Book Description
Accurate and authoritative, Theories of Personality by Jess and Gregory Feist presents 23 leading theories of personality in a thorough, interesting and logical manner. The book begins with an introductory chapter designed to acquaint students with the meaning of personality and provide them with a solid foundation for understanding the nature of theory and its crucial contributions to science. The next seventeen chapters present twenty-three major theories with a fresh approach and a more complete view encompassing, a biographical sketch of each theorist, related research and applications to real life. When appropriate, the authors point out ways in which the theorists' life experiences may have helped shape her or his theory.
Customer Reviews:
Bogus advertising.......2007-03-09
When I searched and found this book, it appeared to be the actual text. However what I received was the the student workbook. No where on the webpage for the bok did it state that it was the workbook.
The Ad was very misleading and now i'm stuck with an item i did not want.
Not the text book, was the study guide.......2006-08-31
I ordered the text book but was sent the study guide book.
Lack of real world perspective.......2004-11-02
I would agree with the other reviews in that this book is an easy to read text with easy to understand explanations. However, there is no real world applicability. There are no case studies about real life people and how their personalities fit into their lives (i.e. type of career, choice of mate, type of friends they choose, how they view money etc.) not to mention that I think it would be interesting to see what other famous people have the same personality traits that we do (as in other texts in this subject area). In an abnormal psychology class I took, the text would refer to real studies of individuals and their psychopathologies that create their persona. To me this is what makes a great text - real life stories with real life people, what a revelation!!
This text also reminds me of a general psychology class, sans the history of psych. in that it covers many famous psychologists, i.e. Freud, Jung, Horney, Fromm etc. but it reads like a historiography of each psychologist, I know all about Freud and his theories, tell me how his view of personality is different than the other psychologists with real case studies, this text lacks the case study depth that other Psych. of Personality texts cover.. From a students point of view; teachers, choose a different text!
As colourful as its cover.......2002-03-24
One of the best books on personality theories. I found mostly fascinating the sections concerning the current findings in personality research. Very serious, detailed and juicy material. A great book to buy and own.
Great intro to some important psychological theories.......2000-03-30
This is a great book. It covers many different theories on how personality works from different psychological perspectives. Each section helps the reader understand the different views of each theory of personality and how it functions within the mind. One comes away from this book understanding a little bit more about the hows and whys of personality. A great introduction to psychology in general for anybody ranging from student to non-student, specialist to non-specialist. I highly recommend it.
Book Description
Advance Praise for Louis Breger's FREUD
"Louis Breger's rich and readable study of Freud offers a thoughtfully complex account of a great but flawed man. Everyone with an interest in psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic movement will enjoy exploring, grappling with, arguing about, and learning from this absolutely fascinating book."-JUDITH VIORST, AUTHOR,
Necessary Losses and Imperfect Control "Written with brilliance and insight, Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision takes us on a daring, at times chilling, journey to the early years of psychoanalysis, revealing both the human weaknesses and the professional triumphs of its founder. . . . Cutting away the accretions of fabrication and romance cloaking Sigmund Freud, Breger has reinstated historical honesty to its rightful, high place, but the figure who emerges at the end of this breathlessly honest biography is quite as extraordinary as the legend concocted by Freud and perpetuated by his followers. Fresh, vigorous, and lucid."-PHILIP M. BROMBERG, Ph.D., CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
"Louis Breger's fine new biography of Freud is a welcome contribution to the existing literature and a corrective to much of it. It is also one of the best intellectual histories of the origin and development of psychoanalysis I have read in recent years. Breger is to be commended for his original research, the objectivity of his views, and the elegance and grace of his writing."-DEIRDRE BAIR, NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER FOR Samuel Beckett AND AUTHOR OF A FORTHCOMING BIOGRAPHY OF CARL JUNG
