Kristen Renwick Monroe

The Heart of Altruism: Perceptions of a Common Humanity

The Human Face of AltruismAcknowledgmentsIntroduction3Ch. 1The Puzzle of Altruism6Ch. 2The Entrepreneur27Ch. 3The Philanthropist41Ch. 4The Heroine63Ch. 5Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe91Ch. 6Sociocultural Attributes of Altruism121Ch. 7Economic Approaches to Altruism137Ch. 8Explanations from Evolutionary Biology161Ch. 9Psychological Discussions of Altruism179Ch. 10The Altruistic Perspective: Perceptions of a Shared Humanity197Ch. 11Perspective and Ethical Political Acts: Initial Thoughts217Conclusion233Notes239Bibliography271Index285

Gender Equality in Academia: Bad News from the Trenches, and Some Possible Solutions

Is there gender discrimination in academia? Analysis of interviews with 80 female faculty at a large Research One university—the most comprehensive qualitative data set generated to date—suggests both individual and institutional discrimination persists. Overt discrimination has largely given way to less obvious but still deeply entrenched inequities. Despite apparent increases in women in positions of authority, discrimination continues to manifest itself through gender devaluation, a process whereby the status and power of an authoritative position is downplayed when that position is held by a woman, and through penalties for those agitating for political change. Female faculty find legal mechanisms and direct political action of limited utility, and increasingly turn to more subtle forms of incremental collective action, revealing an adaptive response to discrimination and a keen sense of the power dynamics within the university. Women attributed the persistence of gender inequality not to biology but to a professional environment in which university administrators care more about the appearance than the reality of gender equality and a professional culture based on a traditional, linear male model. Respondents described heart-wrenching choices between career and family responsibilities, with tensions especially intractable in the bench sciences. They advocated alternative models of professional life but also offered very specific interim suggestions for institutions genuinely interested in alleviating gender inequality and discrimination.

The Hand of Compassion: Portraits of Moral Choice during the Holocaust

PREFACE ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv Stories That Are True 1 CHAPTER ONE: Margot 9 CHAPTER TWO: Otto 55 CHAPTER THREE: John 101 CHAPTER FOUR: Irene 139 CHAPTER FIVE: Knud 165 CHAPTER SIX: The Complexity of the Moral Life and: the Power of Identity to Influence Choice 187 CHAPTER SEVEN: How Identity and Perspective Led to Moral Choice 211 CHAPTER EIGHT: What Makes People Help Others: Constructing Moral Theory 239 A Different Way of Seeing Things 257 APPENDIX A: Narratives as Windows on the Minds of Others 267 APPENDIX B: Finding the Rescuers 287 NOTES 291 BIBLIOGRAPHY 331 INDEX 355

Psychology and rational actor theory

Does rational actor theory accurately capture our underlying political psychology? What can rational actor theorists gain from increased dialogue with psychologists? These were the central issues that concerned me as I chose to focus this special issue on the economic assumptions concerning human psychology, assumptions that form the foundation of neoclassical economics and which have been transmitted to the rest of social science through the theory of rational action. I asked each contributor to respond to three questions: What is your understanding of these assumptions? How valid do you believe these assumptions are? And what important areas and questions do these assumptions leave unexplained? My purpose in so structuring the discussion was to move debate away from the confrontational tone in which economic theory is too often attacked or defended; instead, we should ask about the conditions under which the theory is most useful and about when the theory will be most limited. As anticipated, there is tremendous variation in the responses I received to these questions. I hope the disagreement and the ensuing dialogue advance our understanding of the strengths and the limitations of the economic approach as applied to politics. In this introductory essay, let me open discussion by outlining what I believe are the basic assumptions underlying rational actor theory. This should provide a common reference for the later articles. (To simplify discussion, I shall use rational actor, rational choice, and economic theory interchangeably, although subtle distinctions among them do exist. See Monroe, 1991.) I then present my own analysis of the theorys underlying strengths and weaknesses. Essentially, I will argue that the intellectual brilliance of rational actor theory as a universal

