Critical Social Psychology

Towards a really social psychology: Liberation Psychology beyond Latin America

by Mark Burton

Mark Burton and Carolyn Kagan. published in M Montero and C Sonn: Psychology of Liberation Theory and Applications)

La psicología social de la liberación: aprendiendo de América Latina

by Mark Burton

Polis, 1, 101-124, (in collaboration with J.J. Vázquez Ortega). 2004

Liberation Social Psychology ( psicología social de la liberación , PSL ) ha sido desarrollada por un movimiento de... more Liberation Social Psychology ( psicología social de la liberación , PSL ) ha sido desarrollada por un movimiento de psicólogos en América Latina durante la última década, y este artículo explora el contexto en el cual cr eció desde los trabajos de Ignacio Martín-Baró y su ulterior estudio por Maritza Montero, entre otros. En la PSL surgen conceptos clave que incluyen conscientización, realismo crítico, desideologización, marco
social, opción preferencial por las mayorías oprimidas y eclecticismo meto-dológico. La aplicación de la PSL se ha dirigido a tres áreas. Primero, se sugiere que la psicología comunitaria practicada en algunos lugares de América Latina refleja la PSL en su énfasis por la transformación social y el uso de métodos participativos. Segundo, el trabajo psicosocial
con víctimas de la represión estatal, enfocado en la sociedad, es consi-derado ejemplo paradigmático de la PSL. Por último, los análisis político-psicosociales de la realidad de los países latinoamericanos toman en cuenta, de manera diversa, sus principios y conceptos. Para concluir, se discuten
algunos retos que enfrenta la PSL .
Palabras clave : psicología social de la liberación, opresión, transformación.

Exporting anti-Zionism: The delegitimization of Israel in the Iranian Press

by Rusi Jaspal

**FOR A PDF OF FULL PAPER, E-MAIL ME**

Jaspal, R. (under review). Exporting anti-Zionism: The delegitimization of Israel in the Iranian Press. Submitted to Israel Studies.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Anti-Zionism has remained an important ideological building-block of the Islamic... more Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Anti-Zionism has remained an important ideological building-block of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This paper examines the manifestation of anti-Zionism in the English-language Iranian Press in order to elucidate how this ideology is ‘exported’ to an international readership. The paper presents the results of an empirical study of two leading English-language Iranian newspapers: The Tehran Times and Press TV. The study uses critical discourse analysis and draws upon tenets of Social Representations Theory and the notion of Delegitimization from social psychology. The following themes are outlined: (i) “Problematizing Israel’s right to exist”; (ii) “Unveiling the global Zionist conspiracy”; and (iii) “Leading the global anti-Zionism – the declining ‘Zionist regime’”. Both anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic representations are observable in the corpus. The paper identifies three key components of the delegitimization process in textual representations of Israel, and discusses possible implications of outgroup delegitimization for identity, emotion and action.

Keywords: media representations; Iran; Israel; anti-Zionism; prejudice; social representations theory; critical discourse analysis; qualitative; social psychology

The Freudian Moment: Refelections on Herbert Marcuse

by Christian Garland

The Freudian Moment: Reflections on Herbert Marcuse for Illuminations - The Critical Theory Project (2006)

Government Service Project April 21, 2012 Nicholas Woyshner

by Nicholas Woyshner

El sinuoso fluir de la psicología crítica

by Hernan Camilo

Condiciones flexibles de trabajo y conocimiento psicologico

by Hernan Camilo

On Erich Fromm: why he left the Frankfurt school

by Caroline Kamau

Kamau, C. (2012).

Chapter synopsis: 'On Erich Fromm: Why he left the Frankfurt School':

-Biography: Erich Fromm
-Erich... more Chapter synopsis: 'On Erich Fromm: Why he left the Frankfurt School':

-Biography: Erich Fromm
-Erich Fromm was very critical of Freudian psychoanalysis. The Frankfurt School disapproved of that.
-Tension arose between Fromm and Horkheimer/Adorno/Marcuse and other pro-Freudian contemporaries
-Erich Fromm had reservations about the Frankfurt School's desire to merge psychoanalysis with Marxist theory
-Controversy arose over the Frankfurt School's decision not to publish a manuscript that Fromm wrote, with Weiss. This was a report of their landmark authoritarian personality study of 1931. The topic and methodology shaped the Frankfurt School's later research into authoritarianism (e.g. Adorno et al.'s famous studies).

