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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > The self, ego, identity, personality
Inaugurates a series devoted to the applications of fundamental
social psychological processes to social issues and problems. This
volume addresses the core issues of theory and methodology, and
reviews attempts to design, implement, and evaluate prevention
programs and policies. Annotation copyrigh
This book develops and tests an ecological and evolutionary theory
of the causes of human values the core beliefs that guide people s
cognition and behavior and their variation across time and space
around the world. We call this theory the parasite-stress theory of
values or the parasite-stress theory of sociality. The evidence we
present in our book indicates that both a wide span of human
affairs and major aspects of human cultural diversity can be
understood in light of variable parasite (infectious disease)
stress and the range of value systems evoked by variable parasite
stress. The same evidence supports the hypothesis that people have
psychological adaptations that function to adopt values dependent
upon local infectious-disease adversity. The authorshave identified
key variables, variation in infectious disease adversity and in the
core values it evokes, for understanding these topics and in novel
and encompassing ways. Although the human species is the focus in
the book, evidence presented in the book shows that the
parasite-stress theory of sociality informs other topics in ecology
and evolutionary biology such as variable family organization and
speciation processes and biological diversity in general in
non-human animals."
The publication of this anthology culminates what began as a
Visiting Distinguished Scholars Lecture Series sponsored by the
School of Jus tice Studies. When Dr. John M. Johnson was awarded
the Arizona State University Graduate College's Distinguished
Research Award for 1986- 1987, the School faculty voted to use the
accompanying stipend to bring several scholars to campus. Each
visiting scholar was commis sioned to present an original paper on
contemporary issues in justice and to meet with graduate students
and faculty during a week-long visit to campus. This collection of
essays promotes wide-ranging conceptions of justice. As first
conceived, we sought to bring an interdisciplinary per spective to
the study of justice as a way of intellectually extending the
current focus of research and teaching. As it developed, the
collection permitted us to reflect on our own instructional program
in law and the social sciences and to promote a conception of
social conflict and control which includes social, political,
economic, and legal controls."
Contextualising humanitarian work in history, justice, methods and
professional ethics, this book articulates process skills for
transformational partnerships between diverse organizations,
motivating education, organizational learning and selecting the
disaster workforce.
The self-knower has become a hero within many contemporary
cultures. This hero goes by various different titles, including
the" self-insightful/' the "self-actualized/' the "autonomous and
mature/' the "representative of independent thinking/' the "morally
virtuous/' and many more. The common denominators of civilization's
preoccupation with the self knower are (1) the mundane, popular
literature that draws our attention to our "inner being" and (2)
the remarkable intensity of therapies and quasitherapies that
promise insight into the true core of our inner being. A
characteristic example from an extensive, week-or month-long
training course would read, "Come because you want to discover your
self ... . Through Mr. X the group leaderl, we can realize our true
identities ... . This gives our lives sense and perspective." We
have tried to trace the logic underlying the diverse self-knower
movements and have found three common themes underlying them. For
one, the varieties of theories and treatments associated with
self-knowl edge are interested exclusively in the appearance of the
self-knower. Each representative of the self-knower school has its
own set of criteria for identifying the self-knowing person, and in
tum, each member of the self-knower school represents certain
convictions about how individuals should be evaluated. For
instance, if someone manifests warmth and char ity, that person is
likely to be pronounced healthy, adjusted, and self knowing."
Social media such as instant messaging (IM), social networking
sites (SNS), blogs and microblogs are an integral part of
adolescents' lives in China. Anecdotal evidence reported in the
news has suggested that the increasing popularity of social media
could make adolescents more vulnerable to being addicted. This
exploratory study proposes the concept of "social media addiction"
and examines (a) whether social media addiction exists among
adolescents in urban China and, if so, who the addicts are, what
their symptoms are and to what extent they are addicted; (b)
whether sociopsychological traits (e.g., need for affiliation,
impression management, narcissism and leisure boredom) can predict
social media addiction among adolescents; (c) what gratifications
are obtained by adolescents from their use of social media and
whether these gratifications can predict social media addiction and
(d) to what degree social media addiction influences adolescents'
academic performance and social capital.