"Finally, the Freud biography we have long been waiting for. With the history of Europe in the background, we follow with fascination Freud's journey from an impoverished childhood filled with losses to worldly fame, ending in exile in England. We come to understand the impact of Freud's difficult personality on the development of his brilliant as well as questionable theoretical ideas. Breger writes with compassion and fairness toward Freud as well as toward the many interesting personalities who cross his life, with their complicated relationships to the great man."-SOPHIE FREUD, FREUD'S GRANDDAUGHTER AND PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF SOCIAL WORK, SIMMONS COLLEGE
"Louis Breger's magnificent book is the definitive work on the personal psychology of Sigmund Freud. it brilliantly illuminates how the darkness in Freud's vision has affected psychoanalytic history. This book will be central for psychoanalytic scholarship for decades to come."-GEORGE E. ATWOOD, Ph.D., PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY
Customer Reviews:
Though His Sins Be As Scarlet, His Heritage Continues.......2007-07-05
It has been a long time since I have come across a book title that so aptly summarizes its subject, in this case the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Louis Breger provides a splendid historical overview of Freud's importance in the development of the healing art of mental health, but it is certainly not an attractive man who emerges from these pages. It is to the author's credit that he makes every effort to explain why Freud does not engender in the public arena the warm regard of the second generation psychoanalysts, many of them orphaned by their autocratic intellectual leader.
Himself a practicing psychoanalyst, Breger traces Freud's Austrian developmental years and his early forays into medicine. Freud was born in 1856; his family was numerous and poor; his mother appeared to do most of the worrying for the family while his unruffled father carved out a precarious existence. Freud's disillusionment with his father and his jealousy for his mother's attention amidst a near constant stream of young rivals--mostly girls--in an environment of little privacy is usually given as the traditional spawning ground of his best known theories regarding the Oedipus Complex and the natural role of women.
Breger, however, examines this childhood more critically. Young Freud suffered several significant losses in his early years--the death of his infant brother Julius, for example, or the firing of his beloved housemaid Monika, who actually served as a surrogate mother for a time when his own mother was afflicted with grief and depression. But most of all, Freud missed his mother, who understandably was emotionally unavailable to him, though as a youth Freud could certainly not understand her predicament. Breger observes that her son could never bring to his consciousness his deep anger at her, and it is the author's contention that this subconscious pain was the fuel for the father-son warfare so central to the Freudian system; in essence a subterfuge for what really ailed him. The masculine oedipal trauma as the source of neurosis was the only explanation Freud would tolerate for nearly all of his 80 years--and it would impair his work and cost him his closest friends in years to come.
And yet, Freud's predicament was hardly unusual in his time. There were many poor children who did not get what they needed from their parents. My only critique of Breger's analysis is his omission of treatment of Freud's driving ambition to "be someone great." The author does note that in his escapes to imagination, Freud throughout his life identified with Hannibal, an interesting military choice for a scientist.
Freud's first medical work was highly technical for the time, neurological research under the gifted Ernst Brucke, but after some years he left organized research to work with the charismatic Jean-Martin Charcotte, "The Napoleon of Neuroses." Charcotte made some respectable progress in the understanding of hysteria, though his cultivated flamboyant style was no doubt an obstacle within scientific circles.
At the very least, Charcotte opened Freud's eyes to the stimulating and monetary possibilities of psychiatry. Now married, Freud opened a private practice in what was called at the time neuropathology. His survival depended in no small part upon the financial and personal support of a more seasoned physician, Josef Breuer. Breuer, it may be recalled, is remembered for his modest but innovative success with his "talking cure" for neurological symptoms. Working together, Freud and Breuer spent a decade refining the treatment of hysteria until Breuer finally refused to endorse Freud's hypothesis that all traumas of loss were ultimately sexual in origin. Freud turned his affections to Wilhelm Fliess and abruptly dismissed the kindly physician Breuer, the first of many men to be taken into Freud's bosom and then discarded for perceived doctrinal [read: personal] disloyalty.
