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tagged behavior crime database mentalhealth perceptions psychiatry psychology publichealth social violence by cobine ...on 26-MAR-09
Call#: Van Pelt Library RC553.D5 D545 1994
"The Domain of Dissociation," a chapter by Etzel Cardena, pages 15- 31.
Cardena argues that the domain of dissociation can be thought of as a constellation, or a way of thinking about dissociation and its related problems. "Dissociation" means that two or more mental processes or contents are not associated or integrated. It is usually assumed that these dissociated elements should be integrated in conscious awareness, memory, or identity. Cardena proposes two subdivisions, a repression of memories and disassociation of memories as escape mechanisms. Repression is a defense against anxiety-triggering internal stimuli, while dissociation is a defense against external stimuli. However, dissociation involves particular alterations in phenomenal experience that are related to a disconnection or disengagement regarding the self and/or the environment. Certain "ecstatic" experiences cause an enhanced sense of contact with the surroundings and the self. Forgetting who you are, and other events and things are voluntary with dissociation. Often is the case that memories are triggered when a matched association is made in the subconscious. This is highlighted brilliantly in Spellbound, once again, with Ballentine's character.
We first see Ballentine in mental distress when Constance Peterson draws the shape of a pool they want to build at the asylum with a fork at the dinner table. He becomes angry with her drawing on the table cloth. We again see him react a similar way, when he is hugging Dr. Peterson when she is in her night robe that is white with black stripes. By now, it becomes clear to us that " the fake Edwardes" has his own mental problems. Whenever he sees a white object with black lines on it, he enters a state of intense stress. This is what Cardena wrote about above: dissociation. Because of repressed memories, he becomes highly uncomfortable at the sight of black lines on a white background. We later learn the black lines on white signify ski tracks on snow. This is where the real Edwardes fell off a cliff and died. This "ecstatic" experience was triggered by the environment they were in, in the form of black lines on white.
tagged dissociation dissociative_disorders psychology by hina ...and 1 other person ...on 04-DEC-08
Fleming’s 1939 American film The Wizard of Oz is an early pioneer of the use of innovative techniques in camera work, music, visual and special effects in modern day movie production. The musical-fantasy classic has also become a firm favorite among the American public and coupled with its influence in the film industry, it should be regarded as the most significant American film of all time.
In his article Kansas, Oz and the Function of Art , Conlon describes Fleming’s 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz as an expression of art using the film medium. He proposes the idea that the land of Oz is itself the artistic interpretation of the reality of Kansas. While art is generally mimetic, Oz is not just a mere reflection of Kansas. Nor is Oz a conflict-free version of the real world. This much is clear as Dorothy faces arguably more dire perils in Oz than in Kansas. It is true that the characters in Oz resemble their Kansas counterparts in physique and psyche, however the relationships that Dorothy forges with the Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow are more indicative of her desire to be treated as an equal rather than the meddlesome child she is depicted as while on the farm. Oz also empowers Dorothy with the ability to evoke change in the status quo, in Kansas her opinion is often ignored or dismissed. The article is truly a unique interpretation of the film and shows that this beloved fantasy has a lot more substance than we might realize at first glance.
Conlon, James. "Kansas, Oz and the Function of Art." Journal of Aesthetic Education Vol. 24, No. 3 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 99-106. University of Illinois Press. JSTOR, 1 Dec. 2008.
tagged 1939 dorothy film garland oz psychology rainbow wizard by demetrie ...on 02-DEC-08
Holdings: 1887 to the present. Updated monthly.
