On hating in the first person plural: thinking psychoanalytically about racism, homophobia, and misogyny.

On the basis of personal, cultural, and clinical references, misogyny, homophobia, and racism are conceptualized as structured forms of hatred grounded in a defensive use of the first person plural voice. This use of hatred defends against dangers associated with desires linked to the first person singular. In these hatreds, "I want" is defensively transformed into "we hate." Disidentification from and hatred of the object appear where identification and yearning had been. Along with this defensive move into plurality, with these forms of hatred comes the use of what is conceptualized as the "hermeneutics of transparency." Here the hated qualities of the objects in question are sensed to be transparently obvious, a matter not of thought but of perception. The underlying premises of these hatreds are then contrasted with the underlying premises of psychoanalysis. Effective psychoanalytic work with these hatreds entails resisting the moral pressure to disidentify from them, while bearing the often profound discomfort linked with identifying with them.     

On dreams,imaginative knowing and not knowing: Appearance,identity, and shame

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - This paper explores the relation of concepts of the unconscious to notions of the imagination, and both to the dynamics of shame. In this discussion dreams...     

Loving, hating, vacillating: Agreeableness, implicit self-esteem, and neurotic conflict

An implicit preference for the self over others may be beneficial when pursuing one's own desires but costly when adjusting the self to the desires of others. On the basis of this reasoning, the authors hypothesized that Agreeableness and implicit self-esteem would interact in predicting measures of neurotic distress. Three studies and one meta-analysis, involving 235 undergraduate participants, confirmed that high levels of implicit self-esteem were beneficial (i.e., less neurotic distress) within the context of low levels of Agreeableness but costly (i.e., more neurotic distress) within the context of high levels of Agreeableness. Because findings were robust across various measures of Agreeableness, implicit self-esteem, and neurotic distress, the interpersonal principles examined here appear to have broad relevance for understanding this particular form of intrapsychic conflict and its manifestation in neurotic distress. Results therefore support Horney's (1945) theory concerning the consequences of intrapsychic conflicts related to interpersonal motivation and cognition.     

Pursuing relational consciousness: thinking and antithinking in group

Although human beings are interpersonal and innately curious, at the same time an aspect of the self defends against mental relationships with self and other, because such relationships threaten to cause psychic pain. Bion's ideas on thinking and antithinking are applied to this topic of relational consciousness: A "psychotic part of the personality"--which refers also to the "basic assumptions" level of the group-prefers antithinking: forestalling, evading, and assaulting thinking and thinkers. Clinical examples illustrate how the group therapist may address and treat the pervasive resistances to relational consciousness in the group setting. These involve understanding the dynamics and clinical manifestations of hatred of thinking, excessive projective identification, anticipatory anxiety regarding thinking, and bizarre and hallucinatory thought transformations.     

Knowing that, knowing how, and knowing to do

Ryle’s distinction between knowing that and knowing how has recently been challenged. The paper first briefly defends the distinction and then proceeds to address the question of classifying moral knowledge. Moral knowledge is special in that it is practical, that is, it is essentially a motive. Hence the way we understand moral knowledge crucially depends on the way we understand motivation. The Humean theory of motivation is wrong in saying that reason cannot be a motive, but right in saying that desire is essential for motivating us. The right response to the Humean theory of motivation is to see that moral knowledge is desire-related rationality or thought-related desire. Moral knowledge is neither knowing that nor knowing how but rather a third species of knowledge which we may call “knowing to do.” Knowing to do is to be rationally disposed to do the right thing. This understanding of moral knowledge is exactly what we can learn from Aristotle’s ethics.     

Thinking about thinking: Causal,evaluative and finalistic cognitions about social situations

The present article is concerned with first considerations and data for a theory of social cognitions. A taxonomy of social cognitions is suggested comprising three classes: causal, evaluative and finalistic thinking. These classes are subdivided according to the social perspective taken, i.e. self-directed versus other-directed thinking. The situational preconditions of these social cognition classes are studied in different social episodes each comprising either positive or negative, expected or unexpected events. The results show that the most reasoning about a situation occurs when it is an important private episode with an unexpected and affectively negatively experienced event. The data concerning the natural occurrence of the three cognition classes is interpreted as providing suggestions of their functional meaning: The functions of the three classes of social cognitions are labelled ‘information integration’ (self-directed evaluative thinking), ‘action planning’ (self-directed finalistic thinking and other-directed causal thinking), ‘control of negative feelings’ (self-directed causal, and finalistic thinking) and ‘understanding’ (other-directed finalistic and evaluative thinking and self-directed causal thinking).     

Work Passion Through the Lens of Culture: Harmonious Work Passion,Obsessive Work Passion,and Work Outcomes in Russia and China

Purpose

This cross-cultural study with employee–supervisor dyads in Russia and China examines links between harmonious and obsessive work passion and four job- and organization-focused outcomes (job satisfaction, intentions to quit, job performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors) and two career-focused outcomes (career satisfaction and occupational commitment).

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were collected from employee–supervisor dyads in Russia (N = 223) and China (N = 193). We undertook a series of hierarchical regressions to examine the hypothesized relationships.

Findings

We found considerable support for the harmonious passion–work outcome relationships and less support for the obsessive passion–work outcome relationships. In both Russia and China, harmonious passion predicted all six hypothesized outcomes. However, obsessive work passion predicted job satisfaction and occupational commitment in Russia, but was unrelated to any of the hypothesized outcomes in China. We also identified several culture-specific work passion–outcome relationships.

Implications

Our research extends the duality of the work passion construct to non-Western cultures. The examination of a variety of work passion outcomes provides a finer-grained approach to how two types of passion uniquely link to different work consequences. Several culture-specific findings refute the traditionally held assumption that harmonious passion relates to solely positive outcomes, whereas obsessive passion relates to solely negative outcomes. Collectively, the results augment the nomological framework of the passion construct. The study informs managerial practices by suggesting when work passion needs to be encouraged or tamed.