This chapter also discusses Erich Fromm's work post-Frankfurt School:
--Fromm on social neurosis
--Fromm on thoughts as a form of self-presentation or impression management
--Fromm's theoretical focus on self identity, rather than instincts
--Fromm's theory about personality traits
--Fromm on empiricism and psychology versus psychoanalysis

Cinco siglos de posiciones alternativas, críticas y radicales en la psicología mexicana

by David Pavón-Cuéllar

Published in Athenea Digital 11 (2), 2011, pp. 193-213.

I explore consecutive periods and parallel trends in five centuries of history of Mexican psychology. This exploration... more I explore consecutive periods and parallel trends in five centuries of history of Mexican psychology. This exploration enables me to detect alternative, critical and radical positions, and to emphasize their intrinsic theoretical value, as well as their alternativeness, their political radicalism and their critical power. With this aim, I contextualize the positions, situating them in the history of Mexican psychology and in relation and opposition to dominant, compulsory and disciplinary positions.

Marx in Lacan: Proletarian Truth in Opposition to Capitalist Psychology

by David Pavón-Cuéllar

Published in Annual Review of Critical Psychology 9, 2011, pp. 70-77.

In Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytical theory, there is a precise place for Marx in relation to psychology. It is the... more In Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytical theory, there is a precise place for Marx in relation to psychology. It is the place of truth in opposition to capitalism. It is also the place of subversion against adaptation. According to Lacan, psychology adapts people to the capitalist system, while Marx reveals the subversive truth that underlies the system. This truth emerges as the real symptom of a purely symbolic system. It is the symptom of a proletarianized subject reduced to the workforce that makes the work of the system. If this work can be psychoanalytically conceived as the work of the unconscious, its force can be Lacanianly conceived as the enunciating workforce that expresses the discourse articulated by the Other. This suffering workforce is a symptom that implies frustration and reasonably motivates workers’ struggle against
liberal capitalism.

La psicología crítica de Fray Bartolomé de las Casas: caracterización apologética de los indígenas y elucidación lógica del racismo

by David Pavón-Cuéllar

Co-authored with Alejandra Cantoral Pozo and Edgar Miguel Juárez Salazar. Published in Teoría y Crítica de la Psicología 1, 2011, pp. 3-19

The paper states the existence of a critical psychology that would have been developed by Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas,... more The paper states the existence of a critical psychology that would have been developed by Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the racist psychologies of Ginés de Sepúlveda and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo. Two levels are distinguished in this critical psychology: on the surface, against the racist psychology, a critique based on an apologetic characterization of Indians; at bottom, against the
methodology used by the racist psychology, a critique founded on a logical elucidation of racism.

Memory and mathesis: For a topological approach to psychology

by Steve Brown

Draft pre-publication version of Brown, S.D. (2012) Memory and mathesis: For a topological approach to psychology. Theory, Culture & Society.

The ‘mathematical imaginary’ at work in psychology is central to the contingent history of the discipline, but is also... more The ‘mathematical imaginary’ at work in psychology is central to the contingent history of the discipline, but is also responsible for considerable confusion and ambiguity around the ontological assumptions of psychological theories and models. Rather than reject the mathematical altogether, this paper argues for an alternative form of mathematical description in psychology through the use of topology. Drawing on DeLanda’s (2002) topological account of the virtual, the relationship between psychology and ontology is progressively questioned in relation to memory. Henri Bergson’s conception of duration and the pure past is juxtaposed with the topological psychology of Kurt Lewin and its notion of life space as a manifold with n-dimensions. Using a diagrammatic strategy developed by Mullarkey (2006), an actualist account of the virtual is used to hold these distinct bodies of work together. Psychological events may be given a ‘thick description’ through the identification of topological relations and invariants. The interplay between the actual entities that are afforded in experience can be seen to be virtualised as planes of irreality. A topological approach to psychology offers the opportunity of replacing the taxonomy of essences common to the discipline with a dynamic account of invariance through homeomorphism.

Your past is not their present: Time, the other, and ethnocentrism in cross-cultural personality psychology

by Matthew Adams

co-authored with Paul Hanna

Recent cross-cultural studies of personality traits have been ambitious in their scope, bringing together dozens of... more Recent cross-cultural studies of personality traits have been ambitious in their scope, bringing together dozens of researchers to measure personality across many cultures. The key claim made in this paper is that a persistent form of ethnocentrism mars the presentation and interpretation of findings in cross-cultural studies of personality traits using evolutionary approaches. It is a form long-established as problematic and referred to in anthropology and related social science disciplines as allochronic discourse. A significant research report will be analysed to explore how allochronic discourse, conceptualizations of time, and representations of “otherness” are utilized. The reproduction of allochronic discourse is argued to indicate a need for cross-cultural personality psychologists to engage in multi-disciplinary debate, embrace innovative methodologies, and acknowledge the cultural specificity of its own conceptual frameworks.

