Object loss, renewed mourning, and psychic change in Jane Austen's Persuasion

Austen's extraordinary realism in depicting the dynamic internal processes which follow on the heroine's loss in Persuasion becomes clear in the light of a psychoanalytic understanding of mourning. Persuasion dramatizes the effects of a mother's death in adolescence as these come into play at the time of the heroine's separation from her fiancée and her later mourning. The thesis of this paper is that, despite falling in love with the brilliant hero, an unfinished mourning and an unconscious identification with her dead mother helped to persuade the heroine Anne Elliot to break her engagement, to create a 'final parting' as her mother had done to her in dying. The heroine's internal monologues show that she has projected some of the darker feelings of mourning, her anger and resentment, on to the hero and that she reopens a complex mourning process, partly through the displacement of affect, showing how traumatic effects of loss can be worked through in deferred action, effecting positive psychic change.     

A note on the geometric interpretation of the EM algorithm in estimating item characteristics and student abilities

This note uses the EM-algorithm in an item response model as an illustration of a general method of parameter estimation, which geometrically can be described as an alternating projection method. The research was initiated by a series of lectures on alternating projection methods given by Imre Csiszar in 1993 at Stanford University where the first author was a graduate student.     

Does God Cheat at Dice? Divine Action and Quantum Possibilities

The recent debates concerning divine action in the context of quantum mechanics are examined with particular reference to the work of William Pollard, Robert J. Russell, Thomas Tracy, Nancey Murphy, and Keith Ward. The concept of a quantum mechanical "event" is elucidated and shown to be at the center of this debate. An attempt is made to clarify the claims made by the protagonists of quantum mechanical divine action by considering the measurement process of quantum mechanics in detail. Four possibilities for divine influence on quantum mechanics are identified and the theological and scientific implications of each discussed. The conclusion reached is that quantum mechanics is not easily reconciled with the doctrine of divine action.     

Jungian approach to human aggression with special emphasis on war

Cross-cultural and interdisciplinary agreement as to the universality of aggressive behavior and warfare is compatible with Jung's [(1959): “The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol 9, Part I, Para 3.” London: Routledge] theory of archetypes functioning as components of the human collective unconscious. Jungian formulations involve a phylogenetic view of psychic phenomena since archetypes are conceived as neuropsychic entities which evolved through natural selection. It is argued that the banding together of young males for the purpose of aggressive pursuits such as hunting, intergroup conflict, and warfare is a biologically transmitted propensity mediated by archetypal structures in the human brain-psyche. Universally apparent patterns of affiliative and hostile behaviors are linked to Chance's [(1988): “Social Fabrics of the Mind.” London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates] hedonic and agonic modes and seen as later ontological expressions of archetypal structures responsible in childhood for formation of bonds of attachment to familiars and avoidance and wariness of strangers. Erikson's [(1984): Yale Review 73(4): 481–486] concept of pseudospeciation is associated with Jung's concept of shadow projection to elucidate the phenomena of patriotism, xenophobia, national paranoia, Lorenz's [(1966): “On Aggression.” London: Methuen & Co.] “militant enthusiasm,” propaganda, and mobilization for war. Finally, it is argued that peace between nations can be promoted through conscious awareness of archetypally determined patterns of intergroup conflict and a collective resolve not to pseudospeciate our neighbors. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

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.     

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.     

Interethnic relations in Malaysia: Group identifications,indispensability and inclusive nationhood

This paper focuses on interethnic relations in Malaysia and examines survey data collected among Malay (n = 405), Chinese (n = 90), and Indian (n = 53) participants. In agreement with the Common In‐group Identity Model, inclusive nationhood was related to more positive out‐group attitudes. Relative in‐group indispensability was related to higher bias as predicted by the In‐group Projection Model. Furthermore, the dominant group of Malay had higher in‐group indispensability, more strongly endorsed an inclusive national representation, had stronger ethnic and national identification, and a stronger association between both identifications.     

La fonction argumentative des marques de la langue

The present paper reports a set of experimental studies concerning the comprehension of French argumentative operators and connectives. The first part is a presentation of the theoretical framework, the methodological problems and some of the most general results. Experiments were carried out in the perspective of the linguistic theory of argumentation developed by Anscombre and Ducrot. According to this theory, a number of devices in language are mainly defined by their argumentation function, i.e. by the types of discursive sequences and conclusions they involve. Three categories of such devices were examined: (1) operators like “presque” (almost), “à peine” (hardly), “au moins” (at least), etc. which give an argumentative orientation to the statement; (2) co-orientation connectives, like “même” (even), which relate two statements oriented towards the same conclusion; (3) counter-orientation connectives, like the concessive ones (“mais” (but), “quand même” (even so), etc.), which relate two statements oriented towards opposite conclusions. The data shed light on issues such as: What is the nature of the relationship between the informative and argumentative functions of different operators? Is there a hierarchical relation between the argumentative processes of “co-orientation” and “counter-orientation”? What is the role of negation in the processing of argumentative sequences? The second part of the paper focuses specifically on the study of how 8 and 10 year-old children process “counter-oriented” statements. Five concessive connectives were studied: “mais”, “pourtant”, “quand même”, “même si”, “bien que”. The test was composed of two successive completion tasks: in one task the children had to choose the relevant context of complex sentences involving concessive connectives; in the other task they had to choose their relevant conclusion. Main results show a clear evolution in the performance of children between 8 and 10, suggesting that concessive strategies are not completely mastered at the age of 8. Differences among the concessive connectives studied were brought out: the item “quand même” obtained much better results than the other items with 8-year-old subjects; statements with “mais” seemed to be better processed in the conclusion task than in the context task, especially by 10-year-old subjects. These results are compared with other data obtained in some of the numerous studies on the production and comprehension of concessive connectives in various languages, and discussed from the point of view of argumentative theory.     

The Perceptual Pathway: Tracing the Mechanisms of Political Value Transfer across Generations

The transfer of political values across generations is commonly understood as a two-step process. First, the child perceives the characteristics of the parent, thereby creating an image of what the parent is like. Second, the child is persuaded to adapt his or her own views to that image. Despite its theoretical dominance, the details of this perceptual pathway of parentalsocialization have rarely been examined empirically. A major Swedish socialization study offers unusually good opportunities to investigate how it actually operates. The results indicate that the perceptual pathway as a whole is of great but not universal significance, that perception is more important than persuasion because of its greater variability, and that the conditions regulating the former are distinct from those regulating the latter. One implication of the results is that studies of interpersonal influence based on a single source (e.g., the child alone) are likely to yield a very lopsided view of the socialization process.