Two Sides of the Same Coin? Viewing Altruism and Aggression Through the Adaptive Lens of Kinship

Are altruism and aggression polar opposites, or are they two sides of the same coin? In this review, the authors examine the evolved biological roots of these behaviors and focus on the psychology of kinship and how it can serve to bridge both behaviors. Drawing on inclusive fitness theory ( Hamilton, 1964 ), the kinship, acceptance, and rejection model of altruism and aggression (KARMAA; Webster, 2008 ), and a sociofunctional threat‐based approach to prejudice ( Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005 ), the authors propose that altruism and aggression can be viewed as two sides of the same coin depending on context and perspective. For example, a mother bear protecting her cubs by attacking a predator may be simultaneously exhibiting an act of altruism and aggression. After offering some empirical support for their view, the authors discuss the theoretical and practical implications of viewing altruism and aggression as related constructs at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intergroup levels.     

Personality Assessment in Today's Health Care Environment: Therapeutic Alliance and Patient Satisfaction

This autobiography traces my professional and, to a lesser extent, personal life through my career as a forensic and correctional psychologist. As an only child living in the country and later attending boarding schools from the fifth grade through high school, I learned to be self-reliant and independent. These traits led me to join an archaeological expedition to Oaxaca when I was 18, which fostered my interest in anthropology and then psychology at Amherst. I survived the clinical training program at the University of California at Berkeley and while still in graduate school obtained a staff position at the Alameda County Probation Department Guidance Clinic where I began my interrelated research paths on clinical assessment and the dynamics of aggression, paths I continued as an assistant professor at the University of Texas (1964–1967) and as an associate to full professor at the Florida State University (1967–2003). My major research contributions have been the (a) delineation of the overcontrolled and undercontrolled assaultive syndromes; (b) development of the MMPI–2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, &; Kaemmer, 1989 Butcher, J. N., Dahlstrom, W. G., Graham, J. R., Tellegen, A. and Kaemmer, B. 1989. MMPI-2: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2: Manual for administration and scoring, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.  [Google Scholar]) Overcontrolled Hostility (O–H) Scale; (c) formulation of the “Algebra of Aggression,” a theoretical framework for evaluating and understanding aggressive behavior; (d) exploration of how gender roles interact with dominance in leadership assumption; (e) empirical demonstration of the adverse effects of population density on adjustment in correctional institutions; and (f) development and validation of a classification system for adult criminal offenders based on the MMPI–2.     

The psychologist who is not a psychologist: a deconstructive reading of Wolfgang Giegerich's idea of psychology proper

This paper represents an archetypal and deconstructive reading of the work of Wolfgang Giegerich. In an attempt to extend and philosophically develop Jung's late‐life view of the objective psyche, Giegerich, via Hegel, defines psychology proper as fundamentally separate from the everyday person and the ‘human, all‐too‐human’ aspects of the soul. It is argued that, in so doing, Giegerich removes the human person from being the primary focus of his psychology and creates instead a hierarchy of ideas and values privileging syntax over semantics, the logical over the empirical, and thinking over imagination. This bypasses the emotionality of the everyday person/patient and also renders psychology proper unable to address the day‐to‐day practice of the analyst. Giegerich attempts to rectify this problem by re‐incorporating what he had previously rejected, making his theory more complex than is apparent in his binary oppositions. In the end, however, it remains a question to what extent Giegerich is successful in avoiding a binary scission (Saban 2015) or a tendency to regularly de‐emphasize the human aspect of the soul (Hoedl 2015) in his need to continue to heroically push off from the ego seeking total freedom from neurosis and from our humanity.