Resources,Rules, and Oppression

There is a large and growing literature on communal interpretive resources: the concepts, theories, narratives, and so on that a community draws on in interpreting its members and their world. (They’re also called “hermeneutical resources” in some places and “epistemic resources” in others.) Several recent contributions to this literature have concerned dominant and resistant interpretive resources and how they affect concrete lived interactions. In this article, I note that “using” interpretive resources—applying them to parts of the world in conversation with others—is “a rule‐governed activity”; and I propose that in oppressive systems, these rules are influenced by the rules of oppression. Section I clarifies some rules governing the use of resources. Section II draws on work by Gaile Pohlhaus, Jr. and others to suggest that according to the present rules of our oppressive system, it is permissible for dominantly situated speakers to dismiss interpretive resources developed in marginalized communities. Section III appeals to Charles Mills’s work on White ignorance to propose, further, that our system’s rules make it impermissible and deserving of punishment to use resistant resources. The conclusion enumerates several further points about such rules governing the use of interpretive resources, their social effects, and some philosophical literatures.     

Foreign Qualification Recognition Regimes for Internationally Trained Professionals: the Case of Pharmacists

The paper aims to bridge the literatures on “immigration policy” and “sociology of professions” by offering an institutionalist perspective that focuses on the nature of foreign qualification recognition (FQR) processes and their impact on internationally trained workers’ access to employment in 11 immigrant-receiving countries—France, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. It analyzes professional regulations and immigrant selection systems and puts forward four FQR regimes—“readily accessible,” “segmented,” “moderately restrictive,” and “highly restrictive.” The central focus of the article is on FQR regimes for pharmacists since professional regulations are not uniform across all professions and jurisdictions. It would thus be more suitable to clarify country clusters for each profession. This conceptual tool, however, can also be utilized to enhance our understanding about other professions.     

What It Means to (Mis)Trust: Forced Migration,Ontological (In)Security,and the Unrecognized Political Psychology of the Israeli-Lebanese Conflict

What does it mean to search for trust—the constitutive element of feeling ontologically secure—in the context of protracted conflict, trauma, and forced migration? This article addresses this key question in ontological security (OS) studies in International Relations (IR) by analyzing an unrecognized consequence of the Israeli-Lebanese conflict: a Lebanese community of forced migrants created overnight on Israeli premises due to Israel's unilateral withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000. Relying on 60 in-depth interviews with Lebanese migrants in Israel, the article demonstrates how forced migrants engage in various OS-seeking strategies in relentless efforts to reconstitute trust. These strategies range from self-justification and securitizing identity through religious and communal practices, to a search for recognition from statist institutions and boundary-work vis-à-vis “sibling” disempowered “others” in the host state. However, the article shows how under political circumstances of protracted conflict and repeated perceived betrayal by the state, forced migrants are unable to reconstitute the routinized relations of trust on which OS is based. By exposing the particularistic, dynamic, and highly political character of the migrants' quest for trust, the article sheds new light on the political psychology of an “old” conflict and on the multiple meanings of ontological (in)security in migration.     

Choice,the Invisible Element in Our Work

Unless they use a highly structured approach, psychotherapists make choices all the time in their work, but the role of choice is neglected in the professional literature. Because choices tend to issue under the radar, sometimes as personal enactments, our profession could benefit from examining them. This is especially true for leaders of therapy groups where there are pressures to align with conventional perspectives of pathology, of popular “goodness” and “badness.” Two important influences on our decisions here are milieu—the historical period in which we work—and our clinical identity (training, personality, identifications and practical experience). It is to reinforce these that we often make our choices.     

Beyond the image paradigm: Systemic evolution through participative planning

This paper is an attempt at introducing a formal framework for societal, participative, anticipatory, inner‐change oriented and open‐ended ‘’ learning for evolution.” The key point of our approach is that it considers the evolution of a social system not exclusively as an appropriate result of the given system structure, operating and behaving under external constraints; but mainly as an outer (or observable) consequence of some inner changes brought about from within the system of heterogenous actors‐designers in their effort to cope with complexities generated equally by external constraints and by the network of mutual relationships between them. The actors‐designers are thus trying to assess critically the courses the system could possibly take in the future and also to isolate —through a dialogue between them—the so‐called “evolutionary” ones. Consequently, a policy‐oriented approach to “social homcorhesis” is obtained. It opens the way to a participative planning outlook on societal learning.     

