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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

Paul Lewis’

Could the Political Centre be making a Comeback?

    Could it just be that, with Bernie Sanders’ 13 April endorsement of Joe Biden as Democratic candidate in November’s presidential election – see the ABC News clip above – and the 4 April ascension of Keir Starmer to leadership of the Labour Party, the ‘centre’ is making a comeback in American and British politics? A new poll reported by The London Economic’s Jack Peat puts the centrist Starmer’s net favourability 50 points ahead of Jeremy Corbyn, the ‘hardcore leftie’ he succeeded. (Of course, Corbyn was not really the Marxist the right-wing media slandered him as, though his views  were well to the left of Labour under Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and even Ed Miliband) Meanwhile Sanders’ concession to Biden effectively signals the end of what might be termed the Democrats’ ‘hard left’ campaign to win the nomination for presidential candidate. (By ‘hard left’ here, we mean the leftie side of social democracy; again Sanders is nothing like the Marxist some on the hard right claim he is!) Biden is decidedly centrist in his politics – some might even argue right of centre – but that enables him potentially to pick up leftie Republican votes, especially those who are totally… Read More

Bibliography L

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 LaFreniere, Peter & Alan Sroufe (1985): ‘Profiles of Peer Competence in the Preschool: Interrelations between Measures, Influence of Social Ecology, and Relation to Attachment History’ in Journal of Developmental Psychology 21/1 Lagerspetz, Kirsti (1979): ‘Modification of Aggressiveness in Mice’ in Seymour Feshbach & Adam Fraçzek (eds): ‘Aggression and Behaviour Change: Biological and Social Processes’ (Praeger Publishers, New York NY) Lagerspetz, Kirsti, & Kauko Wuorinen (1965): ‘A Cross-Fostering Experiment with Mice selectively bred for Aggressiveness and Non-Aggressiveness’ in Reports of the Institute of Psychology of the University of Turku #17 Laing, R D (1967): ‘The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise’ (Penguin, London) Lalonde, Richard (1992): ‘The Dynamics of Group Differentiation in the Face of Defeat’ in Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin 18/3 Lalumière, Martin, Grant Harris and Marnie Rice (1999): ‘Birth Order and Fluctuating Asymmetry: a First Look’ in The Royal Society Proceedings #266 Lam, Raymond, Athanasios Zis, Arvinder Grewal, Pedro Delgado, Dennis Charney John Krystal (1996): ‘Effects of Rapid Tryptophan Depletion in Patients with Seasonal Affective Disorder in Remission after Light Therapy’ in Archives of… Read More

Putin a 2nd Tier Thinker?

Has Vladimir Putin just revealed himself on the global stage this week to be a world-class statesman? While a number of American commentators seem to have taken offence at Putin’s letter to the American people in Thursday’s New York Post yesterday, around the world other commentators, such as Der Spiegel’s Uwe Klussmann, postulate that Putin is saying what others around the world actually think. Already the Internet is alive with discussion of who seems the more reasonable, assured and statesmanlike: Putin or Barack Obama… with many people coming down clearly on Putin’s side. Obama might have argued in his televised speech on Tuesday evening that what makes the United States ‘exceptional’ is its resolve to intervene in the truly horrible…but Putin’s riposte that no one has the right to consider themselves that much more exceptional than others is hard to beat. From an Integrated SocioPsychology perspective, Obama’s argument comes from a vMEME harmonic of BLUE nationalism and ORANGE status-seeking; Putin’s more complex argument comes from the GREEN vMEME and possibly beyond. Back in February 2009 I posited whether Obama [was] a 2nd Tier thinker. Despite the huge sense of optimism in much of the world at his election, within weeks I wasn’t impressed that… Read More