This chapter explores two psychological orientations that support democratic governance. First, robust democracies require citizens to tolerate others' efforts to participate in politics, even if they promote unpopular views. Research shows that citizens' political tolerance is influenced strongly by the depth of their commitment to democratic values, by their personality, and by the degree to which they perceive others as threatening. Cross-national research generalizes many of these findings to other countries. Second, robust democracies need citizens who will participate in politics. Almond and Verba's cross-national research shows that interpersonal trust and other features of political culture enhance citizen involvement in politics. Inglehart expanded the political culture framework in his work on post-materialism, interpersonal trust, life satisfaction, and cognitive mobilization. Recent theories of social capital also emphasize the role of generalized interpersonal trust, membership in voluntary associations, and norms of reciprocity in enhancing political participation and democracy.

Given the importance that generalized social trust plays in various theories of American society, recent evidence of its low levels among younger people portends ominous changes in American civic life. Using survey data collected from high school seniors over the last 20 years, this paper examines the origins of social trust among young people and the causes of change in beliefs about trust over time. Such changes could not be accounted for by the explanations for declining trust offered in other accounts of social capital. An alternative explanation, based on the theoretical accounts of Alexis de Tocqueville and Emile Durkheim, is that materialistic values may be undermining young people's views about the trustworthiness of others. Both aggregate time series correlations and an individual-level model show that the rapid rise of materialistic value orientations that occurred amongAmerican youth in the 1970s and 1980s severely eroded levels of social trust. The paper concludes with some observations about the likely trajectory of American democracy, given the kinds of trends observed in the youth data.

Political science has paid a great deal of attention to sources of intergroup conflict, but the discipline has focused less on forces that bring people together and lead them to transcend group boundaries. This study presents evidence that attachment to a shared superordinate identity can improve intergroup relations by reducing the social distance between people of different racial groups. Using a survey experiment, this research shows that making a superordinate identity salient increased support for a tax increase. The effects of the identity salience treatment are compared to a policy particularism treatment in terms of effect size and their interaction with each other. The size and direction of the identity salience effect is affected by the degree of respondents' acceptance of the proffered identity. Implications for social identity theory, racial policy attitudes, and American national identity are discussed.

The authors examined whether the influence of persuasive messages emphasizing reward versus threat was moderated by authoritarianism. Five days before the 1996 presidential election, participants (N = 86) received either a reward-related message (emphasizing the positive benefits of voting) or a threatrelated message (emphasizing the negative consequences of failing to vote) recommending that they vote in the election. We found that high authoritarians perceived the threat message as stronger in argument quality than the reward message, and low authoritarians perceived the reward message as stronger in argument quality than the threat message. In turn, subjective perceptions of message quality exerted a direct influence on participants' postmessage attitudes toward voting in the election. Finally, behavioral intentions mediated the influence of voting attitudes on actual voting behavior. Discussion focuses on the implications of the message frame and authoritarianism.Rocky Mountain Media Watch has coded local news broadcasts for content of crime, violence, terrorism, and disaster. The 1997 survey of 55 cities found that 42% of local news content falls into these overlapping categories, and 33% fits the crime category alone. Moreover, the lead story in 72% of the newscasts was either crime or disaster.-Rocky Mountain Media Watch (1997) Increasingly, our citizens' information environment is permeated with threatening messages of all types. Local news programs attempt to hook viewers with teasers-followed by more detailed messages-about threats to their personal safety, loved ones, pocketbooks, psychological well-being, health, social relationships, political values, and so forth. These insidious messages about imminent dangers large and small appear to be quite effective in gaining and holding viewers' attention. Ratcheting the emotional ante upwards seems to pay dividends for an increasingly lucrative media industry.The use of fear appeals has long played a central role in attempts to change and shape attitudes by means of persuasive messages (e.g., Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953;Janis & Feshbach, 1953;Leventhal, 1970;Rogers, 1983). From attempts to persuade people to visit their dentist, use seat belts, and stop smoking to politically threatening ads designed to motivate citizens to vote a certain way, threat has been used to invoke fear and shape attitudes and behaviors. What is new, however, is the apparent recognition of the generic value of fear and threat in attempts to grab and hold citizens' attention in a society increasingly characterized by information overload cou-

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