Search

In this paper, Christian Morgner provides a critical reading of Niklas Luhmann's thinking as ignoring human beings or even as antihumanist. Here, he presents an alternative view that centers on Luhmann's idea of the child or human being as a medium. To explain Luhmann's use of these ideas to conceptualize the child and the consequences for research, Morgner refers to the translation of Luhmann's paper "The Child as the Medium of Education" and to as yet unpublished material from his famous card‐box reference system. Drawing on these materials, Morgner can more clearly illuminate Luhmann's novel perspective and how it could inform further theoretical development, supported by new analysis of existing research in other fields, including developmental psychology, education, philosophy, and sociology. He concludes that, far from neglecting the human, Luhmann's theory takes human being very seriously and acknowledges its key role as a form‐giving medium in addressing the challenges faced by contemporary society. This renewed perspective should be of particular interest to educational theorists, enabling them to more freely apply his ideas in various settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commentary on the papers of the special issue identifies and discusses four themes: 1) strategies to bridge the gap between science and practice, 2) sources of community science questions of interest, 3) choice and quality of methods, and 4) epistemology and useful language for community science. The commentary identifies some limitations in the models proposed by the special issue authors, and proposes renewed attention to ecology, context and process in community change initiatives, calling for a common set of community level measures as one strategy to advance a community centered science agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commercialization of emotions is not a new phenomenon but in Denmark there is a new general trend to tell and sell personal stories in the media. Personal deprivation and crises are also major topics in sports media. This paper focuses on sports biographies as a book genre that is reviving in popularity. The paper approaches the topic through the biographies of one Danish athlete: the former professional cyclist, Jesper Skibby, who writes about his doping disclosure and shares his personal dilemmas as a former elite sportsman. The thematic text analysis orientates around social interactions, emotions, and personality constructions. Inspired by microsociology with a Durkheimian flavor of Goffman and Hochschild, themes including 'face work,' 'interaction rituals,' and 'emotions management' are discussed. The analysis claims that sharing personal information in the media is not only a means of confession and reclaiming status but is also business and management - on an intimate level. Telling the story of the corrosion of a sporting character has become a hot issue, an entertainment, and not least a commercial commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The absence of a sociological discourse about children in the past meant that child and family social work has largely relied on psychological interpretations of children and their behaviour. However, since the 1990s, the sociology of childhood has been developed in the UK. The aim of this paper is to explore the relevance of the sociology of childhood in understanding looked-after childhoods and in informing contemporary social work practice with looked-after children and young people. The central argument of this paper is that, in order to fulfil professional responsibilities and to implement current and forthcoming UK social policies for looked-after children, social work needs to employ broad understandings of children, young people and looked-after childhoods. The paper goes on to discuss the ways in which a social work approach drawing on the sociology of childhood can offer such a conceptualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale, aims & objective Tools for the assessment of the quality of research studies tend to be specific to a particular research design (e.g. randomized controlled trials, or qualitative interviews). This makes it difficult to assess the quality of a body of research that addresses the same or a similar research question but using different approaches. The aim of this paper is to describe the development and preliminary evaluation of a quality assessment tool that can be applied to a methodologically diverse set of research articles. Methods The 16-item quality assessment tool (QATSDD) was assessed to determine its reliability and validity when used by health services researchers in the disciplines of psychology, sociology and nursing. Qualitative feedback was also gathered from mixed-methods health researchers regarding the comprehension, content, perceived value and usability of the tool. Results Reference to existing widely used quality assessment tools and experts in systematic review confirmed that the components of the tool represented the construct of 'good research technique' being assessed. Face validity was subsequently established through feedback from a sample of nine health researchers. Inter-rater reliability was established through substantial agreement between three reviewers when applying the tool to a set of three research papers (κ = 71.5%), and good to substantial agreement between their scores at time 1 and after a 6-week interval at time 2 confirmed test-retest reliability. Conclusions The QATSDD shows good reliability and validity for use in the quality assessment of a diversity of studies, and may be an extremely useful tool for reviewers to standardize and increase the rigour of their assessments in reviews of the published papers which include qualitative and quantitative work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders the work of the Scottish biologist, sociologist, and town planner Patrick Geddes and his most famous intellectual disciple: the American independent scholar Lewis Mumford. It is argued that existing interpretations of their work, ranging from a dismissal of the two men as eccentric polymaths to the speculative emphasis on the importance of psychological theories in Mumford's oeuvre, are fundamentally flawed. Examining their writings and the letters they exchanged during their 17-year correspondence, this paper shows that the only way we can appreciate the scholarly conventions underpinning Geddes's and Mumford's work, as well as the context in which it was produced, is by looking to the principles of classical sociological theory. