Individuality and the prejudiced personality

Many researchers maintain that individual psychological processes related to our human evolutionary inheritance, a person's particular genetic make-up, and/or childhood learning and socialisation patterns are a root cause of prejudice. The effects of collective processes on the individual are considered to be largely in the past, producing individual personalities and social attitudes that are relatively fixed and enduring. There is, however, an alternative perspective on the impact of the collective embodied in self-categorization theory (SCT). From the SCT perspective, the self is both personal and collective, and shifts in the nature of self-categorisation produce qualitative shifts in judgements of oneself and others. Through one's identity as a group member, contemporary social forces can shape the psychology of the person. This analysis not only has direct implications for how we understand the relationship between personality and prejudice, but also offers an alternative way of thinking about personality itself. What emerges from our own and related research on prejudice is a more complex analysis of individuality, one that is ineluctably embedded in contemporary intragroup and intergroup identities and the societal and ideological realities that define group life as well as in past learning and maturation.     

Sphere Pluralism and Critical Individuality

While discussing critical individuality as oneof the main goals of liberal education, theemphasis has usually been on direct educationalmeasures. Much less attention has been given tothe social preconditions for its development.This paper discusses the societal aspect of thequestion by employing the notion of spherepluralism. The attempt is to point out someways in which the diversified nature of societycan be employed in its full potential for thedevelopment of critical individuality. Thearticle aims to outline a form of spherepluralism, which is based on structuraldifferentiation, cultural diversity, communalvitality, confessional pluralism andcross-communal criticism. The suggestion isthat the critical potential of sphere pluralismpresupposes a proper balance between sphereautonomy and inter-sphere criticism as well asthat between social construction of meaning andobjective-structural constraints.     

道德的个体性与道德的社会性——麦金太尔对情感主义的批判

麦金太尔在<德性之后>中集中对情感主义进行了现代性批判,即从道德危机的反恩出发,对情感主义造成的道德分歧状况进行批判.麦金太尔认为情感主义体现了西方传统哲学主客二分的思维方式,而解决道德个体性与社会性相分离的途径在于道德实践.     

Kierkegaard and Counseling for Individuality

Not too long ago existentialism was considered largely an atheistic philosophy. Today many disciplines are considering the philosophy for its positive attributes. One of the more recent areas to be influenced by existentialism seems to be that of individual counseling, as indicated by the appearance of numerous journal articles within the last few years. One of the more prominent writers in the school of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard, sometimes called the “father of existentialism,” seems to have been speaking to the modern day counselor as he attempted to describe the process and climate wherein such characteristics as individuality are fostered.     

Individuality and community: The contrasting role of the state in family life in the United States and Sweden1

Underlying moral values of individuality versus community and assumptions about what is a “just society” make public policies toward children vastly different in Sweden and the United States. This article explores the origins, cost, and benefits of welfare policies that permit child poverty in the U. S. as a cost of the high value of autonomy/individuality, and policies that prevent child poverty in Sweden, at the cost of economic competitiveness and individual initiative. I conclude that both extremes of moral values have more social costs than benefits but that children should be protected in any nation as the future of the society.     

Individuality,conformity and collective identity

Abstract

Distinctions are made between defensive, expressive, and affiliative conformity. Although all forms of conformity play significant roles in the shaping of identity, both for good and for ill, their negative influence has received most of the attention in contemporary psychoanalytic thought. A treatment history is presented here to illustrate the constructive possibilities sometimes realized through expression of affiliative conformity.     

Individuality,supervenience and Bell's theorem

Some recent work in the philosophy of quantum mechanics has suggested that quantum systems can be thought of as non-separable and therefore non-individual, in some sense, in Bell and E.P.R. type situations. This suggestion is set in the context of previous work regarding the individuality of quantal particles and it is argued that such entities can be considered as individuals if their non-classical statistical correlations are understood in terms of non-supervenient relations holding between them. We conclude that such relations are strongly non-supervenient in Cleland's sense and note a possible connection between this idea and the realist quantum logic programme.     

