Scripting sexual passivity: A gender role perspective

In two studies, we demonstrate that attitudes toward traditional sexual roles are linked with increased sexual passivity for women but decreased passivity for men. For both genders, sexual passivity predicts poor sexual functioning and satisfaction. Study 1 showed that endorsement of traditional sexual roles of male dominance and female passivity relates to greater sexual passivity among college‐aged heterosexual women but less passivity for college‐aged heterosexual men. For both young men and women, greater sexual passivity predicts less overall sexual satisfaction. The findings for Study 2 replicate Study 1 among sexually experienced adults recruited over the Internet. Autonomy mediated these relationships, which persisted when controlling for multiple potential confounds.     

Passive Students in Junior High School: The Associations with Shyness, Perceived Competence and Social Support

Relationships between passivity in school and shyness, perceived competencies and social support were assessed in a sample of 501 pupils (241 girls and 240 boys) in grades 8, 9 and 10 from two secondary schools in a city in the southern part of Norway. The analyses revealed a positive significant association between passivity in school and shyness. Findings also showed significant negative associations between passivity in school and scores of perceived social competence. Support from school peers, teachers and parents were also negatively associated with passivity. In addition the interaction between gender and perceived social competence yielded a significant association with school passivity.     

Introduction

The article argues that the debate between Derrida and Marion about the impossibility of gift is in fact a debate about the proper method of phenomenology. In order to analyse the giving of gifts it must not be understood as a particular case of ‘giving’ but as a social practice in its own right. The gift constitutes its addressee in a purely passive way, and this passivity is the most significant aspect of the giving of gifts both in everyday life and in religion. Various religious and philosophical symbolisations of this passivity are explored and criticised. The human passivity brought out by gifts is not lack but enrichment. This is a decisive insight of the Christian view of human passivity.     

The secondary passivity: Merleau-Ponty at the limit of phenomenology

Continental Philosophy Review - This paper considers the move from passivity to a generative passivity in Merleau-Ponty’s ontology. In The Visible and the Invisible Merleau-Ponty calls this...     

Motivational versus volitional mediation of passivity in institutionalized older people

The relationship between perceived loss of control and passivity in social activities in a non-handicapped institutionalized elderly population was assessed. Perceived loss of control was assessed from three different types of expectancies: low action-outcome expectancies, high situation-outcome expectancies, and low efficacy expectancies. Passivity scores were reported by the staff. The effect of these three types of expectancies on passivity was analyzed in terms of motivation and volition, which were treated as mediating variables. Overall analysis of the structural equations, as well as partial hierarchical regression analyses, showed that efficacy expectancies were good predictors of passivity, but this was not the case for the action-outcome and situation-outcome expectancies. These results lend more support to a volitional rather than to a motivational interpretation of the effect of control on passivity. The implications of these results for intervention and for a differentiated conception of expectancies are discussed.     

When one’s sense of agency goes wrong: Absent modulation of time perception by voluntary actions and reduction of perceived length of intervals in passivity symptoms in schizophrenia

Passivity symptoms in schizophrenia are characterised by an absence of agency for actions, thoughts and other somatic experiences. Time perception and intentional binding have both been linked to agency and schizophrenia but have not been examined in passivity symptoms. Time perception and intentional binding were assessed in people with schizophrenia (n = 15 with, n = 24 without passivity symptoms) and 43 healthy controls using an interval estimation procedure (200, 400 and 600 ms intervals) with active, passive and observed movements. People with passivity symptoms did not display action-modulation of time perception, while those without passivity symptoms estimated intervals to be the same after active and observed movements. Additionally, both clinical samples reported intervals to be shorter with increasing interval length. We propose that impaired predictive processes may produce an overreliance on external cues and, together with shorter perceived intervals, lead to the subjective loss of agency.     

Ways of coping and religious commitment in Muslim adolescents

The aim of this study was to find out methods of coping used most frequently by Kurdish adolescents and to investigate the relationship of methods of coping with their level of religiosity and gender. A convenience sample of 171 secondary school students, self-identified as Muslims, took part in answering two sets of questionnaires: methods of coping and religious commitment. Means, standard deviations, t-test and Pearson Correlation Coefficients were used to analyse the data. Results of the study suggest that the method of coping used most frequently by the sample was spiritual connection while passivity and avoidance were the least used methods of coping. Religiosity was correlated with all other methods of coping except seeking social support and passivity. Girls used avoidance and passivity for coping more than boys did. Kurdish Muslim adolescents use various methods to cope with problems they face. Counsellors in secondary schools should pay more attention to maladaptive methods of coping particularly among girl adolescents.     

A new spin on the Wheel of Fortune: priming of action-authorship judgements and relation to psychosis-like experiences

The proposal that there is an illusion of conscious will has been supported by findings that priming of stimulus location in a task requiring judgements of action-authorship can enhance participants' experience of agency. We attempted to replicate findings from the 'Wheel of Fortune' task [Aarts, H., Custers, R., & Wegner, D. M. (2005). On the inference of personal authorship: enhancing experienced agency by priming effect information. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 439-458]. We also examined participants' performance on this task in relation to self-reported passivity experiences and hallucination-proneness. We found a significant effect of priming, with primes being found to increase the experience of agency. An interaction between gender and priming was also found, with priming enhancing feelings of agency in women but not in men. There were no significant correlations between levels of self-reported passivity experiences or hallucination-proneness and participants' susceptibility to the priming effect on ratings of agency. Implications of these findings are discussed with regard to a prominent model of passivity experiences.     