A theology of pastoral multiplicity

The contemporary moment is characterized by liquidity and difference. “Liquidity” means rapidly changing social structures, accelerations in consumption, and constantly changing personal and group identities. In this increasingly diverse context, encounters with difference are not only inevitable, they are essential—and can be transformative for our understandings of our multiple selves, for our pastoral encounters with others, and for our theological imagination, as well. Viewing the self, especially the pastor's self, as a collection of multiple selves, identities, and performances illumines pastoral leadership; pastors who claim their multiplicity more wholly meet “others” when encountering difference. The triune God reveals divine multiplicity, so pastors who claim their multiplicity as their identity thereby make a theological claim.     

Tolerance of free-riding: The effects of defection size,defection pattern,and social orientation in a repeated public goods dilemma

Tolerance of free riding is defined as “the extent to which group members are willing to continue cooperation after observing other members’ defection behavior in a social dilemma.” We hypothesized that defection size (number of other members who defect), defection pattern (how other members’ defection choices are repeated), and social orientation (individual preference for different distributions of resources for self and/or others) would influence members’ level of tolerance in a repeated public goods dilemma. One hundred and ten business students participated in a computerized laboratory experiment in which four conditions were created: the same one (or two) members defect over all trials—a fixed pattern, or a different one (or two) members defect on different trials—a diffused pattern. Results show that the effects of social orientation and defection size were initially significant but diminished over trials. In contrast, the effects of defection pattern became increasingly significant over trials. Specifically, we found that members’ tolerance level was significantly higher in conditions where a diffused rather than a fixed pattern of defection was observed. A “perceived impact” hypothesis was proposed to explain these results.     

Living (dys)regulated and alienated young masculinity—Young men's embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality

Introduction

Mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety with interlinked suicidality, are the leading cause of health-related disability among young men. Knowledge of the interaction between emotional, bodily, social and gendered mental health processes in young men is limited and therefore needed.

Aim

This study aimed to explore young men's lived embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality, and to conceptualise these by integrating affective–emotional, physiological, social and gendered processes.

Methods

Semistructured individual interviews were conducted with 13 young men who had sought professional help for mental disorders and suicidality. Grounded theory (GT) was used with a social constructivist perspective.

Results

The results comprise one core category—Living (dys)regulated and alienated young masculinity—with related categories “battling with the emotional body,” “suffering in social silence” and “balancing embodied darkness and distress.” The GT illustrates how young men navigate and manage their embodied and emotional suffering in a context of “regulative” masculine and social norms alongside insufficient social support.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that young men's lived embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality can be understood as a dynamic process of internal and external “(dys)regulation and alienation.” The generated GT provides a broad tentative explanation model, contributing to theory development, and serves as a basis for gender-sensitive interventions—in both psychotherapy and physiotherapy—integrating body, mind and the social context.     

社会分类的特性,维度及心理效应

社会分类是个体基于共享相似性将人群分为不同类别的一种主观心理过程, 具有自动化,灵活性和潜在模糊性等特性.社会分类的维度既包括性别,年龄和种族等自然线索, 也包括语言,职业和社会身份等重要社会线索.在社会分类过程中, 不同维度往往具有相对重要性, 表现为优势维度效应; 不同维度相互之间也会发生作用, 产生交叉分类效应, 研究者从不同的视角对这种交叉分类效应进行了解释.未来研究应该采用多样化的方法和技术从分类主体,分类目标,分类情境以及社会文化因素等多角度探讨社会分类的心理加工机制, 构建更具整合性的社会分类理论模型.     

Ingroup Experts and Peers as Social Vaccines Who Inoculate the Self-Concept: The Stereotype Inoculation Model

Individuals’ choice to pursue one academic or professional path over another may feel like a free choice but is often constrained by subtle cues in achievement environments that signal who naturally belongs there and who does not. People gravitate toward achievement domains that feel like a comfortable fit because they are in sync with ingroup stereotypes and away from other domains that feel like an uncomfortable fit because they deviate too far from ingroup stereotypes. Even individuals who are high performers may lack confidence in their ability and withdraw from certain achievement domains—performance and self-efficacy do not always go hand in hand. What factors might release these constraints and enhance individuals’ freedom to pursue academic and professional paths despite stereotypes to the contrary? The present article addresses this question using a new theoretical lens—the stereotype inoculation model—that reveals how ingroup members (experts and peers in high-achievement settings) function as “social vaccines” who increase social belonging and inoculate fellow group members’ self-concept against stereotypes. The model integrates insights from several literatures in social psychology and organizational behavior to articulate predictions accompanied by supporting evidence about when ingroup experts and peers serve as social vaccines and the underlying psychological mechanisms. The article concludes by identifying directions for future research, possible interventions, and policy implications of the model.     