„But we are humans and no machines!“ Möglichkeiten der Intersektionalität von Politikwissenschaften und Psychologie in der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung

by Anne-Sophie Reichert

Dieter Senghaas spricht von „Problemen der Vermittlung zwischen Bezugsgruppen und Systemebenen“, um die Problematik zu... more Dieter Senghaas spricht von „Problemen der Vermittlung zwischen Bezugsgruppen und Systemebenen“, um die Problematik zu beschreiben, dass bei analytisch-systemischen Ansätzen erstens psychologische, kulturell-historische und individuelle Spezifika nicht genügend miteinbezogen werden und das zweitens das angewendete System nicht auf andere Phänomene übertragen werden und somit nicht vergleichbar gemacht werden kann. Das die Optimierung oder Lösung der Konfliktsituation im Sinne einiger rational choice - Ansätze durch effektives crisis decision making erreicht werden kann, lässt sich in der Wirklichkeit selten wiederfinden, im Gegenteil: Staaten kämpfen oft bis weit hinter den Punkt, an dem ihr eigener Erfolg oder Nutzen erreicht wäre.
In dieser Arbeit möchte ich der Frage nachgehen, ob psychologische Konflikttheorieansätze politikwissenschaftliche Konflikttheorie anregen, erweitern und vervollständigen können.

Social representations of refugees: Place of origin as a delineating resource

by Scott Hanson-Easey

Hanson-Easey & Moloney (2009)
Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology
J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 19: 506–514 (2009)
Published online 16 May 2009 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/casp.1010

This study investigated social understandings of refugees from Africa in a regional town in NSW, Australia. Drawing... more This study investigated social understandings of refugees from Africa in a regional town in NSW, Australia. Drawing from Social Representations Theory (Moscovici, 1984), the study investigated
whether place of origin (Africa) mediated understandings held about refugees. Two studies were conducted. In the first study, a between-subjects manipulation using word association tasks revealed that the super-ordinate term Refugees, and Refugees from Africa shared a common core of elements (poor, war). Although sharing a core, these representations were differentiated by peripheral elements which concurred with social understanding of Africa (e.g. disease), and media portrayal of refugees/ asylum seekers (e.g. boat). The salience of thesemeanings in the community was further explored using
a self-report questionnaire. Results suggested that place of origin, manifested as peripheral representational
elements, may play an important role in differentiating, orientating and linking specific refugee groups to particular socio-political contexts. Further, we contend that place of origin may be understood as a discursive resource, deployed for rhetorical ends. Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Incidental exposure to no-smoking signs primes craving for cigarettes

by Brian Earp

Earp, B. D., Dill, B., Harris, J., Ackerman, J., and Bargh, J. (2011). Incidental exposure to no-smoking signs primes craving for cigarettes: An ironic effect of unconscious semantic processing? Yale Review of Undergraduate Research in Psychology, Vol 2, No 1, 12-23.

The present study tests whether incidental exposure to no-smoking signs may ironically boost craving for cigarettes in... more The present study tests whether incidental exposure to no-smoking signs may ironically boost craving for cigarettes in smokers. Smokers viewed photographs in which no-smoking signs were either incon- spicuously embedded (prime) or edited out (control). Participants then used a joystick to make quick approach vs. avoid motions while viewing smoking-related and neutral stimuli on a computer screen (Chen & Bargh, 1999). We hypothesized that primed smokers, but not controls, would show an automatic reach bias toward the smoking-related stimuli. The data supported our prediction. Possible mechanisms for the effect are discussed, as well as implications for public health policy, negation-based social campaigns in general, and our understanding of the unconscious processing of semantic information.

Towards a really social psychology: Liberation Psychology beyond Latin America

by Mark Burton

draft of chapter published in Montero and Sonn: Psychology of Liberation Theory and Applications

A second Psychology of Liberation? Valuing and moving beyond the Latin American.

by Mark Burton

paper written for the Liberation Psychology Network (English Language)
http://libpsy.org
 

Ignacio Martín Baró and the Psychology of Liberation.
The significance of Latin American Praxis in the search for... more Ignacio Martín Baró and the Psychology of Liberation.
The significance of Latin American Praxis in the search for
alternatives.
The Psychology of Liberation now
  Areas of application
  New challenges
  Limitations

CRITIQUES IN PSYCHOLOGY – CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY

by Athanasios Marvakis

with Dafermos, Manolis
2006.
In: Annual Review of Critical Psychology, No 5

What critical psychology can ('t) do for the “anti-capitalist movement”'

by John Drury