Pushing dualism to an extreme: On the philosophical impetus of a new materialism

This article discusses the way in which a group of contemporary cultural theorists in whose work we see a “new materialism” (a term coined by Braidotti and DeLanda) at work constitutes a philosophy of difference by traversing the dualisms that form the backbone of modernist thought. Continuing the ideas of Lyotard and Deleuze they have set themselves to a rewriting of all possible forms of emancipation that are to be found. This rewriting exercise involves a movement in thought that, in the words of Bergson, can be termed “pushing dualism to an extreme.” By this movement, Deleuze has stated, “difference is pushed to the limit,” that is, using Colebrook’s words, “difference is shown differing.” The article addresses the ways in which modernity’s dualisms (structured by a negative relation between terms) are traversed, and how a new conceptualization, and ontology, of difference (structured by an affirmative relation) comes to be constituted along the way. New materialism leaves behind all prioritizations (implicitly) involved in modern dualist thinking since a difference structured by affirmation does not work with predetermined relations (e.g., between mind and body) nor does it involve a (counter-)hierarchy between terms. The article makes explicit the methodology of the current-day rise of non-dualist thought, both in terms of its non-classificatory mode of (Deleuzian) thinking and in terms of the theory of the time of thought thus effectuated (Lyotard’s notion of ‘rewriting modernity’ is not a post-modernism). Throughout the article we will engage with an example in order to demonstrate the ontology that is being practiced following this methodology: How does a new (feminist) materialism traverse the sexual dualisms that structure modernist (feminist) thinking? This example also shows how a feminist post-modernism (found in the canonical work of Butler) has remained dualist, and what makes new materialism “new.” Freed from a dualist methodology, the modernist emancipatory project comes to full fruition in new materialism.     

A meta-analysis of psychoeduational programs for coronary heart disease patients.

In a meta-analysis of 37 studies, the effects of psychoeducational (health education and stress management) programs for coronary heart disease patients were examined. The results suggest that these programs yielded a 34% reduction in cardiac mortality; a 29% reduction in recurrence of myocardial infarction (MI); and significant (p < .025) positive effects on blood pressure, cholesterol, body weight, smoking behavior, physical exercise, and eating habits. No effects of psychoeducational programs were found in regard to coronary bypass surgery, anxiety, or depression. The results also suggest that cardiac rehabilitation programs that were successful on proximal targets (systolic blood pressure, smoking behavior, physical exercise, emotional distress) were more effective on distal targets (cardiac mortality and MI recurrences) than programs without success on proximal targets.     

Organizational identification and “currencies of exchange”: integrating social identity and social exchange perspectives

We integrate social exchange and social identity perspectives to propose and test the prediction that depending on their level of organizational identification, people may reciprocate the received organizational support using different “currencies of exchange”—reducing turnover intentions or, instead, engaging in extra‐role behavior. Specifically, the relationship of perceived organizational support (POS) with turnover intentions is proposed to be stronger with lower identification, whereas POS is proposed to be more closely related to extra‐role behavior with higher organizational identification. These predictions were supported in a cross‐sectional survey of N = 1,000 employees of a financial services firm. These results speak to the added value of integrating the social exchange perspective with its roots in applied psychology and the social identity perspective with its roots in social psychology in understanding the employee‐organization relationship.     

Modeling differentiation of cognitive abilities within the higher-order factor model using moderated factor analysis

Receptive foreign language proficiency is usually measured with reading and listening comprehension tasks. A novel approach to assess such proficiencies – viewing comprehension – is based on the presentation of short instructional videos followed by one or more comprehension questions concerning the preceding video stimulus. In order to evaluate a newly developed viewing comprehension test 485 German high school students completed reading, listening, and viewing comprehension tests, all measuring the receptive proficiency in English as a foreign language. Fluid and crystallized intelligence were measured as predictors of performance. Relative to traditional comprehension tasks, the viewing comprehension task has similar psychometric qualities. The three comprehension tests are very highly but not perfectly correlated with each other. Relations with fluid and crystallized intelligence show systematic differences between the three comprehension tasks. The high overlap between foreign language comprehension measures and between crystallized intelligence and language comprehension ability can be taken as support for a uni-dimensional interpretation. Implications for the assessment of language proficiency are discussed.