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on 'Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology' as of March 2004. The journal publishes empirical and conceptual papers which aim to increase understanding of people and organizations at work. Its domain is broad, covering industrial, organizational, engineering, vocational and personnel psychology, as well as behavioural and cognitive aspects of industrial relations, ergonomics, human factors and industrial sociology. The editorial team reminds readers that research based on student samples is not usually acceptable, unless students are the most relevant population with which to test the research question/s. However, a little further comment and qualification concerning the nature of the data is needed in order to clarify the team's stance, and also to draw attention to some exceptions. One particular concern here is to discourage studies where causal hypotheses in well-researched areas are tested using entirely self-report survey data from a sample numbering perhaps in the low hundreds, the composition of which is characterized more by availability than special relevance to the research question/s. So, if a study used only cross-sectional self-report data but included some kind of experimental manipulation, other things being equal it could be publishable. A more general, and very important issue concerns the distinction between quantitative and qualitative data. The journal explicitly encourages papers based on the latter, and has done so for quite some time.

Based on interviews with 37 women with HIV infection, this paper explores women’s perceptions of HIV/AIDS in relation to other traumatic life events. Employing a biographical disruption framework, this paper demonstrates how women reconstruct the meaning of HIV infection in light of other disruptive life situations. Findings indicate that despite initial disruption, in retrospect, many of the sample women did not consider HIV to be the most devastating event in their lives. Rather, violence, mother-child separation, and drug use were deemed more disruptive than HIV infection. Several factors, including race, drug use and abuse histories, social support and diagnosis, were central to women’s differential assessment of HIV in relation to other disruptive events. Results are discussed in terms of the practical and theoretical implications of the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the program for social psychology presented by Floyd Allport in his Social Psychology of 1924. It contextualizes Allport's program in terms of intellectual currents of the time and the views of his teachers at Harvard University, specifically the philosopher Ralph Barton Perry and the psychologists Edwin B. Holt and Hugo Münsterberg. Finally, the paper analyzes responses to Allport's program at the time and later, retrospective responses. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neo-Weberian closure theory developed principally by Parkin appears at first glance to suffer from two opposing weaknesses — that its central concept of exclusion is either too broad or too narrow. This paper demonstrates that these objections are spurious. It then uncovers several real problems which have not yet been examined by the critics of closure theory. These problems have to do with Parkin's conceptions of usurpation, of the withdrawal of services, and of property, as well as with the ambiguity in the politics of Parkin's closure theory. The paper corrects these weaknesses and clarifies this ambiguity and concludes that closure theory so-corrected provides a promising framework for going beyond analyses focused narrowly on one particular means of domination and one particular set of monopolization and exclusion rules to a focus on monopolization and exclusion per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the nature of educational studies is considered and discussed. Following some introductory comments, the paper deals with philosophy, psychology and sociology in relation to education. This is followed by a section on social psychology and the paper ends with a section on the history of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dependency associated with depression involves at least two forms of social behavior: (a) needs for nurturance/protection and close attachment, and an inability to function independently and (b) being (de)valued, fear of disapproval, and social status. In many studies, measures of dependency combine these two dimensions. This paper argues that this has led to confusion on the salient dimensions related to depression. It is suggested that behaviors currently regarded as dependent, and linked to depression, are better understood as forms of involuntary subordination that involve judgments of personal inferiority, and submissive-appeasement behavior. This paper presents preliminary evidence that social status, and its associated features of negative self-other comparisons and submissive behavior, may be particularly relevant to depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the paper entitled "The Individual and the Influence of Social Settings: A Psychoanalyitc Perspective on the Interaction of the Individual and Society," by R. D. Hinshelwood. The paper describes a patient's process of taking in a hated object which dominate her internal world in a hostile way and reflects on social psychology.

