Suchergebnisse

Attempts to understand violence, both before & after September 11 (2001), have excluded cultural & psychological elements from their political analysis. The effects of culture & psychology can create a situation where violence, normally constrained by society, erupts into episodes of conflict & war, particularly when influenced by external economic & political pressures. Social & religious movements resulting from this confluence cannot be understood through an appeal to traditional logic, but must be considered through the lens of psychosexual analysis. Similarly, episodes of political & social violence must be understood within the culture that created them. It is concluded that the studies of culture & psychology must be reincorporated into political analyses & that the US must treat culture as a political matter & not shy away from cultural conflicts to protect its own psychological comfort zone. T. Foster

Attempts to understand violence, both before & after September 11 (2001), have excluded cultural & psychological elements from their political analysis. The effects of culture & psychology can create a situation where violence, normally constrained by society, erupts into episodes of conflict & war, particularly when influenced by external economic & political pressures. Social & religious movements resulting from this confluence cannot be understood through an appeal to traditional logic, but must be considered through the lens of psychosexual analysis. Similarly, episodes of political & social violence must be understood within the culture that created them. It is concluded that the studies of culture & psychology must be reincorporated into political analyses & that the US must treat culture as a political matter & not shy away from cultural conflicts to protect its own psychological comfort zone. T. Foster

Der Beitrag bestimmt den Standort der politischen Psychologie zwischen den beiden Disziplinen Politikwissenschaft und Psychologie. Die Beschreibung der "Infrastruktur" dieser Subdisziplin befasst sich mit den nationalen und internationalen Ressourcen der Forschung, den institutionellen Verflechtungen mit der pädagogischen Psychologie und den institutionalisierten Berufsinteressen der beiden Herkunftsdisziplinen. Eingegangen wird weiterhin auf Ausbildungsbedingungen, Curriculumentwicklung und Graduiertenförderung im Feld der politischen Psychologie. Thematisiert werden auch die Finanzierungsmöglichkeiten durch private und wirtschaftliche Geldgeber, die Entstehung einiger Stiftungen und der expandierende Markt für Beratung und Training durch die politische Psychologie. Die fruchtbarsten Perspektiven sieht die Autorin in einer Synthese zwischen politischen Rational-Choice-Ansätzen und dem verhaltens- und lerntheoretischen Ansatz zur Analyse von politischen Entscheidungsprozessen. (ICA). Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1920 bis 2000.

Feminist thought has conventionally been ignored by psychology through a series of mechanisms, including exclusion of certain kinds of theory, terming feminist writing a form of politics rather than science, drawing attention to internal inconsistencies in feminist thought, & using a liberal rhetoric to mask exclusionary practices. Despite these efforts, feminists have succeeded in challenging the pedagogic & epistemological models of psychology, calling attention to distinctively feminist ways of knowing & to how psychology has participated in the oppression of women. These challenges have met with firm resistance, & feminists continue to remain on the margins of the discipline, which offers views from inside & outside the profession. However, while this perspective has advantages, it must eventually become instrumental in the transformation of the discipline. 45 References. D. M. Ryfe

The predominance of the Cartesian body-mind dualism is identified as the principal reason for psychology's underdevelopment as a social science. Consequently, it is asserted that free will & determinism are problems only in the context of the Cartesian mind-body & self-Other dualisms; ie, free will is illusory in the discipline of psychology, & questions of behavior have been primarily resolved in relation to animal behavior. Fritz Heider's (1958) analysis of interpersonal relations is interpreted as establishing an interface between mind & behavior. The centrality of a psychology of a free will to Leon Festinger's (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance is discussed. Festinger's cognitive dissonance is subsequently applied to questions of free will & determinism, providing support for the significance of free will in human actions. 29 References. J. W. Parker

Argues that the commonsense thinking of social movements ought to be approached from a more general consideration of the nature of commonsense thinking of the larger culture or nationhood in which they exist. A discursive approach to this common sense emphasizes the importance of language as action undertaken in the social, rather than cognitive, world, which inevitably leads to varied interpretive repertoires. From this perspective, common sense is properly seen as dilemmatic in that it is composed of contradictory themes that must be negotiated through the use of rhetorical arguments. This approach is illustrated in the example of common sense about the monarchy among British citizens. Social movements viewed from this perspective can be seen as conducting arguments against prevailing notions of common sense. Thus, it is argued that it would be wrong to make a rigid separation between commonsense ideology & the ideology of social movements because the latter necessarily feeds off the former. D. M. Smith

As an outcome of the West German students movement critical psychologies in German-speaking countries have developped as marxist critiques of society and science. Above all, Holzkamp used Marx' and Engels' doctrines of natural and societal progression as foundations of a unifying categorical and closed epistemological system. Part of a political movement, psychologists were forced to link with discourses originating in the late twenties and early thirties, then cut off by National Socialism and postwar ideologies in Germany and Austria. They were forced to make up for a lag. They were to reify Marx' ghosts . For a long time they ignored the experiences of left critics in other western cultures, especially France, where critiques had been differentiated in a post-marxist manner. Up to the late eighties, this critical-psychological ignorance happened even to feminism, poststructuralism and constructivism. With the breakdown of so-called 'real socialism' Critical psychology after all had lost the last social and communitarian foundations as a reference. It had left trends of historic progression and had become conservative in a paradox way. Finally, the defeat has opened actual chances of critique, potentially in fragmented postmodern discourses.

An introduction to this volume exploring the potential of social psychology for social movement theory & research. The history of social movement theorizing & research is presented, & contributions are briefly summarized & introduced. 45 References. K. Hyatt Stewart

Considers the issue of whether recent welfare reforms indicate any basic transformation in notions of quality, citizenship, & the role of the state, contending that no such alteration has taken place. Rather, reform itself is a reaction to shifts in social conditions & practices. The crucial changes pertain to conventions about family formation, womens roles, reproductive options, & motherhood. These shifts, not a refutation of the conditional reciprocity model itself, are responsible for the changes in US welfare policy. Tables, References. K. Coddon

The current state of relations between the Canadian government & aboriginal peoples in Canada is examined, focusing on psychological motivations behind Canadian people's behaviors toward the Native peoples. An overview of the legal impediments to indigenous persons' rights & the slow resolution of land disputes between Native peoples & the Canadian state is presented. Two cases illustrating the contentious state of Canadian-Native relations -- the state's use of the Canadian Armed Forces to overcome a Native blockade in Quebec & the Native lobbies against creating hydroelectric dams around James Bay -- are provided & subsequently used to document the psychological foundations of policies against Native peoples. It is contended that state policies attempt to dehumanize Native peoples in order to justify their disreputable treatment. J. Platt's (1973) notion of the social fence is recalled to explain bureaucrats' unwillingness to intervene on behalf of Canada's indigenous peoples. Several recommendations for eliminating the imposition of structural violence on Native peoples are offered, eg, establishing a higher authority. 1 Table, 1 Figure, 116 References. J. W. Parker