This study employed quantitative questionnaire surveys among
adolescents as the main research method, supplemented by
qualitative pre-survey focus groups among adolescents and
post-survey in-depth interviews among parents and teachers.
Questionnaire surveys were conducted based on a multi-stage cluster
sampling of seven middle schools in five urban Chinese cities:
Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Xiamen. The final sample
consisted of 1,549 adolescents, of whom 90% had used social media.
Using Young's classic definition of Internet addiction, 15.6% of
participants were classified as social media addicts. The addicted
adolescents were often self-absorbed, bored with their leisure
time, and good at using manipulation through social media for
impression management. Addicts experienced four major social media
addiction symptoms: preoccupation, adverse consequences,
alleviation of negative emotions and loss of interest in social
activities.
The seven social media gratifications identified in this study
can be categorized into social, information and entertainment
gratifications. Among these, entertainment gratifications had the
most power to predict social media addiction, while information
gratifications were the least likely to lead to addiction.
Furthermore, these gratifications were found to be powerful
mediators between the adolescents' sociopsychological traits and
social media addiction. Finally, the results also indicated that
social media addiction and its symptoms had a significant negative
impact on adolescents' academic performance and social capital.
'A rich and intimate examination of female desire, Maxine's book is
full of wisdom and insight. I cannot recommend it enough' Julia
Samuel After thirty years of research, Sigmund Freud still felt the
great unanswered question was: 'What does a woman want?' Fifteen
years into her own journey as a psychotherapist, Maxine Mei-Fung
Chung believes her collaboration with her patients holds the
answers. Through the profound and moving stories of seven very
different women, Maxine Mei-Fung Chung sheds light on our most
fundamental needs and desires. From a young bride-to-be struggling
to accept her sexuality, to a mother grappling with questions of
identity and belonging, and a woman learning to heal after years of
trauma, What Women Want is an electrifying and deeply intimate
exploration into the inner lives of women. Based on hours of
conversations between Maxine and her patients, this book lays bare
our fears, hopes, secrets and capacity for healing. With great
empathy and precision, What Women Want presents a fearless look
into the depths of who we are, so that we can better understand
each other and ourselves. To desire is an action. This
extraordinary book liberates and empowers us to claim what we truly
want.
James W. Pennebaker The University of Texas at Austin At first
glance, a scientific book on the face doesn't make a great deal of
sense. After all, the face is not a biological unit that falls into
a specific medical specialty. By the same token, it is not part of
a of a specific clear functional system that falls within the
purview subdiscipline of psychology, philosophy, sociology, or any
other traditional area. It seems that the only organizing principle
of the face is that all humans have one and that it is central to
the experience of being human. As a social stimulus, the face can
signal emotions, personality, sex, physical and mental health,
social status, age, and aspects of our thoughts, intentions, and
our inner selves. At various points in our lives, we spend a
tremendous amount of time and money for cosmetics, cleansers,
medicines, and, occasionally, surgery to enhance our face. In the
same way that a normative, symmetrical face can attract praise and
even adoration, damage to the face through birth defects, disease,
or injury is almost always stigmatizing. Our faces, then, are
social advertisements for who we are.
This collection of essays by leading exponents of contemporary
Buddhism and psychotherapy brings together appreciation and
critical evaluation of Mindfulness, a phenomenon that has swept the
mental health field over the last two decades. The sheer diversity
and depth of expertise assembled here illuminate the current
presentation of Mindfulness.
