Tribespotting: a semiotic analysis of the role of consumption in the tribes of Trainspotting

• The postmodern self is so engaged with the symbolic aspects of consumption that many authors have argued that consumption defines the self. Drawing upon the literature in this area, with a particular stress on the symbolic interactionist school of thought, it is the thesis of the authors that many acts of consumption are tribal and role supporting. From this we develop a model: the rubix cube of postmodern consumption. This model places the power of self‐definition squarely on the psychic powers of the individual and not in the realms of consumption. Consumption does not define the self. Evidence, to support this view and model, is garnered from a semiotic analysis of consumption in the motion picture Trainspotting.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social meanings in Christmas consumption: an exploratory study of UK celebrants' consumption rituals

• Although much has been written about the celebration of Christmas from a variety of perspectives, limited attention has been paid in the consumer behaviour literature to understanding the behaviours of consumers surrounding this event. Apart from insights gained from prior work on consumption rituals and meanings of festivities, our knowledge of meaning creation through Christmas consumption is partial, and written mainly from a North American perspective. Since consumer behaviour is shaped by cultural and social contexts, understanding the relationship between consumption objects and the social meanings that consumers ascribe to them is a research imperative. This paper explores the ways in which the British Christmas is consumed as a shared consumption experience, by bringing together two different approaches taken by consumer researchers and sociologists to analysing social consumption patterns. These are drawn from structuralist and post‐structuralist thinking. The findings of an exploratory qualitative study are used to demonstrate how an enhanced understanding of consumption meanings associated with this particular cultural context can lead to new insights into how consumers create social meanings through special, as well as ordinary, behaviours.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Number sense at 12 months predicts 4-year-olds’ maths skills

Preverbal infants spontaneously represent the number of objects in collections. Is this ‘sense of number’ (also referred to as Approximate Number System, ANS) part of the cognitive foundations of mathematical skills? Multiple studies reported a correlation between the ANS and mathematical achievement in children. However, some have suggested that such correlation might be mediated by general-purpose inhibitory skills. We addressed the question using a longitudinal approach: we tested the ANS of 60 12 months old infants and, when they were 4 years old (final N = 40), their symbolic math achievement as well as general intelligence and inhibitory skills. Results showed that the ANS at 12 months is a specific predictor of later maths skills independent from general intelligence or inhibitory skills. The correlation between ANS and maths persists when both abilities are measured at four years. These results confirm that the ANS has an early, specific and longstanding relation with mathematical abilities in childhood.

Research Highlights

• In the literature there is a lively debate about the correlation between the ANS and maths skills.
• We longitudinally tested a sample of 60 preverbal infants at 12 months and rested them at 4 years (final sample of 40 infants).
• The ANS tested at 12 months predicted later symbolic mathematical skills at 4 years, even when controlling for inhibition, general intelligence and perceptual skills.
• The ANS tested at 4 years remained linked with symbolic maths skills, confirming this early and longstanding relation in childhood.

     

The malleable bicultural consumer: effects of cultural contexts on aesthetic judgments

• Grounded in the cognitive framework of processing fluency, this study proposes further support for the experiential perspective in aesthetics by positing that aesthetic response to the same object may be malleable, depending on how the symbolic properties of the object interact with different cultural contexts which either facilitate or debilitate the processing experience of the perceiver. The study employed an Internet experiment to test the hypotheses among 105 female Hispanic college‐aged students enrolled at a large midwestern university. The findings revealed that symbolic attributes of products interact with cultural contexts to affect aesthetic judgments of (Hispanic) consumers. Aesthetic judgments were more positive when evaluating culturally symbolic product attributes after exposure to congruent contextual cues that facilitate fluent processing. The study furnishes support for the impact of environment/context on consumer behavior and aesthetic judgment, thus establishing further support for the cognitive framework of conceptual fluency in explaining aesthetic response. The study also contributes to recent literature on “frame‐switching” among bicultural consumers by suggesting that these consumers navigate between competing cultural frames in response to visual primes, with resultant shifts in aesthetic judgments. Important marketing insights emerge from these findings.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceived cultural spaces and cultural in‐betweens: Consumption among Korean Australians