With a thriving practice and a highly developed [albeit skewed] theory of neurosis and personality, Freud became the father figure for young men who shared his passion for psychoanalysis and who generally were in search of father figures themselves. Nearly all of the early practitioners were Jews from Austria and Switzerland; the ethnic identity, coupled with Freud's fondness for military imagery, tended to mold the movement into a kind of defensive zealotry for some years. It was not unusual for colleagues to psychoanalyze each other or interpret each other's dreams. Confidentiality and boundary ethics were poorly defined, creating enormous professional and personal problems for many practitioners and their patients.
Breger observed that for all the talent surrounding Freud, there was little by way of innovation or verification to discern if psychoanalysis was truly effective. Moreover, those who did advance their own personality theories [as did Jung] or therapeutic styles [as did Rank] were excommunicated from Freud's associations and publications with virtual liturgical solemnity. It should come as no surprise, then, that the heretic who may have been most dangerous to Freud was Alfred Adler. Adler, like Breuer, realized that a multitude of traumas could set off neuroses, not merely fatherhood or sexual issues. [Amazingly, Freud learned nothing from soldiers' traumas of World War I.] Adler, whose own interests took him into family dysfunction, came to understand not just Freud's past, but what was worse, how Freud was repeating the sibling rivalry pattern with his present colleagues.
Breger assesses Freud's counseling style from copious notes and correspondences, and concludes that the master frequently disregarded his own rules of objectivity and impersonal pose. He credits Freud with making the critical connection between trauma and neurosis, even if excessively limiting the boundaries of trauma. Moreover, Freud provided the springboard for gifted men and women to develop the psychological healing arts, unhealthy dynamics notwithstanding. He does not evoke outright admiration today, and yet I myself felt sympathetic as cancer and Nazi persecution ravaged his last years.
Less biography than over-long monograph.......2006-12-02
To read this book, you'd wonder why psychoanalysis ever had the inordinate success it enjoyed. Though Breger does say at various points that Freud's contributions opened up whole new vistas on human life, and he states that Freud had a compelling personality, that's about all he does--he just says it. Thus this book fails on a fundamental criterion of good writing: It says, but does not show.
The book really isn't a biography, but an over-long monograph. That is, it aims to prove one point: That Freud, unable to deal with his own emotional life, concocted his major theories to protect himself, then created the psychoanalytic movement through harsh, often slanderous, authoritarian strategies, in service to his own emotional needs.
If you buy the idea that early childhood determines adult character and behavior--a view not much in vogue these days--you'll probably judge that Breger makes his point well enough. Even so, he makes the point over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, and always basically the same way. It gets a bit tedious.
If you don't buy the idea that early childhood determines adult behavior, there's no point in your reading this book at all. Without Breger's highly speculative account of the influence of Freud's childhood on his subsequent life, there's little of interest here. None of Freud's very real, often-disgusting sins discussed here are news.
I have two major complaints, beside the tedium of repetition and the recherche modes of thought:
First, even if Breger's point is accurate, the book offers no sense of the genuinely awe-inspiring intellect that radiates from the pages of most of Freud's work. Even if you find many of Freud's central doctrines utterly bizarre, as I do (and always have--which caused me no end of grief at my training institute), you can't read Freud (unless you come at the work with extreme prejudice) without a humbling sense of the presence of genius. The hundreds of millions of copies of Freud's works don't sell because of Freud's authoritarian control over the buyers!!!! Likewise, to read accounts by many estimable souls of their experience with Freud, you cannot but realize that, for all the deep character faults he suffered, he was a most remarkable, often-generous, human.
Second, Breger decries the penchant of the psychoanalytic community for "debate through diagnosis." But I can't see how this book can escape the same charge. If the book were really a biography, Breger's thesis might be an interesting aspect of the story. But the book does not give a comprehensive or rich picture of Freud's life, history, or personality. This simply is not a biography--it's an argument.
