Macho and Shame

Abstract

Bilmes M. Machismo and Shame. Int Forum Psychoanal 1992;1:163-168. Stockholm. ISSN 0803-706X

“Machismo” is usually used in a pejorative way to describe an attitude of male domination and display of power. While this portrayal is clearly recognizable, it does not tell the full story. The Spanish word “macho” simply means male or masculine, and can be used positively to designate one gender's successful struggle for pride, honor and identity. Machismo is a caricature of these qualities, a brutishness stemming from defensive mechanisms. The thesis of this paper is that the experience of maleness is especially linked to the psychic emotion of shame. Specifically, exaggerated machismo, as the term is usually understood, is the result of frustrated, shameful dependency experiences.     

Flipping and spinning: Spatial transformation procedures in the identification of rotated natural objects

The proposal that identification of inverted objects is accomplished by either a relatively slow rotation in the picture plane or a faster rotation in the depth plane about the horizontal axis was tested. In Experiment 1, subjects decided whether objects at 0° or 180° corresponded to previously learned normal views of the upright objects, or were mirror images. Instructions to mentally flip an inverted object in the depth plane to the upright produced faster decision times than did instructions to mentally spin the object in the picture plane. In Experiment 2, the effects of orientation were compared across an object-naming task and a normal-mirror task for six orientations from 0° to 300°. In the normal-mirror task, objects at 180° were cued for rotation in the picture plane or in the depth plane in equal numbers. The naming function for one group of subjects did not differ from the normalmirror function where inverted objects had been mentally rotated to the upright. For both functions, response time (RT) increased linearly from 0° to 180° and the slopes did not differ. The naming function for a second group of subjects did not differ from the normal-mirror function where inverted objects had been mentally flipped to the upright. For both functions, RT increased linearly at a similar rate from 0° to 120°, but decreased from 120° to 180°. The results are discussed in terms of theories of orientation-specific identification.     

The Effects of Feature Identity in Operant Serial Feature-Negative Discriminations

The effects of feature identity in an operant serial feature-negative discrimination (F1 T1−, T1+) were examined in two experiments with rats. In Experiment 1, rats were trained with two operant serial feature-negative discriminations in which different operants were reinforced during two auditory target cues (T1 and T2). The features (F1 and F2) were two neutral cues (visual or auditory stimuli), two motivationally significant cues (flavored sucrose solutions, also used as the operant reinforcers), or one neutral and one motivationally significant cue. Experiment 1 showed that discrimination acquisition, transfer performance, and feature–target interval testing were facilitated with a flavored sucrose feature. Experiment 2 showed that flavored sucrose-alone presentations, more than flavored sucrose trained in a pseudodiscrimination (F1 T1+, T1+), shared several similarities with a standard flavored sucrose feature. The results suggest flavored sucrose rapidly acquires inhibitory properties, which facilitates operant serial feature-negative discrimination performance.     

Robust inference processes in expository text comprehension

Expository text offers particular challenges to the reader because of the abstract and unfamiliar concepts that it presents and its distinctive structure. The present study had three interrelated aims: (1) It examined the impact of appropriate connectives on the reader's derivation of causal bridging inferences from expository text. (2) It scrutinised texts longer than the ones that we had previously examined (Singer, Harkness, & Stewart, 1997), which in turn made it possible to (3) evaluate the impact of position in the text on inference processing. In Experiments 1a and 1b, a joint profile of target reading times and inference answer times indicated that the inspected inferences reliably accompanied reading only in the presence of appropriate causal connectives. The connective-present conditions of Experiment 1 replicated our previous findings using shorter texts (Singer et al., 1997). Experiment 2 indicated that these inference processes are unaffected by text position. We interpreted these findings with reference to the inference validation model (Singer, Halldorson, Lear, & Andrusiak, 1992).     

Predicting Dental Flossing Behavior: The Role of Implicit and Explicit Responses and Beliefs

The study examined the ability of implicit responses to predict dental flossing behavior. It was hypothesized that adding implicit responses would increase the predictive power of models containing variables suggested by social cognitive theories. To test the hypothesis, 125 participants completed measures of social cognitive variables (e.g., self-efficacy, task-efficacy, planning intention, behavior intention) and performed a procedure designed to measure their implicit responses to flossing. Flossing behavior was measured with retrospective self-reports and a follow-up measure of flossing. As predicted, the addition of implicit responses to models containing the social cognitive variables increased the predictive power of the models for both the self-report and follow-up measures.     

Adult Service-Users’ Experiences of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

This study aimed to gain an understanding of the aspects of trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (Trauma-Focused-CBT) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that service-users find important in contributing to their improvement. Nine people (5 females and 4 males, mean age 53 years old who had received on average 12 sessions of Trauma-Focused-CBT) who reported a significant reduction in their symptoms following treatment of PTSD took part in semi-structured interviews. Interpretative phenomenological analysis identified five themes: Living with Symptoms before Therapy; Feeling Ready for Therapy; Being Involved; Bringing About Therapeutic Change; and Life After Therapy. This study contributes towards a clearer understanding of the aspects of the Trauma-Focused-CBT process that service-users found important in aiding their improvement. In particular, it highlights the central role that participants attributed to their own involvement in the therapeutic process and how much they valued this. Limitations and future directions are discussed.     

The ups and downs of face perception: evidence for holistic encoding of upright and inverted faces

A visual-search task was used to investigate the influence of facial organisation on discrimination of an internal facial feature. Participants searched for a downturned mouth in arrays of one to six faces that differed only in the target feature, with distractor faces containing an upturned mouth. Feature search was tested in four different face contexts: upright unaltered faces, inverted unaltered faces, upright faces in which the internal features were scrambled, or inverted scrambled faces. Normal face organisation facilitated feature search in upright faces, but slowed it in inverted faces. These findings demonstrate an interdependence of features and their configuration in the perceptual analysis of both upright and inverted faces.     

Teachers' attunement to students' peer group affiliations as a source of improved student experiences of the school social-affective context following the middle school transition

A randomized control trial examined the impact of a professional development program on rural teachers' attunement to student social dynamics, and the influence of teacher attunement on students' school experiences. In intervention schools serving Latino and White rural early adolescents, teachers (N = 14) received training on social dynamics and aspects of early adolescent adjustment; control school teachers (N = 12) received no training. Social cognitive mapping procedures assessed and compared students' and teachers' perceptions of peer groups; structured observations assessed teachers' management of social dynamics. Students (N = 225) self-reported their perceptions of the school social-affective context. Intervention and control schools differed on teacher attunement and management of the social environment. Students whose teachers were more attuned to peer group affiliations evidenced improved views of the school social environment. Findings are discussed in terms of attunement as an element of teachers' invisible hand, and for teachers' role in promoting productive contexts for students during the middle school transition.     

What, if anything, is the medial temporal lobe, and how can the amygdala be part of it if there is no such thing?

Should the medial temporal lobe (MTL) of primates--which includes allocortical structures such as the hippocampus, neocortical structures such as the parahippocampal cortex, and nuclear structures such as the basolateral amygdala--be considered a single "thing"? According to the prevailing view, here termed the reification theory, the answer is yes. According to this theory, the MTL functions as an amalgamated entity that provides the neuronal mechanisms for declarative memory; the greater the damage to the MTL or any of its components, the greater the deleterious effects on declarative memory. A countervailing view, here called the balkanization theory, holds that the various components of the MTL process and store different kinds of information. According to this theory, damage to each part of the MTL causes a unique set of behavioral deficits-some involving memory, others involving perception, and yet others involving response selection. The empirical neuropsychological evidence favors the balkanization theory, as do some new concepts in theoretical neuroanatomy.