This paper explores the emotional aspects of participation within social welfare contexts. The focus is on individual professionals, such as social workers and children's rights workers and their articulation, management and negotiation of the emotional when working with children and young people. The institutions of welfare are also shown to be ambiguous in their approaches to participation. Lastly, the dimensions of power that are enacted in relations between professionals and children reveal some of the complex dynamics in this fraught area of social welfare policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increase in interest for German scientific psychology followed the rise of liberalism in late nineteenth-century Spain. This paper deals with Spanish scholars' endeavors to participate in German psychology: It outlines the intellectual and institutional background of Spanish preoccupation with German philosophy and psychology, and deals with the personal experience and testimony of two Spanish philosophers, Eloy Luis André and Juan Vicente Viqueira López, who traveled to Leipzig, Berlin, and Göttingen between 1909 and 1914 to gain firsthand experience in the nascent science of psychology in Germany at that time. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latter decades of the 20th century saw C.G. Jung doubly marginalized, both by Psychology's academic establishment, for whom he was beyond the scientific pale, and by critical psychologists for whom he was, to simplify, beyond the ideological one. In this paper, I will suggest that there are two respects in which Social Psychology should reconsider his position. Firstly his own, albeit largely covert, Social Psychology, has affinities with critical Social Psychology; secondly, in the subject matter sense, Jung's own social psychological significance in the mid-20th century and beyond itself requires attention in its own right. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Case study research has been used increasingly in psychology and sociology in recent years. It provides researchers with an opportunity to explore a situation involving one individual or several individuals over time from multiple points of view. Methods: This literature review explains case study research as a method and summerises its scientific merit, also providing an example of its use. Results: Case study research offers occupational therapists a scientific methodology that can be used to understand and develop occupational therapy practice. Conclusion: This paper argues that case study research should be used more extensively by occupational therapists as the method respects the basic principles of occupational therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a confluence of unique values and activities, the collective practice of community psychology is difficult to characterize in a simple way. Increasingly, however, professional contexts are laden with pressure to define any practice-from library work to medical interventions-in the orderly, compact language of traditional science. This trend has historically been resisted in the field by those sensing a fundamental lack of fit between the fluid, emergent aspects of community psychological practice and the fixed, precise language of classic science. In response to this “language-practice gap,” some have attempted to adapt the traditional language of science to better fit the field’s practice, while others have explored alternative languages of practice seemingly more indigenous to the messy “swamp” of actual communities. While the former effort leaves some theoretical contradictions intact, the latter tends to discount scientific identity entirely. This paper proposes a potential step forward by resituating questions of disciplinary language and identity within a current philosophical discourse where the nature of social science itself remains sharply contested. This suggests shifting attention away from “should webe a science?” to “what kindof science might we be after all?”; in turn, alternative languages may be re-cast as legitimate contributors to a kind of science more authentic to human communities-even a viable “science in the swamp.” One such language-philosophical hermeneutics-is presented as a particularly valuable supplement to traditional science. Illustrations highlight ways that hermeneutics may advance the formal language of the field towards a closer fit of what actually happens in practice, while preserving and even