Writing life narratives through art practice

This article shares some of my doctoral experiences in a practice-based PhD research in arts developed at the Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London. It locates art practice within the academic research realm and contributes to researchers working on autobiographical studies and practice-based research methods. By offering an overview on my research topic focusing on the relationship between language and place in the life of Brazilian women living in London, I reflect on the relevance of “not-knowing” as a fruitful space for researching autobiographical and situated life narratives through art practice. The article concludes that qualitative methods are relevant for building passages from the individual to the collective sphere of an art practice developed within geographical displacement and in the context of academic research.     

Moving beyond ethical decision-making: a practice-based view to study unethical sales behavior

Changes in the business environment are rapidly transforming sales practice and pressuring the integrity of key actors in sales. Given that unethical sales behavior is a social activity produced and reproduced by various actors in a complex sales task environment, we introduce a novel research perspective to the study of unethical sales behavior, namely a practice-based view. With knowledge from a systematic literature review and a practice-based view from organization research, we suggest that unethical behavior should be studied as a practice formed through socialization and interaction with relevant others. This view provides an important alternative as well as a complementary perspective to the ethical decision-making paradigm that has dominated the field for several decades. The study answers scholars’ recent calls to strengthen the theoretical foundation of sales ethics research and further extend its perspective toward the social context of sales. With a focus on dynamics, social relations, and the enactment of practices, the practice-based view produces new types of knowledge on unethical behavior and potential new means for addressing it. The article makes suggestions for future practice-based research and proposes several theories for use in studying unethical behavior in currently important sales contexts.     

The Living Human Web: A Twenty-five Year Retrospective

This article traces developments in the 25-year history of a metaphor that has shaped the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century discipline of pastoral theology in the United States. It looks back at the ‘living human document’ as a pivotal image and then identifies three trends behind the appearance of the ‘living human web,’ its key attributes, four divergent ways the metaphor has been used, and tasks ahead. The article argues that while the living human document addressed the challenge of irrelevant theology, the living human web responded to the challenge of social injustice. But both metaphors share a common aim endemic to the discipline—to expand empathy, whether for the individual or the wider context, in order to respond to people in need.     

Religion and Science Conversation: A Case Illustration

The March 1999 issue of Zygon provides a case illustration of a religion-and-science conversation. The three responses to the issues raised by The Humanizing Brain represent a spectrum ranging from skepticism to affirmation. Each is examined in turn. Next, we present a constructive set of guidelines beginning with the recognition that interdisciplinary talk requires stretching disciplinary language into metaphor and analogy. We conclude with a methodology emphasizing empiricism and wholism.     

The cognitive miser's perspective: Social comparison as a heuristic in self-judgements

The metaphor of the cognitive miser is a milestone in the development of social cognitive research. It highlights the limited cognitive resources of the social thinker and the demand for fast and efficient processing of information. In marked contrast to the impact of this metaphor on social cognition research in general, it has so far been mostly overlooked in research on social comparison. In this article we want to lay out the potential of social comparison research if one takes on the perspective of a cognitive miser. Specifically, we consider social comparison as a heuristic for evaluating the self. First, we look for evidence for the ease of comparative self-evaluations. Second, we analyse the standard selection process and identify routine standards that facilitate the comparison process. Third, we investigate the cognitive mechanisms in social comparisons and suggest that comparison mechanisms leading to assimilation are more efficient than mechanisms leading to contrast effects.     

