Three studies examined perceptions of the entitativity of groups. In Study 1 (U.S.) and Study 2 (Poland), participants rated a sample of 40 groups on 8 properties of groups (e.g., size, duration, group member similarity) and perceived entitativity. Participants also completed a sorting task in which they sorted the groups according to their subjective perceptions of group similarity. Correlational and regression analyses were used to determine the group properties most strongly related to entitativity. Clustering and multidimensional scaling analyses in both studies identified 4 general types of groups (intimacy groups, task groups, social categories, and loose associations). In Study 3, participants rated the properties of groups to which they personally belonged. Study 3 replicated the results of Studies 1 and 2 and demonstrated that participants most strongly valued membership in groups that were perceived as high in entitativity.

Building on Hofstede's finding that individualism and social hierarchy are incompatible at the societal level, the authors examined the relationship between individualism-collectivism and orientations toward authority at the individual level. In Study 1, authoritarianism was related to three measures of collectivism but unrelated to three measures of individualism in a U.S. sample (N = 382). Study 2 used Triandis's horizontalvertical individualism-collectivism framework in samples from Bulgaria,

We hypothesized that in individualistic cultures, individualism predicts positive attitudes toward assisted death, whereas authoritarianism is negatively associated with favorable views of this issue. Study 1 confirmed this hypothesis in a Polish sample (n=100). Study 2, using a German sample (n=102), found the predicted relationships for forms of assisted death that involved the individual self-determination of a terminally ill patient. In Study 3 (n=72), we found experimental evidence that priming individualistic aspects of the self-concept results in more favorable views of physician-assisted suicide. Using a representative sample (n=1158), Study 4 found that across the United States, regional levels of individualism are reflected in corresponding patterns of support for assisted suicide. The discussion focuses on assisted suicide as a cultural phenomenon and explores the implications of growing levels of individualism for public opinion and policy on assisted suicide.

Beliefs about birth rank reflect what the society regards as social reality, and they may also influence that reality. Three studies found that people believe those with different birth ranks differ in their personalities, that higher birth ranks are likely to attain higher occupational prestige, and that the personality characteristics attributed to the various birth ranks favor the actual attainment of higher occupational prestige. In one example of such beliefs, firstborns were rated as most intelligent but least creative whereas the opposite was true of last-borns. The 4th study found that those with higher birth ranks in fact attain more prestigious occupations and actually do complete more years of schooling.

Before making a final choice, people screen available options for acceptability; those considered "good enough" constitute a goal-category. Foraging theories assume screening is an adaptation whereby low-ranked options are accepted when search costs (i.e., effort or risk associated with striving) are high and rejected when search costs are low. We argue that some individuals, called interval strategists, typically consider many options acceptable and, hence, form broad goal-categories; others, called point strategists, typically consider few options acceptable and form narrow goal-categories. We also argue that because of limited capacity, there is a trade-off between encoding ends and encoding means so that as the goalcategory range increases, detailed planning decreases. Findings in our first study support this analysis. The next two studies assumed search costs in Poland (e.g., the effort or risk involved in shopping, housing, traveling) were greater under central planning than under the current market economy. Hence, prior to 1989, broad goal-categories were more adaptive than narrow goal-categories; since 1989, however, the reverse has been true. Consistent with this hypothesis, in Study 2, Poles who were point strategists perceived their conditions of life and self-efficacy had improved more since 1989 than did Poles who were interval strategists. Study 3 demonstrates a capacity to recognize which screening strategy is more adaptive under central planning and market conditions:

ew people are able to change the direction of a field, and Robert Zajonc is one such person. However, he has done more than reorient social psychology.F Overlooked is his ability to father institutions. Among other things, he is responsible for the birth of the Institute for Social Studies (ISS), an independent interdisciplinary research organization at the University of Warsaw-to the best of our knowledge it is Zajonc's latest offspring-which has come to play a key role in the revitalization of social science in Poland.What does ISS do? Because it is sister to the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, many of the projects are similar in kind (if not in magnitude), albeit with an emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe. However, peculiar to ISSand one of its main objectives-is the monitoring of social, political, and economic reforms associated with the transition from totalitarianism and central planning to democracy and a market economy. In this chapter, we attempt to illustrate this work by examining the problem of psychological adaptation. To do so, we begin with a general analysis of the stages of the transition in Poland and the adaptive problems each stage poses. (We owe our gratitude to Janusz Grzelak, Andrzej Nowak, and Stan Mika for their long inspiring discussion of stages of adaptation.) Following this is a discussion of research camed out at ISS to test some implications of the analysis. Stages of the Transition and Problems of AdaptationAlthough the reforms occurring in Central and Eastern Europe are fundamental, they are nonlinear over time. In the short term, their trajectories vacillate unpredictably and, hence, cause uncertainty. We presume the end-state is political freedom and a market economy. History, however, demonstrates no law saylng that when authoritarian regimes dissolve, they reconstitute themselves as democracies. The

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