bolstering the empirical rigor and scientific identity of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treatments of sources of Adam Smith's sociological theory of the self and associated ideas inThe Theory of Moral Sentimentstypically refer to classical antecedents or the work of his teacher Francis Hutcheson or his contemporary David Hume. During the seventeenth century, however, many books on the passions were published in London that arguably constitute an important but neglected source of Smith's treatment of moral sentiments. These works are largely forgotten today but at the time were widely read. They are not philosophical, partly devotional and predominantly psychological. Although Smith does not refer to these works his argument resembles theirs in many places. The importance of the seventeenth-century books on the passions, apart from their role in the history of psychology, is their bearing on contemporary economic practices. In this paper the connections between Smith and one of these books, Thomas Wright'sThe Passions of the Minde in Generall, are indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper examines some of the major topics that legal psychology began to focus on at the end of the last century.Aim: The purpose is to contend that such topics (the reliability of ear-witness testimony, the conducting of identification parades/line ups, the interviewing of suspects, the interviewing of vulnerable witnesses/victims) are deserving of greater attention in this new century.Conclusions: Legal psychologists should be brave enough to research with methodological rigour complex, real-world topics of importance to society and to advise relevant professional groups on how to improve their performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the disciplinary status of social psychology through an analysis of the history of the boundary relations of psychology, sociology, and social psychology. After outlining some research on the nature of scientific disciplines, on the role of rhetoric in the constitution of disciplines, and on “boundary work,” I consider the singular importance of social psychology as a discipline for the analysis of boundary relations, examining its units of analysis and its “disciplining.” The boundaries of the disciplines of social psychology were seen as fluid, contingent, local, and contestable, reflecting the thematic preoccupations, disciplinary origins, and meta-theoretical commitments of social psychologists, of the parent disciplines, and of those who represent disciplinary practices. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates three conflicting reconstructions of the historical relationship between personality and social psychology and addresses questions they raise regarding the subdisciplinary status of personality in the 1920s and the way in which the field gradually emerged as a separate area of psychology. Contesting claims that Floyd Allport first connected social psychology to a separate “branch” of personality psychology in the 1920s, I argue that he drew upon earlier work of psychologists and sociologists who treated personality as a central topic of social psychology. I compare Floyd Allport's views with those of Gordon Allport, who endeavored to establish personality as a separate subdiscipline. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author arranges some of the major treatments of alienation within a coherent framework. He introduces a distinction between disassociation (certain specified objective conditions) and alienation (a specified experience) and articulates the relationship between these two by presenting a series of intervening psychological issues. A typology of human association is presented, and it is argued that especially two types of disassociation (i.e., marginality and subordination) and, to some extent, another (i.e., privilege) may be productive of alienation These conditions are considered at the cultural, social, and psychological levels of analysis. Variables connecting these conditions and alienation include the perception of the condition, evaluation, integration, blame, and response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports developments related to behavioral science as of October 1993. Calls for papers announced by the American Association for the History of Medicine for the 1994 Annual Meeting; Venue of the World Congress of Sociology; Schedule of the meeting of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry.

