Irigaray and Lyotard: Birth,Infancy, and Metaphysics

This paper examines the ways in which Luce Irigaray and Jean‐François Lyotard critique western metaphysics by drawing on notions of birth and infancy. It shows how both thinkers position birth as an event of beginning that can be reaffirmed in every act of initiation and recommencement. Irigaray's reading of Diotima's speech from Plato's Symposium is positioned as a key text for this project alongside a number of essays by Lyotard in which he explores the potency of infancy as the condition of philosophy itself. Despite this potency, however, Lyotard suggests that metaphysics is haunted by a melancholia that is inseparable from the limits of thought. I argue that Irigaray is able both to explain why western metaphysics is constitutively melancholic and to offer a shift in perspective that means we are not inevitably condemned to melancholia. The paper concludes that while Lyotard's account of infancy challenges the terms of western metaphysics from within, Irigaray's reassessment of our beginnings in birth offers the possibility of an alternative metaphysical horizon.     

What makes labour and birth traumatic? A survey of intrapartum 'hotspots'

Evidence suggests between 1% and 6% of women develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after childbirth. 'Hotspots' are moments of extreme distress during traumatising events that are implicated in symptoms of PTSD. This cross-sectional internet survey of hotspots examined (1) the content of intrapartum hotspots and (2) whether particular events, cognitions or emotions during hotspots are related to PTSD. Women (N?=?675) who experienced a difficult or traumatic birth completed a questionnaire composed of a validated measure of PTSD, questions concerning the existence of hotspots, and a newly developed measure of emotions and cognitions during hotspots. The majority of women (67.4%) reported at least one hotspot during birth and 52.9% had re-experiencing symptoms of these hotspots. Women were more likely to have PTSD if hotspots involved fear and lack of control (odds ratio (OR) 1.30, 95% CI 1.17-1.43) or intrapartum dissociation (OR 1.12, 95% CI 1.05-1.19). Risk of PTSD was higher if hotspots concerned interpersonal difficulties (OR 4.34, 95% CI 2.15-8.77) or obstetric complications (OR 3.35, 95% CI 1.64-6.87) compared to complications with the baby.     

'Please don't put the whole dang thing out there!': a discursive analysis of internet discussions around infant feeding

The promotion of breastfeeding is an important focus of intervention for professionals working to improve infant health outcomes. Literature in this area focuses largely on 'choices' and 'barriers to breastfeeding'. It is our argument, however, that women's cultural context plays a key role in infant feeding 'choices'. In this article, we explore contested representations of infant feeding and infant feeding choices in public debates conducted on a large British parenting website. To sample dominant representations of infant feeding circulating in UK culture, two threads were chosen from the debating board of a busy online parenting community (105 and 99 individual posts, respectively). Participants on the threads were largely women. A feminist informed Foucauldian discourse analysis was used to deconstruct the intersecting constructions of gender, childhood and motherhood implicit in public discussions about infant feeding choices. We identify dominant constructions of women who breastfeed or bottle feed, social representations of both forms of infant feeding, and explore the relationship between constructions of infant feeding choices and constructions of 'good' or 'bad' motherhood. This analysis functions to trouble the individualist assumptions underpinning the notion of infant feeding 'choices', considering the cultural context within which British mothers 'choose' how to feed their babies.     

Just Tell Us What Happened to You: Autobiographical Memory and Seeking Asylum

When someone flees their country and seeks the protection of another state, they usually have to describe what happened to make them afraid to return. This task requires many psychological processes, a key one being autobiographical memory. Memory for events of a specific time and place in one's personal past is the subject of a huge literature, much of it showing that recall is vulnerable to distortions and biases. We review selected areas of this literature, shedding light on some of the processes at work when someone seeks to be recognised as a refugee—in particular, the effects of emotion, including emotional disorder. We then turn to the differing types of memory styles seen in different cultures. Crucial to this area, we briefly examine the current literature on deception. Finally, we draw on the reviewed literature to present conclusions about the reliance on autobiographical memories in the asylum process. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Learned predictiveness speeds visual processing

When humans learn that the presence of a cue predicts the likelihood of an outcome, they can exploit this learned predictiveness, such that formation of subsequent associations between that cue and new outcomes is facilitated. Could such enhanced selection for association arise early enough to facilitate low-level visual processing? In a test of this possibility, adult volunteers first engaged in a value-learning task involving faces that were differentially predictive of monetary wins or losses. Later, in a simple recognition task, these faces were briefly presented for a variable duration and then masked. The critical presentation duration needed to produce criterion-level recognition was measured to index the visual processing speed for each learned face. Critical duration was significantly shorter for stimuli with high learned predictiveness than for stimuli with low learned predictiveness, regardless of whether they were associated with wins or losses. These results show that neural mechanisms involved in predicting future outcomes are able to modulate visual processing efficiency, probably via cortical feedback processes.     