I'm reminded of a point Bertrand Russell made, that one's biography is better served by a brilliant enemy than a second-rate sympathizer. Yeah, Breger's sympathetic, in his own way, and probably a kind-hearted, honest man. But he gives no evidence of much brilliance of his own--and doesn't convey Freud's.
highly recommended.......2006-01-15
It is refreshing to come across a biography of Freud--and an analytical biography at that--without an obvious agenda or an ax to grind: in other words, without idealization (Jones, Gay) or retaliation (Crews at his most sarcastic).
Professor Breger's fine book eschews the pleasure of peeling the narcissistic Freud like an onion and instead looks into his early woundings, repressed longings for love, and lifelong grandiosity and thirst for fame while never losing sight of Freud's accomplishments. I teach depth psychology to graduates and undergrads and have recommended this scholarly and lucid book to them as a means for understanding (as Jung put it) "a man in the grip of his daimon."
"Darkness" is Illuminating.......2004-06-20
As one contemplates purchasing this biography, attention must be paid to the subtitle: "An Analytical Biography." This is not an all-encompensing portrait of Freud, in that it's not focussed on his many contributions. Rather, the biographer provides a rare glimpse into a man who's name has been omnipresent in all of psychology as well as the arts since his works first began to be published at the end of the 19th century.
Frued's influence is undeniable and inescapable. Yet, there remain very few studies into the psychology of the man himself. What is found mostly are brief accounts of Freud's genius and heroism. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, what we have with this biography is a psychological profile of the man himself.
In this biography, there is no "hero worship" to speak of. I would like to say that the biography is balanced, but it's not, and that is not even the point. I believe the reason to read this book is to gain account of historical facts that have been white-washed and profound insights that are missing in other Freud studies. We learn, for instance, of the dynamics between Freud and his mother, which (fascinatingly) were characterized by avoidance, fear, guilt, and denial. We also learn of Freud's far-reaching, heavy-handed influence in the early days of psychoanalysis, a level of control that managed to destroy careers, even lives.
One could be left with a vision of Freud-as-tyrant. In this case, pick up another biography of Freud, and you will find some "lightness" to counter the darkness presented in this biography. This book is not, however, some sort of hatchet job. It is vital, important, clear-headed, insightful, and absolutely necessary to gain an understanding of Freud the man. He was no different than the rest of us. This biography helps to balance unreasonable "hero-worship" that, after all, isn't helpful or conducive to level-headed understanding human nature.
Our Golden Sigi.......2004-05-01
He was the founder and autocratic (some would even say dictatorial) leader of one the most controversial, yet profoundly influential, intellectual movements of 20th century. While his own thought sought to systematically dismantle the prevailing medical orthodoxy of his era, it simultaneously introduced a new and even more rigid orthodoxy. Though he was largely uninterested in politics, he proved himself to be the consummate politician, always carefully calculating the effects his actions would have on his movement, the psychoanalytic movement, as a whole. He zealously recruited the best and brightest minds of the time, only to shackle and ultimately squander much of their individual creativity through an endless series of loyalty tests in which the more sycophantic and unquestioning you were, the higher you rose within the inner-circle. His fateful obstinacy extended even to his own physical well-being, as he continued to smoke his trademark pipe even after much of his lower jaw had rotted off from the cancer that eventually killed him.
Freud is a legend, no doubt. But, as this skillful biography of the man makes clear, his legendary status is marked as much by deep personal flaws as by personal greatness. This is only fitting for the man who invented psychoanalysis. We all have tendencies toward self-mythologization, towards the creation of a narrative which minimizes our weaknesses (either by ignoring them outright or blaming their causes on others) and maximizes our strengths. Indeed such narratives are but the linguistic manifestation of our unconscious defense mechanisms. And consequently much of analysis centers around penetrating the core of this chain of signifiers and discovering the breaks, infinite loops and ideological repetitions within. And while he is no Lacanian (the Frenchman is never even mentioned in this text), Breger's analysis is completely given over to this psycho-linguistic imperative, an imperative which is governed and ultimately enforced by the biographical narrative of Freud himself.
