Pathways to intercultural accuracy: Social projection processes and core cultural values

The present research examines intercultural accuracy—people's ability to make accurate judgments about outgroup values—and the role of social projection processes. Across four studies, U.S. and British participants showed low overall levels of intercultural accuracy for Chinese students’ individualistic and collectivistic values. In line with recent changes toward individualism in China, we observed different levels of intercultural accuracy, hinging on whether the criterion values of Chinese were assessed before (2001) or after (2015) this shift. Important for the study of social projection, we observed that U.S./British participants projected their values onto the outgroup. Social projection tendency (measured in Study 2 and manipulated in Study 3) was associated with greater intercultural accuracy. The relationship between projection and accuracy also depended on the shifts in individualistic values of Chinese. Important for the study of intergroup relations, accuracy was positively associated with interest in future relationships with the Chinese.     

Self–Serving Perceptions of Terrorism Among Israelis and Palestinians

Definitions of political violence as terrorism are often tainted by self–serving motivations. Groups in conflict in particular tend to justify the use of indiscriminate violent means by highly regarded political ends. This study explores such self–serving perceptions of terrorism in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In two surveys during December 2001, Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians were asked whether 11 local and international incidents were acts of terrorism in their view, and whether they were considered acts of terrorism by the international community. Self–serving judgments on both sides were expected, but their extent is striking, and they extend also to the international incidents. Israeli Arabs judge all acts of violence as terrorism in high percentages. Israeli Jews and Palestinians' definitions present a mirror image; however, they do not project these definitions to the international community. Instead, they perceive an international norm largely divergent from their own point of view, inflating world judgment of their own acts of violence as terrorism and underestimating world judgment of the other side's violence, in what amounts to a hostile–world phenomenon.     

Synchronicity and the capacity to think: a clinical exploration

Synchronicity blurs the boundaries of psyche and physis. This invisible dance of mind and matter suggested to Jung an interconnection between physical and mental events reflecting a unified 'psychophysical space-time continuum'. His idea of exteriorization put forth the notion that unconscious thoughts can manifest themselves in the external world. I have related this to Bion's theory of thinking, where thoughts, which should be a prelude to action, become actions in themselves, projections of unthought thoughts. Through detailed clinical work with dreams I will explore the effects of early trauma on the development of the capacity to think, and the way in which synchronistic events relate to projections of early traumatic experiences which have not been 'mentalized'.     

Flexible conceptual projection of time onto spatial frames of reference

Flexibility in conceptual projection constitutes one of the most challenging issues in the embodiment and conceptual metaphor literatures. We sketch a theoretical proposal that places the burden of the explanation on attentional dynamics in interaction with mental models in working memory that are constrained to be maximally coherent. A test of this theory is provided in the context of the conceptual projection of time onto the domain of space. Participants categorized words presented at different spatial locations (back–front, left–right) as referring to the past or to the future. Responses were faster when the irrelevant word location was congruent with the back–past, front–future metaphoric mapping. Moreover, when a new highly task-relevant spatial frame of reference was introduced, it changed the projection of past and future onto space in a way that was congruent with the new frame (past was now projected to left space and future to right space), as predicted by the theory. This study shows that there is substantial flexibility in conceptual projection and opens a venue to study metaphoric variation across tasks, individuals, and cultures as the result of attentional dynamics.     

The parables of a green-eyed monster: Two tales about envy

Abstract

This paper describes how the dynamics of envy infiltrate interactions if envy is not contained. An interactive model of a 'giver' and 'recipient' is presented as a way of looking at envy and is applied to a clinical and organizational example. An analysis is made in terms of utilizing symbiosis defensively in order to avoid coming to grips with envy.     

Superordinate identities and intergroup conflict: The ingroup projection model

This chapter summarises results from a research programme on the psychological basis of tolerance and discrimination in intergroup relations, with particular consideration of the role of superordinate identities. According to the ingroup projection model, a relevant superordinate group provides dimensions and norms for comparisons between ingroup and outgroup. Groups gain positive value or status when they are considered prototypical for the (positively valued) superordinate group. Group members tend to generalise (project) distinct ingroup characteristics onto the superordinate category, implying the relative prototypicality of their ingroup. To the extent that outgroup difference is regarded as a deviation from the ethnocentrically construed prototype it is evaluated negatively. Our research studied consequences and determinants of ingroup projection, as well as moderators of its implications. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the processes involved in intergroup discrimination and indicate new pathways for the reduction of prejudice, towards mutual intergroup appreciation and tolerance.     

Projective identification and working through of the countertransference: A multiphase model

Referring to Melanie Klein's unpublished views on projective identification, Bion's theory of container/contained and Money‐Kyrle's understanding of countertransference as a process of transformation, the author develops a multiphase model of projective identification. He differentiates five subphases of (1) adhesion, (2) penetration, (3) linking of the projection with an internal object of the analyst, (4) transformation and (5) re‐projection. In the author's view the differentiation of overlapping subphases may be helpful to better localize problems of working through the countertransference. Some technical implications are illustrated by brief clinical vignettes. To conclude, the paper discusses typical impasses and options for interpretation.     

Spinoza and the Feeling of Freedom

We seem to have a direct experience of our freedom when we act. Many philosophers take this feeling of freedom as evidence that we possess libertarian free will. Spinoza denies that we have free will of any sort, although he admits that we nonetheless feel free. Commentators often attribute to him what I call the ‘Negative Account’ of the feeling: it results from the fact that we are conscious of our actions but ignorant of their causes. I argue that the Negative Account is flawed. The feeling of freedom also depends on a vacillation of the mind. When the mind forms too many incompatible associations, it vacillates between them. When we act, the mind vacillates back and forth between the kinds of actions that we associate with our present mental state. We then mistake this subjective vacillation for an objective feature of ourselves—namely, the power to do otherwise.