Glossary I
Nos A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P-Q R S T U V W X-Y-Z
Id: in Psychoanalytic Theory the Id is the innate part of the mind which operates on the ‘Pleasure Principle’ and is concerned only with fulfilling its desires, without regard to either morality or consequence. According to Sigmund Freud (1923), the Id has 2 instinctual drives:-
- Eros – the life instinct, the drive to express oneself as alive – Freud (1905) originally conceived the Id in terms of sex drive but later broadened it into the life drive (perhaps with sex, the creation of new life, as the ultimate expression of life)
- Thanatos – the death instinct, the drive to destroy self as well as others – a late addition to Freud’s theories reputed to be inspired by the wanton slaughter on the battlefields of World War I and, according to Max Schur (1972), the death of his daughter Sophie in the influenza epidemic of 1919.
In Integrated SocioPsychology terms the concept of the Id is reflected in the self-orientation of the warm-coloured vMEMES on Clare W Graves’ Spiral and can be seen at its most extreme in RED.
Ideal mental health: see mental illness.
Identification: to become associated with a person or thing to the extent that their behaviour is copied closely so as to as be as much like that person or thing as possible. This can be seen a a defence mechanism.
In terms of conformity it involves meeting the expectations inherent in social roles. Eg: nurses, teachers, traffic wardens, etc, etc. The individual identifies with a role and this leads to conformity to a norm. This is similar to Erving Goffman‘s (1959) ‘dramaturgical’ concept of identities as ‘masks’ which are worn according to the demands and expectations of the context in which the individual is operating at that time. The identity-context dual helix is also a key element in Robert Dilts’ (1990) model of Neurological Levels.
Identity: a person’s essential, continuous self; the subjective concept of oneself as an individual. Who, what and how someone sees their self.
Identity is a composite of the who-one-is and what-one-is – the schemas about ‘self’ that comprise the selfplex.
Of course, some hold that there is a ‘soul’ or a ‘spiritual self’ – and that is who one really is.
Identity Diffusion: a model developed by Erik Erikson to understand how people experience uncertainty about their sense of identity. Erikson developed the model in particular relation to adolescence, though clearly elements of it can – and do! -apply to people in later stages of life. Briefly the 4 components of Identity Diffusion are:-
○ Fear of Intimacy – commitment to others may involve a loss of one’s own identity
○ Diffusion of Time – Erikson said this “consists of a decided disbelief in the possibility that time may bring change and yet also a violent fear that it might.” The result is usually that the individual can’t plan for the future they are anxious about
○ Diffusion of Industry – this is characterised by either an inability to concentrate or enormous focused efforts on a single short-term activity
○ Negative Identity – Erikson said this involved “a scornful and snobbish hostility towards the role offered as proper and desirable inone’s family or immediate community.” This can lead to the taking on of an extreme identity such as delinquent or drug abuser
Erikson’s components are all typical of the RED vMEME’s struggle to assert its independence without thought of consequences for its actions.
Ideology: the body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture.
It can also be read as a set of doctrines or beliefs that form the basis of a political, economic or other system.
Image Management:
Imagined Community: a concept developed by Benedict Anderson (1983) to analyse nationalism. Anderson depicts a nation as a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group.
As Anderson puts it, a nation “is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion”. Members of the community hold in their minds a mental image of their affinity: for example, the nationhood felt with other members of your nation when your ‘imagined community’ participates in a larger event such as the Olympic Games.
Anderson emphasises the role of the media in creating imagined communities – eg perpetuating stereotypes through certain images and vernacular.
Immigration: see Migration.
Immune System: a system of cells within the body that is focused on fighting against invading viruses, bacteria, etc.
White blood cells (leucocytes) identify and kill foreign bodies (antigens). Leucocytes include:-
○ T-cells which destroy invaders
○ T-helper cells which immunological activity
○ B-cells which make antibodies to fight antigens
○ Natural killer cells destroy certain kinds of tumour cells and cells infected with viruses
Stress is known to interfere with the immune system and prevent it working as effectively as it should.
Imperialism: a policy of extending your rule over foreign countries or a political orientation that advocates imperial interests.
It can also be read as any instance of aggressive extension of national authority.
Imposed Etic: a term coined by the cross-cultural psychological specialist John Berry (1969) to refer to the values, practices, norms and other characteristics of one culture or sub-culture – ie: an emic – being seen as universal – ie: an etic – and thus applied to other cultural groups whether appropriate or not.
Eg: in Western Christian-heritage societies, romantic love between one man and one woman is widely portrayed as the best reason for marriage. Thus, many Western researchers have struggled to understand that marriages in collectivistic cultures, where marriages are often economic arrangements, can be happy and fulfilling for the partners. Even more, Western researchers have struggled to understand how women can be happy and fulfilled in one man/several women relationships, as found in North African societies.
Impression Management: in Sociology and Social Psychology impression management is the process through which people try to control the impressions other people form of them.
It is a goal-directed, conscious or unconscious, attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event by regulating and controlling information in social interaction. It is usually used synonymously with self-presentation, if a person tries to influence the perception of their image. The notion of impression management also refers to practices in professional communication and public relations, where the term is used to describe the process of formation of an organisation’s public image.
In-group: any group to which someone feels they belong and have invested of themselves and which sees itself as distinct from the out-group(s)
In-groups are usually defined through distinctive characteristics such as race and gender or shared heritage – eg: attended the same school, support the same football team. Usually an in-group will subscribe to a set of group norms and shared values – which, as individuals outside the group, they might not endorse. Ie: normative conformity.