• This study explores the influence of both generation and acculturation on food and media consumption patterns of Korean migrant families in Australia. Given the lack of studies specifically examining acculturative and generational influences on changes occurring in a culturally adaptive context, this study's objectives are to explore not only the experience of consumption for the families but also the differences between first‐ and second‐generation migrants and the differences within the family between parent and child. The findings of the study demonstrate the conflicted and negotiated construction of consumption around the dual cultural identities. The complexity and creolised effect of consumption appears when traditional food meets with the multi‐cuisine foodscape of Australia. The nostalgic consumption of certain kinds of ‘ethnic media’ meets up with the second generation's consumption of the same kinds of media for easy and quick‐fix ‘socialisation’. Elements of ‘reverse socialisation’ are also observed in the data. The study contributes to a better understanding of the cumulative and often intertwined effects of acculturation and/or generation in consumption changes.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Foreign brands in local cultures: A socio‐cultural perspective of postmodern brandscapes

The aim of this paper is to explore how the consumption of foreign brands may operate in a local culture (specifically, the consumption of Western luxury fashion brands among Muslim women in Kuwait). Field observations were conducted in Kuwait, and a qualitative questionnaire was administered to 50 Muslim female consumers. Although not a common method for qualitative research, the benefits of using a qualitative questionnaire are highlighted. The findings show that the socio‐cultural dynamics in Kuwait (mainly religion and tradition) may restrict the expression of certain behaviour (such as female sexuality and dating). However, Muslim women make use of Western luxury fashion brands as postmodern brandscapes (fragmented and constantly negotiated use of a symbolic brand to actively construct lifestyle orientations and personal meanings among one's neo‐tribe) to manifest their expressions of sexuality in alternative ways. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Insiders,regulars and tourists: exploring selves and music consumption in adolescence

• Adolescents, with respect to consumption and the symbolic self, are in a crucial period of identity formation. Music is significant in this respect as it has been described as a catalyst for individuals seeking to construct the ‘self’ and can play a central role in forming an identity. This paper seeks to explore the ways in which adolescent music use and consumption facilitates a greater understanding of identity formation and psychological or peer group practices. Twenty four in‐depth interviews were conducted with 12 adolescents over a 6–12 month period. All adolescents were interviewed twice with a view to observing changes in music consumption practices. The author adopts the terms of insiders, regulars and tourists to illustrate the different characteristics of adolescent music consumers in the context of their varying levels of investment and commitment. Initial findings demonstrate that music is used to build social capital, to create boundaries and to enhance social inclusion and exclusion.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Young children interpret number gestures differently than nonsymbolic sets

Researchers have long been interested in the origins of humans’ understanding of symbolic number, focusing primarily on how children learn the meanings of number words (e.g., “one”, “two”, etc.). However, recent evidence indicates that children learn the meanings of number gestures before learning number words. In the present set of experiments, we ask whether children's early knowledge of number gestures resembles their knowledge of nonsymbolic number. In four experiments, we show that preschool children (n = 139 in total; age M = 4.14 years, SD = 0.71, range = 2.75–6.20) do not view number gestures in the same the way that they view nonsymbolic representations of quantity (i.e., arrays of shapes), which opens the door for the possibility that young children view number gestures as symbolic, as adults and older children do. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/WtVziFN1yuI

Highlights

• Children were more accurate when enumerating briefly-presented number gestures than arrays of shapes, with a shallower decline in accuracy as quantities increased.
• We replicated this finding with arrays of shapes that were organized into neat, dice-like configurations (compared to the random configurations used in Experiment 1).
• The advantage in enumerating briefly-presented number gestures was evident before children had learned the cardinal principle.
• When gestures were digitally altered to pit handshape configuration against number of fingers extended, children overwhelmingly based their responses on handshape configuration.