This is because so much of what has been written about Freud's life has been directly influenced by Freud's pathological desire to craft a public persona that fits within his own neurotic view of himself as the great conqueror . And so Breger's destructuring of the typical Freudian biographical narrative is tantamount to a bloody confrontation with the man's well-fortified psycho-linguistic defense mechanisms (Freud himself always spoke of analysis in military terms). Whether we're talking about Freud's own autobiographical hero narratives ("On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement", "An Autobiographical Study"), Jones' dutiful doting, or even the more recent version of the same by Peter Gay, the man himself is almost always lost in the excremental haze of pre-digested meaning. Thus Freud's neuroses--his travel phobia, his dislike of music, his prudish attitudes towards sex, his desperate, inverted oedipal desire to slay his adopted male children (Jung, Adler, Rank, Ferenczi)--are rarely given the hermeneutical space necessary to stand in their proper relation to the events of his life. Breger's diegetic approach places the events of Freud's life in their proper socio-historical context, but without simply substituting history for personal responsibility, as is so often the case. Freud's cruelty (towards his fellow analysts, towards his patients) is shown to be a symptom of his neuroses, rather than mere juridical technique. (Freud constantly claimed that utter coldness and neutrality was required in the relationship between analyst and analysand, but he was most successful as a therapist when he befriended his patients and showed them warmth and sympathy.)
As you may have guessed, Breger is a practicing analyst, which obviously brings certain prejudices to his account of Freud's life. But Breger shows a remarkable level of honesty by pointing out this fact himself in a section at the end the book. And though I may quibble with him over his emphasis on the primacy of personal trauma over the primacy of sexuality and the role of larger social institutions in the formation of the individual ego, I still think this is a superb example of that particularly personal form of insight which only the very best of psychoanalysts can achieve.
A fine piece of work.
Customer Reviews:
Useless.......2007-07-04
The only reason I gave this product one star is because there's no option for no stars at all. Alchemy cannot be explained by psychology or academia. In fact, alchemy and academia, and especially psychology, are completely opposite in their aims and goals. Psychology reinforces ego while alchemy dissolves it. That is why people like this and Jung should be completely ignored; they speak from a basis of clinical, academic opinion and not actual experience obtained by realization. If you, who are reading this, remembers anything from this review then I hope you at least remember that. Save your money and spend it somewhere else on things that are more important.
Synthesis.......2006-11-16
Stanton Marlan has made a needed and deeply satisfying contribution to literature which synthesizes the obscured but major investigations into alchemy, masculine images of power and suffering, abstract and beautiful passages of negative theology. As a psychotherapist,I am profoundly grateful, excited and helped in my work with male clients. What is more basic or universal than experiences which draw on light and dark.
Unusual and mesmerizing.......2005-09-11
The Black Sun is an extraordinary examination of the alchemical stage known as the "nigredo"..the blackening or mortification, so often experienced as depression, terror, or madness. I was especially transfixed at the way in which Dr. Marlan expresses the paradoxical nature of these experiences in that the darkness itself contains a "shine" or luminescence, that is the light of nature, not that of heaven. The text is richly referenced with the writings of Dr. Jung, several case studies, and many other literary examples. This book is an eloquent validation of a domain of experience that is unavoidable, yet so often denied.
Average customer rating:
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Multivariate Analysis of Data in Sensory Science (Data Handling in Science and Technology)
Manufacturer: Elsevier Science
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ASIN: 0444899561 |
Book Description
The state-of-the-art of multivariate analysis in sensory science is described in this volume. Both methods for aggregated and individual sensory profiles are discussed. Processes and results are presented in such a way that they can be understood not only by statisticians but also by experienced sensory panel leaders and users of sensory analysis.
