Community Psychology in higher education in Europe: Results of a survey and discussion of the basic competency approach

This report from the Standing Committee on Community Psychology of the European Federation of Psychological Association provides an overview of higher education in Community Psychology (CP) in 14 European countries. Our findings show that 10 countries have some kind of CP teaching in their educational system. Twenty European universities offer a CP‐oriented Master degree, two universities at the Bachelor level and 16 universities also have CP‐oriented Ph.D. programmes. The profiles of the universities focus on two areas: Community psychology in a pure form and a combination of social psychology and community psychology. The other universities vary between clinical, organisational psychology, and a pedagogical focus. Within a certain European emphasis, these universities are analysing and changing the social conditions of community life and mental health. The responding universities failed to report adequately on comprehensive core competences and key elements in CP. To compensate for this deficit, the Standing Committee on Community Psychology proposes to develop a primer of basic CP competences for inclusion in programmes like EuroPsy.     

Ethical and Social Aspects of Neurorobotics

Science and Engineering Ethics - The interdisciplinary field of neurorobotics looks to neuroscience to overcome the limitations of modern robotics technology, to robotics to advance our...     

Charity Begins at Home: Cultural Differences in Social Discounting and Generosity

People often consider how their actions influence others when making decisions. However, we are not equally generous to everyone alike. Our willingness to share resources declines as a function of social distance between the decision maker and the recipient. This function is likely to be influenced by culture, but research on behavioral decision making is still lacking empirical evidence. In Western societies, individuals generally perceive themselves as autonomous and independent from others, whereas the distinction between self and close others is less sharply defined by Eastern individuals where relationships and group membership are more centralized. Therefore, the social discount function should reflect this difference in the distinction of self and others by a reduced decline in generosity over close social distances. A social decision‐making task was adapted to the intercultural context, and data were collected in Germany and China. For seven different social distances, we estimated how much money German and Chinese subjects were willing to forego to give a certain reward to another person. A hyperbolic model was fitted to the data. We found that other‐regarding generosity declines as a function of social distance independent of cultural identity. However, German subjects showed a marked drop in generosity across close social distances, which was significantly less pronounced in Chinese participants. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Faith (F) and presence moment (O) in analytic processes: an example of a narcissistic disorder

Based on Freud's remark that a neurosis can not be slain in absentia, the thesis is established that presence moments constitute the central points in the analytic process. The interpenetrative dynamics between analyst and analysand creates an analytical field, in which a pre‐conception is formed. This pre‐conception meets the self‐revealing psychic world of the patient. This realization is a moment of presence (O) and the analytic third is determined. In this moment, the presence of psychic reality is irrefutable present and can be called by name. The name, which is seen as a presentational symbol, is a creation of the analytic couple, but has its source in the genetic roots of the patient. The presentational arises from the presence, which can then become the representation. F is central in this process and is part of the analytic couple. Based on detailed case material of a narcissistic disorder it is shown that a dynamic that impresses at first narcissistic, can be understood from a different point of view as a struggle for the analytical attitude and belief (F).     

Psychoanalysis and national socialism

Was psychoanalysis in Germany "destroyed" or "saved" in the period 1933-1945? To this day ever new answers are given to the question, answers which depend on the time and the interests involved. This contribution seeks to reconstruct once again the steps leading to the incorporation in 1936 of the German Psychoanalytic Society (Deutsche Psychoanalytische Gesellschaft [DPG]) into the National Socialist German Institute for Psychological Research and Psychotherapy (Deutsches Institut für psychologische Forschung und Psychotherapie). This process of incorporation, which was intended as a "rescue" and led to the self-disbandment of the DPG in 1938, took place during ongoing talks between Felix Boehm and Carl Müller-Braunschweig, officials of the DPG, on the one hand, and Ernest Jones, president of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), on the other. The process was connected to yet another desideratum: the expulsion of Wilhelm Reich from the DPG/IPA.     

Psychology as an Art and as a Science: A Reflection on the Myth of Prometheus

This article focuses on the radical shift in consciousness that occurs when we move from a workaday, natural scientific sphere of life to the celebrative sphere of religious practice, of the arts and the humanities. The quotidian, workaday world is here understood as the birthplace of science and technology and the festive world of personal encounters makes its appearance here as the birthplace of the arts, the humanities and of religious practices.     

When Fatigue Turns Deadly: The Association Between Fatigue and Racial Bias in the Decision to Shoot

Racial bias in the decision to shoot can be minimized if individuals have ample cognitive resources to regulate automatic reactions. However, when individuals are fatigued, cognitive control may be compromised, which can lead to greater racial bias in shoot/don't-shoot decisions. The current studies provide evidence for this hypothesis experimentally using undergraduate participants (Study 1) and in a correlational design testing police recruits (Study 2). These results shed light on the processes underlying the decision to shoot and, given the high prevalence of fatigue among police officers, may have important practical implications.