tagged database primary psychology social_work by demarin ...and 32 other people ...on 07-OCT-08
Call#: Van Pelt Library HM132 .T45 1993
Title: Theoretical frameworks for personal relationships / edited by Ralph Erber, Robin Gilmour. Publisher: Hillsdale, N.J. : L. Erlbaum, 1994. Description: Book xi, 271 p. : ill. : 24 cm. LC Subject(s): Interpersonal relations. Man-woman relationships. Intimacy (Psychology) Location: Van Pelt Library Call Number: HM132 .T45 1993 Status: Available, check location
NOTE: see chapter 2 - communal and exchange relationships - for a review of market practices vs social norms
Is TV violence all that bad for kids? The Age (Melbourne, Australia), March 5, 2005 Saturday, INSIGHT; Opinion; Pg. 9, 816 words, HUGH MACKAY LexisNexis Academic 9 Apr. 2008
This article is a response to a report from The Weekend Australian that asserts a child’s witnessing of violence in media will result in higher levels of aggression. Writer Hugh Mackay refers to a 1960’s American child-psychology experiment which consisted of observing the different ways children would play with a particular object after they watched different videos, ones that either showed children playing peacefully with that toy or children punching and kicking it. The findings were that those who watched a violent video would treat the toy violently, and those who watched the peaceful video would treat the toy peacefully. Mackay makes sure to point out that although the children would emulate the behavior, it has been concluded that the effects are only short-term, and that all long-term personalities remain virtually unchanged. Furthermore, he declares that the search for variables which might shed light on a child’s increased or decreased susceptibility toward emulating violence in the media result only in negligible data that cannot give any indication of why a particular child would be acting more or less violent than any other one. Mackay’s overall point is that although these experiments may show children in the act of emulating violence on television, all large-scale national crime statistics show that the introduction of television into the societies of decades past resulted in severe drops in crime, and that the age-group which watches the least amount of television today commits the highest amount of violent crime. In short, what a child views in movies or videogames has far less positive or negative impact on his personality than the benefits of extensive human interaction, or the dangers of lazy, television-filled inactivity.
This article is worth factoring into the discussion of Natural Born Killer’s potential effect on inspiring three young couples to committing separate violent murders in Europe and America, all after their viewing (and in one case, repeated viewing) of the 1994 film. Although accusations were made that the filmmakers and producers were responsible, hardly evidence has been found to support them. Mackay also says that at the time of his writing the article in 2005, the violent crime rate in America had been in steady decline for the last 10 years – which would mean the trend began in 1995, one year after Natural Born Killers was released. If violence in the media could truly influence people to emulate the brutality on screen, Natural Born Killers would surely qualify for those results, considering the rare intensity of bloodshed that is present throughout the whole movie. And considering it grossed 11 million dollars in the first weekend, and over 50 million dollars to date, enough people have seen the movie that we can say if there was a slight rise in a person’s aggressive tendencies after watching the movie, no matter how slight, the accumulation across the country would certainly be noticeable.
tagged bibliography film media natural_born_killers psychology sociology violence by pbradt ...on 10-APR-08
McLaren, Angus. Impotence : a cultural history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
McLaren’s cultural history of male impotence drives home one strong assertion: the reality, fear and shame of impotence is no new thing. From Greco-Roman times to the Middle Ages to the modern triumph of Viagra, men (and women) have been dealing with this issue. I chose to focus on the chapter where the author describes the 20th century, especially World War II through the 1980’s. He shows that male impotence is both a psychological and a physiological function. Studies from this time period, however, found the two to be so tightly intertwined that it is was nearly impossible to separate them. They certainly found strong correlation, however, between anxious, insecure men and impotency. Age was a factor, but some studies showed that regular sexual activity could greatly dampen or even eliminate the physiological effects of age on erectile performance. And those thought to be inherently impotent could, with therapy, eventually overcome their problem.
Seeing as this was the protagonist’s main conflict in the film Xala, I thought to dig up a book on the effects of impotence, its treatment and taboos associated with it. While I couldn’t find any studies specific to African culture from Xala’s time period, I feel that, quite interestingly, there are universal reactions from both males and females to this phenomenon. Just as we saw El Hadji’s personal shame and the external female castigation in the African cultural context, this experience seems to be the norm across many (if not all) cultures studied to date. I actually expected to find a lot more literature on this subject, but as I learned from skimming Impotence, the subject is so taboo and shameful that, for the most part, it wasn’t till about 50 years ago that it began to be openly discussed. It is noteworthy that, as in most cases, the criticism El Hadji received from the females in the film likely made the problem worse, as impotence is so directly affected by shame and feelings of inadequacy.