Authenticity in College-Aged Males and Females, How Close Others are Perceived, and Mental Health Outcomes

Recently, constructs related to behaving authentically in relationships have been linked to self-esteem and depression. The current study aimed to fill an important gap in the literature by identifying several social-environmental factors that may be associated with dispositional authenticity—“the unobstructed operation of one’s core or true self in one’s daily enterprise” (Kernis and Goldman 2006, p. 294)—and determining whether these factors differ for males and females. Theoretical links between dispositional authenticity and perceptions of close relationship partners as more authentic and egalitarian were empirically examined. This study expanded on relational authenticity research, which has linked behaving authentically in relationships to higher self-esteem and less depressive symptomatology, to address whether females are more likely than males to display dispositional authenticity, as well as to report low self-esteem and depression when they engage in inauthenticity. Participants were 470 U.S. college students (318 female) who were recruited from colleges across the country (41?% from a liberal arts school, 31?% from a large public university) and completed questionnaires online. Path analysis indicated that both genders report more authenticity when they perceived their mothers to be more authentic; authenticity, in turn, was related to fewer depressive symptoms and greater self-esteem for both genders. For females only, authenticity was also positively related to the perceived authenticity of important nonparental adults, and a more traditional gender ideology was related to higher self-esteem; for males only, depressive symptoms were positively related to a more traditional gender ideology. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Clothes Make a Difference: The Role of Self-Objectification

Objectification Theory contends that women self-objectify as a result of internalizing an observer’s perspective on their physical selves. Self-objectification has been examined as both a stable enduring trait and as a context dependent state. The present study aimed to assess the link between clothing, a neglected area of women’s appearance management, and self-objectification. Participants were 102 South Australian female undergraduate students who completed a questionnaire containing a trait measure of self-objectification, as well as four different scenarios varying in clothing worn and setting depicted, followed by state measures of self-objectification, negative mood, body shame, and body dissatisfaction. It was found that the scenarios involving revealing clothing (bathers) led to greater state self-objectification, body shame, body dissatisfaction and negative mood than the scenarios involving more modest clothing (sweater), especially for heavier women. In addition, the dressing room scenarios led to greater state self-objectification but less negative mood than the public scenarios. It was concluded that clothing represents an important contributor to the body and emotional experience of contemporary young women.     

Dispositional optimism: a psychological resource for Mexican-origin mothers experiencing economic stress

Dispositional optimism is believed to be an important psychological resource that buffers families against the deleterious consequences of economic adversity. Using data from a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin families (N = 674), we tested a family stress model specifying that maternal dispositional optimism and economic pressure affect maternal internalizing symptoms, which, in turn, affects parenting behaviors and children's social adjustment. As predicted, maternal optimism and economic pressure had both independent and interactive effects on maternal internalizing symptoms, and the effects of these variables on changes over time in child social adjustment were mediated by nurturant and involved parenting. The findings replicate and extend previous research on single-parent African American families (Taylor, Larsen-Rife, Conger, Widaman, & Cutrona, 2010), and demonstrate the generalizability of the positive benefits of dispositional optimism in another ethnic group and type of family structure.     

The Role of Personality, Psychopathy, and Previous Experience with Assessment in Intentions to Fake in Psychological Testing

Much research has addressed the possible antecedents of faking behaviour, however these approaches tend to be theoretical rather than empirical in nature. This study empirically examined for the first time the role of personality and previous experience with psychological testing in intentions to fake on psychological assessment. Participants (N?=?232 community members, n?=?175 females, n?=?58 males) completed the HEXACO-60 measure of personality, a measure of primary and secondary psychopathy, provided information on whether they had experience in psychological assessment, and rated their intentions to fake in future psychological testing. Analysis via hierarchical multiple regression indicated lower levels of conscientiousness, higher levels of psychopathy, and previous experience with psychological testing significantly predicted intentions to engage in faking in future assessment. In addition, lower levels of secondary psychopathy were also associated with intentions, however inspection of zero-order correlations suggested this influence was via a suppressor effect. These results provide insight into the mechanisms predicting intentions to fake in psychological testing, which may subsequently inform recruiting or diagnostic practices.