Why perversion?: False love and the perverse pact1

In this paper, the author works with the awareness that perversion is a socially, historically and theologically loaded term, at the same time as it may be the latest frontier in psychoanalysis, both clinically, and in relation to contemporary art and culture which emphasize the perverse. Positioning itself against tendencies to deny the existence of a category of perversion or, inversely, to abuse it for the power that accrues from the act of diagnosing, she also points to other liabilities in the history of the treatment of this term, such as the narrowing down of perversion to the exclusively sexual domain, or, alternatively, the overextension of it to polymorphously erotic practices that enhance sexual excitement. The paradoxes of perversion and the difficulties of distinguishing the perverse from the non‐perverse are addressed. The case is also made that, in order to understand perversion, one must unlink it from the narrow notion of sexual practice and see what is involved on a deeper level an approach initiated when psychoanalysis turned to perversion as a defense against psychotic anxieties, and began considering the necessary place of perversion in the transference countertransference. Two features common to both sexual and non‐sexual perverse relations are the seductive and bribing aspects of perversion, and its means‐ends reversal. Perversion is a haven for the disguising of hatred and suspicion as excitement and (false) love. Displaced child and beating father, entitled child and seductive mother, are both prototypes of psychoanalytic refiection on parents who excite, deceive and corrupt their children and establish perverse pacts with them. The notion of the perverse pact is foregrounded in Alice's analysis, where first the resurrection and then the dismantling of such a pact were effected through various analytic means.     

An observational study of humor use while resolving conflict in dating couples

This research focused on whether affiliative and aggressive humor use was associated with relationship satisfaction and with greater perceived closeness, problem resolution, and emotional distress following a conflict discussion task. Ninety‐eight dating couples from a large Texas University participated in this research. Both partners independently completed questionnaires about their relationship perceptions, participated in a videotaped conflict resolution task, and then answered some additional questions. The results revealed that individuals whose partners used more affiliative and less aggressive humor during the discussion were more satisfied with their relationship and reported an increase in perceived closeness and better problem resolution following the discussion. These results highlight the importance of both positive and negative forms of humor in the regulation of close relationships.     

The Potential Information Analysis of Seeing

I argue for a version of the causal analysis of seeing which I call the 'potential information' analysis. I proceed initially by considering some standard causal analyses, those of Tye and Jackson. 1 show that these analyses are too weak, for they allow cases of hallucination to count as seeing. 1 argue that what is central to seeing is that our visual experiences provide a means of gaining true beliefs about objects. This, however, does not mean that we must actually gain true beliefs about objects in any particular case. Rather, what must be the case is that a perceiver of our sort could gain true beliefs about objects on the basis of experiences like ours. 1 defend this analysis against various objections, making important qualifications to it as 1 do so.     

Gossip in same-gender and cross-gender friends' conversations

Gossip initiations and listener responses were examined in conversations between 25 female-female, 19 male-male and 24 female-male pairs of friends. Participants were 18 to 21 years of age (mean age = 19) and had known one another at least 2 months (mean length = 24 months). Transcribed tape recordings of 5–minute unstructured conversations were analyzed for gossip initiations (evalutive comments about a familiar third person) and gossip responses (discouraging, neutral, mildly encouraging, moderately encouraging, highly encouraging). Overall, encouraging responses were more likely than discouraging or neutral responses. Group differences were also observed. Negative gossip was more likely to occur between female pairs than between male pairs or cross-gender pairs. Also, among female pairs only, negative gossip was more likely than positive gossip. Furthermore, the female pairs tended to respond to evaluative gossip with highly encouraging comments. There were no gender differences within the cross-gender pairs associated with any behaviors. The findings suggest that women may be more likely than men to use and encourage gossip in same-gender friendships in order to establish solidarity and make social comparisons.