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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

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Has Boris Johnson inadvertently done Us a Favour?

Boris Johnson has been roundly pilloried by the left-leaning press and by socialists and liberals on social media for his comments about burqa-wearing Muslim women looking “ridiculous” because burqas make their wearers look like “letter boxes” and “bank robbers”. But the criticisms have come not just from the left. Theresa May and Conservative Party chairman Brandon Lewis are among top Tories who have called for Johnson to apologise. The party has received so many complaints, an investigation into whether Johnson’s already- infamous article in the Daily Telegraph has brought the party into disrepute is proposed. Separately some MPs – such as Labour’s Jon Trickett – have called for Johnson to be disciplined for breaking the Ministerial Code (BBC News, 2018d). In the wake of Johnson’s Telegraph article, there has been a spike in attacks on Muslim women wearing burqas and niqabs – reported by The Independent’s Lizzie Dearden, among others. This tweet by Amanda Fleiss and posted to Facebook by Huddersfield TUC captures the indignity and distress of one such attack. As reported by The Independent’s Joe Watts (2018b) amongst others, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has demanded that Johnson is subjected to a full disciplinary investigation and that there is… Read More

How the Plutocrats are waging War on the Bureaucrats…

11 July 2017 In seeking to explain the 2016 EU referendum result, the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency and the rise of white working class right-wing nationalistic populism in general across much of Europe, many commentators, such as Rob Ford (2016) in The Observer, have portrayed these things as consequences of the relentless growth of globalisation. As the transnational corporations have created a New International Division of Labour pitching their operational bases where labour is cheapest – eg; North Africa, South-East Asia – so the traditional white working classes in the West have become the ‘left-behind’. As explored in Underclass: the Excreta of Capitalism and So the Turkeys did vote for Christmas?!?, the resultant competition for the jobs there are left make them particularly susceptible to racism, xenophobia and anti-immigration sentiment. For the PURPLE vMEME, with its safety-in-belonging need threatened by those not-of-our-tribe, this is a not-unnatural reaction. See: Is Racism Natural..? There is a complexity in this scenario, though, that is not always acknowledged – particularly in the way the mainstream media often tell the story. At the time of writing, as widely reported – eg: Mehreen Khan in the Financial Times – the UK has its lowest unemployment rate… Read More

8 June: Time for a Change!

Theresa May’s decision to hold a snap general election on 8 June is being widely seen as an attempt to further weaken – if not outrightly dismantle – a crisis-ridden and ineffectual Labour opposition and to gain a much larger Tory majority in the House of Commons. It was also quite explicit in her 18 April speech announcing the election – see the newsfeed video clip below – that she wants that increased majority so she can eliminate any opposition in Parliament to pushing through her version of Brexit.   May named the House of Lords, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Nationalists as being the ‘enemy’. In a sense it was a little duplicitous for her to include Labour in quite the way she did. Jeremy Corbyn has been reported – eg: The Independent’s Rob Merrick – as saying Labour would vote against a final Brexit deal it didn’t approve of and Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer – as reported by The Guardian’s Rowena Mason & Anushka Asthana – has proposed  that the UK could still participate in various EU structures and agencies post-Brexit. However, in general Corbyn has been broadly supportive of May’s Brexit tactics so far. He… Read More

Islamification: Europe’s Challenge

Relaunched: 28 November 2015 This feature was originally published as ‘Islamification: Britain’s Challenge’ in 9 June 2013. It is now updated, expanded and relaunched under its revised title to reflect the dramatic changes that have taken place since the original publication and to add more of a European dimension. Islamification is a highly-emotive word. For me personally, it instantly conjures up images of English Defence League (EDL) demonstrators with their ‘No more mosques!’ placards But Islamification should be a word that stirs the emotions, one way or the other. By definition (WordSense.eu), it is the process of converting a region or a society to Islam. If being in a society that is taken over by Islamists (political supporters of fundamentalist Islam) and introduces Sharia law is something you would welcome, then impending Islamification should give you comfort and possibly even joy. If, like me, you enjoy many of the freedoms (and indulgences) of living in what is increasingly a post-Christian, secular society, then Islamification may fill you with apprehension. In an Islamified Europe, non-Muslims would be ‘dhimmi’: second class citizens. So…is Islamification happening? If it is, how does Europe and, particularly for me, Britain deal with it? (Or does it deal with us?!?) Islam is… Read More