The techniques presented are focused on examples and interpretation rather than on the technical aspects, with an emphasis on new and important methods which are possibly not so well known to scientists in the field. Important features of the book are discussions on the relationship among the methods with a strong accent on the connection between problems and methods. All procedures presented are described in relation to sensory data and not as completely general statistical techniques.
Sensory scientists, applied statisticians, chemometricians, those working in consumer science, food scientists and agronomers will find this book of value.
Book Description
Wittgenstein, Mind and Meaning offers a provocative re-reading of Wittgenstein's later writings on language and mind, and explores the tensions between Wittgenstein's ideas and contemporary cognitivist conceptions of the mental. Williams's theme throughout is the anti-individualism that she takes to underlie Wittgenstein's criticism of Cartesian thought.
This book addresses both Wittgenstein's later works as well as contemporary issues in philosophy of mind thought and lays the foundation for a social conception of mind. It provides fresh insight into the later Wittgenstein and raises vital questions about the foundations of cognitivism and its wider implications for psychology and cognitive science.
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant pedagogic discourse. Difficult but enlightening.......2005-01-01
This book is not for those who may have difficulty navigating the academic discourse of post-modern linguistic philosophy. But if one has an ear for the dialect, the author's development of the implications of a latter-Wittgensteinian approach to meaning is, I believe, unparalleled, refreshing, and imaginatively insightful. Rather than interpreting the subject from within (ultimately leading to philosophical implosion), the trajectory is drawn with an attack on the representational theory of mind, through the work of the Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky, into nebulous conclusions that may well beneficially impact education, social theory, and the cognitive sciences in general. If you can hack the academics, it's the best book on the subject I've seen.
Highest Recommendation.......2000-07-23
Every chapter in this collection is excellent. But "Rules, Community and the Individual" (Chapter 6) is one of the best articles ever written about Wittgenstein's thought. I have learned so much from this book. I could never put my finger on what I intuitively disliked about the Baker/Hacker "internal relation" argument. Professor Williams' analysis reveals the missing link. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Wittgenstein, especially those who think they know "what Wittgenstein said."
An outstanding and original treatment of Wittgenstein,,.......1999-09-19
Meredith Williams is one of the United States' foremost Wittgenstein scholars. Her book encompasses many significant and lively issues in the philosophy of mind, psychology and language. Hers is a refreshingly original voice: lucid, rigorous, reflective - but, above all, profoundly informed by a range of philosophical traditions and arguments.
Her work is, on its face, an attack against neo-cartesianism in the behavioral and neurosciences, but its scope is actually far wider than that. She takes on a range of currently fashionable positions in philosophy and logic with a deft and professional style which makes her a unique contributor to the debates in which she engages so powerfully.
I recommend this book to all serious philosophers and students of mind, psychology, social sciences and biology.
You will encounter in this text a truly original voice in the contemporary intellectual scene.
Book Description
Moral Repair examines the ethics and moral psychology of responses to wrongdoing. Explaining the emotional bonds and normative expectations that keep human beings responsive to moral standards and responsible to each other, Margaret Urban Walker uses realistic examples of both personal betrayal and political violence to analyze how moral bonds are damaged by serious wrongs and what must be done to repair the damage. Focusing on victims of wrong, their right to validation, and their sense of justice, Walker presents a unified and detailed philosophical account of hope, trust, resentment, forgiveness, and making amends - the emotions and practices that sustain moral relations. Moral Repair joins a multidisciplinary literature concerned with transitional and restorative justice, reparations, and restoring individual dignity and mutual trust in the wake of serious wrongs.
Book Description
A comprehensive account of the field of political psychology with a focus on its implications for international relations
Customer Reviews:
How-to Psych Politics.......2004-09-09
Political Psychology in International Relations by Rose McDermott (Analytical Perspectives on Politics: The University of Michigan Press) (Hardcover) A comprehensive account of the field of political psychology with a focus on its implications for international relations.
