision making are not properly analyzed in existing electoral studies. Policy voting, persuasion, and projection are then redefined as three possible ways of restoring balance among imbalanced triads of political beliefs and attitudes. With the help of the Chernobyl nuclear plants issue it is shown that persuasion and projection are far more important ways of restoring balance than policy voting.

The analysis of long-term social and political developments in Western countries is often difficult because of a lack of sufficient survey data. Almost always official election and census statistics are available over long periods, yet the use of these data for individual-level inferences runs the risk of the ecological fallacy. In this paper we propose a method to go beyond the fallacy, the Duncan-Davis technique for area-classified data. The method is discussed and used to assess the amount of religious voting among Dutch Catholics in the 1971 general election. While the technique is only moderately helpful in this case, it is expected to be far more useful for the analysis of older elections.