The Economy and Political Support: The Canadian Case

How important are economic conditions in determining political support? Is voting a simple referendum on economic outcomes? Or must voters perceive critical party differences over economic policy before the economy has political impact? Although these questions have received considerable attention in the last decade, analysts have nonetheless overlooked the Canadian system, an ideal one in which to test propositions concerning the importance of public beliefs about party policy differences and to examine the economys role in determining popularity of social democratic parties. This paper analyzes the economic components of popular support for the Canadian government and political parties between 1954 and 1979 and in doing so addresses a number of these issues. Essentially, our findings suggest Canadians hold the federal government responsible for economic conditions. They find no critical economic policy differences between the Liberal and Conservative parties, however, and support for these parties is relatively unaffected by economic conditions. In contrast, Canadian voters believe the New Democratic Party (NDP) offers a clear economic alternative, and their support for this party is influenced by economic conditions as a result. Finally, we find no evidence that deteriorating economic conditions prompt Canadians to withdraw their support from the major political parties. The surprisingly large numbers of Canadians who routinely refuse to designate party allegiance do not appear to be expressing alienation from the party system as a protest against economic conditions.

Gender Equality in the Academy: The Pipeline Problem

As part of the ongoing work by the Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession (CSWP), we offer an empirical analysis of the pipeline problem in academia. The image of a pipeline is a commonly advanced explanation for persistent discrimination that suggests that gender inequality will decline once there are sufficient numbers of qualified women in the hiring pool. The CSWP believes that it is important to ask whether this phenomenon is actually occurring, because the implication is that we can explain inequality as a function of insufficient numbers of trained women in the pool, rather than as a result of ongoing discrimination that requires alternate remedies. Data from the American Association of University Professors suggests that merely increasing the pool of qualified women has not led to a commensurate number of women rising to the top in academia. Women are still ending up in lower paid jobs, and they continue to earn less than men in comparable positions. More aggressive policies to end discrimination are required.

«But what else could I do?» Choice, identity and a cognitive-perceptual theory of ethical political behavior

What causes ethical political behavior? Traditional political explanations stress cost-benefit calculus, utility maximization, reasons dominance of baser passions, or the conscious adoption of and adherence to certain moral values. In this article, I consider detailed narrative evidence that is not easily explained by any of these political theories or by analogous psychological theories concerned with ethics as a developmental process. This evidence comes from peoples descriptions of their actions toward Jews during World War II and includes testimony from both those who helped and those who did not help Jews.

The Perspective of Islamic Fundamentalists and the Limits of Rational Choice Theory

How can we best understand Islamic fundamentalism? As fundamentalism has become an increasingly significant political force, many different interpretations have been offered, with fundamentalism explained as both a rational reaction against modernity and as a pathological retreat from reality. We argue here that part of the scholarly failure to understand and deal with the growth of religious fundamentalism results from a failure to recognize the importance of cognitive differences in worldviews held by fundamentalists. By providing an empirical analysis of how fundamentalists see the world--what we identify as afundamentalistperspective-we hope to supply an important missing piece in the literature on fundamentalism. To do so, we utilized a narrative and survey interview technique to contrast the worldviews offundamentalists with those of comparable Muslims who are not fundamentalists. Our analysis suggests Islamic fundamentalism attracts because it provides a basic identity, an identity which in turn provides the foundation for daily living. The fundamentalist perspective itself is best understood through reference to a worldview which makes no distinction between public and private, in which truth is revealed by revelation, and reason is subservient to religious doctrine. Religious dictates dominate on all basic issues, and only within the confines of the fundamentalist identity are choices decided by a cost/benefit calculus.

Politics and an Innate Moral Sense Scientific Evidence for an Old Theory

Part of a symposium arguing for increased interdisciplinary conversations, this article suggests how political scientists can benefit from recent scientific work in child development, evolutionary biology, behavioral economics, primatology, and linguistics. All offer empirical evidence suggesting human beings are born with a moral grammar hard-wired into their neural circuitry. The analysis challenges claims for cultural relativity and suggests psychological egoism and rational choice theory leave unexplained much political behavior because they rest on too narrow a conceptualization of basic human nature, omitting precisely the sociability that moral sense theory places as a fundamental part of our human nature.

Psychological Boundaries and Ethnic Conflict: How Identity Constrained Choice and Worked to Turn Ordinary People Into Perpetrators of Ethnic Violence During the Lebanese Civil War

Why do ordinary people commit ethnic atrocities? To understand the psychology of ethnic violence we constructed a pilot project based on narrative interviews with five ordinary people who participated in acts of ethnic violence during the Lebanese Civil War. The interviews present striking evidence that identity constrains choice for all individuals, regardless of their particular ideological or socioeconomic demographic background. Our findings challenge both the rationalist approaches of realistic conflict theory and rational choice and the institutional claims of consociational democracy and suggest the tremendous power of identity and perceptions of self in relation to others to constrain political actions.