     

Logical consequence: A defense of Tarski

In his classic 1936 essay “On the Concept of Logical Consequence”, Alfred Tarski used the notion of satisfaction to give a semantic characterization of the logical properties. Tarski is generally credited with introducing the model-theoretic characterization of the logical properties familiar to us today. However, in his book, The Concept of Logical Consequence, Etchemendy argues that Tarski's account is inadequate for quite a number of reasons, and is actually incompatible with the standard model-theoretic account. Many of his criticisms are meant to apply to the model-theoretic account as well. In this paper, I discuss the following four critical charges that Etchemendy makes against Tarski and his account of the logical properties:

1. Tarski's account of logical consequence diverges from the standard model-theoretic account at points where the latter account gets it right.
2. Tarski's account cannot be brought into line with the model-theoretic account, because the two are fundamentally incompatible.
3. There are simple counterexamples (enumerated by Etchemendy) which show that Tarski's account is wrong.
4. Tarski committed a modal fallacy when arguing that his account captures our pre-theoretical concept of logical consequence, and so obscured an essential weakness of the account.
5. Tarski's account depends on there being a distinction between the “logical terms” and the “non-logical terms” of a language, but (according to Etchemendy) there are very simple (even first-order) languages for which no such distinction can be made. Etchemendy's critique raises historical and philosophical questions about important foundational work. However, Etchemendy is mistaken about each of these central criticisms. In the course of justifying that claim, I give a sustained explication and defense of Tarski's account. Moreover, since I will argue that Tarski's account and the model-theoretic account really do come to the same thing, my subsequent defense of Tarski's account against Etchemendy's other attacks doubles as a defense against criticisms that would apply equally to the familiar model-theoretic account of the logical properties.

     

The Internal Problem of Dreaming: Detection and Epistemic Risk

Abstract

There are two epistemological problems connected with dreaming, which are of different kinds and require different treatment. The internal problem is best seen as a problem of rational consistency, of how we can maintain all of:

1. Dreams are experiences we have during sleep.

2. Dream‐experiences are sufficiently similar to waking experiences for the subject to be able to mistake them for waking experiences.

3. We can tell that we are awake.

(1)–(3) threaten to violate a requirement on discrimination: that we can only tell Xs from Ys if there is some detectable difference between Xs and Ys. Attempts to solve the problem by Descartes and Williams are considered. It is suggested that if we take account of levels of epistemic risk, we can use Descartes’s criterion of lack of coherence, at least with hindsight – which is the time when we need to use it.     

Caught between cultures: cultural norms in Jungian psychodynamic process

Abstract: In our increasingly mobile world, more of us are caught between cultures rather than in one culture. We straddle different ethnic, racial, political, geographical, and religious groups, forced into awareness of the precarious nature of our self‐definition, involuntarily gazing at the constructed nature of our cultural norms, unable to avoid reckoning with the choices of which collective to honour. The impossibility of separating individual from collective is foundational to work as Jungian practitioners, but a paradox of individuation is becoming free of the control of collective norms while simultaneously living within those very norms. In such a conflict it becomes easy to overlook the fact that when the norms we have incorporated into ourselves are from cultures vastly different from the one in which we live, the cacophony can be overwhelming. In this paper, I will draw from postmodern theorists such as Derrida, Foucault and Irigaray in an effort to re‐imagine the role of culture in psychodynamic process. The case of a Muslim Iranian man working with a Christian American woman analyst will be used to explore the complexity of a multitude of cultural norms present in the consulting room.     

Medicine's symbolic reality

Modern socio‐cultural studies of medicine demonstrate the symbolic character of much of medical reality. This symbolic reality can be appreciated as mediating the traditional division of medicine into biophysical and human sciences. Comparative studies of medical systems offer a general model for medicine as a human science. These studies document that medicine, from an historical and cross‐cultural perspective, is constituted as a cultural system in which symbolic meanings take an active part in disease formation, the classification and cognitive management of illness, and in therapy. Medicine's symbolic reality also forms a bridge between cultural and psychophysiological phenomena; the basis for psychosomatic and socioso‐matic pathology and therapy. This in turn becomes a central problem for medical theory and for a philosophical reinvestigation of medicine.     

Ironic imperialism: how Russian patriots are reclaiming postmodernism

This essay analyzes the recent appearance in Russian letters of ultra-nationalist fantasies about the restoration of Russia??s imperial or totalitarian status. This new trend has its roots not only in the increasingly patriotic tone of Russian society and politics, but also in the dynamics of the literary field itself. ??Imperialist writers?? such as Aleksandr Prokhanov and Pavel Krusanov have both revived and reacted against postmodern themes and motifs from earlier decades. Relying on the legacy of sots-art and stiob, the ??imperialists?? advance a new model in Russia??s postmodern tradition, one that is balanced on the very borderline between irony and ideological militancy. In playing the game of ambiguous fanaticism, these writers have been able to attract the attention of a broad and diverse public, and have moved from an intellectual periphery into the cultural mainstream.     