This outstanding book is the first to decisively define the relationship between political psychology and international relations. Written in a style accessible to undergraduates as well as specialists, McDermott's book makes an eloquent case for the importance of psychology to our under-standing of global politics.
In the wake of September 11, the American public has been besieged with claims that politics is driven by personality. Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Kim Chong-Il, Ayatollah Khameinei-America's political rogues' gallery is populated by individuals whose need for recognition supposedly drives their actions on the world stage. How does personality actually drive politics? And how is personality, in turn, formed by political environment? Political Psychology in International Relations provides students and scholars with the analytical tools they need to answer these pressing questions, and to assess their implications for policy in a real and sometimes dangerous world.
"This is a real tour de force. McDermott is a master of the diverse approaches to political psychology and international politics. Newcomers to the subject cannot find a better guide; skeptics, even if not persuaded, will be enlightened; even experts will see the field in a new way." -Robert Jervis, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
"Realizing that terrorism incites fear for political objectives brings to the fore the new dynamisms operating between psychology and political science. Rose McDermott's extraordinary work breathes new life into political psychology, providing a comprehensive and accessible account of the discipline's fundamental principles and methods." -Philip G. Zimbardo, STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Rose McDermott is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a renowned expert on the connections between international politics and psychology.
Excerpt: The events of September 11 profoundly shook the sense of personal security previously experienced by most Americans. In the light of the terrorist attacks, many of the questions and concerns that circulated in the media and in private conversations focused on the motivations of those involved. Why would someone do something so horrible? How might a leader induce his followers to give their lives for an abstract cause, and accomplish such a seemingly impossible goal even from a long distance away? How could people hate America and Americans so much when we mostly believe that we are decent and fair people who are concerned with the individual and human rights of others? How can a relatively small series of rare events puncture the sense of personal security of so many individuals not directly affected by the events? How can the government warn people to be careful without inducing fear and paralysis? How can individuals within a nation constructively channel bottomless degrees of anger, anguish, and abhorrence? Any one of these questions, along with many others, requires and deserves tremendous thought and consideration.
Two main insights come out of this reflection. First, explanations for very important and influential events often lie in the personal psychology of leaders, participants, victims, and observers. Comprehensive explanations for the personal motivations of a suicide bomber cannot be complete without some understanding of the nature of individual thought, action, and emotion. Second, tragedy can shift values, beliefs, and behaviors. Most important, tragedy can bring people together in previously unexpected and unusual ways. And psychological comfort, social support, and resistance to isolation achieve what no terrorist can dissolve: resilient individuals, community commitment, and political cohesion. These outcomes do not justify or ameliorate the impact of tragedy, but they do illuminate the ubiquitous nature of psycho-logical phenomena within the context of the political world. Accurate representations of the world around us demonstrate the link between politics and psychology in deep and myriad ways.
Every year, a topic appears in the news that offers direct evidence of this interplay. One year the Monica Lewinsky scandal suggested the ways in which a bright and promising politician can fall victim to his own personal psychological weaknesses. Another year the Chinese shot down an American spy plane and held the crew hostage for a period of time during which crucial questions about the decision-making capacity of the new president were raised. And all of these events seem silly or trivial in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 2001. Those events left many feeling frightened, hopeless, and powerless.
One of the best ways to handle a personal sense of impotence lies in action, particularly action designed to help others or to gain some sense of mastery over the source of the fear by trying to obtain a better understanding of its sources. Methodological and theoretical tools exist to illuminate the processes that go into creating terrorists, encouraging followers to obey leaders, developing ideologies, and channeling emotion. This book attempts to examine these tools and the insights they produce through the prism of political psychology.
