Society’s Symbolic Order and Political Trials: Toward Sacrificing the Self for the “Big Other”

The need to establish a borderline between legitimate and illegitimate political trial is one of the central societal discourses. In this paper the author claims that the issues are complex and that a political trial can remain legitimate as long as it is not dealing with a confrontation with the symbolic order on which the society (and the court itself) is founded and as long as the subject (or action) it is dealing with does not threaten the symbolic order’s (or the “Big Other”) existence. When the symbolic order’s existence is in danger, the court is bound to participate in an act of “sacrifice” that is intended to protect the “order.” The author uses Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory of the “Big Other” (and its development to ideological-political terms) in examining three categories of sacrifice. Through these categories the author claims that in extreme cases of confrontation with the existence of the symbolic order, the court cannot remain objective and it would be difficult to justify the trial as legitimate (especially in historical perspective).     

Political Power and Race Relations in South Africa: African Attitudes Before and After the Transition

When an oppressed majority finally gains political power, what happens to its attitudes to its erstwhile oppressor, and to its perceptions and feelings about its socioeconomic disadvantages that were established during its oppression? Longitudinal data from pre- and post-transition surveys of black South African college and high school students indicate marked reductions in perceptions of and outrage about intergroup socioeconomic inequity and deprivation relative to English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking whites, but no change in attitudes toward these groups or toward whites in general. The findings are discussed in terms of contemporary theory and research on justice, intergroup relations, and group conflict. Some tentative implications for the prospects for a democratic political culture in South Africa are noted.     

Complex learning and information processing by pigeons: a critical analysis

Three models of conditional discrimination learning by pigeons are described: stimulus configuration learning, the multiple-rule model, and concept learning. A review of the literature reveals that true concept learning is not characteristic of the behavior of pigeons in matching-to-sample, oddity-from-sample, or symbolic matching studies. Instead, pigeons learn a set of sample-specific S^D rules. Transfer of the discrimination to novel stimuli, at least along the hue dimension, is predicted by a “coding hypothesis”, which holds that pigeons make a unique, but usually unobserved response, R₁, to each sample, and that the comparison stimulus chosen depends on which R₁ was emitted in the presence of the sample. Convincing evidence is found that pigeons do code sample hues, but there is little evidence that allows one to infer that the “coding event” must have behavioral properties. Parameters of the conditional discrimination paradigm are identified, and it is shown that by appropriate parametric manipulation, a variety of analogous tasks may be generated for both human and animal subjects. The tasks make possible the comparative study of complex learning, attention, memory, and information processing, with the added advantage that behavior processes may be compared systematically across tasks.     

Dialectics of Sign and Symbol and the Utterance of Archetype Theory

Debates surrounding Jung’s archetype theory could be characterized as tacit attempts to contend with the concept’s dual function as referring to something known to psychologists (sign) and standing for something that is fundamentally unknowable (symbol). This essay considers implications of the term “archetype,” outlines and critiques some of the conundrums of categorization and scientific credibility posed by Jung’s formulation of the theory, and prompts locating the archetypal “human quality” of being human in imaginaries of typical patterning of the experiential realm.     

眼睛注视的知觉及其线索效应

对眼睛注视知觉、眼睛注视线索效应及其影响因素等相关研究进行了总结和分析。结果发现:(1)婴儿从一出生就对眼睛注视线索表现出强烈的敏感性,眼睛注视知觉对语言和社会等能力的发展有很大影响;(2)颞上沟是加工眼睛注视线索的特异神经结构,它与实时监控情绪和情感的杏仁核存在神经联结,成为社会认知神经系统的重要组成部分;(3)对眼睛注视线索的早期加工显示出特异的脑电活动模式;(4)眼睛注视线索效应与外周线索的反射式效应相类似,但持续时间较长;(5)眼睛注视线索效应不仅受面部结构信息的影响,也受自上而下加工等高水平认知因素的调节,并显示出明显的个体差异。对眼睛注视线索效应的进一步研究应涉及人格判断、喜好评价和心理理论等高级社会认知活动。     

The Authoritarian Personality, 50 Years Later: What Questions Are There for Political Psychology?

Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford's The Authoritarian Personality is probably the most deeply flawed work of prominence in political psychology. The methodological, procedural, and substantive errors of this study are well known, but they are frequently simply attributed to poor methodological judgments, issues of scaling (such as response set), or Freudian theories that legitimated circular interpretations. But a more fundamental bias arose from the attempt to empirically verify the existence of a "type" of person whom the researchers thought dangerous and with whom they did not empathize. This attempt involved two dangerous procedures: (1) the fusion of nominalist research procedures (in which empirical results were used to type respondents) with a realist interpretation of types (in which some people "just were" authoritarians and others not), and (2) a theoretically rich critique of the authoritarians and a lack of interest in the psychodynamics of liberals. This combination led to an intrinsically biased interpretive project that could not help but accumulate damning evidence about authoritarians. These subtler problems have haunted contemporary work in political psychology that avoids the methodological problems of Adorno et al.; Altemeyer's work on authoritarianism, which not only is free from the defects of the Adorno et al. study but also involves some methodologically exemplary experiments, is similarly distorted by asymmetries. The same fundamental problems seem to be at the heart of the weaknesses of the theory of symbolic racism to which critics have pointed. Political psychologists should regard The Authoritarian Personality as a cautionary example of bias arising from the choice of methodological assumptions.     

连续和同时线索化条件下的返回抑制容量

利用线索-靶子模式进行了返回抑制容量的两个实验。实验一对外周数个位置连续线索化,实验二对外周数个位置同时线索化。结果表明：(1)在连续线索化条件下,当线索化位置是相邻时,返回抑制容量可以达到4个,当线索化位置是间隔时,返回抑制容量只有1个。(2)在同时线索化条件下．当线索化位置是相邻时,返回抑制容量可以达到3个,当线索化位置是间隔时．返回抑制容量只有1个。结果支持认为存在着两种不同的返回抑制的观点,即一种是弥散性的,其容量较大;另一种是集中性的,其容量只有一个。     

重复线索化和靶子注意定向对返回抑制的影响

在返回抑制范式下 ,利用线索—靶子模式进行了两个实验 ,以大学生为被试 ,以重复线索化次数来操纵线索化阶段的注意 ,以靶子的注意定向来操纵靶子加工阶段的注意 ,探讨注意对返回抑制的影响。实验一采用连续线索化方式 ,发现当靶子为自主性注意定向时 ,线索化次数对返回抑制有显著影响 ,线索化 3次时返回抑制值大于线索化 1次和 2次 ;当靶子为反射性注意定向时 ,线索化次数对返回抑制无影响。实验二采用交叉线索化方式 ,发现线索化次数对返回抑制的影响正好与实验一相反。两个实验一致表明 ,无论是线索化阶段的注意 ,还是靶子加工阶段的注意 ,均对返回抑制有显著影响 ;并且 ,在对返回抑制的影响上 ,二者存在显著交互作用。从而支持注意影响返回抑制的观点。该结果对返回抑制的机制研究有一定意义。     

From symbolic law to narrative capacity: A paradigm shift in psychoanalysis?1

In the Freudian perspective, the primal phantasies, a refl ection of prehistory, oblige us through our phylogenetic heritage and its repetition in the ontogenetic to recognize the limits of generation and sex, to submit to the symbolic law represented by the father of the primal horde and to fi nd‐as is sought in the treatment‐one's ‘right’ place in the primal scene (Oedipus complex). Clinical experience with patients suffering from narcissistic disorders soon led certain analysts to propose a paradigm change, which has brought about important modifi cations to technique, but also, more recently, modifi cations at the level of metapsychology. Certain contemporary analysts have a conception of the subject focused on processes of interaction and communication between ‘thinking apparatuses’ in the here and now. The author shows that this current development is taking place in parallel with major trends in our postmodern era in which communication and negotiation replace former religious, mythical, philosophical, moral or political beliefs.     

Symbolic conceptions: the idea of the third

The idea of the third which appears in Jung's concepts of the transcendent function and the coniunctio also occurs in several psychoanalytic theories concerning the emergence of reflective and symbolic thought in childhood development (defined here as the development of 'imaginal capacity'). Noting the way this process is often conceived in terms of the metaphor of sexual intercourse leading to 'conception', this paper suggests that such images need to be understood as symbolic conceptions of the meaning-making functions of the human mind. This leads to a different view of psychoanalytic theories that attempt to account for the development of imaginal capacity in terms of the Oedipus complex. It is suggested that a) these functions must be operative in the mind before the Oedipal situation can become meaningful and b) that psychoanalytic theories are themselves symbolic conceptions which, like mythological narratives, seek to communicate and comprehend psychic reality through imaginal forms.