Applying the concept of national character to states within a nation: an extension of Lynn's methodology

Eleven social characteristics of the states of America in 1990 were used to derive factor scores which, following Lynn, appear to measure extraversion and neuroticism.     

Climatic warmth and national wealth: some culture‐level determinants of national character stereotypes

National character stereotypes are widely shared, but do not reflect assessed levels of personality traits. In this article we present data illustrating the divergence of stereotypes and assessed personality traits in North and South Italy, test hypotheses about the associations of temperature and national wealth with national character stereotypes in 49 cultures, and explore possible links to national values and beliefs. Results suggest that warmth and wealth are common determinants of national stereotypes, but that there are also idiosyncratic influences on the perceptions of individual nations. Published in 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Perverse Mother: Maternal Masochism in Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby

This essay suggests that despite the traditional viewpoint that it seemingly supplements patriarchy's consistent marginalization of maternal bodies, masochism, as formulated by Gilles Deleuze, offers the possibility of a maternal subjectivity beyond paternal domination. Deleuze's conception of masochism reveals an innovative way in which to view maternity as a tactical schema that operates through the perverse disavowal and resexualization of patriarchal law in order not only to destabilize its foundations, but to produce a maternal identity of the mother's own creation. This essay will use Ira Levin's horror novel Rosemary's Baby to contextualize an adaptation of Deleuze's theory in order to account for the relationship between mother and child, and the emergent subjectivity the dyad produces. Levin's novel seamlessly showcases how the maternal body is observed and optimized by reproductive technologies in order to produce not only a heteronormative ideal of maternity, but a child who will reflect paternal law. This essay argues that the titular character, Rosemary Woodhouse, establishes a masochistic contract with her son whereby she reconfigures his identity through a perverse disavowal of the Law of the Father, replacing it with maternal authority. Most important, her performance of masochism results in the marginalization of the father, and the emergence of a new maternal identity.     

Revisiting The Body in Pain: The Rhetoric of Modern Masochism

A common-sense definition of pain would state first of all that pain is bad: pain is by definition what all living creatures most fundamentally seek to avoid. And yet, anyone with an average range of experience knows that much of what is ordinarily termed pain??from stretching to massage to exercise to childbirth??is not necessarily aversive. Self-proclaimed masochists are one group who embrace and embody the complex human relationship with pain as both an undeniably material experience, but also a practice deeply embedded in culture and rhetoric. Reading through Elaine Scarry and Deleuze and Guattari, this article seeks to engage the apparent paradox that makes pain both an irresistible weapon of torture and a mechanism towards an ecstatic restructuring of subjectivity. The article posits that it is precisely the complex discourse and rhetoric of pain which allows the material experience of it to be so radically contextually determined.     

The Rod of Discipline: Masochism, Sadism, and the Judeo-Christian Religion

Within the Judeo-Christian tradition, the scenario where a person, often a child, is being beaten by a parent, an authority figure, or even God, is often found. This essay searches for an explanation for this phenomenon by combining Sigmund Freud's thoughts on the masochism of the Oedipus complex and Martin Bergmann's belief that Western religion was impacted by the sadism of the Laius and Jocasta Complexes. The paper argues that, within the section of the Judeo-Christian tradition that sanctions the physical abuse of children, sadism and masochism find the perfect marriage.     

Aliveness in the work of the group: a subjective guide to creative character change.

The subjective response of aliveness in the work of the group may be a valuable signal on the journey toward creative character change in group therapy. In order to promote change in others, the group therapist must engage deeply and use internal responses as guides during interactions with group members as well as in relation to the group as a whole. Subjective awareness of increased aliveness that is linked with a sense of the work of the group may guide both therapist and group participants in the midst of inevitable anxieties and passions aroused during this quest for new vitality and freedom in relationships in the group. Winnicott's concept of potential space as well as group-relations theory about the primary task provide a conceptual foundation for this approach not only on the level of the individual member within the group but also on the level of the group as a whole.     

Women's body images: The results of a national survey in the U.S.A.

This investigation was a representative survey, conducted in 1993, of the body images of 803 adult women in the United States. Included in the survey instrument were selected subscales from the standardized Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire, which had been used in a U.S. survey in 1985. The results indicated substantial levels of body dissatisfaction, possibly surpassing levels observed in the 1985 survey. Nearly one-half of the women reported globally negative evaluations of their appearance and a preoccupation with being or becoming overweight. Whereas age effects were minimal, significant race/ethnicity effects were found, with clearly more positive body images among African American than Anglo or Hispanic women. The social and clinical implications of the findings were discussed.     

Deconstructing trait anxiety: a network perspective

Background and objectives: For decades, the dominant paradigm in trait anxiety research has regarded the construct as signifying the underlying cause of the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that supposedly reflect its presence. Recently, a network theory of personality has appeared. According to this perspective, trait anxiety is a formative construct emerging from interactions among its constitutive features (e.g., thought, feelings, behaviors); it is not a latent cause of these features.

Design: In this study, we characterized trait anxiety as a network system of interacting elements.

Methods: To do so, we estimated a graphical gaussian model via the computation of a regularized partial correlation network in an unselected sample (N?=?611). We also implemented modularity-based community detection analysis to test whether the features of trait anxiety cohere as a single network system.

Results: We find that trait anxiety can indeed be conceptualized as a single, coherent network system of interacting elements.

Conclusions: This radically new approach to visualizing trait anxiety may offer an especially informative view of the interplay between its constitutive features. As prior research has implicated trait anxiety as a risk factor for the development of anxiety-related psychopathology, our findings also set the scene for novel research directions.     

From a state to a trait: Trajectories of state mindfulness in meditation during intervention predict changes in trait mindfulness

Theory suggests that heightening state mindfulness in meditation practice over time increases trait mindfulness, which benefits psychological health. We prospectively examined individual trajectories of state mindfulness in meditation during a mindfulness-based intervention in relation to changes in trait mindfulness and psychological distress. Each week during the eight-week intervention, participants reported their state mindfulness in meditation after a brief mindfulness meditation. Participants also completed pre- and post-intervention measures of trait mindfulness and psychological symptoms. Tests of combined latent growth and path models suggested that individuals varied significantly in their rates of change in state mindfulness in meditation during the intervention, and that these individual trajectories predicted pre-post intervention changes in trait mindfulness and distress. These findings support that increasing state mindfulness over repeated meditation sessions may contribute to a more mindful and less distressed disposition. However, individuals’ trajectories of change may vary and warrant further investigation.