What is political psychology? Why it is important? If the field of political psychology is to be more than the sum of its parts, it must add value to the independent studies of political science and psychology. In fact, there are many important issues and questions where each discipline benefits from the contributions and insights of the other. There are myriad ways in which political science and psychology interconnect. Combining these disciplines can provide additional purchase in topics that include the study of political leadership, political judgment and decision making, public opinion and voting behavior, the impact of emotion on behavior, the interaction between individual processes and group behavior, and the formation and maintenance of dominant values in society.
This book provides an introductory survey to the study of political psychology in international relations. The study of political psychology has produced a wide literature in American politics, particularly in American political behavior, as well. However, this book focuses on the application of social and cognitive psychology to the study of security issues in international relations.'
In many instances, psychologists have focused on theory development while political scientists have emphasized theory application. Similarly, much scholarship has focused on the impact of psychology on politics and paid less attention to the impact of politics on psychology. Yet the relation-ship between these areas should be reciprocal. The goal is to pro-vide a genuinely interdisciplinary approach to the interaction of psychological processes and political outcomes.
This book provides an overview of the relevant methods and theories that have been used in the examination of political psychology in international relations in chapters 2 and 3. Explanation concentrates on the particular strengths and weaknesses of these concepts for specific purposes. The impact of people's thoughts, actions, and emotions on political judgment, decision making, and behavior are discussed in chapters 4, 5, and 6. Finally, the roles of psychobiography, leadership, and groups are analyzed in chapters 7, 8, and 9. Chapter 10 provides a summary of potential extensions and notable implications of these findings. The purpose of this approach is to offer a critical overview of the major literature and central issues and questions in the field, as well as to offer suggestions for promising directions in future research.
What unifies political psychology and makes it distinct from other forms of political analysis is the search for explanation, description, and prediction at the individual level of analysis. The individual level of analysis informs and affects the kinds of questions that are asked, the forms of evidence that are sought, and the natures of inferences about causality that are made by political psychologists. This attentional bias is not always limited to the individual, for sometimes it incorporates the individual acting in concert with other individuals in group settings, but nonetheless it privileges the individual over organizational, bureaucratic, domestic institutional, economic, international, or other levels of analysis that diminish the significance of the individual. In this regard, political psychology provides a particularly humanistic slant on politics by asserting the importance of individual psychological processes to political outcomes.
This chapter offers a background for the specific findings discussed later. Historical context provides a foundation for the emergence of the defining characteristics and central issues and questions that have preoccupied inquiry in this field. Resolutions and new research agendas that have emerged from this scholarship pose challenges for researchers who wish to understand the inter-section of psychological and political processes.
Book Description
This is the first major response to the new challenge of neuroscience to religion, challenging the prevailing naturalistic assumption of our culture, including the idea that the mind is either identical with or a temporary by-product of brain activity.
Customer Reviews:
OK but over priced for a paperback.......2007-07-19
It was nice to read a recent work by John Hick. It contains some interesting and thoughtful ideas. The price, however, is too high for this paperback.
Customer Reviews:
Archetypes Clarified.......2002-11-29
I have read this book four times, and compared with everything else in the field that I've read, it really makes sense of archtypes - and establishes their personal relevance.
Excellent!.......1999-02-28
Again another Tour de Force from Stevens. The author describes the duality of the human perception and its role in illness and welness. The healer archetype is so beautifully analyzed and defined. Highly recommended.
Book Description
In the last decade analytical psychology has been impacted by multidisciplinary approaches to theory and practice, including developments in neuroscience, evolution, psychoanalysis, philosophical and historical studies. Analytical Psychology provides a serious overview of the most important of these developments, including a contemporary developmental perspective integrating recent scientific findings, modern appraisal and extension of clinical methods, use of religious and spiritual practices and a contemporary view of ethics from a Jungian perspective. Internationally renowned authors at the forefront of these developments help focus and shape the current state of analytical psychology and point to future areas for exploration.
Customer Reviews:
Fast Delivery and In Great Condition.......2007-05-16
Great service. Fast delivery and it arrived in great condition.
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