Constructing Cultural Competence: Perspectives of Family Therapists Working with Latino Families

This article focuses on developing an understanding of how nine therapists working with Latino families construct the idea of cultural competence in the counseling room. In-depth interviews were conducted and analyzed yielding five themes in cultural competence from the therapists' perspectives: the use of language in therapy; the impact of social class, gender, and power on the therapeutic relationship; immigration and culture clash; definitions of family; and unique constructions of cultural competence. The therapists'narratives in this study are best understood through a postmodern paradigm suggesting that the field of psychotherapy needs to move beyond a “checklist” modernistic approach to developing cultural competency.     

Premodern, modern, and postmodern perspectives on sex and gender mixes

Postmodern sensibilities, generally associated with relational psychoanalysis, are applicable also in traditional and contemporary Freudian psychoanalytic contexts. Historically speaking, views of femininity and female sexuality may be ordered according to positions designated as premodern, modern, and postmodern. This temporal continuum provides a basis for incorporating aspects of postmodern feminist approaches to deconstructing gender into a more traditional yet contemporary psychoanalytic framework. The postmodern "crisis of category" is addressed through a critique from a modern psychoanalytic point of view of the gender stereotyping inherent in certain false binaries and either/or thinking of premodern psychoanalytic thinking regarding female (as well as male) sex and gender. The cultural changes brought about by the consciousness-raising of postmodern feminist and contemporary psychoanalytic thinking contribute significantly to evolutionary changes in the understanding of gender that are further internalized and represented intrapsychically. That is, sequential transformations in the internalization of new cultural norms influence the development of still more new cultural norms, so that progression in these identificatory markers of gender can be observed over successive generations.     

Gender,Physical Attractiveness,and Assertiveness

Abstract

This study was an examination of comfortable proxemic distances assumed by the interactants, female Canadian students. Previous studies were consistent with Hall'S (1959, 1966) cultural model only when the interactants were from the same cultural group. When they were from different cultural groups, however, the cultural model was not adequate: The findings were more consistent with a symbolic interactionist interpretation, namely, that a negotiation takes place and the comfortable distance is adjusted to that of both groups. In this study, we held cultural group and sex constant and introduced the problem of the interviewer'S retreat from the original comfortable distance established by the subject. In all cases, the subject re-established a new comfortable distance that was a compromise between the one originally chosen and the distance assumed by the interviewer.     

Culture,salience, and psychiatric diagnosis: exploring the concept of cultural congruence & its practical application

Introduction

Cultural congruence is the idea that to the extent a belief or experience is culturally shared it is not to feature in a diagnostic judgement, irrespective of its resemblance to psychiatric pathology. This rests on the argument that since deviation from norms is central to diagnosis, and since what counts as deviation is relative to context, assessing the degree of fit between mental states and cultural norms is crucial. Various problems beset the cultural congruence construct including impoverished definitions of culture as religious, national or ethnic group and of congruence as validation by that group. This article attempts to address these shortcomings to arrive at a cogent construct.

Results

The article distinguishes symbolic from phenomenological conceptions of culture, the latter expanded upon through two sources: Husserl’s phenomenological analysis of background intentionality and neuropsychological literature on salience. It is argued that culture is not limited to symbolic presuppositions and shapes subjects’ experiential dispositions. This conception is deployed to re-examine the meaning of (in)congruence. The main argument is that a significant, since foundational, deviation from culture is not from a value or belief but from culturally-instilled experiential dispositions, in what is salient to an individual in a particular context.

Conclusion

Applying the concept of cultural congruence must not be limited to assessing violations of the symbolic order and must consider alignment with or deviations from culturally-instilled experiential dispositions. By virtue of being foundational to a shared experience of the world, such dispositions are more accurate indicators of potential vulnerability. Notwithstanding problems of access and expertise, clinical practice should aim to accommodate this richer meaning of cultural congruence.