This book evolved from our interest in rape as feminists and as
sodal sdentists. As feminists, we were concemed about the treatment
of rape victims and the attrition in rape cases under traditional
rape law, and we welcomed legal reforms designed to improve the
situation. As sodal sdentists, we wondered about the efficacy of
legal changes aimed at an inherently resistant court system. We
also were curious about the lack of studies examining the impact of
these changes; we were particularly surprised to find that no one
had attempted to ana lyze the impact of the reforms in more than
one jurisdiction. Con vinced that untangling the effects of the
reforms from the effects of contextual factors required a
multijurisdictional study, we deeided to undertake the project. We
quickly discovered that evaluating rape law reform in several
jurisdictions would be no easy task. We had deeided that such an
evaluation would require monthly data on the outcome of rape cases
before and after the reforms were implemented, as weIl as
qualitative data on the attitudes of criminal justice officials
toward the reforms. Because states do not generate monthly data on
case outcomes, we would have to collect the data ourse1ves from
court records main tained by individual jurisdictions. To obtain an
adequate number of cases for the time-series analysis, we would
have to select our sites from large urban jurisdictions scattered
throughout the United States."
This provocative volume is comprised of psychological,
socioeconomic, and cultural perspectives on couple dynamics,
particularly gender dynamics, and the future of marriage. Featuring
data on married, cohabitating, male/female, and same-sex couples,
the authors of the book's chapters analyze the changing impacts of
work, parenting, and the health benefits of marriage for men and
women. Trajectories in the evolution toward gender equality provide
the backdrop for discussions of women and men as partners, parents,
and workers in contemporary society. Contributors also keep a sharp
focus on the complexities of gender issues as they intersect with
crucial contexts of cohort, class, race/ethnicity, and sexual
orientation. Among the topics covered: Gender equality and economic
inequality: impacts on marriage. Expansionist theory expanded:
integrating sociological and psychological perspectives on gender,
work, and family change. Gender, work, and family: action in the
interactions. Changes in U.S. mothers' and fathers' time use:
causes and consequences. A case for gay fathers. Gender, marriage,
and health for same-sex and different-sex couples Gender and Couple
Relationships documents social roles and social change with
fascinating insight to advance research in fields of psychology,
sociology, demography and economics and to the benefit of work
organizations, policy makers, family and couple therapists and
other mental health professionals.
An original and timely study of men's experiences of depression in
which the author tackles the discursively constructed relationship
between the self and depression showing its linguistic and social
complexity and analyses the relationship between depression and
masculinity.
The book Psychosocial Perspectives on Peacebuilding offers a
template for those dealing with the aftermath of armed conflict to
look at peacebuilding through a psychosocial lens. This Volume, and
the case studies that are in it, starts from the premise that armed
conflict and the political violence that flows from it, are deeply
contextual and that in dealing with the impact of armed conflict,
context matters. The book argues for a conceptual shift, in which
psychosocial practices are not merely about treating individuals
and groups with context and culturally sensitive methods and
approaches: the contributors argue that such interventions and
practices should in themselves shape social change. This is of
critical importance because the psychosocial method continually
highlights how the social context is one of the primary causes of
individual psychological distress. The chapters in this book
describe experiences within very different contexts, including
Guatemala, Jerusalem, Indian Kashmir, Mozambique, Northern Ireland,
South Africa and Sri Lanka. The common thread between the case
studies is that they each show how psychosocial interventions and
practices can influence the peacebuilding environment and foster
wider social change. Psychosocial Perspectives on Peacebuilding is
essential reading for social and peace psychologists, as well as
for students and researchers in the field of conflict and peace
studies, and for psychosocial practitioners and those working in
post-conflict areas for NGO's.
What holds together the various fields that are supposed to
consititute the general intellectual discipline that people now
call cognitive science? In this book, Erneling and Johnson identify
two problems with defining this discipline. First, some theorists
identify the common subject matter as the mind, but scientists and
philosophers have not been able to agree on any single,
satisfactory answer to the question of what the mind is. Second,
those who speculate about the general characteristics that belong
to cognitive science tend to assume that all the particular fields
falling under the rubric--psychology, linguistics, biology, and son
on--are of roughly equal value in their ability to shed light on
the nature of mind. This book argues that all the cognitive science
disciplines are not equally able to provide answers to ontological
questions about the mind, but rather that only neurophysiology and
cultural psychology are suited to answer these questions. However,
since the cultural account of mind has long been ignored in favor
of the neurophysiological account, Erneling and Johnson bring
together contributions that focus especially on different versions
of the cultural account of the mind.