Fields of Tension in a Boundary-Crossing World: Towards a Democratic Organization of the Self

In their study of the relationship between self and society, scientists have proposed taking society as a metaphor for understanding the dynamics of the self, such as the analogy between the self and the functioning of a totalitarian state or the analogy between the self and the functioning of a bureaucratic organization. In addition to these models, the present article proposes a democratic society as a metaphor for understanding the workings of a dialogical self in a globalizing, boundary-crossing world. The article follows four steps. In the first step the self is depicted as extended to the social and societal environment and made up of fields of tension in which a multiplicity of self-positions are involved in processes of positioning and counter-positioning and in relationships of social power. In the second step, the fertility of the democratic metaphor is demonstrated by referring to theory and research from three identity perspectives: multicultural, multiracial, and transgender. In the fields of tension emerging between the multiplicity of self-positions, new, hybrid, and mixed identities have a chance to emerge as adaptive responses to the limitations of existing societal structures. In the third step, we place the democratic self in a broader societal context by linking three levels of inclusiveness, proposed by Self-Categorization Theory (personal, social, and human) to recent conceptions of a cosmopolitan democracy. In the fourth and final step, a model is presented which allows the formulation of a series of specific research questions for future studies of a democratically organized self.     

Computational exploration of metaphor comprehension processes using a semantic space model

Recent metaphor research has revealed that metaphor comprehension involves both categorization and comparison processes. This finding has triggered the following central question: Which property determines the choice between these two processes for metaphor comprehension? Three competing views have been proposed to answer this question: the conventionality view ( Bowdle & Gentner, 2005 ), aptness view ( Glucksberg & Haught, 2006b ), and interpretive diversity view ( Utsumi, 2007 ); these views, respectively, argue that vehicle conventionality, metaphor aptness, and interpretive diversity determine the choice between the categorization and comparison processes. This article attempts to answer the question regarding which views are plausible by using cognitive modeling and computer simulation based on a semantic space model. In the simulation experiment, categorization and comparison processes are modeled in a semantic space constructed by latent semantic analysis. These two models receive word vectors for the constituent words of a metaphor and compute a vector for the metaphorical meaning. The resulting vectors can be evaluated according to the degree to which they mimic the human interpretation of the same metaphor; the maximum likelihood estimation determines which of the two models better explains the human interpretation. The result of the model selection is then predicted by three metaphor properties (i.e., vehicle conventionality, aptness, and interpretive diversity) to test the three views. The simulation experiment for Japanese metaphors demonstrates that both interpretive diversity and vehicle conventionality affect the choice between the two processes. On the other hand, it is found that metaphor aptness does not affect this choice. This result can be treated as computational evidence supporting the interpretive diversity and conventionality views.     

Ideology and Social Psychology

This article takes as critical point of departure the currently individualized nature of mainstream social psychology. It is argued that by using the concept of ideology, social psychology may be transformed into a more societal social psychology and thereby a discipline more relevant to individual, society and social life. Based on the interplay between language usage and ideology, moreover, a methodology for assessing ideological changes in society by identifying shifts in language usage in the public discourse (newspapers) is presented. Research conducted by this methodology, including comparative studies of how the globalized neoliberalism with its strong individualism merges with local ideologies in various societies around the world is then reviewed. Finally, analyses of a society’s ideological reactions upon terrorism, is presented.     

Collaborative helping maps: a tool to guide thinking and action in family-centered services

This article highlights "disciplined improvisation" as a metaphor for community-based work with multi-stressed families. It introduces Collaborative Helping maps as a tool that both helps workers think their way through complex situations with families and provides a structure to support constructive conversations between workers and families about challenging situations. The article illustrates this map through a clinical vignette and uses interviews with workers to highlight ways in which the map can both enhance worker thinking and support constructive conversations between workers and families about problems that could easily divide them and lead to polarization and escalating tension.     

Solving Social Problems Like a Psychologist

ABSTRACT— We suggest that psychologists can play a larger role in the solution of important social problems. Psychology brings two important qualities to the study of social problems: attention to psychological process and rigorous methodology. Our key task is to define social problems in part as psychological problems, and to conduct rigorous research that tests novel psychological solutions. Examples of research that has taken this path—research on race differences in academic performance, on the training of executive function and intelligence, and on the provision of socially constructive default decisions—are provided. We argue that addressing social problems can enrich our science by connecting psychologists to interdisciplinary teams and by providing contexts in which to demonstrate, in striking ways, the value of a psychological approach.     