Alwitt, Linda F. "Suspense and Advertising Responses." Journal of Consumer Psychology. Vol. 12, no. 1. 2002. pp. 35-49.
In her article on suspense and consumer psychology, Linda Alwitt explores what suspense is, how it is created, and its effects on audiences. She argues that the presence of suspense in an advertisement, in this case a television commercial, evokes at once both positive and negative emotional responses in the viewer, with the ultimate result being a more positive attitude towards suspenseful ads than non-suspenseful ads. She also argues that while viewers have a respond better to suspenseful ads, there are trade-offs in regards to effectiveness.
Suspense is a fundamental element of Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, as it is for most of his films, and is one of the keys to understanding the movie's success. For both filmmakers and advertisers, suspense is used to maintain the audience's interest, so for both groups the creation of suspense is similar, though filmmakers must hold the audience's attention for much longer than advertisers. As outlined by Alwitt, the critical elements that set the stage for suspense in both mediums are characters, a plot, conflict, perceived time (the passing of which must be somehow related to the conflict), multiple possible outcomes to the situation, and often the omniscient knowledge of the audience. All of these elements are present in Notorious. Since he is working within the movie format, which is much more extended than that of the commercial, Hitchcock is able to more fully utilize the camera, editing, music, and his characters to heighten the suspense.
One of the films' clearest examples of mounting tension is just before the climax in the wine cellar, as the camera cuts back and forth between large party scenes and close-ups of the dwindling numbers of champagne bottles. The result is the audience's increased emotional involvement in the film and it's main characters, Alicia and Devlin. When the conflict is resolved, viewers walk away with a more gratifying emotional experience, having experienced both excitement and fear with the films characters and having lived to tell the tale.
tagged advertising psychology suspense television by coneybee ...on 10-APR-08
Bio Mapping
Christian Nold
Jan 2004 - ongoing
Bio Mapping is a community mapping project in which over the last four years with more than 1500 people have taken part in. In the context of regular, local workshops and consulltations, participants are wired up with an innovative device which records the wearer's Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), which is a simple indicator of the emotional arousal in conjunction with their geographical location. People re-eplore their local area by walking the neighbourhood with the device and on their return a map is created which visualises points of high and low arousal. By interpreting and annotating this data, communal emotion maps are constructed that are packed full of personal observations which show the areas that people feel strongly about and truly visualise the social space of a community.
How will our perceptions of our community and environment change when we become aware of our own and each others intimate body states?
-from ScienceDirect
Continued as Journal of Memory and Language
Holdings: 1962-1984
-from Cambridge Journals
Holdings: 1997-
-from ScienceDirect
Holdings: 1993-
The article points out that the sequence of meeting someone is inverted on the Internet: it is not the physical that comes first, then attitudinal connection, then intimate disclosure, but the other way around. This model is challenged in interesting ways when applied to social networks of today, which create a fusion of CMRs and face-to-face relationships. A person might meet someone briefly, Facebook “friend” them, and then learn more about them online through their profile and chatting, only meeting again weeks afterwards. Ideally, face-to-face interaction will be complemented and enhanced by the addition of virtual relationships, which is the ultimate goal of social networking sites like facebook.com which rely on existing connections to establish a person’s network. However, it becomes more complicated when a person's creates expectations from a face-to-face meeting and is then disappointmented when he "meets" the person in the virtual world (or the other way around).