This volume brings together a sample of the best of the studies
that illustrate two recent trends in research on deviant behavior.
The first of these trends is the investigation of deviant behavior
in longitudinal perspective. Panels of subjects are followed over
long periods of time to establish temporal relationships be tween
deviant behavior and the antecedents and consequences of deviant
behav ior. The second trend in contemporary research on deviance is
the recognition of the association among forms of deviant behavior
such as violence, drug abuse, and theft. The recognition of the
covariation among forms of deviance stimulated questions regarding
the nature of the relationships among multiple forms of de viance.
Is one form of deviant behavior a cause or a consequence of other
forms of deviant behavior? What variables mediate and moderate such
causal relation ships? Do different forms of deviant behavior have
common antecedents and consequences? Independent of the foregoing
relationships, do particular forms of deviant behavior have unique
antecedents and consequences? The eight original research studies
that, along with the introduction and overview, constitute this
volume are based on data drawn from among the most influential
longitudinal studies in the general area of deviant behavior. These
studies variously consider common and pattern-specific antecedents
and conse quences, reciprocal influences, and intervening and
moderating variables in causal relationships among drug use, crime,
and other forms of deviance."
How can people master their own thoughts, feelings, and actions?
This question is central to the scientific study of
self-regulation. The behavioral side of self-regulation has been
extensively investigated over the last decades, but the biological
machinery that allows people to self-regulate has mostly remained
vague and unspecified. "Handbook of Biobehavioral Approaches to
Self-Regulation "corrects this imbalance. Moving beyond traditional
mind-body dualities, the various contributions in the book examine
how self-regulation becomes established in cardiovascular,
hormonal, and central nervous systems. Particular attention is
given to the dynamic interplay between affect and cognition in
self-regulation. The book also addresses the psychobiology of
effort, the impact of depression on self-regulation, the
development of self-regulation, and the question what causes
self-regulation to succeed or fail. These novel perspectives
provide readers with a new, biologically informed understanding of
self-awareness and self-agency. Among the topics being covered are:
Self-regulation in an evolutionary perspective.The muscle metaphor
in self-regulation in the light of current theorizing on muscle
physiology.From distraction to mindfulness: psychological and
neural mechanisms of attention strategies in
self-regulation.Self-regulation in social decision-making: a
neurobiological perspective.Mental effort: brain and autonomic
correlates in health and disease.A basic and applied model of the
body-mind system.
"Handbook of Biobehavioral Approaches to Self-Regulation
"provides a wealth of theoretical insights into self-regulation,
with great potential for future applications for improving
self-regulation in everyday life settings, including education,
work, health, and interpersonal relationships. The book highlights
a host of exciting new ideas and directions and is sure to provoke
a great deal of thought and discussion among researchers,
practitioners, and graduate-level students in psychology,
education, neuroscience, medicine, and behavioral economics."
Individual Differences and Personality, Fourth Edition provides a
comprehensive overview of research regarding what personality is
and how and why it differs between people. This book begins with a
description of the study of personality and then presents basic
principles of personality measurement, the concept of personality
traits, and the major dimensions of personality variation. Further
chapters review personality change and stability, biological causal
mechanisms, genetic and environmental influences, and evolutionary
adaptive function. Personality disorders are examined as are life
outcomes (such as relationships, work, and health) that are
predicted by personality characteristics. In addition, the book
examines important individual differences beyond personality, such
as mental abilities, religious beliefs, political attitudes, and
sexuality. Revisions to the fourth edition include updates to all
chapters and substantial new content. For example, the
developmental change chapter includes new studies of long-term
stability, and the biological bases chapter includes new research
about the effects of dopamine-like substances on impulse control.
The genetics chapter has been heavily revised to cover recent
meta-analyses and large-scale studies of the heritability of
personality traits. In the chapter on the evolutionary function of
personality, the discussion of sex differences is expanded to
include cross-cultural variation. The chapter on personality and
life outcomes includes new coverage of rating the personality of
one's hypothetical ideal partner. The chapter on mental ability has
updates on brain volume and IQ and on motivation and IQ.
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