The Psychopath: What's Love Got to Do with It?

The archetypal figure of the psychopath has always been fascinating, even numinous, and terrifying. We know him as the headline-making serial killer, shameless fraud, or charming con artist, but we are not as well aware of him as an inner aspect of the psyche, a cold, implacable figure that can do horrific deeds but also act as a protection against them. We each have a natural and strong resistance to recognizing such a figure in our own psyches, but the old adage is true: It takes one to know one, and such knowledge is our best defense against its destructiveness.

The psychopath as an individual has been called by many names since the syndrome was first identified more than 200 years ago, each new appellation reflecting the attitude of the culture toward it. But following Manfred Bleuler's and then Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig's work on the psychopathic personality, the argument for understanding the psychopath as congenital and incurable seems as convincing as when it was put forward decades ago.

But now the characteristics of the psychopathic attitude are visible everywhere in collective American culture, even epidemic: in politics, commerce, technology, and in psychology itself. Eros is conspicuous by his absence in more and more areas of public life and discourse.

The future of our species is endangered by a psychopathic lack of reflection on the ways in which psychopathic institutions and technologies work insidiously to erode our capacity for Eros and thus our capacity for relatedness, deep emotion, and human love.     

Men Pursuing an Undergraduate Psychology Degree: What’s Masculinity Got to Do with It?

Using discursive psychology as its theoretical and methodological framework, the present study explored male Canadian undergraduate students’ accounts of their reasons for studying psychology, their experiences of being male undergraduate psychology students, and their anticipated future careers. Ten men (19–29 years-old) who were at least in their second year of study in the psychology major program were interviewed. Contrary to survey research concluding that men who make gender-atypical vocational choices conform less to masculine norms than do men who make typical academic and career choices, our participants produced contradictory accounts. On the one hand, in talking about their experiences as psychology students in the context of the gender gap, they argued that gender does not matter. On the other hand, they showed that gender does matter in brief “boy moments” when they shared tacit gender knowledge with the interviewer and in justifying their academic paths toward futures that involved leaving psychology for a male-concentrated field. Thus, gender-does-not matter was the preferred argument when gender was an explicit topic of conversation, and the doing of gender occurred in unacknowledged ways.

     

What’s Love Got to Do with It: Relationship Functioning and Mental and Physical Quality of Life Among Pregnant Adolescent Couples

The study objective was to describe relationship adjustment and its association with mental and physical quality of life for young couples expecting a baby. 296 young pregnant couples recruited from urban obstetric clinics reported on relationship strengths (e.g., equity, romantic love, and attractiveness), relationship risks (e.g., attachment, intimate partner violence), external family support, relationship adjustment, and mental and physical quality of life. Using the Actor Partner Interdependence Model we assessed both actor and partner effects of relationship variables on relationship adjustment and quality of life. Sixty-one percent of couples had at least one member with moderate or severe relationship distress. Lower attachment avoidance, lower attachment anxiety, higher relationship equity, lack of intimate partner violence, feelings of love, perceived partner attractiveness, and family support of the relationship related to better relationship adjustment. Associations were fairly consistent across gender. Better relationship adjustment related to more positive mental and physical quality of life for both young women and men. Our results highlight the potential importance of strong relationships on the well-being of expecting parents. Our results suggest that secure attachments, equitable relationships, feelings of love, and a lack of violence may be particularly important in having strong relationships and improved mental and physical health during pregnancy.     

Women,Ethnicity, and AIDS: What's Love Got to Do with It?

This paper examines the usefulness of relationships as the critical factor in preventing AIDS for women of color. An analysis is offered of the conceptualization of issues, as well as the prevention measures and safe-sex strategies developed for gay men versus women's HIV/AIDS incidence rates. The discussion of similarities demonstrates that gender and culture play a role in the disproportionate negative impact affecting the health status of women of color. The compounding factor of poverty is considered essential to the complex situation in the ethnic minority community, resulting in a lack of public concern and a lack of community responsiveness to these women. Finally, several challenges for health researchers are presented including the need to adopt cultural sensitivity in research efforts, include researchers with an understanding of the ethnic community's perspective, and develop clearer guidelines for risk assessment.     