In-group/Out-group Effect: this is the polarisation that results from different people having identification with totally separate groups or categories of groups, usually with very different norms and values. As per Social Identity Theory, each in-group will then discriminate against the out-group(s) and in its own favour.
A small-scale example is cliques in schools and workplaces who ostracise people not in their in-group and openly bad-mouth other groups. On a macro level, this effect leads whites and blacks to discriminate against each other and for men and women to attribute demeaning stereotypes to the other gender.
In large part this effect is the result of the PURPLE vMEME’s need to find safety-in-belonging to one group which, in turn, facilitates prejudice about those not in the ‘safe’ group. The weaker RED is in someone’s vMEME stack and thus the lower their self-esteem is, the more they are likely to conform to this effect.
Incongruence: with Humanistic therapies, the aim often is to narrow the between a poor perceived self and the ideal self – the personality the client would like to be.
See The Selfplex for more details on how on how differently-perceived ‘selves’ can impact up on our construction of the selplex, the confluence of schemas about ‘self’.
Independent Variable: see Variables.
Individualism: see Collectivism.
Individuation:
Inductive Reasoning: the process of drawing a logical conclusion by using specific instances to infer a general law – going from the drawing a logical conclusion by using specific instances to infer a general law . Going from the particular to the general.
Inferiority Complex:
Informational Social Influence: is a type of conformity by the need to know – usually what is correct or needed – in an ambiguous situation and conforming to the words and behaviours of others who are perceived to know.
An example might be following others (who seem to know) to find a fire exit in a strange building after the fire alarm has gone off.
Inner Child: aka the ‘Divine Child’ (Carl Gustav Jung), the ‘Wonder Child’ (Emmet Fox) and the ‘Child Within’ (Charles Whitfield). Some psychotherapists think of the Inner Child as the ‘True Self’. How the Inner Child develops during childhood will impact on his/her eventual Enneagramme type, the development of the PURPLE and RED vMEMES and the mental health of the Id-Ego-Superego relationship in Psychoanalytic Theory.
Integral Psychology: as outlined in his 2000 book of the same name, this is Ken Wilber’s philosophical approach for re-integrating spiritual consciousness into Developmental Psychology. He disdains what he terms the ‘Flatland’ approach where only “the world of matter and energy, empirically investigated by human senses and their tools, is real.” The concept has the All Quadrants/All Levels model as a key element. This facilitates drawing upon ancient, mediaeval and modern psychologists, philosophers and mystics, both Eastern and Western, to create a new paradigm that includes waves of development, lines of development, states of consciousness and the self, following each from subconscious to self-conscious to superconscious.
Unfortunately – but probably unsurprisingly – with ‘Integral Spirituality’, the successor concept, Wilber has wandered into some constructs that simply don’t stand up to scientific scrutiny. That shouldn’t distract from the importance of his earlier work.
See the FAQ on the differences between Integrated SocioPsychology and Integral Psychology.
Integral:
Integrated SocioPsychology: the term I have coined for the alignment and ‘complimentariness’ of the differing fields of Psychology and the related behavioural sciences (Anthropology and, especially, Sociology) and the ‘hard sciences’ (particularly Biology and Neuroscience). The core of this approach is the use of Clare W Graves’ research to underpin Robert Dilts’ Neurological Levels. At an individual/micro level, Hans J Eysenck’s Dimensions of Temperament provides a robust model of temperamental traits. 4Q/8L provides an overarching schematic for considering both how the individual’s psyche is constructed to interact with the external world and how Functionalism and Symbolic Interactionism contribute to our understanding of society. Memetics, the formation of meta-states and the effects of Reciprocal Determinism are also key areas of study in the Integrated SocioPsychology paradigm.
Intellectualisation: one of the ego defence mechanisms first put forward by Sigmund Freud and documented by his daughter Anna (1936).
In Integrated SocioPsychology, ego defence mechanisms are reframed as selfplex defence mechanisms.
Intelligence: the ability to acquire information, to think and reason effectively, and to deal adaptively with the environment.
There are many definitions of intelligence – including the circular one of what intelligence tests measure (IQ)! – and it is an area of much debate in the fields of Psychology and Education. Howard Gardner (1983) has done much to stir up controversy about the nature of intelligence with his theory of Multiple Intelligences.
Intelligence Quotient (IQ): a measure of intelligence on an IQ test. Intelligence scores are usually normally distributed and the scores are standardised so that around 64% of the population fall within one standard deviation (85 below; 115 above) of the mean (100).
There are many criticisms of IQ tests – not least that they represent the test designer’s idea of what intelligence is and are, therefore, vulnerable to accusations of racial and cultural bias. While white Caucasians – on whom the original tests were piloted – tend to average out at around 100, blacks tend to average out at around 85 (Arthur Jensen, 1969) – though recent evidence suggests East Asians average out above whites at around 106 (J Philippe Rushton & Arthur Jensen, 2005).
Interactionism:
Intergenerational:
Internal Representation: these are the schemas we employ to create a mental conception of something eg: self, A N Other or relationships.
Internal representations cannot be directly observed. Rather, they are inferred based on speech, writing, or psychological instruments such as projective tests.
Internal Validity:
Internal Working Model:
Internalisation:
Interval Data: see Levels of Data.
Introspection: the studying and reporting of your own thought processes to understand how they work.
Inevitably the method involves subjectivity. However, Wilhelm Wundt (1879) claimed that he and the ‘introspectionists’ he used were so highly trained that they could observe their own thoughts without being biased by interpretation or previous experience.
Introversion: see Extraversion.
Isolation: one of the ego defence mechanisms first put forward by Sigmund Freud and documented by his daughter Anna (1936).
In Integrated SocioPsychology, ego defence mechanisms are reframed as selfplex defence mechanisms.