Bibliography R

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 Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred (1952): ‘Structure and Function in Primitive Society: Essays & Addresses’ (Cohen & West, London) Rafiq, Arif (2015): ‘Islamic State goes Official in South Asia’ in The Diplomat (4 February) Rahe, Richard, Robert Biersner, David Ryman & Ransom Arthur (1972): ‘Psychosocial Predictors of Illness Behaviour and Failure in Stressful Training’ in Journal of Health & Social Behaviour 13/4 Rahe, Richard, Jack Mahan & Ransom Arthur (1970): ‘Prediction of Near-Future Health Change from Subjects’ Preceding Life Changes’ in Journal of Psychosomatic Research 14/4 Rahe, Richard, Merle Meyer, Michael Smith, George Kjaer & Thomas Holmes (1964): ‘Social Stress and Illness Onset’ in Journal of Psychsomatic Research #8 Rahnema, Majid (1997): ‘Introduction’ in Majid Rahnema & Victoria Bawtree (eds): ‘The Post-Development Reader’ (Zed Books) London) Raine, Adrian (1993): ‘The Psychopathology of Crime: Criminal Behaviour as a Clinical Disorder’ (Academic Press, Waltham MA) Raine, Adrian, Monte Buchsbaum & Lori LaCasse (1997): ‘Brain Abnormalities in Murderers indicated by Positron Emission Tomography’ in Biological Psychiatry #42 Raine, Adrian, Reid Melroy, Susan Bihrle, Jackie Stoddard, Lori LaCasse & Monte Buchsbaum  (1998): ‘Reduced Prefrontal and Increased Subcortical Brain… Read More

Bibliography K

 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 Kadushin, Alfred (1970): ‘Adopting Older Children’ (Columbia University Press) Kagan, Jerome (1976): ‘New Views on Cognitive Development’ in Journal of Youth & Adolescence 5/2 Kagan, Jerome (1984): ‘The Nature of the Child’ (Basic Books, New York NY) Kagan, Jerome (1994): ‘Galen’s Prophecy: Temperament in Human Nature’ (Basic Books, New York NY) Kagan, Jerome & Howard Moss (1962): ‘Birth to Maturity: a Study in Psychological Development’ (John Wiley & Sons, New York NY) Kagan, Jerome & Robert Klein (1973): ‘Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Early Development’ in American Psychologist #28 Kagan, Jerome, Steven Resnick & Nancy Snidman (1988): ‘Biological Bases of Childhood Shyness’ in Science #240 Kagan, Soeren (2015): ‘Germany’s Muslim Demographic Revolution’ (Gatestone Institute) http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6423/germany-muslim-demographic (Accessed: 23/11/15) Kahane, Adam (2012): ‘Working together to change the Future: Transformative Scenario Planning’ (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco CA) Kahn, Meehran (2017): ‘UK GDP Growth slows to 0.3% in Q1’ in Financial Times (28 April) Kahn, Stephen, Gary Zimmerman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi & Jacob Getzels (1985): ‘Relations Between Identity in Young Adulthood and Intimacy at Midlife’ in Journal of Personality & Social Psychology… Read More

SocioPsychological Factors in Crime

Relaunched: 8 July 2020 While, clearly there a number of biological factors which can substantially increase the likelihood of someone committing crime and deviance, most crimes take place in a social setting and result from an interaction between the offender’s state of mind and the social pressures of the situation – including victims of the crime(s). So what are the social and psychological factors that may precipitate deviant and/or criminal actions…? Social Inequalities The world is plagued with huge gaps in social equality, with inequality having increased substantially in the West over the past 40 years. particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett (2010) identified that happiness and well-being are generally much greater in countries where the gaps in the ranges of social equality are relatively small – eg: Sweden – compared to countries with large gaps such as the US. In Western societies the more consumerism there is, the more people are either ‘seduced’ or ‘repressed, to use Zygmunt Bauman’s (1988) concepts. The ‘seduced’ are those who are sucked into consumerism and are seduced into buying many things they don’t need but are persuaded will be life enhancing if acquired. In many ways,… Read More

Will the West seize the Opportunity the Peshawar Massacre may offer…?

Could it be that the horrendous events in Peshawar this week might just become a turning point in the rise of violent Islamist extremism…? A ‘watershed moment’?, as Aamer Ahmed Khan postulates for BBC News. That great founding father of Sociology Émile Durkheim (1893) stated that when a particularly horrific crime takes place, there is often a drawing together of the community in a shared revulsion and outrage of the crime. This strengthens social cohesion – the sense of belonging to a community. For a day or 5 it may seem as though much of the world is a community – united and cohesive in its collective horror, outrage and sadness at the school massacre in Peshawar. Such is the public abhorrence that the pressure put on Pakistan’s politicians and military commanders may actually lead to them taking concerted offensive action against the Taliban. For too long Pakistan’s leaders have been divided amongst themselves as to whether the risk of trying to use the militants to exert influence in the region (especially Afghanistan) was worth the terrorist atrocities committed on Pakistani soil and the opprobrium of the Americans…or they were simply indifferent to what the Taliban (either side of the border)… Read More