What’s Human Rights Got to Do with It? On the Proposed Changes to SSHRC Ethics Research Policy

What’s human rights got to do with it? That is, what’s human rights got to do with the June 2004 report of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Ethics Special Working Committee to the Inter-Agency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics. The disturbing answer is “not enough.” Certain key recommendations of the working committee, it is suggested, would unacceptably weaken the researcher’s legal and moral accountability to research participants. Those particular recommendations rely on misguided references to academic freedom and the nature of the non-medical research context. In fact, universal human rights, and the legal instruments in which they are embodied ought to inform the research endeavor at every stage; from problem selection to analysis and conclusions. This will lead us closer to shared truths rather than simply to the academic elite’s vision of truth. Without sufficient regard for the human rights of research participants academic freedom itself is not possible.     

What’s Love Got to Do with It? A Qualitative Grounded Theory Content Analysis of Romance Narratives in the PG Era of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Programming

Although numerous studies have examined cultural representations of love and romance in myriad media sources, scarce attention has been paid to such representations in the genre of sports entertainment. As the most popular brand within this genre, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is an important conduit of cultural knowledge in which to investigate narratives about modern romance. Using qualitative grounded theory content analysis methods, the current study examined representations of romance narratives in WWE’s two highest rated programs (Monday Night Raw and Friday Night Smackdown!) over a 6 month period. Fifty-two episodes comprising 105 h of televised programming were analyzed. Data analysis revealed evidence of six central romance narratives (Prince Charming, Dark Romance, Femme Fatale, Gold Digger, Cougar, and Woman Scorned). The meanings of these narratives were frequently contradictory in nature, revealing complex ideas about the nature of heterosexual romance. Many of the romantic relationships presented contained elements of multiple narratives, suggesting conflicting presentations of heterosexual gender relations not just across but also within individual relationships. Implications of these findings through the lens of social learning and schema theories are provided.     

The Modern Construction of Childhood: What Does It Do to the Paradox of Modernity?

The examination of the modern construction of subject is not over yet. Although many thinkers have exhausted its conceptual ambiguities and practical consequences, its impact is far from fully understood without an analysis of the construction of childhood for the future subject. In this essay, I problematize five constructions of childhood that emerged in the modern time and scrutinize the impasses of logic or conceptual ambiguities within, along with the practical consequences thereof. I explore how the modern construction of childhood is problematic in and of itself, as well as the light it sheds on the deeply embedded ambiguities and aporia (Wagner in A sociology of modernity: liberty and discipline. Routledge, New York 1994; Zhao in Educ Theory 57(1):75–88 2007) in the construction of the modern subject. This paper will untangle the problems associated with each of these constructs and their respective implications for the making of the modern subject.     

What’s Religion Got to Do with It? Exploring College Students’ Sexual and Reproductive Health Knowledge and Awareness of Sexual and Reproductive Health Services in Relation to Their Gender and Religiosity

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between religiosity and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) knowledge and awareness of campus SRH services among college students on a racially and ethnically diverse college campus. The sample included 996 undergraduate students at a large public university in California. For women, there was a consistent pattern across religious affiliations of more frequent attenders reporting lower SRH knowledge than less frequent attenders. These findings suggest that higher rates of religious attendance among Catholic, Protestant, and Evangelical women pose a risk for lower SRH knowledge. The results suggest the need for SRH outreach and educational materials targeting men in general, who had lower levels of SRH knowledge and awareness of SRH services overall, and taking religiosity into account, particularly with regard to women.     

Is the Requirement of Sexual Exclusivity Consistent with Romantic Love?

In some cultures, people tend to believe that it is very important to be sexually exclusive in romantic relationships and idealise monogamous romantic relationships; but there is a tension in this ideal. Sex is generally considered to have value, and usually when we love someone we want to increase the amount of value in their lives, not restrict it without good reason. There is thus a call, not yet adequately responded to by philosophers, for greater clarity in the reasons §why it might be reasonable for a couple to adopt a policy of sexual exclusivity. This article argues that we cannot justify the demand for sexual exclusivity by a need to protect the relationship from the risk of one partner ‘trading‐up’, or by appealing to jealousy. However, sexual exclusivity can be intelligible if it supports the romantic relationship and helps to distinguish it from other relationships. Nonetheless, sexual exclusivity ought not to be the hegemonic social norm that it currently is in some societies because this diminishes the potential value it might have and gives the idea of faithfulness the wrong focus.     

What’s Ignored in Itō Jinsai’s Interpretation of Mencius?