tagged computer_mediated_relationships online_dating psychology social_networks by rachee ...on 10-MAR-07
I found this article to be a refreshing change from some of the more cynical pieces I had read about identity and the internet. It’s encouraging to think that the fragmentation that people talk about in terms of online identity formation and multiple forms/representations of self could actually be a way to come to a greater realization of self. Rather than fragmented, it is optimistically “adaptive” and “flexible” (647). Of course this is not the case for all internet users who create virtual personae; some people could hide behind these identities rather than learn from them. In that way, the argument is a little bit idealist. Thinking about the author’s argument in terms of contemporary social networks online, there is definitely the possibility for defining oneself in a certain way on one’s profile and exploring other parts of the self in that process, but I think that especially with adolescents (much of the Facebook and MySpace demographic), they are often not ready to reconcile the multiplicity of selves and simply use the networks to project a certain image. It might take more time for them to self-consciously ask themselves why they are trying to create a certain virtual personae, and maybe then they will reach the potential that this article discusses.
tagged identity_formation internet psychology social_networks virtual_persona by rachee ...on 10-MAR-07
-from CSA Databases
The American Psychological Association's comprehensive indexing and abstracting service for the professional and scholarly literature in psychology and related fields. Coverage is worldwide. Sources are in English and over thirty languages.
Holdings: 1887 to the present. Updated monthly.
tagged association psychiatry psychiatry200 psychology by mcedrone ...on 13-OCT-06
Call#: Van Pelt Library BF441 .S6 1996
Call#: Van Pelt Library BF204.6 .L54 2006
Call#: Van Pelt Library BF38 .P43
Call#: Van Pelt Library RE91 .S413
Discussed in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
Friedberg, Anne. “An Unheimlich Maneuver between Psychoanalysis and Cinema: Secrets of the Soul (1926).” The Films of G.W. Pabst: An Extraterritorial Cinema. Ed. Eric Rentschler. New Brunswick and London: Rutgers UP, 1990.
Friedberg introduces her article with a look at the twin birth of psychoanalysis and cinema and argues that "Freud's theory of the unconscious. . .was, from the start, a theory in search of an apparatus. Yet the cinema, an apparatus which could reproduce and project specular images, from its beginnings, an apparatus in search of a theory" (41). Drawing on Chodorkoff and Baxter, Friedberg offers a reading of the history of the making of Secrets of the Soul, including Freud's rejection of the project. She calls the film the first 'that directly tried to represent psychoanalytic descriptions of the etiology of a phobia and the method of psychoanalytic treatment" (45). Friedberg points to the various ironic name puns having to do with Freud's lack of involvment in the film: that Pabst, the director of Joyless Street--Die FREUDlose Gasse (my emphasis) was asked to direct a film "mit Freud," when Freud refused to be involved; and that the actor who plays the pshychoanalyst in Secrets, Pavel Pavlov, shares his name with "Freud's mightiest theoretical opponent, the physiologist Ivan Pavlov" (46). Friedman goes on to describe and analyze the film, which she notes is separated into five parts: Pre-Dream; The Dream; Post-Dream; Analysis; and Cure. She notes that the happy ending of the film works as a kind of advertisement for psychoanalysis, arguing that Abraham and Sachs in consulting on the film, intented to "extol its curative virtues" (51).
tagged closeup film freud gwpabst hd movies psychoanalysis psychology women by aliki ...on 04-MAY-06
Bergstrom, Janet. “Psychological Explanation in the Films of Lang and Pabst.” Psychoanalysis & Cinema. Ed. E. Ann Kaplan. New York : Routledge, 1990. 163-80.
Bergstrom examines the differences between Lang and Pabst's uses of "psychological explanation" in their films in order to show the wide spectrum of Weimar film's emphasis on psychology. She notes that while Pabst in such films as Pandora's Box and Secrets of the Soul emphasizes "'realistic' characters who are carefully individuated through psychological depth," Lang's characters are abstract types set up in contrast to institutions (163). Bergstom is not interested in psychoanalysis but in "how psychology is used at the narrative level" (164). Bergstrom reads Secrets of the Soul as didactic/educational film whose project is to legitimate psychoanalysis by showing how it works to diagnose and cure the film's central character. But she notes that the film is the least satisfying of those she examines because, while the main character is shown to have great psychological depth, the secondary characters are devoid of such depth.
tagged film freud fritzlang gwpabst movies psychoanalysis psychology by aliki ...on 04-MAY-06
tagged Vivre_Sa_Vie free_will philosophy prostitution psychology by philipjm ...on 07-APR-06
This article examines the character of Scarlett O’Hara in a psychological sense. It looks over her characteristics and social tendencies in an effort to categorize her psychological personality.
