The person in political emotion

Recent social psychological theory and research on political issues has returned to once-popular concepts such as political emotion and ideology. Strikingly, however, this work tends to avoid the notion of personality and explicit reference to individual differences. For example, the numerous studies that examine correlations between political beliefs, feelings, and preferences rarely acknowledge that such associations show an ideological coherence in individuals. Instead, correlations between abstract constructs are interpreted as suggesting causal processes. Individuals, and their responses, are aggregated to generate such correlations but remain for the most part unexamined and unmentioned. I discuss 5 practices in research and reporting that make it difficult to find the person in correlational models of political emotion. I use my own research to illustrate these practices and to show how attention to macrolevel forces such as group membership, status, and structure may be integrated with attention to the individual person and meaningful aggregates.     

The minister as pastor and person

The image of the clown as developed by Faber to illustrate the role of the hospital chaplain as a deepening and unifying force in that setting is utilized to elucidate the role and needs of ministers as they function as significant professionals in the community. As such, they are both pastors and persons. As pastors, they are also symbols to others representing a reality larger than merely their own personhood. Nevertheless, for the most effective work, the development of the person as person is a prerequisite. Their increasing competence can be secured only through the supervision of their pastoral work by another highly trained, skilled and sensitive practitioner.     

The psychiatric patient as a person

The dehumanization which is so much a part of a technological society is keenly felt by psychiatric patients. Pastors must treat them with care if they are to recover their personhood. The author suggests certain pastoral approaches intended to reflect the values of the inherent worth of persons and their moral responsibility and right to self-fulfillment. Included in the approach is the need to gather the facts, establish rapport, empathize, listen with love, interpret, and have a plan of action.Professor Barnette is Professor of Christian Ethics Emeritus at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He presently serves as Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, Kentucky 40201.     

The structure of semantic person memory: evidence from semantic priming in person recognition

This paper reviews research on the structure of semantic person memory as examined with semantic priming. In this experimental paradigm, a familiarity decision on a target face or written name is usually faster when it is preceded by a related as compared to an unrelated prime. This effect has been shown to be relatively short lived and susceptible to interfering items. Moreover, semantic priming can cross stimulus domains, such that a written name can prime a target face and vice versa. However, it remains controversial whether representations of people are stored in associative networks based on co-occurrence, or in more abstract semantic categories. In line with prominent cognitive models of face recognition, which explain semantic priming by shared semantic information between prime and target, recent research demonstrated that priming could be obtained from purely categorically related, non-associated prime/target pairs. Although strategic processes, such as expectancy and retrospective matching likely contribute, there is also evidence for a non-strategic contribution to priming, presumably related to spreading activation. Finally, a semantic priming effect has been demonstrated in the N400 event-related potential (ERP) component, which may reflect facilitated access to semantic information. It is concluded that categorical relatedness is one organizing principle of semantic person memory.     

The concept of the fully functioning person

Conclusion Here then is my theoretical model of the person who emerges from therapy—a person functioning freely in all the fullness of his organismic potentialities; a person who is dependable in being realistic, self-enhancing, socialized and appropriate in his behavior; a creative person, whose specific formings of behavior are not easily predictable; a person who is ever changing, ever developing, always discovering himself and the newness in himself in each succeeding moment of time. This is the person who in an imperfect way actually emerges from the experience of safety and freedom in a therapeutic experience, and this is the person whom I have tried to describe for you in pure form.My purpose has not been to convince you of the correctness of this view. Indeed I would have to confess that I have written this paper primarily for my own satisfaction, to clarify the thoughts which have been stirring in me. But if this presentation causes you to formulate your view of the person who emerges from therapy, or enables you to point out flaws in my own thinking which I have not yet seen, or arouses in you the desire to put to objective test either this picture or one which you paint for yourself, then it will have fully served both its primary and its secondary purpose.Reprinted by permission from Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, Vol. 1, No. 1, August, 1963.     

Treating fetuses: The patient as person

The medical treatment in utero of human beings raises several ethical questions. I argue that treatment is sufficient to establish the fetus as person; and consider how conflicts between the interests of the fetus and mother are to be resolved when such treatment is proposed. My arguments rest upon a 'relational model' of ethical discourse derived from H. Richard Niebuhr's "ethics of the fitting." I conclude that the limitation of personal autonomy is rarely justified, but may be when direct, grave, harm to others is imminent; and that educative rather than punitive measures are the best prospect for protecting fetal life.     

The person as co-investigator in personality research

In this paper, arguments are presented for considering the subject as co-investigator in personality research. A review of current research methods suggests that personality psychology is well on its way to recognizing the individual as an expert on his or her own self and situation. This means that the subject should also be allowed to take a much more active role in psychological research. It is argued that the ideal methodology for accomplishing this integration of the individual into psychological research is to establish a dialogue between psychologist and subject, allowing each to contribute to the scientific process from his or her own perspective and on the basis of his or her own expertise. The present approach calls for greater emphasis on the organization and coherence of personality as a system, greater openness and sensitivity to the particular world of the individual, and an even more dynamic conception of individuality than is currently found in our field. An important implication of the open system approach advocated in this article, the reduced role of prediction in personality research, is discussed and, finally, a preliminary list of expected gains and losses is presented.