Originality/Value

This is the first study that examines a variety of job-, organization-, and career-focused outcomes of work passion in non-Western organizations.

     

Thanks for being,loving, and believing

Philosophical Studies - Gratitude to others is typically understood as a response to good things people give to us or do for us. Occasionally, though, we thank people for things other than gifts or...     

Thinking about thinking and feeling about feeling

Traditional clinical psychology generally posits "mental" events that differ from "behavioral" events. Mental events are not publicly observable, take place in a different dimension from overt behavior, and are the topic of primary concern. For example, mental events are often taken to be causes of troublesome overt behavior. In addition, the mental events themselves may be regarded as troublesome, independent of their relation to any specific overt behavior. Therapy is usually aimed at fixing these troublesome mental events, under an assumption that improvement in the client's status will follow in due course. Behavior analysis has its own position on the relations among clinical matters, overt behavior, and such private events as thinking and feeling. In a behavior-analytic view, private events are behavioral phenomena rather than mental phenomena. They are not initiating causes of behavior; rather, they are themselves caused by antecedent conditions, but they may contribute to discriminative control over subsequent behavior, both verbal and nonverbal. Verbal processes are viewed as vitally important in understanding troublesome behavior. However, the circumstances that cause both the troublesome private events and the troublesome behavior in the first place still need to be addressed. Finally, clinical behavior analysis will need to market its insights into diagnosis and treatment very adroitly, because it rejects the mentalism upon which most traditional forms of therapy are predicated and the mentalism that most consumers expect to encounter.     

When ignorance is adaptive: Not knowing about the nuclear threat

The objective of this article is to examine the nature of individual and social responses to the nuclear threat from psychological and sociological perspectives on ignorance. It is argued that a constructed and managed ignorance concerning the nuclear threat serves many functions, structuring an individual and social reality which is reassuring, meaningful, and both individually and collectively self-serving. A sociology of ignorance framework is employed to articulate the possible benefits of “not knowing about” and collaboratively “not dealing with” the nuclear threat, as well as to define the longer-term costs of ignoring this threat. The distinctive roles played by various kinds of ignorance regarding this important issue are investigated, and the conventional wisdom that knowledge of the consequences of a nuclear war is the only way to prevent its occurrence is challenged. Yes, he must grasp with his mind the instant-by-instant, inevitable total destruction and prepare for the carnage of an uncertain future Y. Mishima, Sea of Fertility Joseph P. Reser is a senior lecturer in psychology at James Cook University of North Queensland, Australia, with research interests in a number of applied social psychology areas. Michael J. Smithson is a senior lecturer in sociology, in the behavioral sciences department at James Cook University. His current research interests include the study of ignorance.     

Bolzanian knowing: infallibility,virtue and foundational truth

The paper discusses Bernard Bolzano’s epistemological approach to believing and knowing with regard to the epistemic requirements of an axiomatic model of science. It relates Bolzano’s notions of believing, knowing and evaluation to notions of infallibility, immediacy and foundational truth. If axiomatic systems require their foundational truths to be infallibly known, this knowledge involves both evaluation of the infallibility of the asserted truth and evaluation of its being foundational. The twofold attempt to examine one’s assertions and to do so by searching for the objective grounds of the truths asserted lies at the heart of Bolzano’s notion of knowledge. However, the explanatory task of searching for grounds requires methods that cannot warrant infallibility. Hence, its constitutive role in a conception of knowledge seems to imply the fallibility of such knowledge. I argue that the explanatory task contained in Bolzanian knowing involves a high degree of epistemic virtues, and that it is only through some salient virtue that the credit of infallibility can distinguish Bolzanian knowing from a high degree of Bolzanian believing.     

Ways of thinking about being: Explorations in ontology

This paper briefly explores Merleau-Ponty's notions of body subject and flesh in order to draw out some of the implications of his work for an understanding of key aspects of non-Western worldviews, notably that of Australian aboriginal people. Focusing specifically on the concept of materiality, I argue that its elaboration as flesh in Merleau-Ponty's work constitutes an important conceptual link with non-atomistic accounts of being and world, accounts characteristic of some indigenous peoples. Writing as a non-aboriginal and a relative newcomer to the study of aboriginal beliefs, I address the issue of possible contributions such understandings may make to solutions to problems we face in future both as individuals and as educators.     

Proclaiming the Passion: Popular Drama and the Passion Tradition in Luther's Germany

Abstract

This article examines Martin Luther's opinions on popular drama, in particular his views on Carnival plays, Corpus Christi plays, and Passion-tide performances. A consideration of key works by the Lutheran playwright, Joachim Greff (1510-1552), provides an insight into the development of Lutheran biblical drama from its beginnings. It accordingly challenges the consensus that Luther objected to, and actively prevented, the performances of Protestant dramatizations in Reformation Germany of Christ's Passion and the Resurrection.     

Adults' memories of childhood: affect, knowing, and remembering

Adult questionnaire respondents reported, for each of a number of events, if they had experienced that event during childhood and, if so, if they remembered the experience or merely knew it had happened. Respondents also rated the emotion of each event and judged whether they would remember more about each reportedly experienced event if they spent more time trying to do so. Study 1 respondents were 96 undergraduates, whereas Study 2 tested 93 community members ranging widely in age. Respondents often reported no recollections of reportedly experienced events. Reportedly experienced events rated as emotional were more often recollected than those rated as neutral, and those rated as positive were more often recollected than those rated as negative. Predicted ability to remember more was related to current memory. Claims of remembering reportedly experienced events increased with age, but predicted ability to remember more about them declined with age.