Drug and alcohol prevention project for sixth graders: first-year findings

Data gathered in this study are the first-year results of a three-year program evaluation for a drug and alcohol prevention project. One hundred fifty-two 6th graders made up the target group which received instruction using Botvin's life skills training curriculum. Sixty-four additional subjects made up a control group which received no treatment. Both groups were pre- and posttested on the following variables: knowledge about and attitudes toward substances, self-concept, passivity, and locus of control. Results indicated that the program had a significant positive impact on the target subjects' passivity, knowledge about drugs and alcohol, and self-image.     

Levinas and the Parent–Child Relation: A Merleau-Pontyian Critique of Applying Levinas's Thought to Developmental Psychology

Central to Emmanuel Levinas's philosophical account of ethics and intersubjectivity is the parent–child relation. Throughout his major texts, paternity, maternity, and education all function as critical motifs that Levinas utilizes to claim that the subject is primordially oriented by a radical passivity and asymmetrical ethical obligation to the other. Further, several scholars, including Claude Lefort, Brian Vandenberg, Diane Perpich, and Joel Krueger, have highlighted Levinas's insights in relation to child development; however, I argue that they have not adequately accounted for the radicality of Levinas's view of original passivity as the essential ground of subjectivity. After explaining Levinas's account of radical passivity in the parent–child relation, I then turn to recent research in child development to evaluate Levinas's view. In light of the current research, I suggest that Merleau-Ponty's account of the parent–child relation not only complements Levinas's work, but it is also essential for incorporating Levinas's thought in psychological models of the parent–child relation.     

Non‐Competitive Agency and Luther's Experiential Argument Against Virtue

This article examines a critique that has been levied against Martin Luther's account of the passivity of the human agent in salvation, and his corresponding critique of Aristotelian and Scholastic accounts of virtue. According to Reinhard Hütter and Jennifer Herdt, among others, Luther's theology of passivity is primarily the product of a philosophical failure to recognize that divine and human agency can be conceived in non‐competitive terms. This article demonstrates through close analysis of Luther's arguments that this philosophical critique does not succeed in refuting Luther's theology of passivity. This is because it fails to recognize that Luther's view of human agency and his critique of virtue are based to a significant degree on a different kind of argument: namely, empirical reflection on the experience of sin, including especially experience of the unmasterability of sinful affections through discipline, habit, or effort of will. I conclude by arguing that until Christian virtue ethicists have reckoned with this experiential argument, they have not engaged with one of the strongest theological critiques of virtue‐based paradigms of Christian moral transformation.     

Emotion Specificity and Consumer Behavior: Anger, Sadness, and Preference for Activity

We examine the influence of two specific negative emotions (i.e., sadness and anger) on consumers' preference for an advertised product promoting either activity (e.g., exercise) or passivity (e.g., relaxation). On the basis of empirical distinctions between the level of activation accompanying sadness and anger, and drawing upon a mood-as-information perspective, we hypothesized that individuals will have a preference for activity to passivity when in an angry compared to a sad emotional state. Thus, when angry, they preferred a product advertised as active, whereas when sad they preferred a product described in more passive terms.     

The Integrity of the Psychoanalyst

Against the background of psychotherapeutic work with a young self-harming woman, a theoretical argument concerning the body is developed. The body of the drives and of infantile sexuality is distinguished from the body of instinct and attachment. The origin of the drive is discussed in terms of Laplanche’s fundamental anthropological situation and linked to Jacques André’s thesis concerning a primary femininity and drive passivity in both sexes. Freud’s thinking on sexual difference and the repudiation of femininity is discussed from the perspective of the above-mentioned thinkers. Finally, a sexual perversion, acted out by the patient, is explored as a possible symptomatic/conflictual expression of drive passivity.     

Is Affectivity Passive or Active?

In this paper I adopt Aquinas’ explanation of passivity and activity by means of acts remaining in the agent and acts passing over into external matter. I use it to propose a divide between immanent-type and transcendent-type acts. I then touch upon a grammatical distinction between three kinds of verbs. To argue for the activity and passivity of affectivity I refer to the group that includes acts of transcendent-type and whose verbs in both voices possess affective meaning. In the end I focus on cases in which an act of affective f-ing is mirrored in its object as being affectively f-ed.     

JOHN MILBANK's THEOLOGY OF THE "GIFT" AND CALVIN's THEOLOGY OF GRACE: A CRITICAL COMPARISON1

In his theology of the Gift, John Milbank advocates a theology of “reciprocity” between God and humanity, involving “active” rather than “passive” reception of the divine gift. Calvin and other Reformation theologians are criticized by Milbank as demeaning the role of the human partner by advocating “passivity” in the reception of grace. This essay compares Milbank's theology of the Gift with Calvin's theology of grace, showing how Calvin overcomes the schematic options of “passivity” or “reciprocity” in the divine‐human relation, all the while holding much more in common with Milbank's concerns about sanctification and participation than has generally been recognized.     