Uniqueness, Individuality, and Human Cloning

This paper challenges two main arguments often presented to show that cloning a human being would be morally wrong per se . These arguments are that human cloning would be intrinsically wrong 1) because it involves manufacturing a person rather than creating or reproducing one, and 2) because it violates some claim or right that individuals have to be biologically unique. I argue that while cloning may involve genetic selection, it need not always be a decision to select for a certain type of individual. Furthermore, I contend that the notion of biological uniqueness is inadequate to ground either the idea that biologically non-unique individuals are morally worse off than unique ones or that biological uniqueness itself constitutes a criterion of moral value or status.     

简论元哲学的共性与个性

元哲学的共性与个性 ,即哲学自身的共性与个性的问题 ,对于我们正确理解哲学的本性至关重要。当我们反思半个世纪来我国哲学所走过道路的时候 ,大家都有一个共识 :哲学与政治关系始终没有很好解决 ,不是走向这个极端 ,就是出现另一个偏向。我认为其中一个主要原因 ,就是对元哲学的共性与个性的关系问题 ,缺乏真正了解所致。1 　　哲学 ,从大的方面来说主要是研究两类问题 :一是客体 (自然界、人类社会 ) ;一是主体 (人自身 )。前者是关于世界的存在问题 ,它要解决的是如何认识与改造世界 ;后者是关于人的存在问题 ,它要解决的是如何理解人与…     

人类胚胎的不完全性与伦理问题

人类胚胎伦理地位的道德两分法不具有合理性,应该从人类胚胎是“人的不完全态”着手分析他的发育连续性,并相应的考虑他的伦理地位。胚胎伦理学包含着内在的伦理悖论,所以道义论和效果论都不能很好地解决。考虑“人的不完全态”的连续统,提出了中庸主义的解决方案。     

Photographic Individuality, Breadth of Perspective, and Creativity

Individuality is valued in most conceptions of personality, but is seldom operationalized. The present research used photo essays about the self as the medium for operationalizing self-construals that are unlike others (i.e., are uniquely creative, abstract, self-reflective, and multidimensional). Ratings of these photo essays from two samples ( N = 183 university students) served as the measure of individuality. This measure was predicted and found to correlate in both samples with Breadth of Interest from the Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI; Jackson, 1994). In Study 1, individuality also correlated with the JPI Complexity scale and with two measures of divergent thinking (unique word associations, and fluency on Wallach & Kogan's [1965] creativity tasks). In Study 2, individuality correlated with having more permeable boundaries, a nonprejudicial universal orientation, and imagining greater cultural diversity in one's future. Results suggest that individualistic persons take a broader, more complex and more creative perspective to their lives.     

Power,Freedom, and Individuality: Foucault and Sexual Difference

This paper offers a detailed account of Foucaults ethical and political notion of individuality as presented in his late work, and discusses its relationship to the feminist project of the theory of sexual difference. I argue that Foucaults elaboration of the classical ethos of care for the self opens the way for regarding the I-woman as an ethical, political and aesthetic self-creation. However, it has significant limitations that cannot be ignored. I elaborate on two aspects of Foucaults avoidance of sexual difference as a relevant category for an account of political and ethical individuality, which thus implicitly associates individual agency with men. I argue that Foucault implicitly assumes the existence of an ontological desire to become engaged in political self-creation. However, the ethical position of self-knowledge and desire should be understood as a contingent option that depends on material and historical conditions for its realization. Hence, I argue that a feminist reworking of Foucaults notion of political individuality should add a substantial ethical condition to the imperative of self-knowledge and self-creation – making possible the desiring woman subject.     

Individuality and group formation: the role of independence and differentiation

This research examined the interplay of group formation and individualization processes with a particular emphasis on minority and majority groups. First, a 2-component theory of individuality that distinguishes between individuality as independence and as differentiation from other people was presented, tested, and cross-validated in 2 questionnaire studies. Next, a pilot experiment provided first support for the working assumption that the salience of the differentiation or independence components of individuality differentially affect minority and majority group formation. Finally, the main experiment demonstrated that these individuality effects on minority and majority group formation are due largely to a differential orientation toward either intergroup or intragroup comparisons. This experiment also uncovered a unique effect of relative in-group size, but this effect was limited to similarity-based group formation.