Anarchism,Schooling, and Democratic Sensibility

This paper seeks to address the question of schooling for democracy by, first, identifying at least one form of social character, dependent, after Marcuse, on the historical emergence of a “new sensibility.” It then explores one pedagogical thread related to the emergence of this form of subjectivity over the course of the last two centuries in the west, and traces its influence in the educational counter-tradition associated with philosophical anarchism, which is based on principles of dialogue and social reconstruction as opposed to monologue and reproduction. The idea of a dialogical school has been made possible by a historical shift in adult views of child as interlocutor rather than “othered” object of adult formation—a shift that can be observed in an historical process of “closer approaches” between adult and child and a recognition of childhood and adulthood as forms of subjectivity that lie on a synchronous rather than a diachronic lifespan continuum. Finally the author identifies an archetype of “school” understood as a specific type of intentional community—an experimental zone in which participants are allowed and encouraged, through explicitly dialogical practice, to develop the personal and relational habits that make authentic democracy possible—a communal form that gives practical meaning to Dewey’s notion of school as “embryonic society”: a utopian space where natality is recognized as a fundamental cultural force, and where the evolutionary possibilities inherent in neoteny are taken as normative.     

Heidegger,Communal Being,and Politics

There are two critical, but opposite interpretations of Heidegger’s understanding of being as a social ontology. One charges Heidegger with adhering to an anti-social “private irony,” while the other charges him with promoting a “self-canceling” totality. The current essay replies to these two charges with a discussion of Heidegger’s understanding of being as “communal being,” which is implicated both in the early Heidegger’s concept of “being-in-the-world-with-others” and in the later Heidegger’s keyword of Ereignis. It argues that Heidegger’s understanding of being as communal being is neither identical with totalitizing publicness nor the same as voluntaristic egotism. According to Heidegger, both the publicness of das Man and voluntaristic egotism are the real threats to humanity at present. Because of them, we human beings are in danger of being uprooted from the earth upon which we—as communal beings—have already and always dwelled and lived with others from the very beginning of human history.     

Boundary maintenance in American sociology: Limitations to academic “professionalization”

The institutionalization of social scientific disciplines at the turn of the century did not, in fact, result in academic behavior consistent with the “professionalization” models now in vogue among students of this period. Formal attributes of “professional” status have not proven reliable indices to the degree of consensus predicted for a “mature” discipline, as is evident from the history of a single field, American sociology—ironically the source of many “professionalization” schemes. Such schemes may appeal to historians because they paradoxically reinforce academic ideology; they represent a new variant of “whiggish” internalism, disguised as externalist cynicism. If we are to write accurate historical accounts, we must recognize that the self-consciously “professional” social scientists of the turn of the century sought ends rather different from those imputed to them by “presentist” analysts. Notions of the socially integrative functions of work were widespread during this period and not restricted to those occupational groups we now recognize as “professional”.     

Beyond the purely cognitive: Belief systems,social cognitions,and metacognitions as driving forces in intellectual performance

This study explores the way that belief systems, interactions with social or experimental environments, and skills at the “control” level in decision-making shape people's behavior as they solve problems. It is argued that problem-solvers' beliefs (not necessarily consciously held) about what is useful in mathematics may determine the set of “cognitive resources” at their disposal as they do mathematics. Such beliefs may, for example, render inaccessible to them large bodies of information that are stored in long-term memory and that are easily retrieved in other circumstances. In other cases, individuals' reactions to an experimental setting (fear of failure, or the desire to “look mathematical” while being videotaped) may induce behavior that is almost pathological—and at the same time, so consistent that it can be modeled. In general, such “environmental” factors establish the context within which individuals access and utilize the information potentially at their disposal. Protocols illustrating these points are presented and discussed. A model based on an axiomatization of students' beliefs about plane geometry is outlined, and is shown to correspond closely to their problem-solving performance. A framework is offered for analyzing problem-solving performance at three qualitatively different levels: access to cognitive resources stored in LTM, executive or control decision-making, and belief systems.     