Development of Metaphorical Thought before Language: the Pragmatic Construction of Metaphors in Action

In this article, we set out, first, a general overview of metaphor and metaphorical thought research within cognitive psychology and developmental psychology. We claim that, although research efforts broadened perspectives that considered metaphors to be ornaments of poetic language, certain predominance of a linguistic point of view within investigations led to relatively little attention paid to (i) non-verbal and non-written metaphorical instantiations, and (ii) the pre-linguistic and cultural origins of metaphorical thought. Next, we attempt to delve into, and model, the ontogenetic origins of metaphor, taking into consideration social and cultural elements. To that end, we consider the Vygotskian perspective and contemporary research from the pragmatics of the object. We propose that metaphorical thought is an emerging result of a complex web of dynamic relationships between pre-linguistic and socioculturally regulated semiotic systems. The analysis undertaken shows the need for a research programme with a developmental orientation that considers metaphor to be a product of the intertwining between the individual and social dimensions of cognitive development. We suggest this programme should find its roots in the analysis of the semiotic skills that precede the acquisition of metaphorical language.     

Kinetic Tactile-Kinesthetic Bodies: Ontogenetical Foundations of Apprenticeship Learning

An ontogenetically-informed epistemology is necessary to understandings of apprenticeship learning. The methodology required in this enterprise is a constructive phenomenology, a phenomenology that takes into account the fact that as infants, we were apprentices of our own bodies: we all learned our bodies and learned to move ourselves. The major focus of this essay is on infant social relationships that develop on the ground of our original corporeal-kinetic apprenticeship. It shows how joint attention, imitation, and turn-taking - all richly examined areas in infant social development - are the foundation of apprenticeship learning in later adult life. The relationship between each infant capacity and later apprenticeship learning is demonstrated in examples from present-day research, specifically, research in the areas of medicine, sport, music, and tailoring, and research carried out by philosophers on apprenticeship learning.     

Critical hermeneutics and higher education: a perspective on texts,meaning and institutional culture

This paper is a discussion of critical hermeneutics as a research methodology employed in a conceptual analytic study of the concept ‘institutional culture’ within the context of higher education. The research was undertaken to develop an understanding of the concept and to explore its construction in university policy documents. The aim of this paper is to motivate the choice of critical hermeneutics as a research methodology for the mentioned study. I explore both aspects of critical hermeneutics, namely hermeneutics and critical theory. The interpretive nature of hermeneutics enabled me to expose the hidden meanings of institutional culture, while its context-specific nature was beneficial for pointing out the nature of institutional culture in the university setting. Critical theory, on the other hand, was appropriate because it is a theory that is self-conscious about historicity and the role of the social environment. In combination, the merits of these two aspects of critical hermeneutics facilitated the understanding of the university setting as a social reality. Employing critical hermeneutics as a research methodology furthermore assisted in analysing the construction of institutional culture within university policy documents, taking into account the important role of history in interpretation. In essence, critical hermeneutics facilitated my understanding of the difficult-to-explain concept ‘institutional culture’ in the higher education setting.     

Culture,context and society – The underexplored potential of critical realism as a philosophical framework for theory and practice

This article explains how the meta‐theoretical framework of critical realism addresses methodological issues of concern to social psychologists and social scientists. The article outlines key tenets of critical realism – its notion of the stratified nature of reality and generative mechanisms as powers in natural and social objects that cause things; its notion of knowledge of reality as stratified rather than only empirical; its acceptance of epistemological but not judgmental relativism; and its monist ontology. The article then introduces realist social theory to provide a framework for understanding the society–person connection. It explains how issues relating to culture, context, and society raised in the indigenous psychology English literature might be addressed from a critical realist perspective. Some implications arising from adopting a critical realist perspective in research practice are outlined and social psychologists and social scientists are encouraged to explore the potential of critical realism as a meta‐theoretical framework and new paradigm.     

