Consumerism and identity: Some psychoanalytical considerations

Abstract

The author examines the role that the buying of commodities plays in the identity formation of the individual. He concludes that it is nowadays no longer the instrumental utility value but a psychical utility value that influences the decision to buy a commodity and that the psychical utility value can have different functions for consumers. In neurotically structured individuals, normal consuming can end in an identity extension where the individual identifies transitively unconscious scenes with those in advertisements, thus making these unconscious scenes conscious in their guise. When individuals are mainly narcissistically structured, an “identity of commodities” can be found, that is, a non-personal identity formation mediated by commodities in which the individuals identify reflexively with the scenic figures from Internet games, movies, television programs, and commercials.     

Pseudocontingencies derived from categorically organized memory representations

Pseudocontingencies (PCs) allow for inferences about the contingency between two variables X and Y when the conditions for genuine contingency assessment are not met. Even when joint observations X _i and Y _i about the same reference objects i are not available or are detached in time or space, the correlation r(X _i ,Y _i ) is readily inferred from base rates. Inferred correlations are positive (negative) if X and Y base rates are skewed in the same (different) directions. Such PC inferences afford useful proxies for actually existing contingencies. While previous studies have focused on PCs due to environmental base rates, the present research highlights memory organization as a natural source of PC effects. When information about two attributes X and Y is represented in a hierarchically organized categorical memory code, as category-wise base rates p(X) and p(Y), the reconstruction of item-level information from category base rates will naturally produce PC effects. Three experiments support this contention. When the yes base rates of two respondents in four questionnaire subscales (categories) were correlated, recalled and predicted item-level responses were correlated in the same direction, even when the original responses to specific items within categories were correlated in the opposite direction.     

MODES OF IDENTIFICATION: FREUD'S CONCEPTS REORGANIZED

The author examines Freud's conceptualizations of identification, Melanie Klein's projective identification, and Anna Freud's identification with the aggressor and altruistic surrender of one's own instinctual impulses. After demonstrating that Freud's concept primary identification refers not to a process but to the state of being identified, he suggests the substitution of it with Sandler's term “oneness”. He notes that hysterical identification, narcissistic identification, and introjection are unconscious processes that lead to a state of oneness and that they can be distinguished clinically in terms of the emotional meaning that an object holds for the individual. Furthermore, it is shown that the concept of identification with the aggressor represents a defense mechanism of its own and a specific mode of narcissistic identification, which together with projections and hysterical re-identification play a decisive rôle in projective identification and altruistic surrender of one's own instinctual impulses.     

Frege's Logic

MEDIEVAI AND RENAISSANCF LOGIC

WILLIAM OFOCKHAM, Ockham's theory of propositions. Part I1 of Summa logicae. Translated by Alfred J. Freddoso and Henry Schuurman, with an introduction by Alfred J. Freddoso. University of Notre Dame Press, 1980. viii + 212 pp. £ 12.00.

WILHELM RISSE, Bibliagraphia Logica. Verzeichnis der Handschriften zur Logik. Band IV. Hildesheim, New York: Georg 0lm.s Verlag, 1979. vii + 390pp. DM 98.

G. W .F. H EGEL, Wissenschaft der Logik. Erster Band. Die objektive Logic (l812/1813) (Gesammelte Werke, Hand 11) Herausegeben von F. Hogemannund W. Jaeschhc. Hamburg: Felix hleiner Verlag, 1978. xii + 441 S. DM 118.

G.W.F. HEGEI., Wissenschaft der Logik. Zweiter Band. Die subjektive Logik (1816). (Gesammelte Werke, Band 12.) Herausgegeben von F. Hogemann und W. Jaeschke. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1981. viii + 358 S. DM 122.

G. GUNTHER, Idee und Grundriss einer nicht-aristotelischen Logik. Die Idee und ihre philosophischen Voraussetzungen. Appendix by R. Kaehr. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag,1978,xxx + 417 + 117 pp. DM 84.

LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY

BFN-AMI SCHARFSTEI N, The philosophers: their lives and the nature of their thought. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980. x + 486 pp. £18.00.

DESMONDLEE (ed.), Wittgenstein's lectures: Cambridge 1930 - 1932. From the notes of John King and Desmond Lee. Oxford: Blackwell, 1980. xix + 124 pp. £7.95.

0. HANFLING, Logical positivism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981. viii + 181 pp. £14.00 (cloth)/£5.50 (paper).

0. HANFLING(ed.),Essenliai readings in iogicai podivihrn. Oxford: Basil Biackwell, 1981. viii + 248 pp. £5.95(paper).     

Voluntary and automatic attentional control of visual working memory

Previous studies of attention-directing cues have focused largely on the effects of cuing on perceptual processes, but cuing may also influence the transfer of perceptual representations into visual working memory. In the present study, we examined this potential role of cues, using both predictive and nonpredictive cues in the context of a visual working memory task. Each trial began with a cue, followed by an array of six colored squares, a delay interval, and then a probe square presented at the location of one of the squares in the previous array. The subjects were required to indicate whether the color of the probe square was the same as the color of the square that had previously been presented at the same location. Performance on this working memory task was more accurate when the cued location was probed than when an uncued location was probed, even when the cued location was no more likely to be probed than any of the uncued locations. An additional experiment using the abrupt-onset paradigm of Yantis and Jonides (1984) yielded similar results. Thus, visual transients may automatically influence the transfer of perceptual representations into visual working memory.     

Übertragung und Übertragungsneurose

The authors investigate Freud's concepts of transference, transference neurosis and their mutual relationship. They discuss the current criticism made on the concept of transference neurosis and raise the question, why patients accept the analyst's interpretations? They suggest understanding transference neurosis as conscious manifestations of transference referring to the analyst which are the outcome of successive interpretations of the type "just-like" followed, changed, and removed again by "just-like-it-was"-interpretations. They conclude that the patient does accept these interpretations not for reasons that are rational, but for reasons pertaining the transference situation.     

Confirming Gender Stereotypes: A Social Role Perspective

In this research we examined whether emotional vulnerability leads women and men to confirm gender stereotypes. Emotional vulnerability is a state where one is open to having one's feelings hurt or to experiencing rejection. Drawing on the tenets of social role theory and research related to normative expectations, we propose that emotional vulnerability leads to stereotype confirmation, as normative expectations are less risky and easier to enact than nonnormative behavior. Fifty-nine dating couples were randomly assigned to a high emotional vulnerability or low emotional vulnerability discussion with their partners. When the degree of emotional vulnerability was high men confirmed gender-stereotypes. Women's behavior, on the other hand, was not significantly affected by condition. We discuss these findings in terms of the domain in which gender-typed behaviors occur and the social pressures to act in accordance with gender norms.     

Discussant's Comments Symposium: Applications of Androgyny to the Theory and Practice of Psychotherapy

As the preceding papers indicate, social change is creating pressure upon women and men to become increasingly androgynous. Thus, it is necessary to clarify the parameters of psychologically healthy androgynous functioning. Androgyny is currently defined in terms of the relative balance between masculine and feminine characteristics; it is suggested that both the relative degree of masculinity and feminity, and the particular configuration of characteristics need to be taken into account in specifying the convergence between androgyny and psychological health. Finally, the assumption that masculinity and femininity are orthogonal dimensions is questioned for some characteristics.