This paper examines the influence of community attachment on voluntary citizen participation in rural community improvement projects. We do so by modifying the original systemic model of community attachment (Kasarda and Janowitz 1974) and combining it with tenets of rational choice and social embeddedness theories. The modified model is then extended to consider voluntary participation in community projects by accounting for the influence of community attachment through both a solidarity of interests and a solidarity of sentiments (Bell 1998). Based on survey results of almost 9,000 citizens across 99 small (500–10,000) Iowa communities, findings provide overall support for the expected positive influence of local social ties (weak informal, strong informal, and formal) on the two forms of community attachment which, in turn, positively affect voluntary participation. Attachment in the form of community interests shows a strong direct and indirect effect on voluntary participation, while sentiment's influence is largely indirect. We conclude by considering the relevance of our findings to ongoing discussions of social capital.

The authors investigated (a) whether victim blaming is a general variable in a person's make-up or (b) whether the extent of blaming depends on the kind of victim considered. The authors evaluated scales for blaming (a) victims in general, (b) society in general, (c) a specific kind of victim (i.e., AIDS), and (d) the society in which AIDS victims live. The general and specific scales had favorable psychometric properties, including reliability. General and specific victim blaming were significantly and positively correlated, whereas victim blaming and society blaming were not significantly correlated. Multiple regression analyses provided evidence of construct validity for the scales. All blaming variables were significantly related in the hypothesized directions to social distance, social responsibility, and discrimination (regarding persons with AIDS). The general and specific scales made significant and unique contributions. Implications for attribution theory and research are specified.

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The connection between age and attitudes about social change has been a longstanding research interest in the United States. Hypotheses derived from this tradition are tested in the Czech Republic, a country undergoing a thorough societal transformation since 1989. This is done with eleven national surveys between 1990 and 1998, allowing us to examine not only the association between age and opinions about the Czech post-communist reforms, but also change in these relations during the survey period. Specifically, we first examine how respondents' age is related to their recent economic experiences and the interaction between age and the reform's phase on these experiences net of demographic controls. The association between age and respondents' anxiety about the Czech reforms is the second focus, with tests for the interaction between age and time on this anxiety, and controls include economic experiences. Then we examine the relationship between age and respondents' support for the economic reforms, again with tests for the interaction between age and time, while controlling for anxiety as well. Older Czechs were generally more conservative about the reforms net of their economic experiences and anxiety about them, but these age differences did not change with the reform's phases.