AMAB: Automated measurement and analysis of body motion

Technologies that measure human nonverbal behavior have existed for some time, and their use in the analysis of social behavior has become more popular following the development of sensor technologies that record full-body movement. However, a standardized methodology to efficiently represent and analyze full-body motion is absent. In this article, we present automated measurement and analysis of body motion (AMAB), a methodology for examining individual and interpersonal nonverbal behavior from the output of full-body motion tracking systems. We address the recording, screening, and normalization of the data, providing methods for standardizing the data across recording condition and across subject body sizes. We then propose a series of dependent measures to operationalize common research questions in psychological research. We present practical examples from several application areas to demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed method for full-body measurements and comparisons across time, space, body parts, and subjects.     

Understanding families as systems

In this article, we discuss recent research that has arisen from theoretical and conceptual models that use a systems metaphor for understanding families. We suggest that research stimulated by such models leads social scientists in new and important directions in understanding the social and emotional development of children in their families. These models view development as resulting from the dynamic transactions across multiple levels of family systems, which regulate a child's behavior. Thus, these models are important in considering multiple influences on development and adaptation.     

Vindication of the Human and Social Science of Kurt H. Wolff

The purpose of this article is to vindicate the viability of Kurt H. Wolff's methodology of surrender-and-catch for the human and social sciences. The article is divided into three sections. The first section explicates the fundamental significance of surrender-and-catch and Wolff's motivation for advocating its practice. The second section compares surrender-and-catch with phenomenological methodology as well as objective science and the province of the everyday. The third section illustrates surrender-and-catch through my own practice. In this section I contextualize surrender-and-catch in a triangulated design, which exhibits its flexibility and compatibility for use in conjunction with other forms of research.     

权力感的无意识启动:方法研究*

情境性启动法是对权力感进行内隐社会认知研究的重要方法。本研究首先对权力情境性启动的两种启动方法(概念启动和定势启动)进行介绍,接着通过两个实验对两种启动方法在中文背景下的适用性和有效性进行了验证,认为中文材料的概念启动和定势启动是适用和有效的,可以作为国内权力社会认知研究中启动权力的方法。最后对权力概念启动和定势启动的研究范式、方法差异和内在机制进行了讨论。     

The Enhanced Agentic Diversity Perspective (EADP): An appeal for Co-creating an accommodative social space so that diversity unlocks innovativeness rather than problems

We propose in this article an Enhanced Agentic Diversity Perspective (EADP), which is derived from the concept of agentic resources in social relational theory. EADP recognizes that all human beings are equally agents, that agentic expressions differ due to variation of individual access to power resources (individual, relational and cultural) and that the current social conditions serve to promote agentic diversity by enhancing all the three domains of power resources. In addition, EADP comprises a proposal for the development of accommodative social spaces. We argue that only in an accommodative social space can diversity unlock innovation; otherwise, it serves as a source for conflict. A constructive, nonhierarchical account of diversity, such as EADP is needed under current social conditions for the optimal becoming of idiosyncratic human agents as well as human society as a whole.     

Emancipatory responses to oppression: the template of land-use planning and the Old Order Amish of Ontario

In this paper I discuss the clash of values between the Old Order Amish community of Ontario and the dominant social paradigm in agriculture. Land-use and agricultural regulations, designed for an industrial style of agriculture, are experienced as a threat to the survival of the Old Order Amish agricultural social economy and community. The paper describes how I have worked with the Old Order Amish to respond to these challenges and to create public policies that will allow them to maintain their human and agricultural diversity and small-scale sustainable farm practices. Four case studies illuminating the oppressive land-use regulations along with the emancipatory responses to the oppression are examined. The social transformation themes include principles and processes for community psychologists, land-use planners, and community economic development practitioners to consider. The article has heuristic value for a practice-based approach to social change.