Three studies were conducted in order to investigate antecedents of individuals' preoccupation with person descriptors, such as personality traits, physical-ethnic characteristics, or external characteristics, in Studies 1 and 2 subjects had to rate, for a given list of traits, how important each of the traits was as a prerequisite for performance within an academic context. Subjects who Here relatively inexperienced in writing term papers (Study 1) or in taking major exams (Study 2) showed a higher mean in rated importance of the traits than did those who were relatively experienced However, no differences between experienced and inexperienced subjects occurred if they had to rate the same trait list with respect to each trait's general desirability, i.e. where the traits were simply rated as such, without any reference to a performance realm. This finding clarifies an important aspect of the theory underlying this work, in the third study subjects were encouraged to make use of overt, visible aspects in describing how to recognize a foreign language speaker. The number of physical ethnic and material characteristics mentioned in subjects' descriptions was positively correlated with the number of mistakes subjects made in a foreign-language translation task, particularly when subjectively felt press with respect to translating was high and subjects' performance in translating was salient. Implications of these findings are discussed within a concept framework dwelling on the societal origins of the use of person-descriptor terms (Wicklund, 1986a,b). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moscovici has ushered in the 'era of social representations', widely welcomed as a European alternative to what are increasingly regarded as the shortcomings of mainline' American social psychology. The rapid and enthusiastic adoption by many psychologists of Moscovici's theoretical approach has not so far evoked a great deal of critical appraisal of the ideas he put forward. The present paper seeks to make a start in filling this gap by an examination of the conceptual structure and sonic of its underlying assumptions. There appear to be a number of internal inconsistencies and some doubt concerning the logical status of social representations'. It is suggested that clarification of such issues, together with the establishment of closer links with the findings of neighbouring disciplines, would help to strengthen what is undoubtedly one of the most stimulating new departures in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present article we analyze a series of studies designed to detect the caries preventive effect of Duraphat by means of meta-analysis. Meta-analysis is a collection of statistical methods designed to investigate and to summarize a series of investigations. It may be a valuable tool to complement traditional narrative reviews. During the last years meta-analysis has attracted increasing interest in sociology, psychology and medicine. In order to find previous studies concerned with the clinical effects of Duraphat we applied a systematic literature search. Papers were included independent of results when they fulfilled a checklist of well defined methodological selection criteria. In order to aggregate the results of the Duraphat- studies we used different complementary statistical approaches: Firstly, the so-called file drawer problem is considered. This may help to get a better insight into the problem of underreporting non-significant results or publication bias. It was found to be very unlikely that underreporting of non-significant results could reverse the conclusion into an overall null-result. After that, the inhomogeneity between studies is investigated. The overall variation of caries reduction R is separated into two components: A between study component of variance and a variance pertaining to the individual studies (random effects model). It was found that the overall variation is dominated by the between studies variation and not by the sampling variation. Due to the pronounced variation between studies the confidence interval of the overall effect size IR =0.38) is quite large (95%-Cl: 0.19-0.57). The heterogeneity of our studies naturally suggested exploring possible sources thereof by investigating the dependence of caries reduction on variables characterizing the studies. It was found that caries reduction is negatively correlated with study duration. This finding provided a study-duration-adjusted effect of caries reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an elaboration of Stinchcombe's model of the structure of functional explanations, this paper attempts to integrate the notions of equilibrium structures, structural contradictions, and social conflicts. It proposes that two variables of an unquestionably empirical nature can account for the distinctions among the three structural forms: (1) the emergence of a double loop in the basic structure of functional systems and (2) the embodiment of systemic, mechanical forces in the intentions and actions of persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on culture identity and dress. The sociology of dress is a vibrant field, exploring intriguing theoretical, methodological, and empirical domains. During the mid-twentieth century, clothing scholars began investigating the sociological and psychological implications of dress and appearance. In 1989, a group met to discuss the direction of the analysis of dress. The published papers from that meeting considered a wide range of topics, including identity, social psychology, cultural anthropology and sociology, semiotics, affect and cognition, social construction of gender, literary analysis, as well as qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Recent textbooks in the area continue to thaw from sociology and other fields to refine theories of dress and human behavior. Related to the misperception that dress only applies to the psychology of the self is the notion that dress is trivial both substantively and theoretically. Perhaps sociologists' neglect of dress might also be linked to a misperception that it is nonrational behavior similar to other actions that do not lend themselves to systematic analysis. Again these articles provide a contrasting view. In organizational and institutional settings, such as greedy organizations, total institutions, and mass media, dress and all it symbolizes are debated and discussed in ways that can be studied scientifically. Further, all of the articles have identified patterns in how dress is used in identity embracing and distancing that can be incorporated into broader theoretical frameworks.

Discusses the objectives of the periodical "British Journal of Social Psychology." Ground rules guiding any methodology; Capacity of the periodical to juxtapose papers using contrasting, even conflicting methods and epistemologies; Commitment of researchers to a paradigm or mode of investigation.