Durkheim Revisited: “Why Do Women Kill Themselves?”

Durkheim divided suicide into four social types; egoistic, anomic, fatalistic, and altruistic assigning the first two to modern, western society while relegating the last two to pre-industrial social orders. However, contemporary studies of female suicidal behavior and depression show that such women exhibit personality characteristics of low self-esteem, passivity, dependence and living vicariously for others which correspond to the behavioral indices of impersonalism, submissiveness, passivity, and obedience that produce the lack of individuation characteristic of Durkheim's altruistic/fatalistic suicide categories. On this basis, the author suggests that altruistic/fatalistic suicide may even in the modern world be relevant to the explanation of female suicidal behavior, a hypothesis which, if true, would support the contention that "men and women inhibit different social worlds."     

The De of Levinas: Cultivating the Heart-Mind of Radical Passivity

This essay explores the early Chinese text Guanzi to address the question of ethical responsibility in the work of Emmanuel Levinas. We begin with the premise that being responsive to the other, feeling the impossibility of renouncing ethical obligation, and experiencing the basic moral asymmetry at the heart of Levinas’s project all rely on the welcome openness of the subject that Levinas describes as the subject’s “radical passivity.” However, his emphasis on infinite responsibility, coupled with the theme of radical passivity, gives the problematic impression that ethics amounts to a never-ending to-do list for the other, and certainly this is not what Levinas means. We turn to the Guanzi, which recommends that the ethically efficacious sage-prince must cultivate a state of passive stillness and inner vacuity. Only because the sage-prince maintains this deferential heart-mind is he freely open and responsive to others. Here the sage-prince looks strikingly like a good Levinasian: He is deferential, sensitive to context, and hyper-aware of the limits of his own knowledge. The Guanzi goes on to describe specific practices the sage-prince can employ to cultivate his ethical prowess, including practices of meditation and gentle physical exercises. Taking this insight into Levinas’s context, we suggest that such practices of self-regulation are necessary to enable effective responsiveness to the other. From this perspective, responsibility is “infinite” not because I am perpetually beholden to the other’s whims, but because I am perpetually accountable for calming and clearing my own mind of the unstable emotions, selfish desires, and intellectual machinations that prevent the welcome openness of radical passivity.     

A neuroanatomical model of passivity phenomena

Any attempt to elucidate the nature and mechanism of passivity phenomena, i.e., experiences that one's conscious actions or thoughts have not been 'willed' by oneself, requires an integrative philosophical-neurobiological approach. The model proposed here adopts some fundamental positions that have long been advocated by philosophers and theoretical psychologists and have now found support from functional neuroanatomy. First, we experience our actions not from the standpoint of the executive but through the perception of its effects. Second, the 'self' is not an agent of behaviour. Third, behaviour is energized and integrated by basic drives (instincts). Fourth, the view that the experience of an acting self is related to drive reduction associated with voluntary actions is perhaps less well developed. The model thus proposes that passivity phenomena are actions that are induced by the perception of salient events but that are not integrated with or conducive to the overall motivational state of the organism. It has been suggested that, following the perception of salient events, competition arises between automatic response tendencies seeking expression. The prefrontal cortex appears to play an important role not only in determining which events are to be perceived but also which of the corresponding response dispositions is to be selected and actualized in overt behaviour. Thus, action selection is the outcome of competition between response tendencies in the context of prefrontal biasing signals that represent drives and strivings for goals. Action selection may be uncoupled from drives and strivings as a result of a lowering of the threshold for action selection--as is suggested to be the case in schizophrenic passivity phenomena--or due to disconnection from prefrontal regions--as may be the case in the alien limb syndrome.     

Beyond the Issue of Ordination

The alienation of sacramental life as a power to be used over and against the community is the basis of all false clericalism; such clericalism is deeply rooted in sexist symbols of domination and passivity. Women cannot ask to be ordained without questioning fundamentally this concept of clericalism.     

Responses of seventh grade students to "do you have a partner with whom you would like to have a baby?"

This study investigated differences in demographic data, self-esteem, and coping skills for 225 students in Grade 7 who reported having a partner with whom they wanted to have a baby and 946 students who did not. Data were collected on the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, the Family Crisis-oriented Personal Evaluation Scale, and questions related to attitudes towards teen pregnancy and demographic data. The sample included 548 (46.8%) boys and 624 (53.2%) girls whose mean age was 13.2 yr. Students with a partner had significantly lower scores on the curriculum questions, self-esteem, and family coping skills, combined with higher scores in passivity. They indicated a desire to have a greater number of children, beginning by having their first child at a younger age and believed that having a baby improves a couple's relationship. Possible approaches may include effective teaching methods to overcome passivity through boosting self-confidence, goal-setting, and acquiring a purpose in life besides parenting a child.