Modulation de l’expression de l’identité professionnelle par l’utilisation d’appellations synonymes : « chômeur », « demandeur d’emploi » et « chercheur d’emploi »

The present research aimed to investigate whether and how terminology influences the expression of the self-concept, as well as that of the representation of others. More precisely, this paper explores, in the context of unemployment, how the words “unemployed person”, “job enquirer” and “jobseeker” can enhance the expression of the professional self concept and that of the representation of others. The Multistage Investigator of Social Identity method (IMIS; Zavalloni & Louis-Guérin, 1984) has been implemented to collect data from the French employment services. As expected, results provided evidence that the terminology used modulates professional identity expression; such that the words “unemployed person” and “job enquirer” lead individuals to unfavorably describe and perceive themselves. On the other hand, the designation “job seeker” helps them to put forward positive components of their professional self- concept and a less negative representation of others. These findings are discussed by stressing the relevance of using a terminology that does not stigmatize individuals and therefore avoids the disengagement from the job-seeking process.     

White Habits,Anti-Racism,and Philosophy as a Way of Life

This paper examines Pierre Hadot’s philosophy as a way of life in the context of race. I argue that a “way of life” approach to philosophy renders intelligible how antiracist confrontation of racist ideas and institutionalized white complicity is a properly philosophical way of life requiring regulated reflection on habits—particularly, habits of whiteness. I first rehearse some of Hadot’s analysis of the “way of life” orientation in philosophy, in which philosophical wisdom is understood as cultivated by actions which result in the creation of wise habits. I analyze a phenomenological claim about the nature of habit implied by the “way of life” approach, namely, that habits can be both the cause and the effect of action. This point is central to the “way of life” philosophy, I claim, in that it makes possible the intelligent redirection of habits, in which wise habits are more the effect than simply the cause of action. Lastly, I illustrate the “way of life” approach in the context of anti-racism by turning to Linda Martín Alcoff's whiteness antieliminativism, which outlines a morally defensible transformation of the habits of whiteness. I argue that anti-racism provides an intelligible context for modern day forms of what Hadot calls “spiritual exercises” insofar as the “way of life” philosophy is embodied in the practice of whites seeing themselves seeing as white and seeing themselves being seen as white.     

Training to Think Culturally: A Multidimensional Comparative Framework

A multidimensional, comparative training framework is designed to integrate culture with all aspects of family therapy. Culture is viewed as occurring in multiple contexts that create common “cultural borderlands” as well as diversity; unpredictability and possibility, as well as regularity and constraint. The framework proposes a search for basic parameters to help therapists think comparatively and pluralistically about families’ cultural configurations and meanings. Further, the parameters chosen — ecological context, migration/acculturation, organization, and life cycle — are used to heighten therapists’ awareness about the “situated knowledge” of their own professional and personal culture. This approach recognizes the potential complexity of both the family's and the therapist's cultural location or ecological niche, and encourages curiosity in the therapeutic conversation rather than reliance on potentially stereotyping, ethnic-focused information.     

Distinctive Preferences Toward Risk in the Substantive Domain of Sociality*

As with standard models of rationality, theorists generally treat prospect theory's demonstration of risk aversion in gains but risk tolerance in losses as domain‐general. Yet evolutionary psychology suggests that natural selection has designed a domain specific cognitive architecture—with systems specialized for some substantive domains but not others. Here we address risky choices through that lens asking whether humans' risk responses dispose them to enter social relationships even when doing so is counter to normative rationality and regardless of whether the “enter” versus “not enter” choice is framed as between gains and losses. Laboratory findings in five sites across three countries provide a positive answer to both possibilities. Participants could enter or not enter inherently risky social relationships. They were more willing to enter such relationships than rational choice models would predict and were equally so willing regardless of whether equivalent alternatives were framed as gains and as losses. With the “social context” extracted in otherwise identical games, participants' risk responses were consistent with prospect theory. The present findings suggest the possibility of adaptations designed to facilitate sociality—despite its risks and how those risks are framed.