This article discusses the 17^th century Japanese Confucian Itō Jinsai’s interpretation of Mencius. It is argued that Itō Jinsai grinds the Mencius with an axe of Japanese “practical learning.” In his representation of Mencius, the government of “Kindly Way” is upheld as the core value in Mencius’ thought. Although there is a clear spirituality in his own philosophy, he stressed the political aspect of Mencius’ thought at the expense of the transcendental aspect of his theory of human mind and nature.     

Lived Religion and Family Therapy: What Does Spirituality Have to Do with It?

This review examines fundamental and methodological issues concerning the cross-disciplinary efforts of family therapists to involve spirituality in their clinical practice. Training requirements, challenges, and limitations are discussed. It is suggested that the construct lived religion is the best starting point for this work. Lived religion is a term that addresses the real, lived, experiential, and intimate dimensions of our religious life. It is also tied to a variety of academic disciplines that can guide and deepen thought. Significant problems and limitations are identified with the term spirituality. It is suggested that if clinicians continue to prefer spirituality as a construct, that it be seen as a form or expression of lived religion. This way the links to various discipliines are maintained and idiosyncratic efforts will be minimized. Methods that attempt to integrate spirituality and family therpay are also found to be lacking. For nearly a half century American divinity schools have developed various co-relational methods which foster more respectful and productive discourse calling for the goals and objectives of mental health and religion to be equally value and maintained. In this way the piftalls of reductionism, or oversimplification, and anti-institutional bias can be lessened.     

To Moscow with Love: Partial Reconstruction of Vygotsky’s Trip to London

The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) left the Soviet Union only once to attend a conference on the education of the deaf in London. So far almost nothing was known about this trip, which took place in a period when Vygotsky was still completely unknown as a psychologist, both inside his own country and abroad. Making use of a newly discovered notebook, it proved possible to partially reconstruct Vygotsky’s journey and stay in London. Vygotsky’s very personal remarks show him to have been a very sensitive and spirited man, who was prey to strong emotions during the conference and afterwards. Rather surprisingly, Vygotsky’s own paper about the education of the deaf was never presented during the conference and the stay in London appears to have had a limited value for his own scientific development.     

What to Do with a Second Chance in Life? Long-Term Experiences of Non-carriers of Huntington’s Disease

Little is known about how people’s lives are influenced when going from a 50% risk status of Huntington’s disease (HD) to no risk after performing predictive testing. In this study, 20 interviews were conducted to explore the long-term (>?5 years) experiences after receiving predictive test results as a non-carrier of HD. The results showed a broad variety of both positive and negative reactions. The most prominent positive reaction reported was feelings of relief and gratitude, of not carrying the HD mutation for themselves and for their children. Also, the non-carrier status promoted in some individuals’ significant life changes such as a wishing to have (more) children, pursuing a career or breaking up from an unhappy relationship. However, negative reactions on their psychological well-being were also described. Some had experienced psychological pressure of needing to do something extraordinary in their lives; others expressed feelings of guilt towards affected or untested siblings, resulting in sadness or clinical depression. The new genetic risk status could generate a need of re-orientation, a process that for some persons took several years to accomplish. The results of the present study show the importance of offering long-term post-result counselling for non-carriers in order to deal with the psychological consequences that may follow predictive testing.     

What’s Wrong with Joyguzzling?

Our thesis is that there is no moral requirement to refrain from emitting reasonable amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs) solely in order to enjoy oneself. Joyriding in a gas guzzler (joyguzzling) provides our paradigm example. We first distinguish this claim that there is no moral requirement to refrain from joyguzzling from other more radical claims. We then review several different proposed objections to our view. These include: the claim that joyguzzling exemplifies a vice, causes or contributes to harm, has negative expected value, exceeds our fair share of global emissions, and undermines political duties. We show why none of these objections succeeds and conclude that no good reason has yet been proposed that shows why joyguzzling violates a moral requirement.     

What’s to be done?

All of culture, philosophy included, is a huge trick on nature, and nature will eventually catch on and reassert itself. But for right now, if one lives in a free society, it's a wonderful time to be a philosopher: so much to read, so much to think and write about.     

What’s Faith Got to Do with It? Black Bodies/Christian Souls – Kelly Brown Douglas

Book reviewed: What’s Faith Got to Do with It? Black Bodies/Christian Souls , Kelly Brown Douglas, Orbis 2005 (13‐978‐1‐57075‐609‐2), xix + 252 pp., pb $18.00