Deeks uses Adler’s four types of people, which are categorized by their interest in society and their manner of gaining or working towards perfection. There are three types that actively seek out their goals as well as avoid outside problems and have low societal interest. They are the ruling type, the getting type and the avoiding type. The last type is the socially useful type, which works well and cooperates with his or her society. Deek argues that Scarlett is the getting type.
Deeks identifies certain characteristics which make this type the most suitable for Scarlett. Scarlett is conniving and manipulative towards everyone around her. She uses people to get what she wants through coercion and seduction. She does not cooperate with those around her or attempt to improve the society which she is a part of. She only works to get what she wants and nothing else. This does not make her happy because she cannot interact with the people around her in a way that is not manipulative.
This article gives a specific view of Scarlett as a character and a human being. It is a psychological examination of a character as a human being and not just a fictional being. That makes the character more tangible and provides a different angle of the film.
tagged Gone_with_the_Wind Margaret_Mitchell Scarlett_O'hara psychology by ajlyons ...on 06-APR-06
Written by the psychologist Dee Burton, this book compiles and analyzes her patients' dreams, which involve Woody Allen. This source describes the many facets of the Woody Allen persona while identifying the place that Woody Allen holds in the minds of his audience and what he has come to symbolize. Woody Allen is perceived as an artist, a friend, a lover, and a quiet thinker that one wants to get to know. The many incarnations of Woody Allen in his films have made him identifiable, relatable, and a moldable image.
Burton points out that Woody Allen’s philosophy on life – on morality, mortality, sexuality, and constant struggles between the self and society – delve into the subjects that people consider everyday on a subconscious level. Woody Allen, known to be an avid fan of psychoanalysis, bled his philosophy and his psychoanalytical tendencies into his films, and as a result, he has become a symbol for openness, genius, and an aspiration toward understanding oneself. As Woody Allen absorbs himself into his films through his roles, writing, and marginally (or not so marginally) autobiographical touches, Allen begins to feel like a friend who one is comfortable with but who one desires to know in even more depth. Some element of his personality – whatever element from whatever personal perception or Woody Allen film – touches his audience members, and the dreams compiled in this book are a testimony to the influence that Woody Allen has had over his audience in a lingering way, particularly through his roles and the illusion of autobiography in his film.
Another interesting fact from this book is that Annie Hall is favorite film among these compiled Woody Allen dreamers, perhaps because Annie Hall is one of his most autobiographical films, where he even addresses the audience with private thoughts and his imaginative portrayals. Still, Burton makes a clear distinction between Woody Allen and Dream Woody. These dreamers have simply identified with the Woody Allen film persona and internalized this identification, which supports the argument that through his films, Woody Allen has created a variation on the auteurist cinema, where he has not only made recognizable films in a recognizable style, but he has also created an onscreen persona that has rendered a lasting offscreen impression.
tagged Annie_Hall Woody_Allen autobiography psychology by pcaces ...on 05-APR-06
Title: MY CROWD - Or, Phase 5: A report from the inventor of the flash mob
Authors: Wasik, Bill
Source: Harper's Magazine; Mar2006, Vol. 312 Issue 1870, p56-66, 11p
Abstract: The article focuses on a study which examined the behavior of a flash mob. Flash mob, as defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, is a public gathering of complete strangers, organized via the Internet or mobile phone, who perform a pointless act and then disperse again. The basic hypothesis behind the Mob Project include seeing how all culture in New York was demonstrably commingled with scenesterism, the appeal of concerts and plays and readings and gallery shows.